by Tom Deitz
“And if I say no?”
A shrug. “I’ll simply ask you to take off your boots and hose. The Eight know I’ve seen your bare feet often enough. You’ve no reason to deny me unless you have reason to deny me. Barring that … Well, you have to sleep sometime.”
“And if I refuse?”
“I’ll have War here, and Lore, and Stone. And if you still resist, I’ll call in Tyrill.”
Gynn chuckled grimly. “You must truly be desperate, then.”
“I’m concerned for you, you whelp,” Eellon snapped. “I’m concerned for the Kingdom, and for observing the ancient rites. If you’re injured beyond healing, you have some grace. But Tyrill will find out, make no mistake. We need to plan against that eventuality, so the sooner those who made you King know the truth, the sooner we can take appropriate action.”
The King glared at him.
“We will know the truth at Sundeath, in any case. You have that long. Would you rather stand alone or with allies?”
Gynn sighed wearily and slumped back in his chair. “You won’t take no for an answer, will you? And I won’t have an easy minute if I worry about you watching my every move. So …” He was already reaching toward his boot when he paused. “I seem to be doing this twice a day of late, but I would have Sovereign Oath of you on what I am about to reveal.”
“You don’t have the sword,” Eellon replied mildly, sitting again.
“Then I’ll have to trust your word as a man. But I beg you to think before you act.”
“I will keep my own counsel, Majesty. But I would also remind you that my own counsel has rarely been at odds with the good of the Realm or the King.”
“That’s as much as I can expect, I suppose,” Gynn sighed, and eased off his boot. “Forgive me if I don’t remove my hose.”
Eellon merely grunted. He’d seen what he needed to see: a flaccid emptiness where the King’s smallest right toe should have been.
“It’s healing,” Gynn confided. “But not fast enough. I can fake an honest stride, but it costs me.”
Eellon nodded grimly. “But it’s an imperfection we won’t be able to argue away. Which means we have a bit more than half a year in which to lay plans for your succession.”
“I’d thought I might step down at Sunbirth.”
“Not wise,” Eellon countered. “Too many things are at odds right now. We need all the stability we can muster. At best, we can stall. At worst, your condition might render major policy issues subject to question. In any case, we’ve got time in which to agree on a reasonable successor—though I’m damned if I can think of one.”
“I can think of plenty,” Gynn snorted. “Plenty that could do the job. But I can’t think of any that won’t result in civil war. The next generation from Smith, War, and Stone are still young to assume the crown. Anyone else … I wouldn’t enjoy seeing a Weaver or a Woodwright on the throne any more than you would.”
Eellon spared a glance toward the window, noting the westering sun. “Majesty, I thank you for your candor. You have given me much to ponder, and little of it pleasant, but I hadn’t planned to spend this time as I have. I must therefore be on my way. But I fear we must speak of this again, and soon. Have I your permission to tell Avall?”
“If you think it will do any good. But wait a moment,” Gynn continued. “You were blunt with me, to the Kingdom’s good. It is now my obligation to be blunt with you: Are you well? I know about the pain in your joints and back, that you overcome with braces and such. But you have seemed … tired of late. And your face often goes red or pale. Are you aware of this?”
Eellon took a deep breath. “My body is old and is quickly wearing out. My mind is as supple as it ever was, so it seems to me—though I confess to odd blanks in my memory now and then, but we all know that worry can provoke such things even in young men. Still, I do feel light-headed more than I ought. I feel my heart racing sometimes at night. I have more headaches than heretofore.”
The King gnawed his lip thoughtfully. Then: “Whatever happens, Clan-Chief, I hope one of us is there to give the Kingdom guidance.”
“I will be there until The Eight render me unable,” Eellon assured him, rising.
The King took a deep breath. “One more thing, Clan-Chief.”
Eellon paused in place, hands on the arms of his chair. “Yes?”
“Avall. I have seen him little of late. How does he fare after the … taking?”
“He says he fares well, but I don’t believe him. That journey took much out of him, make no mistake. Without the gem, he probably could not have survived it, even with the aid he had. But now that it has … vanished. Well, you have seen him, Majesty. He is like a man spurned in love, like a man worn beyond endurance, and like a man who has lost his crafting hand all at once.”
Again Gynn chuckled. “I know something of that last,” he said. “I was complete, and it made me what I was, and now it is gone, and I will never be what I was.”
“Nor, I fear, will Avall, until he retrieves the gem.”
“Yet he makes no effort to that end?”
“He says he is not yet ready. He says he is waiting for Rann and Merryn to return.”
“Which won’t be until Sunbirth.”
Eellon nodded ominously. “And they haven’t contacted him, which has him concerned. He says they should be able.”
Gynn started pacing, oblivious to his limp, though Eellon saw him grimace more than once. “Meanwhile precious time goes by and he does nothing, while rogue magic runs wild in the world, and I dare not send anyone to seek it, lest they, too, be tempted, as Eddyn was.”
“You’re assuming much of Avall’s ethics, Majesty.”
“At least he intended to give the gem to me. I cannot imagine Eddyn doing the like.”
Eellon cleared his throat. “It might help if Avall were allowed to visit Rrath. They were friends—once. At least that way he might get answers where he had none. Betrayal by a friend, even a lapsed one, is hard to stomach. Avall needs answers now.”
Gynn shook his head. “I can’t let him go. It would raise too many questions. I already suspect Tyrill of muddying the waters there.”
Eellon shook his head in turn. “It was a suggestion. Meanwhile, Avall is like a man who has lost both shadow and soul. He has the form, but not the substance. But he will have to heal himself; we cannot do it for him.”
“Would that I could heal myself so easily,” Gynn sighed, limping to the window. Rain streaked it now; sometime bane of snow. Eellon wished all their troubles were as transitory and as easily dispersed.
CHAPTER XVI:
INTERRUPTION
(ERON: WAR-HOLD-WINTER- NEAR SPRING: DAY XX–EARLY EVENING)
Hold-Warden?”
The voice came hard on the heels of a tentative knock on the half-open door. Lorvinn heard the double raps echo down the empty hall outside her new quarters. Her new cell, rather. The voice was softer: male, and pitched for her ears alone.
“Hold-Warden?” More insistent. Maybe a little desperate. Or simply nervous.
“Not my title—now,” Lorvinn called back, easing herself to a more poised seat in the hard-backed chair that was all she permitted herself, as the plain table was the only flat surface, and the narrow, sparsely sheeted bed the only other furniture beyond a minimum of toiletries and one book at a time. No thick emerald carpeting on the floor, no rich wood paneling, such as had adorned her former suite. No fine fabric robes. Only naked stone floor and walls, a single window, a candle, simple shoes—and a shirt of pig hide worn bristle side against her skin beneath old wool. “But come in anyway … Krynneth.”
The door opened farther to admit a slim young man with piercing blue eyes that set even War-Hold women swooning. He wore a formal cloak-and-hood of War-Hold crimson, and dress mail—which meant this was no casual visit. Lorvinn composed herself for an audience. She had twice his years and more, but was lean and fit for all that. Her face was lined with age, however—and, lately, with worry.
<
br /> Krynneth shut the door behind him. The latch clicked softly, well-made and tended. He looked troubled, Lorvinn thought, with a mental sigh. She hoped he hadn’t come for the reason she suspected. Then again, she also hoped for an end to old age and yearly snow.
A deep breath from Krynneth, then: “Lady Warden, I am here of my own will as a man of this hold who has known you and worked with you and served under you and respected you since I was a boy. You honored me by including me in the Night Guard when you began to rebuild it. But now I am here to tell you that … this has gone on long enough.”
Lorvinn kept her face neutral. “To which ‘this’ do you refer?”
Krynneth fumbled at his wide leather belt, from which depended his personal sword. More symbolism there. “Surely I don’t have to tell you.”
“Humor me.”
Krynneth rolled his eyes in exasperation. “Oh, Lady, why are you doing this? It’s to fortify the punishment you’ve laid on yourself, isn’t it? Making me catalog your one failure in four years of Wardenship.” He gestured around the austere room. “As if this weren’t punishment enough. And don’t think I don’t know about the bristle shirt.”
“Humor me,” Lorvinn repeated.
Krynneth’s eyes flashed. “Eight damn it, Lady, you do want me to say it, don’t you? Very well. You think you betrayed the hold—first by letting Kraxxi escape, then by choosing to follow him yourself for fear word of that would come to light. And finally by including me, Merryn, and the triplets from Ixti in the pursuit.”
“Which resulted in Merryn’s escape—defection—who knows?—to Ixti. And our disgrace.”
“We couldn’t have helped it,” Krynneth gave back. “Merryn’s a rare woman and one most folks underestimate, including both of us. Hopefully Kraxxi underestimated her as well. If she found him, fine; if not … she’ll either continue to search, or die. If the latter, she’ll die doing what she thought was right.”
“Which is what I’m doing,” Lorvinn snapped. “I betrayed the hold and my position in it and my kinsmen and my craft and my clan. Maybe even my King, if Kraxxi was the spy I think he was. I do not deserve to command for that.”
Krynneth flopped back against the wall, arms folded across his chest. “Whatever punishment you think you deserve, Hold-Warden, you aren’t the only one to suffer because of it. By abdicating, you thought to forestall your disgrace, yet who would’ve done differently in your place? Who would’ve expected treachery from Merryn, for one thing? And which of those who have replaced you could have done better?”
“Did they send you?”
“No one sent me. But I know what people think and feel … And the feeling is that Dormill and Vorminn don’t ward as well as you. I’ve heard them say it. And don’t forget, Lady Warden, this place is not a hold that should run at anything less than perfect efficiency.”
“What of the Night Guard?” Lorvinn asked abruptly.
“They continue, but there is a lack of spirit without their chief. And, again, without Merryn—she had one test remaining to pass her initial screening. Then would her real training have begun. We were all—I was, in any event—looking forward to welcoming her formally into our ranks.”
“But the training?”
“It goes well. In fact”—he glanced at a time-candle in the corner—“a meeting is beginning very soon. Are you sure you won’t attend? It would hearten us beyond telling.”
Lorvinn started to reply, but something caught her attention: a low roar of noise, far off. One that she’d hoped never to hear, and certainly not here. She tensed, fingers reaching automatically for the hilt of the plain dagger at her waist.
Krynneth’s eyes narrowed, and then he evidently heard it, too. A stride took him to the door. He opened it, peered out.
The noise swelled up to engulf them: shouts, the thump of boots, and, unmistakably, the clang of metal on metal. Not close—but drawing nearer.
Lorvinn caught Krynneth’s eyes, dark gaze and bright, but alike in the concern that gleamed there.
“Can it be—?” Krynneth dared.
She cut him off, as she made for her armor closet. “It is—somehow. Krynneth, we’re under attack.”
“But how? Who?”
“We only have one enemy,” Lorvinn spat, as she shrugged a mail hauberk over her robe and belted a sword around it. That accomplished, she snared a helmet from a rack, and crammed it on her head, then tossed Krynneth another, as she half dragged, half pushed him into the hall.
“Where—?”
She cocked her head, not believing. “Oh, Eight! They’re coming from below and above at once. Not only have we been attacked, we’ve been betrayed!”
War stank—literally, Zrill thought—as he plunged his sword into yet another unarmed servant—or peasant—or whoever these folks were who seemed to guard everything in War-Hold. Worse, they put up a good fight with whatever came to hand—including a pitchfork, its tines still twined with hanks of hay. It wasn’t the sweet scent of hay that fouled his nose, however, but the stench of horse dung and urine, mixed with their human analogs when people died. And blood, and the reek of viscera ripped out and exposed. He’d learned his lesson there: better a simple thrust to the heart or abdomen than a slash. Except at the neck. He didn’t aim for heads. Faces were too much to look at in battle: eyes meeting his own in fear, puzzlement, and outrage.
But fighting was also, he discovered, something one did by reflex. It was movement—a steady surge forward once they’d invaded the stables via the secret entrance the Eronese woman had told Barrax about. Movement outward through that area, securing it, while others went upward both by the main passages and by a secret stair to the very top of the hold, the existence of which the woman had also revealed. There were supposed to be a thousand Ixtians against half that many in the hold—enough to secure all crucial points and raise the main portcullis before the bulk of Barrax’s force marched in.
For Zrill, it was enough to be warm.
Not that he noticed. His reality had become one of rhythm. Tramp a few strides, search for anything that moved on two legs, and strike. He tried to kill cleanly, after the first few, and so far it had been easy—though parrying a hay fork was awkward. Tramp a few more, watch the straw-covered stones for anything that might upset footing. Avoid horses that stomped and raged, but that Barrax had ordered not be harmed. Onward.
Watching—stone stalls and good horses, and high, groined vaults, and most light from glow-globes because of the fire hazard of torches. His mates trudging along to either side at one-span distance, as others filled in between from behind, and he himself followed others one rank ahead. Mail gleaming and sand-colored cloaks whipping and flaring. Helms sparking like fire where light hit their facets exactly right and woke the rock crystals fastened there.
Listening—the tromp of heavy leather boots once more treading worked stone after two eighths of sand, snow, and mountainside. The jingle of mail, the creak of leather as they stalked along. The rustle of straw swept aside. And above all—above even the clang of weapons, sometimes near and sometimes far away—the rasp of his own ragged breathing, amplified by the lower half of his helm. They fought silently when they could. Barrax’s orders, the better to make commands heard. The better to cow their adversaries.
They’d reached the end of the stables now, and confronted three archways: that in the center open, its door panels folded back; those to left and right closed. A subtle stench of sulfur issued from that to the left. Midway through the flank on that side, Zrill paused with his commander. Whatever shouts the man exchanged with his equivalent in the middle, however, were drowned by the roar of combat as a phalanx of armed men poured down the stairs beyond the central arch. Men—and women, he supposed—in tabards of Warcraft crimson. The first real resistance they’d met. Barrax’s men surged forward in turn, blocking the way, holding the defenders at bay on the stairs, raising square shields a quarter span wide and half a span high as they knelt so that spearmen could thrust their lon
g deadly shafts between. A few archers dared shots as well—the high ceiling permitted that. Zrill could see little of their effect, though he moved toward that battle with the rest. Men shouted in Eronese—not in panic, but surprise. From what he could see from his vantage a dozen strides away, the Ixtian warriors were slowly forcing their way up the stairs. Which was part of the strategy: a strong force to fan out, ever renewed from behind, and with specific goals—to meet a force taken unaware, that must assemble from all parts of the citadel without any central command initially, and having only guesses as to where the invaders might be. All resulting in an uncoordinated defense.
A noise at his back made Zrill swing around—to find a wild-eyed stableboy who’d evidently hidden through the preliminary sweep. To Zrill’s dismay, he was armed with a pitchfork, and had in fact stabbed the soldier behind him in the thigh. The man went down in a tangle of armor, weaponry, and blood. Zrill was suddenly exposed. He stepped into the void, stabbing at the fork with his sword, knocking the weapon aside with reasonable ease, for it was too big and clumsy for someone who couldn’t be much older than eleven. The boy’s eyes widened in pain—likely from the impact—and Zrill pushed past his guard. He started to swing at the unprotected neck, which would be merciful, then thought of shifting to the heartstab, which would be cleaner. In the end, he wrestled the boy down and cracked him smartly between the eyes with the sword hilt. Let someone else finish him if they would; he hadn’t joined the army to kill boys. Someone gave him a hand up as he rose. He met the eyes behind the helm: his best mate, Trimm. What he could see of Trimm’s face was grim. He nodded approval, and dragged Zrill away. Somehow they’d wound up near the tail of their group.
But the battle plan was clearer. The central half of the invading force, which was still being swelled by soldiers coming through the secret route from outside, were pushing their way up the stairs. He had no idea what the right flank was doing, save that it involved the doors on that side. But his own commander was mounting a massive assault on the heavy oak panels on the left, using one of the few siege weapons the Ixtians had perfected that the arrogant Eronese had not.
