The Curse of the Mistwraith

by Janny Wurts

  While the weather continued to howl outside this one pocket of stillness, a voice called challenge from above.

  ‘Don’t move.’ The accents were crisp, commanding, and by town standards, purely barbarian. ‘Make one sound and you’ll gain a dead horse.’

  The dun snorted hot-headed alarm. Grasping for advantage in mired footing, Arithon dug his knuckles in her ribs. As she shied face-about toward the cliff, he snatched the cloak from her flank, cracked the cloth to fan her alarm, then let the force of her spin fling him sideways. The mare was a fast-moving target when the barbarian made good his threat. An arrow shot from a niche overhead nicked a gash across her shoulder, then buried with a hiss in rucked snow.

  The sound and the sting undid the dun. She bolted in panic, her gallop striking sparks from exposed stone as herd instinct impelled her to backtrack. She hit the last expanse of drifts in a white explosion of snow-clods, then disappeared completely as a gust roared like smoke across the trail.

  Sheltered under cover of the eddies, Arithon dropped his cloak, drew Alithiel and flattened his back against the underhang. The wind lulled. Tumbling snow winnowed and settled to unveil chaos as the mare charged through the oncoming riders. Her loose reins looped the nose of the chestnut and spun him plunging in a spraddle-legged stagger. Lysaer kept his seat through skilled horsemanship, but could not avoid collision with Asandir’s black. Both mounts floundered sideways. Nose to tail just behind, the paint and the pack pony rocketed back on their hocks. Pans clanged and a poorly-tied tent flapped loose. The pony ripped off a buck that scared the paint, and caught sound asleep in the scramble, Dakar toppled head-first into a snowdrift. He flopped back upright shouting epithets referring to bitch-bred donkeys; while bearing their food-stores and necessities, the pack-pony joined the paint and the dun in headlong stampede down the trail.

  Arithon seized the moment while the others were delayed and took swift stock of his surroundings. In a cranny above his sheltered hollow he caught his first glimpse of his attacker: a gloved hand, a sleeve trimmed in wolf-fur and the dangerously levelled tip of a deerarrow, the broad, four-bladed sort designed to rip and kill by internal bleeding. Arithon repressed a shiver through a moment of furious reassessment. Chance had favoured him: his horse had escaped without worse damage than a scratch. But if his spurious ploy was not to bring disaster, he would have to do something about Lysaer. Like the spirited dun, the prince had too much character to meet any threat with complacency.

  The drawn broadhead abruptly changed angle; Arithon jammed himself tight to the rock as the archer’s torso momentarily reared against the sky.

  The man wore leather and undyed wolf pelts. Hair spiked with frost fringed the rim of his brindled cap and an impressive breadth of shoulders matched the recurve bow held poised at the rim of the abutment. Motionless, afraid to exhale lest the plume of his breath disclose his position, Arithon grinned outright as his adversary took painstaking aim down the defile.

  ‘Move away from the rocks!’ the archer called. ‘I have you covered.’ The moan of a rising gust drove him to urgency. ‘Move out! Now!’

  The wind peaked. Snow sheeted in a blanketing shower and the barbarian fired blind. As the shaft slashed through his discarded cloak, Arithon scaled the rockface, sobered by discovery that clansmen balked at killing not at all. He kicked through a cleft and sought the lair of the bowman before his reckless ploy had time to backfire.

  The gust passed and the air cleared. As the archer leaned out to account for his hit, the Master stalked, his footfalls silenced by snow.

  The archer discovered his error, cursed and whirled to cover his back. He caught his erstwhile quarry in the act of a counter-ambush. Unfazed by surprise and fast for his bulk, he nocked another arrow. Arithon’s thrown dagger sliced his bowstring in mid-draw. The bow cracked straight in backlash. Snapped around by a severed end of cordage, the arrow raked the clansman’s wrist.

  ‘Fiends!’ the scout cursed. He disentangled his arm from his disabled recurve, not quite soon enough. Arithon closed his final stride and poised Alithiel for a fatal thrust through the throat.

  Brown eyes met green through a tigerish instant of assessment. Though larger by a head and doubly muscled, the barbarian chose not to risk a grab for his dagger; the blade at his neck was too nervelessly steady.

  ‘Try not to be foolish,’ Arithon said. He looked up at his bulkier adversary with an expression implacably shuttered. ‘By the love of the mother who bore you, I urge you to think. Ask why I would do a thing, then forfeit all I had gained.’ Slowly, deliberately, he turned his blade and dropped it point downward between the cross-laced boots of his captive.

  Steel sliced through snow and stood quivering, the dark metal with its striking silver tracery the dangerous invitation to a riddle. The clansman bridled fury with an effort. A moment passed, filled by the howl of wind and the wet swirl of snow, and the slow drip of blood from the fingers of a weapon-calloused hand. The smoke-dark steel in the drift stayed untouched amid gathering spatters of scarlet. Then, as if nothing untoward had just happened, the barbarian’s lips twisted into a vexed and humourless smile. ‘Move and you die,’ he told Arithon. ‘Behind you stand six of my companions, every one of them armed.’

  Arithon felt a prick at his lower spine. At bay on the point of a javelin, his complacency remained unshaken. ‘I’m required to surrender twice?’

  His unforced clarity of speech caused a stir through the band that had trapped him.

  The bowman alone stayed unmoved. ‘Take the upstart,’ he snapped.

  ‘Grithen, you’re wrong,’ somebody protested; the voice sounded female. ‘This catch is certainly no townsman.’

  ‘You say?’ The red-headed ringleader swore. ‘Do you see clan identification anywhere on this bastard? Accents can be faked. If this man were clanborn but in league with the mayors, he’d know better than to leave town walls.’

  Arithon looked at Grithen, calm through an uncomfortable blast of wind. ‘And if I am neither?’ His indecipherable expression stayed with him. ‘What then?’

  ‘Well, whoever values your foolhardy hide will pay us a bountiful ransom.’ Grithen signalled left-handedly and this time, his henchmen responded.

  Arithon found himself pitched forward into the snow. Hands searched his person for weapons, found none and pinioned with a thoroughness that hurt. Arithon twisted his head sideways. ‘Furies of Sithaer!’ he exclaimed in derisive and blistering consternation. ‘Had I wanted a fight, don’t you think I’d have knifed something more than a bowstring?’

  ‘Then why trouble with decoy and ambush in the first place?’ Wolfishly contentious, Grithen exacted payment for the shame of his earlier misjudgement. ‘Bind him.’

  Jerked to his feet, Arithon watched with a sailor’s appreciation as the scouts cut their rawhide laces and expertly tied up his wrists. Then he averted his gaze, spat blood from a cut lip and endured an ignominious interval while more cords were looped tight around his ankles. ‘The heart of the dilemma,’ he conceded to Grithen in a final, acid afterthought. ‘Did I act out of purpose or folly? You’d better figure out which, and quickly.’

  Down the trail, Asandir’s party had successfully recovered their strays; they were starting back up the pass with obvious urgency and concern, and though no one appeared to watch them, their progress was covertly marked.

  ‘Suppose I had a companion too prideful to submit to a threat.’ Arithon looked keenly at his captor, who was frowning and flicking blood from his leathers. ‘Say my friend had no fear of danger and he forced you to harm him to make your capture. That might be a pity. His skin is pricelessly valuable.’

  Grithen whistled and shot a triumphant glance at his henchmen, one of whom was indeed a scarred and grim-faced woman. Then his leonine beard parted in a grin of forthright appreciation. ‘Which one is he? I assure you, we’ll handle him as delicately as a flower.’

  Arithon raised his brows. ‘Flower he isn’t, but don’t worry. If he doesn’t co
-operate and surrender, my life will surely be forfeit.’

  Grithen caught up the hilt of Arithon’s relinquished blade and tested the balance, his smile turned suddenly corrosive. ‘You’re a boy-lover,’ he concluded in disgust. ‘That’s why you gave yourself up. To protect your beloved.’

  ‘By Dharkaron,’ Arithon murmured, ‘how you’ll wish that was true.’ He showed no rancour at the insult; and at long last his barbarian captor saw past his hostage’s wooden expression. The wretch he ordered manhandled and tied and dragged toward the edge of the outcrop was desperately struggling not to laugh.

  ‘Mad,’ Grithen concluded under his breath. He traced the sword’s edge with a fingertip and flinched as the steel nicked flesh. Uneasy, but too rabidly committed for retreat, he whistled the call of the mountain hawk and alerted the band still in hiding to initiate the next stage of his ambush.

  The dun mare shied back, snorting over the jingle of bit rings and gear as the riders approached the promontory where their companion had lately come to grief.

  ‘Whoa,’ Lysaer soothed gently. Astride his disgruntled chestnut and leading his half-brother’s mount by the bridle, he slacked rein as the mare jibbed backward. ‘Whoa now.’ The patience in his voice overlaid a worry that burned his thoughts to white rage. Obstinate the Master of Shadow might be, and most times maddeningly reticent; yet as Lysaer combed through wind-whipped snow for a man perhaps fallen and injured, he did not dwell on past crimes or piracy. However cross-grained, no matter how secretive or odd a childhood among mages had made him, Arithon’s motives before exile had likely not been founded in malice.

  He was kin, and the only other in this mist-cursed world who recalled that Lysaer had been born a prince.

  The mare shied again, hauling the chestnut a half-pace sidewards. Fixed and diligent in his search, Lysaer kept his seat out of reflex. He swept the grey rocks and the trampled spread of drifts and finally sighted the cloak, crumpled in a shallow depression, and pinned by the black shaft of an arrow. His breath locked in his throat. The dun had not come by the gash on her shoulder through mishap: now he had proof.

  Tautly controlled as a clock spring, Lysaer looped the dun’s lead through a ring on his saddle and addressed Asandir crisply. ‘Arithon suspected trouble in these mountains. Why?’

  Before the sorcerer gave answer, shouts cut the misty pass. The abutments came alive with archers.

  ‘Halt!’ called a bearded ruffian from the cliff-top. ‘Dismount and throw down your arms!’

  Lysaer spun in his stirrups, his bearing of command unthinking and wrath like torchflame in his eyes. ‘What have you done with my half-brother?’

  ‘Shot a hole in his cloak, as you see.’ Accustomed to arrogance from the mercenaries hired to guard caravans, the barbarian dared an insolent grin. ‘If you’re minded to protest, I can add to that.’

  He rapped orders to someone in position over his head. There followed a flurry of activity and a bundle appeared, suspended over the cliff face by a swinging length of rope. As the wind lulled and the snow settled to clear the view, Lysaer recognized Arithon, bound hand and foot and suspended face-first over a drop that vanished straight down into mist. The brutes had gagged his mouth.

  Lysaer forgot he no longer held royal authority. Very pale, but with unassailable dignity, he accosted the raiders on the ridge. ‘Lend me a blade. For the sake of the life you threaten, I’ll set honour above cowardly extortion and offer trial by single combat as settlement.’

  ‘How very touching!’ The barbarian ringleader raised up a dark-bladed weapon, unmistakably Arithon’s Alithiel, and set the sharpened edge against the hanging cord. One ply gave way, loud as a slap in the silence. ‘You mistake us for our ancestors, who perhaps once affected such scruples. But as long as mayors rule there are no fair fights in this pass. Who will hit ground first, you?’ The ruffian dismissed Lysaer and dipped the sword toward the hostage who dangled without struggle over the abyss. ‘Or this one, who provoked us by drawing first blood?’

  ‘Would that Arithon had done worse!’ Lysaer cried back in indignation. ‘Unprincipled mongrel pack of thieves! Had I an honour-guard with me, I’d see the last of you put to the sword!’

  A hand restrained his arm, Asandir’s, restoring Lysaer to the shattering recollection that his inheritance was forever lost; in cold fact he owned nothing but a poignard to manage even token self-defence.

  ‘Dismount as they wish, and quickly.’ The sorcerer did so himself, while more barbarians armed with javelins closed in a ring from the cliffside.

  Stiff with wounded pride, and galled enough to murder for the brutality which had befallen his half-brother, Lysaer watched in seething compliance as Asandir threw the reins of his black to his apprentice and confronted the cordon of weapon-points.

  ‘Who leads this party?’ the sorcerer demanded.

  ‘I’ll ask the questions, greybeard,’ said the red-bearded young spokesman who descended in a leap from the outcrop. Cocksure, even ruthless with contempt, he strode through the circle of his companions.

  ‘Ask then,’ Asandir invited in silken politeness. ‘But take care, young man. You might gain other than you bargain for.’

  ‘You overstep your value, I think,’ the barbarian said, while the wind parted the furs of his jerkin and cap and spun the fox-tail trappings on his belt. ‘The advice of old men is widespread as the mist and as easily ignored.’ He gestured a bloodied fist at the hostage strung over the mountainside. ‘For his life, and yours, some grandchild or relative had better come up with a ransom.’

  ‘It’s not gold you want.’ Asandir surveyed the barbarian from his red-splashed boots to the crown of his wolf-pelt cap. ‘For your sake, you should have heeded the wisdom of your elders! Vengefulness has lured you into folly.’

  The raid leader drew a fast breath. He found no words. The sorcerer pinned him with a regard like deathless frost, then killed off refutation with a command. ‘Lysaer, come forward and remove your hood.’

  The barbarian gave way to blind outrage. ‘The next man who speaks or moves will wind up butchered on my signal!’

  ‘Not so easily,’ rebutted the one who stepped forth, a figure muffled in ordinary wool, whose fingers bore neither ring nor ornament as he slipped off his gloves and raised his hands; but a man so unconsciously sure of his position that every clansman present paused to stare.

  Dark cloth slipped back to reveal honey-gold hair, blue eyes still glacial with fury and features that reflected a bloodline not seen in Camris for centuries, but recognizable to every clan along the Valendale.

  ‘S’Ilessid!’ exclaimed the scar-faced woman at the fore. ‘By Ath, he’s royal, and who else could be his spokesman but the Kingmaker himself, Asandir?’

  Jolted as if struck, Lysaer saw the sorcerer return the barest nod. ‘At least one among you recalls tradition. I bring you Prince Lysaer, Teir’s’Ilessid, scion of the high kings of Tysan, and by unbroken line of descent your liege lord.’

  The snow seemed suddenly too white, the air too painfully thin and cold to breathe; stunned by the impact of astonishment, Lysaer stood as if paralysed.

  The raid leader went from ruddy to waxen pale. First to react, he stepped back, undermined by horrified, weak-kneed humility. ‘Merciful Ath, how was I to know?’ He set Arithon’s sword point-down in the snow at Lysaer’s feet and dropped to his knees. ‘My liege,’ he said in strangled apology. ‘I place myself and my companions at your mercy.’

  ‘At last you recall the manners of your forefathers, Grithen, son of Tane.’ Asandir’s cool regard passed over the barbarian to encompass the shocked ragged circle of aggressors as bows and javelins were lowered, then let fall with a clatter onto the trail; movement followed. All the scouts in the company prostrated themselves before their prince until only the sorcerer, Dakar and a stunned-speechless Lysaer remained standing.

  For half a dozen heartbeats nothing stirred on the exposed spine of the ridge but swirls of gale-whipped snow. The revealed heir to T
ysan’s high kingship kept his feet and his bearing only through unbending royal pride.

  Then, encouraged by a smile from Asandir, the reflex of command reasserted; the prince raised a voice of stinging authority. ‘Restore my half-brother to firm ground and set him free.’

  A pair of scouts scrambled to their feet, sped by the mention that the captive they had manhandled was royal also. Lysaer showed their consternation little mercy, but swept up Arithon’s sword. ‘You,’ he said coldly. He touched the naked blade against the nape of Grithen’s neck. ‘Mayors might rule in Erdane, but honour shall not be forgotten. Remain on your knees until my half-brother is returned safely to my side. Then, since anger might bias my fair opinion, I leave your fate in the hands of Asandir.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ the sorcerer interjected. ‘The Fellowship of Seven pass no judgement upon men, but Maenalle, Steward of Tysan, will properly perform this office. She is qualified, having dispensed the king’s justice in the absence of her liege most ably through the last two decades.’

  Chilled through his leggings by melted ice, and shamed by the steel which revoked his last vestige of dignity, Grithen submitted without a whimper: if the s’Ilessid prince was displeased by the rashness of his scouts, Maenalle was going to be mortified. Her verdict was certain to be ruinous, and no comfort could be gained from the fact that Lord Tashan, clan elder and Earl of Taerlin, had opposed the attack from the start. No doubt the old fox had recognized a true sorcerer, Grithen thought in despair; word of Asandir’s party had perhaps crossed the passes already.

  Stilled with dread, acutely suffering from cramped muscles, Grithen silently cursed his sour luck. Given Maenalle’s hard nature, he would not be the least bit surprised if he became disbarred from his inheritance as a result of this one ill-favoured raid.