Shattered Hopes

by Ulff Lehmann

  “Whose Horse?” Duncan Argram demanded.

  “Mine.” Muireall of House Killoy stepped forward.

  “Glad to see you are all right,” Argram said.

  “My youngest brother led them,” Killoy replied.

  “Any chance to ransom him?” Clywd Maglen asked.

  Killoy shook her head. “Fingol is on his way to the ocean now. He was the first on the bloody bridge.”

  “I am sorry for your family’s loss, Killoy,” Mireynh interjected, “but there are casualties in war, and when you followed his Majesty’s call to arms you should have been prepared for that eventuality.”

  “He was hardly of age,” the noblewoman replied. Was Killoy weeping? Anne wasn’t certain, but for a moment she thought she saw tears forming in the woman’s eyes. Duncan Argram snorted, and Killoy turned on him. “What amuses you, Argram?” she snarled. “From a leader of murderers and rapists one doesn’t expect compassion! But if you lost a brother it could also mean losing your father, from what I’ve heard!”

  Anne hardly saw Argram draw the sword, but suddenly it was in his hand. “Bitch!” the uncouth man grunted. “You’ll die for that!”

  “No one dies here tonight!” Mireynh shouted. “Argram sheathe your weapon!” Despite her misgivings, she had to admit the High General’s voice truly worked wonders on the feuding nobles. Considering that Callan Farlin had already been at the receiving end of Mireynh’s mercy, Duncan Argram quickly thrust his sword back into its scabbard. “Tonnoch!” the general snapped and the engineer stepped forward. “Tomorrow you will begin with the ‘throwers, so the fools get the fight they are itching for!”

  “The wood we have should suffice, sir, but we might need more for the castles.”

  “Then Lord Argram will certainly lend you the men necessary to cut wood, won’t he?” Mireynh glared at the noble. “Because if he does not I will have him and his warriors charging Dunthiochagh’s walls without ladders.”

  The troublemaker nodded curtly. “Aye, sir!” To the engineer he said, “How many?”

  Tonnoch was about to answer when a loud boom sounded through the camp, making maps, tankards, tables and people inside the tent jump briefly. The next instant the boom was repeated, amplified, glass shattered, and it sounded as if it was raining. Then Anne heard the pained screams.

  CHAPTER 20

  She was stuck in Dunthiochagh. The Baron had been adamant in his denial of her request to search the remains of Shadow Citadel. Was she really needed here that much? So far, the Chanastardhians had done nothing but light fires to thaw the ground. The general, Kerral, had explained that these were the positions for the siege castles. When she had asked him why they were preparing them this close to winter, Kerral had shrugged, saying he had no idea.

  On two occasions when she had gone to South Wall to look for Culain, she heard the far away hammering of axes and breaking of wood. There were so many warriors pacing and watching the enemy that locating her lover among the hundreds was impossible.

  With Shadow Citadel out of reach for now she had found distraction in the Baron’s library. Now the books and scrolls and maps were in order, and while cleaning up the mess she had discovered more detailed notes on how battlespells had been applied during the Heir War. What she hadn’t found were in-depth treatises on how to actually work such magic.

  It was Culain who had found her after his shift had ended, but tired as he was he sat in the chair opposite hers, snoring. Magic could have refreshed her body, and true to her word she had refrained from doing so despite the temptation. Now she wished she could rejuvenate them both. Putting down the scroll she had been reading, Ealisaid stretched and yawned. According to this last piece of information, the trio of Wizards that had defended Dunthiochagh had voluntarily gone to their deaths when Shadow Citadel had been destroyed. Magic, so the record claimed, had made matters worse in the world and the three had not wanted to be responsible for future destruction. Maybe, she wondered, they had been right. The hundred-year-old scars could still be seen to the north; the massive gap through the Shadowpeaks was not the only silent witness to the potential abuse and misuse of sorcery, but it certainly was the most impressive.

  From the open door came a hesitant clearing of the throat. She turned and saw a girl standing there, a worried look on her face. “Yes?” she asked.

  The blond servant curtsied. “My lord Baron demands your presence, Lady Wizard,” the lass replied. “Please follow me.”

  For a moment she thought of waking Culain, then decided against it. He looked so at peace with his head propped against the wall. There was one thing she could do for him. “Could you arrange for a pair of men to carry him to his quarters?” she asked, nodding toward Culain.

  “Certainly, milady,” came the reply, and the lass was in the corridor and headed for the stairs.

  Ealisaid hurried to keep up and was beside the servant as she mounted the steps two at a time. At the next landing, however, she stopped.

  “You really can work magic?” the girl asked in a hushed whisper.

  “Aye, I am a Wizard.” Apparently not everyone in town was worried about there being a sorceress in their midst.

  The girl considered for a moment then said, “Show me.”

  She had expected fear, worry, maybe even anger, but not curiosity. Why would this child want to see magic? Her vow not to cast spells unless ordered to was not lifted, but the bonds that tied her to obey had slackened since the illusion she had cast to make the Chanastardhians think South Gate was clear. “Why?” Ealisaid finally asked.

  For a moment, the child chewed her lower lip, and then said, “I can make things move, and I want you to teach me.”

  Taken aback, she stared at her. “What is your name?”

  “Ysold.”

  Ealisaid took a deep, steadying breath. “Does anyone know you can move things?”

  “Everyone can move things,” Ysold retorted, holding her hands up. “Everyone, my ma, da, brother. But I can move things with my head.” She pointed at her temple, and defiantly frowned at Ealisaid. “I don’t think you’re a witch. You don’t do magic and you don’t fly. Witches fly.”

  She knew if she started laughing now the lass would be too angry to return to her. Instead, she gave Ysold a grave look and nodded sagely. “Some Wizards fly, yes. But one does not need to fly to prove she can cast spells.”

  “Well,” the girl said crossing her arms over her chest. “Then show me.”

  This audience would be very critical of what she was about to do. If Ysold truly could move things by mere thought, she would also be able to force magic to do her bidding, sooner or later, which in turn made her a potential threat to everyone, including herself. The burst of energy would be brief and consume her in moments, but only the gods knew what else she would take with her. “Very well,” she said, and pointed at the lantern illuminating the landing. A quick tug in her mind, a thought of what could happen, and the magic did her bidding. The flame guttered for a moment, and then vanished, only to appear on Ealisaid’s pointing index finger.

  “Damn,” Ysold hissed.

  She snapped her fingers and the flame again flickered on the lamp’s oil wick. “Is that enough of a demonstration for you, dear?”

  “Yes!” the lass exclaimed. “But now I really wanna learn from you!”

  Running her hands down her face, rubbing her eyes, bought her a moment to think, but she already knew the answer. “If Baron Duasonh approves, yes, I will teach you.”

  Ysold beamed at her and bounded up the stairs, too elated to reply. She stayed that way until they reached a door guarded by two sentries. “I’ll wait here for you,” the girl finally said and stood straight.

  At least she had patience, Ealisaid thought, heading for the oak entrance. The soldiers let her pass after a cursory glance. She opened the portal and entered a brightly lit chamber. The noon gong rang across the city, and at the other side of the room she saw the Baron sitting at the far end of a great table.


  He waved her over and pointed at the chair to his right. The table was set for dinner. “Have a seat, Lady Wizard.”

  Aside from the attending servants, Duasonh and she were the only people in the big room. Ealisaid sat. “Thank you, milord.”

  Duasonh chuckled. “No, milady, I have to thank you. You allowed us to bloody Chanastardhian noses.”

  “I did what you asked me to do.”

  “How proceeds your research?” the Baron asked, coming straight to the matter for which he had requested her.

  “Not as well as either of us would like, milord.”

  “But you can walk around as a ghost, eh?” Obviously Duasonh enjoyed the lift of the rationing. He put half a chicken onto his plate and offered her the other half. “The hinterland is still free, so we might as well enjoy it while we can.” She accepted gratefully.

  “Yes, I can walk in spiritform,” Ealisaid replied, picking up fork and knife. “Why?”

  “They are building siege fortresses, at either road, but so far the only site that is really worked on, in terms of wood, is the one to the south. We can, however, hear their lumberjacks cutting down trees all over the place.”

  She listened and ate, nodding in understanding. The Baron wanted her to spy on the enemy’s lines and find out where the cut wood was stored. “Give me a moment, and I will find out where the wood is,” she said, leaned back and slipped into the spiritworld.

  Had she been able to, she would have scoffed at the uncertainty this sort of travel had aroused in her a few weeks ago. Now she was accustomed to the twilight shadows. South, Duasonh had said, and so she headed south. Since physical boundaries were of no real consequence it was simply a matter of thinking where she wanted to go, and she did so. She floated through and above walls, mere smoke here, and then across the city. From this vantage she saw the immense Chanastardhian camp, tents leaning into more tents, the reflections of warriors barely discernable.

  Ealisaid remembered a book she had read during her training, a year and almost a century ago. Elves—the writer had claimed—treated forests with respect because they were alive and longer lived than the elves. She did not know if trees had souls, but the trunks piled high behind a hill, out of sight of any of Dunthiochagh’s towers, seemed as if they were weeping. Maybe wood was alive and remembered how it felt before it was felled. If they were thinking, she pondered, wouldn’t they strike back? It mattered little; she knew where the logs were. A thought returned her into her body. Ealisaid opened her eyes and saw Baron Duasonh staring at her. “I know where the wood is.”

  “Great, but next time it’d be best if you actually stayed and listened for the entirety of my plan,” Duasonh grumbled. “I was in the middle of outlining the entire operation when I realized you were not really here.”

  She knew she was blushing, as she stammered an apology. “Gods, I’m sorry, milord. After sorting through and organizing the library, I needed to do something else.”

  “Well, eat up, and listen, because there’s much that needs to be done tonight!”

  She obeyed and listened.

  It was early afternoon when Culain found her in her chamber, floating bodily above her bed. Since that private meal with the Baron—the servants had left as she wandered the spiritworld—she had convinced herself the Baron was utterly mad. Still she did as he asked of her.

  “What the Scales are you doing?” he asked.

  “Flying,” she replied through clenched teeth.

  “I can see that, but why?”

  “Orders, love.”

  “And who is that girl outside chatting up the guards?”

  “My student.”

  “Your… what?”

  “I may teach her, if I can do what the Baron asks me to do,” Ealisaid said, forcing the words out.

  “And what, pray tell, is it you’re supposed to do?”

  She loved it when he became so anxious, and couldn’t help but giggle, which in turn broke her concentration and she bounced onto the mattress. “Shit!” she swore.

  “What the Scales are you to do?” he asked, hurrying to her side.

  “I’m fine,” Ealisaid said, pushing away his helping hands. Then, taking a deep breath, she said, “Sorry, I have to focus on a lot of things right now.”

  “What does he want you to do?” Culain insisted.

  “Oh, nothing too fancy.” She barked with a bitter laugh. “I’m just to fly over to the Chanastardhian encampment and obliterate their wood supply.”

  Culain, who had still been fussing over her, stood still, staring at her with wide eyes.

  CHAPTER 21

  Kildanor decided against returning to the Palace immediately. Instead he rode to South Gate. Aside from armed patrols and the occasional constable, Trade Road lacked people, though he knew the stream of refugees would swell again. Even the booths on Old Bridge were unoccupied, and in some places the wooden constructions had been disassembled to allow easier egress to either side of the Dunth. The houses he passed, whether to the left in the Merchant Quarter or right in the seedier part of town, were boarded up. Still, light showed behind nailed-shut windows; some warehouses even sported arrow loops for an owner to harass the enemy.

  At South Gate, General Kerral was busy watching the opposing side’s camp. In the growing murk of dusk, he wondered how the warlord could see anything at all. His arrival was greeted with silence. Two days earlier, Kerral had explained it was best to lure the opposition into a false sense of superiority. “They probably think their numbers have us frightened,” the general had said. In the rising mist that began to creep across the plain, he could hardly begrudge the warriors their sullenness.

  When he arrived on the battlement, however, he saw clusters of warriors hunching about ovens, dicing or playing cards. The small kilns were almost wind-proof, and their opening hatches and chimneys faced the city’s interior so that the Chanastardhians had a hard time spying those little islands of heat. The warriors talked in whispers, their chuckles hardly more than little gasps of air.

  Kildanor saw Kerral heading his way. The general stopped next to the hunched form of an archer, the woman’s unstrung bow resting in the cradle of her arms. A familiar pat on her shoulder, a few whispered words, and Kerral was again walking toward him. “I was just about to report to Duasonh,” the general said in a low voice when he halted next to him.

  “Anything untoward happening?” asked the Chosen. In the past week Kerral’s behavior had changed. Gone was the loud, arrogant oaf the man had initially been. Now, as Cumaill had remarked earlier, the general showed he truly knew how to lead, his discipline was impeccable, and his ease with the troops had already earned him the respect of the fighters from Dunthiochagh.

  “They’re still hammering away at their fortresses.” Kerral gestured south, where Kildanor discerned, in the rising fog, the dug-up rampart and wooden walls. “It’s slow work,” the general explained. “About an inch deep the ground is already nigh frozen, most of the branches from the cut trees are used for thawing.”

  “And the other two?” he asked. In summer the construction would have taken considerably less time, but with winter looming ever closer erecting the siege-castles was hard work.

  “Since they’re closer to the Dunth, getting through the ground is a bitch,” Kerral muttered. “Water’s frozen; the soil barely thaws at all.”

  Cumaill was busy dealing with smelters, miners, bakers and the-gods-knew-what else, and with Nerran gone north to block Shadowpass, it was the duty of the illegitimate son of a noble to strengthen the defense. Kildanor had declined the honor. He was no tactician, and as Lesganagh’s warrior his approach to battle was rather straightforward, which wasn’t really needed during a siege. “What about slingthrowers?”

  Kerral shrugged, removed his helmet and scratched his scalp. “Can’t tell what they are doing,” he said. “Since they have to get the wood from the hills a couple miles south they probably do the construction there.”

  “And since they ex
pected our gates to be wide open, they didn’t bring any heavy equipment,” Kildanor concluded.

  “Aye, that and with the frost, who knows if ‘throwers won’t break while they’re being fired.”

  There was commotion at the bottom of the stairs. Both men turned and saw the Wizardess Ealisaid, tethering her horse to one of the hoops in the wall. Maybe she had finally unlocked the secret of using battlemagic without burning her insides in the process, the Chosen mused as he watched her ascend.

  Reaching them Ealisaid inclined her head. “Good evening, good sirs,” she said.

  “Come to enjoy the view?” Kerral grunted.

  “Hardly,” the Wizardess replied lightly.

  There was a commotion behind her and she turned to see what caused it. All the warriors wore fur and wool cloaks, making any features nigh indiscernible, and it took Kildanor a moment to realize who was hurrying toward them.

  “Culain!” Ealisaid exclaimed.

  The man skidded to a halt, gave the fist-on-chest salute and then focused on the Wizardess. “Don’t do it, please.”

  “If the enemy attacks, will you fight?” she replied, a weary sigh escaping her lips. Obviously, they had had this argument before.

  “Of course.”

  “Why?”

  Kildanor caught Kerral’s confused look and shrugged. He was as unaware of any mission as the general. What had Cumaill planned for the sorceress now?

  “Because my lord Baron ordered me to,” the guardsman said, weakly, taking her hand into his. “But…”

  “No ‘buts’,” Ealisaid interrupted, turning away from her companion whose eyes were brimming with concern. Then, matter-of-factly, she said, “It isn’t wise to test battlespells inside the city; far more useful to do it outside.”

  “You think you have the answer?” the Chosen asked.

  “With the few resources available to me by means of my own library and that of Lord Duasonh, I think I was able to piece together something that might work safely.”

  “I heard you brought down two houses some time ago,” Kerral said. “Why don’t you do that again?”