In Siege of Daylight

by Gregory S Close

  “Did she see him as a threat?” Calvraign struggled with the notion. Perhaps any other general – but Kiev Vae? Not only had he secured the Western March, he’d revolutionized the concept of military tactics and honor. Betrayal seemed unlikely from him, if any of his lessons were true.

  “A precaution, perhaps,” mused Brohan, sensing Calvraign’s disquiet. “You must always keep your generals busy – especially the good ones. I’m not quite old enough to remember that first hand, I’m afraid. But then again, perhaps the threat she perceived was not so much to her or from him. Could it be she sent him away to protect him from elements at court threatened by his new standing? Might not the great Council of Lords be put off by a baker’s son in ermine, even after proving he’s not lost his skill at pulling buns from the fire?”

  “Even after saving their empire, they saw him as a commoner?”

  “Even after saving their empire, Cal.” Brohan’s look was hard, but sincere. “Even had he saved their king.”

  Calvraign’s throat knotted, and his eyes burned.

  “For many, it is bloodline that dictates one’s limits, not deeds. You must not be quick to judge, but neither quick to trust. Merely being who are you are may make you enemies, and vehement ones.”

  “That brings us back to where we started, but I’m afraid you’ve terrified more than enlightened me,” Calvraign said.

  “Then you’re all the better prepared for our little visit. Sometimes an enlightened man may miss the shadows around him; a terrified man rarely does.”

  Calvraign’s appetite for excitement took on a slight taste of apprehension, and even a hint of fear. “Have you any enemies at court, Brohan?” he asked, to distract himself from his own nerves.

  “Certainly,” he answered with a dismissive shrug. “Sing a song glorifying one knight’s deeds, and his rival is always put off. But I have the king’s favor, which still counts for a good deal, so few will speak against me in the open. I try not to bother too much with the politics of the noble houses. They are, for the most part, far too absorbed in their own shortsighted dealings.”

  “Even now? But we’re at war! Surely the maneuvering can wait until the Maccs are dealt with?”

  Brohan gave Calvraign a truly startled look, his eyebrows arching above his wide eyes. “Such common sense is beneath the trained intellect of the noble houses, my boy. The war could be won a year gone if they could put aside their bickering, but poor Guillaume has lost the strength or the will to bind them together as he once did in the War of Thorns. And Prince Hiruld, I’m afraid, is a better huntsman than statesman.”

  “A greater pity about Vingeaux, then. He would have made a strong king.”

  “Hmm,” considered Brohan. “Strong yes, but not necessarily wise. He was a warrior, first and last. And last, it seems, won out.”

  “Did he die well?”

  “Gods, Calvraign! What a question!” said Brohan, shaking his head. “What difference does that make? He is dead. Gone. Bled to grey with his guts in his lap. He died in battle, if I take your meaning, but to me at least, that means nothing.”

  Calvraign’s face grew dark as he spoke. “My father died-”

  Brohan, realizing the boy’s affront, was quick to abate it. “Your father is a hero because he sacrificed himself for the good of others, not because he fell in battle. Had he lived, still he would be a great man. How he died is not what made him so.”

  “I suppose,” replied Calvraign, not entirely convinced.

  “Take, for example, King Eamperiun. Was he a great man for consolidating the old Kingdom of Dachadaie, for turning back the hrumm at Mychah, or for cracking his head open when a cranky horse got the better of him?”

  “But that’s not the same thing, Brohan!” he protested, batting ever-larger snowflakes away from his face.

  “But it is the same thing!” emphasized the bard. “Would you love the memory of your father less if after Vlue Macc he died of fever or snakebite? Of course not! Your head is lost in the heights of fancy and legends. Get it back down here where the air is cold but not so rare!”

  Resigned to once more losing a debate to Brohan, Calvraign trudged on through the thickening snowfall. The weather had been bad with spells of miserable, and there was a hint of consternation in the bard’s keen eyes as he looked around them.

  “Well, if this isn’t a sour turn,” he muttered, hands on hips.

  “What?” Calvraign shouted, finding it difficult to hear through the growing keening of the wind.

  “I’ve lost the river, I’m afraid. I was so busy talking that I forgot to pay attention to where I was going. Either we’ve drifted a little too far north, or the snow has capped the riverbed completely. In any event, we’d best find it again soon.”

  Calvraign could hardly tell the sky from the horizon. Everything seemed to blur together into one mass of silver. He squinted into the distance, shielding his eyes from the glare, then shrugged. “I can’t make anything out,” he confessed.

  “Nor can I!” Brohan shouted back. The storm seemed to be coalescing, snow and wind conspiring to drown them out.

  “What should we do now?” yelled Calvraign, but the words were ripped from his throat and tossed away by another, fiercer gust of wind, and he found himself staggering backward from the sudden gale. “It seems Father Oa has released his falcons!” he exclaimed, blinking away tiny bits of snow and ice that whipped into his eyes.

  “Aye,” agreed Brohan, bracing against the wind and holding back a hand to Calvraign. “More like the Chariot of Winter. Take my hand, lad!”

  Calvraign reached out but once again found the wind holding him back while gnawing his flesh with its icy bite. He tried to focus on the shadow ahead of him that moments before had been Brohan. He thought he heard the bard call his name, but amidst the wind’s angry howl he couldn’t be sure.

  Calvraign struggled against the unreasoning elements, sheltering his eyes with a wool-covered hand. He kept Brohan’s dwindling figure in sight only briefly before it disappeared and left him alone in the swirling, shifting snows. The wind lulled for an instant and then blasted him from behind, throwing him headlong into a man-sized drift. He struggled against the cold hands that sought to hold him down and entomb him here, struggling first to his knees and then to his unsteady feet. Whatever he had done to arouse winter’s fury, he found himself regretting it.

  Calvraign’s face stung. Amidst the unceasing attack of the wind and snow, he felt his skin was too thin a shell between himself and the forces of nature that beset him. He stumbled and righted himself again, though he had no idea where he was going. He shuffled on, dazed, occasionally making a sound from his cold-clumsy lips that he hoped still sounded like Brohan’s name.

  He was here just a moment ago. Panic grabbed the pit of his stomach even as the cold clutched at his heart. Calvraign had been in storms before. Winter was not new to him. He’d weathered many a snow squall in the hills, tucked under a rock, behind a dolmen, or nestled in the hollow of a tree. But here, in the flat and featureless expanse of the plains, he was without benefit of experience. And this cold. So cold. It wasn’t this cold a moment ago.

  Calvraign bit into his tongue until the warm metallic tang of blood wet his mouth. Blinking frozen tears from his eyes, he squinted once more into the blizzard. Against the never-ending white of the invisible horizon, a shadow glimmered briefly to his right. He turned, swaying on his unsteady feet, then drove toward the tempting silhouette. Be it real or illusion, it was a goal, a single point on which to pin his hope, and Calvraign grabbed at it with the enthusiasm of a drowning man for a branch.

  His occasional glimpse at the elusive apparition suggested it was a man in grey and black armor, a tattered cloak hanging limply from his broad shoulders even in the whipping winds of the storm. The face seemed unnaturally pale, but he could not make out its expression. He held something in his gauntleted hand, the sharp edges of its shadowy outline suggesting a long sword. As Calvraign finally drew near, the fi
gure raised the blade before him. Calvraign fell back, a chill deeper than any bite of winter in his heart, and would have run were he able. Instead, he lay helpless at its feet, his body and defiance spent.

  An instant later the phantom was replaced by a blinding flash of blue light and the deafening retort of a thunderclap. Lights danced on a dark sky before Calvraign’s eyes, but he heard a crackle, spit and hiss nearby and then felt an odd sensation licking at his limbs. He crawled with what energy he could closer to the sound and the alien warmth that tempted him to hope again, striving to find the source of the flames, but unconsciousness found him first.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  PASSAGES

  OSRITH ducked his head to avoid another low hanging mist of cobwebs and choked back another sneeze. The back of his throat was thick with dust and phlegm, and his breath crawled from his gullet with a rattle as he walked. Prentis led the way through the narrow corridors, followed closely by Osrith, Kassakan and the two silent wilhorwhyr.

  Cramped, dank, underground tunnels didn’t bother Osrith – but he was less fond of the eight legged crawlies that occasionally dropped on their silken strands to tickle the back of his neck. He shrugged off a shiver and followed the trail of oily smoke that loitered in the wake of Prentis’ torch. It hurt to move, hurt more to crouch, but he knew what fate awaited him if he stayed, and it was easy to push through the pain. This old sortie tunnel would bring them out far to the north and a little to the west of the castle perimeter. It would buy them some time, at least.

  “How much farther?” he grunted.

  “Still a bit to go, captal,” replied Prentis.

  “It’s a bit longer stretch than I remembered.”

  “And bigger spiders,” added Kassakan.

  “Big enough,” Osrith agreed. “I was content leaving this patrol to Bleys.”

  Prentis chuckled, swiping more stringy webs from his path. “I’m not sure he much appreciated the honor, captal.”

  “It wasn’t for his sake I sent him. And stop calling me captal – that’s your standard to bear, now. Though I’ll wager Bleys didn’t much care for that appointment, come to think of it.”

  “No. He didn’t think Osrith’s little runt was fit for duty. Old Trandt was captal when you left, but after he passed and I was named, Bleys called me out to settle his complaint on the field of honor.”

  “Did he?” Osrith tried to keep the surprise out of his voice. Surprise both that Bleys, as resentful and self-important as he was, would dare such presumption; and surprise that a young Prentis lived through the challenge. Trandt still had wits about him; but even when Osrith knew him, he was a frail man whose glories were past him. Bleys was the most deadly of the men in the House Guard. Prentis was younger, smarter perhaps, but blade to blade….

  “It didn’t come to blows,” Prentis continued, as if sensing his line of thought. “Her Ladyship did not take kindly to the impertinence. She sent him off to Dwynleigsh to watch over Aeolil. His honor is intact, and he may keep his title as an honorarium, if naught else, and Lady Evynine may count on his loyalty without so much worry for his judgment.”

  “Demons take Bleys.” Osrith spat a stray cobweb from his mouth. “If I don’t get a chance, first.”

  “Maybe you’ll get your chance in Dwynleigsh, captal.”

  “I told you to stop calling me that.”

  “I beg your pardon,” Prentis apologized. “Was that an order?”

  Osrith shook his head and glared at the young knight. “I can’t give you orders anymore, Prentis.”

  “Yes, captal.”

  “You can’t blame him, Osrith,” said Kassakan, “he didn’t have the best mentor.”

  “That’s true enough.” Osrith grinned. “Lady Evynine chose you well, nonetheless.”

  Prentis didn’t respond. Osrith didn’t expect him to. He’d said what needed saying, and Prentis had heard what needed hearing. That was enough for both of them. He glanced back at Symmlrey and Two-Moons, but the wilhorwhyr seemed unaware or uninterested in his exchange with Prentis. Their very lack of attention reminded him that any pride in the boy’s elevation was of minimal importance compared to what lay ahead.

  “What are you going to do about the siege?” he prompted.

  “I’ll lead a contingent of men across the Daemyr. If the Pale Man chooses to siege Castle Vae, then we will lay siege to his lines of communication and supply. I will make the traverse between the Daemeyr and Ten Man Pass a killing zone.”

  “Did you run that plan by Evynine? It’s damn risky.”

  “Run it by her?” Prentis responded with a chuckle. “It’s her plan, sir.”

  “Well, why should that surprise me?” Osrith struck Prentis’ shoulder. “But you’re supposed to talk her out of that rubbish. A good captal brings some common sense to the high born so they don’t get themselves into too much trouble with their chivalric nonsense.”

  “So you were always fond of saying,” agreed Prentis. “I don’t recall that working very well for you either, in practice, sir.”

  “For a boy who’d speak once a fortnight, you seem to have found your tongue,” groused Osrith. “When’d that happen?”

  Prentis shrugged and kept his eyes forward, picking his way carefully over the rough ground of the passage. Osrith noted his tightened jaw and averted eyes. And his silence.

  It was Kassakan’s voice that answered. “Captal Trandt and Bleys exchanged words about you often, and about the Pale Man. Trandt believed you were honorable but outmatched. Bleys, well, as you know – he felt you were complicit. He lobbied more than once to have your head on the walls and he volunteered to separate it from your shoulders himself.”

  That was hardly a revelation. Bleys Malade had always resented Osrith’s favor with House Vae, his friendship with the baroness and her husband, and most especially his appointment as captal. There would never be getting around that.

  “And?” Osrith prompted.

  “And one day Bleys took it too far. He questioned not just your loyalty, but Evynine’s fidelity to Hestan. Certainly nothing that hadn’t been whispered before, but he said it outright, in front of the men, and in front of young Kiev. Trandt was taken aback, and he faltered. That was the day Prentis found his tongue, and likely the day Evynine found her new captal.”

  Osrith clenched his jaw and sucked in a breath of damp chill air through his nose. Blood pounded in his ears, throbbed against the taut bandages in his abdomen and leg. He pressed on behind Prentis, no longer through the pain, but with it. Osrith marched in time with every angry pulse of blood, and every fresh moment of pain brought him one step closer to the end of the tunnel, to the mountains, to Dwynleigsh, to the king and a purse of silver and gold.

  And to Bleys.

  The suns rose above the towering spine of the High Ridge, high into the cloudless sky, the golden princess Ilieam followed by her diminutive silver Handmaiden, Nymria. Their heat was tempered by the cold wind, but there was nothing to dim the divine sisters’ light. Dieavaul studied his scant shadow absently, tracing its outline with a squinted eye down the tip of ilnymhorrim.

  There is no shadow without light, he reflected. It was the subtitle of the eighth passage of the Fourth Arcanum, The Delicate Balance. Reading it had transformed him. Elevated the young boy Esmaedi from a competent but disaffected pupil of the arcane into the hand-chosen pupil of the greatest mage in the Magistry. For a time, he had channeled his impulses as he’d thought Dmylriani would approve, but eventually the ruse ended. Dieavaul was born. To remove one thing necessitates replacing with another. It seemed only just that if he murdered himself he must also be reborn – Esmaedi dies and Dieavaul lives. If there is no balance, there is only Void. Oblivion.

  Dieavaul brought ilnymhorrim’s tip and his gaze up from the ground and aimed instead at the stark granite of Kirith Vae. He needed to find his own delicate balance, now. Osrith had somehow fled the castle without alerting his patrols, which would not be impossible, considering how thinly they were
spread. But how he’d slipped the unliving and unwavering notice of ilnymhorrim, he could not ascertain. Regardless, it was done, and he had finite resources at his disposal to deal with both this fortress and his escaped quarry. To apply force here, another force would have to be redirected from one of the armies in Malakuur. To not apply force could be even more disastrous. And there was the matter of tracking down the dreamstone, again.

  Dieavaul shook his head and brought his sword down, turning to Pakh Ma Thatt. “We must keep them engaged, but we cannot rely on traditional siege. Once our numbers are apparent, they will send sorties to whittle us down.”

  Thatt snarled, shaking his head in the hrummish equivalent of assent. “This hruthwaor not fall without many thousands blood spilling.”

  And therein, the problem, he agreed to himself. The hrumm were a mighty force, but they fought wars in a different way than the children of men. An army of human knights and all their retainers and camp followers could entrench for months or tens of months, lay siege, and still be fit for battle in some fashion when the time came. Where they might be a lake, wide and deep, the hrumm were a river, fast and strong. If they did not keep moving, hunting, conquering, then the stillness would drive them mad and erode their discipline. They could not sit and stare at these walls for a ten-moon; he would lose them.

  “This is the Host of the Gal Pakh,” Dieavaul stated, even as his stratagem took shape. “We do not sit and wait, pissing into the wind. We hunt.”

  Thatt pounded his chest.

  “You will stay here, my pakh ma. You will lead the Host, but you will not sit idle. Raid the farmsteads, burn the crops, break the ploughs, douse the forge-fires. Kill every man, woman and child; every pig, cow and dog. Lay it all to waste. They will come to you, then. Bit by bit, they will sortie forth to loose your stranglehold. This is the game you will play – strike them and vanish, then strike them and vanish again. You must not be caught in open battle or tricked into ambush. You will not siege the castle, you will siege the land it defends.”