Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy)

by James Mallory Mercedes Lackey

  Ivrulion snarled under his breath and turned away. Runacarendalur grabbed his arm. “Oh, but you must come and take a cup of wine to celebrate, for inevitably the War Council will choose your plan in the end. And now I’m imagining what Father will do to you when you finally have to tell him why it means my death as well. I’m sure it will be terribly painful.”

  He wondered how long it would take the fire to sweep over Vieliessar’s army. Her Lightborn wouldn’t be able to stop it; the Lightborn who’d tried to halt the burning of Araphant had needed to summon rain to quench the flames, and no one could make it rain in winter. A blizzard intense enough to quench the fire would quench the army as well.

  They’d die. She’d die. And he’d die. It would be worth it to know she was dead before him.

  “Imagine what he’ll do if I don’t have to,” Ivrulion answered oracularly. “Oh, very well. I don’t know what you think you’re accomplishing by playing the gracious host.”

  “I’m patronizing you, dear brother. It’s something you should be used to by now,” Runacarendalur answered mockingly.

  “Should I? And do your chains gall you, Heir-Prince Runacarendalur?”

  “Perhaps,” Runacarendalur answered, still cheerful. “But if they do, I console myself with the knowledge it is not for much longer.”

  But on the following dawn, when he dragged himself groggily from his bed, it was to discover that the War Council wasn’t going to burn the southern forest.

  They were going to follow Vieliessar’s army into it.

  * * *

  In Snow Moon Vieliessar’s army crossed the southern bounds of Niothramangh and passed into the depths of a forest no alfaljodthi had ever seen. Vieliessar rode out ahead of the army every few miles to blaze their path. Those Lightborn who had Transmutation as their keystone spell followed. At their touch, great trees turned to sand and collapsed, to return to their native substance a few moments later. To destroy so much forest merely to make smooth their passage disturbed Vieliessar, for the farther they’d gone, the wider the path they cut, until by midday it was nearly a mile across. But if the decision had been hard, the choice had been simple: hundreds of miles of forest turned to dust—or the lives of everyone who rode with her.

  Before she had crossed into Niothramangh, she had told Iardalaith to send Warhunt Mages south, for her tactics would depend on her resources. Iardalaith had gone himself, to come reeling into her pavilion giddy to the point of drunkenness with the bounteous Light of the Flower Forest he had discovered. It was to the south and west; Iardalaith could not accurately gauge the distance, he said, as it was stronger than any he had ever sensed. He named it Janglanipaikharain—star-bright forest. Perhaps it was the same one Lady Parmanaya had vanished into thousands of years before.

  With this knowledge, Viliessar had made her plan.

  They would cross the border a full sennight before the Alliance. When they turned southward, they would vanish to the senses of their Lightborn hunters, and until they saw the trail her army would inevitably leave behind it, the Alliance would think only that her people had drawn upon the Flower Forests of Niothramangh to hide them. Her own commanders had been so stunned at the thought of leaving the bounded Uradabhur that she knew the tactic would not occur to the Alliance. They would look at the forest and see a thing impassable.

  But it was not, by the grace of Janglanipaikharain’s seemingly limitless reservoir, a wellspring of power that had not been touched in the whole history of the Hundred Houses.

  The first night after they crossed the bounds, Vieliessar wrapped herself in a Cloakspell and walked from the camp.

  The air was too cold to hold scent: if it had not been, she would have been able to smell the good fragrance of roast meat, for with the power of Janglanipaikharain to draw upon, the Lightborn had Called herds of deer and flights of birds to their cookfires. Their supplies continued to dwindle, but this night, at least, all had eaten well. What would come tomorrow would depend on what she found before tomorrow’s dawn.

  Her steps broke through the surface of the snow; here beneath the leafless trees it was deep, but not as deep as it had been in the open land. She walked for miles, reveling in the silence, the solitude, the sense that for a little while she need answer to no necessities but her own. At last, reluctantly, she came to a stop. If she could not find what she sought here, she would find it nowhere.

  She laid her gloved hand upon the trunk of a greenneedle tree and felt its sleeping life, and through it, the life of the whole forest: vine, bush, and grass, lichen and moss. The life of the world, which Mosirinde’s Covenant protected. And beneath it, beyond it, the hot bright life of Janglanipaikharain, its power hers to draw upon.

  Thurion said that all the Flower Forests were One in the Light, and so I might walk from Janglanipaikharain to Tildorangelor in a single step—if I were in Janglanipaikharain.

  Well and good. But as much as she needed to go there, she needed to lead her army, her people, there even more. And so she wound Janglanipaikharain’s Light about her hands as if it were skeins of silk, and cast her spell.

  Find.

  In her mind she held her image of Amrethion’s study, the delicate desk of golden wood, the wall of windows. The great green sweep of valley from the window Lady Indinathiel had gazed out of. The star-bright perfection of the Unicorn she had once glimpsed.

  Find!

  The Light was her guardian, her lover, her companion, her tool. It was all of truth and reality she’d possessed since the spring of her twelfth year. Its wisdom had set her on this path, its strength had preserved her, its need drove her onward.

  FIND!

  Heartbeat upon heartbeat she drew in power and built the spell. It fluttered against her heart like a falcon on the glove, dreaming of prey. Suddenly, so swiftly she could not anticipate it and prepare herself, the power flew from her like the shaft from a forester’s bow. In the sky above, she heard silver hooves ring against starlight. The Light roared through her, a depthless, sourceless torrent.

  Until at last, its work accomplished, it struck, and held, and drew the last of the spell energy to it. Moonlight on snow became the ringing of bells, the tocsin of silver hooves, the wind that felled not trees, but empires.…

  * * *

  There were hands on her shoulders, shaking her to consciousness, raising her from her knees. The snow had melted around her; her boots and trousers were soaked through, her fingers numb within her gloves.

  “Vielle! Tell me you live!” The most welcome, most unexpected voice roused her instantly from unconsciousness.

  “Thurion!” she cried.

  “Did you think you could set such a weaving and I would not hear?” Thurion asked. His smile barely disguised his worry.

  She groaned as he raised her to her feet. “Am I a child, to have been so overset by a spell?” she grumbled. She began to shiver, and he laid one hand, palm flat, against her shoulder. She felt his Magery cascade over her, warming her and driving the wetness from her garments.

  “What have you done?” he demanded.

  “It seems you are always asking me that,” she said with a shaky smile. She looked past his shoulder, toward her encampment. She had ordered them to strict discipline, for sound and light would carry across the bounds even if Magery did not. The Findspell she had cast had roused the Lightborn; she could see faint sparks of Silverlight moving about in the distance like the glowbeetles of summer. Soon enough they would find her missing.

  “I have set a spell to show me where we now must go,” she said, and Thurion’s eyes widened with shock—and hope.

  “You have found Amrethion’s city,” he said. “With this … it is as great as Tildorangelor herself.”

  “I hope it is not, for I mean to claim Tildorangelor for my own, and should the Alliance also be able to claim such power the battle will be dreadful indeed,” she answered.

  “And Amrethion’s city. And the Unicorn Throne. You have found them all,” Thurion answered as if
he had not heard her.

  “I have done as I must,” she said. She pulled her cloak more tightly about her. “Now come—if the spell has called you, I know it has wakened all my folk.”

  Gunedwaen and Harwing Lightbrother found them before they had covered even a third of the distance back to the camp.

  “It would indeed make good hearing to know for what cause you have stolen into the night to make yourself the target of any sword,” Gunedwaen said with heavy irony. He swung down from his palfrey’s back and gestured for her to mount.

  “Thurion?” Harwing said in disbelief.

  “I had thought to have quiet and shelter for the casting of my spell,” Vieliessar said to Gunedwaen, “but if Thurion was roused by it—”

  Only then did it occur to her to marvel at the power of the spell that had brought him here, for the power needed for Door increased with the distance traveled, and he could not have known to draw upon Janglanipaikharain’s Light to open it. “Where were you when you came to me?” she asked suddenly, turning to Thurion.

  “A guesthouse in Utheleres. I was in meditation, hoping to Farspeak you with the news.…”

  “Iardalaith ’Spoke with one of our spies among the Alliance Lightborn,” Harwing said. “They have heard nothing.”

  Vieliessar nodded. The boundary Wards had protected her from detection, as she had hoped. But the bond she shared with Thurion was deep and reinforced by their continual use of Farspeech. He had sensed her spell because he was trying to reach her.

  They were safe.

  “Then we still have the advantage, until they strike our path. Come, Gunedwaen. Ride behind me, and I shall speak to you of the weaving I have done this night.”

  * * *

  Vieliessar gazed around at those whose lives stood like marking stones along the path she had taken to this moment and this place. She commanded a force as large as that of the Twelve; her Lightborn wore armor and fought on the battlefield; her commonfolk bore arms and fought beside komen. She had made herself the tool of Amrethion’s Prophecy because if she did not, the Darkness would come and destroy all she knew. And in becoming that tool, she had changed the world.

  She did not know if that was better—or worse.

  It was still candlemarks before dawn; she had gathered to her not the senior commanders of the High King’s army, but those who had stood as friends and guides upon the long road Vieliessar Farcarinon had walked to get here.

  Lord Thoromarth of Oronviel, whose faith and generosity humbled her when she thought of them. Thurion Lightbrother, who had broken with the custom of centuries to follow the dictates of his reason, not his heart. Aradreleg Lightsister, who walked a careful path between the old ways and the new. Rondithiel, her first and best teacher. Lord Gunedwaen, who had taught her the Code of Battle and followed her even when she shattered it. Rithdeliel Warlord, born to Caerthalien, who had broken his heart to give Serenthon victory, and who had risen from the embers of betrayal to do more than that for Serenthon’s daughter.

  Harwing. Iardalaith. Nadalforo. Changed by what she had done just as she had been changed by Amrethion’s Prophecy.

  Her vassals, all. Just as she was vassal to the land itself.

  “I have this night discovered the path to our destination,” she said.

  “A destination is always a useful thing,” Rithdeliel said calmly. “I hope there are stores of grain there. And wine.”

  “Of these matters I know not,” Vieliessar said, “but I know our victory lies within Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor, and there I will lead us.”

  “Grand words fit for a wondertale,” Thoromarth grumbled. “But say if you will, Vieliessar High King, where it is you would bid us have your army go?”

  “South,” Vieliessar answered. “South, and south again, until we reach the end of the world.”

  And its beginning.

  * * *

  Thurion’s presence was a gift. The news he brought was fresh: Penenjil and Enerchelimier had managed to reach Oblivion Gate in time to pass through to the Arzhana; Melchienchiel Penenjil had sent the Silver Swords on ahead, with Thurion to guide them. He had expected trouble in the Nantirworiel Pass, for if Methothiel Nantirworiel had not taken the field, he had certainly chosen his allegiance. But if Methothiel was for the Alliance, his meisne was not—since his father’s time, Foxhaven Free Company had been sword and shield to Nantirworiel. Thurion did not know their fate, or Methothiel’s. All he knew was that the pass had been clear of snow—and utterly deserted.

  But welcome as Thurion’s presence was, he remained only three days before bidding her farewell.

  “I do not wish to be away from Master Kemmiaret overlong,” he said. “And besides, I am needed to lead the Silver Swords to your side. Utheleres is as yet untroubled by battle, and we can find provision and shelter all the way to Lurathonion Flower Forest. Once we cross the southern border, I shall come to you again, to be certain we do not lose our way.”

  “For that I am grateful,” Vieliessar said. “And for Penenjil’s grace in making such a journey in winter.”

  “As to that, I think Penenjil has been privy to more of Celelioniel’s learning than any of us know,” Thurion answered. “I could wish … they knew the whole of it.”

  “I do not think even Amrethion Aradruiniel knew the whole,” Vieliessar answered. “Go with the Light, my friend.”

  “And you, my king,” Thurion answered gravely.

  * * *

  South and south again.

  It was odd to look upon a place and have no name to call it by, for every stone and forest and meadow within the Fortunate Lands had a name. For a sennight her people made a game of it, vying with one another to coin the most outlandish and ornate name. Enemy’s Doom. Icetrees Forest. Smoketree Reach. But at last they settled on a simple one: Janubaghir. Southern forest.

  Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor was the first thing in Vieliessar’s thoughts each dawn, the last thing she saw behind closed eyelids at night. It drew her like a needle to the lodestone, and her army followed where she led. As Snow Moon drew to a close, she and every Lightborn in her force felt the Alliance cross the Niothramangh bounds to follow them.

  The Alliance Lightborn drew instantly upon the bounty of Janglanipaikharain and moved immediately to the attack—and Vieliessar’s Lightborn to the defense—but whatever their calls upon its Light, that Light still seemed inexhaustible. All along the line of march, storms quarreled and fought through the sky as the Alliance sent storms to harry them and the Warhunt sent them away again. Limitless Light had the same effect as none: the two armies fled and followed and little else was changed.

  As Cold Moon gave way to Ice Moon, Vieliessar’s force reached the southern border of Janubaghir. The stars and the sun told them they were far to the south of lands any of them knew: Lord Gatriadde thought they might even be south of Mangiralas’s southern border, and Mangiralas extended furthest into the south of any of the domains of the West. In the far distance, the Bazrahil Range was visible, and before it, a plain that stretched on as far as the eye could see.

  Someone named the southern plain Ifjalasairaet—wind and dust.

  The land was flat as a tabletop. The Alliance army was a bare fortnight behind them when they reached the southern plain, and Magery swirled about both armies, its tides thick enough to choke any who could perceive the Light. The war had become a war of Lightborn, as each side attempted to discover a way to use Janglanipaikharain’s power to gain advantage over the other—and if they could not, to exhaust its Light so that this became a war of komen and destrier once more.

  Never had anyone witnessed—or performed—such a profligacy of spellcraft. Vieliessar’s army had come to Ifjalasairaet a thing of rags and patches, privation and rationing. Now each suit of armor, every pavilion and rope, had been Restored until it might have come that instant from the hands of the craftworkers. Every injury, no matter how slight, was made whole. Wells were sunk into the earth each time the army stopped, striking d
eep until they overflowed with cold pure water, enough for all who thirsted to drink their fill. Transmutation turned water to cider, to beer, to milk, to wine. Spells of multiplication, taught against days of dire famine, turned a handful of grain to a wagonload, an apple to an orchard, a scrap of dried beef to a succulent feast for thousands. Faded colors of surcoat and pavilion grew bright, destriers and their riders grew fat. The night watches blazed, not with Silverlight, but with honest warming flame against a plain turned lush and green out of season.

  And here, at last, the plan Vieliessar had set in motion in Oronviel’s Great Hall bore fruit. Her army was her future empire in miniature: Lightborn, Landbond, and Lord united as one in her name. It was an army of refugees, of renegades, runaways, outlaws, exiles, of all who had cast off the old ways to search for something … better. Of War Princes who yearned for peace. Of Lightborn who had embraced the field of battle.

  In armies the size of the two which opposed each other here, even ten thousand Lightborn would not make much difference to the outcome of the battle yet to be fought.

  But ten thousand Lightborn who were free …

  The Alliance horded the Lightborn spellcraft among its lords, using their Magery to protect themselves from servants they had come to distrust. They expended Janglanipaikharain’s power and their Lightborn’s strength on attacks that experience had already shown them were futile. And day by day they closed the distance, as if the sight of Vieliessar’s army goaded her enemy into doing the impossible.

  And still Vieliessar led them south.

  They were but a sennight behind her when Vieliessar’s force at last reached a barrier it could not pass.

  * * *

  She and a few others rode far ahead of the vanguard, across a plain whose spring-lush grass, withering in the cold, was already dusted with fresh snow. Her army stretched out behind her, mile upon mile, marching within a shimmering haze of Shield: all the folk of every domain she had claimed, whether by force of arms or peaceful surrender, all who had fled to her for sanctuary. She knew what she must find to save them, yet in the clear merciless light of day, Ifjalasairaet’s Wall stretched unbroken as far as the eye could see. She reined Snapdragon to a halt and gazed at the cliff face in silence.