by Tom Lloyd
'Well then, conserve your energy and get dressed. You will have to explain yourself to your Lord. Being just a white-eye, you seem to have forgotten that our nation is only recently rebuilt. Reopening old wounds for no reason hurts us all.'
'Actually, I do remember,' Isak said crossly. 'I just don't intend to deal with it through a veil of pomp and breeding. I was told that in war you play to your strengths – well, politics isn't one of mine. Strength is, and now, authority. If I have enemies within the tribe, that's what I'll use to deal with them.' As he spoke, Isak levered himself up into a sitting position and pointed to his clothes.
Before he could ask, Vesna passed them over and helped Isak to dress. In the thick woollens, he looked more like a monk than a suzerain, but he didn't relish the idea of the tightly buttoned tunic around his ribs. He pulled on a pair of winter fleece boots, then belted on Eolis. He stopped before he reached the tent flap when he saw his white cloak hanging up. It had been cleaned of the mud and gore, but no one had been able to repair the burned material. As he rubbed the charred edges with his fingers, a piece came off in his hand, leaving a swirl of soot. He traced a shape too faint for the others to make out, looked at it intently for a few seconds and then rubbed it away on his shirt.
The sky outside was overcast. Isak blinked as he took in the state of the camp. Long lines of tents were now missing, and the forest of colourful banners much reduced.
'Vesna, isn't that Fordan's banner?' he asked. 'I saw him die, I'm sure of it.'
'He did, my Lord,' the count said sadly, 'but his son was among his hurscals and survived, so the banner remains. As for the others, well, Danva took a spear in the thigh and bled to death on the field, and Amah had his skull crushed by a troll.'
'How many did we lose?' A breath of air on his neck made Isak shiver suddenly. The wind was cold but listless; it felt to Isak as though men had been carried away by the breeze, along with their tents and flags.
'In total? Roughly three thousand. One hundred and fifty of your own men, three hundred Ghosts, counts from Tori, Ked, Tehran and Vere. We've lost another three hundred chasing the survivors down.'
'Did any good come from this?'
'For those who died?' asked Tori icily.
Isak looked over to the suzerain, but Tori obviously had nothing more to add.
'I meant for anyone,' Isak said. He shrugged. Tm famished: I need to eat before I see Lord Bahl.'
He followed a column of smoke around a tent to where a huge pot bubbled over a fire, but when he tried to lean down he winced, clutching his ribs tenderly. 'Can you give me some of that?' he asked the man attending it. The man bobbed his head, eyes wide with fear as he slopped some broth into a sturdy wooden bowl.
Isak accepted the bowl with a broad smile. 'Bread?' The man reached in to the bag hanging from a post and handed him half a loaf. As soon as the man saw Isak's attention return to Suzerain Tori, he began to back away and after a few steps he turned and hurried off, getting out of sight as soon as he could.
Isak frowned and sniffed at the bread suspiciously. 'What was that about?'
Vesna kept silent, eyes on the ground, while Tori stared past Isak's shoulder. 'Ah, Lord Bahl, good morning,' he said smoothly.
'Tori,' acknowledged Bahl, then turned to Isak. 'What that was, my Lord, was your legacy from the battle.'
The old Lord had shrugged off the air of weariness that normally surrounded him. He looked alert, rejuvenated, even in full armour. The crested helm, an ancient-looking bowl-shaped piece of grey metal with a Y slit at the front for eyes and mouth, was tucked under his arm.
Bahl walked up to Isak and placed a hand on his shoulder, a public gesture of comradeship. 'How are you feeling? You've been recovering a long time. We were starting to worry.'
'I feel exhausted. Drained.' He gestured to the bowl. 'And famished.'
'Drained is a better word than you might realise. The more you draw on the magic, the harder it is to resist the flow and stop. If you're not careful, part of you will be swept away with it.'
Isak didn't reply, but nodded as he crammed a soaked corner of bread into his mouth. A murmur of pleasure was the only sound Bahl heard, but he took it as a cue to continue; the boy didn't seem to understand quite how it had looked on the battlefield. 'You forgot yourself out there. The men were expecting to see a white-eye in battle, but they saw worse than that. You fought like a daemon, and more than once you almost killed one of your own men through sheer bloodlust. If you hadn't collapsed, I don't know how we'd have stopped you.'
Bahl kept his voice low but there was no mistaking the anger there. Isak stopped chewing and looked into the Lord's eyes. They said clearly enough: there was one way to stop you, and I was tempted. You didn't just shame yourself there.
'I…1 don't know what to say.' Isak dropped his gaze. 'It felt like my dreams, like I wasn't quite myself.' 'What do you dream of.7'
The question took Isak by surprise. He didn't think the question was as idle as it sounded.
'Sometimes just that I'm somewhere else, looking through another man's eyes. It's as though I'm remembering things I've not done.'
'Hmm. What about your magic? Has it been released or was it just the battle?'
'I don't know, I hadn't thought of trying it again yet.' 'Well, do so now. Nothing grand, just draw energy into your hand and imagine it as fire.'
Isak did as Bahl ordered. For a moment he felt nothing. Suddenly, energy rushed to his hand, coursing like a stream of water over every inch of skin and into his hand. The air shimmered and swirled, yellow threads building and spinning together until a flame shot up from Isak's hand.
'Good, that's enough. Now stop.'
With a slight reluctance, Isak halted the flames and they melted into nothing. He flexed his fingers, savouring the tingle of magic in them as it faded away.
'Well, it looks like your block has gone, whatever the problem was. I'll start teaching you the finer points of control when you're feeling stronger.'
'Thank you.' Isak paused. 'Lord Bahl, I'm sorry. It won't happen ain.'
'I know you didn't mean it, but you do need to make sure it doesn't happen again. Next time it'll kill you.' There was an edge to his words that chilled Isak.
'Just so you know, it was I who bandaged your chest.'
Isak's stomach clenched. This wasn't a conversation he wanted to
have. He didn't have any answers himself, so explaining it to someone
else would be next to impossible.
'I don't expect you to tell me all your secrets,' Bahl said. There are
some things that are your own business. But tell me, here and now,
whether there's anything I need to know. I will not allow anything that might endanger the tribe or work against my rule. There is nothing you will have done that is so foul that we cannot counteract it, as long as we know where the problem lies.'
'There's nothing,' Isak muttered. 'I don't understand it myself, but I don't think it's anything for you to be concerned about.'
'Good, we seem to have enough of that already. Just remember that others feel the same about their own affairs. Some of my business has nothing to do with you. You will extend me the courtesy of neither asking nor investigating.'
'Of course, my Lord. What did you mean when you said "enough of that"?' The two white-eyes were walking slowly west and Isak suddenly realised that they were close to where the battle had been fought. This was where the cavalry had passed him to reach the stream… The wind caught Bahl's long white cloak and carried it high, away from the packed mud of the ground and off towards the heart of the mountains where home lay. Count Vesna and Suzerain Tori and a couple of messengers trailed behind them, all waiting for a moment of their Lord's time. None of them looked hopeful of being acknowledged soon.
Bahl looked up at a wood pigeon winging its way high over the camp to the woods beyond. From their left, a sharp-eyed falconer set his charge after it: an army always needed more food, no matter how small –
but the pigeon was gone by the time the falcon had climbed far enough. Bahl nodded enigmatically, then as Suzerain Ked appeared and began to speak urgently, he nodded at Isak, who fell back to give them some privacy.
'He agrees with you, said almost the same as you did about fighting on your own ground,' said a voice from behind Isak. The Krann turned in puzzlement. Suzerain Tori had a satisfied expression on his face, as though he had been testing Isak and was happy with the outcome.
'There are also enemies within the tribe, and now we've dealt with these elves, at least for the meantime, Lord Bahl intends to adjust his focus,' he said to Isak. 'I assume you did appreciate the fact that of all those who owe Lord Bahl allegiance, only eight suzerains and eleven counts answered the call to battle?'
Isak nodded. He hadn't wanted to comment at the time in case it was normal behaviour and he looked a fool for saying anything.
'We have the same number again whose whereabouts illness or infirmity cannot explain. You must have learned enough by now to recognise that any victory should be followed by decisive action, lest subsequent events make it hollow.'
'Unfortunate accidents-?'
'Are always a possibility in this life, yes,' Tori finished for him. 'It's something you should take a keen interest in.'
'Me? If you are trying to tell me that Lord Bahl-'
'Hah! I'm not telling you anything, young man. I am, however, suggesting that it would be good to let men know you are more than what you showed on the field, and…' The suzerain's voice tailed off.
'And what?' demanded Isak, scowling.
For the first time, the man actually looked a little uncomfortable. He lowered his voice to make sure only Isak and Vesna could hear. 'When we searched the enemy bodies, we found- well, people will draw their own conclusions. A lot of them had a scroll hung about their necks, written in Elvish, of course, but Ked is enough of a scholar to read some of the runes. It was apparently something he had to translate when he was studying the language as a boy. I don't know the full text, but we've all heard the rumours.'
'What is it, for the love of Larat? You look like a scared child.'
Tori held up his hands to mollify Isak's impatience and cleared his throat. 'My Krann, it's called the Prophecy of Shalstik, supposedly the most significant prophecy about this Age, but written thousands of years ago. This army we have just faced down was an army of the prophet's disciples. With an Estashanti in their ranks, and the sheer numbers, from different houses at that, the elves must have organised themselves as soon as you were Chosen – perhaps even before that.'
'Anyone with money will be able to find a translation somewhere,' interrupted Vesna, 'Every scholar of ancient languages will have one version or another, or at least know where to find one.'
'What does it predict?' Isak asked weakly.
The return of the Last King, who they believe will come to take his revenge upon the Gods – and he was the last mortal before you to wear that armour. My Lord, they seek to reclaim their holiest of relics and I fear they won't stop at this defeat. Ked could only remember the first line properly. He said that all Elvish is open to interpretation, but-' Now Tori looked pained, his face that of a man bringing bad tidings, 'but that line was: In silver light born/In silver light clothed. For the Last King to lead them in their revenge, they need that armour.'
Isak didn't reply. He didn't trust his voice. All he could do was turn and look back the way he'd come, back to his tent where the cold lines of Siulents seemed to shine through the cloth and into the pit Of his stomach.
Oh Gods, whatever horror they bring down upon us, it will all be my fault. And I don't just have to worry about people resenting that, what if a duke or suzerain thinks to ask someone from the wagon-train? Not even Card would see any harm in telling them I was born on Silvernight.
CHAPTER 16
'I'm too old for this. Why haven't I retired yet?' General Chate Dev looked around the empty spaces of the temple plain and once satisfied there was no one in sight, he trotted over the dry, packed ground to the looming structure in the centre. He'd lived in Thotel all his life, but the immense pillars of the Temple of the Sun, hewn from a single pyramid of stone, always made him marvel.
'Because you'd be bored to death, Chate!' a deep voice chuckled from the temple.
The ageing Chetse walked over to the nearest of the four gigantic pillars as Lord Chalat stepped out from behind it. The base was a stone block eight feet high, and the pillar itself slanted up towards the centre of the pyramidal temple, dwarfing even Lord Chalat. The white-eye almost looked humbled in its presence.
In the dark, General Dev could just see the hint of a smile in the light cast by the eternal flame. So no mourning there, then – not that it surprised the general; it was common knowledge that Lord Chalat had barely tolerated his Krann, so the news of Charr's mortal injury wouldn't have grieved him overmuch.
Chalat was dressed in a simple warrior's kilt that reached halfway down his calves. His torso was wrapped in thin white linen and his massive arms were bare, other than a number of copper bands set with lapis lazuli. The scars on both arms marked him out as having passed the five tests of the Agoste field – not that anyone could possibly have doubted that. Tsatach would never have Chosen a Lord found wanting as a child. Strapped to Chalat's back was the ancient sword Golaeth. A large ruby at his throat glowed in the weak light.
'My Lord,' muttered the general as he reached Chalat and dropped to one knee at his feet. As he did so, he was distinctly aware of the empty plain behind him. No Chetse much liked the dark, and with
the unyielding weight of the temple in front of him, he felt even more uncomfortable.
A shallow trench, no more than a foot deep, marked the boundary of the blessed ground of the temple. Everything within was illuminated by the eternal flame; the rest of this eerie, ancient place was black and hidden, as if a wall of stone stood there instead of a trench.
'Get up, Chate. Now, why by Tsatach have you summoned me out here in the middle of the night? It might be magnificent in the light of day, but right now it's a nightmare.'
The general murmured his agreement as he rose. The many temples of the plain were disturbing to behold at night: there was an awful sadness that lingered after dark. The temples dedicated to Nartis and Alterr were situated on top of the rocky cliffs at the north end so even those priests engaged in night-time rituals didn't have to walk the plain at night.
The general had chosen this place for that reason. 'It is indeed, my Lord. I thought it best not to have a crowd of onlookers ready to spread gossip. It may be that the eternal flame may help us in understanding the facts.'
'The eternal flame? Who do you suspect of lying?'
The witness, my Lord.' He looked around, and continued, 'My men are bringing him along now – I thought you should know the facts, or as much as we know – before he arrives.'
Chalat made an irritated noise, then led the way back around to the inside of the pillar. The pair sat down on the wide steps cut into the rock.
'So Charr wasn't hurt in battle, then?' Chalat began.
'In a fashion yes. But his guards' story is – well, unusual.'
'Unusual?'
'They were in the hunting grounds of the Black Palace – this was almost two moons ago – when one of the scouts saw people walking through the grounds towards them, half a dozen foreigners, from the north.'
'Well, of course they were foreigners – no Chetse's going to defy the hunting laws.' He sounded irritated again.
The general continued quickly, 'Exactly, my Lord, so Lord Charr decided to ambush the party.'
‘Hah! So the stupid bastard jumped right into a trap. He deserves to die for that.'
'Yes, my Lord. In any case, the guards attacked and killed a number of the foreigners, but Lord Charr was hit by an arrow – straight into the heart – and no one even saw the archer. They loosed the hounds immediately, in the direction the arrow came from, but no one found a thing.'
&n
bsp; 'If he was hit in the heart, how is he still alive?' A gust of wind rustled over the smooth temple floor, on which the general smelled age and sorrow. In the background, the white shaft of the eternal flame, burning down from the apex of the temple to the altar, hissed quietly, as it had done for more than a thousand years.
'We have no idea. Several surgeons inspected the wound: they all agreed that the arrow was lodged in the heart and he would die. They carried Charr to the palace chapel and left him there to die with his God. My Lord, Charr's guards are devoted to him, but they agreed that there was nothing that could be done.'
'So everyone was surprised when he was still alive in the morning?'
'Quite so, my Lord. They fetched a priest and he claimed the wound was magical, that the fight for Charr's life was a spiritual one, for his soul. The priest said that the arrow itself was made out of soot, enchanted to be as hard as iron.'
'A spiritual battle? Useless shit's buggered then.' The white-eye laughed callously.
'Quite so, Lord.' The general waited patiently until his Lord showed no further sign of interrupting. Chalat was like a mountain: he moved for no man. You worked around him, or broke your hands on his edge.
Chalat waved him to continue.
'Armed with this information, the guards decided to bring Charr back to Thotel. If he was going to die anyway, they believed it would be better to be as close to the Temple of the Sun as possible.'
'Pious of them. Stupid, but pious.'
They brought with them the one surviving member of the group they'd ambushed – as soon as he saw the arrow hit, he ran, but he surrendered later, once he judged their blood had cooled somewhat – he spoke Chetse; told them he had information about the assassin. His behaviour was strange enough that they decided not to kill him immediately – instead, they trussed him like a lizard and put him on the cart next to the Krann.'
'And it's his testimony you want me to hear? What did he tell you?'
'If you don't mind, my Lord, I'd like you to judge it for yourself. He's less likely to lie to you with his hand in the eternal flame. He knows our language well, no doubt why he was chosen for the bait, so he must know about the flame. He did say that he'd been under some sort of enchantment, but that's a detail we can decide later. It's the assassin that I'm worried about.'
