The fall of Highwatch con-1

by Mark Sehestedt

  "Me?" The tears were falling now, and Hweilan scrubbed them away with her sleeve before they could freeze.

  "Think. If you're your mother actually took Scith into her bed, married him, if she allowed herself one night of being happy and not being lonely, she could no longer protect you. Your grandmother could marry you off to whomever she pleased-and there are a lot of duke's sons out there much less appealing than Vittamar's."

  Hweilan turned her back to him. She couldn't stop the tears, and she hated appearing weak. Especially in front of Soran, who had nothing weak in his entire being. Everything he said made perfect sense. She felt furious at herself for not realizing the blazing obvious sooner. Shame welled in her at her own selfishness. She had been behaving like a little girl. But that still didn't change one simple fact.

  Her shame melted before her anger, and she whirled on her uncle. "Highwatch is my home. I won't go!"

  Soran took two steps forward, glaring down on her as he did so. "You're going if I have to tie you up and throw you in the wagon myself."

  Hweilan opened her mouth to reply, but before she could get a word out, the sound of a horn drifted down from the sky. Arvund let out something between a bark and a roar and flapped his wings.

  Soran looked up. One of the riders had come down about half the distance from the others. Hweilan could not make out the details of his pennant, but by the colors-white on gray-she knew it was Soran's second.

  "We'll talk later," said Soran as he began to strap the faceplate back to his helmet. "Go home."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hweilan sat for a while after Soran had left. She was still angry. She wasn't going to prance off to some western court, dress in gowns, curtsy, and fawn over some spoiled lordling.

  But she knew her uncle was right. Her mother was doing her best for her. Or at least what she thought was best.

  And so it went, round and round in her head, going nowhere.

  Something tingled on the back of her neck.

  Something was watching her.

  Hweilan looked around. Nothing but row after row of stone coffins, the mountain rising behind them, and the scraggly winter-bare trees that managed to burrow their roots into the rock. Overhead, the scythe wings were long out of sight. Even the blurry eye of the sun, resting on the tip of the peaks, had dimmed behind thickening clouds. No birds. No breeze. Nothing.

  But Hweilan knew the feeling. A hunter developed it. Scith said that all beasts had this sense, though it seemed to have gone to sleep among humanity. But those men who spent much time in the wild, who knew the land and became part of it, learned the old ways, the flow of the blood from ancient times… it would waken in them. And like any tool, it could be honed with use.

  Hweilan took up her father's bow and headed home, but she decided to take a different path-another of Scith's lessons. The Nar learned to hunt by watching the wolf packs. Wolves knew the ways of the swiftstags, for the large deer were creatures of habit, always following the same paths. A predictable creature was easy prey.

  So Hweilan took another path that led her round a shoulder of the mountain and into deeper woods. The feeling of being watched did not lessen.

  The sun fell behind the peaks, and the woods dimmed. Shadows fell together and deepened, like a convergence of streams.

  Hweilan's new path took her through another graveyard-the one used by the Damarans of Highwatch who were not of the High Warden's family. Situated on broader, more level ground, this yard housed real graves. Gravestones, ranging from small slabs set level with the ground to marble pillars taller than Hweilan, marked each resting place.

  Statues of Torm in all his manifestations-a young warrior, a knight mounted on a golden dragon, a venerable knight, and an armored warrior with the head of a lion-stood watch at the four corners of the graveyard, all looking outward. Black iron rails fenced the graveyard between the statues, and the path ran between two gates, one on each end.

  Hweilan passed through the first, quickening her pace. The feeling of being watched pressed on her.

  She smelled it before she saw it.

  The aroma of freshly turned soil. Thick and loamy. Rich. But something else. Beyond smell really. More of a heaviness on the brain. Something… foul.

  Then she saw it. An open grave.

  No one had died recently. Why would there be a freshly dug grave? Hweilan's throat had gone very dry. She tried to swallow.

  Just go, she told herself. Run back. Tell someone.

  She lifted one foot to do just that. Then stopped. She'd feel ten times the fool going back without at least having a closer look.

  She left the path and took a few steps toward the fresh hole. It was not a new grave. It was an old one. Hweilan read the inscription upon the rectangular pillar of stone at the far end of the wounded ground:

  VALIA

  BELOVED

  Guric's wife. Her death had scarred him deeply.

  Hweilan took another two steps. Just enough to peer down.

  The soil was almost black, and darkness welled thick inside the open grave. But there was no mistaking what was down there.

  The grave was empty.

  Hweilan could not look away. She felt locked in time and place. The scent of fresh earth, overlaid by the foul stench, drowned out all other smells. Far away she could hear the wind howling over the peaks, but down here in the steep valleys, the air was still. Not even a breeze. The air, cold though it was, felt heavy and close on the exposed skin of her face.

  The open grave, filled with shadow-something about it seemed to pull at her, as if she stood in the midst of water being sucked down into a fissure. Her chin began to fall, and she lurched forward, the open hole seeming to spread out.

  Hweilan screamed and stepped back, the spell broken.

  Her scream came back at her, faintly, echoing off the mountainsides, which suddenly seemed very close.

  A harsh caw came from behind her.

  She whirled.

  A tall figure stood under the trees, draped in shadows. Man-shaped, but antlers protruded from his skull. A raven sat upon his shoulder.

  Hweilan took in a breath-to scream or call for help, she didn't know-and the raven took wing, crying out again and again as it left the graveyard. But her eyes were fixed on the antlered figure.

  The shadows thinned under her scrutiny, and she saw that it wasn't a man at all. Just an old stump of a lightning-blasted tree. Another smaller tree behind it, its branches winter gaunt, gave the illusion of antlers. Just a trick of light and shadow.

  She let out her breath with relief. Her heart hammered so hard she could feel its pulse in her ears.

  Foolish, she told herself. Jumping at shadows.

  "Better step away from there. You'll hurt yourself."

  Hweilan turned at the voice. Jatara.

  Jatara and her brother were the personal bodyguards of Argalath, a spellscarred shaman who had managed to worm his way into the service of Captain Guric. She stood just inside the gate, another man at her back. The woman was dressed in assorted animal skins and untreated leathers. She wore no cloak against the cold, and her pale skin told why.

  She was one of the Frost Folk-a people of the far, far north, said to be distant relations of the Sossrim. They had a dark reputation among the Nar and were rarely seen south of the ice fields. Her hair-a blonde so pale that it was only a glimmer away from white-hung almost to her waist, but she shaved the front of her head completely bald. The man behind Jatara was a Nar that Hweilan didn't recognize, though she suspected he was another of Argalath's sycophants. Who else would take company with Jatara?

  "What are you doing here?" said Hweilan.

  Jatara walked into the graveyard, the Nar at her heels. Sheathed swords bumped against their legs as they walked.

  "Many in the fortress search for you," said Jatara. Her command of Damaran was not flawless, but very precise and lightly accented.

  "I've been told," said Hweilan. "Have you been following me?"

 
Jatara stopped at the edge of the path. She cocked her head to the side, almost birdlike, no sign of deference, amusement, or any emotion whatsoever on her face. Just… coldness.

  "Why are you here, woman?" Hweilan said again.

  "Why are you here, little girl?" said Jatara. The Nar behind her chuckled.

  "How dare you!" said Hweilan. "I am the daughter of-"

  "I know who you are," said Jatara, her voice still low, calm, completely unaffected by Hweilan's rage. "You will come with me now."

  Hweilan was so struck by the woman's casual command, her sheer confidence, that for a long moment she could think of nothing to say.

  Jatara motioned to the man, and he walked toward Hweilan.

  "Do not give Oruk any trouble," said Jatara. "It makes him… unpleasant."

  In that moment Hweilan knew something was very, very wrong. She was in real danger. Servants of the Captain of the Guard did not give orders to the High Warden's granddaughter.

  As Hweilan's foot came down, her heel dipped low. She'd come up against the edge of the open grave.

  She held her father's unstrung bow in front of her. "Keep away from me."

  The Nar's grin widened.

  Hweilan turned and leaped over the grave, landing in the pile of freshly turned soil.

  She heard the Nar grunt in mild surprise at her move.

  On her hands and knees in the grave soil, her father's bow still clutched in one hand, Hweilan turned to look at them. Jatara had still not moved. But the Nar was coming around the foot of the grave, his smile gone. He reached out one hand to grab her.

  Hweilan turned and threw a handful of dirt in his face.

  He stood back, sputtering and rubbing at his eyes.

  Hweilan rose to her knees and swung the bow at his head. It connected about two-thirds of the way down the shaft. The Nar stumbled from surprise more than any real pain. But it put him off balance.

  Scith had taught Hweilan to fight. Nar methods were neither graceful nor fair-at least by Damaran standards. The Nar were brawlers and completely unashamed in fighting with fists, feet, elbows, knees, and teeth.

  Pivoting on one knee, Hweilan brought her other leg around in a wide swipe. The thick, flat toe of her boot connected with the side of the Nar's knee.

  He cried out-in real pain this time-and crumpled. One leg slid into the open grave. Overbalanced and caught completely by surprise, he tumbled in.

  Jatara still had not moved. The woman crossed her arms beneath her breasts, blinked once, and said, "Impressive. But you are still coming with me."

  Hweilan came to her feet running, leaping gravestones and dodging monuments. She threw her father's bow between the iron rails of the fence, then leaped atop it.

  "Hweilan!"

  Jatara's voice, raised for the first time, stopped Hweilan cold. She turned. The Nar was struggling to climb out of the open grave. Jatara stood over him, but her eyes were on Hweilan.

  "My orders," said Jatara, "are to bring you to the fortress. Alive. But I was not told 'unscathed.' Force me to chase you, girl, and I promise you, you will be… scathed."

  Hweilan tumbled over the fence, grabbed her father's bow, and ran.

  Raised in Damara among formidable citadels, Guric had come east to foster relations between his family and the High Warden. He expected these colonials to dwell in hovels of stone, scarcely finer than swept-out caves. How wrong he had been. Highwatch was not the most beautiful fortress he had seen, but in terms of martial defense, there was none finer.

  From the watchtowers on a clear day one could see for a hundred miles into the open grassland. At Highwatch's feet, surrounded on all sides by cliffs, was the bowl-shaped valley of grass the Nar named Nar-sek Qu'istrade. The only way through the cliff wall was the narrow way of the Shadowed Path, where only a few horsemen could ride abreast. Even if half the Nar in existence had laid siege outside the Shield Wall, no large-scale charge could make it through the Shadowed Path, and with the Knights' scythe wings able to bring in supplies or drop flaming pitch on any besiegers, no army in Narfell could siege the fortress. As a knight, Guric had admired the fortress, perhaps even envied those who dwelled there, but it had not been home.

  Until he met Valia.

  Her family had fallen out of favor with King Yarin. Forced to flee their ancestral home with only what possessions they could carry, Valia's father had taken them into the Gap, deciding to take his chances against the goblin and ogre tribes of the mountains rather than wait for Yarin's forces to catch up with them. A third of their company died before they made it halfway, and they lost more daily to raids and the cold. Had Soran and his knights not found them and come to their aid, they would never have made it.

  Homeless, branded traitors, with no wealth save what they had carried, Valia's family had begged protection from Vandalar. He granted it.

  Guric, still in his first year at Highwatch, had been among the soldiers sent into the Gap to bring the refugees to Highwatch. Never had he seen such a pitiful sight. Frightened out of their minds, freezing, and half-starved, there was nothing aristocratic about the sorry company. It was hard to tell noble from servant. But one look at Valia, and Guric had eyes for no other. His heart was hers.

  Later that year, when the storms lessened and messenger hawks could again make it across the mountains, Guric had written to his father, begging his blessing to marry Valia. His father had refused. Not just refused. Forbidden. His son and heir would not marry some vagabond outlaw's daughter. Their family could not afford such an affront to Yarin's authority. He demanded his son return at once.

  Guric's final reply was short and to the point. He withdrew all claims to inheritance, lands, and titles. He would marry Valia and live, with honor, in Highwatch. The High Warden had not encouraged the decision, but he had accepted it and given Guric a place in the household.

  Guric never heard from his father again.

  He and Valia married, and for over a year, Guric had never known such happiness. He had something he had never felt before: a home and hope. He knew his place in the world and loved it.

  But then came the fever. Most thought it had first started among the Nar, who lived in such scattered groups that it did little damage. But then people began to sicken in Kistrad. The healers and priests did what they could, and many recovered. But in the close confines of the village, it spread beyond their control. All the medicines of the healers and prayers of the priests could not stop it. Many graves were dug and pyres lit that year.

  Valia's father's spirits had never recovered from the loss of his household. He was the first to sicken in Highwatch itself. And the first to die. The disease spread. There seemed to be no pattern. No distinction. The fever struck servants, soldiers, knights, and even the Warden's household. As in Kistrad, some recovered and some did not. To some, the prayers of the priests brought an almost instant recovery. To others, no amount of prayers, litanies, sacrifices, or medicines brought relief. The High Warden's wife was one of the lucky ones. Valia was not.

  She sickened not long after her father. It struck lightly at first, and for a while the fever lessened. She was even able to leave her bed at times and sit with Guric upon their balcony that overlooked the little garden. But when her father died, the grief weakened her. Her mother had not survived their journey out of Damara. Her older brother had died defending them in the Gap. With her father gone…

  "You're all I have left," she told Guric. Tears came at her words, and that night the fever returned with a vengeance.

  She died nine days later.

  Soran himself had prayed at her bedside, had offered sacrifices on her behalf, but all to no avail.

  "I'm sorry," she said. The last words she spoke to Guric. She closed her eyes and fell into some dark dream from which she never woke.

  Guric begged for Soran to perform the rites to raise her, but Soran refused, saying that if his prayers had failed to heal her, it could only be the will of Torm.

  "Damn Torm's will!" Guric said.r />
  "That's your grief talking," said Soran. "I forgive you. But don't do it again."

  And then Guric had understood. He had thought Highwatch his home. He had thought himself a valued member of a proud and noble house. If not a son, then at least a beloved liege. But in that moment he saw it all for the sham it was. How could he have been so wrong? The Knights spoke of honor and truth and loyalty, of fidelity. But when it really mattered, when nothing else mattered more, it was all empty platitudes.

  Guric could not return to Damara. He'd severed those ties. If he went back, he'd return as a beggar. And Guric would beg no more. He would seize what he wanted, and gods help anyone who stepped in his way.

  It was Argalath, his favored counselor in his dealings with the Nar, who had first told him of other means to bring Valia back to him. Ways that the Knights would not smile upon. Older ways. Rites that the Nar had performed when they were a great people. But there would have to be sacrifices.

  Guric had not balked and, in fact, seized on the notion. He began gathering Damarans who were disaffected with the rule of Highwatch, who felt themselves wronged at one time, or those who simply wanted more. Argalath found allies among the Nar.

  Guric had placed his men well. Inside the fortress, they weren't many. The Damarans he could trust numbered less than a score. The Nar, mostly Creel gathered by Argalath, numbered almost a thousand. But they were camped outside the Shield Wall. Just as Guric had planned.

  It brought the Knights out of the fortress. A third of the knights or more were out on their usual patrols. A scarce few remained at Highwatch. But the others, led by Soran himself, went to confront the Nar, whom they believed to be the usual winter bands who simply lingered too long. That many Nar gathered this late in the season…

  Highwatch, which had once struck Guric with such awe, which he had once believed to be the most formidable fortress within a thousand miles, fell in a single afternoon.