Law of the Broken Earth: The Griffin Mage Trilogy: Book Three

by Neumeier, Rachel

  Bertaud was still in the map room when Jos hurled himself through the door, and still alive, which Jos had not expected; it must have taken Kes a moment to find him—well, she did not know the Feierabianden lord well and he had not been fool enough to call her name out across the winds.

  But she was there before Jos, even so. She was walking forward when Jos slammed open the door and ran in, panting in great heaving breaths. She had her hand out in almost a friendly manner, and Bertaud was not alarmed—or not alarmed enough. He was just standing there, not even backing away, far less running for the door—not that running would help; the air prickled with living fire. In a moment the house itself would blaze up, the maps and furnishings and the underlying structure itself, and Lord Bertaud would burn like a tallow candle at the center of that conflagration.

  Jos could not get enough breath to shout a warning, but Bertaud took in his precipitous arrival and then seemed to see for the first time the white fire prickling across Kes’s outstretched hand. He caught the edge of the map table and flung it over to block her way; worse than useless, for the papers caught fire as they spilled across the floor. Kes put her foot on the fallen table and stepped across it, so lightly it did not even wobble, but flames licked out across the wood—white flames, pale gold at the edges, burning with an intense heat that seemed likely to set the air itself on fire. Bertaud tried to shout, but the burning air drove him back, choking, his arms across his face.

  Here at the edge of the room where Jos stood it was not so unendurably hot, and so Jos took a quick hard breath and shouted, “Kairaithin! Anasakuse Sipiike Kairaithin!” His voice, rough and half-strangled with heat and terror, fell flat and dead against the brilliant air. He lunged forward over the burning table and caught Kes’s uplifted hand in his, dragging her back and swinging her around. He looked into her face, and he could not recognize anything he saw in those golden eyes. The fire that filled her burned his hand and arm, but to his astonishment she caught her fire back away from him after that first instant, containing it, so he did not instantly die for his temerity.

  Then Kairaithin came. The eastern wall went up in a fierce blaze, and Kairaithin strode out of that sheeting flame as though he were coming through a door and took in all that was happening in one swift, summing look.

  For one horrifying instant, Jos thought the griffin mage might simply lend Kes his own terrible power and rip fire out of the air through the whole house. Then his furious black gaze locked on Bertaud’s, and although the man was coughing and could not speak, all the flames flattened sharply toward the floor, flickering madly, and went out, exactly like candle flames blown out from above.

  “Kairaithin—” said Kes. Her tone was urgent, remonstrating. She stretched her free hand out toward her old teacher.

  “Kairaithin!” Bertaud said in a much different tone, though just as urgently, and tried to catch his breath through the coughing.

  “No!” cried Jos. He knew the Feierabianden lord meant to command the griffin mage to kill Kes—he knew he should even agree, he knew very well he should agree, but he couldn’t, not even now. He had not let go of Kes, not even yet, and now he jerked her back to put himself between her and Kairaithin. He shouted furiously to the griffin mage, “Get her out of here, get her as far away as you can, and keep her away! Don’t you see, that will do, that will be enough, if she isn’t there even that bastard Tastairiane won’t press through the pass without her—” He ran out of breath, coughing helplessly; his chest burned and agony radiated from his hand all the way to his shoulders and he knew, he knew he hadn’t said enough, hadn’t said it right, he’d never been a man with a gift for words—

  Then Kairaithin, with no expression Jos could read, called up a hard-driving wind right through the walls of the house, a wind shot through with wild darkness and rushing sand and flames, and that wind whirled all around them and swept them up, and the world tilted out from underneath them, and Lord Bertaud was left behind in the map room and the king’s house as the griffin flung himself and Kes and Jos away into the wind.

  CHAPTER 15

  Mienthe came back to Tiefenauer only weeks after she had left it. It seemed like years. It had been raining from the moment they had entered the Delta, but the rain ceased at last as they pressed through the last of the countryside toward the town. Mienthe put back her hood and straightened her back, looking up as the first sunlight of the day struggled through the heavy overcast.

  They were coming into Tiefenauer not from the east, but more from the south. The Arobern had taken them around that way so they could come up the coast road. “We turn only a little out of our way, and this road is better for marching, especially in the rain,” he had said, with no explanation of how he came to know the quality of the roads in Feierabiand and the Delta. “And we do not wish to come without warning upon the Linularinan troops in the town.”

  Mienthe had been surprised.

  “We do not wish to astonish and overwhelm them,” the Arobern had explained. “We wish them to see us coming so that they may back out of our way. If they do not back away, then we will overwhelm them.”

  But he had seemed to expect the Linularinan forces to retreat. Mienthe was surprised by this, too. After all, Linularinum had shown itself amazingly determined. The Arobern certainly could not look for any additional support from Casmantium, whereas the Linularinan forces on this side of the river must have everything they needed.

  “That is all true,” agreed the Arobern. “And Gereint Enseichen thinks as you do, that we may find Linularinum reluctant to give way. But, militarily, they must. This is all hostile country for them. Half the men all through this country are militia, or have been. We will have the favor of the countryside and the Linularinan forces only sullenness and flung stones.”

  It was true that the Casmantian king had asked Mienthe to go ahead and speak to militia officers at Kames, so they had acquired three good-sized militia companies. The militia rode under the command of the Arobern’s professional military officers. Their combined force now flew not only the spear-and-falcon banner of Casmantium, but also the oak banner of the Delta and the golden barley and blue river of Feierabiand. Until the Arobern explained, Mienthe had not realized that he had purposefully set all those banners up where they could be seen.

  And at first he seemed to be right: They met no stiff resistance, only from time to time they glimpsed Linularinan scouts or agents, and then as they pressed forward they would often find obvious signs of a larger force that had been encamped and had now withdrawn. A formal alliance approaching and a thoroughly hostile Delta population to press them: The Linularinan officers did not want to face that. They withdrew, and withdrew again. So there had been no fighting.

  “It may be different when we come to Tiefenauer,” the Arobern warned Mienthe.

  “It will be, if they haven’t found that book of theirs,” agreed Gereint Enseichen. He gave Mienthe a nod, but really he was speaking to the Arobern. “They might not wish to fight, but I think they will, rather than give up the town where they know it hides.”

  “They won’t have found it,” Mienthe had answered with confidence, but the Casmantian mage only shrugged, and as they at last approached Tiefenauer, she gradually became much less certain. She brushed damp strands of hair out of her face, peering ahead for the first glimpse of the city. The sun fought its way through towering clouds, and the woods along the road looked heavy, thick with green shadows. The shadows were ornamented by flashes of yellow and crimson where a flowering vine tumbled down a great oak or a bird darted past. Mosquitoes whined in the heavy shade, and sapphire-winged flycatchers dipped and wheeled in the complicated sky overhead. The horses’ hooves thudded dully on the packed wet earth of the road, and everywhere there was the sound of rushing water—it ran down the ditches on either side of the road and against the banks where the road had been built up through a slough; it dripped from leaves overhead and trickled through the wet leaves that carpeted the ground under the trees. Th
e reins were stiff and cold in Mienthe’s fingers.

  “It always seems to be raining when I come back to Tiefenauer after any time away,” Mienthe said aloud.

  “If it were in the mountains, it would be snow,” Tan answered with the ghost of a smile. He was riding at Mienthe’s shoulder, his customary place through all these long wet days. He seldom spoke now. His attention seemed to be directed inward. But he had perhaps seen Mienthe’s anxiety and so spoke lightly, to take her mind from her mood.

  Mienthe was not willing to be cheered. “At least that would be pretty,” she said. It seldom snowed in the Delta; usually there was only a cold gray drizzle for days on end. Mienthe liked snow. She thought wistfully of pretty, wintertime Tihannad. Up in the shadow of the mountains, there might even be snow this late in the spring. Bertaud was there now. As soon as she thought of him, she found she missed him terribly. Had he met his griffin friend again; had they discovered why the Casmantian Wall was breaking and how to stop it breaking right through? He must have heard now about the trouble in the Delta…

  It occurred to Mienthe, for the first time, that her cousin might possibly be riding for the Delta right now; that he might have come before them, he might even be there at this moment. She had assumed that he would stay close by the king, and that Iaor Safiad would avoid the Sierhanan road, and that they would meet Lord Beguchren at Minas Ford and Beguchren would stop them, exactly as the Arobern had planned. But what if—? And then what would he do, when he saw what Mienthe had brought home with her? If he had even made it to Tiefenauer on that dangerous road… if Linularinan soldiers hadn’t stopped him, hadn’t…

  “It’s a pity your lord cousin is stuck away up in Tihannad and won’t be waiting to scold us for our adventures and send for healers and hot soup and warm blankets,” Tan said, having evidently guessed the trend of Mienthe’s thoughts.

  “You don’t suppose… you don’t think…”

  “Never in life, Mie. Even if he’s settled whatever difficulty it is with the griffins, he’d never be so lost to sense as to take the Sierhanan road.”

  Somehow this reassurance seemed more decisive and solid when Tan said it aloud than when Mienthe only whispered it to herself. She nodded, feeling happier, and then at last they came around the curve of the road and the woodlands fell away to wet pasturelands and unplowed muddy fields and scattered farmhouses. Farther on, the farms gave way to the outermost sprawl of the town, and beyond that they could just make out the city proper, all washed slate and painted cypress and gleaming cobbles. It took a surprising effort for Mienthe to suppress the strong urge she felt to lift her horse into a canter and race down the center of the road, straight for the great house.

  That wild ride might almost have been safe. There was no sign of any Linularinan force. It occurred to Mienthe only after some moments that of course the Arobern had known the road was clear; he had scouts of his own way out, after all. She said tentatively to Tan, “Do you suppose the Linularinan soldiers have all gone back across the bridge?”

  Tan flashed her a smile that was only a little strained. “We shall hope so.”

  He almost hoped they hadn’t, Mienthe understood. Of them all, Tan was the least eager to arrive, while no one but she seemed to feel this driving need for haste. But… Trust your gift and yourself, Tan had said to her, and though Mienthe thought she was probably foolishly impatient, she looked for the Arobern so she could ask whether they might press their pace to something a little less deliberate.

  “We’ll make haste, yes, but slowly,” the Arobern told her. His tone was absent, but kind. He looked past her as he spoke, watching the road, watching the empty farmlands, studying the town they were approaching. “I thought they might get out and away across the river, but now I think they are there in the town, those Linularinan enemies of ours, you see? This country”—he made a broad gesture that encompassed the woods behind them and the cleared land near Tiefenauer and the town itself—“it is too empty. This is not peace we ride into, but a silence of waiting—ah. Do you see? Now we will find out what is there.”

  A small group of men had come warily up to the edge of the road to meet them. Farmers, Mienthe thought, and maybe a tradesman or two from the town. They stared at the banners, especially the Delta oak. And they looked at her, as the Arobern drew his horse up and waved a broad hand, signaling Mienthe to put herself in the forefront of the company. She was a little surprised, but only momentarily, for the militia companies were clearly pleased by his gesture and the waiting men as clearly reassured by it. The militia dipped their banners to her. Mienthe hoped she did not blush.

  The men stepped up on the road to meet her, nodding respectfully and glancing warily past her at the Arobern, waiting beneath the blue-and-purple Casmantian banner. Mienthe thought they would not recognize her, that they might not trust her, but instead one of the townsmen came forward another half step and said, “Lady Mienthe, you won’t remember me, I suppose. I’m Jeseth son of Tamanes. A glazier. I did the windows of the solar up at the great house for your cousin. That was some years ago—”

  “I do remember!” Mienthe exclaimed. She did. She recognized the man’s broad, weathered face and kindly eyes and short grizzled beard; seeing him here was like a promise of homecoming. She said, “You fixed my window, too, when I broke it.” She had been fourteen, and bent on rescuing a fledgling green jay that had got its foot tangled in the flowering vines outside her room. The poor creature had dangled helplessly upside down, cheeping piteously, but Mienthe had freed it easily. She hadn’t slipped and broken the window until its frantic parents had startled her, diving to protect their young one.

  “I did,” said the glazier, smiling at her. “You showed me the little bird, which the esteemed Iriene had just fixed its leg. You had a scratch on your cheek where its mama had pecked you, and lucky she hadn’t got your eye.”

  Mienthe blushed.

  “It’s good to see you safe,” said the glazier. His gaze went past her, to the Casmantian banner. “You are safe, are you, lady?”

  Mienthe blushed again, but nodded firmly.

  “Well, and it’s a strong ally you’ve brought trailing home at your heel. Which that is an ally, is it?”

  Mienthe nodded again and found her voice. “He is, and he will be—I was afraid to come back, afraid I would find Linularinan soldiers in Tiefenauer and Linularinan officers in the great house—”

  “So you will, and so we came up to warn you, seeing as you might want recent word of the town and the river,” said the glazier. He’d brought his gaze back to her face. “We’ve not known what to do, what with your lord cousin gone to Tihannad. Earth and stone, even if Lord Bertaud’s trying to get back here right this minute, who knows what he might have run into? We’ve no word from him and none from the king, and every one of your uncles pulling in a different direction. Arguing like a pack of fighting dogs with one bone, they are, and not one as will give way to the rest. And now here you are, lady, cutting straight past that whole lot and bringing a Casmantian lord home with you! That’ll make those Linularinan bastards sit up on their hind legs and take notice, and at the same time save a great lot of arguing among our Delta lords.” He gave Mienthe an approving nod.

  “That’s Brechen Glansent Arobern himself,” Mienthe said. She raised her voice and said to all the silent little group of listening men, “This is the Arobern himself, come as a friend to our king and to my cousin and to the Delta. He’ll push all those Linularinan troops back across the river, whether they’ve got the bridge decked or have to swim, and too bad for them if all this rain’s got the river up!”

  The men cheered and laughed, nodding approvingly. One farmer called out, “The bridge isn’t decked even yet, and let the lot of them be swept right out to sea on the salt tide!” and they cheered again.

  Mienthe nodded and smiled, but she also said, “Well, all the Delta will have to help. Neither the Arobern nor his men know the marshes or our town, and assuredly we want to clear out the L
inularinan troops as quick as we may, so we can polish up Tiefenauer and present it properly to my lord cousin when he comes back!”

  “That’s right!” said one man, and another, “Hear the lady!”

  “So tell our ally your news, and we’ll see what we have to do,” Mienthe concluded, and waved up the Arobern, who gave her an approving nod, swung down from his horse, and strode up on foot to speak to the men. He was bareheaded and informal, speaking quickly in his rough, accented Terheien, making farmers and townsmen alike forget he was a king and nodding now and then, respectfully, toward Mienthe.

  All along the column there was a general easing, men passing along flasks of watered wine and pieces of hard cracker. “We can do better than that by you,” one of the Delta farmers broke off to say, and spoke to one of the Arobern’s officers, after which a half dozen Casmantian soldiers and a good many Delta men went off down the farm lane.

  Soon after that there were loaves of good bread, and cold roasted mutton, and baskets of fried chicken and hot buttered muffins, brought by the farmers’ wives and by boys too young for the militia but eager to touch the vicious heads of real Casmantian spears. “Which we had word of your banners long since,” said one woman cheerfully. “And then my Tamed brought word of yourself, lady, and glad we were to hear that word! You’ll teach those Linularinan bastards they can’t take us so light, begging your pardon, lady.”

  Mienthe smiled and nodded and murmured whatever seemed appropriate and cast longing glances down the road. “Can’t we get on?” she begged the Arobern at last. The sun stood nearly directly overhead, and she found herself fretting like a caged bird with all the bright sky above calling out to her to fly.

  “We don’t want to rush the Arobern past what he thinks is wise,” murmured Tan, which sentiment collected approving nods from the Casmantian officers.