The orderliness of the outer wall was now splintered into chaos. Maerad saw that one of the children had been killed, and averted her eyes; another body lay limp close by. She rushed over to see if she could help, her heart in her mouth, and turned the body over; it was a Bard she didn't know, and she still breathed. A bruise was already turning purple over her temple.
"Quick! Over here!" cried a voice at her shoulder, and Maerad turned in surprise. It was Camphis, who laid a hand on the Bard's face, over the bruise, and briefly glowed with magery. Yes, he would be a healer, Maerad thought, drawing back so she wouldn't be in the way. Indik had already arranged Bards in a fighting line, which was just as well, as the attack was almost immediately followed by another. Camphis stayed with the injured Bard until men arrived with a stretcher to carry her away, protecting her even as a wer rose on its haunches and struck out at him with its savage claws. He shore off its head with his sword, and the thing collapsed heavily to the ground. Smoking blood spurted across the stones and over Maerad's feet.
Maerad had no time to feel disgust: she sent out White Flame, hitting every wer she could see, wondering why other Bards were not following her example. All of them except
Cadvan, she saw, were fighting with weapons, not magery. In a very short time—or perhaps the time only seemed short—the wers were again all destroyed. The ground was littered with their foul corpses and smirched with their blood, and one of the cauldrons of pitch had been spilled and a pool of molten tar was spreading slowly over the stones. The stench made her gorge rise. Indik was shouting for men to throw the corpses off the wall, and in twos they flung the heavy bodies over the battlements. And then it happened again. Cadvan was scorching the wers with White Fire as they landed so they flared up like living torches and collapsed, wrecks of burned leather and bone; but still no one else seemed to be using magery.
Maerad, said Indik into Maerad's mind. Do not forget to track the Landrost. This is meant to distract us ...
In the confusion, Maerad had forgotten entirely about the Landrost. She hastily began to explore, feeling for his presence. She drew back as far as she could from the fighting, trying not to look: to witness these savage acts was somehow worse than to perform them. Again, the fighting was over quickly, but there were more bodies on the ground this time: a young girl with her neck at an awful, unnatural angle, another Bard whom Maerad saw, after a quick glance, was certainly dead. Then there was a wave of attacks, one after the other, so that Maerad lost count, but this time more Bards could use the White Flame. The children had scrambled down the steps into shelter after the first couple of attacks, and the soldiers were now fighting steadily. No one else was hurt, but it began to turn into a systematic, sickening slaughter. Some wers, seeing the carnage, swerved back over the wall without even attempting to fight. Maerad concentrated on staying out of the way of the skirmishes, following the malevolent pressure that signaled the Landrost, trying to feel him without letting him become aware of her.
Cadvan was suddenly next to her; she hadn't seen him approach, and started in surprise. His face was grim, and splashed with blood, and his sword was black with it, but he seemed unhurt.
"Out of trouble here?" he asked.
Maerad nodded abstractedly; she didn't want to lose the thread she was following.
"I thank you for the blackstone," he said. "You were right: it came in very useful. The Landrost somehow broke the wards and staved off our magery at the same time. The blackstone prevented him from affecting me, but everyone else was disempowered—his little revenge, no doubt, for that weather-charm. Maerad, if you could find out how he did it, it would help us. It costs the Landrost far less to lose ten than for us to lose one."
Maerad turned to him. "He couldn't block me either," she said. "I told you I didn't need it."
"I know. Maerad, you are key to this—" "Are these attacks happening all over Innail?" "I don't know. Probably."
Yes. Indik's voice sounded harshly in Maerad's head: she had forgotten she was in mindtouch with him. We have been hard-pressed. But the wards are remade, and are stronger now. I think they will not try that again.
For a moment, Maerad panicked: in the intimacy of mind-touching, she could feel the anxiety that Indik otherwise concealed, and she knew that Indik was depending on her in their battle with the Landrost. And she was already so weary. If Innail fell, it would be her fault. Cadvan caught the tenor of her thoughts, and took her hand.
"Maerad, yes, much is hoped of you," he said. "But like all of us, you can only do your best, and no one will blame you if even that is not enough. We all have our parts to play in this, and our own responsibilities." Cadvan grimaced. "We are all tired. And it is not as if the wards were completely ineffective even though they were breached. It cost the wers to break them; they used a large part of their native powers, and were slower and less deadly when they next attacked us. The Landrost is sending them to be slaughtered. I suspect there will not be many more of these attacks."
"Indik thinks he won't try that again," said Maerad.
"Well, then. We have won at least some respite."
"What next, then?" Maerad studied the scene before her: already the wers' bodies had been flung over the walls, the wounded fighters taken to the healers, and reeds and sand scattered over the blood that smeared the stone. For the moment, everything seemed orderly again, although all swords were drawn, and the defenders were wary, prepared for assault at any moment.
"I don't know," said Cadvan. "The Light grant us strength to meet it."
In the other part of her mind, Maerad tensed: she was now very close to the Landrost, and she could feel him brooding. She sensed a miasma of doubt coloring his presence, a bafflement: he had met resistance where he had thought to find none. Shifting cautiously, Maerad attempted to move closer to his thoughts. No, he was nothing like the Winterking, who was subtle and complex as well as powerful. The Landrost was a creature who thought only in crude patterns of power, seeking to overwhelm like a landslide. And yes, there was great and frightening power in these forces, but surely, also, a weakness. A landslide could only go in one direction, after all.
She froze. She had become too absorbed in her contemplation, and the Landrost had become aware of her. Just as she could read him, her mind could be open to his. For a vital moment, she was too terrified to move. The Landrost lashed out
with a blast of energy, and she felt the shock of it go through her, a malevolent pulse of chill darkness that left her numb and stupid. In that moment, the Landrost perceived her. As if she could see a reflection of herself in another's eye, she glimpsed for the briefest moment how he saw her: a glowing figure in the darkness, very small and very bright, pulsing with an unknowable power. Now she was trapped in his gaze, as if his perception pinned her beneath a crushing weight; she could neither move nor think. She felt his astonishment give way to a gloating triumph, and she felt his mind flex. The Landrost would squash her flat as if she were a beetle, and there was nothing she could do. Panicking, she struggled in his grip, but he held her fast.
From very far away, at the edges of her mind, she heard a voice. She was so frightened that she didn't recognize who it was; her whole being was infused with darkness and impotence.
Elednor Edil-Amarandh na, said the voice. It was cold too, colder than the Landrost, and glittered with an icy brilliance. This creature is nothing compared to you. Are you really so weak? Is the pebble really less than the mountain? And, bizarrely, it laughed. Its laughter was like ice falling on her skin, cutting her open, waking her from the impotence of nightmare.
There was no time to think. The pressure was unbearable, and already the Landrost was blotting out her whole being: only the smallest light remained of herself. With her failing consciousness, she latched fiercely onto the idea of the pebble: in the landslide, a pebble would not be destroyed. She stopped resisting the Landrost and let herself sink into the darkness, hard and round and small and herself. The wave of blackness tossed her an immeasu
rable distance, through realms of vacant space where stars rolled in their inscrutable dance, through clouds of blinding colors more vast than she could even imagine, where time itself was squeezed and stretched by colossal forces. She was lost, lost... but still she arced through her trajectory, a tiny star.
She didn't know anymore who or where she was; everything went through her, faster and faster. And then, quite suddenly, time seemed to start again, and someone called her name. Blindly she reached toward it, to whoever knew her and called her. At last she rolled to a halt, dizzy and breathless. She was a body of flesh and blood and bone, and she could hear her own breathing. She gasped, feeling the air rush into her lungs, a hard surface pressing against her legs, something soft around her. Someone was stroking her face and saying her name.
She opened her eyes and found herself looking straight into Cadvan's eyes. He repeated her name again, a question in his voice, and she nodded, still stunned.
"Are you all right?" He was pale, with deep shadows under his eyes, and the scar around his eye stood out lividly against his skin.
"No," said Maerad. She waited until the dizziness began to dissipate, and then pushed Cadvan away and was sick. Wordlessly he handed her a cloth and she wiped her mouth, and then he gave her some medhyl. Maerad took a long draft and sat down next to him, her back against the wall.
"He saw me," she said at last. "The Landrost. He almost destroyed me."
Cadvan nodded, his face expressionless.
She twisted around so she could look Cadvan in the face. "Was it you who laughed at me?"
Cadvan looked puzzled. "No, my dear. I could not laugh at you in such a place. I called you home. You were so very far away."
"Someone laughed at me. He saved my life, just as I thought I was going to be crushed. No, it wasn't your voice ..." Maerad frowned and took another sip of the medhyl. Her heart was no longer pounding so painfully. "I wonder who it was. It was a cold voice, very cold ..."
She gasped: of course she knew who it was. The knowledge gave her the feeling that she was standing on a very high cliff. She wanted to be sick again, but at the same time she felt as if she were full of light, a strange, thrilling buoyancy.
"Was it the Winterking?" asked Cadvan, after a long silence.
Maerad nodded. "Yes," she said. "Yes. It was."
V
THE CARAVAN
H
EM was tired of walking. Every day, for what seemed like the past fifty years, he had slept on the ground, woken cold and stiff with the first light of dawn, and then spent all day walking. It wasn't just ordinary walking, either. He and his companions, Saliman of Turbansk and Soron of Til Amon, stumbled through a rough, marshy landscape, and they were constantly weaving charms—glimveils, shadowmazes, shields—to help keep them hidden from any Black Army scouts or patrols. It was exhausting, skulking like this. He was tired of eating dried nuts and fruits and salted meat. He was tired of everything.
He vented his feelings to Irc, the white crow perched on his shoulder who was his constant companion, using mindspeech. Aside from being the only way to speak to Irc, it had the advantage that the others could not overhear and rebuke him. When we get to Til Amon, Hem said, I am going to sleep all day. No, first I will eat. A big, big meal. A lamb roasted on the spit, with all the juices dripping, and roasted turnips and carrots and onions. And some spiced apples. His mouth watered just thinking about it. And then I will sleep. And no one will wake me up until I want to wake up.
Irc cocked his head and fixed him with his eye. You're lazy, he said. It's not so bad. Though some fresh meat would be good. You had a squab yesterday, said Hem. And you didn't share it! Irc looked unrepentant. You would have spoiled it by putting it in the fire, he said. Anyway, it was very scrawny. There was only enough for me.
Oh, you wouldn't understand, said Hem. You're just a bloody crow. Go away. You're too heavy.
Irc ruffled his feathers, a sign of offense. I am a very clever crow, he said. I am the King's messenger. I saved you from Dagra.
That doesn't stop you from being the most annoying bird I've ever met, said Hem.
Irc gave Hem a sharp nip on his ear and took off, soaring into the sky. Hem sighed impatiently, immediately regretting what he had said. I'm sorry! he called. I didn't mean it, Irc. I'm just tired, that's all.
Irc didn't answer. Hem watched him until he was out of sight. He'd be back later, probably having done a little hunting, and might have forgiven Hem by then. Or not, depending.
"Have you offended that bird?" said Saliman from behind him.
"He takes offense if you don't bow to him all the time," said Hem irritably. "I wish every day that Arakin had never made him a messenger. I've paid for it ever since."
Saliman, a black-skinned Bard of Turbansk and also Hem's mentor, laughed. "You and every bird he meets," he said. "Mind you, life would be far more tedious if you didn't have Irc to squabble with. Be of good cheer, Hem. We're not so far from Til Amon." He pointed to a mountain rising before them. "A few days at most, I'd say, the Light willing. We've been lucky. I think we have far outstripped the Black Army, if they are indeed planning to march on South Annar."
Hem nodded. Saliman was right, he knew; they had been lucky.
After he and Irc had stumbled out of the Glandugir Hills to Sjug'hakar Im, the nightmarish training camp where child soldiers had been trained for battle, and met Saliman, they had briefly returned (to Irc's deep displeasure) to the Bards in the caves at Nal-Ak-Burat. There Hem endured an uncomfortable session with Hared, who—despite the outcome of his disobedience—was furious with him for disobeying his orders at Sjug'hakar Im. After everything he had been through, especially after his grueling journey across Den Raven in a fruitless attempt to rescue his friend Zelika, Hem was in no mood to be told off.
"I found out things you wouldn't know otherwise," he said sullenly. "Even Saliman said he wouldn't dare enter Dagra. And I couldn't abandon Zelika. Perhaps you don't know what it means to have a friend."
Hared's face, hard at the best of times, closed at that jibe, and he said nothing more. After that, he treated Hem with a warier respect. A few days later, after several long and circular arguments, Hem, Soron, and Saliman left Nal-Ak-Burat, heading in the first instance for Til Amon. Soron was itching to return home, and Hem wouldn't be budged from his conviction that he had to find his sister, Maerad, who he was sure was somewhere in Annar.
Hared had wanted Saliman to stay in Nal-Ak-Burat with the other Bards of the resistance, to fight the Black Army. "Saliman, I will be frank," he said, during one discussion. "Movement has been easier this past fortnight, I grant you, since Imank vanished and the Black Army has been in disarray. But once Sharma organizes himself—which I foresee will not take long—those forces will no longer be divided. I have no doubt it will get much more difficult here, and the Light knows it is difficult enough. And to lose a Bard like you to a wild-goose chase—it goes hard, Saliman. It goes hard."
This was as close as Hared came to begging, and Saliman knew it was a measure of his desperation.
"Hared," he said gently. "I understand, my friend. Believe me, I understand. And I cannot say that I am not torn. It is always possible that I am mistaken. I know it looks like madness to you. But I cannot go against my Knowing. I knew from the beginning that Hem had some part to play in this. So far, he has not proved me wrong. And it is very clear to me that we have to find his sister."
Hared heard the decision in Saliman's voice, and knew better than to argue, but he shook his head sadly. The following day, Hem, Soron, and Saliman left the safety of the caves of Nal-Ak-Burat, heading west through Nazar, and crossed, at some peril to their lives, the Undara River into Savitir, until they reached the edges of the Neera Marshes. There they turned north, keeping the Neera Marshes to their left.
In all this time they had seen no one else; Saliman guided them away from roads and tracks, and they avoided all villages. The landscape they crossed was lonely: at dusk they heard the melancholy
cry of the curlew calling in the night. Occasionally they came across a burned byre or the remains of slaughtered goats or other signs of war, but these were all cold, remnants of a violence now well past, and there were few signs of sorcery. Still, they kept vigilant, and it seemed to Hem that the landscape watched them warily, as if eyes noted their presence and waited anxiously for them to pass. They traveled swiftly: aside from the urgency of their quest, the strange emptiness of the land gave them no desire to dawdle.
At last they reached the northern reaches of the Neera Marshes, and again turned west to meet the South Road. Here they doubled their precautions: if the Black Army had scouts or, worse, was marching northward to South Annar, this was where they would most likely encounter problems. They traveled north with the road to their left a good distance away, their passing muffled by shadowmazing and shields so they would be invisible to the naked eye. Irc had investigated the road at regular intervals. Nothing, he said, moved on it, as far as his eye could see.