Stormed Fortress

by Janny Wurts

  To everyone’s shock, the youngest brother s’Brydion slapped his thigh and exclaimed aloud. ‘Don’t you! By the balked Spear of Dharkaron’s vengeance! I’ve just won a smart stake from Parrien, for that. When we argued the point, he stuck in his toes. Claimed that your half-brother’s fanatics would toss you to perdition, beforehand!’

  Arithon absorbed this, undaunted. ‘Was that before, or after, he needed four guardsmen as backup to thrash me aboard your state galley?’

  Mearn looked affronted. ‘We’re all sore losers. That’s an inbred tradition, with Bransian frothing at full cry ahead of the family wolf pack.’ That exigent point made, he shoved Dakar’s obstructive person aside. ‘I can’t claim my winnings before I’ve thwarted the ducal order that’s hell-bound to skewer your royal embassy. If we don’t leave now, my brother’s henchmen could stick their butchering swords in ahead of me.’

  The fore-promised armed escort rammed into Mearn, who brazened through his insistence on blood precedence. Peeled down to rank-and-file skin by sharp insolence, the guardsman who led the troop of twenty fell into grim step behind. His men did not disperse, a forceful assurance the prince they had summoned would not evade his formal audience.

  The knowledge their charge was both Master of Shadow and fully initiate sorcerer chafed their already ragged nerves. Troops elsewhere might see their edge dulled by the storm. But not these: Arithon’s passage through the grey, windy streets was briskly staged inside a tight phalanx. Too many unsettled fists fingered weapons for anyone’s peace of mind.

  The matched tramp of feet in hobnailed boots cleared the way and scattered the bread-carts and maidservants. Awnings flapped, and signs creaked, spilling fringes of water, with the puddles brimmed over to frothing currents that gushed down-slope, and spouted out of the culverts. Beyond ominous weather, the hearing would not occur in the genteel hall, built above the upper citadel’s practice floor. Instead, the duke waited in the high keep commandeered as his war room.

  ‘No good sign,’ Mearn related amid breathless haste, ‘though he can’t throw you out. The top floor has only loop-holes for arrow-slits.’

  ‘That chamber?’ Dakar spat through his soggy moustache.

  ‘You remember the place?’ Mearn flashed his most wicked, triangular grin. ‘Where Bransian likes to interrogate spies, and once put the lash to a watch captain whose faulted duty was later proved innocent?’

  Dakar planted his feet and rolled brown eyes in desperate appeal towards Arithon. ‘Avoid this! I don’t care what powers you think you can wield. You’re stark mad if you face off against Bransian, four stories up in a guarded tower.’

  Arithon said, too reasonable for a man being pummelled by ice-water, ‘If I press your obstinacy with this escort, we’ll have drawn steel in the street. The duke’s owed the courtesy,’ he added to Mearn, who let the balked captain resume the forced march.

  The downpour at least deterred needless onlookers. Past the storm-shuttered forge, and the fletcher’s, where a shivering boot-black hunkered beneath a niche doorway, the spellbinder lapsed into moribund silence.

  The keep loomed ahead. Its slot-narrow archway funnelled the front ranks into single file. Arithon was herded behind, with Mearn weasel-quick at his heels. Dakar had to pause to twist his bulk sideways, to clear the opening without losing his buttons. The lag let the near men-at-arms close in step and deny his free passage.

  ‘Duke’s orders!’ one snapped, an ornery bear who was stupid enough not to cringe from a Fellowship spellbinder’s arcane abilities.

  Before trouble erupted, Arithon flung back his demand to stand down. ‘Dakar, not here! If I can’t hold my ground before Bransian s’Brydion, no power you carry will signify.’

  Ever since Talvish released his report, Duke Bransian had been pacing. His volatile nerves meant his wary retainers had twitched themselves dizzy, tracking his circles. The only man spared kept his poised watch at the arrow-slit, one eye trained against the damp wind. He currently peered down at the helms of the escort, clustered four stories below. As planned, the corpulent Fellowship spellbinder was being detained: abusive language from the stews of five kingdoms knifed upward through the pounding rain.

  Impressed, the man-at-arms signalled his duke, that, per dispatched orders, the Mad Prophet had been shut outside. He withdrew from the draught, which spat beaded moisture on his greased mail, and reported, ‘The Teir’s’Ffalenn’s coming alone, but for the one snag: he’s brought Mearn.’

  Bransian rounded. Gauntleted fists braced upon the oak table, with its tactical map and stacked counters, he declared, ‘Mearn’s a rank busybody. Got himself born with his sniping nose poked in the dark end of everyone’s business.’ The carping was cheerful, an ominous sign: since the day of Arithon’s blistering leave, served in brutally stark ultimatum, the duke had fumed, between prayers to Dharkaron, awaiting his chance for a rematch.

  ‘Has the chirping cockerel dared to come armed?’ Granted a nod from his posted observer, Bransian laughed. ‘Then bring his Grace on! The hour is mine, for the field-day.’

  The Masterbard would rankle nobody with his silver-tongued liberties, now. He could not claim a free singer’s courtesy. No women were present to foster his cause, and Dame Dawr’s unimpeachable patronage did not shield his caustically elegant back. Arithon trod on s’Brydion turf, without the due grace of an invitation or the decency of an apology.

  The brisk pace of the entourage echoed up the stone stair. Duke Bransian rubbed his palms to a rasp of plate gauntlets. ‘Bring him on,’ he repeated, and smiled, a scarred lion licking his teeth.

  When the Prince of Rathain topped the landing, Alestron’s duke sat in his formal chair, not astraddle the back-facing seat, his preference for mild confrontation. He wore a state surcoat. On his chest, against scarlet, the rampant bull of the s’Brydion blazon glittered in warning gold thread.

  By contrast, Arithon eschewed formal dress: an unbleached shirt and the weathered, black leathers acquired for hunting in Selkwood. He was as soaked by the rain as the rest. Davien’s gifted cloak remained with Elaira, the better to free the swept hilt of his sword: not hung at his hip, but borne in a shoulder-slung scabbard. Against his woods tan, flushed by the sharp wind, his eyes seemed too vividly green as his step passed over the threshold.

  He crossed the close chamber. Paused before the table, with Mearn at his heels, and the four armoured men, positioned to cut off the doorway. The aggressive show twitched a slight curve to his lips that might have strangled amusement.

  Or not; his demeanour suggested a watchful sobriety that eschewed the impulse to speak.

  Bransian also was loath to break the unsubtle silence. He did not rise but allowed the savage pause to leach away self-assurance. If not Arithon’s, then at least Mearn and the guardsmen might succumb to the pressured unease. Any small upset to whet the taut atmosphere and chafe at his visitor’s poise. The keep was kept cold, which left the petitioning party immersed in a drenched state of misery. The duke and his stationed guards lounged at ease, prepared to let patience work for them.

  A minute passed, two, while the wind outside breathed inclement gusts through the arrow-slits. Mearn ground his teeth, since his brother’s crass tactics were not apt to rattle an initiate sorcerer’s dignity.

  Yet Arithon had no reason to prove his aplomb. He inclined his head, hands clasped in plain sight, and opened the fraught conversation. ‘Make no mistake, I’m not here for your city’s aggressive defence, but only for my oath to Jeynsa.’

  Eyes half-lidded, Bransian kept his snake’s poise. ‘Need those goals lie at odds? You can’t spirit the girl out through the enemy’s lines. Along with my people, she lies at hazard to the violence posed by Desh-thiere’s curse. How will you spare her, when Lysaer’s close presence breaks down the restraint of your sanity?’

  If he had hoped that name would snap Arithon’s resistance, the laced fingers maintained their composure. ‘My half-brother may throw himself at your walls. He can hammer your g
ates until he breaks the back of his allied town war host. His battle frenzy will not turn my mind.’ As the duke stiffened for argument, Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn smiled. ‘Then, or ever.’

  The statement took a stunned moment to register. ‘Say again?’ Bransian’s winter-ice glance flashed to Mearn but received no response.

  Arithon stated, ‘I’ve recovered my born right to autonomy.’

  ‘And your half-brother, s’Ilessid?’ Bransian snapped, caught aback and snatching for leverage.

  ‘I could not speak in petition for him before the powers that graced me with healing.’ The admission held sorrow. ‘Which is why I won’t raise my hand in this war. Already, my presence inflames his awareness.’

  ‘Dharkaron’s sweet vengeance!’ Bransian shot back his state chair and pounced. ‘The vaunted false avatar has to attack!’

  For the first time, Arithon looked faintly tried. ‘If I linger, even inactive, he must.’

  ‘Daelion Fatemaster grant me that sweet kiss of judgement!’ Bransian’s rage softened into a glower. ‘If you’ve broken us out of this forsaken stand-off, I might be convinced to grant you a pardon when we seize the honours of victory.’

  ‘I will not be here, or care to collect. Which is why you will not obstruct my urgent intent to remove Jeynsa.’ Knife sharp, the Masterbard’s tone slashed across the duke’s outraged objection. ‘You are not defending your citizens, my friend! Only your pride, which is stubbornly tied to a cock-fight over a pile of rock in an estuary!’

  ‘My ancestral home ground!’ Duke Bransian pealed.

  ‘Yes,’ Arithon said. ‘But a parcel of walled soil does not make the heart of a ruler or define the nobility of a people!’

  The duke balled his mailed fists. His walloping blow struck the table-top, scattering troop counters hither and yon, and cracking stout oak. ‘Your insolence galls, prince! As you’re fit to bear arms, we’ll settle this now! Over bared steel, until one or the other of us scores first blood.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ Arithon’s quelling gesture failed to stay Mearn, who leaped forward, intent upon blocking his brother’s rash charge. His interposed body was not going to shield. From behind, the guards snapped to clear weapons as well, while Bransian’s murderous, two-handed sword screamed from the sheath, gripped in fury.

  ‘Stand off, stripling!’ he snapped to his sibling. ‘I will not be mocked beneath my own roof by a nattering royal-born coward!’

  ‘No more will I brook your rock-headed attack!’ Arithon back-stepped, palms upraised as though to ward off the swung steel with only his naked flesh. The guardsmen stopped his hopeful retreat, a deadly prickle of points at his back, with Mearn, shocked to a pale standstill, beside him.

  ‘You won’t escape fighting,’ the youngest s’Brydion advised. ‘Nip in, quick. Try to land your wee nick in him first!’ As his brother’s rush vaulted over the wreck of the tactical map on the table, Mearn leaped to safety, still talking. ‘I don’t plan to tell Kyrialt how your liver got minced.’

  ‘Not on this day!’ One forgot how fast Arithon moved, when provoked.

  He lunged to the floor, his weight caught on his hands, as Bransian’s stop thrust ripped overhead and clashed into the guards’ brandished weapons. A clangour of metal and curses exploded. Surprised men recoiled in a manic scramble to disentangle themselves from the misspent assault of their duke.

  Arithon twisted and rolled, a dropped cat underneath. While the snarl of swords unravelled above, his sinuous scuttle carried him through spilled counters and under the table. There, sliding flat, he flipped on his side: the sheathed hilt at his shoulder escaped getting snagged on the hedging struts of the trestle. Before his inspired reaction was countered, he was out the far side and back on his feet, with Bransian turned roaring, to meet him.

  At by-standing distance, irreverent with glee, Mearn watched to see which combatant would survive the fracas, uncut.

  ‘Draw!’ howled Bransian. ‘Prove you’re a man and no scampering rabbit! Or are you fit for nothing but flight, and cowering under my furniture?’

  ‘Quite fit!’ rebuked Arithon. His wide-lashed glance was a child’s, bemused, while the Duke of Alestron tensed his ox frame to plough aside the riven table.

  The Master of Shadow squared his shoulders, as much to resettle his untouched weapon, as a shrug to acknowledge obsessive ferocity.

  Mearn suddenly found himself holding his breath.

  Then Arithon s’Ffalenn set hand to his sword and cleared the black blade from the scabbard.

  Alithiel spoke!

  Light bloomed, and sound, a swell of wild harmony that smashed reason and hurled Duke Bransian’s pitched might to its knees. Glued into glass air, every human awareness abandoned willed thought and let go: into sweetness like spring, and dark mystery like moonlight, scribed silver across restless ocean. Mortal existence lost every fixed boundary. No flesh-quickened memory could ever hold the moment’s shattering fullness. The trembling heart ached to be free, unfolded into exaltation. The peace in the cry of the sword was not passive, but the flow of inspired creation. A note that sustained, then beckoned the leap: to vault consciousness into the limitless vista of imaginative invention.

  Through the unbearable, ecstatic crescendo, a masterbard’s speech emerged clearly. ‘I will fight, but not to take lives in this war!’ Arithon spun the charged length of Alithiel. Before Bransian’s dropped jaw and unstrung aggression, against Mearn’s and the soldiers’ astonishment, he impaled the sword through the tactical map, with its disarrayed scatter of counters.

  There, in a not-quite-quenched ring of sound, the blade stood upright and quivering. The rune inlay shimmered, still active, a sheen of opalescent illumination playing down the length of the steel.

  ‘A’liessiad,’ said Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn in lyric Paravian. ‘Let peace bide between us, regardless of differences.’

  He stirred then, recovered the uncanny sword from the table-top. Alone in the room, he seemed able to move as he sheathed the blade and silenced its uncanny vibration. The will in that choice shook the air like scribed fire and left behind shocking, dimmed silence.

  Loss swept the onlookers, which wrenched like blind pain; pitched them reeling across an abyss of dark separation. Through their helpless tears, they watched Arithon walk out with no hand in the room raised to stop him.

  Late Autumn 5671

  Refuge

  Parrien s’Brydion was fed up with fighting heated engagements to seize a safe harbour to shelter his fleet. The deadly bother was not going to ease, while the autumn squalls built towards winter. Each storm that roared in off the Cildein crammed the coves that pocketed the coast of Melhalla. Oared ships were forced to jockey for space, or else battle outright for anchorage. Unlike peaceful years, the seafaring captains abroad were not mercantile, eastshore galley-men.

  Today, the blazons that streamed from their mastheads might hail from the northernmost ports. Crews used to rough waters, and determined fishers whose encounters with icebergs and rock shoals bred iron resolve and an unflinching stare. The stout vessels beneath their commands braved the chop that broke hissing in whitecaps. They rode the stiff winds that foreran the wrecks which claimed human lives in gale season.

  ‘Rot their confounded hardihood, timbers and flesh!’ the duke’s brother fumed in the lamp-lit darkness. He peeled off his oilskins. Tossed their soaked bulk to his hovering steward, while his flustered arrival fogged the latched casements, and rove the taint of wet wool through the warmth belowdecks. ‘Every damned bolt-hole we’ve picked to snug down in is stuffed full of their wallowing tubs!’

  Oared hulls as viciously guarded as a silk guildsman’s prime bales, and as handsomely paid, to move the resupply for the enemy war host.

  ‘Opportunistic toadies,’ Parrien ran on in distemper, ‘the lot of them teeming like curs with the lice, and burdened a yard past their load lines.’ To the steward’s prim silence, he jabbed, ‘One gets tired of sticking a sword in the guts of their wall-e
yed, fanatical officers. Not to mention the cowering, Light-blinded dupes just rounded up green from the ale shops!’

  Paused frowning, Parrien shook like a bear. More wet showered off him, hissing against the hot panes of the gimballed lamp, and spattering over the tally-sheets spread on the chart desk. ‘Dharkaron wept! We’d find cleaner sport chopping rabbits!’

  To the clamped mug of his long-suffering purser, he snapped, ‘You aren’t sick of the screams? Here’s a fresh blow, and no haven in sight without another bitch-bred stint of slaughter.’

  The prospect rankled, beyond hope of let-up. For months to come, the open coast would stay lashed to rampaging spindrift. Amid heaving seas, pebbled grey with cold rain, the fleet’s hard-bitten oarsmen were suffering. Too many had salt-water sores from the benches. Galls that swelled into festering malady.

  Still snarling, Parrien heaved onto a locker, pried off his boots, and dumped out a brown stream of run-off. ‘It’s a goat-humping lash-up! Beats my good sense, why the mayors and their gabbling excisemen don’t levy new fines for stupidity. Like whoresons with clap, they’re all bent arse up for Lysaer’s milk-sucking religion!’

  The steward dutifully stowed the sopped oilskins, while the purser glowered in silence. Both men stayed loath to cross Parrien’s temper. The siege at Alestron left his fleet stranded outside of the blockaded estuary. His crews had no choice but to shoulder their forced tour of duty without respite.

  Stalled at last by his officer’s jaundiced stare, Parrien exclaimed, ‘Well, spit out the sour news, man! We’re caught lean on stores again, aren’t we?’

  ‘Not well-set, at all,’ the purser admitted. He scratched beneath his fusty jacket, upset by his harried assessment. ‘Provisions are critical. The weakling ship’s boy’s got bleeding gums. We’re facing a spreading case of the cough. Our rowers can’t stay in fit strength on hard biscuit, and the village fishermen are learning to run before selling us contraband barrels of salt meat.’