The Gathering of the Lost

by Helen Lowe

  “What of Ser Raven and the guards?” Malisande was down on one knee, supporting Alianor on the ground. “What’s happening out there?”

  Carick stared through the gateway at the horde of wild-looking men spilling out of the woods and onto the road. A wave of dizziness made him put out a hand, steadying himself against the gate. “There’s hundreds of them—at least six or seven times as many as at The Leas. And I can’t see Ser Raven and the guards at all.”

  Beside him, Raher grunted and the gate shifted but failed to come clear. “Down already maybe. As we’ll be if we can’t move these.”

  Tibalt said something about the tools, but Carick barely heard him as his eyes searched the edge of the wood. He could not believe that Raven and the others had fallen—would not believe it until he saw bodies.

  There, he thought, catching a glimpse of horses between thinning trees, further along the hillside—at least two riders, making their way toward the fort. Raven, Carick wondered, or our scouts? He jumped as Brania handed a short-handled shovel to Tibalt, tossing another to Raher, then was gone again.

  Carick wondered why the horde hadn’t spotted the horses in the brush yet. The riders were being very careful—trying, he guessed, to reach a point from which they might win a sprint to the fort. He squinted against the sun and thought that one of the horses creeping closer might be carrying double—and now they were finally in the open, two great gray chargers of Emer bursting from the wood in an all-out run for the gate. A yammer went up from the horde and several packs of beast-men loped out of the trees, moving to intercept the riders.

  The boggy, rough terrain was far easier for the beast-men to negotiate than the horses, one of which was carrying double. Already, it had begun to fall behind and the gap between the fugitives and their pursuers was closing fast. Raher threw down his shovel. “We have to sally!” he cried, and ran for the wall.

  Yet even a sally, Carick knew, might not break the numbers and momentum of the beast-men—and could leave the squires caught in the open. He picked up Raher’s shovel and began to dig, but remained focused on the drama of pursuit and flight playing out before him for the second time that day.

  The leading rider had turned in the saddle now, notching an arrow to his recurved bow. “Shot!” exclaimed Tibalt as the first arrow took out the closest of the beast-men. The rider shot again, and a second beast-man collapsed and lay still. But there were still too many of the hunters, too wide a stretch of ground between the riders and the gate. Carick groaned as boots clattered on the stone stairs behind him, sure that even if a sally could be pulled off, it was going to be too late.

  “Sacred Imuln!” Tibalt shouted. Carick blinked, trying to take in what was happening as Raven and the guards came up out of a hollow close by the causeway, which had been invisible amongst the low scrub and rock. They must have been holding their horses down: it was a trick he had heard spoken of, one used by the light cavalry of Lathayra and Jhaine. Now the five erupted from cover with a yell and charged across the open ground in a close, heavily armed line that would hit the beast-men in the flank—and hit them hard.

  “Mount up!” Audin called, and a quick glance back showed nearly half the remaining squires swinging into the saddle. Raher was at Audin’s right hand, Gille and Ado close on his left.

  “That fourth rider with Ser Raven—” Malisande said. She and Ghiselaine had dragged Alianor clear of the horses’ path, propping her against the wall. “That’s Girvase!”

  It was Girvase, his black charger stretching into a gallop alongside Raven and the three guards—although their pace ended as more of a lumber, given the puggy ground. The nearest of the hunters were turning to meet them, forming a loose line of their own, and the bestial faces snarled bloodlust. Yet for some reason they seemed reluctant to engage the five—and Carick recalled how the beast-men at The Leas had also backed away from Raven.

  The five’s charge looked set to meet the hunters full on until at the last possible moment all five sheered away, cutting back toward the fort on a line that would intersect the gray horses. The beast-men howled and turned as well, racing to stay between the two groups. The archers with the horde loosed a volley at the five, and although the arrows fell short, they would find the range soon enough—and the whole ragged army was beginning to move, flowing across the plateau toward the fort.

  “Now,” said Audin, from immediately behind Carick, “we sally.” And he pulled his visor down.

  The squires left the gate at a walk, keeping shoulder-to-shoulder down the hill, but gaining momentum as they went. Soon the vanguard of the horde would be surging up to meet them, but it looked as though the gray horses would just get there first. The beast-men put on a final surge of speed as Raven’s five and the gray riders finally came together, and the archers on the fort wall began to shoot. Audin’s sortie swept down, using the impetus of the hill to brush aside the first rush of outlaws.

  Blades flashed and warhorses plunged, striking with their shod hooves as the three groups of riders coalesced into a single, retreating unit. The beast-men leapt forward to rend and tear, but Carick noted that they still kept away from Raven. The archers on the wall loosed another volley, the arrows arching high before dropping down amongst the attackers. But the air around the beast-men shimmered as it had that morning, and too many of the arrows splintered in midair or fell harmlessly aside.

  “We mustn’t waste them,” Tibalt said. Carick pulled his attention back to the fort and the gates. “And we need to get these closed and barricaded as soon as everyone’s back inside.” The squire had finally dug his gate clear, but it would only move stiffly. Carick’s gate, when they tested it, also resisted moving.

  “We need more people,” Ghiselaine said to Malisande. “To lift or push.”

  The dark girl nodded, turning on her heel with only a brief glance at the fighting retreat outside. There were gaps in saddles now, and Carick could see a horse down at the foot of the hill. Beyond the dead horse, the horde’s main mass was swirling to encircle the fort.

  “We won’t have much time once the sortie’s in,” Tibalt said. His expression was tense and grim, his hands closing and unclosing against the edge of the gate. Running footsteps heralded Malisande’s return with Jarna, Ilaise, and a tall girl called Ro.

  “The buildings were clear,” Ilaise said. “And Brania and Enna are bringing everything we’ve found for the barricade.” But her eyes, like everyone else’s, were fixed on the retreating riders, who were now very close.

  They’ll make it, Carick thought. But can we get these gates closed and secured before the main rush hits?

  “Help me!” Carick jumped, but no one else seemed to have heard the whisper. He glanced uneasily around and saw that Alianor had pushed herself up from the wall while Ghiselaine tried to support her weight. “Maister . . .”

  Malisande turned. “Alli, what are you doing?” She took a step toward her friend, then hesitated, her attention drawn back to what was happening outside.

  “Help me—up,” Alianor’s voice was strained, but her gaze was fixed on Carick, compelling him. “The gate.”

  “It might kill you.” Malisande turned back to her again. “You heard Herun.”

  But it was Ghiselaine who replied. “We’ll all be dead, Mal, if we can’t close the gates. Help me with her, Maister Carick.” Her tone did not allow refusal, and Carick lifted Alianor from the other side, half carrying, half dragging her to the gate. The first of the horsemen passed them in a flurry of flanks, saddle leathers, and voices shouting orders. And then everyone was through, and Tibalt and the damosels were straining to push the gates together.

  “Help,” Alianor whispered again. She seized Carick’s hand with surprising strength and slammed it hard against the nearest gate. He yelled as fire burned through his hand—but the gates snapped closed. Voices howled outside as Alianor slumped and Carick dragged her aside to let Brania and Enna through with their materials to reinforce the gate. A cart with one warped wheel was
jammed into place, together with half a rain barrel and an array of planking that looked like it had been pried from a wall. And maybe it had been, because Jarna had a hammer and a handful of long, round-headed nails in her hand. Jarna leapt onto the cart and began nailing the planks across the gate, while many hands held them in place. Carefully, Carick eased Alianor to the ground.

  “To the walls!” That was Raven, Carick thought, although he couldn’t see because Girvase was shouldering him aside to take his place beside Alianor.

  “We need to get her to the donjon,” Ghiselaine said, pale and worried from Alianor’s other side.

  “I’ll take her,” said Girvase, and picked Alianor up before anyone else could move to help.

  “Help us with this,” Jarna called to Carick. She was struggling to wedge the iron barrel between the cart and a heavy feed chest that had been dragged from the old stables. Voices shouted from the walls, answering a swelling roar from outside and a series of thuds, dull against the gates. Carick gave the barrel a final shove and rested his still burning palm against the gate timber, feeling it vibrate.

  It would hold for now, he thought, because of the barricading—and what Alianor had done.

  “At least we won’t have to use horses,” Brania said, and Carick knew he must have looked as startled as he felt, because she shrugged. “It’s what we do, Maister, when there’s nothing else available. Kill our horses or farm beasts and pile the bodies into a barrier.”

  “We may come to that yet,” Tibalt added, “if they use a ram.” He turned to Ghiselaine. “Jarn and I should be on the wall. Can you hold here?”

  The gate shuddered again beneath Carick’s hand, but for the first time he really took in the significance of the half circle of young women around Ghiselaine, several with bows but the rest holding the wicked-headed ladyspikes in a businesslike fashion. Jarna gave him a shy grin as she jumped down from the cart. “The gate’ll hold for now, Maister. You don’t need to prop it up.”

  Carick took his hand away. “I can shoot, too,” he said, “if there’s a spare bow.”

  “We would prefer, Maister, if you helped us.” The voice that spoke was dark in tone as a bronze bell, and Carick jumped, because he had not noticed the gray-clad rider approach. A herald, he corrected himself automatically, finally recognizing the garb and the shield badge that pinned the rider’s cloak. The gray clothes were stained, as though the herald had been traveling hard, and the multiple braids of his hair, clubbed into a knot, were coated with dust. The eyes that looked out of the travel-mired face were dark and a little fierce, yet there was something else there, a flicker of amusement that was gone almost before Carick detected it. He blinked and shook his head against another bout of dizziness.

  I need to eat something, he thought. “How?” he asked, puzzled.

  “With the wounded damosel,” the herald replied. He turned to Ghiselaine. “If she is to live, we must tend to her at once.”

  Ghiselaine’s eyes met Carick’s, and he read her fear and guilt. “If there is anything, Maister Carick, that you can do . . .”

  He swallowed again, still feeling disorientated. “Of course. Whatever I can. Although healing is not my training.”

  “I know it’s not.” Ghiselaine kept her voice low. “But Alianor sought your help with the gate. And there’s what happened earlier, in the hills.”

  Carick wanted to protest that the gate had been all Alianor, but he needed to do something other than listen to the clamor from outside and wait for the fighting to begin. So he nodded instead and followed the herald. Bodies were being laid out in a lean-to beside the crumbling stable as they passed, and he made himself look at the dead faces. The guard, Sark, was there, and fair-haired Gille, who had ridden out beside Audin. Carick licked at the trickle of blood on his lip, and remembered the screams from the hill and the wail of triumph that had followed—and that one of the heralds’ horses had been carrying double. He hurried to catch the man.

  “Who—” he began, and the dark gaze flicked back to him.

  “I am Tarathan of Ar, from the Guild House in Terebanth.”

  Carick glanced away, disorientated again, and thought that the herald did not have the look of someone from Ar. But Tarathan was already turning onto a short flight of stairs outside the main donjon door, which led to what must once have been a private chamber, with a steeply pitched ceiling and windows that faced both east and west. Both were half shuttered still, half open to the elements, and Girvase was standing beside the embrasure overlooking the yard. Alianor had been placed on a stone settle built into the south wall and her eyes were closed, her face colorless within the black cloud of her hair. The second of the herald pair, a woman with dark blond hair braided around her head, knelt beside her.

  “She has expended a great deal of power,” the woman said. “That, on top of her wound, which went deep, and the flight across country, has drained nearly all her strength.”

  “If only Manan were here,” Girvase said, turning. “But you are heralds. You can save her.” His hands closed tight. “Can’t you?”

  “Perhaps,” the fair herald said gently. “But we are not Manan, or physicians of Ishnapur either, although we will do what we can: clean the wound and hope infection has not already set in. And give her some of our own strength. Then, if Serrut is kind, the body may heal of its own accord.”

  Carick wondered if he had missed something. “How can we possibly give her strength?” he asked.

  “You have already done it once,” the herald said. She had beautiful eyes, he noticed, gray-green and luminous. “At the gate. But this time, rather than facilitating the flow of power out of Alianor, we must all give her a little of ours—to help bring her back from where she walks, on the borderland of death.”

  Carick’s hand tingled with the memory of power blazing through it like fire as the gates slammed closed, and Malisande’s words echoed again in his head: Surely you didn’t think the Oakward was really a myth? “That’s what Normarch is about, isn’t it?” he said to Girvase. “A stronghold of those with the hidden power of Emer?”

  Girvase nodded. “That’s why we get sent there—either as apprentice to the Oakward, or for others, like Audin and Ghiselaine, to learn to know the power that protects Emer from hidden evils.” He shrugged. “The Oakward is always based where Emer’s need is greatest. That, too, is part of what we learn.”

  All the same, Carick thought, I doubt the Duke would have sent Ghiselaine to Normarch if he had not thought the Oakward would keep her as safe there as within the walls of Caer Argent. A decision the ruler of Emer might soon come to regret.

  Erron, Manan, Solaan: he listed the names to himself. Herun and the smith, Welun—and then, understanding—Lord Falk himself. Disorientation seized Carick again, but he shook himself clear of it, aware of the heralds’ continued scrutiny.

  “And you,” Girvase said roughly, “are more than just a River scholar. We always glimpsed a spark of power there, hidden deep, but now you’re alive with it.” He looked down at Alianor’s pale, drained face. “And we need you to use it, to help us save Alli.”

  It was like being in the white mists again, the morning Maister Gervon had died, and in the vibrant green of the forest at the same time. Carick could sense Alianor somewhere in the mist ahead, but hidden from him. He wanted to search for her, but the heralds held him back.

  “You will only lose yourself and you will not save her.” He could not be sure whether it was one or both who spoke, their voices calm inside his head. “We must strengthen her on the plane of the living.”

  The mist lifted as they spoke and Carick found himself looking down at Alianor’s body. She was lying on the stone settle like an Emerian knight upon a tomb, while he felt as though he were floating near the ceiling. “Closer,” the heralds said—and now he was standing beside the damosel’s carven figure. Her hand, when he reached for it with his left, was chill as marble. Girvase was there, too, and the heralds, like spreading oaks. Yet River lore he
ld that heralds’ abilities were small, misdirection and illusion, seeking and concealing, not this deep magic, tied to the fabric of the world.

  “Now.” At the heralds’ instruction, Carick placed his right hand on Alianor’s clammy brow. Girvase’s left hand was set down on his while the heralds placed their hands above the damosel’s heart. Carick felt a gentle wash of power, very different from Alianor’s wildfire at the gate, flowing through their hands and into the girl—like water from a spring, only this time it was seeping down rather than bubbling up. He thought the pulse in Alianor’s temple might have strengthened, but could not be sure. “Step back.”

  Both the mist and the green vanished. The heralds were impassive, calm, and Girvase, too, gave nothing away as the fair herald leaned forward. “She feels warmer. And her heartbeat is strong.”

  Alianor’s breathing seemed easier as well, Carick thought. He stretched, yawning—then tensed as a clamor rose from the walls. “It’s the attack,” Girvase said, and was already at the door as Jarna pounded to the top of the outside stair. But she did not look at him as he slipped by, nor at Carick, watching her. Her eyes were fixed on the heralds.

  “Ser Raven says you’re needed. Both of you, for the defense.”

  Chapter 23

  New Moon

  The attackers came in a wild rush, baying like wolves as they poured across the ditch and shoved ladders of hastily lashed-together branches against the wall. The fighting was brief but furious, with the defenders pushing the ladders back and shooting down into the horde—but more kept coming and soon it was hand-to-hand fighting along the parapet. Defenders and attackers snarled into each other’s faces, hacking at one another with sword and dagger, and bodies were tumbled into the courtyard to keep the parapet clear. Carick and Malisande dashed back and forward, picking up spent arrows or pulling them from the bodies they dragged aside. They kept their weapons close so they could rush to the gate if it were breached, but the yard, too, needed to be kept clear and as many arrows as possible returned to the wall.