Elegy (The Magpie Ballads Book 1)

by Vale Aida

  Being human, one had to admire the elegance of the plan. Being human, one also had to take into consideration what was going to happen at Evenfall: he would have to fight Dervain Teraille to the death, an encounter he was unlikely to relish; or, ultimately, to survive.

  One had to admit going over to Marguerit made a much more appealing alternative.

  24

  Close to midnight, a trumpet sounded.

  The quality of the shouting had changed again. Lying in the stable, Hiraen heard the orders relayed across the yard. Men were forming up in their ranks: three or four hundred, half of that mounted, with the Empath at their head. A cloak, sable and scarlet, billowed from his shoulders as he cantered through the gate on his black destrier, the others flowing after him in four neat files. Hiraen gazed at the back of his brilliant head with hatred. It took an age for the last of the soldiers to vanish down the mountainside. Then the gate was shut once more, and only the thunder of the horses was left, receding down the Pass.

  One of two things must have happened, both of them good omens. Either Daine had found them, or Emaris had reached Medrai and raised an army out of thin air. The former seemed more plausible, but given Emaris’s occasional bouts of brick-splitting obstinacy, the latter would hardly be surprising. So the Saraians had divided their forces: the Empath to deal with this new threat, the Marshal to hold the fort and the prisoners. And by some stroke of luck, no one seemed to be searching for the intruder in their midst.

  There was no better time to move.

  His clothes were almost dry, though still reeking of fish. He covered his bow under his cloak and, as though he were passing through the tents of a Betronett encampment, sauntered out of the stable into the open.

  The yard was quiet now, the grass trampled where many feet and hooves had recently marched. Onaressi felt vast and echoing without the Empath. Hiraen passed a pair of squires sharing a wineskin by the spring, and nodded amiably when they glanced at him. A servant hurried past with a horseshoe. If he avoided the light of the cookfires, and did not move too quickly, no one could tell he was a stranger. Carefully, he made his way to the east wing where the dungeons were, and proffered a winsome smile to the two sentries at the entrance.

  The prisoners were not heavily guarded. The Empath had taken as many soldiers as the Marshal could spare, and probably a few more besides. The sentries looked him up and down. One of them wrinkled her nose. The other said, “Ja i semoy?”

  His meaning was not difficult to guess. Nodding, Hiraen gestured towards the entrance and mimed walking his fingers down a flight of imaginary stairs, then handing over an invisible scrap of paper. A message for the dungeon guards. The sentries looked at each other. The woman laughed. “Gera,” she said, which—if Hiraen did not miss his guess—meant mute.They waved him through, yawning. He had been here not long ago, supervising a tally of the inventory with Anyas before they left for Astorre. The armoury was on the ground floor, behind a pair of closed double doors—locked, but not guarded. More good news. Upstairs was the granary, and above that an archive of dusty ancient scrolls, into which only Savonn had cared to venture. The dungeons were in the basement, far under the building. No one else was around. Hiraen crept to the stair and went down.

  It was warmer here, the air musty. A lamp flickered on the half-landing, almost out of oil. Two more guards were dicing at the foot of the stairs. They glanced up at his footfall, and one of them barked a question.

  He did not answer immediately. His attention had been drawn to what was behind them: a long hallway, smoky and dim, flanked on both sides by steel bars that put him in mind of bestiary cages. The lamplight laddered the floor with shadowy rungs. And from the other side, the garrison was peering back. One or two men he recognised were sitting near the bars, looking with dim, crusty eyes for the source of the disturbance. Others were asleep, or perhaps dead, lying on dirty pallets or on the bare stone floor. Many sported bandages. If they had seen him, they were either too smart or too far gone to call out.

  The roaring pulse in Hiraen’s ears was not fear, but something more lethal. His fingers tingled for his bowstring. The guard was repeating his question, more impatiently now. Hiraen turned to look at him and his companion. Mail shirt, bare head, no gorget. Sword belts dangling from a rack on the wall: not far away, but not near enough. Easy.

  Clearly, Hiraen said, “Ja i semoy.”

  The guard was still asking him what his errand was when he pulled an arrow from his quiver and plunged it tip down into the man’s eye socket.

  One down. A sonorous clatter. The second guard knocked over the table in a wild grab for his sword. Hiraen fitted another arrow to his bow, cracking his elbow on the wall as he drew, and shot him from three inches away. Two down. Someone shouted a question from above. The sentries at the entrance must have heard the noise. One of the prisoners yelled, “Keys on his belt!”

  The second guard had a brass ring of heavy steel keys on his belt. Hiraen grabbed it and ran to the cells. “They’ve got Savonn,” said the prisoner who had called to him, a youngish man, as Hiraen unlocked the first door. There were blood-soaked bandages around most of his puffy face, and patches of his scalp showed pink and raw through his uneven brown mane, as if the rest of his hair had recently been burned away. His eyes had the unfocused glossiness one associated with delirious fevers, but somehow he was on his feet. “He’s in the main keep, on the third floor. We heard the guards say so.”

  The voice was familiar. Hiraen said, “Anyas?”

  Someone was coming down the stairs, grumbling. Hiraen tossed the keyring through the bars of the next cell and nocked his bow again.”What happened to you?”

  “The Empath,” said Anyas grimly.

  The guard had reached the half-landing. It was the woman from before, who had called him mute. He drew his bow, watching her shadow flow down the steps before her like a silent herald. He had about the span of a breath to make a kill shot before she raised the alarm. Timing was everything.

  As soon as the guard appeared round the bend in the stair, he released the bowstring. He did not miss. He never missed: the culmination of twenty years of hard training and the need to prove that he could do something Savonn and Iyone could not. At point-blank range, the arrow punched through armour and found its mark in the guard’s heart, and she died instantly. A thump, a steely whisper of mail. Three down.

  With characteristic efficiency, all the cell doors had been opened by then, the prisoners gathering around him. There were about sixty. He did not ask what had happened to the others. “Listen,” said Hiraen, as Anyas pulled one of the swords from the rack and handed the other to his lieutenant. “The Empath is gone. Isemain only has a skeleton force left. Break into the armoury and steal whatever you need, then rush the postern. You should be able to overwhelm the guards. Stay together and march to Medrai.”

  Anyas frowned, handing him a couple of daggers from the dead guards’ sword-belts. He was swaying on his feet. “What about you?”

  It dawned on Hiraen that they did not know he had come alone. This did not bear explaining. They would lose their nerve, and so would he. “I have to get Savonn,” he said. He made it sound very simple, like stopping by a tavern to fetch him out of a rousing party. “I’ll join you after. Gods go with you.”

  He pelted back up the stairs before they could ask any more questions. The last guard met him on the ground floor, just inside the door, talking very fast. His frown made it clear what he was asking: had he delivered his message? Why had he made so much noise? And where was the other sentry, who had gone down to check on him?

  “Let me show you,” said Hiraen. He dispatched the man with a dagger to the throat, and set off at a purposeful walk for the main keep. Four down. He was losing count.

  * * *

  Tongues of fire were rising from the east wing, streaking the sky in shades of red and gold. Judging by the yelling and stampeding and fighting that seemed to be going on below, Savonn’s fellow prisoners had escaped.<
br />
  That complicated matters.

  There was now no question of staying put. If he did not join the garrison in a minute or two, they were likely to get themselves killed trying to find him. That, or the Marshal’s men would bundle him into some jolting cart and haul him off to Sarei, effectively dousing all hopes of making it to his rendezvous. If he did not make a move now, he never would.

  He considered, then slung the lute over his shoulder and swung a leg across the windowsill.

  It was a tight fit, impossible for a bigger man. The night chill stung his face, the wind carding ungentle fingers through his hair. The second-floor balcony was just below. Beyond that, a wedgehead of men in mismatched armour and dirty bandages was forcing its inexorable way across the yard, waving torches and swords. Arrows flew from every direction. Without difficulty, he found finger- and toe-holds between the loose crumbling bricks, and was just beginning his descent when the doors of his cell flew open. Out of sight, someone bellowed, “He’s gone!”

  He spared a moment to weigh his options: a longer fall than he would have liked, versus the indignity of being swatted on the wall like a lizard. The guards had barely gone three steps into his cell when he made up his mind and let go.

  He struck the balcony feet first, rolled, and came up staggering. The door that led indoors was locked, and a multitude of footsteps was approaching from the other side. The lute was still in his hand. Other than that, he had nothing else on him but the shirt, boots, and ripped hose he had been wearing the day of his capture, not even a brooch or a sharp ring. With remote irritation, he wondered if Dervain had even considered the possibility that he would not survive his escape.

  There was nothing for it. Almost as soon as he ducked into the shadows behind the door, it flew open to disgorge two men, their swords bared. “Where is he?” “He’s not here—”

  Savonn stepped behind one of them and cracked him on the back of the head with the lute. The man fell over, shouting, until Savonn shut him up with a good kick. The second guard rounded on Savonn, his sword already flashing down.

  “Don’t be rude,” Savonn admonished, sidling away from the blade. He could not sidle forever. “I have an appointment to keep.”

  As if in response, the man choked, round-eyed. His windpipe had sprouted an arrow. As he went down, breath whistling in his throat, Savonn saw that the fletching was bright orange.

  Sound and action came to a standstill. His conscious mind informed him that the dull ache in his fingers came of clutching the lute too hard. It was also trying to tell him that both men had knives on their belts that he could pilfer. That he should pilfer them, now, and move quickly before anyone else arrived. But his limbs would not obey him.

  Someone stepped through the balcony door, someone with Hiraen Safin’s messy chestnut hair and Hiraen Safin’s goldenwood bow. That someone looked at Savonn, took in his bloodstained shirt and his doubtlessly impressive array of injuries, and produced Hiraen Safin’s annoyed grimace. It was the sort of thing that happened in hallucinations, or dreams, or plays.

  Through the swelling blockage in his throat, Savonn said, “What a coincidence.”

  “I know,” said Hiraen. His eyes passed, incredulous, over the lute. “Lutenists everywhere. It’s a bloody infestation. Pick up the damned knives and get behind me.”

  Once in a very long while, Savonn could take orders. He did so now. The parlour was a wreckage of overturned chairs, a cold draft gusting through the room. A guard showed her face in the doorway, and received an arrow through the eye. Another managed a few steps into the room before Savonn’s knife, flung over Hiraen’s shoulder, took him in the chest. “They told me you were dead,” said Savonn.

  “I don’t blame them,” said Hiraen. “I was very convincing.”

  He led the way across the parlour, nocking his bow as he went. “There’s going to be a battle,” said Savonn, following him. “Dervain said the Council’s marching a force up the pass.”

  He expected laughter. In the exhilaration of the rescue he had forgotten, however briefly, that the Hiraen he now knew was not the Hiraen of his boyhood. “Who the hell is Dervain? Back on first-name terms now, are you?”

  It seemed like more trouble than it was worth to quarrel. They were in the hallway, jogging to the stairs; then they were out in the open air, crossing the yard while servants pelted to and fro with buckets of water from the spring. The fire had spread to the outbuildings, and Isemain’s guards were streaming towards the postern, likely in pursuit of Anyas and his garrison. In the dizzying chiaroscuro of firelight and shadow, no one took notice of them. “But that would explain it,” Hiraen was saying. “I sent Emaris to Medrai for help. He must have brought the Council.”

  A ghostly hush fell over the clamour. “Emaris?”

  Hiraen stopped in his tracks. For the first time, his expression softened. “What on earth did they tell you? He’s alive. Would I have let anything happen to him?”

  But I did, thought Savonn. He said, “You—”

  “No, wait, someone’s coming.”

  One of the guards had seen them. He blundered over, his jerkin charred, spear raised in a vaguely threatening way. Hiraen dodged, and Savonn tripped the man up in passing. “The stables,” said Hiraen. “There’ll be horses.”

  They set off at a sprint. The fire was already devouring the stable with the collapsed roof. The other two still stood, but just barely. Hiraen started flinging open stall doors one by one, and Savonn joined him, following the agitated neighing. His thoughts were only just catching up with his body. Emaris was alive. Anyas was free. The Council was here. And somewhere along Forech’s Pass, a man called Dervain Teraille was on a collision course with them, a vulture among hens.

  There would be time enough to worry about that later. Hiraen was leading out one of the horses by its bridle. Savonn had just opened the last stall to free its occupant when a javelin flew past him, lifting the hair on his head, and thudded into the stall door between two of his fingers.

  He turned. Isemain Dalissos, Marshal of Sarei, was standing in front of the stable, another javelin poised in his hand. In full armour, he could have been half giant. “Lord Safin,” he said, as Hiraen moved to stand between him and Savonn. His voice was hollow and brassy in his helmet. “I neglected to kill you properly. Let me rectify the error.”

  Hiraen looked nonplussed. Knife in hand, Savonn found himself overcome by sudden, inopportune hilarity. “Shall I translate?”

  They both glanced at him with distaste. Before Hiraen could string his bow, the second javelin struck the ground just beyond them. Hiraen snatched it up, throwing the reins of the horse to Savonn, and danced away just as Isemain brought his sword down in a great arc. He parried twice, yielding ground. “Go! Find Anyas and get out!”

  “All right,” said Savonn, who had no intention of doing so. He caught the horse’s bridle and swung himself up bareback. The fight was too close to risk throwing a knife, so he resorted to his second favourite weapon. “It seems a little rude to leave without saying goodbye, though. My lord Marshal, I’m escaping!”

  Isemain glanced up, distracted. It was only a moment’s respite, but it was enough. Hiraen’s bow was nocked and drawn in the span of a heartbeat, arrow-tip trained on Isemain’s eye, the only exposed part of him. At such close quarters, even a lesser archer could not have missed. Savonn felt a grin crack his face. Seeing his chance, he switched to the most disgustingly idiomatic Saraian he could muster. “He hits eleven targets out of ten, my lord. You’d better let us go. After all, it’s bad enough you burned my fort down…”

  “Lord Isemain,” said another voice. A large figure had stepped out from the shadow of the stable. “There’s no time. You have to go.”

  I have conjured him again, Savonn thought. But the head of the speaker was jet black, not auburn. Hiraen stepped forward, his face a mask of quiet fury. “It’s you.”

  Savonn said, “Don’t—”

  The bowstring hissed. The arrow struck Nika
s in the right shoulder and sunk deep, the tip protruding out again through his back near the breastbone. Isemain started towards him. “Don’t kill him?” Hiraen suggested. “Coming from you?”

  Nikas glanced down at the wound. With no sign of pain, he said, “Betronett is coming, milord Marshal. My cover is blown. I escaped to warn you.”

  Savonn shouted, “Hiraen!”

  They moved together seamlessly, like a left hand and its right. Savonn kicked the horse, yanking at the reins, and Hiraen sprang to meet him. Isemain’s sword cut the air. Hiraen seized Savonn’s outstretched hand and swung up into the saddle behind him, and then they were galloping towards the ringwall, between buildings lit up like candles and stragglers scurrying to get out of their way. Hiraen shot one, and they rode another down. They were at the postern. They were through. They were cantering along the winding track below the wall, with torches bobbing in the Pass below them, and swords singing, and horns blaring. They were out of Onaressi. They were free.

  After a moment, Hiraen said, “You’re going the wrong way.”

  Downward to the battle in the Pass, to Medrai, to Anyas and Daine and Emaris and the Council. Or upward into the meandering trails above Onaressi, where one could descend by circuitous paths and lonely moors into the lowlands, towards an isle in the Morivant, and whatever awaited there. It was not a choice.

  “I’m not,” he said. “I’m going to Evenfall.”

  * * *

  It was dawn by the time Hiraen managed to get a sensible word out of Savonn.

  After the sounds of battle died away behind them, they stopped for a rest by a quiet pool in the trackless wastes above Onaressi. The trees, bristling fiery orange, peered down at their mirrored doubles in the marmoreal surface of the pool. It was too cold to bathe, but the water was clean and soothing in Hiraen’s parched throat. In the company of anyone else, it would have been like a holiday. “There’s just been a battle,” he said, when they had wiped themselves down and drunk their fill. “We don’t even know who won.”