Darien dropped the reins of his horse as he turned away, noting in satisfaction that the look on their faces had once again changed. His strategy had worked, it seemed. The doubt and dismay were gone, absent even from Faukravar’s eyes. Instead, he left them staring at his back, eyes wide in wonderment. Darien hid a grimace of contempt as he walked away, feeling disgusted by the lie he had just committed. They were not seeing him anymore, he knew. They thought they were seeing Orien. He felt shamed that he had brought himself to stoop so low, to be forced to win back their trust with a vulgar display of charades. But, if that’s what it took to win the battle ahead, it was just another sin to add to the long list of them he was already accruing.
He wouldn’t need the closing of the Gateway to condemn his soul to Hell; he was getting there just fine on his own.
The stone steps wrapped around the face of the dark column, a narrow, winding stair. It was broken and collapsed in many places; in others, the steps had been worn down to almost a ramp. Darien took his time ascending to the summit of the crag, picking his way carefully. It wouldn’t do if he slipped and fell to his death on the eve before the battle. And eve it was. Already, the sun was beginning to slip behind the tall, snow-clad mountains in the west. Tomorrow was Solstice, the shortest day of the year. The nights had been growing progressively longer as the daylight hours diminished.
Darien kept his eyes averted from the edge. Heights had once never bothered him, but now they did. The memory of his fall from the cliff in Aerysius was kept fresh in his mind by the constant nightmares that still continued to plague him almost every time he fell asleep. As he moved carefully up the perilous winding steps, he kept one hand braced against the rock face at his side, the other extended out in front of him.
He slipped once, stumbling forward with fingers raking against the rock wall until they caught on a crack in the stone, which was the only thing that saved him. Trembling, he pressed forward on legs that seemed suddenly less steady. He felt vexed; before his fall, he could have skipped up this path. He had the balance taught to him by a blademaster, but it did him absolutely no good when his vision reeled and his knees felt like they were ready to collapse at every step. Heart pounding, he tried to will the path ahead to stabilize, but he could do nothing about the sweat that glazed his palms and ran down his forehead and into his eyes.
More than once he came to a place where the steps had crumbled away. Those places he was forced to stop and gather his courage before attempting to make a staggering step over the gap. Fortunately, it was never more than just a few feet. He stumbled on the last jump, roughening his palms on the stone of the other side. But he drew himself up, feeling the sharp bite of a cold breeze in his face inspired by the height. He was almost there. He could see the rim of the summit, another ten feet overhead. He dared not look down to confirm what he already knew: he was hundreds of feet above the horseshoe-shaped valley. And it was getting quite dark. He shivered as he staggered up the last few stairs, hands groping in front of him.
The stair made a quick turn and Darien found himself stepping out onto the summit of Orien’s Finger. He paused, closing his eyes and bracing himself. Then he walked slowly, cautiously, out across the flat, snow-traced markings of the Circle of Convergence. He crossed the Circle, stirring the slight dusting of snow that covered one of the lines with the toe of his boot. He walked across to the far side, where he stepped off and moved toward the cliff’s harrowing edge. He paused, still feet away, but unable to make himself draw any nearer.
The view was awe-inspiring. And it was also terrible. The sun had set completely behind him, its light only the palest gray glow at his back. Before him, the snow-covered plains swept out expansively, seeming almost to glow in the soft light of the waxing moon. Above, the stars were strung across the heavens like innumerable glittering crystals. Their myriad glows were cast in red reflection below, slightly to the north, where the campfires of the Enemy sprawled across the plains, seeming to outnumber even the light of the stars.
A breeze reached out, whipping his hair and chasing his cloak. Darien stood still, letting the air have its way with him. The feel of it was brisk and chill, stimulating. Slowly, he lowered himself to the flat stone summit of the crag, pulling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. Once, as a boy, he had tried counting the stars. He had given up not long into the endeavor after reaching several hundred in just a trace amount of sky. The remainder of the heavens still lay unnumbered above him; he had finally come to realize that such a task would probably take him the rest of his life.
This time he was determined to number them all, no matter how long the chore would take; it was imperative that he know their total. Darien stared down at the red-orange lights below that twinkled brighter than the stars and started counting.
He knew Wellingford was behind him; he’d heard the scraping of his travel-worn boots crest the rim of the summit. The boy hadn’t startled him as he had yesterday, which was good. Darien hadn’t moved from the site he had chosen near the edge of the cliff, where he had been sitting, gazing out on the distant fires below. He had finished counting some time ago, but was unwilling to leave his perch. Staring out across the glowing white plains, his thoughts had drifted to Naia. The memories of her were comforting. He’d let the hours wear away, quietly savoring the image of her in his mind. It was very late, or perhaps very early; he wasn’t sure. Whichever the case, Wellingford had no business being here. The boy should have been asleep hours ago.
“I know you wanted to be left alone, but you did give the order that every man must have a good meal,” his new general uttered timidly to his back.
“So I did,” Darien allowed, turning to glance over his shoulder at him. Wellingford was approaching cautiously, a small sack clutched tightly in his hand. Remembering his own trouble with the broken and nerve-wracking stair, Darien found himself looking at his general with new respect.
Wellingford seemed hesitant as he drew up to stand at his side. Darien received the sack from his hand and, opening it, discovered that it was filled with dried morsels of meat, slices of bread, and even some cheese. Wellingford produced a waterskin and handed that to him, as well. Darien accepted it in his other hand with a muttered word of thanks.
Above him, the boy was staring out at the vast span of flickering lights, his violet cloak stirring behind him. Softly, he whispered, “Is that the Enemy?”
“Aye,” answered Darien. He watched as Wellingford stepped forward, stopping right at the edge of the cliff face. Just seeing him there made Darien shudder. The boy didn’t seem bothered by the cliff in the least. He stood motionless, gazing outward across the plains, one foot slightly ahead of the other.
“Mother of the gods,” he breathed.
Looking up at him, Darien asked, “Have you been taught how to estimate an army’s strength by counting campfires?”
Wellingford turned back around, taking a step away from the cliff’s edge. “Yes, but...there’s too many. It would take all night.”
“Not all night,” Darien shook his head. “Judging from the lights, I estimate their numbers at somewhere near fifty-two thousand.”
The boy swept a hand back through his blonde hair, shaking his head as his wide blue eyes glistened in the moonlight. “I never thought there would be so many,” he whispered, lowering himself down to sit at Darien’s side.
“There were more, once,” the mage assured him. “I can only assume that the men under Garret Proctor’s command have put their courage and their hornbows to good use.”
Wellingford just stared at him blankly. Darien raised his hand, pointing toward the swell of a ridge in the west. “Look there.” He was indicating a patch of starless sky hanging inches beneath the moon, slightly above the line of rolling hills that sloped upward into the Craghorns.
“I see nothing.”
“The stars above the ridge,” Darien specified.
“There are none.” Wellingford shook his head in puzzlement. �
�I don’t understand. What could be obscuring them?”
“Smoke. From campfires.”
The boy drew in a sharp gasp of breath. “The second army,” he whispered, turning back with a look of apprehension in his eyes. When Darien just nodded, Wellingford’s face seemed almost on the verge of collapse. He had that crestfallen look again, although this time it made his face seem older instead of younger.
“Do we really stand a chance?” he wondered dismally. “The forces from Emmery you promised us have never arrived.”
“I won’t be expecting them till the morrow,” Darien told him. Eyes narrowing, he stared hard at Wellingford’s face. The boy needed reassurance, needed it desperately. Sighing, Darien decided he would have to be the one to provide it. “Why don’t we go over strategy. I was thinking to wait, but seeing that you’re here....”
“That would be good,” Wellingford said eagerly, leaning back with his gloved hands in the snow. His fingers sank deeply into the icy powder with a crunching noise, exposing a wide, man-made crack in the stone below. Perplexed, he scooped away the snow with his fingers to reveal a wide, curving line.
“What’s this?”
“You’re sitting on a focus line of the Circle of Convergence,” Darien informed him darkly.
Wellingford stared down at it, frowning. Slowly, he uttered, “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“You don’t want to,” Darien assured him in a bare whisper. “Just listen, do your part, and leave the rest to me.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Black Solstice
“TIME TO GET UP.”
Kyel groaned, wondering what hour it could possibly be. It felt like he had just fallen asleep. Squinting into the darkness, he made out the form of Nigel Swain, a mere shadow against the other shadows inside the tent. Outside, it appeared to be pitch black through the open flap, and cold. Terribly cold. Why hadn’t Swain closed the flap when he’d come in? Probably a tactic to get him up and moving faster.
Then he remembered: Solstice. Dawn. Today. Feeling suddenly wide awake, Kyel threw his blankets back and shot up from the covers.
“What time is it?” he exclaimed.
“Too damn early,” came Swain’s acidic growl. “Come on, I brought you some of that fodder they’re serving in place of food.”
Kyel shook his head even though he knew the man probably couldn’t see him in the darkness. The thought of eating curdled gruel within scant minutes of waking was frankly nauseating. Besides, his bladder was so full it ached. He dragged himself up from his pallet, moving toward the opening. “I need to go out for a minute.”
He was stopped by the captain’s warning growl, “Better be just a minute.”
Kyel nodded, taking the man’s point. He had spent the entire first day of the march making frequent trips into the bushes before he was finally able to bend one single link of the chain. Then, it had taken him another day and a half of side trips to close the same link back up again. He’d practiced opening and closing the link at every chance he found until the presence of the vortex had given him other things to think about. That was all the practice he’d had. And it was all he was going to get.
That was precisely what Swain was grumbling about. After the first two days of his prolonged excursions afield, the captain had caught on that he was up to something, though he never figured out what. But after that, Kyel found his movements strictly watched. If he didn’t make it back quickly enough, Swain made certain he missed his next meal.
He had more freedom now than he’d had in the cell, but he was still very much a prisoner. Swain had kept him at his side the whole way, riding in the van next to the general, a rather tedious and uninspiring old man named Blandford. Kyel had grown bored of the general’s company almost immediately, and found himself wishing for Traver’s presence to lighten the hours on the road. No matter how much Kyel had initially resented Traver’s company, the man did have a way with conversation that made the time pass quickly by. He missed Traver. Whimsically, Kyel wondered if his old friend was even still alive.
He made his water and returned to the tent, the first light of sun still absent from the sky. The moon was setting, though. Which meant the sunrise couldn’t be that long in following. The captain met him outside the tent, calmly spooning himself some of the fetid gruel they served in the mornings. As Kyel strode up to him, he could feel Swain’s eyes raking over him suspiciously, lingering a moment on the chains. Kyel pretended that he didn’t notice, coming up to stand before him.
“How long will it take us to get there?” he wondered. They couldn’t be that far away. Most of the camp still had to be broken down, and he’d told Blandford that Darien was expecting them there at sunrise.
Swallowing, Swain transferred his bowl to his left hand, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. Pointing, he said, “See that ridge?” He was indicating a jagged patch of blackness against the slightly grayer sky. “Orien’s Finger is about two more ridges north of it. We’ll be there about an hour after sunrise, so that’s about a two-hour march.”
Kyel felt stunned, even blatantly betrayed. “But Darien told us to be there at sunrise!” he gulped, rounding on Swain. “We can’t arrive an hour after the fighting starts—it might be too late!”
The captain just shrugged indifferently. “Blandford wants the Enemy bloodied a bit before we engage.”
Kyel couldn’t believe the words he was hearing. What did they expect Darien to do, take on both armies by himself? Or was that exactly what they intended? Feeling a sudden, searing anger, Kyel stepped forward and inserted himself right in Swain’s face.
“This has been your plan all along, hasn’t it?” he accused. “You intend to just bide your time while he wears himself down, then sweep in when he’s no longer a threat to you.”
Looking at the coldly gleaming hilt of the captain’s sword, Kyel felt his rage swell to scalding. “That’s why you’re here,” he realized. “You’re Captain of the City Guard. You don’t even belong with the army! Romana just sent you along because Darien trusts you; you’re the one who trained him. That’s it, isn’t it? You’re here to kill him!”
Swain just looked at him sideways, a dangerous glint in his eyes. Then he took a step back and, tossing aside the flap of the tent, ducked silently inside. Kyel wanted to scream in rage. Not bothering to bite back the curse on his lips, he followed Swain into the tent. He wasn’t going to let him get away, not without an explanation.
In the darkness of the tent, he saw the captain’s shadow as only a blur across his field of vision. But hands were suddenly upon him, restraining him. He felt the warm brush of Swain’s breath at the back of his neck as the captain warned, “Don’t press me further.”
But Kyel couldn’t help himself. “I don’t understand you,” he muttered. “You must have been his friend at one time, to help him the way you did. How can you do this to him?”
The hands eased their pressure on him only gradually. Kyel turned slowly around, peering intently into the shadows of the blademaster’s angular face. Swain’s gray eyes were glaring at him with a dangerous intensity, his chest heaving with every drawn breath.
“I knew a boy by the name of Darien Lauchlin, once,” he uttered coldly. “But that was a long time ago. The man up there on that mountain, now...I don’t know him anymore. I don’t want to. And if you had any brains in your head, you wouldn’t want to, either.”
Sunrise.
Darien had spent the hours after moonset pacing the circumference of the Circle, stirring the dusted snow off with his boots and with the power of his mind. He dared not use too much; there were creatures that could sense such stirrings of the field. But a trickle here and a tad bit there gradually revealed the deeply-hewn lines that ran inward from the margin of the Circle, forming an exactingly rendered copy of the Star he wore on his back, only many times larger. Two stars, one offset against the other. He knew the pattern of the Circle was not a star at all, really; at least, not by intention. The rays were a foc
us that directed the parallel lines of power in the eye of the vortex, merging them together in one place, one single point in space at the Circle’s center. That was the power of the Circle of Convergence. All of the awesome energy of the vortex could be gathered here; the rays of the Star functioned like lenses to bend the lines of the magic field together and filter them, rendering that tremendous well of power safe to use.
But like glass lenses, each Circle had its flaws, its little imperfections. Even miniscule faults had an impact on its ability to focus the surrounding vortex. Orien’s was a Lesser Circle, which meant that its flaws were more problematic than the Greater Circle that had existed in Aerysius, now buried beneath the rubble of the Hall. Darien was not even sure what impact those flaws would have on the Circle’s use; only time would tell. All he could see from his cursory study was that Orien’s Circle was still functional after its long sleep of over four hundred years. All he had to do now was awaken it.
Gazing down from the rim, he could see the gray sky in the east giving way to vivid hues of gold and vermillion. Sunrise had always been his favorite time of day. The colors of the sky seemed more saturated than they did at sunset, especially when there was just a splattering of clouds on the horizon, as there was today.
But there was no joy to be had in this sunrise, this dawn, this day. Darien ignored the timorous beauty of the wakening sky as if it didn’t even exist. To him, nothing existed in the world except for the vast black wedge that was approaching from the north, that and the Circle beneath his feet. It was almost time.
This dawn, this day, this purpose.
Steeling himself, he walked to the tip of the nearest ray and drew upon the potent rapture of the magic field, a wonder far more stirring than any dawnbreak. He felt the power moving through him, a bliss unlike any other. It had never before felt this way, not until lately. Not until he had clothed his heart in ashes and cloaked his soul in apathy. But now it seemed that the tranquil stirring of the field was the only thing that kept him going, the only thing even keeping him alive.
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