by Brian Daley
Gil was thinking it over. Andre and Angorman were still determined to escort the baby and the sword to their final destination. But if Swan was going after the Hand of Salamá with a full squadron, Gil no longer needed his companions. He’d be content with those odds; if Bey were caught here in Glyffa, Gil MacDonald meant to be there.
“All these things were best done as soon as may be,” Andre was saying.
Gil told him, “I’m going after Bey.”
“You have seen our charges into friendly hands, where they belong,” Angorman announced, “and you go now to chase their enemy. You are no longer bound to us by the Faith Cup, therefore.”
“Thanks.” As if that’d stop me! He went off to collect his gear. On his way back, he remembered Ferrian. Asking around, he found his way to where the Horse-blooded lay in bed, leg bandaged. In his lap was a book. Gil told the former Champion-at-arms what had happened, then asked how he was.
“I shall survive, and walk again. There may be a limp, the Sages tell me, but a Horseblooded’s feet are only for stirrups anyway, is it not so?”
Gil left the subject. “When you leave Ladentree, you’ll have to figure out what to do by yourself. If I can, I’ll come back this way, so leave word.”
“I shall.” Ferrian swept his hand at the shelves of books. “There are worse places to convalesce. How many days and nights would you have to listen, how far would you have to ride, to gather the wisdom that is met here?”
Gil admitted he didn’t know.
“Exactly! Strange for a Wild Rider to say, but I have come to love the elderly mustiness here. Thus, mending will be quick.” His face was luminous, but then lost its rapture. “Gil, Andre has told me of your Berserkergang.”
Gil’s features clouded; the Horseblooded hurried on. “That was less a betrayal than it seems. It was, in part, for fear that Dunstan’s fits of the Rage had passed to you that Andre wanted me in the traveling party. I am Dunstan’s kinsman, you see; the wizard thought I might be of some help. But all I can lay forth is that Dunstan had the seizures of his father, though he could often channel and control them.”
“Does it mean Dunstan’s alive?”
“There is good chance of it, aye.”
“Then, I’ll find him. Be seeing you when you’re up and around.” They traded grips. Gil left Ferrian bent over his book.
The Trustee, Andre and Angorman were back on their horses. They made quick good-byes, then the deCourteneys’ mother turned to Gil. “You are not unimportant in this. Kindly consider your every action accordingly.” She called to Swan. “High Constable, what was that you did say in my tent, two nights gone? My legacy will be human weal?”
“And your name will live forever,” Swan finished in subdued voice. She withheld her concern, that her Liege was overtaxed. The Trustee took the thought with her, lifting her Crook. Half the Sisters of the line wheeled into ranks and followed her away smartly, banners popping on the breeze.
With Swan’s contingent readying for speedy departure, Gil stepped inside to fetch his baggage. His steel cap had been dented. He’d dug out the wide-brimmed, weather-beaten hat Brodur had given him in Earthfast; he’d wear it for shade and protection until he could find another helm that would fit him.
Silverquill came to say good-bye. The American tried to apologize for his rudeness; the savant set it aside. “I hope your way is clear, your hardship small. I have no proper leave-taking gift for you; accept, if you will, this token, to say there is no resentment betwixt us two.” He handed the other a writing plume, silver-tipped for his name’s sake. Gil thanked him. Silverquill went off about his duties, and the younger man took the plume and pinned up the left side of his hat brim with it.
Swan appeared, pulling on gauntlets. She wore a baleful look; he asked what was wrong.
She eyed him ruefully. “The Trustee took me aside for a moment. She said my lips are puffy.”
Then she broke up. They roared together, out of the sight of the Sisters of the Line. Making himself straight-faced for the ride, he began to think what life could hold if he lived to see the Hand of Salamá die.
Chapter Thirteen
Bright star! would I were as steadfast as thou art!
John Keats
“Bright Star”
WYVERN Boulevard was alive again, decked for celebration. Deliverance had come to Veganá.
For months the city of Midmount, capital of the country, had been somber in its captivity. Today a parade of triumph marched down the boulevard, through myriad flower petals drifting down from its balconies. People crowded twenty deep at either side, screamed, laughed, wept, hugged one another, waved pennants and hailed the captains or lords they recognized, scanning the ranks hopefully for the face of a loved one. Panegyric songs filled the air, many of them to Lord Blacktarget, propagated by his own advance guard. Occhlon banners could be seen, trampled and burned, in the gutters.
Weeks of sharp clashes had dislodged the Southwastelanders from resolute positions just south of the Glyffan border. The returning army of Veganá and the Sisters of the Line, fueled by shattering wins to the north, had sent the desert men reeling in one onset after another. Their numbers had swollen with militiawomen from liberated regions of Glyffa, and Veganán men freed from the southern yoke. These had been the most aggressive fighters, out for redress.
The Southwastelanders had been thrown out of central Veganá. Crows had circled, blotting the sky, awaiting a rare feast. Shrewd gray wolves skulking in the hills had licked their white chops, knowing their time would come. The Occhlon had lost nearly fifteen thousand men since the cream of their army had marched north to screen Yardiff Bey’s stealthy mission to Ladentree.
Lord Blacktarget led the parade to a halt before the temple of the Bright Lady, lifting his hand to the cheers. He raised Blazetongue aloft, and Woodsinger held Cynosure. Veganáns were not far from a happy brand of hysteria.
After the general came the Trustee, who’d actually directed the campaign, with Andre deCourteney and Angorman, both risen as commanders in their own right. The crowd pressed in against their honor guard as they dismounted.
The temple reared above them, largest in the Crescent Lands; late-afternoon sun splashed from its gilded domes. Atop the front steps stood its archdeacon. When they came up, he kowtowed. “All praise for this day. I will take charge of the babe; she goes to the keeping of the temple virgins.”
Woodsinger didn’t move. “It is not yet the time for that,” the Trustee said.
Lord Blacktarget became incensed. “Come, madam, your prerogatives do not run to this.”
Patiently, she explained, “There is more to her homecoming than that. Prophesies must be observed, a Rite performed.”
Their uneasy alliance was close to fracture. He’d never liked taking a secondary post to hers, and no longer needed to. But the archdeacon said, “If the Trustee refers to the child’s Vigil, that would be commensurate with custom. Cynosure is, after all, the last of the Blood Royal.”
Blacktarget yielded one last time. At the foot of the steps, a Glyffan captain let herself breathe; the call to arms hadn’t been far from her lips. Her Liege had been specific; nothing was to keep the child from her Vigil. Woodsinger gave the child over to the archdeacon.
Andre, Angorman and the Trustee accompanied the old churchman inside. Lord Blacktarget insisted on coming too. Climbing from stairway to stairway, on stone worn away by ages of footfalls, they made a winding ascent to the little chapel where only royalty of Veganá held ceremony. Its walls and roof were all of glass roundels, like distorted gray lenses, that created an eerie half-world as the sun set.
The new monarch must, by tradition, stand a night-watch. For the first time in generations it could be done, as it was supposed to be, with the ancestral sword. Usually, the Vigil was kept in solitude; tonight was the most singular exception in Veganá’s history.
The chapel’s altar was a waist-high cube of jasper. Inset at its center was the emblem of Cynosure’s house,
a wyvern picked out in gold on a black field. A short rod supported the crescent moon of the Bright Lady over it. The archdeacon set the baby down between the sparkling claws of the inlaid wyvern, then went away, having discharged his duty.
The others knelt or took seats on low divans. Andre removed the rod and in its aperture he stood Blazetongue. The child made no sound, attuned to the moment. “That is a liberty to take,” commented Blacktarget, “with a sword not your own.”
“Yet he has, by rights, some ties with it,” the Trustee observed, “for it was forged by his grandsire, my father, for a King far back in Cynosure’s line.” The general was incredulous. “Yes, Lord Blacktarget, our magic is there, and far mightier enchantment besides, though Andre never knew any of that until I told him. Blazetongue is a vessel of the Bright Lady’s energies, and complies with her still. Did you think it came into my hands at random? There is transcendent purpose to it all.”
“What do you hope for, from it?” Lord Blacktarget snapped.
“The keeping of a promise given long ago. The Celestial Mistress brings many threads together tonight.”
They were closeted with their own thoughts. Andre fretted about Gil MacDonald, and wondered, too, how things boded for Springbuck, for Reacher, Katya and Van Duyn. He said a prayer for Gabrielle.
The stars appeared, warped and rearranged by the roundels. The crescent moon rose, magnified in the roundels, hanging over Cynosure and Blazetongue. The Trustee watched it carefully. Angorman chanted softly to himself, Lord Blacktarget halted his devotions. Andre simply waited.
Blazetongue came to life in this appointed moment; it had no ruinous flames to spew, but rather a blue aurora that made them shield their eyes, and a high-pitched humming, music of the spheres. All of them knew their deity had come.
Angorman was about to raise his voice in praise. The Trustee shushed him and stepped to the altar.
Her arms lifted imploringly. “We are assailed, hard-put even as we were long ago. One great portent must we have, to lift hopes, and set hands against the Masters. We look to your promised Omen.”
The humming grew louder, Blazetongue’s aura more brilliant. The baby didn’t seem to mind at all. Monarch of Veganá, she’d been born for this, an hour implicit in Blazetongue’s forging. Among the crowds keeping their own nightwatch in the streets below, a shout went up. They’d marked the glass-walled chapel’s radiance.
The Sending subsided. Andre took his hand from his eyes. Cynosure was quiet, and Blazetongue dark. Angorman cried, “See!”
In the sky hung an awesome Sign, a comet stretched down through the firmament like a sword, the fiery head for its pommel, its tail aimed directly down where Shardishku-Salamá wove its spells. It outshone the moon, planets and stars, making night more like day.
They rushed out onto the balcony. Angorman and Blacktarget offered up thanks to the sky; Andre and his mother hung back. “What visitation is that?” voices called from the streets. Others answered, “The Trailingsword! It is as in days of long ago!”
“You see?” inquired the Trustee. “The old stories survive. Everywhere, there will be those who know the tale. Seven times seven days after the first Trailingsword appeared, our decisive battle was fought, where its tail pointed us.”
“Did Bey know this would happen?” Andre asked.
“Suspected it, I should think. Still, he ignored it in his plotting to get the thing he sought at Ladentree; that disquiets me. Now the sword has rendered the second of the two great services for which it was created, and they are complete, though Blazetongue may render a final aid in its unmaking.”
“I will remember,” he promised. She was sharing what knowledge she could with him because all lives would soon be in danger again.
“Your prowess has increased, Andre,” she remarked, “but that is a mixed gift. It says more arduous burdens shall be laid upon you.”
“I welcome that. I owe Salamá no less than does Gil MacDonald. This Omen suits me well.”
Across the Crescent Lands, men and women peered at the sky. The Trailingsword gleamed, and timeless tales came to mind, of the Great Blow and the last defense that was made there where it bid its supporters to rally. At every latitude it appeared the same, urging them toward Salamá. Seven times seven days was the measure of its time. There would be those who would ignore it, and those who would oppose it. But for many, it was a morsel of hope in desperately hungry days.
PART III
Children of the Wind-Roads
Chapter Fourteen
But pleasures are like poppies spread—
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed…
Robert Burns
“Tarn o’ Shanter”
YARDIFF Bey was making for Death’s Hold. His trail, read by astute Glyffan trackers, made no secret of that.
Swan shook her head in perplexity. “The Mariners gutted his fortress with their sea-and-land assault. There is only smoking rubble there; how can Bey hope to profit?”
A woodcutter, dwelling near the roadside, said she’d heard riders gallop by in the night. Gil tried to guess how much lead that gave the sorcerer, as Swan stepped up the pace. Stopping the occasional traveler, they met no one who’d seen Bey.
They’d covered twenty-five miles on rutted roads, much tougher going than the Western Tangent, when darkness forced them to halt, the trail no fresher than when they’d taken it up. Swan considered going on by torchlight, but feared that the way would be lost or their pursuit misdirected somehow by the Hand of Salamá. He might use such minor magic, though it chanced detection if the Trustee were near, and tricks like that were far more likely at night. Too, the horses must rest.
When he’d unsaddled Jeb, Gil made his way to Swan’s spot in the bivouac. She’d dispensed with her tent, making do with a tarp set up as a crude lean-to. He found her in a huddle with subordinates, naming relief commanders for the night’s guard. Maps were spread before her in a lamp’s glow. All faces turned to Gil, then Swan.
“Yes?” she asked in neutral tones. She was all High Constable now, intent on her work. He saw he’d intruded, remembering how he’d hated people looking over his own shoulder. He excused himself and went off to sleep, curling at the base of a tree some distance from the Sisters of the Line.
The first relief had yielded to replacements when he woke to find her by his side. She slid into the warm cocoon of his cloak, adding her blue cape to their covers. They made wordless, exigent love unconnected, he knew now, with what they might do or whom they might be by daylight. He was, as she had called him, her exemption; in a way not wholly different, she was his.
Lounging afterward in the tangled clothing, the mingled aromas, the sudden heat that left them with less regard for that warmth mere cloaks and capes provide, he apprehended that areas of mutual consent had been defined. They slept in each other’s arms, and just after the last relief came on, she rose and went off, picking her way surely among recumbent cavalrywomen. The squadron departed in first light.
On the second day of the chase, they had word from two men, cowled Sages on their way to Ladentree, that confirmed their route. The Sages said ten mounted men had passed them the preceding day, bearing westward in haste. The savants had been surprised, but assumed them to be outland allies. The gap between hunters and hunted hadn’t closed at all.
“Squadron’s too slow,” Gil opined. “If we drop the heavy cavalry we could catch him.”
“With less than a company of light horse,” Swan pointed out. “We are going into unpoliced territory, where he may have arranged for reinforcements; my instructions direct me not to be drawn out headlong. There will likely be traps; so says the Trustee.”
Though they were south of her own Region, her blue cape and flashing, winged bascinet gave Swan clout. Despite that, there were no fresh mounts to be had, the country having been stripped of every worthwhile horse for the Trustee’s army. The fact cut both ways; the sorcerer wouldn’t be able to obtain remounts either.
The c
hase stretched into grueling days and exhausted nights. They strained their eyes in dazzling sun and saturating, dispiriting rain, hoping the next hill would bring sight of the Hand of Salamá. It never did. Gil didn’t see how the horses of the sorcerer’s party could endure it. Jeb Stuart and the Glyffans’ were close to the limits of their means to comply. Swan thought magic might be involved. Wolfing rations, sleeping and other amenities became major luxuries, infrequently enjoyed. But the merciless pursuit didn’t keep Swan from coming to him when responsibilities permitted. Both were amazed at how little fatigue mattered when, together, they were enfolded by the night. If Swan’s subordinates knew of the affair, none gave any sign.
But after a time they began to narrow the southerners’ lead. The spoor grew fresher, Bey’s brief campsites more recently abandoned. The day came when the hunters followed the Wheywater River around a bend to see Final Graces, once a trading port, deserted when Death’s Hold, downriver, had revived its menacing activity. No Glyffans had yet re-entered it. The tracks veered that way, rather than on along the river bank road toward Bey’s onetime stronghold.
Swan had expected to find no one there, but over the little cluster of rooftops inside its wooden stockade, they saw two masts, sails furled. The gates were closed; the trumpeter blew a fanfare while the squadron deployed itself along the wall. There was no reply; the High Constable had the call repeated.
A face appeared at the wall. Gil had the Browning out, hoping it would be Bey or one of his men. He was disappointed; he gradually recognized Gale-Baiter, the Mariner captain who’d intervened to rescue Brodur and himself in Earthfast.
“What would you?” demanded the captain.
