“Thinkers?” Dritt guessed.
The Queen looked at him glumly. “Yes.”
Freelorn reached for the map and pulled it closer to where he sat cross-legged on the floor. He studied it for a few breaths, then indicated the mouth of the valley. “The Reavers are drawn up here, under several of Cillmod’s mercenary-captains.”
“A little more north,” Wyn said. “About a quarter-mile north of the Heugh, stretching right across to the Spine.”
“Uh-huh. They’re on the other side of the Spine too?”
“It seems a safe assumption, though we haven’t confirmed it. They’ve got a small force at the Spine’s northern end; we’ve left it alone.”
Freelorn nodded, leaning over the map. “I doubt they’re paying much attention to their rear, then, since the besieging force is holding it secure, and the Fyrd are back there too. I suspect no one will notice if we go in the pantry door instead of the great-hall entrance.” He pointed at Britfell, indicating a spot near where the fell joined the northern massif of Kemana. “Here.”
Now it was Wyn’s turn to look shocked. “You’re crazy! There’s no going up Britfell, it’s too sheer! Maybe a climber could do it in a day or so, if there was time...”
Herewiss was looking at Freelorn with an expression compounded of worry and dawning hope. For once, Segnbora thought, anticipation rising in her, maybe one of Freelorn’s crazy strategies is going to pay off—
“I’ve done it on horseback,” Freelorn said. “With my father. There’s a path. We went up the north side and down the south in about six hours, coming out on the far side of the curve about a half mile north of the Heugh. And if two people did it, so can ten.” He glanced around at his own group. “Or a hundred,” he said to the Queen. “Or five hundred.”
“That path must not be very visible from either side,” Eftgan said, sounding uncertain, “which suggests it will be rough to ride.”
“It could hardly be worse if the Shadow Itself had built it. But it’s a way to get over. And everybody, even the Reavers, knows there’s no way over the fell: that’s what brought our ancestors to grief.” Freelorn tapped the map again. “So. We take a few hundred of your horse—or why be stingy? Make it five hundred—and go over.” He scrunched up his forehead in thought. “Allow sixteen hours for the whole passage. You order your main force to draw up north of the valley’s mouth. The Reavers won’t move; they’re not such idiots as to attack downhill and give up the advantage of the ground. If they draw back and try to tempt your forces to come after them, fine. Meanwhile, you and I and five hundred horse are here”—he tapped the inside of Britfell’s curve—”where we can’t possibly be. We come down around the Heugh and do our binding there, while the cavalry takes the Reavers in their unsuspecting flank and rear, attacking downhill and driving them against your main force to the south. Hammer and anvil.” He grinned.
Wyn was beginning to look interested despite his doubts. “That still leaves the cavalry with an unfought force at its back: the besieging force. If they leave the city and come down on you—”
“How many are holding the siege?”
“About a thousand foot.”
Freelorn shrugged. “If they send enough people to make a difference, won’t the garrison inside try a sally?”
“So they’ve said,” Eftgan said. “That’ll make no difference to the cavalry, though.”
“So.” Freelorn tapped the Spine. “Once your main force engages the Reaver force, you send a good-sized party to secure the ground between the Spine and Nómion and clear the Reavers off that side of the river. There’s our bolt-hole. We ford the river and go up behind the Spine, then rejoin the main force.”
Eftgan sat silent for a little while, studying the map. “We’re fifty-five hundred to their four thousand,” she said at last. “I don’t have the leisure for strategic victories. I need conclusive ones. This at least gives us a chance to do what we have to without using Power and risking a disaster. The surprise of taking them from the rear would be tremendous. It should disorganize them wonderfully. And, since organization was never their strong point anyway…”
Eftgan glanced over at Wyn for his opinion. He nodded at her. She paused to give the map one more long look.
“The last scrying I managed,” she said, “gave a hint of something that might be coming from the northwest, from upper Arlen. Help or hindrance, I couldn’t tell. And I don’t dare delay to find out. The Bindings must be reinforced as soon as we can. Any delay could turn loose forces I don’t care to contemplate, or leave Cillmod opportunity to try to destroy the weakened Bindings completely.”
Standing, she bent to pick up her Rod from among the papers on the floor. “No matter. We’ll work with what information we have. Freelorn, I’ll ride with you regardless of the uncertainty. Wyn will handle the main force in my absence. Meanwhile—”
The tent flap was thrust aside. In peered a tall, rawboned woman in the Darthene royal blue, with somewhat disordered dark hair and a captain’s chain around her neck. “Ma’am,” she said, breathless, “the Reavers are attacking the north side of the camp again. Maybe a hundred or so.”
“Oh, damn,” the Queen said. She tossed her Rod away and reached to the side of the tent, where Fórlennh BrokenBlade lay sheathed. “They love trying to draw us out,” she said, buckling on the scabbard. “Any trouble handling it, Kesri?”
“Not really.”
“Good. Of your courtesy, go call the other captains and the captains-major. I have something to tell them.” The captain vanished and the tentflap fell.
Eftgan turned to Freelorn and Herewiss. “Midnight’s coming on. We’ll start an hour after midnight, and give the Reavers a surprise tomorrow afternoon.”
Lorn and his people began heading out of the tent to see to the horses and to their own bedrolls. Eftgan flicked a wry glance at Segnbora, an outward indication of mixed concern and anticipation. “Just like old times, ‘Berend.”
Segnbora thought of Etachnë and other such fields that lay behind the two of them, victories and defeats equally frightful. “Not just like, I hope.”
“No,” Eftgan said, looking thoughtfully at Skádhwë in its scabbard, and at Segnbora’s odd shadow on the floor. “I suppose it won’t be.”
***
FIFTEEN
Mn’An’dzat kchren’rae ëhwiss thaa’seth:
The Five Truths, terrible and joyous:
Stihë hë-stihé.
What is, is.
Stihú hë-stihé.
What was, is.
Whrn’thae najh’stihëh.
Matter is an illusion.
Ousskh’thae najh’stihëh.
Meaning is an illusion.
Mda’t’dae bvh-sda’t’dae mnek-é.
The Door opens both ways.
Rui’i’rae-sta haa’ae!
Believe none of these!
Ehh’ne lhhw’i’ae (What Dragons Say), vii,14
Full night, when it came, was starless. A heavy overcast hung like a roof just above the highest peaks, Nómion and Kerana. In that stifling silent darkness, a long column of riders picked its way to the foot of Britfell’s northern slope and came to a halt.
The prospect was daunting. Sheer walls of cracked cliff-face rose up uninvitingly. Around them were strewn rubble and boulders brought down by the annual flux of heat and cold. Eftgan, on her tall bay gelding Scoundrel, shook her head as she looked upward.
“Lorn, if the road isn’t still there—”
“Then we’re no worse off than you were before,” Lorn said. Ahead of Segnbora and the others, he, Herewiss, and the Queen were shadows among shadows. Everyone in that riding had made sure there was nothing bright about their gear; faces and hands and buckles and swordhilts were smeared with a mixture of grease and soot. Even so, Segnbora’s Dragon-sharpened vision saw movements and expressions clearly enough.
Freelorn pulled up Blackmane’s head and headed him off to the left. “Let’s take the adventure the Goddess sends us
,” he said, “and go as far as we can.”
He urged his dun straight at the cliffside. Blackmane snorted mild protest but went where his rider directed him, climbing a slope of talus and scree and not stopping until they reached a narrow ledge fifty feet or so above the cliff’s foot. “This way,” Lorn called softly to the riders waiting below, and put his heels to Blackmane again. The horse took him leftward past a rounded outcropping of stone, and out of sight.
“This is crazy,” Lang said, beside Segnbora.
“Maiden’s madness, I hope,” Eftgan said, and shook Scoundrel’s reins. He stalled, snorting, until Eftgan laid her crop gently below his left ear and touched him with heels again. Up Scoundrel went in a nervous rush, scattering pebbles and small stones. One by one the others followed him, reining their horses in to keep them stepping lightly and minimize the damage done to the path.
The ride was like something out of an old tale or a bad dream, full of long terrifying pauses during which Freelorn lost the way and found it again, dismounted to heave fallen boulders off the narrow track or to lead Blackmane where he thought it too dangerous to burden a horse with a rider’s weight. The path, if it could be dignified with such a name, wound back and forth along the face of the cliff, switching back at wildly irregular intervals, the switches often barely enough for one horse to negotiate. Always there were heartstopping drops below.
Segnbora kept her elbows in as she rode, once again very glad of Steelsheen’s breed—Steldenes, bred in mountainous country, were frequently accused of being part goat. The mare picked her way delicately along ledges of rotten, sliding stone with only an occasional snort of protest at the poor quality of the trail. Other horses behind, flatland breeds, weren’t doing as well. The sound of whispered swearing came drifting up from riders down below.
As they climbed, the night got blacker, if that was possible. A feeling began to grow among the riders that Something with no good intent was watching the silent climb. Tense minutes stretched into an hour, then two and three. Segnbora began to feel as if she had been climbing up this miserable wall forever, as if her whole life had been spent fighting with eggshell-fragile stone, squinting at it, terrified of every step.
At the same time, she had to admit that this feat would be sung of for years, if any of them finished the climb and survived the battle that waited just the other side of Britfell. She maneuvered Steelsheen cautiously around another treacherous switchback, not looking down.
Inside her, in their own darkness that now seemed bright by comparison, Hasai and the mdeihei hissed laughter at her fear of heights, and then began singing (in sixteen-part harmony of the kind Dragons used when feeling playful) their memory of the ballad which the bards would later write for Freelorn: When Fyrd came over the Darthene border / and Reavers moved at the Shadow’s order... Segnbora almost felt like smiling, until she remembered that just because her mdeihei had a memory of the ballad, that was still no guarantee that any of them were going to survive.
As she was thinking that, one of Sheen’s hooves slipped, and Segnbora’s heart seized as she leaned with the mare so she could regain her balance. For an instant they came close to a perilous drop, but Steelsheen recovered and went on, sweating and trembling, but knowing what her mistress wanted. Unconcerned, the mdeihei were singing in unison now, a calm chorus. They climbed the Fell and they crossed the water, the Lion’s Son and the Eagle’s Daughter—
The riders pressed on. Several hours before dawn it began to snow, the wind rising to a howling blast. Snow that grew blizzard-fine drove stinging into faces, numbing hands on the reins. The horses whickered in complaint and tried to walk with eyes averted toward the cliff, which only caused them to miss their footing more often. Their riders, who had more or less expected the change of weather, broke out extra clothing and muffled themselves up as best they could. The sky got infinitesimally lighter as day broke above the storm, though not enough to lighten anyone’s spirits.
There’s will behind this weather, Herewiss had said. That will could be felt watching them more strongly every minute. The head of the column was fairly close to the top of the fell now, but that was no comfort: the thought of having to take a similar path downhill, on an icy trail, was on everyone’s mind. The storm was blowing from the south, and had been abated somewhat by striking the fell and having to pour over it. Matters would be much worse on the other side.
The trail leveled so abruptly that Segnbora was taken completely by surprise. It led westward here, going around the edge of a west-pointing backbone of the fell. A pause to look out that way would have been pleasant, but there was no time for it—the column was still coming up the far side of the fell, and there was little standing room. Besides, they had entered the cloud cover, and visibility was low.
Even so, Eftgan dismounted long enough to stretch her cramped arms and legs and look ahead hopefully. Herewiss, beside her, looked unhappy. “Can you feel anything?” he said.
Eftgan shook her head. “I can hardly hear myself think in this wind, let alone anyone else. That one”—she glanced upward at the slate-dark cloud cover—”has settled Itself down snug. It’s muffling all thought but Its own. The main force is going to have to rely on riders for messages, and there’ll be no way for us to know what’s going on until we rejoin it.”
“Sunspark can assist,” Herewiss said. But he sounded uncertain. “When will they move?”
“Noon. We should be well finished with our business at the Heugh by then, and they can go ahead and have a battle without worrying about what it might raise.” She was chewing on her lower lip, a sign of hidden fright that Segnbora recognized.
Segnbora had no time to indulge her own nervousness. There was barely enough time to dismount and feed Steelsheen some grain. By the time she got back in the saddle, Lorn was already picking his way down the trail on the other side, with Eftgan in back of him and Herewiss behind her.
“Let’s move, slowcoach,” Lang said as he nudged his dapplegray, Gyrfalcon, past her. “Going to lose your place up front.”
Dubious honor that it is, Segnbora thought, swinging up into the saddle and following him.
Now the pace of the climb slowed to an agonized creep, for the stone was not only iced, it was rotten. Rock crumbled maddeningly under foot, and the horses rebelled—shaking their heads, snorting, testing the footing at every step. The blinding cold snow turned the world into a featureless gray room through which vaguely seen figures led the way, and others, hunched against the wind, followed behind. The ordeal was endless.
In front of her, Gyrfalcon shied, and then Steelsheen did too. Segnbora had another of those terrifying long looks down. Ice and darkness. Oh, damn! The mare recovered her balance. Segnbora squinted at Lang’s shadowy back and then squeezed her eyes shut for just a moment, looking down among the mdeihei for an answer to her growing terror.
The cave was full of memories, much easier of access than they had been before the evening with the nightmare. Overlaid on her perception of the trail as it was now, she saw Bluepeak valley as it would look from Britfell on a clear day toward sunset.
But the season was fall, not summer, and some of the fields below, yellow with wheat, stirred in the south wind. Other fields burned, and the black smoke was carried north, occasionally obscuring the bodies of the slain and the trampled, bloody ground.
High in the surrounding peaks, on scarps and steeples of rock, winged figures watched, frozen with horror, as the frightful dark shape of the Gnorn went tottering about the battlefield, killing with Its look. Scrabbling Fyrd came after It in hungry terror to devour the dead. Behind It, Bluepeak town was burning. And westward on a lone height at Britfell’s far end, two men with drawn swords stood watching the terror with tears running down their faces. A Dragon’s eyes, keener than any hawk’s, could make them out plainly. One man was huge and broad as a bear, with a shaggy mane of fair hair, hazel eyes, and Freelorn’s prominent nose. The other was tall and angular, with dark hair threaded with silver, and k
ind downturned eyes as blue as Herewiss’s, blue as Fire.
She saw them throw down their swords at practically the same moment, desperately making the Choice; saw them take hands there, while the Gnorn came weaving toward them through the screams and death of Bluepeak; saw them give up what they had been and gaze into one another’s eyes to find out what they could be—
—and she fell out of that memory and into another one: this time, the memory of some nameless mdaha in the ancient time on the Homeworld, one who sat perched on a dark red stone in a violet twilight with another, while the starpool came up over the horizon. The Dragon turned to look into the other’s eyes, which were silver fire set in a hide of turquoise and lapis. The Dragon fell a great depth into those eyes, into a timeless, merciless, fathomless love which held the whole Universe within it as a person awake holds the memory of a dream—
Our line often soared with the Immanence, she remembered Hasai saying. One gets used to It. But no Dragon ever got used to the Other’s regard. The more one looked into that Other’s eyes, the more powerful, and the more unbearable, the experience became.
In a blinding moment of realization, Segnbora understood what she had seen in Hasai’s eyes on the night of unearthed memories. She understood, too, why she always averted her gaze after looking too long into the eyes of another human being—
The agonized joy of the discovery threw her out into the world again, back into whirling snow, ice and darkness. But the cold didn’t matter anymore. Not even her own exhaustion, nor Steelsheen’s panic, bothered her now. All she needed was a moment to put it into words, and the secret would be hers forever…