by Helen Lowe
Soon now, Carick thought: soon the attack will come.
Jehane Mor stood up—and Carick and the rest of the Seven rose with her, as though drawn upward by strings. The herald extended her arms wide, invoking the dark sky, and Carick’s arms lifted in unison. His mind was detached now, cool—aware of the small figure that was himself, and of the six others disposed in mirror image around the walls, while Raven crouched a few paces away on the stair. He was conscious, too, of the distant pounding of his heart, waiting for the rain of arrows to come. But no rain fell.
The mist thickened, wreathing level with the parapet so that Carick breathed its dampness into his lungs. He felt a touch in his mind, light as a hand extended on either side to join with his: Jehane Mor, cool as the mist, from the left, and Girvase on his right. Carick’s fingertips tingled as though stretching to meet theirs, although none of the upraised arms around the battlement moved.
A voice was speaking, like the rushing of wind through trees, and Carick knew it belonged to Jehane Mor although he could not understand the language. A line of light was building, linking the outstretched hands of the Seven: pale and slender as a new moon, the line curved into the same sickle shape. And now, at last, the were-hunters turned fully toward the fort, their deep-throated growls shaking the earth.
The wind-voice swelled, growing stronger. The detached, watching Carick saw Jehane Mor’s eyes turn pale as moonstones—and then all the Seven’s eyes were glowing silver. Mist poured from the herald’s throat, mingling with the brume that had risen from the ground. “Imuln!” soughed the voice of the night wind: invoking, summoning, as another sickle moon flowered into life on the herald’s brow. Like a diadem, Carick thought, his hands on fire. He felt the connection between the Seven strengthen again, and the light surrounding them began to float outward, toward the attackers.
The were-hunters roared, a thunderclap across the night, and the bonfires exploded. The horde shouted and rolled forward, the giant beast-men striding ahead. The wall had become a puny thing beside their vastness, able to be stepped across at will, while the bestial maws were large enough to swallow a defender whole. Even Carick’s detached self shuddered at the sight.
“Hold to me.” The voice in his mind was the night wind and the mist and the sickle moon. “For this is Summer’s Eve.”
Carick’s whole being was on fire now and his skin felt like a seed pod waiting to split. He could smell damp earth underfoot and last year’s leaf mold on the forest floor; he could feel the spring sap rising, a sweet green fire in his veins. The Seven’s light was moving faster now, growing and brightening as though the new moon had risen on the plateau instead of in the sky—and now sailed to meet the were-beasts’ advance. Carick felt the rush of its force in his head, careering toward the moment of impact.
“Imuln! Great Imuln!” The rest of the fort’s defenders were pointing at the sky. “Imuln’s moon rises to our aid!”
Carick steadied himself—and saw the horned sliver, pale and new, lifting above the black rim of the hills. The crescent on Jehane Mor’s brow blazed in answer and a cry of dismay ran through the horde. But the beast-men forged on, their jaws stretched wide to rip first the ground-moon, and then the fort, apart. The moon overhead floated higher, casting a pale silver track to Carick’s feet.
The were-beasts’ power gained momentum, rearing up ahead of their advance like a great wave; the frail barque that was the Seven’s ground-moon turned prow first into the onslaught and began to climb. Vertigo seized Carick as the abyss beneath both wave crest and moon barque yawned at his own feet. He wavered, trying to step away from it, but misjudged—and plummeted into the void.
Chapter 24
Shadows in the Mist
Carick raced through a mist-bound oak forest with gray shapes in pursuit. Pursued and pursuers ran in silence, but he could hear the rustle of undergrowth and rough breath behind him. He tripped over a root, sprawling full-length as a bowstring twanged.
A second arrow thrummed overhead, but he could not see the archer and the sound could have come from any direction, distorted by the mist. An animal shriek split the whiteness, followed by a furious mixture of snarls and growls. Using the noise as cover, Carick scrambled to his feet and ran on, and this time no shadows ran nose-to-ground at his heels. Sidestepping another knotted root, he stopped as the oak bark before him twisted into a fox’s mask. “Well, well,” said the fox. “What have we here?”
Carick wanted to reply but no words came. The fox continued to watch him, its expression quizzical, until the mist thickened and rolled between them. I’ve been in this fog before, Carick thought—and remembered his dream from the night that Maister Gervon died. There had been another dream, too, where hooded figures exchanged hard words, and he recalled a hand, white as bone, gripping a heavily muscled forearm. Now he crept forward until he saw a cloak-wrapped figure beyond the wall of mist, standing on an open hillside.
A second figure came walking out of the wood and up the hill, long robes trailing and the hood pushed back to reveal a pale, high-boned face and shadowed eyes. The newcomer’s head was completely shaven except for one long hank of hair that was plaited from the crown and curved down the right side of the face.
A woman, Carick thought, although he could not have said why, since the bones of the face, the body beneath the long robes, and the hissing voice were all androgynous.
“Wielding your blade against our own goes beyond interference, Emuun. Shall we tell Aranraith you have turned traitor?”
“Do what you will, Adept.” The sinewy, shadowed voice was familiar from Carick’s earlier dream. “I told your spell-sister what would happen if you got in my way.”
The pale face contorted, then smoothed out as the mist crept around the woman and her shape began to fade. “And now she and others of our coterie are dead. We have held back out of respect for what you were and the one you serve. But the next time you thwart our work we will bring you down.”
The cloaked man did not reply and the silence around the hillside deepened—until the man turned back toward mist and wood as though sensing another presence. Carick heard the chink of armor, concealed beneath the cloak, and glimpsed tattoos between vambrace and sleeve as the hooded man’s hand went to his sword hilt. But the mist swept between them, shutting out the secret figure.
Close by in the whiteness, a twig snapped. Carick froze, his heart pounding as he caught the musty stink of damp fur. The rankness grew more powerful as a shadow ghosted closer through the gloom. A second twig snapped and a beast snarled immediately behind him. Carick turned slowly, maneuvering to keep both the shadows stalking him in sight.
“Did you think your deceiver’s mists would save you?” a beast’s voice growled into his mind.
“One at a time we will bring you down,” the second beast snarled. “And your puling moon with you.”
Hot, fetid breath gusted over Carick as the beasts crouched, preparing to spring, and he raised his arms in a futile warding gesture. Air whispered, cool past his ear—and an arrow buried itself in the first beast’s eye. The second beast howled and leapt for Carick, only to drop like a stone with another arrow through its chest. The body disappeared as it hit the ground, and Carick saw that the first beast, too, was gone.
“We thought they would try for you first,” said Tarathan of Ar, materializing from between tangled saplings and a bank of mist.
“Because I’m the weak link,” Carick replied, not without bitterness.
“Because that’s what they think,” the herald said. “As they are meant to, I suspect.” The dark eyes regarded him, as though reckoning odds. “Let us say that I chose not to let them discover otherwise.”
Carick stared back at him, bewildered. “Ah well,” Tarathan murmured, his expression now that of a man confronted by a riddle that was more intricate than he had first thought. The herald looked around at the secret wood. “I think our work here may be done, in any case.”
Killing the beasts? Carick w
ondered. He shivered, remembering the way Maister Gervon had come at him through a similar white mist. “This is real in some way, isn’t it? Not just a dream. And if it’s not a dream . . .” He hesitated.
The herald watched him, a question in his eyes. The man was an enigma, Carick thought, a member of the heralds’ Guild yet clearly a warrior as well. And although Tarathan had killed the beasts, that did not necessarily make the herald trustworthy. Yet Carick found that he did trust him. “I’ve been here before,” he said abruptly. “At least twice, in what I thought were dreams. After one of those dreams, Maister Gervon, the maister of Serrut at Normarch, was found murdered. And the way he died—”
Carick broke off, shivering again, then made himself relate what he had seen in the blood-spattered chapel. “And I can’t help thinking . . .” He paused, then continued in a rush: “What happened was so much like the dream. And if the mist is real and I can move through it, what if I murdered Maister Gervon, only can’t remember?”
The herald’s brows had drawn together, but now he shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said, cool as his partner. “The death you’ve described does not have your stamp.”
An intervention. But why?
Carick jumped—then realized that a third person had not spoken, after all. What he had overheard, through some trick of this strange place, was the herald’s inner reflection. He shivered, but no further thoughts slipped into his mind. When he glanced around, he saw that the trees had begun to fade. No, not fade, he amended: they’re drifting away from us.
“Time to go back,” said Tarathan of Ar. He stretched out a hand and Carick hesitated, thinking that he was a grown man, or should be, not a child. The herald’s eyes gleamed, as if guessing his thought—but as soon as Carick, nettled, took that gauntleted clasp, the strange dreamlike realm began to rush away from him, like fog blown apart by the wind. It was only at the end, before the mist and trees finally fragmented, that he glimpsed the hooded, secret figure again, watching from a fog-wrapped hill. The very last thing Carick saw was the tattoos on the watcher’s forearms unfold into a flock of dark wings that rose above the cloaked head, blotting out the new moon.
His eyes opened to find that he was not in the abyss after all, or being hunted through a mist-filled forest. Stiffly, he turned his head and saw the moon, framed within a stone-edged window. The slender curve looked paler than he remembered; a moment later he realized that the window must look west and so the moon was sinking, its night’s course run. He turned his head the other way and saw Jehane Mor lying beside him, her face white and still above a bundling of cloaks. Abruptly, Carick sat up.
“Easy.” He had expected Malisande, but it was Hamar who came forward, his face drawn into tired lines. The squire squatted on his heels and studied Carick, a curiously assessing stare. Carick felt a ripple of the same disorientation he had experienced with the heralds and blinked, letting his gaze slip sideways to Jehane Mor. “Is she—?”
“She’s alive. But there’s a price to be paid for the kind of power she called on last night.” Almost absently, Hamar tucked a fold of cloak closer around the herald. He shook his head. “A great working, and only possible on two nights of the year. And she did it with a makeshift Seven.”
Carick remembered the two sickle moons: one sailing to meet the beast-men’s onslaught, and the other called into the sky when it should not have risen for another night at least, perhaps even two. There had been a third moon, as well, crowning the herald’s brow. “Summer’s Eve,” he whispered. “And Midsummer.” Both great festivals were sacred to Imulun, while Autumn’s Night belonged to Kan, and Midwinter was sacred to Seruth, the Risen God. “It must have worked, then, what we did?”
Hamar nodded. “Although for a while I thought the earth itself might break, with the wind roaring, trees being tossed down, and the bonfires exploding into wildfire. But then the fires just collapsed—pfft, like that, as though the wind had sucked the air right out of them. All that’s left now is huge black rings on the ground.”
“And the beast-men?” Carick asked.
Hamar’s expression deepened into grimness. “All dead, from what we can see, fallen in the place where their power and ours collided. But the horde must have other captains, because we can still see campfires along the forest fringe.”
Carick hesitated. “They may be afraid to come against us now,” he said finally, “because of what we wrought.”
“If whoever’s leading them knows anything about power at all,” Hamar said slowly, “then they’ll know that a great working leaves all the participants exhausted.” He glanced at Jehane Mor, then back to Carick. “We think they’ll hold off from attacking again so long as our moon’s in the sky, but once the sun’s up—” Hamar shrugged. “We’re still outnumbered, and with all those trees down they’ll have their ram at last.”
So it wasn’t over. Carick sighed, feeling unutterably weary, then frowned. “Why are you the one here? Shouldn’t you be on the walls or at the gate?”
Hamar’s smile was crooked. “We can’t assume that the were-beasts were the only enemies out there with magic to bring against us. So long as you remained unconscious, we had to assume that you were vulnerable—and still may be, in Jehane Mor’s case. And Gir and I are the best at watching for that kind of incursion.”
Just as it was you and Girvase, thought Carick, who came after me when I was lost on the mountain. But all he said was, “So Girvase is safe? And the others?”
“Mal was knocked around a bit, but it was Jehane Mor who bore the brunt. And you.” Hamar paused, studying Carick again with that assessing look. “Tarathan’s fine. And Solaan, too. All the Hill people are tough as old tree roots.”
“I wish I was,” Carick said ruefully. He glanced at the setting moon again. “I’d better get up. Get ready for whatever’s coming next.” He pushed the covering cloaks aside—and realized that between Jehane Mor and himself, a great many of the defenders must have volunteered to spend a chilly night. Or the cloaks might have belonged to the dead. Carick gritted his teeth and forced himself to his feet.
“You’ll do,” Hamar said. “They must breed them tougher on the River than Ser Bartrand thinks.”
Carick nodded, unready to deal with Ser Bartrand’s view of the world just yet. “I’m not sure I’m up to more digging, though.”
The squire grinned. “No need to worry about that. Tarathan’s just finished the job.” He sobered. “I think it took his mind off Jehane Mor, especially since our sort of watching’s not his aptitude.” Carick nodded again, but it was not until he moved to the door that he finally noticed Alianor, asleep on the stone settle. They must, he supposed, be keeping those hurt by magic apart from the physically wounded in the hall below; that would make it easier for Hamar and Girvase to keep their watch. But unwounded or not, he felt stiff and tired as an old man as he made his way down the outside stair.
The night was already beginning to lighten, with a faint graywash along the eastern horizon. Carick could see the black outline of sentries, although most of the defenders were asleep on the packed earth floor of the stable. The pitch torch—or a fresh one—was still burning by the lean-to, illuminating both the stable entrance and the freshly cast dirt where the pit had been dug. He frowned, guessing that the soil covering was shallow and would be scraped away again after the next attack. But better that than having the flies hanging in clouds as soon as the day grew warm. Better, also, than having to dig a fresh pit.
The well chain clattered, sharp in the still air. Carick started, but quickly identified Tarathan pouring a bucket of water over his head. Washing away the dirt, Carick supposed, and then blinked as he realized the herald was completely naked. He seemed indifferent to the possibility that anyone might see him—although only the sentries on the wall or someone coming or going from the donjon would, given the well’s location. Carick looked away, but the image was still there, limned against his eyes: the heavy fall of chestnut braids and the water sluicing across strong
ly defined muscles and golden skin, smooth except for the pale cicatrice of old scars.
“Pretty, isn’t he?” Carick started again, because he had not seen Raven at all, standing in deep shadow by the corner of the outside stair. He wished it was darker, in case his expression gave him away—and so he could not see Raven’s grin as the knight stepped away from the wall. “And dangerous, too. I’ve heard there’s more than one has found that, to his cost.”
The knight stopped by the hall door, one foot on the threshold and his eyes on Carick’s face. “A word to the wise.” Raven’s voice was even, casual, as if it were any spring morning and they had stopped to discuss the weather. “Here in Emer, it would be dangerous for a boy, even the Duke’s cartographer, to be seen looking at another man like that, no matter what’s permissible in the courtly houses of Ar.”
“I wasn’t looking ‘like that,’ ” Carick said, flushing.
Raven quirked an eyebrow. “No?”
“No!” Carick bit back sharper words. “I was thinking that he doesn’t look much like a native of Ar.” And he doesn’t, Carick thought defiantly: those multiple braids of hair and golden skin just aren’t seen amongst the people there.
“Heralds travel throughout the southern lands and many adopt the fashions of those countries.” Raven was matter-of-fact. “And Ar does grant citizenship to people from other places.”
