Warhost of Vastmark
He offered no advice, no wisdom, no platitude, but smiled to the trembling royal page who brought his black horse to hand him the reins. He patted the boy’s shoulder before he mounted. ‘Did the soldiers say something to frighten you? You’re a bigger man than that. You have my promise, there’s no truth behind whatever tale of horror you’ve been told.’
The boy looked uncertain. ‘You take no babes from their mothers for sacrifice?’
‘Never.’ Asandir flicked his silver-bordered mantle off his horse’s steaming hindquarters, draped it back over his shoulders, then set his foot in the stirrup and settled into his saddle. The stud snorted under him. Its ghost eye rolled white in eagerness to be off. Asandir held his restive mount and looked down at the fair-haired royal scion his Fellowship could not sanction for inheritance. ‘Neither do my kind intervene with mortal lives unasked. You do your followers no service to foster that misapprehension.’
‘Should I lie?’ Lysaer rebutted, his attention already strayed ahead to the needs of the people beneath his banner. ‘Men have every right to fear the forces of sorcery for as long as the Master of Shadow is free to terrorize their towns, and slaughter their comrades by the thousands on the field.’
In aggrieved awareness that no words of reason could pry through the implacable beliefs engendered by Desh-thiere’s curse, Asandir lent the statement no endorsement. ‘Would you sentence a criminal without hearing both sides of a grievance? I leave you with a challenge, that you make the chance to ask your half-brother’s allies for their view.’
‘I shall, if you deliver him to my court for judgment in chains,’ Lysaer countered.
But the Sorcerer had already set heels to his mount. The stallion shouldered ahead, an apparition of night and shadow against the drab heave of men’s industry and the leaden, unending fall of rain. The servants and squires collapsing tents or loading the bone-skinny backs of the pack mules scattered uneasily before that dark rider’s passage. A few gave way with extreme respect. A camp follower in trailing, muddied skirts curtsied to the ground, more deferent than she would have been toward royalty.
Asandir checked his mount. His gentle request to spare him her adulation left her smiling like new morning as he resumed on departure.
No one watching could fail to acknowledge the power in the Sorcerer’s capacity to care for detail. The fact that his Fellowship had twice stood as Arithon’s envoy fed a steady and latent uneasiness.
Lysaer damped back a sullen flare of resentment.
Alone, unsupported amid the dismembered wreckage of his hopes, he fought back despair as the seep of grey weather and the measure of his losses sank their grip on his heart and squeezed. The shame of his defeat at Dier Kenton Vale would weigh on him all of his days. Nearest to the heart, on the heels of his wrenching estrangement from Talith, he must bear home the news of her brother, killed on the field by barbarians.
Beyond life, the mark of ignominy would endure, indelibly set in Third Age history.
A thousand lesser sorrows surrounded him. Soldiers who had set faith in his march to claim due justice slogged through chill puddles to dismantle the field tents. They moved with bent heads, and cheeks grown hollowed with hunger. Their voices as they attended their duties rang dispirited, except in reference to their longing to return home. Under the leaning, bare poles of a cook shack, the wounded and the sick waited to be carried to wagons on litters. In a field pavilion nearby, in sombre, lowered voices, Lord Commander Harradene conferred with other captains on how they should handle the inevitable illness that must sweep through the ranks as the weather worsened.
Pain became anger, that all the brave efforts of three kingdoms’ muster had come to naught.
Ravaged by the effects of his enemy’s unrelenting cleverness, Lysaer had no choice but accept his bitter defeat at the hand of the Master of Shadow. Yet he was too much the prince to leave the matter here in Vastmark, or to let the ruins of another campaign become an uncontested victory.
Chilled through his rich surcoat, the prince called his page to send for Avenor’s captain-at-arms. Then he instructed his steward to tell his officers to wait an hour before striking his command tent.
‘Your Grace,’ the servant murmured, troubled as he arose from his bow for the sharp expression still stamped on the features of his prince.
The captain of the royal guard arrived, his surcoat brushed clean of mud, and the gold braid against all odds still kept shining. His sallow, axe features were a fixed mask to hide disappointment as he presented himself to hear what he expected would become his liege’s last order to retreat. ‘My prince, your cause is just. Never would we have betrayed you, though the last of us died in these hills.’
Lysaer turned away from his study of the mists that masked the cut rims of the mountains. ‘This war is not finished. No defeat is ever final. My mistake, always, was to fight the Master of Shadow on his own chosen ground.’
No warhost could close every bolt-hole in a continent. Nor could a galley fleet scour every cove in the shoreline.
‘We lost,’ Lysaer admitted in full surety, ‘because indeed, I demanded the impossible.’
‘No prince could have done more,’ protested Avenor’s captain. He had tears in his eyes for a pride beyond reach of mortal heartbreak.
Inspired by recognition that he had cast his net too small, Lysaer gave a smile of encouragement to rival a Fellowship Sorcerer’s. ‘We return to Avenor, not to accept what has happened, but to become the supreme example for all other cities on the continent. If every man comes to hear of this campaign, if every village learns of our enemy’s threat and guards itself against corruption, there will be no roof anywhere under which the Master of Shadow can find shelter. We can make certain, the next time he strikes, that no one alive gives him haven.’
And there lay the answer, Lysaer determined as he watched his captain straighten tired shoulders and stride off to attend his men in revived spirits.
Arithon s’Ffalenn could never succeed again if he was stripped of his welcome to delude backward settlements and win allies.
Lysaer stepped into his command tent, sent his page to find his secretary, then pondered the formidable obstacles confronting the seeds to restore his grand plan. Avenues of support still existed for Arithon, whose powers could never be vanquished: Fellowship Sorcerers and adepts of Ath’s Brotherhood were unmoved in corrupted belief that his shadow-bending deeds were tied to innocence. To make way against such uncanny force and mystery, the influence of initiates and mages must become undermined or supplanted.
To crush an enemy who commanded the fell powers of the dark, an armed host must be raised that was willing to die for the cause. One bound to unity through beliefs too strong to be routed by old superstitions or illusions of Dharkaron’s legendary chariot.
Lysaer settled into the damp velvet of his camp chair. Knuckles pressed to his temples, he frowned as logic vaulted him through avenues of fresh thought. To bring down a criminal who manipulated men’s fears as a weapon would require soldiers who would march on command to outface the very essence of evil.
To lead such a force, Lysaer perceived he would have to be more than a Prince of the West, more than Lord of Avenor, greater than the ancient royal bloodline of Tysan.
He must stand before people of all kingdoms as a presence beyond mere flesh and blood. Only then could he raise the inspiration to fire men to offer themselves in sacrifice.
His talent with light gave him birth claim to power. Davien’s fountain lent longevity. Should he not stand as the servant of innocence to rid the land of Arithon’s malevolence?
A light cough at his shoulder returned the prince to awareness that his secretary awaited his instructions. ‘I’ll need a letter written,’ he said, brisk in restored habit of command, ‘a requisition to my council in formal language to raise the gold to redeem the four brothers s’Brydion.’
A mousy, worn man, the scribe made a sound in surprise.
Lysaer regarded him, sobere
d to attentive sympathy. ‘What were you thinking? Did men dare to presume I’d forsake my sworn allies over a conflict between blood family and loyalty?’
‘Some say so, your Grace,’ the secretary whispered in diffidence.
‘Well, they must be made to see otherwise.’ Lysaer surged to his feet, charged to magisterial vehemence. ‘The name of no man who fought here shall be forgotten. No ally shall go unsung. The s’Brydion brothers will be ransomed by my treasury, and every survivor who leaves here shall go as my vested envoy. We who survive must spread word of the wiles and sorceries that led our best companions to ruin. Our cause is unfinished until this whole land has been raised against the Master of Shadow. When all cities stand against him, how can this Spinner of Darkness win aught but misery and failure? Our work must be diligent. Until every heart lies barred against his wiles, our enemy will have foothold to seed ruin.’
The secretary bowed, sat, and opened his lap desk. Refigured by hope, the proud scion of s’Ilessid began his energetic dictation. The missive he sent, penned and sealed beneath his sigil, was signed, ‘Lysaer, Prince of the Light.’
When the captains were given orders to strike the royal tent, they were asked to see if Avenor’s men could raise the spirit to sing through their task.
‘Become the example,’ Lysaer exhorted, his stance unbowed, and his voice a ringing call of inspiration. ‘If we show no despair, all others will take heart.’
Between the collapse of the camp and the dismal, chill fall of night, the secretary spread his story of the letter written for his liege lord. His reverent account gained fresh impetus as Lysaer walked the common ranks, clad in shining gold and surrounded in a nimbus of summoned light. Where he passed, he left laughter behind him. The first, hopeful whispers of rumour began to spread. By the hour Avenor’s staunch captains dispatched their sentries to stand guard at the war camp’s perimeters, the password they used became the slogan, ‘light over darkness’. Talk around the smoking, half-drenched embers of the firepits bandied a hopeful new title. Men found their warmth in a litany against cruel grief and despair. ‘The Spinner of Darkness will one day come to fall before Lysaer, Prince of the Light.’
Avenor’s fair prince heard the murmurs. He caught the furtive, awed glances his servants bent his way when they thought his back was turned. In that moment, he realized that a greater truth could be built from the deaths at Dier Kenton. Shame and loss could be reforged into a shining beginning, as the men who looked up to him foresaw.
The prince pledged then never to fail their brave belief. In fierce fervour, a beacon of hope against the ill-turned machinations of an enemy who had no claim to principle, Lysaer s’Ilessid rededicated his life. More than prince, greater than king, in a faith beyond mortal limits, he would labour all his days to become the example of a higher truth.
Of all men, he alone held the gifts to lead, and to rid a helplessly pregnable land of exploitation born from misuse of sorcery.
When the hour arrived, and the Master of Shadow was at last brought down, Lysaer resolved to leave something brighter, more enduring, than a history of war to reward the faith of his followers. Straight in his chair, his eyes alight as the concept took fire in his mind, he let a small smile turn his mouth.
From defeat would come a monument of shining strength. His work would bequeath the five kingdoms a benefit beyond the cost of Arithon’s death, and bestow upon Athera a structure of permanent protection to outlast all creeds and boundaries. For as long as men kept records and built cities, his name would be remembered for justice.
Last Victory
Mewed for several weeks in a shepherd’s stone hut with no company except his two brothers, Keldmar s’Brydion at last gave in to boredom and agreed to shoot dice with Mearn. The breadth of his folly became apparent inside an hour when the grimy twist of paper that represented his best yearling colt was lost to a rocky round of luck.
Gambling with Mearn was cutthroat business, an irrevocable, terrible mistake.
Keldmar hooked a knuckle through his itchy growth of beard and hissed in glum fury at the hand-scratched symbols faced up at him, mocking, from the dice on the packed earthen floor. ‘By Dharkaron’s immortal arse, I swear you always cheat! No man born wins sixteen turns without losses!’
Mearn showed his teeth in a cadaverous grin, linked his fingers above his head, and stretched until his knuckles popped. ‘It’s all in the flick of the wrist.’
‘Huh!’ Keldmar grunted, still regarding his losing throw askance. ‘The robbing way you toss?’
‘No.’ Mearn twitched straight in miffed disdain, a black eye and the yellowing bruises on both cheekbones making him look more mournful than usual. The way I set my luck.’
‘What in Sithaer’s fury is the difference?’ Parrien grumbled from his posture of prostration upon the hut’s sole amenity, a heap of pallets made of grass ticking. These were piled against the wind-driven draughts of high altitude and spread with aged sheepskins with half the fleeces rubbed off. On nights when the weather stilled, a man could lie awake and drive himself silly listening to the rustle of the nesting population of beetles in the straw. Vermin had spun webs in the rafters, too. Parrien had poured his corrosive impatience with captivity into knocking them down with shale pebbles, until one frigid night had seen them dead.
Most days passed in fierce bickering, with Keldmar and Parrien as deadlocked rivals, and Mearn wont to take umbrage at everything. The tribesmen assigned to guard the hut proved thick-skinned as their sheep, too patient or too dull to rise to insult themselves. They only intervened with the brothers when their fracases threatened dismemberment.
Extracting information on their captor’s intentions, the brothers had found, was like trying to pierce armoured steel with a straw stalk. After three weeks of incarceration, deprived of their daggers, all three sported flamboyant beards like the duke’s. Keldmar was cursing their dead mother’s wisdom for giving his two siblings birth, and Mearn was strung to a quivering storm of nerves that threatened any moment to drive him to burrow tunnels through Vastmark shale with his teeth.
Parrien, on the pallet, waited slit-eyed for another ripping fight. Always, his younger brother’s glib insults set Keldmar into a rage. In idle, seething boredom, Parrien wondered if the archers outside would use arrows through the hole in the shutter again to stop Keldmar from bashing Mearn unconscious with his fists.
But the slimmer of the pair of combatants only sprang erect with his head cocked askance. Perceptive as a weasel, Mearn fastened on something he heard outside the door. ‘Listen,’ he said, urgent, and fanned a splay-fingered gesture for his other two brothers to keep quiet.
They all heard, then. On the slope outside, blustering curses through the milder lilt of a southern clansman’s accents, rang the voice of their brother, the duke.
Parrien shot upright and coughed through a whirlwind of shed fleece. ‘Ath! They’ve got Bransian!’
‘Better hope not,’ Keldmar rebutted, chin still outthrust like a bulldog’s. ‘He’s all that’s left to get us freed.’
The outer bar on the door was shot back. Then the massive panel wrenched open, blocked at once by the bulk of the eldest brother s’Brydion.
‘What’s happened?’ cried Mearn. ‘Are you prisoner? Have you been mistreated?’
Reduced by the gloom to a shadowy presence, the Duke of Alestron finished his absorbed string of oaths and crossed the threshold.
They had a hoarded stub of candle in one corner. Mearn, who was nearest, struck a spark to the wick, his blunt fingers sheltering the quiver of new flame against the tireless draw of the draughts. Wavering light played off Bransian’s bristled, tawny beard, his pebble grey eyes, and the raffish, wild fringes of a shepherd’s cloak thrown over what looked like a sling. Closer study revealed a linen bandage, stained from beneath by old blood from a gashed forearm.
‘What have they done?’ demanded Parrien in a grating, low whisper.
The duke sucked in a huge breath. Dulled
light caught on the scored links of mail through the gaping rents in his surcoat as he announced with bemused interest, ‘They’ve done nothing.’ His beard twitched to reveal a flash of teeth. ‘That’s just it, I can’t fault their judgement, though Ath knows, for our folly, I’ve been unfor giving as the Fatemaster himself. We’ve been lied to. A tidy division of our mercenaries have been thrown away for a false cause and an idiotic misunderstanding.’
‘What? Are you mad?’ Mearn knocked into the candle, snatched left-handed before it toppled, then stood, the flame whipped down to a sullen, red spark as he rose with the light in his fist.
‘I didn’t suffer a head wound,’ Bransian protested, stung. ‘Brothers, we’ve been fighting this war on the wrong side.’
‘You have been addled!’ Parrien coiled back onto the pallet, his hot gaze fixed on his kinsman, while Keldmar, his arguments stilled to perplexity, stared openmouthed at his older brother.
‘Explain,’ snapped Mearn, moving closer.
‘I say, we’ve been trying to kill the wrong man.’ Before the fire thrust in his face torched his whiskers, Bransian snatched the candle away. ‘Did you know Lysaer s’llessid is half-brother to Arithon s’Ffalenn?’
Mearn started.
Keldmar’s square face showed interest. ‘Who says?’
‘Erlien’s clansmen told me.’ Bransian tipped the wick above the nearest stone windowsill, dribbled off melted wax, then fixed the shaft upright in the puddle. ‘Others from Rathain knew a good deal more besides.’ He waited for hot liquid to congeal.
In silence as the tormented flame steadied, the incarcerated brothers noticed the telling fact that their sibling still possessed all his weapons. They exchanged a long glance, while Mearn rounded back, eyes mean as a ferret’s, and furious. ‘Why aren’t we fighting our way out of here?’