Banewreaker

by Jacqueline Carey

  Even then, he had been unsure.

  And yet … and yet. In time, it had happened.

  The last boulder crashed like thunder as they rolled it over the lip. Speros straightened, putting his hands at the small of his back. His lower back ached, and his nails were torn and bloodied. “Good job, lads,” he gasped. “Fill in the rest with loose rock and sand, make it look natural. That ought to do it.”

  The Gulnagel surrounded the shallow mouth of the Well, backing up to it and squatting low. Sand and shale flew as they dug dog-wise, shoveling a flurry of debris betwixt their rear legs, braced and solid. The remaining feet of the Well’s open throat dwindled to inches.

  “Good job, lads,” Speros repeated, eyeing the rising level and trying to remain steady on his feet. “Remember to make it look natural.”

  One of them grunted; Freg, perhaps. It was hard to tell from the rear. Speros clapped a hand on the nearest Fjel appendage and let his staggering steps take him down the mound. The earth was churned and torn. He had to tread with exhausted care to avoid turning an ankle. All around the desert floor, the jagged stumps of the monoliths remained, raw and accusatory.

  General Tanaros was seated on one, sharpening his sword and gazing westward.

  Speros wove toward him. “Lord General!” He drew himself up in a weary salute. “The Well is filled.”

  “Thank you, Speros.” The General spoke in a deep voice, absentminded. “Look at that, will you?” He pointed with the tip of his sword; to the west, where a red star hung low on the horizon. “Dergail’s Soumanië still rises. What do you think it means?”

  “War.” Speros’quivering legs folded, and he sat abruptly. “Isn’t that what they say? It is in the Midlands, anyway.” He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, trying to scrub away the exhaustion. “The red star, reminder of Dergail’s defeat. It’s the Sunderer’s challenge, a declaration of war.”

  “So they do,” the General mused. “And yet, Lord Satoris did not raise the star. He thought it a warning. A sister’s kindness.”

  “Does it matter?” Speros fumbled for the waterskin lashed to his belt and managed to loosen the stopper. It sloshed, half-empty, as he raised it to his lips and took a sparing mouthful.

  “Betimes, I wonder.” General Tanaros drew his whetstone down the length of his sword. “I fear we have not chosen our battlefield wisely, Speros.”

  Speros glanced up at him. “Beshtanag, sir? Or Darkhaven?”

  “No.” The General shook his head. “Neither. I mean the hearts and minds of Men, Speros.” He examined one edge of his ebony blade, testing it with his thumb. “Do you suppose it would have made a difference?”

  “Sir?”

  “The Bearer.” Sheathing his sword, General Tanaros turned his attention to the Midlander. “He made the only choice he was offered. Would it have made a difference, do you think, if we had offered another one?”

  “I don’t know, Lord General.”

  “I wonder.” Tanaros frowned. “But what would we have offered him, after all? Wealth? Power? Immortality? Those are merely bribes. In the end, it all comes down to the same choice.”

  Speros shrugged. “A reason to say no, I suppose.”

  “Yes.” General Tanaros glanced across the Stone Glade. The smaller mound that had been erected outside the circle of broken monoliths was barely visible in the deepening twilight. It had taken the Gulnagel less than an hour to dig a grave large enough to contain the corpses of the slaughtered Yarru elders. “I suppose so.”

  “Sir.” Speros cleared his throat. “Will there be a lot of … that sort of thing?”

  Tanaros smiled bleakly. “You told me you’d shed innocent blood before, Midlander.”

  “Aye.” He held the General’s gaze, though it wasn’t easy. “But not gladly.” A creeping sense of alarm stirred in his heart. Was the General thinking of dismissing him? Speros ran his tongue over his teeth, feeling the gap where one had been lost in the dungeons of Darkhaven. He had gambled everything on this. He thought about the Midlands and the disdain his name evoked, the disappointment in his mother’s eyes. He thought about how General Tanaros had deigned to meet him as an equal on the sparring-field. He thought of the camaraderie of the Fjel, and their unfailing admiration and loyalty, and knew he didn’t want to lose it. Not for this, not for anything. What did the death of a few old Charred Folk matter? They’d brought it on themselves, after all. The Lord General had asked them to give him a reason to spare them. A reason to say no. It wasn’t that much to ask. His hands clenched involuntarily into fists, and he pressed one to his heart in salute. “I failed you, I know. It won’t happen again.”

  It was the General who looked away first. “I almost would that I’d failed myself in this,” he murmured, half to himself. “All right.” He sighed, placing his hands flat on his thighs. “You say the Well is filled?”

  “Aye, sir!” Speros sprang to his feet, light-headed with relief. “It would take a team of Fjel a lifetime to unblock it!”

  “Good.” General Tanaros stood and gazed at the twilit sky. It seemed larger, here in the desert, and the red star of Dergail’s Soumanië pulsed brighter. “We’ll take a few hours’ rest, and leave ere dawn.” Turning, he poked Speros’ half-empty waterskin. “The water-hole here is deep; Ngurra told me it never runs dry. So don’t stint yourself, Midlander, because I don’t know how lucky we’ll be crossing the desert.”

  “Aye, sir.” Speros raised the skin and took an obliging swallow.

  “I mean it.” The General’s eyes were shadowed and his face was hard. What had transpired here in the Unknown Desert had taken its toll on him. For a moment it seemed he might speak of it; then he shuddered, gathering himself. He fixed Speros with a clear gaze. “Drink while you can, and see to it that every waterskin we can salvage is filled to bursting. I mean to get us home alive.”

  “Aye, sir!” Speros smiled, relishing the word. “Home.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  “DON’T LOOK.”

  Blaise Caveros’ voice was low as he attempted to interpose his mount between her and the sight of the fallen dragon. It was a futile courtesy. Calandor’s bulk loomed beyond the gap in Beshtanag’s wall like a second mountain. There was no way Lilias could avoid seeing him as the train of Haomane’s Allies made their way down the slope, passing through the broken wall.

  It was true, what the old legends claimed. In death, the dragon had turned to stone. The glittering scales had faded to dull grey, veined with a reddish ore. Already, the clean, sinuous lines of his form had grown weathered and vague. Lilias’ hands trembled on the reins as she tried to trace his shape with her gaze.

  There, she thought; the smaller ridge is his tail, and those are his haunches. How did he land? Oh Shapers, that crumpled part underneath is a wing! It must have broken in the fall.

  Without thinking, Lilias drew rein and dismounted, tugging blindly at robes that caught and tore on the buckle of her mount’s girth. “Sorceress!” Blaise’s call seemed distant and unimportant. She stumbled across the battlefield into the shadow of Calandor’s body, hands outstretched. There. That was his shoulder, that was one of his forelegs against which she had so often leaned, feeling the warmth of his mighty heart radiating against her skin.

  “Calandor,” she whispered, laying her hands on the harsh grey stone. It was sun-warmed. If she closed her eyes, she could almost pretend. The long ridge of his neck slanted along the ground, ending in the dim outline of his noble head, chin resting on the earth. Only knobs of dead stone remained where his green-gilt eyes had shone. Oblivious to the waiting train, Lilias embraced as much of the fallen dragon as her arms could encompass, and wept.

  Hoofbeats rattled on the stony ground behind her, and leather tack creaked. “Sorceress,” Blaise said. “It’s time to go.”

  Lilias rested her brow against the sun-warmed rock. If she tried, she could almost imagine the pulse beating in her own veins was the steady throb of the dragon’s heart. “Can you not allow me even
a moment of grief?”

  “No. Not here. Not now.”

  She turned slowly to face him, squinting through tearswollen eyes. He sat impassively in the saddle, leading her mount by the reins. Beyond him, Haomane’s Allies waited in shining, impatient panoply. At the head of the column, Aracus Altorus was frowning, the Soumanië bright on his brow. A coterie of Ellylon and a handful of Borderguard surrounded him. The woman Archer was watching her with distrust, an arrow loosely nocked in Oronin’s Bow. A long line of soldiery—Pelmarans, Midlanders, Vedasians—stretched behind them, mounted and on foot, all regarding her with triumphant contempt.

  It was too much to bear.

  Averting her head, Lilias left the dragon’s side and fumbled for the stirrup. Someone laughed aloud as she struggled to mount without the aid of a block. Blaise reached over and hauled her unceremoniously into the saddle. He kept control of her reins, leading her back toward the train. Aracus gave the signal and progress resumed.

  Behind them, a cheer arose as a Pelmaran foot-soldier passing in the ranks jabbed at the ridge of Calandor’s tail with the butt-end of his spear. It set a trend. Sick at heart, Lilias twisted in the saddle to watch as each passing man ventured a thrust or a kick, bits of stone crumbling under their blows. One of them spat.

  “Darden.” Blaise beckoned to one of the dun-cloaked Borderguardsmen. “Tell them to stop.”

  The man nodded, turning his horse’s head and riding back down the line. The order was received with grumbling, but it was obeyed. After the battle, few of Haomane’s Allies would venture to disobey one of the Borderguard.

  “Thank you.” Lilias spoke the words without looking at him.

  Blaise shrugged, shifting his grip on the twin sets of reins. “He was one of the Eldest. If nothing else, that is worthy of a measure of respect.”

  The train continued, passing over the well-trodden ground of its own encampment. The vast city of tents had been struck and folded, but the ravages of their occupation remained. Trees had been clear-cut for siege-engines and battering rams, leaving raw stumps and scattered debris. Ashes and bones littered the sites of a hundred campfires. Gazing at it, Lilias shook her head. “He was only trying to protect his home,” she said. “To protect me.”

  Blaise gave her a hard look. “Tell that to the mothers and widows of the men he roasted alive in their armor.”

  In the forefront of the vanguard, their column narrowed as Aracus Altorus entered the verge of the forest. The pine shadows muted his red-gold hair and gave a watery green tint to the silver armor of the Rivenlost who surrounded him.

  “You could have withdrawn,” Lilias said quietly. “It would have been enough.”

  “And you could have surrendered!” A muscle worked in Blaise’s jaw. “What do you want from me, Sorceress? Pity? You chose to take part in the Sunderer’s scheme. You could have surrendered when it failed, and pleaded for honest clemency.”

  She laughed mirthlessly. “Would my fate be different, Borderguardsman?”

  “Yours?” He raised his brows. “No.”

  “So.” She rubbed her cheeks, stiff with the salt of drying tears. “It doesn’t matter, does it? Nothing matters, in the end. Let us leave it at that, Borderguardsman. If you would speak, speak of something else.”

  He shrugged as they entered the shadow of the pines. “Aracus entrusted me with the task of warding you. I have no need to speak.”

  The horses’ hooves thudded softly on the broad, beaten path, gaining speed as Aracus Altorus stepped up the pace to a slow trot. Soon, the vanguard would pull ahead of the foot-soldiers, leaving them behind. An occupying force of Regent Martinek’s men remained to oversee Beshtanag’s affairs. The remaining Pelmarans would assemble a council of Regents to determine what aid they could send westward; in the south, the Vedasian knights would seek to rally their own overlords. Duke Bornin of Seahold would gather the forces of the Midlands. As for the rest of them, they were bound for the Rivenlost haven of Meronil and the counsel of Ingolin the Wise; to seek news of Malthus, to attempt to unlock the power of the Soumanië, to plan an assault upon Darkhaven.

  And their prisoner, Lilias of Beshtanag, who held the answers to two of these matters, would be carried along with them like a twig in a flood.

  Turning in the saddle, Lilias glanced behind her one last time. Already the fortress was invisible from this angle. She caught a glimpse of the dull grey hummock of Calandor’s remains before low pine branches swept across her field of vision, closing like a curtain upon Beshtanag.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered. “Good-bye, my love.”

  IN HER QUARTERS, CERELINDE BALKED.

  “Thank you, Lord Vorax,” she said stiffly. “I pray you tell his Lordship I decline his invitation.”

  The madling Meara hissed with alarm in the comer. Vorax the Glutton grimaced, planting his heavy hands on the gilded belt that encircled his girth; which had, in fairness, grown considerably less than it had been when he greeted her at the gates of Darkhaven. “Do you think I fancy being his errand-boy, Lady? I have more important duties. Nonetheless, his Lordship’s invitations are not optional.”

  “Very well.” She laid aside the lace-work with which she had been occupying her hours. “As his Lordship commands.”

  Vorax held open the door to her chambers with a sardonic bow, smiling in such a way as showed his sturdy teeth above his beard. Small scabs stippled his brow and cheeks. Cerelinde repressed a shudder at having to pass close enough to feel the heat of his body. “You are too kind, Lady.”

  “Not at all.” She returned his false smile, watching the Staccian’s eyes narrow. It was a relief, in some ways, to deal with him instead of Tanaros. Vorax the Glutton did not confuse her senses or her thoughts, and however he had spent the long years of his immortality, it had inured him to the allure of the Ellylon. He would as lief see her dead as alive, and made little effort to disguise the fact.

  “To the garden, then.” His thick fingers took impersonal possession of her arm, and he steered her down the halls. The pace he set was fast enough to make her stride hurried. Here and there, where tapestries hung, there was a scurrying sound in the walls, and Cerelinde had been in Darkhaven long enough to guess it was Meara, or the other madlings, at work. There seemed no end to their knowledge of the passages that riddled Darkhaven.

  She noted, as they passed, that the Mørkhar Fjel of the Havenguard saluted Vorax with less alacrity than they had Tanaros. It filled her with a sense of uneasy pride.

  “Here.” Vorax led her into the narrow corridor, with the door of polished wood and silver hinges at the end of it. Cerelinde shrank back against the wall as he fumbled at his belt for a ring of keys. He shot her a wry glance. “Don’t worry, I’m only fulfilling his Lordship’s wishes. I’ve no interest in aught else.”

  Cerelinde straightened. “I’m not afraid.”

  “Oh, aye.” He smiled dourly, fitting a small key to the lock. “I can see that.”

  It stung her pride, enough to make her reach out and lay gentle fingers on the scabbed skin of his brow. If she had possessed the ancient magics Haomane’s Children were said to have before the world was Sundered, she might have healed him. She watched his eyes widen at the delicate touch of Ellylon flesh against his rude skin. “Are you injured, Lord Vorax?”

  “No,” he said shortly, pulling away from her and opening the door. “Go on,” he added, giving her an ignominious shove. “His Lordship is waiting.”

  Lifting her skirts, Cerelinde stepped across the threshold and raised her face to the night sky, breathing deep. Arahila’s moon rode high overhead, a silvery half-orb; and yet, it was not the same garden she had visited with Tanaros. There was a sulfuric tang to the moist air that caressed her skin, with an underlying odor of rot. Dead patches pocked the grass, pallid by moonlight.

  It hurt to see it, which surprised her.

  “My Lord?” Cerelinde called.

  “I am here,” the deep voice answered. “Come.”

  There, wh
ere a dark form blotted out the stars. Stumbling over the dying grass, she made her way toward him. A faint sound shivered the night; bells, crying out. On slender stalks the bell-shaped blossoms shivered, heedless of the acid rain that had pierced their petals, leaving yellowish holes with seared edges. The sound they emitted was a plangent and sorrowful alarum, sounding without cease.

  “Oh!” Cerelinde stooped, reaching for them. “Poor blossoms.”

  “Clamitus atroxis.” Lord Satoris gazed at the stars revolving in their slow dance. “Sonow-bells, sounding for every act of senseless cruelty in Urulat. Were they as loud, when you heard them before?”

  “No.” She bent her head over the flower bed.

  “Nor I.” The Shaper sighed. “Though I fear it is I who has set them ringing, I do not relish the sound, Cerelinde.”

  Cerelinde stroked the seared petals of the sorrow-bells, feeling them shudder under her fingertips. Aracus. “What have you done, my Lord?” she murmured, the blood running cold in her veins at the Shaper’s words.

  “There was time when I did,” he mused. “It was sweet to my ears, a gratifying reminder that you Lesser Shapers are more than capable of wounding one another to the quick without my aid. And yet, I find it not so sweet when I am the cause. Vengeance sours quickly upon the palate when it fails to find its rightful target. It was never my wish to be what fate has made me, Lady.”

  Cerelinde straightened and took a step forward. “What have you done?”

  “Have no fear.” A hint of contempt edged his voice. “The Son of Altorus is safe enough. It was no one you knew, Lady. Victims of Haomane’s Wrath, once. Now victims of mine. This time, they brought it upon themselves.”

  “The Charred Folk.” The knowledge brought relief, and a different sorrow. “Ah, my Lord. Why?”