Blade of Empire

by Mercedes Lackey

  She stared at him, mouth gaping. It occurred to Runacar that this might be the first time he’d seen her surprised. Or maybe he’d actually managed to hurt her. He felt nothing, not even triumph.

  “High words, Houseborn,” she finally said, but her voice lacked its usual mocking conviction. “Even— Even if that’s true, can’t the same be said of you?”

  Runacar smiled without mirth. “Oh, perhaps—though I doubt I could manage to hide, even among Border steaders. But there’s one other difference between you and me. I know what I am. You call yourself Otherfolk—and I don’t.”

  She flinched as if he’d struck her. Her eyes were wide and dark, and her mouth worked, soundlessly, as if she was trying to summon words that weren’t there. Then she dropped Hialgo’s reins and fled.

  Hialgo stood patiently, waiting. Runacar walked over and tossed the reins up over the stallion’s back and leaned his head against Hialgo’s shoulder wearily. Then he sighed, and flung himself up into the saddle. “Come along, my friend,” he said. “It’s time to get on with helping the talking animals unseat the lords of creation.”

  * * *

  The northern army continued to march toward Daroldan Keep. The southern army went on fighting the fire.

  It was frustrating for Runacar to have no real sense of how well his plan was working. After Juniche’s death, the Gryphons and Hippogriffs had bombarded the castel without stopping for two sunturns, until it was ringed by the stones that had bounced off Shield. The Fauns made a game of sneaking up under cover of night to retrieve the fallen stones. Runacar couldn’t stop them, and he didn’t try.

  The Lightborn did not release Shield again. There was no point in dropping more rocks until they did, though Drotha continued to do so for the sheer amusement value of making Shield flash and flare. Runacar wished he knew how much it cost the Lightborn to keep the spell in place. His brother Ivrulion had been cagey about sharing what he knew—and now I know why, may the oathbreaker rot forever in the outer dark—and in the natural course of things, matters involving the Lightborn were dealt with by the Chief Lightborn of a War Prince’s Court. It was true that the Western Shore Lightborn hadn’t tried doing most of the things that would have been useful in this situation—Lightning Strike, Thunderbolt, the more powerful forms of Transmutation. Did Delfierarathadan’s burning constrain their magic in some way? He had no idea.

  What he did know was that no competent Warlord would allow an enemy army to march right up to the walls of his Keep, and he was right.

  * * *

  At the first nudge to his bedroll, Runacar was instantly awake. He blinked his eyes at the corona of colored lights surrounding Bralros’s head. Though the Centaurs were all utterly incapable of doing any kind of magic—which apparently meant being unable to see or hear many of the Brightfolk—the fairies never stopped trying to talk to them. Flary, the Faun—no, this was Flary’s greatson, Tilwik—was standing on the Centaur captain’s back, whispering in his ear in his high-pitched voice. His stub of a tail wiggled with excitement.

  “Attack?” Runacar asked in a low voice, pulling on his boots and reaching for his sword and his cloak.

  “Not yet,” Bralros said. “But coming.”

  Runacar followed them to the watchfire on the sand where the sentries gathered. Bralros was Pelere’s lieutenant; he wondered vaguely where Pelere was.

  “We saw Shield flicker, so I sent Tilwik to see what the fairies knew. Rather send a Bearward, but I’d have to wake them first. According to Tilwik, people from the Great Keep have entered Delfierarathadan,” Bralros said. He glanced skyward to check the time, still haloed in a rainbow of fairies. “Maybe a hora ago—that’s a candlemark to you. They went on foot, without armor, and there were ‘many.’” Bralros made a face in anticipation of Runacar’s disgust.

  “Many!” Tilwik agreed. “Dressed like Woodwose. Fairies say. Brownies, too!”

  Which meant dressed like Rangers, since camouflage was camouflage. “So … anything from a taille to a great-taille,” Runacar said with a sigh. “Rangers, probably, and maybe Lightborn. It takes moonturns to get a komen off their destrier.” It had been a joke the Alliance meisnes had made during that long terrible winter when they learned the power of infantry: “It takes moonturns to get a komen off their destrier—or one forester with a grudge and a bow.”

  Bralros ignored—or didn’t get—the joke. “They don’t bring horsemen into the forest except along their Trade Road. And they don’t move at night.”

  “Horses don’t see very well at night,” Runacar said mildly. Nor did many of the Otherfolk; several of the “Nine Races” were bound to the sun and could not be roused by night, or only with great difficulty. It would have been more of a handicap if their enemy had not been so thoroughly bound to tradition, confining its skirmishes to daylight.

  Until now.

  “We need to get an accurate count of their numbers,” Runacar said. “The Flower Forest is too dangerous to risk a night attack; they’re probably taking a position to wait for sunrise. When it’s light, ask Riann to have the Gryphons spot them. If we know how they’re moving, and their numbers, that will almost certainly give us some idea of what they’re planning. You’ve fought Rangers before, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, aye.” Bralros’s voice was bitter. “We came up over my Da’s farm, getting here. Southern edge of Delfierarathadan, no place your people cared about, even the ones who claimed it. But they were quick enough to march a fortnight out of their way to burn him out.”

  “Then you’ll know more about their tactics than I do,” Runacar said steadily. He didn’t apologize for what Amrolion had done. That led to ridiculous impossibilities like apologizing to High King Vieliessar (in the unlikely event he ever saw her again) for having had a part in slaying Serenthon Farcarinon. War was war, the dead were gone, and yesterday’s sworn enemy might be today’s battle-comrade.

  Bralros considered for a moment. “Strike and flee, that’s their style. Hard to see and harder to catch.” He frowned. “But where’s the advantage to them in it? They must know a few dozen—even a few hundred—deaths won’t give them victory.”

  “They don’t know Gryphons,” Runacar said. It sounded like an absurdity, even to him, and he blinked, shaking his head. “I was wrong. They aren’t going to wait. They’re risking a night assault because they’re going for important targets. They’ll be after the Gryphons. But they don’t know that Gryphons sleep on the wing. I didn’t.” That made sense. It explained why a sortie party would risk entering the Flower Forest at night.

  “And what you don’t know, they don’t know?” Bralros said dubiously.

  “I was raised to become War Prince,” Runacar said. “And if it isn’t in Lannarien’s Book of Living Things—”

  From the corner of his eye he caught a flicker of light. It grew, a churning multicolored ball, as if all the fireflies in the world had mated with a rainbow and this was the result. The fairies had returned.

  “Coming now!” Tilwik squealed.

  “Sound the alarm!” Bralros shouted.

  Runacar had already drawn his sword and was running toward the camp.

  * * *

  Clouds of shining Brightfolk swirled between the trees, filling the Flower Forest with an eldritch opaline glow. The enemy didn’t need the light, Runacar knew, as certainly as if he’d been there when the attack was planned; the Lightborn had cast Silversight upon the Rangers, enabling them to see clearly even in total darkness. And for their attackers to have reached them this quickly from Daroldan Great Keep … they’d used Door. Door could be used to move a sortie party hundreds of leagues in heartbeats.

  He saw the sparkling clouds of Brightfolk go instantly dark, and knew the Lightborn were killing them with Magery. He heard the deadly song of the Rangers’ arrows as they flew, every one hitting its target. Runacar knew how far away the archers had to be, and he knew the direction. The Lightborn would be nearby.

  The Otherfolk were scrambling to arm
themselves, or simply throwing themselves at the enemy barehanded. He saw a Minotaur fall, her body feathered with a dozen shafts. A Faun screamed, thrashing wildly as he clawed at the arrow that pinned him to a tree.

  “Here!” A shout came from behind; he saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye and turned just in time to catch the ringmail vest Pelere flung at him. He stopped just long enough to shrug it on before moving forward again. Pelere had already passed him. She held a spear in one hand and a torch in the other, and had not taken the time to don her armor.

  They reached a clearing. There was nothing to see, but suddenly Pelere went to her knees with a surprised cry, blood spilling from a sudden wound. Runacar swung his blade into the emptiness. It caught and bit hard. The Invisibility Cloak—Cloak cast upon cloth was still Cloak—fell back, exposing the body that lay dying on the ground. Green tunic and leggings. Lightborn green.

  The Lightsister stared up at him in shock. “Caerthalien…” she whispered through the blood bubbling on her lips.

  The clearing was empty now. He didn’t question how he knew. He turned and knelt by Pelere’s side.

  The dagger was sunk deep into her shoulder. It quivered as she gasped in pain. But even so, she had not dropped the torch she held. He reached out and took it gently from her hand.

  On the old familiar field of battle, Healers would come, draw out the blade safely, and carry its victim to the Healing Tents. There was nothing familiar in this. All he knew was that to draw the blade forth would be worse than to leave it where it was.

  “Go,” she said. “I’ll be fine. Go.”

  “I’ll kill them all,” Runacar promised, rising to his feet.

  * * *

  If this was Palinoriel Warlord’s devising, he was a tactician to fear, sending Rangers and Lightborn from the Great Keep in the depths of night, breaking them up into smaller groups—a taille at most—then using Door to instantly place them at the enemy’s side. Strike and run. A strategy of attrition. It would have been a sweeping success if not for what Palinoriel didn’t know he didn’t know—that the forest was alive, and fighting at his enemy’s side.

  The battle was a hundred ambushes, a thousand single combats, routs and engagements with no plan or organization behind them. For Runacar, it was a night of running through the twilit forest, attacking both foes he could see and those whose presence he barely guessed at.

  * * *

  He flung his sword up, ready to attack at the sound behind him, but it was only Drotha, crashing through the trees to make an awkward landing.

  “They won’t run when I frighten them,” the Aesalion said plaintively.

  “They’re probably Warded,” Runacar said. Like the ones who killed Juniche. “They have cloaks of Cloak,” he added. “Of invisibility,” he amended. It was unlikely that the Aesalion was familiar with Lightborn spells.

  “Do they?” Drotha asked, sounding puzzled. “Is that why some of them don’t run? I caught one,” he added. “He looked very surprised.”

  He can see through their spells? He knew Aesalions were immune to magic, but he hadn’t realized that meant being unable to sense it.

  “Stay with me,” Runacar ordered. “You can see what I can’t.”

  “Can I kill things?” the Aesalion asked.

  “Everything that isn’t on our side.”

  There was a flare of brightness off to the right. Runacar ran toward it, with Drotha bounding along beside him as if he were an enormous hound.

  * * *

  Runacar managed to engage two more parties of Rangers—and barely kept Drotha from bounding through a Door spell after a third. But as daylight began to filter down through the canopy of the trees, even Drotha had to admit that the enemy had fled.

  “They’ll be back,” Runacar said grimly. “This was a test, nothing more.”

  “I hope so,” Drotha said cheerfully. “I want to kill more of them.”

  “I hope you have your chance,” Runacar said simply.

  * * *

  It was full day by the time Runacar rejoined the army. The Otherfolk had gathered at the edge of the ocean. There was some semblance of order—cookfires and salvaged caches of supplies—and as far as Runacar could tell by sight, most of the army was here, sitting or lying on the sand. The water was filled with Ocean’s Own of various sizes and shapes, both to stand watch, and to heal the wounded. There were open pavilions set in the shallows, and each of them was filled with floating beds on which lay the injured. Runacar looked, but did not see Pelere among the wounded.

  Above them, Riann’s whole Ascension and most of Gunyel’s Flight wheeled and soared, also keeping watch. If he’d been right—if the Gryphons had really been the War Princes’ true target—Daroldan knew by now that it had failed.

  “Runacar!” Audalo said, hurrying over to him. “Thank Stone and Leaf you survive! As soon as the rest of our people reach us, we can begin to make ready.”

  “How many are dead?” Runacar asked, shifting the Faun who dozed upon his shoulder like a sleeping child.

  “Too many,” Audalo said. “Bralros said you would want an exact count, but that may take some time. I have asked the Brownies to take care of it.” Brownies were one of the Otherfolk races Runacar could actually see, though there was no point in enlisting them as fighters, as the tallest of them was a bare two hand spans high. Still, he was glad they wanted to help.

  “We’ll have to find the bodies and move them,” Runacar said. The thought of Daroldan returning to the battlefield and harvesting the bodies of the Otherfolk dead as if they were deer or berries was oddly revolting to him. “I don’t know what rites you use…”

  “We burn them, so your kind can’t profit from them,” Andhel said. She looked tired and battered, and the top half of one ear had been cut away, but aside from that she didn’t seem to be too badly injured.

  “We can do that before we go,” Audalo said. It was the second time he’d mentioned having plans, and this time it caught Runacar’s attention.

  “Go?” he said. “Go where?”

  “Why … home,” Audalo said, sounding surprised. He made a gesture vaguely eastward. “What else can we do? It was you who taught us some fights can’t be won—they’ll just keep coming and coming, night after night—how can we stand against that?”

  “You idiot.” Exhaustion made Runacar’s voice low and flat and ugly. “I’ve tried to feel sorry for you—for all of you—because of what we’d done to you, but by Sword and Star and the Starry Hunt, you’ve deserved every bit of it. Lose a battle and all you want to do is run? Where’s the honor in that? Where’s the respect for those who died fighting not a candlemark ago?”

  “Respect doesn’t mean throwing ourselves onto the pyre with them, Houseborn,” Andhel snapped.

  “Run away, and what they died for means nothing,” Runacar said, not looking away from Audalo. “This is war, and people die. You know that. Yes, as long as they keep Dooring in with Rangers, our losses will be heavy until we can figure out a defense. But run away, and we’ll have it all to do over again—and an enemy who’s had time to learn from our mistakes.”

  They’d accumulated a ring of interested bystanders, he noted, and not even Drotha’s presence at his side kept more from gathering.

  “Houseborn get to learn and we can’t,” Andhel said mockingly.

  “If you stop now, how not?” he answered, turning at last to address her directly. “Leutric told me to take the Shore. I can do it, but not without an army.”

  “Or maybe what King Leutric told you doesn’t matter,” she sneered, “and all you care about is seeing us die.”

  “Fine!” Runacar snarled. “Go. Run. Like— Oh, I don’t know! But don’t any of you get it? We won this battle. Yes, we lost people—but Daroldan used its most effective combatants—Rangers, Lightborn—and we pushed them back!” Suddenly he realized how purely exhausted he was. “Never mind. You won’t listen. I’m going to find something to eat and somewhere to sleep. Don’t b
other to wake me when you run off. I’m staying.”

  He turned away. The watchers in front of him moved back hastily as Drotha stepped forward. Runacar handed the Faun he was carrying to the nearest Woodwose that wasn’t Andhel, and headed in the direction of the cookfire.

  Drotha grinned at him toothily. “Well, if nobody else is going to bother, I’m going to go drop some more rocks. Maybe they’ll hit something.”

  “Maybe,” Runacar said. He wished there were more Otherfolk like the Aesalion, though Drotha wasn’t so much warlike as murderous. “Don’t get killed.”

  “And miss the rest of the fun?” Drotha scoffed. He bounded away, spreading his wings, and in a few moments he was airborne.

  There was an enormous iron kettle suspended on a tripod over the fire and a stack of wooden bowls beside it. Runacar dipped one into the liquid—soup, from the smell, though the kettles were just as often used to brew tea—filled it, and drank. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this tired—and to add insult to indignity, his feet hurt. War was not a business to be conducted afoot.

  He wondered where Hialgo was, and if he’d survived.

  He wondered if any of the enemy who’d escaped had recognized him. By now they certainly knew about the Woodwose—what did they think of “Elves” fighting beside Otherfolk?

  He dipped his bowl into the kettle again. Nobody seemed to want to talk to him, and at the moment that was the most wonderful thing he could imagine. He pulled off the ringmail vest and dropped it to the sand. It wasn’t his, anyway. Its owner would probably want it back—if he or she was still alive.

  Then he walked up the sand to the edge of the forest, sat down with his back against the trunk of the first large tree he saw, and slept.