TWOLAS - 08 - Stormed Fortress

by Janny Wurts

  Full meaning hit hard: that whatever Arithon might personally want, Bransian's men-at-arms must be left to make their own way. 'That's a damned raw consolation,' Vhandon commented, gruff.

  'But the prince is right.' Dakar shouldered the unpractised attempt to ease inconsolable pain. 'Sometimes there are no victims to save, and nothing is broken that should be fixed. What purpose is served? We cannot lose sight of the actual rift. Desh-thiere's malice lies at the root of this conflict.'

  'Unless Lysaer grapples the curse on his own terms, the same debacle will happen again, in another arena and on a field as unbearably tragic as this one. I must grant my brother the opening to stop! If he can,' added Arithon, although beyond question he was left aghast, and quite terrified by the necessity.

  'Then why were you arguing?' Vhandon bore in, cued by Talvish's tension, that Dakar's upset sensibilities were not yet laid to rest.

  'Ath above!' cried Arithon, goaded at last to exasperation. 'Like the man with his fist in the teeth of the tiger, you would taunt my temper and ask! Very well. Since this is not my picked battle to fight, our fraught disagreement arose over how I should take my safe leave of the citadel.'

  Vhandon caught himself gripping the trestle until his mailed fingers gouged wood. Dread rode him, roughshod, that Elaira's absence perhaps was a lethal mistake. He forced the issue, since no one else would. 'And the terms in dispute?'

  Dakar yanked at his beard with both fists. 'By daring to walk the unknown, past tried limits! Arithon wants to waken Alithiel again, in trust the sword's voice can stabilize his half-brother's compromised gift of royal justice. Which can happen but one way, that I can project!'

  Rathain's prince cut in, to side-step histrionics. 'By creating the perceptual appearance I've perished, we can blindside the curse of Desh-thiere.' As Talvish drew breath, he rammed over protestation. 'Jieret and I did this once, with success, to spirit me away from the war host in Daon Ramon!'

  Dakar shouted back, quite unmindful of Vhandon, caught in the vicious cross-fire. 'Never this! Not binding your consciousness under, with the sword's note of transcendent change aroused into actualized force! I touched that raised field for only an instant, and almost unravelled my earthly identity! You immersed for three days, and -'

  'Never for one moment did I stand alone!' Arithon pealed back through the frightened clamour. 'The living grace within that grand chord gave me back, hale and whole!'

  'From how near to the edge?' the spellbinder snapped, obstinate, 'You've told us straight out! You don't recall the transitional course that led you into that trance state, far less understand any step on the path that restored you to present awareness!' Horrified from his mage-wise perspective, Dakar slammed to his feet, smashing his chair over backwards again. 'This lies past my depth! And yours as well! We need Fellowship counsel for guidance.'

  'I am willing to stand on crown auspices and ask,' Prince Arithon agreed. If his hands, on the table, appeared quite relaxed, his lowered gaze refused Dakar's adamance.

  Vhandon recognized that evasion too well. Alongside Talvish, he saw the looming crux. The prince who was Masterbard was going to act. His risky endeavour would leap forward on courage, without guarantee that a Sorcerer would have the freed resource to back his appeal.

  Early Winter 5671

  Foil

  Midnight passed by before the last broadhead had been removed from the duke's arrow-shot wounded. Elaira roused from the close focus of surgery, blurred under the lassitude caused by extended trance. The shift from altered vision slowed her acuity as she washed her stained hands and fumbled the reach for clean bandaging.

  'No matter my dear.' The kindly voice at her elbow belonged to the raw-boned matron who served the garrison as master healer. 'My people can bind up that wound and mix possets. Let them handle those chores. You need sleep.'

  Eyes shut as her head swam, Elaira accepted the gift, beyond grateful. The man under her care was now stable. She could pause to ground her awareness. Her form seemed adrift in the cavernous gloom, the swept floor of the sail-loft crammed with makeshift bedding, under demand as a hospice. The lingering tang of tan-bark canvas and hemp rope wrapped the stilled air like a blanket, stitched through by the sweetening fragrance of herbs and the bite of burn salves and iodine. The smells whirled her dizzy, taxed as she was, and verging on feverish backlash.

  'Come away, lady,' the healer urged gently. A tactful, warm hand hooked her elbow, since the earnest staff bearing the remedies could not do their work till she moved.

  Elaira bowed to necessity, allowed the woman's spare help to rise onto her feet.

  'We'll give you a bed,' the healer suggested in mild remonstrance. Elaira smiled for her earnest kindness. 'Thank you, but no. I'll rest in my own quarters. I need only pack up my satchel.'

  'No cause for that' the woman assured. 'Your assistant has your things stowed in order already.'

  Surprised, Elaira stepped forward too quickly. 'Glendien's still here? But I dismissed her two hours ago!'

  The healer's firm grip saved her reeling balance. 'Then the forest woman knew better than to leave you to handle such menial labour!' The chiding acknowledged the rows of stilled men, eased and softly breathing, despite having been on death's door-step. 'I loaned the young woman a blanket. She will have napped as she waited.'

  Yet across the dimmed floor-boards, over-sensitized mage-sight captured the flicker of movement. Glendien was urgently coming to meet them, already wrapped for cold weather.

  Concern stirred Elaira's lagged wits. She tugged free of the healer's solicitude, and inquired, 'What's amiss?'

  For a second figure accompanied the clanswoman, one bearing the grim glint of arms with purposeful readiness. Blunt-cut grey hair and saturnine competence identified Bransian's prized field-captain, Vhandon. The honed faculties of a Koriani enchantress read trouble: that scarred, dead-pan face masked an anxious stride as the soldier flanked Glendien, and shoved the enchantress's outdoor mantle into her nerveless hands.

  'What's happened?' Alarmed, Elaira accepted the cloth, while reflex leaped outward, reaching for Arithon by empathic instinct.

  She encountered a barrier. A warding, laid down with shocking, stark force, that distanced her as a stranger. 'Beloved! What have you done? Why am I closed out?' Her inner cry strangled against that razed line, as desperate, she clamoured for access. Recognition slapped back in rebound: the boundary was none of his Grace's own, but a construct of the Mad Prophet's, founded upon the blood oath to survive once granted to Asandir.

  'You already know' Glendien surmised, a wrenching shift that forced displaced awareness back into the echoing sail-loft.

  'Know what?' snapped Elaira through shaken distress.

  Vhandon explained quickly. 'They mean to waken Alithiel. Then try the same binding that tied Arithon's spirit into the sword, to evade Lysaer's berserk chase in Daon Ramon.'

  'How long since the spellbinder crafted the wards?' Elaira pealed in breaking anguish. She pulled on the cloak, fumbling the clasp at her throat. 'Why in the name of Ath didn't you fetch me?' But the reason was obvious: the lives of the stricken men here had required her services, uninterrupted.

  Vhandon's smart reaction caught hold of her forearm. He steered for the loft stair, still talking apace. A carriage and pair were in harness to take her. 'Talvish got Dawr's coachman to handle the lines. Nobody matches his skill in a pinch. He'll have you across town in no time.'

  Yet that saving forethought could not speed their course until after the men at the lift platform brought her aloft from the sea quarter. 'Just pray we're in time.' Elaira managed the stair, shamelessly leaning on Vhandon's strength to steady her vertigo.

  Glendien trailed, the slung satchel of remedies chinking complaint at her hip. 'Are you sure that a Fellowship spellbinder's misjudged, and the Masterbard's tactic won't work?'

  'Don't be a fool!' Elaira snapped, white. 'Arithon's despondency over Feylind's loss has to colour the handling of his decision. Also, s'Brydi
on defenders are dying. He would act to disarm conflict soonest!' She finished, distraught, 'I trusted Dakar! Relied on his sense to stay my love's hand, at least long enough to be sure he'd recovered his wise equilibrium.'

  'The note in the sword ought to shield him,' Vhandon offered in stout reassurance.

  Elaira shook her head, weak at the knees in stark fear. 'Not today.' The exalted song was the unstoppable impetus that impelled transcendent change. She recalled the fierce allure of its promise. Too well: even the memory haunted, an echo to last all her days. 'In Arithon's aggrieved state of conflicted interest, the pure stream of that power could lift him too far to hold on to human identity.'

  Glendien still clung to impervious optimism. 'His Grace wakened the last time.'

  'I know how he came back!' Elaira corrected. Her voice caught, wrung breathless: she hoped it was just the shock of the icy night air, let in through the ground-level postern. 'My love reached the open gate to his heart. Dakar backed my appeal. He used the oath sworn to the Sorcerer, and on that blood binding, collected him.'

  Vhandon's care caught her missed step as she slipped in the alley beyond. Above the loft's buttressed roof, stars burned against a black zenith. The storm had chased off to a spanking north wind, that whipped loosened snow off the cornices. Someone shouted, ahead. More cries arose, past the chandler's warehouse. A company of men jogged past in tight purpose, then more runners, sprinting with flittering torches. The commotion increased, spurred by the moan of a horn-call. A bugle shrilled, nearer: three blasts for alarm, while a drift of oily smoke that reeked of burned hide swirled up from the breastworks, at the quay-side.

  'You'll be fielding more wounded,' said Elaira, torn sick.

  'The sea-quarter walls are under attack?' Glendien snatched at the satchel to protect the packed glass from the turmoil as they shoved through the trampled street.

  'Aye, lass! There's fighting.' Vhandon ducked through a side alley, either taking a short cut, or clearing them off the main thoroughfare to avoid a careening sledge, overburdened with barrels and stone-shot.

  From the left-side square keep, the jingle and thump of a chain-sling being loaded sounded across hurried footfalls. Then the whistling slam of another's release sliced a sergeant's barked call to span arbalests.

  'Inevitable consequence, after the strategic rock that Feylind's taunt pitched through the hornet's nest' The field-captain urged the two women to run. 'The harbour-side watch turrets have fallen. We'll be facing the same zealot sappers. The great horn's cried warning. Means the enemy's got galley-borne siege platforms also, nosing up for assault on our wharf-side battlements.'

  'You'll be needed elsewhere' Elaira insisted. The frigid air braced her. Exhaustion had become thrown into eclipse as they whisked from the by-way, and threaded the rush of armed men pounding down the next street. 'I can manage from here'

  'No.' Vhandon's spare glance scarcely gave her acknowledgement. 'You'll require my vested authority. The garrison will have cordoned the windlass platform. Under active defence, they'll demand check-point passwords. The lift gear gets fired if Sevrand's guard fails, and the Sea Gate bailey becomes overtaken.' He added, 'Come on! You're nobody's burden! My command post is rightfully topside!'

  The dash through the dock quarter ended, replaced by the slow agony of the exposed ride up the cliff-side. There, the wind's whistling thrum through the winch cables lashed every patch of bare flesh. Then the cruel chill was forgotten, as the overhead vista unveiled the Alliance assault on the harbour-front Oared warships thrashed in, their prow-mounted belfries lurid in the orange light. Ranged against them, fire-shot and smouldering oil arced over black water and broke, streaming cinders down the plank siege towers, swathed in their protective, soaked hide. Screams and cries spiralled upwards, cut by horn-calls and shouts, while the barrage of arrows and crossbolts whined more-ominous notes through the gusts. Under the massive sally, the dark teeth of the battlements seemed outlined in torch-flame, and the seething glints that were men, mere reflections thrown off moving armour.

  Vhandon's grim quiet defeated talk, and quenched even Glendien's saucy rejoinders. Elaira endured, tightly wrapped in her cloak. Despair squeezed her hollow, that no healer's skills could accommodate tonight's toll of maimed and war-wounded. Far worse, she might not reach Arithon in time to avert his rash plan. Shivering as the lift platform wrenched to a stop, she stepped off into Talvish's arms.

  One glance, and his lean hand cupped her nape, hiding her sudden tears against his mantle. 'You should never have been here' he said in strait pain. 'Though, Ath's mercy, there's nobody else can touch Arithon's heart and disarm his defences as you can.' A brief word of gratitude acknowledged Vhandon. Then he bundled her past the cordon of sentries and into the waiting carriage. Glendien managed a scrambling entry. Then the door slammed. The skilled coachman grasped the lines and snapped his tasselled whip, driving the snorting team into their collars.

  Elaira laid her head back as the vehicle surged forward, eyes shut and shallow breaths steadied. Use of her training reined in jagged fear and sustained her through the jouncing passage. When the carriage arrived, and Talvish jumped down from the groom's perch, she no longer required his ready support.

  Across the plank-bridge, with Glendien following, she rushed the staircase towards Arithon's quarters, braced for a fight, and prepared to match adamant force against Dakar's wardings. Instead, she confronted the shocking reverse: the doorway stood open before her. The fear blinded, that she was too late, with the ritual binding of Arithon's spirit already complete. Yet Kyrialt guarded the head of the landing, his unrestrained welcome unstringing her dark net of panic.

  'They chose not to go forward!' Elaira exclaimed. 'Has wise council prevailed?' Then, caught by the driving anxiety behind the clan liegeman's relief, 'What happened?'

  'The Paravian sword would not rouse for this hour's cry of appeal,' the young liegeman revealed. 'You are needed, if only to console the raw heartache left by that failure.'

  Elaira gasped, fuming, 'Consolation is not the course I have in mind.' She brushed past, with Glendien panting at heel to share in the thrill of explosion.

  Except Kyrialt's grip closed on his wife's wrist. No regret for brisk handling, he snapped her short. 'You, my most brazen, are not going in there! The Koriani mate's ripped enough to taste blood. While she goes for the throat, her man doesn't need such as you, whetting teeth for a lunge at his bollocks.'

  Before Glendien's protesting jerk could break free, Elaira slammed the strapped oak panel with a thud to bang chips from stone masonry.

  Inside the shut chamber, the light shone too thin, the flickering fish-oil lamp fiercely trimmed to spare fuel. What the low flame obscured, mage-sight must unveil through taut patience. Poised to one side, Dakar's defenceless misery would have caused his retreat, had Elaira's instinctive gesture not stopped him. Unwilling to apologize for duty-bound trust, he endured, his beard and screwed hair reflecting the strain on plump features.

  'Did you think I would shout?' Elaira snapped, saddened. 'Then your past choice in Halwythwood has taught you nothing!'

  She moved onwards, searching gaze shifted to the other stilled figure, found seated under the Mad Prophet's shadow. Arithon's wide-opened eyes met her as she reached the trestle where Alithiel rested, unsheathed. The black steel abided, its gateway to mystery opaque. The glassine rune inlay gleamed coldly quiescent, all prismatic rainbows muted. Like the blade's shuttered promise, the beautiful, bard's hands on the boards did not shift as, unflinching, the man accepted her furious scrutiny.

  'You saw no other way to spare Fionn Areth,' Elaira apprised at delicate length.

  The sigh of relief was Dakar's, released by the startling grace of her empathy.

  'No one else realized' he stated, gruff. 'At the outset, I didn't perceive that wretched angle, either.'

  Elaira found the bench, pulled the seat out, and perched. Her chilled fingers were too numbed to grapple the fastenings to shed her mantle. Bone-tire
d, and edging on sickness herself from the ingrained reek of dried blood and iodine, she swallowed. The straightforward ease of her honesty faltered, as she picked her spare words through like thorns. "The grass-lander's stubborn. He has not grown enough to concede that forgiveness does not demand punishment. We may have to accept that he can't be extricated. If not, our lapse in protection at this pass may not be accounted a failure.'

  'Your own heart would not rest,' Prince Arithon said. Nothing more. Yet the sure, fluid move that broke his stillness arose too fast to assimilate. Poised behind her, he slid his hands under and through her pinned hair and eased the wrapped braid from confinement. Beneath the fall of her crimped auburn locks, his touch mapped the wire-strung ache in her neck, then lightly shifted in a proprietary caress across the mantle that dragged at her collar-bones. The loop catch slid free. The burdensome wool tumbled onto the floor, replaced by his warmth as he straddled the bench and drew her shaking frame into his embrace.

  His dangling response stayed unfinished, until her head nestled into his shoulder. 'After all, you once left Fionn's fate in my hands. The right choice. I will not abdicate.'

  Dakar's leashed calm suggested an argument forced into simmering abeyance. Elaira tried anyway. The issue had to be thrashed over again, if only for form's sake, and despite the cruel culpability that her own oath-tied burden forced her to weather. She steeled for the course. 'What comes of your commitment if the goatherd's free will insists otherwise?'

  Arithon's clasped fingers tightened and held. "Then he chooses. But with the clear road to claim freedom opened and secured before him.'