by Tom Deitz
“There may be word in my wake,” Krynneth retorted. “But I’ve done nothing but ride, through rain, snow—everything. I’ve killed three horses, two of which I stole.”
“And maybe yourself,” a healer grumbled, already fussing with potions by the window.
“It doesn’t matter. Not with everyone I cared about … gone.”
The King glanced at Tryffon. “Seven days. Men march more slowly than that, and the terrain’s rough down there. Still, he’d have reached Half Gorge in five, faster than that, if he forced his men. Tell me, Krynneth, those you fought: Did they look fresh or weary?”
Krynneth shook his head. “Most wore helms, Sire. I saw eyes, but that was all. They fought well, though; and their armor was polished, their clothes clean.”
“But Half Gorge—” Tyrill put in. “If they could reach there in five days, it—”
“May well have already fallen,” Gynn finished, rising. “But we should’ve had word! By signals, if nothing else.”
“He’s following spring north,” Krynneth offered. “With War-Hold fallen, they wouldn’t have expected attack. They’ve always been small and weak.”
The King looked at Tryffon again. “If you were Barrax, what would be your goals, and what would you do if you had just taken your enemy’s main line of defense?”
“My goal would be Tir-Eron, because that’s where political and administrative power is concentrated. What I would do? I’d march there as fast as I could, with enough forces at my back to subdue any resistance I met along the way. In the case of Half Gorge, I’d send a portion of my troops around it in secret, and rely on the rest to attack—from the south, as expected. If they won, I’d leave as many as necessary to occupy the place and order the rest onward—in effect two armies half a day apart, to confound my enemy’s expectations.”
“And if they couldn’t quell Half Gorge?”
“They would, eventually. The northern force could simply double back, and take it by stealth. Half Gorge has many approaches, unlike this. Or South.”
Gynn had started pacing. “And so … would they have reached South Gorge by now?”
Tryffon’s face clouded. “Not yet—I’d say seven days, minimum, depending on how long they stayed in Half Gorge. Small as they are, they’d be bound to put up a fight, and they’d be a natural place to resupply.”
“And it would take us how long to get any useful force there?”
Tryffon’s eyes were cold as stone. “Seven days, at a guess.”
The King slapped the wall with both hands. “Then we’ve no time at all.”
He raised a brow at the lone Priest in attendance. “What can you tell me about the weather?”
The Priest regarded him calmly. “The snow melts, and the air warms. The Ri that feeds South Gorge always floods the plain above it in the spring, while half the country still freezes. That should keep Barrax at bay for days, unless he’s fool enough to dare the mountains. But for you to muster an army …”
“And a third of your forces may already be taken or under attack,” Tryffon noted. “We can send word to the northern gorges to meet us, but it would take an eighth to get them here, never mind to South Gorge.”
“Which means that Eron Gorge will have to hold them,” Eellon concluded. He looked at Tryffon. “Can we hold them? Until help arrives?”
Tryffon scowled thoughtfully. “In this place? If we’re lucky, it won’t come to that. If you mean our forces, there are several likely places between here and South Gorge—”
Avall had been listening quietly, still stunned from the triple shock of sharing Strynn’s labor, gaining word of his sister’s possible defection, and now a war none of them had expected. Which reminded him of yet another problem.
“Eddyn,” he observed flatly, “has the gem.”
Tyrill rounded on him. “What of it?”
“He’s not here. Tyrill, believe me when I tell you that thing is very powerful indeed. It is not something you want in the hands of enemies.”
“Enough!” the King snapped. “This is the wrong place for such discussions. We will meet in half a hand in the lesser council chamber: all Clan-and Craft-Chiefs, and the sub-chiefs of War, and anyone who knows anything about this gem. Avall, I know you’re worn-out, but you come, too. We have to have your knowledge.”
“Why?” Tyrill demanded.
“Because,” Avall told her tersely, “there are at least two more of those gems—if they can be delivered in time.”
“If,” Gynn echoed grimly. And marched out, with no trace of a limp in sight.
CHAPTER XIX:
IDYL
SOUTHERN ERON-NEAR SPRING: DAY XXVII-MIDAFTERNOON
Elv studied the red-hot horseshoe she’d been shaping steadily for the last half hand—under Eddyn’s practiced and fartoo-critical eye. Sweat gleamed on her forehead, plastering her hair to her skull where it escaped the rag she’d tied around it. Stripped to a sleeveless undertunic in the crisp Near-Spring air, her arms showed muscles that had barely existed when they’d met. Eddyn grinned at her as she plunged the glowing iron into a bucket of snowmelt to one side of the small forge that had survived the fire.
“Will I ever make a smith, do you think?” she inquired, with a grin of her own.
Eddyn levered himself up with easy grace from where he’d been lolling against a second anvil, moving to stand close enough to feel the warmth of her body—a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire and a great deal to do with her being an attractive woman, with spring coming on. As he passed the door, he glimpsed Toz in the courtyard putting his horse through its paces. Ole was in the main hold, prowling through what was left of the Lore hall, which had come to be an obsession.
Nor was the shoeing a mere exercise in craft. It was a necessary adjunct to the plans they’d been making all winter: to continue north to Tir-Eron. All save Eddyn. He still hadn’t revealed his true name, and still suspected he didn’t have the right form of theirs. But sometimes it was better not to know about people, given that the ones who’d given him most grief in past years had been ones he’d known all his life.
All except Rrath, who was a special case entirely.
He wondered how the little Priest fared. He’d survived abandonment in the snow, so Gynn had said. But who’d found him first? Gynn’s minions, which was to say Eellon’s, or Priest-Clan’s? More than once he regretted that he’d chosen not to tell the High King what he knew about the ghost priests. Had he availed himself of those sketchy opportunities, perhaps he’d be back in Tir-Eron, putting the final polish on the royal shield.
But would that life be better than this?
Elv tested her workmanship with a finger, then snared the prototype from beside the forge and compared the two. “Close enough,” Eddyn chuckled, reaching casually around her.
She tensed, though they’d been playing Lovers’ Tease for over an eighth now—far too long, by Eddyn’s reckoning. But every time he got … eager, she warned him of the greater potency of Eronese men and the greater fertility of Ixtian women. “I have no clan,” she told him. “And as I understand it, you couldn’t claim any child unless you wed me—and since you’re unclanned, that would do you no good. Assuming,” she added archly, “that you really are unclanned.”
Eddyn flinched, which he knew at once was the wrong thing to have done. “I thought we’d settled that.”
Elv rounded on him, abruptly all warrior. “Two eighths is long enough to live with lies.”
“I haven’t lied,” he retorted. “I simply haven’t told all the truth. There’s a major difference—as I’m sure you and your siblings know.”
“I know that I find it nearly impossible to believe that you would willfully destroy a masterwork—which is what you claim got you exiled. But that doesn’t fit with what Ole’s read about Eronese law in your own Lore hall. According to her, you have to be very High Clan indeed, to have been unclanned at all. Even so, it would require action of the King and Council of Chiefs, who only conside
r unclannings twice a year—at Sundeath and Sunbirth. You therefore couldn’t have been freshly unclanned when we met—it was almost two eighths since the last appropriate Council met. And don’t tell me it was a special session, either. You’re not important enough to warrant that.”
“I’m the best smith of my generation,” Eddyn huffed.
“That’s interesting, since word at War-Hold was that the best was a fellow from your same clan named, what was it? Avall?”
“Not my sept,” Eddyn spat recklessly. “That makes an enormous difference.”
A brow went up. “You knew him?”
“I’ve … met him.”
“Was he as good as they say?”
“By most standards.”
“And by yours?”
“He was a goldsmith. I was a weaponwright. Is a bowman better than a swordsman?”
“The books say you’re required to be competent at all branches of your crafts.”
Eddyn fished in the scrap pile for another bar of iron. “Your sister reads too much.”
Silence. Eddyn saw Elv go tense and wary. “I don’t trust this,” she murmured.
“What?”
She gestured around the forge. “Everything. The fact that we’ve no one around but ourselves. And the woods. And the snow and the sky and the silence. This is the longest I’ve gone without seeing other people. It’s not how people are meant to live.”
“It’s not how you’ll live, when you get to Tir-Eron. Once you find your clan—”
“If they’ll have us. From what you’ve said, we’re more likely to find welcome at War-Hold or Lore.”
“Maybe,” Eddyn agreed. “But that’s for your kin—your real kin—to arrange.”
Elv put down her hammer and wiped her hands. “That’s not all I distrust.”
Eddyn didn’t reply. Something about her expression indicated that it was for her to make the next comment. She took a deep breath, suddenly shy. “I …” She bit her lip. “I seem to have … I think maybe I’ve … fallen in love with you.”
“There are worse things you could tell me,” Eddyn replied carefully.
Elv scowled helplessly. “But I don’t trust my feelings. I don’t know if it’s you, or the fact that you’re different and exotic—I saw that happen back at War-Hold. Or if it’s what you represent.”
“And what would that be? Not security, I expect.”
She shook her head. “Wildness, maybe. A lack of respect for rules—the same as Ole, Toz, and I have. We’re all outsiders, in a sense.”
Eddyn nodded, wondering in which of many directions this was leading.
She gnawed her lip. “But I … I’ve reached a point where I can’t decide what I want to do about it, and can’t make any decision until I have more information. And for that … we need to dispense with these secrets. I need to know more about you than the fact that you have no father, and have managed to destroy a masterwork. I know some of the whats, but I need to know the whys.”
“You wouldn’t like me.”
“I’d prefer to have the choice.”
“What do the others think about me?”
“You’re trying to change the subject!”
“I’d still like to know.”
Another deep breath. “Toz likes you well enough because he can learn things from you and because you help balance things—he’s always had at least one male friend around, and he misses them. He doesn’t like the secrets, either, but he understands the rationale.”
“And Ole?”
“You’re a means to an end. She’s neither encouraged nor discouraged my … interest in you. But I will say this. No matter what happens between the two of us, you had better never hurt her—or my brother. I—”
She paused, glanced around, abruptly all nerves and alertness. Eddyn stood as quickly. They exchanged troubled looks as they dashed to the door. Toz had heard it, too—the sound of hoofbeats on the road below the hold.
Coming from the south.
“A trek?” Elv ventured.
Eddyn shook his head. “Unlikely. They move slowly, and we’re off the main road from War-Hold.”
Elv reached for the sword she always kept close at hand: a nice Eronese blade from a cache in the hold’s armory, further refined and balanced by Eddyn’s expert crafting. Her siblings had matching weapons. They’d be the envy of the Ixtian army—if they ever saw the Ixtian army again.
Toz met them in the middle of the practice yard, urging them toward the horse gate. Ole had noted it, too—to judge by the way she’d appeared on the balcony outside the Lore hall and was pointing south. They nodded, whereupon she disappeared, to return, sword in hand, at the top of the stairs leading from the court to the second level. By the time Elv, Eddyn, and Toz had gained the stone-and-oak gate, she was no more than a dozen strides behind.
“A party from War-Hold, best I can tell—” she shouted, though the thunder of hooves already made it hard to hear. “About a score, on horses. Red cloaks and helms.”
Eddyn stiffened. “That’s odd. It’s too early for a casual mission. And a trek escort wouldn’t bother with so much panoply through empty country.”
“Maybe it’s not empty,”
“Any war would take them south, not north.”
“We’ll know in a moment,” Ole grumbled. “They’re coming this way.”
“Forage?” Elv dared.
Eddyn shook his head. “Shouldn’t need to, though maybe—”
“The forge,” Elv growled. “They’d have seen the smoke—and from what I hear, any sign of a hold in use is to be investigated.”
“Do we fight?” Toz wondered.
“Should be no reason,” Eddyn gave back. “But any lies you tell had better be better than the ones you told me.”
Everyone exchanged troubled glances. Eddyn squared his shoulders and edged toward the closed gate. “Since this is my family hold, and there’s no way word of my unclanning could’ve reached War-Hold, I’d best play host. I’ll have to invite them to stay, but I’ll try not to encourage them. As for you—remember this isn’t your country and play everything carefully. Half-Eronese or not, these folks will see you as half-Ixtian.”
The thunder of the approaching host drowned out further conversation. And riding with the hoofbeats now came the rattle of armor, the subtle jingle of mail. But no conversation.
The noise abated. Eddyn noted through the spy hole that the soldiers had assembled no more than three paces beyond the gate. Sunlight gleamed on helms, spears, and bright red cloaks drawn close against the chill. Mouth-masks covered most of the faces. Eyes glittered here and there behind intricate nasals, earpieces, and brow guards.
“Hail the hold!” the figure in the vanguard sang out formally.
Eddyn hesitated—but had no good reason not to respond as courtesy demanded. Straightening his tunic, he shot the bolt and raised the counterweighted bar from the gate. The triplets moved back to either side. A deep breath, and he stepped through.
Looking up at the horses and their mounted riders, he felt unaccountably short and vulnerable. “Welcome to Car Neezh: holding of Argen-yr.”
“Which seems to have suffered of late,” the leader observed. His voice was muffled—perhaps he had a cold.
“A lightning strike, which we came to attend. Winter caught us at work.”
Gloved hands folded on the pommel of the saddle. “You are …?”
“Eddyn syn Argen-yr.” There, he’d said it: his true name, lest one of this host know him and call him on a lie. Already he was straining his gaze in search of Merryn. At least there was one less lie between him and Elv now. He’d face the repercussions later.
“May we enter?”
Eddyn had no choice but to agree, and had already stepped aside to admit them when Ole yelled from within. “No! Don’t! They’re from Ixti!”
Eddyn reached for his sword even as he made a frantic dash for the gate. But the leader was there before him, bringing heavy warhorse hooves to bear on t
he oak panel the triplets were rushing to close. He skidded to a halt, turning to bolt—not to flee or abandon his friends, but to buy them time. Another horse appeared from nowhere, blocking the way.
He slashed at it desperately, but it danced away, then advanced again. Another slash, and others moved in to either side, blocking movement. Behind them, more were dismounting. There were shouts, too, in Ixtian, and mingled with them came the splintering of wood as the gate gave way. The horses pressed closer. He could kill the one before him, but to what avail? The wall was at his back. Mounted warriors faced him; others filled the gaps. And he had no armor. Nothing to turn aside weapons. No alternatives but death and surrender.
“Throw down your sword!” the leader snapped, lowering his own, and pointing it at Eddyn.
Eddyn hesitated, then started to accede. At the last moment, however, he flipped the sword around and presented it hilt first to the looming Ixtian. “This edge is too fine to sully upon the ground.”
The man smiled as he snatched the weapon, then ran a finger along the gleaming steel. Brows went up as glove leather parted.
Eddyn smiled in turn. “One reason to keep me alive.”
“Maybe the only one,” the man laughed grimly. He barked a command in his own tongue, and two soldiers eased around to seize Eddyn’s arms.
“If all men here offer as little resistance as you—” one began.
“Death should have a purpose,” Eddyn gave back, as he let himself be hustled inside.
The triplets waited there, looking sullen, kneeling on the ground with two armed Ixtians apiece behind them.
The commander dismounted, tossing his reins to the young man who rode behind him. He stomped over to regard the three curiously. Brows went up again. “Stranger and stranger,” he murmured to no one in particular, though the words were in Eronese. “I wonder …”
“That woman has a ring,” the man’s squire, or whatever he was, called, pointing.
The captain stepped forward. One of the guards snared Elv’s hand and yanked it up for inspection. “I’ve seen these before,” he laughed. He turned to walk away, then spun around again. “Elvix, is it? I remember you from the guard, though you may not remember me.”
