In Siege of Daylight

by Gregory S Close

  Then he saw it. Amidst the chaotic clutter of the middle board, Rahn, Brohan’s reaver threatened Calvraign’s unicorn. He could ill afford to lose the unicorn at this stage of the game. Only this piece, bearing the legendary magic of the horn, could fell the slaoithe lord with one fatal attack. It must be protected at all costs.

  He examined and re-examined his avenues of attack and defense on the checkered battlefield and then made his move. He grabbed the ivory figure of a running archer, his wilhorwhyr, and challenged the ebony hrummish shaman that occupied the defensive position he sought. The dice roll was but a formality. Calvraign’s wilhorwhyr had the advantage, attacking from a green-tinted forest square, and moments later, Brohan’s piece was his and the unicorn was under the protective watch of its real-life woodland ally.

  “Well played, lad,” praised Brohan. “We shall see if you can sustain your advantage.”

  “I have confidence you shall sustain your disadvantage without much help from me,” Calvraign said smoothly, his crystal blue eyes shining with the taste of victory.

  Brohan laughed and tipped an imaginary hat. “Touché, sir! You learn quickly enough!” He moved a hrummish hunter threateningly close to the wilhorwhyr, but held his distance. “Unfortunately for you, I already know what I’m doing.”

  Without so much as blinking, Calvraign sprang his trap, moving his lord high marshal from the back of his ranks to the nexus in the center of the tier. The color of the tier changed immediately from its neutral hue to a soft white luminescence, signaling that Light claimed this tier and thus the advantage on subsequent challenges.

  “I sincerely hope I haven’t inconvenienced your strategy, sir.” Calvraign sat back with a smile, leaning against the remnants of a weather-eaten wall behind him.

  “Not at all, young lad. If you’ll notice, your wilhorwhyr is but a dice throw away from being paralyzed by my shadowyn. Roll.”

  Calvraign’s smugness evaporated in an instant. He shot upright and bent over the board, looking in amazement at the pieces below him. By moving his lord high marshal, he had exposed a square on the lower tier of Shadow from which the shadowyn could launch its spell. The paralysis would last only three Turns, but this could mean disaster for Calvraign’s strategy. He picked up his carved bone dice and rolled them between his palms. He still had a chance to resist the effects of the creature’s foul magic.

  “A pity,” said Brohan as the dice settled to seal the wilhorwhyr’s fate. “He shall be no help to you now. And you were doing so well.”

  Calvraign refrained from cursing at the top of his lungs. His unicorn was once again at the mercy of Brohan’s menacing reaver. He could stave off the attack, if he was lucky, but would almost certainly be left weakened and vulnerable. With a sigh, Calvraign made his decision. He must go on the offensive and use his control of the nexus to his advantage. If he was successful, the unicorn and the wilhorwhyr might both survive. If he was not, he concluded that the situation couldn’t get much worse anyway.

  “Unicorn challenges reaver,” stated Calvraign formally, moving the rampant equine figurine within the shadow of Brohan’s twisted ebony piece.

  “You are taking a grave risk, Cal. Care to reconsider?”

  “Don’t insult me, Brohan. You’d not afford such luxury to any serious opponent. Roll the bones.” Cal was oblivious to the falling snow, the whipping winds, even the bitter winter cold that moments ago had been stinging his extremities. All he saw were the game board, the pieces, and the dice as they tumbled recklessly from Brohan’s hands, carrying the balance of his young pride with their result.

  “A draw,” said Brohan, almost masking his surprise. “Your gambit has not spelled disaster yet.”

  “Blood and ruin!” spat Calvraign, his rage written on his reddened face.

  Brohan fixed his pupil with a disapproving stare. “You cannot expect to win every gamble, Cal. With every victory comes sacrifice. You did quite well, considering the odds were stacked against you. Of all pieces, the reaver poses the greatest risk to the unicorn. Even with the nexus, you had but a small chance to survive, and that you have done.”

  Calvraign shook his head slowly, slumping against the old wall in defeat. “Little good that does me! My unicorn’s but a meal for your beasts, now. The game is yours, Brohan, lest Oghran Herself comes to blow on my dice. Though She’s done precious little for me thus far.”

  Brohan laughed and reached over to pat Cal’s arm. “Putting one’s faith in Lady Luck will do little for winning a game of strategy, lad. She is a fickle Mistress, indeed. How many great generals carried Her banners into battle before them? Symbus? Celian? Saint Kaissus? Not a one, my boy, not a one. Look to Irdik for tactics, Illuné for honor, even Kazdann for might, but look to Oghran for naught you truly need, only what you might like to have. Now, are you conceding defeat so early, or shall we continue?”

  “Ah yes, the proverbial wisdom, honor and valor of the Three Swords,” sighed Calvraign with a rueful shake of his head. “I appear to be short a blade or two, then. Proceed with the slaughter.”

  “You disappoint me, lad. Do you give in to defeat so readily that you find no insight in the process? Look to the legends you love so dearly and count the times that victory was snatched away from the careless by brave hearts and keen minds. Might you not do the same?”

  “You argue as if the whole of Providayne were being overrun by Shadow, and I was the lone flame to dispel it. And, at any rate, I’m no Andulin to do the deed.”

  “True enough, but nor am I a dark god for you to vanquish. Take hold of what you have and fight with it. Don’t dwell on the prices you’ve already paid. Concentrate on the task at hand.”

  Calvraign threw his hands in the air, grinning despite himself. “Enough of your lecture, Brohan. Move before we freeze here and join the spectacle of these ruins.”

  “As you wish. I was simply trying to bolster your spirits so you could more adequately deal with this.” Brohan challenged the unicorn, and a tick later his dice claimed the piece as his. “Remember, focus on what you still have, not on what you’ve lost.”

  “You are joking, of course,” mumbled Calvraign.

  “Please don’t start complaining again,” pleaded Brohan. “You’ll distract me from rubbing your nose in my victory.”

  Calvraign tightened his jaws. Perhaps Brohan was right. Even if a quick, glorious victory was now out of the question, he could still make victory for his opponent a difficult and costly one. With that determination firmly in mind, he settled down for a long, hard fight.

  The midwinter snows outside the small village of Craignuuwn had not yet reached Calvraign’s waist, but at the rate the large fluffy flakes were falling now, he knew that by morning they certainly would. The shepherds were finishing with their work, securing the livestock within the town pen and stirring the glowing embers of the fire pits. Only the longhaired sheep were left to fend for themselves in the growing cold of night. Their fleece was thick enough to dispel all but the deadliest chill, and their tendency to bleat alarm at the sight or smell of anything unfamiliar made them ideal animals to stand watch. Several of the Cythe tribes relied on the sheep as their first line of defense, much to the amusement of their former allies and conquerors alike. Despite its proven effectiveness, the thought of the highland sheep playing any tactical role in the high art of defense or warfare did not fit into the strict rules of honorable combat that the aristocracy held so dear.

  According to Brohan, the people of Providayne, and especially the noble houses, still regarded the Cythe and other tribes in the Crehr ne Og to be little more than half-tamed barbarians. Their ways and their culture, as ancient and proud as they were, still held no place for respect outside these rugged hills.

  Of course, that didn’t stop the king’s army from gathering soldiers from Cythe villages. Calvraign’s father Ibhraign had been one of those recruits. He had fought and died in the War of Thorns when Calvraign was still learning to string words together. He had died proud, a
hero in the eyes of both his fellow Cythe and his Providaynian lords, giving his life to save King Guillaume in battle. His reward had been a royal pension for his widow and her son, including Brohan’s tutelage, which Calvraign knew was no paltry sum. Yet still his father was a barbarian, as was he, as were his people: not worthy of land or title, only blood money. These thoughts gnawed at his heart as he waded through the snow toward the center of town and his mother’s modest house.

  “I can smell that mutton from here!” exclaimed Brohan, breaking the silence that had descended with the setting suns. “We may use the path now. My hunger trumps your training tonight.”

  Calvraign found it interesting that Brohan chose the word we, since the bard had been on the path the entire journey. For whatever reason, trudging through the snow had suddenly assumed paramount importance as a part of the increasingly broad description of things that Brohan called Calvraign’s training. Training for what, he wasn’t exactly sure. Whatever the end goal, the sensation of his legs falling stiff and frozen from his body apparently led to it somehow.

  Calvraign didn’t want to give Brohan the satisfaction of seeing him give up now. “I’ve come this far, I’ll go twelve steps further. You go on ahead and warn my mother that you’ve crippled me,” he said with a wry smile.

  “As you wish, lad. She’ll be happy as naught to cuff me for having you out so long in this weather, anyhow.”

  Calvraign watched as Brohan trotted ahead toward the squat stone cottage and entered its warmth with a swift knock of warning. His mother’s cries of outrage and worry were cut off along with Brohan’s laughter as the thick door shut behind him. His mother would be busy chastising Brohan for a bit yet, so Calvraign made little haste to follow. As engrossing as his sessions with the famous bard were, Cal often as not found himself unusually drained by them. Brohan taxed every whit of his being, from his mind to his heart to his soul, tiring each in their fashion, and after dinner there would be more lessons still. There was nothing he loved more, really, than hearing Brohan tell the histories of Rahn and its people. But the sheer volumes of knowledge that Brohan imparted were so vast that he found it rather intimidating.

  What was he to do with such knowledge, after all? He could join the king’s army in the south to fight the Maccs, and perhaps die as his father had. He could become a bard, like Brohan, and wander the forgotten kingdoms and wilderness of the west, seeing sights that most preferred to leave safe in the yellowed parchment of their lore books. But he was not yet ready for such adventures, said Brohan, and doubtless his mother would agree. In fact, it was not likely that she would ever agree. No amount of argument had gained her assent for tutelage in fencing. Even now she refused to allow it. Only through begging and subterfuge had he managed to convince Brohan to secretly teach him. With some pride he remembered Brohan’s praise for his ability with a blade.

  Without warning, the pride and wind were both knocked out of Calvraign as he was tackled from behind. He landed in the snow with a wet thud, gasping for breath and wincing in pain, a bony arm planted at the base of his neck.

  “Well met, Lord Askewneheur,” said a soft, lilting voice in his ear. “‘Tis a fine night for a walk. Care for company?”

  Calvraign recognized the voice instantly and attempted to right himself. He met with little initial resistance, but made no more progress than to rest on his back rather than his face. His reddened, tired eyes looked up into the dark chestnut eyes of Callagh Breigh, her short brown hair tangled in front of her flushed face. He could feel the warmth of her breath, and her lean body pressed against him, holding him down with apparent ease. They had been friends and sparring partners as long as he could recall; but as she assumed some of the more prominent characteristics of womanhood, he found this physical aspect of their relationship awkward, at best. She was only recently sixteen years of age, almost two years his junior, and he wasn’t entirely sure what or how he should feel about her now. Unfortunately, she suffered from no such confusion.

  “Callagh, please, I’m very tired, and mother’s waiting.”

  “Let her wait, then!” she quipped, moving her lips close to his, her eyes half closing in anticipation.

  In a panic Calvraign found his strength and rolled away from her, gaining his feet a moment later. “Callagh! You bold girl, what are you doing?”

  “Ach, Cal, if ye dunna know…,” she teased.

  He did know, of course. But he had no desire talk about it. He was much too confused by this change in her to respond in any sort of intelligent fashion. He only knew his instinctual reaction, which was to run away from the moment and then dwell on it later. He was a little old to feel so awkward around the fairer sex, a fact that he was all too aware of but powerless to change. Perhaps he spent too much of his time practicing with his gwythir, or reading Brohan’s precious books, or fencing with sticks out in the hills while he watched his family’s flock. Regardless, he little wanted to explore the reasons or their ramifications right at this moment, despite the girl who’d rather literally pressed the matter on top of him.

  “‘Tis a bit late for a snow frolic,” he said, brushing the wet snow from his tunic and trying to make his expression as reproachful as his words. “You’d best get yourself home. What if your father comes back and you’re not there? You don’t want a beating, do you?”

  Callagh sat up and shrugged, her legs crossed in the snow in front of her. She wore huntsman’s leathers, lined with fox and rabbit fur, and didn’t appear even mildly concerned by the cold. “Da’s already home,” she said, tracing a line in the snow with her index finger. “He never goes hunting on Lorday, you know that. He’s all full of piss and drink by now anyway.”

  “Aye,” Calvraign said, the sternness of his tone dissolving into a sort of resigned understanding. Callagh’s mother had died three years ago when the pox had struck Craignuuwn. Her father hadn’t taken her death well, to say the least. He was still the most accomplished and valuable huntsman in the village, but Ewbhan Breigh was a powerful man and an angry drunk. Callagh had suffered the brunt of his temper on more than one occasion. He often wondered at the whim of fate that allowed a man like Ewbhan to live on while those like his father and her mother met such untimely ends. He offered her his hand. “C’mon, you can stay here again tonight.”

  Callagh accepted his hand and pulled herself to her feet. “I’ll bring ye a hare tomorrow,” she promised.

  “Calvraign! Get your wee óinse in here straight away!” Oona Askewneheur yelled from the doorway of the cottage. “You’ll freeze to th’ bones, you will!”

  Calvraign made haste toward the open door, relieved by his mother’s stern command. He would rather face his mother’s rage than fend off Callagh’s advances or face his inability to protect her from Ewbhan’s ire. Oona knew better how to talk to Callagh about these matters, anyway.

  “Callagh, is that you, girl?” his mother yelled again. “Ye best be in too, lass – there’s plenty to go ‘round!”

  Calvraign stopped in the doorway and gave his mother a quick appreciative smile. He took a moment to kiss her on the cheek and then proceeded down the short flight of steps into the cottage, followed shortly thereafter by Callagh.

  There was only one room in the modest home. The stone walls were bare save for a multitude of wooden pegs and the implements that hung from them. There was one chair with an oft-mended leg, pushed under the chipped table Calvraign used to mend it. The straw sleeping pallets and the woolen bedclothes were off to one side, stacked neatly and out of the way. The three family dogs, longhaired highland wolfhounds with lean frames and long legs, were curled in a bunch on their own pallet, staring wistfully at the iron pot of mutton they would be lucky to taste. They charged Calvraign happily as he entered, and then Callagh behind him. Brohan sat by the fire, his cloak and boots shed, his grin widening as he winked at Cal.

  After appeasing the hounds, Calvraign removed his own outer garments and spread them out on the flat drying rock near the fire pit in the ce
nter of the great room. Aromatic smoke drifted lazily from the flames and lingered by the thatched roof, eventually finding its way outside through the vents built into the uppermost outside edge of the stone walls. It was quite warm inside. Half of the structure was buried underground for insulation, trapping the heat in winter but retaining a pleasant coolness in summer. It was sturdy and functional, even comfortable in its own fashion.

  Calvraign sat by the fire next to Brohan, spreading his fingers out to absorb its warmth, and watched as his mother ladled large portions of mutton stew into worn walnut bowls. She served Brohan first, then Callagh, and finally Calvraign. He wondered how long she had waited before eating, herself. The evening was lengthening toward the silent bell of highmoons, long past the gloaming bell when Brohan promised they would return. Brohan sometimes spoke of time in ticks, clicks or hours, but there was no Imperial clock-tower in Craignuuwn to count it, and no dignitaries rushing to and fro on king’s business to care. The sheep seemed content with bells. Regardless, he could see his mother was not happy with the bard by the frown on her generally pleasant face.

  “When the Hand of Death comes for my soul, Oona, I most certainly hope something this delicious awaits me in the greylands,” Brohan said smoothly, the warming tone of his voice already thawing his mother’s disposition.

  “You are a devil, Brohan Madrharigal!” she exclaimed as if only now discovering some new facet of his personality. She stroked her callused hands through her blonde hair, its once beautiful strands now greying and losing their luster. Her puffy red cheeks lifted up toward the corner of her eyes in a bashful smile. “How is Cal coming along with your game, then?”

  “Quite well, Oona,” Brohan responded, returning her smile. “He comes closer to besting me every time. Almost a draw today.”