Roars of War: The War for the North: Book Two

by Sean Rodden

  “Tread carefully.”

  A slight cocking of the head followed by another seeming shrug from the man behind the noble neck of the mor-marran – the understandably indifferent response of a warrior who measured the accumulation of his martial prowess in millennia rather than in months. Forsooth, for each year the Heir to the Rock of Arren had breathed the air of Second Earth, the man in black could claim two entire centuries.

  “That your mother and I are acquainted should neither surprise nor rouse you, young sir. Surely you can comprehend that I have reason to possess more than a passing interest in augury, no? And of all mortality’s sundry sibyls and diviners and vaticinators, your mother is most potent and efficacious. Yes, I have sought the sight of the Seer Sarrane on several occasions, though admittedly not since your own entry into the Teller’s Tale.”

  Satisfied with that answer, Arumarron’s jaws loosened, and his eyefire abated.

  “Why have you come, Harbinger?”

  A little laugh, only slightly muffled by the silk of the man’s scarf.

  “So they are still calling me that. How unimaginative, no? One would think that they would have come up with something more interesting – or at least different – after a few thousand years.”

  “If they have, then I am not aware of it.”

  “The Horse Masters of Rheln call me a-Ahasiw. The Crow.” A pause like a sigh. Then a slight lowering of the head, as though listening to an inner voice, or hearing an outer one barely above the threshold of audibility. “But then, the crow is a herald of death in the traditions of the Rhelmen – perhaps not the best example of inspired inventiveness.”

  The young Heir frowned, his brows bunching as one deep in thought, or as one thoroughly bemused.

  “I am called Arumarron.”

  The scarf smiled once more. “I am Xiao al Khan.”

  The frown deepened, darkened to a scowl, as the unfamiliar sounds defied the range of the large lad’s aural perceptions.

  “Jowl Can?”

  A silken sigh. “Xiao…al…Khan.”

  “Shawl of Corn?”

  Silence. The shutting of silvery-brown eyes. Then –

  “Xiao. Al. Khan.”

  “Ah.” Arumarron grinned. “Zalkan.”

  The Harbinger’s chest heaved slightly. Through sheer force of his ancient and terrible will, he refrained from shaking his head.

  “Close enough, young sir.”

  The Harbinger mocks him!

  Quiet yourself, Tee-tee.

  How can I be any quieter? I’m talking in my head!

  Yes, but still –

  Still nothing! He can’t possibly hear me.

  I can hear you.

  You’re supposed to hear me, little brother. Not him. This Harbinger person is being mean. Nasty and cruel. He deliberately scorns Aru’s… simplicity.

  Your affection for the Heir impairs your judgement, Tee.

  My affection? What in the Teller’s Tale are you –

  Oh, now you’ve gone and done it. He’s heard you.

  Good! I’m glad he heard me. Now we have no reason to hide any more.

  Wait! Tee-tee, don’t!

  But the boy was too late.

  “She is with you, no?”

  Arumarron felt the girl’s presence at his back even as the man in black voiced the question. The Heir closed his eyes, his broad shoulders slackening as he shook his head – his posture was the very image of a groan.

  “Master Harbinger didn’t answer your question, Aru,” stated the young Heiress to the House of Mirmaddon. There was no petulance to her tone, but a certain affronted umbrage achieved only by teenaged girls. She folded her arms across her bosom, planted her feet a little more widely than was usual, and scowled in the manner of an older sister protecting a little brother – a role with which she was not unfamiliar. “Ask him again – why has he come?”

  Arumarron opened his eyes, looked at the man on the mor-marran.

  “A moment?”

  Smiling silk and a nod. “Of course.”

  The Heir to the House of Eccuron spun on his booted heel, and he was a tower of wrath. He returned his greatsword into its harness in one fluid, somewhat furious motion. He then advanced upon Tielle with his massive fists balled at his sides, his visage made dark and dangerous by ire. The girl awaited him calmly, arms folded, eyes widened in a cool exasperation all her own, her dimpled chin held high. Arumarron halted a solitary stride from the young Fiann, a titanic tempest of burning indignation.

  Tielle did not so much as flinch.

  “What in the Teller’s Tale are you doing here?” the huge Heir hissed, his breath like steam in the night as he leaned close to the girl’s upturned face.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” she whispered back, effortlessly matching Arumarron’s tone, cold for heat.

  “You followed me.”

  “No, I didn’t. I was already here. I just didn’t leave.”

  “That’s still following me!” A frown. “Kind of.”

  “No, it isn’t. And even if it was, I wasn’t following you. I was following… Turtles.” The Heiress paused, tilted her head grudgingly. “Who… was… following you.”

  “What?!” Arumarron placed his fists on his hips and leaned down yet further, bending sharply at the waist, his head bobbing slightly as he emphasized each whispered word. “Turtles? What is Turtles doing here? Why would Turtles follow me?”

  Tielle was about to reply when –

  Don’t look now, Tee-tee, but your beloved Arumarron looks exactly like a great big giant chicken.

  The girl howled with laughter.

  Arumarron blinked, straightened. Stared. That oh-so-endearing bemused look swiftly sweeping over and scrunching up his handsome face. He said naught, as he had no words. He could do nothing but watch as the beautiful young Fiann danced from foot to foot, hooting, whooping like a wildwoman, like there was no wrong, no ill, no evil at all in the world. No, he could do nothing but watch and listen.

  And, of course, join in.

  In the days, years, decades to come, Arumarron of Arrenhoth would frequently recall and occasionally relate that that was the moment when he fell in love with Tielle, daughter of Teillerian, Heiress to the high House of Mirmaddon.

  Some distance away Xiao al Khan, Imperial Weapons Master, last of the legendary saburau and Swordlord of the Dragon Emperor’s Draconian Guard, peered in wonder upon the two jubilant adolescents. Wonder and welcome.

  The man sighed. The silk smiled.

  Perhaps it will be different this time, no?

  And then he saw the boy.

  Chadh traipsed out from the night-fettered eaves of Galledine. He walked with the quick crisp gait of a determined child. His garb was plain and no rillagh adorned his breast, but his stride was proud and sure, almost princely. He approached the black-clad man upon the black-coated mount without hesitation, entirely disregarding the halting shouts of his sister and her funny friend.

  The man now called Zalkan waited in silence, watching as the boy neared, as he stopped, as he stared up at him with… with… those eyes.

  Wherein he saw a soul far older than his own.

  “He asked you twice,” said the boy. The young voice was soft, so very soft, yet somehow it penetrated both the armour and the shackles of centuries, and sent the Swordlord’s skin ashiver. “Twice, he asked, and you gave answer neither time. So answer me now, Master Harbinger – why have you come?”

  Behind the scarf, Zalkan’s lips parted, but neither word nor breath passed between them.

  “You do not answer,” Chadh half-whispered, “because you cannot answer. And you cannot answer because you do not know.”

  “I go where I am…drawn, tamashi shifuta,” the man revealed, his voice grating as though the words hurt his throat. “I rove and I wander, usually without purpose, without destination, no? And then a need overcomes me, an irresistible compulsion to go somewhere, to be somewhere in space and time – but I never know the place un
til I arrive.”

  “Yet you do know the direction in which you are drawn. Of that, at least, you are aware.”

  “Yes.”

  The boy felt Tielle and Arumarron behind him, assuming protective positions, each to a shoulder.

  “And in which direction,” Chadh asked ever so quietly, “are you drawn now?”

  The Harbinger hesitated, narrow eyes become severe slits of shining silver in bandages of black silk, reflecting, refracting, retaining a ray of lunar light that had pierced the night’s gloomsome cloak. He waited for the tightness in his throat and the pain in his chest to pass, but neither did, not completely, and even had they done so he would not have trusted his voice to tell it true. So he did not speak. But he did respond. And slowly, he raised one arm, his forefinger extended, pointing.

  South.

  South along the raised marble road. South toward the Grey Ladies.

  Toward the encampment, half a day’s march away, where two thousand women and children slept on cold stone beneath the bleak black stares of long dead heroines.

  The Watcher in the woods had seen and heard enough.

  Illuminated by the haunted eye of the silver moon, mirarran and rider burst from the outerbrush of Galledine in a blur of whitish-grey, surging southward, a flash of green wind and red fire in the slipstream of their going. Hard and swift they flew, away from what had been witnessed there at the Reach, away from the dangerous and disparate destinies being determined upon that dark rocky shore of the Dragon’s Tear.

  Away to bring word of the doom dogging the Deathward of the Lady Cerriste.

  The foursome – the Heir and the Heiress, the man called Zalkan and the boy named Turtles – peered in profound silence after the eager young warder of the Green Watch. They did not hail her, they did not holler for her to halt, they did not give chase. There was no need. They knew precisely where Watcher Chelyse was going.

  And they were going there as well.

  The Lady of the Fiannar launched a weary sigh and rolled her eyes toward the tent’s peaked ceiling. The thin canvas had forsaken the smoky yellow-brown shade of amber in favour of a more reddish strain. Ordinarily, the cherry glow of dawn seeping through the tough fabric of the tent would not have rattled the Lady, would not have even given her reason for second thought. But all was not ordinary that morning. No, not ordinary at all.

  “Our Seer has seen things that cause her to tear at the earth in her sleep. The one called the Harbinger hounds our heels. Even this tent virtually drips with blood. Tell me, cousin, what further sign do we need to convince us that we march into peril?”

  “I see no signs, Lady,” replied the Shield Maiden evenly. “Only coincidences. We do not know what Sarrane has seen. We do not know where the Harbinger is going, nor why. And red dawns are commonplace.”

  “Commonplace.”

  “Yes.”

  “Coincidences.”

  “Only.”

  Cerriste looked again upon the peaceful form of her sleeping son. Aranion’s breathing was deep and even, and something in his slumber had brought the curve of a small smile to his angelic face. Not quite the smile of happiness, but of contentment, acceptance. A similar smile touched the corners of the Lady’s eyes.

  “I will speak with Sarra, cousin.”

  “And I will have a discussion with the adventurous Arumarron when he arrives.”

  The Lady nodded. “I suppose we could not have expected the Heir to the House of Eccuron to remain idle and uninvolved once he had seen the stranger across the water.”

  “He is his father’s son.”

  “Oak tree. Acorn. Barely a finger’s width.”

  “Less, Lady.”

  “Indeed,” Cerriste said mildly. “Things were so much quieter when Gostullian held the Mastery of the House of Eccuron.”

  The Shield Maiden loosed a little grin. “Now you sound like my father.”

  “Oh?” The Lady met her cousin’s gaze and matched her smile. “You believe I merit that, do you?”

  Caelle laughed, a clear sweet sound that forestalled all fates and swept aside all sinister signs.

  “Leave the little Lordling to his dreams, Lady. The Green Watch will ward him well enough. Let us walk among the camp and bring these pretty smiles to our sisters.”

  The Lady of the Fiannar fluttered her fingers toward the glass globes, and the candles they held winked out one by one. She then reached out, placed a calm hand upon the golden rillagh yet gleaming across Caelle’s heart.

  “You are my strength, cousin.”

  “I am a Shield Maiden of the Fiannar, Lady. I am your Shield Maiden. Nothing more, nothing less. And you have sufficient strength of your own.”

  “Nevertheless, Caelle.”

  The Shield Maiden covered the Lady’s hand with her own. She then inclined her head, released her beloved Lady’s hand, turned, stepped through the front flaps of the tent into the ascendant allusions of morning.

  And gasped aloud.

  The Gardens of Galledine were bleeding.

  The sun was ascending somewhere in the east, but remained only an abstraction, an intellection, a thing more intuited than perceived. Heavy cloud, bloated with the threat of rain and the bleak memory of night, cast a great grey pall over the world, a dreary monochromatic shroud that sucked all colour from the earth, all colour from the stone and soil, all colour from the waters slapping tetchily at the shore.

  All colour save one:

  Red.

  Galledine’s canopy and understory and forest floor had been stained a stark and glaring scarlet, as though painted bright with blood. Leaf and needle, brush and bloom, all had synchronously reddened overnight, and now the foliage of the Gardens shone with an intrinsic and iniquitous radiance, gaudy and gory, oozing into the gloom of the nascent morn.

  The Shield Maiden stared. At her shoulder, the Lady of the Fiannar emitted a thin stretched sound. Their eyes reflected the Gardens’ befouled foliage like mirrors in an abattoir. As the encampment roused itself, startled women and children cried out and pointed, speaking in quick hushed voices, hesitant and horrified. Warders of the Green Watch swiftly formed the semblance of a defensive line between the bivouac and corrupted Galledine, the uncertainty upon their faces as naked as the swords in their hands. Agitated mirarra stamped and whinnied, lashed their tails and tossed their handsome heads. The waters of the lake lapped like laughter at the rocks.

  “This is certainly…unusual,” muttered Caelle, her fine brows knotted, her hand falling to the hilt of her weapon.

  “Unnatural, to be precise,” furthered the Lady. “The change has come too early, too swiftly, and far too simultaneously.” Her eyes narrowed. “Even the evergreens are become bloodied. There is wickedness and witchery at work here.”

  “Little witchery and less wickedness, sister,” came a third voice, soft yet sure, weary but strong. The Mistress of the House of Eccuron stepped from the side of the tent to the side of her Lady. The violescent rings in the Seer’s eerie eyes eddied in resolute refusal against a crimson tide. She clasped her spear to the rillagh at her bosom as though she was resisting the urge to hurl the weapon as hard as she could. “Galledine does this to herself.”

  Cerriste and Caelle looked upon their friend.

  “Why, sister?” asked the Shield Maiden. “Why would Galledine do this?”

  The Seer peered at the smitten Gardens, her fair yet severe face emoting both love and loathing. And at some length –

  “For our benefit, I presume.”

  “Ours?” The Lady scowled. “Of what possible benefit is this to us, Sarra?”

  The Seer pressed her lips together tightly, firmly, a pale thin line. “I do not know, Lady. But it is in my heart that this is intended as something of a caution – a caveat of a kind.” She paused for emphasis. “A warning.”

  The Lady of the Fiannar closed her eyes. A deep breath shivered in her chest. She reached out, touched Caelle’s hand. Her fingertips were cold.

  “Do you s
till see no signs, Shield Maiden?”

  Arumarron glanced sidelong at his new companion. The man was smaller, much smaller, than he had first seemed, but the seer’s sight of the Heir’s eyes saw an aura of incredible power emanating about him like a physical force, potent and perilous. The lad’s glance stretched into a stare.

  Zalkan endured the ill-concealed scrutiny with the patience of stone.

  “How did you come by a mor-marran?” Arumarron asked at length as they rode along the raised limestone shoulder that served as the road to the Grey Ladies. “One has not been seen upon the Miramarch in more than a hundred years.”

  The Swordlord exhaled softly through the black silk of his scarf. Mist silvered the night air before the glinting of his eyes.

  “I did not come by Kuroma, my young friend. Rather, Kuroma came by me, no?”

  Arumarron frowned. “How would I know? That’s why I asked you.”

  Behind them, Tielle failed miserably in the suppression of a giggle.

  The four rode the road between the Gardens of Galledine and the Dragon’s Tear at a leisurely pace, the Heir upon his massive stallion, the Heiress aback her lean filly with her brother’s skinny arms about her waist, the Harbinger straight and strong astride the beautiful black mirarran. Tielle’s attention was rapt upon the conversation of the two men – well, one man and a boy who was a man in all ways but years, at least in her mind. Chadh’s own assiduity was focused fully upon the jagged black shape of Galledine to the left.

  “We do not give the mirarra names, Zalkan.”

  “Nor do I, my young friend. Rather, Kuroma named herself to me, no?”

  Arumarron’s frown darkened to a scowl. Why does he keep asking me? “The mor-marran speaks to you?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  From beneath the tempest gathered at his temples, the Heir rumbled, “Do not be reckless, Harbinger.”

  The man in black stored his amusement.

  “We…communicate, no? Some among the diaspora and scattered scions of the fallen Elder East retain the ability to commune with beasts – horses, dogs, dolphins.” Another silky smile. “Dragon turtles.”

  “Indeed.”