“You met Bayard himself?” Zaryae asked. “I am impressed. He’s the stuff of legend out on the plains—bigger than life. I honestly thought he might just be a myth. Are you sure he’s the real Bayard?”
Blaine shrugged. “Penhallow sent him, and I assume that he and the Wraith Lord would know. He was one of the Elder Council, before they disbanded.”
“You do attract interesting company, Mick,” Verran said, raising an eyebrow.
“Do you think they’ll stand by their alliance?” Judith asked worriedly. “It seems so sudden to go from enemies to allies just like that.”
“Yeah—it skips the whole disastrous war defeat first,” Piran noted, finishing off his ale. “Actually, it’s rather efficient.”
“Yes, it is,” Zaryae replied. “And that’s why the Plainsmen do it that way. The nomads don’t have vast numbers of people. Squander too many lives fighting, and there’s no one to hunt food, protect the family, and father new children. Among themselves, they’ve devised ways to settle disagreements, smooth over bruised egos, and go on about their business without wasting a lot of lives.”
“It’s just that no one explained what was going on to the Solveigs—who aren’t Plainsmen,” Kestel finished. “So it escalated.”
Zaryae nodded. “Exactly.” She turned back to Judith. “So yes, I do think they’ll abide by the agreement—especially with a leader like Bayard returned to oversee the arrangements.” She shook her head. “He’s practically a god to them.”
“It’ll take a while for Rinka to believe they’ve had a change of heart,” Piran observed. “Maybe Bayard can work his godlike powers on her, too. She’s not the trusting type.”
Blaine leaned back in his chair, nursing the last of his ale. “It’s a double win for us. Bleak Hollow can stop looking over its shoulder for attacks from the plains, and be on guard against whatever new attacks are coming. And Tormod is freed up to help us and Penhallow with the renegade talishte, while we figure out how to help Niklas with this new Nagok threat.”
“Damn. Maybe when the twins get back, it’s time for us to take the spy show back on the road. I never know anything that’s going on since we stopped,” Verran said. For several months before the last crucial battle, Verran, Desya, and Borya, along with several other handpicked men, posed as traveling performers and relayed essential information back to Blaine and Niklas.
“Be careful what you wish for,” Kestel cautioned. “If this new general or warlord, Nagok, is as bad as Niklas thinks, we’re heading for another big battle. There’s rumor he may be a mage.”
Blaine set his tankard down with a thud. “Maybe I’m a lousy warlord, but I’m sick to death of war. I’d really like to get on with building things. Every time there’s a battle or a skirmish, something else gets burned down or wrecked, which is more for us to fix afterward.”
Kestel squeezed his arm and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Actually, that makes you a good warlord,” she said. “Good for the kingdom, that is.”
Edward brought more tankards and a pitcher of ale to the table. Piran was the first to refill his tankard, though the ale brewed since the Cataclysm was a poor substitute for the quality brew to be had prior to the Great Fire.
“Mari and I are making headway with the villages,” Judith reported, with a nod toward Blaine’s sister, who sat next to Dawe, holding his hand. “They’re anxious to have things back to normal—or as close to normal as we can come.”
“In other words, they’re tired of being hungry, losing their men to fighting, and having their livestock run off,” Mari added. “So many men are either dead, off fighting, or too badly injured to fight, the women have had to figure out ways to do all the things they need to do—plus what the men did, too.”
Judith nodded. “The villages are full of old men and little boys—sad, really.”
“Niklas told me that a lot of the new recruits he’s been getting are women,” Blaine said. “They’ve lost their families, they have no marriage prospects, their homes and farms were destroyed, and they’ve had to toughen up to survive.”
“Rinka told me they’ve seen the same thing,” Kestel confirmed. “Young women coming out of the countryside, volunteering for their guards. If she thinks they’re up to it, she takes them.”
“While all that has been going on, we’ve been scavenging the deserted farms for seedlings, and taking clippings from the abandoned vineyards,” Mari said excitedly. “And we’ve sent people to nurse the vineyards that might be salvageable.”
“It’s going to take time, several years at least,” Judith said, “but we might actually have some drinkable wine again!” Since the Cataclysm, luxuries small and large had been in short supply. Good wine, ale, and distilled spirits had been hard to come by, and stock from before the Great Fire was gone. What passed in the interim was only barely drinkable, and far from ideal.
“I’ll drink to that!” Piran said, raising his tankard, which was full once more.
“You’ll drink to anything,” Kestel said with a friendly poke in the ribs.
“We’ve patched up everything we can here at Glenreith,” Dawe reported. “With the villagers working hard to get the crops in and tended, I’ve been helping out several days a week with the farriers and the blacksmiths.” He sighed. “We lost a lot of experienced people to the war, so most of what I’m doing is teaching. My goal is to have a reasonably skilled person and a basic forge in each village by winter. Nothing fancy,” he warned. “Just the essentials. Horseshoeing. Tools. Hinges. Barrel hoops. That would be a big improvement over what’s out there now.”
It was hard to imagine that just two years ago, Donderath was a thriving, sophisticated kingdom. Thinking about how much had been lost saddened Blaine beyond words. We’re not out of the woods yet, he thought. If men like Reese, Thrane, and Pollard have their way, Donderath will never be anything except their private fiefdom.
They traded stories until the bell in the tower struck eleven times. “You’ve had a long day,” Judith said, rising. “We need to let you rest.” She gave Blaine a hug. “Glad to have you back safely,” she said. “All of you.”
Mari hugged Blaine as well. “It’s always good to have you home, although you’re never here long enough,” she said. Blaine planted a kiss on the top of her head.
“Maybe someday,” he sighed. “But not just yet. I’m counting on you to have some good wine for us when we do.”
Mari laughed. “Make everyone stop fighting, and I’ll personally stomp the grapes!”
Dawe clapped Blaine on the shoulder as he left with Verran and the others. “Get some rest,” he said. “You’ve got too much on your plate. Enjoy being home for a little while.” Edward followed them out, leaving Blaine, Kestel, and Piran and what remained of the pitcher of ale.
“It’s really all hand in glove, isn’t it?” Piran mused. “All the battles don’t really matter if no one has food to eat, and the farmers can’t farm if they’ve got armies overrunning their fields. It’s like a dog chasing his tail—only the dogs have more fun.” He took the last of his ale with a gulp, and then stared sadly at the bottom of his empty mug.
“Your guests have arrived,” Edward said, returning to the doorway. “I’ve seated them in the parlor.”
Blaine set his empty tankard aside. “Time to go find out just what’s so important,” he said, standing. “I have a funny feeling that it’s not something I’m going to like.”
Two talishte waited in Glenreith’s sitting room, its most presentable area for company. The upholstered furnishings and wall hangings were the least shabby in the manor, and the best of what had not been sold off during the lean times.
Lanyon Penhallow looked to be in his thirties, but his eyes hinted at centuries. His dark hair was caught back in a neat queue that accentuated his angular, aristocratic features. Geir was a little shorter than Penhallow, and appeared a decade younger, with brown hair that fell loose to his shoulders.
“Welcome,” Blaine said. “I tr
ust your journey was uneventful?”
Penhallow nodded. “Fortunately so. Much more so than yours, I wager.”
Blaine managed a wry half smile. “You could say that.” Edward, always the proper host, had already brought a flagon of deer blood and goblets for their guests. “What brings you to Glenreith, so quickly and in the middle of the night?”
All except Penhallow found seats in the parlor’s comfortable furnishings. Penhallow leaned against the mantle over the darkened fireplace. It was clear that he had a lot on his mind, and that worried Blaine. “Thrane has called the rogue Elders together—and they are summoning their broods,” Penhallow said.
“How do you know?” Kestel asked.
Penhallow shrugged. “In part, because we have people watching Solsiden. But the proof lies in the sudden spate of killings and disappearances in the towns and villages all around Thrane’s base. There are reasons talishte usually remain dispersed. Too many of us in a small area strains the food supply.”
In other words, it goes hard on the local population of deer—and humans, Blaine thought.
“Why did he call them?” Piran asked.
“Thrane intends to wage war,” Penhallow said. “It can mean nothing else.”
“There’s no other reason to gather so many talishte in one place,” Geir added. He was one of Penhallow’s most trusted warriors, and spent much of his time supporting Blaine as Penhallow’s proxy. “Gathering that many talishte isn’t sustainable for long. We’re territorial, and groups that aren’t part of the same brood tend to fight if they’re in close quarters. Sooner or later, when it’s that noticeable that talishte are preying on mortals, the mortals rise up and fight back.”
Penhallow and the allied talishte found their sustenance from willing donors or animals and avoided killing mortals except in battle. Thrane and the rogue Elders saw mortals as inferiors to be used as they desired. If the two sides were to go to war against each other, that difference gave mortals like Blaine a deep personal interest in the outcome.
“Pollard and Hennoch were badly weakened in the last battle,” Blaine said. “Surely they can’t have gained enough strength in three months to pose a serious threat?”
“They’ve been recruiting,” Penhallow said, beginning to pace. “The stragglers from Rostivan’s and Lysander’s armies, and any of Quintrel’s mages who didn’t die with him. What they can’t recruit voluntarily, they conscript.”
“Here we go again,” Piran said with a sigh.
“Niklas has asked for additional troops,” Blaine said. “He’s running into problems on the northern border, bandits coming over the border from Meroven, and someone called ‘Nagok,’ who sounds like a warlord. We’ll be heading up there in a day or two.”
“Our spies think they’re more than bandits,” Penhallow replied. “We suspect the ‘bandits’ are scouting and raiding parties, and they’re carrying information—and supplies—back to a larger force.”
“We’re reasonably sure Thrane spent at least part of the time he’s been missing in Meroven,” Geir added.
“Meaning Thrane could be behind these raids?” Kestel asked, raising an eyebrow.
Penhallow nodded. “Not only behind the raids but causing trouble. I wouldn’t put it past him to have been planning this offensive since the Cataclysm. It would be like him to have recruited talishte supporters, added to his brood, found mortal allies—maybe even equipped a large force waiting to strike. Thrane has always been a brilliant strategist.”
Blaine felt a chill as the full import of Penhallow’s comment hit him. “Thrane equips a Meroven-based force to come across the border and cause a disruption, drawing off our army, so that our resources are tied up and can’t respond to whatever it is he’s really planning?” He ran a hand back through his hair. “But what is it Thrane wants?”
Geir shrugged. “Control. The freedom to do whatever he wants, take whatever catches his eye, feed without constraint. There’s always an undercurrent, a minority of talishte, who want to play god. That’s one of the reasons we had the Elder Council, to keep those talishte in check.”
“Some on the Elder Council sympathized with the predator way of thinking,” Penhallow added. “But with the persecution under King Merrill’s father and grandfather, they understood that giving in to lawlessness would have meant extermination.”
“And without that threat, they’re ready to flex some muscle,” Kestel finished.
“Exactly,” Geir replied.
“Some of the Elders sided with you,” Blaine said evenly. “If all of you—and your broods—worked together, can you stop Thrane?”
Penhallow and Geir exchanged a glance. “We have a plan—but we need your help.”
“Blaine’s mortal,” Kestel protested. “What can he do?”
“There’s an artifact that we believe might be able to stop Thrane,” Penhallow said. “Something called the Elgin Spike. It was crafted by mages long ago and used as a way to bring an end to the last talishte war.”
“What does it do?” Piran asked.
“It was created to destroy not only a talishte but his entire bloodline, too,” Penhallow replied. “Assuming that, after all the changes in magic, the Spike still works.”
“That’s a big assumption,” Kestel pointed out. “You know how many magical items ended up tainted—and downright dangerous to the user—because of the problems with magic.”
Penhallow nodded. “I know. I was around for a few of the more spectacular failures, if you recall. But if it does work, it could solve our Thrane and Reese problems in one blow.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Kestel asked.
Penhallow managed a wry smile. “Then we’ll have to come up with a backup plan.”
Piran let out a low whistle. “Damn. Got any magic swords lying around, just in case?”
Geir chuckled. “Not to my knowledge. But I can ask Dolan.”
“So assuming the Spike works, what keeps talishte from wiping each other out?” Blaine asked.
“That’s what made the Spike so dangerous,” Geir said. “And why after that war ended, given the damage the Spike was capable of doing in the wrong hands, it had to be hidden.”
“You’ve found it?” Kestel looked up hopefully.
Penhallow gave an enigmatic smile. “I hid it. Or to be precise, I instructed Arin Grimur to hide it for me.”
Blaine, Piran, and Kestel exchanged a glance. “The man we met in Edgeland? But he said he had been exiled!” Kestel exclaimed.
“He could hardly go around announcing he was safeguarding a secret talishte weapon, now could he?” Piran said with a smirk.
“The Spike had caused too many problems, and it needed to disappear,” Penhallow went on. “Grimur was weary of civilization, and was willing to be the Spike’s protector. We fabricated the circumstances that led to his ‘exile,’ and no one seems to have guessed the truth in all these years.”
Piran frowned. “If the Spike’s been hidden all this time, how sure are you it will work? I assume Grimur didn’t take it out and test it now and again. And how do you know Thrane hasn’t figured out a way to protect himself from magic?”
Penhallow shrugged. “We won’t know for certain until we try to use the Spike. Like any magical object, its power has limits. As for the other concern, I don’t think Thrane could protect himself from the Spike unless he was a full mage, and a powerful one at that, which he isn’t.”
“We’re going to need to go get the Spike—and Grimur,” Geir said. “And we’d like to borrow a few people from your team to do it.”
“Blaine can’t run off to Edgeland in the middle of a war!” Kestel protested.
Penhallow shook his head. “No, he can’t. But we do need someone who knows the people and the territory. Verran would be perfect.”
“Verran’s not a fighter,” Blaine said.
“He doesn’t have to be,” Penhallow replied. “I’ll be sending Connor—and the Wraith Lord will go with him, which makes Connor a wa
rrior with the Wraith Lord’s skills. We’d also like to send Borya and Desya, since they’re excellent fighters, and like Verran, they’re ready to be reassigned.”
“Who else?” Piran asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Zaryae,” Geir replied. “Her foresight could be essential, especially on the trip out. Kierken is a mage. It’s risky, but he might be able to use his magic when he possesses Connor. Grimur is also a mage. Nidhud will go as well, and along with Borya and Desya—and Connor with the Wraith Lord—they’ll have plenty of fighters. Since Nidhud is a mage as well, that makes three full mages and a seer. Verran should be in his element—working the crowd, reconnecting with the people who knew all of you when you lived there, making sure the team gets a warm reception.”
“We’ve secured the Nomad and a crew,” Penhallow went on. “The same ship that brought you back from Edgeland.”
“I agree with your choices,” Blaine said carefully. Through the kruvgaldur, he could feel how important Penhallow thought this mission was, and weighed that as he responded. “They’re good people with the right skills for the mission. And I can free them from anything they would have been doing for the fight here. But for a trip like that, you need to talk to them. I can’t make the decision for them.”
Penhallow nodded. “I plan to. But they’re your people, and I wanted to fill you in first. You might have had them on assignment.” He met Blaine’s gaze. “After all, you’re the most powerful warlord in Donderath, and the main commander of the war.”
“Verran knew nearly everyone in Edgeland, and most of them liked him,” Piran said. “That’s something you couldn’t have said for me.”
“Another good reason why you’re not an ambassador, Piran dear,” Kestel joked.
“Can you trust the crew?” Blaine asked. Verran and the others were friends, as close as family. The trip to Edgeland was more than a month long, and no matter what the time of year, the seas were treacherous.
Shadow and Flame Page 8
