A Time of War and Demons

by S E Wendel

  Colm jumped over the chair Manek pushed down between them. Their swords clashed, sending sparks onto the carpet. Dodging to the right, he caught the flash of a dagger. His forearm connecting with Colm’s hand, he drove the dagger away from his belly, sending it instead into his side. Colm jerked, the dagger slicing out again, leaving fire in its wake.

  Manek only allowed himself a small grimace before striking at Colm once, twice, thrice; he forced the prince back towards his father. He knocked the dagger from Colm’s left hand, sent it flying across the long table to clatter into the fireplace with the charred remains of the burned papers.

  Two steps more and he had Colm tripping over a chair. King Dunstan cried out as Manek loomed over the prince, his sword tip on Colm’s throat.

  “She’s alive,” he said through gritted teeth. “She wants an alliance.”

  Colm said nothing, glaring up defiantly from the floor. A little dribble of blood ran down his throat where Manek’s sword just barely punctured the skin.

  King Dunstan regarded Manek with a frown. Knowing the king would say nothing with his son threatened, Manek took a step back, putting a hand on a nearby chair for support. Blood already soaked the lower half of his tunic, and the corners of his vision grew fuzzy. He stared hard at the king, willing himself to stay conscious.

  Once Colm had scrambled up, King Dunstan put himself between the two of them. “You’re a fool to preach peace to me with Ehman Courtnay’s sword in your hand. Oh yes, I recognize it. I know who you are, Manek of Rising, and if you think I’ll shake hands with the man who broke the Mountain Gate, you’re mistaken.”

  Letting out a shallow breath, Manek did his best not to slump to the ground. Damn her. It’d been lunacy to think King Dunstan would ever ally himself with the Lowlands.

  Two Highlanders spilled into the room from a side door along the north wall. Catching sight of the king, one called to him. “Sire, please, they’ve taken the stairs. We must get you and Lord Morn away!”

  “Stop,” Manek said. “Stop! Let them go.”

  Those of his men who could stopped fighting long enough to look at him, bewildered and incredulous.

  To the king he said, “You’ll regret this, King Dunstan. Both of us will. Now go.”

  “Why?” Colm demanded.

  He met the prince’s cold gaze. “For her.”

  Colm’s eyes went wide, and Manek knew he understood. A shadow passed over the prince’s face, murder intent in his stare.

  Highlanders came to the king, begging him to depart. Resting a heavy hand on his son’s shoulder, King Dunstan said, “We’ll go. We’ll fight again.” The king’s face was grim when he turned back to Manek to say, “One of us has to.” He gave his son a shake, pushing him towards the awaiting soldiers.

  The Highlanders fled through the small door, the king and prince disappearing just before Manek’s light head threatened to get the better of him. Swaying, he welcomed the arms that caught him.

  “What was that about?” Waurin growled.

  “Took a gamble,” Manek said. “I lost.”

  Waurin made an unhappy sound deep in his throat at the sight of Manek’s side. “Need to get that patched up.”

  “Preferably before something falls out.”

  Waurin glared at his poor joke. Drawing one of Manek’s arms across his shoulders, Waurin lifted him away from the chair, making toward the gallery. They stopped when they saw Verian in the doorway, glowering at them.

  “Oh, hell,” Manek muttered.

  Forty

  Adain the Rapid cut vast paths across Mithria, running to the sea, always to the sea. With His Father’s blessing, he chose those humans worthy of his favor to become guardians of his rivers. He turned their blood to water, their mouths to rapids, and their skin to sand and pebbles. They were no longer human, but nor were they quite gods. But Adain struggled to find one worthy of his Great North River, the river the First Tongue did call Life-Blood. One day as he rode the North River’s current, a body fell in beside him. Sweeping the human to shore, Adain was taken by De’lan and bore him back to his people. The man and his village offered their thanks and devoted themselves to the God of Rivers, earning them his favor. Adain took De’lan into his heart, and De’lan did serve the god well and brave, fighting with him when Ma’an tried to block the rivers from the sea with his mountains. And when De’lan’s mortal life was spent, Adain took him into his arms as his final guardian and bestowed upon him his greatest gift. And so, we mortals remember De’lan’s faith, fidelity, and courage and call it His River.

  —How the Great North River Was Named

  A hollow place had opened up in Adren’s chest the very size and shape of his heart. He knew his feet moved, but he didn’t see, didn’t hear the steps he took. The Iron Road was dusty underfoot, cracked and rutted, making the throbbing wound in his leg protest, but he didn’t really feel it.

  How had it come to this? Three days of brutal marching hadn’t washed away the bitter taste of defeat on his tongue. Again he put himself in the ancient stronghold, again he saw the wall breached, again he saw the Lowlander’s face. His stomach curdled with rage at the memory of the young man, Ehman Courtnay’s sword clutched in the whoreson’s hand while claiming to champion Ennis Courtnay. Ceralia save him, how had this happened?

  It was the sound of rushing water that pulled Adren from his thoughts. Finally, their destination after so long a march was in sight. The De’lan River bent around a narrow finger of land perhaps a league wide. Here, at the arc of this bend, was the Highlands’ best kept secret.

  Adren heard sounds of strangled relief, but when he looked around, he saw only desolate eyes. Here was their crossing, but the escape was bittersweet. Mostly bitter.

  With the help of three men, Adren dug up the great iron lever from its resting place beneath an innocent-looking pile of pebbles. Strung around the lever was an enormous chain, the links the size of a man’s fist, that ran to the river and disappeared beneath its surface.

  Putting their weight behind the lever, the four men heaved until it bent back towards them, the chain pulled taut. A great whine of metal echoed, then the river bubbled and gurgled. A dark expanse rose from the river, water streaming off in rivulets, until finally, the whole of the submersible bridge sat placidly just below the surface.

  It’d been his great-grandfather’s design. Parnel Dunstan had had a mind for machines, always looking to improve and build. The submersible bridge was widely regarded as his greatest achievement, and his bridges ran all along the De’lan, ready to move Highlanders from one shore to the other without extending the same courtesy to her enemies.

  Two of the men started out onto the bridge to test it. They’d used the bridge when crossing from Ells to Dannawey in early spring, and the memory only made Adren spiral back down into that newly rent hollow place in his chest.

  Thousands of his finest Highland warriors. Gone. Dannawey’s force of nearly ten thousand. Wiped out. Three thousand brave soldiers from other Highland clans. Decimated.

  When one of the men waved to those on shore, Dannawey’s refugees began crossing. Their faces were haggard, eyes dull, and no one seemed worried about crossing over the submersible bridge, even with the vicious current of the Great North River just below. They’d seen far worse and had greater things to fear than Adain.

  The bridge was wide enough for at least ten people to walk abreast, and when Adren had crossed over himself, he watched Highlanders trudge towards safety.

  Colm was near the middle, with Lord and Lady Morn. If Adren had ever wondered what a body without a soul looked like, he found it in Arion Morn. The man’s face was ashen, great lines cleaved into a sallow face. Unshaven, unkempt, and devastated, Arion Morn was a husk.

  Sick as it made him to see Morn, it was his own son Adren could barely look upon. Colm’s face resembled a thundercloud, dark and petulant, his eyes flashing like lightning. Black rage simmered in his heart, a sneer of hate always lingering at the corners of his mouth. A
dren’s son, the sunny, smiling, kind boy, was gone. He didn’t know what he had now instead.

  Colm and Morn stopped to stand on the banks with him, but Lady Morn continued on, as though if she stopped moving, all that horror would catch up with her again. Eyes glazed, she disappeared into the masses, her fine, if torn, clothes no longer distinguishing her from the other shattered souls.

  “We should sink this.” Colm nodded at the bridge. “We should sink all of them.”

  Adren grunted. Yes. Sink the bridges. Sink their lifelines. That’s what it had come to.

  Movement on the horizon caught Adren’s eye, and he took a step forward, his heart, for the first time in days, beating loud enough for him to hear. Riders were coming.

  Colm moved to his side, his hand already on his sword. Adren clamped his hand over Colm’s. He recognized that banner. The red Aric rose was stark against Dunstan blue, ringed by the Highlands’ five stars.

  Adren couldn’t bring himself to feel much of anything, not anger, not even relief, as Galen Aric approached, a whole contingent at his back. The refugees seemed to share Adren’s sentiment, looking briefly at the coming force before turning back to the road ahead of them.

  Adren began towards him, Colm and Morn following. Aric reined in his horse, dismounting in one fluid move. His polished armor and shaven chin almost made Adren laugh.

  Aric’s jaw was set, his mouth a grim line, but in his eyes, Adren saw a flicker of guilt.

  “What’s happened?” Aric rasped.

  Again, Adren almost laughed. “What do you think?”

  Aric looked over Adren’s shoulder at the long column of refugees. “How?”

  “They opened the west gate from the inside,” Adren said. And he had a strong suspicion who slipped into Dannawey and let in the hordes. Ean curse him and Dea take him, Manek of Rising would answer for this.

  Aric drew a long breath, making the plates of his armor wheeze. “Forgive me, my lord.”

  Adren raised an eyebrow.

  “Where were you?” Colm growled.

  “A Midland horde harassed my border towns—couldn’t leave before they’d been routed. We drove them back and came as quickly as…” Aric’s eyes flicked to Arion Morn, who didn’t look back at him, just off into the distance as if he were awaiting Tamea. “Forgive me.”

  “How many could you bring?”

  Adren’s words drew Aric’s attention again, and the man seemed relieved not to have to look at Morn anymore.

  “Five hundred. Could we retake the city? Would it be enough?”

  “No.”

  The three of them looked at Morn, his voice making stones sink into Adren’s gut.

  “It wouldn’t be enough,” Adren agreed. “Not now.” He jerked his chin at the five hundred soldiers waiting for Aric’s orders. “Have them spread out around the column, concentrating on the rear. You’ll escort us back to Ells. The last thing we need is Midlanders following us back. Then we start sinking the bridges.”

  Aric opened his mouth to say something, grimaced, then mounted his horse. “We’ll see you safely there,” he said, before returning to break up his men into units.

  Colm let out a snort at the word safely. Adren couldn’t help but agree.

  “Come,” Adren said, a bone-deep weariness settling over him.

  For a moment, it seemed as if Morn would stay rooted in place, content to wait for Tamea to take him away. But when Adren laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, the haggard man nodded once and turned back towards the column.

  “They’ll pay for what they’ve done,” Colm murmured viciously under his breath. “The Midlands and the Lowlands both.”

  It wasn’t the first time Colm had said as much, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. Adren was just too weary to think of retribution. First, he needed to see Ells and his Isla, needed to remind himself there was still some Highlands left to fight for. Because they would fight again.

  The thought only made his weariness settle deeper, rooting around where his muscle met his soul.

  Just under ten thousand marched for Ells. Dannawey’s ten thousand remaining sons and daughters. Ten, when there had been seventy thousand this time a year ago. Ten thousand alive, sixty thousand dead, captured, or as good as. It was not right. Tamea take him, it was not right.

  He tried to pick up the pieces of his broken pride, but somehow it didn’t fit together again like it should. There were shards missing, and he could see the seams where it had shattered. Adren would never get it back, would never be the same. And neither would the Highlands.

  The gods had turned their faces away.

  The Highlands stood alone.

  Forty-One

  In the old days, when the First Tongue was still spoken, there was a warrior named Karrel who was stronger and braver than all the rest. It was said he trained with Ma’an himself, sparring until his arms were strong as mountains. He thanked Ma’an for his strong arm, but for his strong heart he thanked Nadia, his true love. Where Karrel was rough, Nadia was gentle; where Karrel was weak, Nadia was strong. They loved each other with a fierceness that rivaled even Themin and Ceralia. But Dea decided to separate them and brought war to their land. Karrel left to fight while Nadia led the people. For seven years, Nadia neither saw nor heard of Karrel, and all believed him dead. The people whispered of Dea’s malice for him and lowered their eyes in sorrow, but Nadia would not hear the funeral rites said. When the seventh year ended and the eighth began, a ragged stranger appeared at her gate. None would let the stranger pass, but Nadia knew it was Karrel. Gone was his right arm and his strength, but she loved him still. “I was beginning to think you would never come,” Nadia said to him. “I would always come home to you, my love. You are where I begin and where I end.”

  —Karrel and Nadia

  Elodie let Essa take one of their smaller boats to check the lines all on her own now, a fact Essa took to mean she’d fully acclimated to Carmetheon. She still wasn’t sure if she should be pleased.

  Elodie had promised that Carmetheon summers were pleasant, and indeed they had been, with clear days and soft ocean breezes, but Essa enjoyed the autumn most. The days were clear but not hot, and the purple thistle lining the cliffs above were in full bloom, making the sky at sunset look like a bitten plum, orange and golden inside, with a ring of purple around.

  But autumn was fading. Even Essa could tell. The only birds left were the stalwart gulls who’d rather brave the cold tides and sleet than give up the rich waters of the bay.

  Today, however, was dry enough. The sky was blanketed with clouds a color somewhere between white and granite—not threatening enough to put off checking the lines. Elodie had asked if she’d rather go out in the boat or chop onions. Essa chose the lesser of two evils.

  Essa worked through the checkpoints in Elodie’s allotted section of water, her hands long since calloused from days of pulling rope, washing clothes, weaving, sweeping, and chopping. Her arms, now corded with muscle, pulled up the nets with ease, and she didn’t struggle as she once had to fish out her prizes.

  Her body had certainly acclimated. She wasn’t soft anymore; everything was hardened, from the pads of her fingers to her shoulders to her calves. She worked with strong, precise movements through her tasks, her fingers adept, the labor no longer so arduous.

  Sometimes, when she spied her reflection in the water, she didn’t recognize the woman gazing back. Her face had lost the last remnants of babyish roundness; instead, smooth planes and angular cheekbones dominated her tanned face. Her eyes were sharper, her button nose the only rounded edge left.

  Essa now understood what it was to labor, to create and fix and destroy with her own two hands. There was a pride to be had in her work; she’d put aside her manners and fine education for practicality and capability. Why, then, did she feel a hollowness in her? Why couldn’t she lean back in her chair like Elodie did after a long day and sigh with satisfaction at all that had been accomplished?

  In truth, Essa thought s
he knew why. There was no joy for her anymore. Yes, she’d mastered all the skills Elodie had sought to teach her. But those skills, or the pride she felt at possessing them, weren’t going to fill this need in her.

  Elodie was a fine companion, and Essa had slowly allowed herself to warm to the woman. Essa never had a mother, even if her eldest sister Irina had tried to be one. While Elodie didn’t quite fill that void either, she came closer than anyone had before. But Elodie had others; lifelong friends, people to attend, even a sister who lived across town. Essa had no one, no friends—though, she hadn’t really tried to make any.

  Essa ended with the crab and lobster traps, happy to see two snapping crabs in the crate she hauled out of the water. Now crab was a boon of the sea she hadn’t yet tired of.

  As Essa began rowing back to Elodie’s small dock, she mused over how her life had been reduced to a series of tasks, repeating in a predictable loop. Yes, there was pride, but pride was a cold comfort during the night when Essa had ample time to think of all she’d lost, all she missed.

  In those long hours between night and dawn, when the world was not quite dark but not quite light either, Essa thought not of Highcrest or her father or her sisters. In those long hours, she thought of him, of how she missed him. She tried to think of the Morns, of the Dunstans and the Gowans who must be suffering behind the walls of Dannawey, but all she saw in her mind’s eye was Waurin.

  And she hated it. How could she think of him rather than the Morns? Rather than her own father? What would Ennis say?

  She didn’t find Waurin handsome, not in the way men were supposed to be handsome. He was too big, too broad, too blond. He used his strength rather than his wits and he liked wine too much.

  But, Tamea take her, she missed him. She missed playing Kingsman’s Bluff, missed patiently waiting for him to form a strategy, missed beating him soundly. She missed his gentle instructions on how to fish and sail and string netting. She missed the bawdy sailor songs he sang while they were out at sea—which was perhaps the silliest thing she could miss, for he was positively tone deaf. She missed all the little things that made Waurin himself.