‘I gave my word,’ Duke Bransian admitted. The candle had stuck upright. Undershot in gilt light, he threw off his coif and let the mail fall discarded to the floor. Then he rubbed the stiff fingers of his uninjured hand over a graze on his temple and glared at the fish-eyed suspicion of his brothers. ‘You aren’t listening. I’ve said outright. We’ve got reason to rethink our position.’
‘You’d forgive the blast in our armoury?’ cried Mearn.
‘Forget our total rout at Dier Kenton?’ echoed Keld-mar, while Parrien, out of character, set his chin on his fist and looked thoughtful.
‘I don’t for a second discount what’s been done,’ Bran-sian said. ‘But this is a high prince sanctioned for inheritance we’re speaking of! Our formal protest through the Kingdom of Melhalla’s appointed regent was given over to Shand. By the laws of the realm’s charters, justice was served when Lord Erlien fought the Teir’s’Ffalenn at swords for our honour. Arithon bested him. The fight was a fair one. The caithdein of Shand has pardoned the grievance, satisfied.’
Not one of three younger brothers looked reconciled. Understanding their perplexity, Bransian poked about for a stool or a chair. When he found none in evidence, he folded his giant’s frame and perched on a corner of the pallet. ‘Just hear this through,’ he insisted. ‘Lysaer ran a trumped-up campaign to finagle us into alliance.’ Then he talked, while the candle burned down and grew hunchbacked in its dribbled spills of wax.
The bloody encounter at Tal Quorin was recast to fit a less lofty pattern. By Bransian’s retelling, the clansmen of Strakewood had made no attempt to vindicate the ugly details. Nor did they grant the violence born of Desh-thiere’s curse with anything less than cold truth.
‘Etarra marched first. The Master of Shadow used grand conjury in defence of his feal following. He has answered for his misdeeds in the north.’ In fact, by clan account, Bransian had been given to understand Rathain’s prince kept no tolerance at all for masking his acts behind false ideals and self-sacrifice.
The flame fluttered out in a drowned reel of smoke by the time Duke Bransian summed up. ‘We hated the man and desired to break him because he destroyed our best armoury.’
‘So why did he?’ Somewhere in darkness, Mearn spun from his pacing, twitchy as a tempered rapier blade. ‘We lost men there. Our keep became gutted by sorcery, and where was the Mistwraith’s provocation for that?’
‘I say, we ask him,’ rumbled Bransian, emphatic. ‘What’s a weapon or a thousand weapons, and seven of our guardsmen? Arithon’s attack on us was forthright. Lysaer inveigled our trust, then enticed men from our banner into his personal service. He used all we gave to further a cause little better than a private vendetta.’
‘Well it can’t be so easy, this wish you have to parley,’ Parrien broke in, doleful for the time the war had kept him from the bed of his pretty new wife. ‘We’ve been here three weeks and never once seen this slinking royal sorcerer show his face.’
‘We will.’ Bransian sounded most certain. ‘His Grace will come by in the morning.’ Then, as he realized the significance of what Parrien had just said, he slapped his knee with one hand and chuckled outright. ‘You’ve been mewed up in this place for all that time? And you haven’t smashed one another’s skulls? Dharkaron’s living bollocks, I believe I’ve just witnessed a true miracle!’
Warned by a frost-sharp tension among the clansmen standing guard on the hut, Mearn broke off his pan-therish pacing and poised himself behind the door lintel. Bransian set down his crust of biscuit untasted, and Keld-mar kicked Parrien awake.
Then the panel swung open, and a neat, small-knit man stepped through. Keldmar took a guess at the number of throwing knives that might be concealed beneath the caped wool of his shepherd’s cloak, and decided against trying to rush him. No strait of confinement could make him forget the quick reflexes of the spy who had demolished Alestron’s armoury.
Bound by no such reservation, Mearn sprang, seized the right arm of the prince who stepped in, and bared palm and wrist to the daylight.
Half-blind in transition from dawn to the peat smoke dimness of the hut, Arithon offered no resistance. While the disfiguring welt left by the light bolt that had delivered Desh-thiere’s curse suffered Mearn’s devouring scrutiny, he said in slightly strained greeting, ‘A sensational birthmark, I agree, but there could be a more polite way of admiring it.’
Mearn released the royal wrist as if stung. ‘That’s no birthmark.’
Arithon twitched down his cuff, reached under his leathers, and produced a brace of fresh candles. Silent, thoughtful, he proceeded to light them in succession, while the brothers s’Brydion regarded the sorcerer who had fired their keep three years before. Seen under flame glow, removed from the harried press of action, the face beneath its ink-dark hair retained an unforgettable severity. More tired, perhaps, more drawn from wear and strain, the features held the reticence of cut glass. Plain shepherd’s dress masked a highly bred frame that lent a deceptive impression of fragility to what was actually tough and murderously agile: the brothers s’Brydion had excellent cause to remember.
‘What moves you to keep us trapped here like flies?’ Menace edged Mearn’s accusation. ‘We already know you’re practised at skulking. If you took this long to raise the courage to face us, how long will you take to arrange our release?’
Arithon wedged the last candle beside the wreckage of Bransian’s breakfast, then stepped back to assume an unruffled stance by one wall. Without thought for insult, he said, ‘First, I need your advice to curb your lordship’s strayed guard of lancers.’
Taken aback, Mearn maintained silence, but the duke blew crumbs from his beard, stabbed his dagger in the earthen floor, and peered up in bearish irritation. ‘What’s the problem?’
Arithon met the huge man’s agitation with a shrug. ‘It’s scarcely urgent. But since my war captain managed your capture, they’ve been picking the very mountains apart. The herdsmen are tired of stampeding their flocks clear, and my clan scouts are getting out of sorts running fools beneath the Wheel who persist long beyond the point of folly.’
‘Why shouldn’t our lancers fight you?’ Parrien demanded. ‘Prince Lysaer’s got a warhost here to back them.’
‘I forgot,’ Arithon admonished. ‘You’re behind on the news. Erlien’s clansmen weren’t fooled for a second, once your duke pulled Alestron’s support from the supply lines. Rather than starve, Lysaer’s captains have been forced to withdraw. If you want any crofters left to tend your barley next season, we’ll need to pack your lancers off home. They’re scouring the hills with determined thoughts of your rescue, but of course, until the last allied divisions have left Vastmark, the tribesfolk can’t afford to see you freed.’
Unshaken from the subject, Mearn glared at the impassive face of the s’Ffalenn prince poised before him. ‘Our men-at-arms never farm.’
Arithon showed bland surprise. ‘Well, since Lysaer has appropriated your best band of mercenaries, you’re going to need to restore your city’s field troop from somewhere. You can either train lancers who spin, sew, and wear skirts, or else you’ll have to settle for mustering up recruits among your farmhands.’
Mearn snarled an obscenity.
Parrien broke into bull-chested laughter. ‘Fiends! You’ve got a brass tongue, for a mountebank. I admit it’s refreshing after Keldmar swooned like a dupe over Prince Lysaer’s pious mouthings at Etarra.’
While his rival shoved off fleeces to defend this rank insult, Parrien flushed to blustering purple. ‘Well, you admit we never fought for the mealy-mouthed scruples. It’s been feud for our armoury all along.’
Before abrasive slanging could compound into fisticuffs, Arithon stepped in between. ‘I came to discuss terms for your ransom,’ he cut through in his masterbard’s diction.
‘Ransom!’ Now Bransian uncoiled from the floor and spat. ‘You’re still an enemy, but Alestron no longer serves Lysaer. The sooner that’s noised abroad, the better.’
r /> Arithon raised expressive, dark eyebrows. ‘Who spoke of service?’ From under his cloak, he drew out a parchment tied with official layers of ribbons and crusted by a weight of royal seals. He slapped the document into the duke’s calloused grasp with the insouciant comment, ‘I merely thought Alestron’s coffers deserved compensation for the losses imposed for misplaced causes. How much can we wring from Avenor’s lord treasurer to have you back hale and whole?’
‘Dharkaron!’ yelled Keldmar. ‘You’d give us the gold?’
While Mearn snatched the document from the duke’s fist to read, Arithon grinned at the stupefied faces of the older brothers s’Brydion. ‘I thought to keep half, for my troubles. But yes. If you’ve decided to withdraw your support from the invasion here in Vastmark, do everyone the favour of calling your stray lancers back to heel.’
‘We can do that,’ Bransian said in that tar-slow deliberation he saved for touchy points of state. ‘But after you’ve answered for the destruction of our armoury.’ He had about his stance the immovable sort of grudge that could eventually wear mountains down to sand.
Arithon sighed, crossed his hands behind his back, and leaned in neat grace against the windowsill. ‘That was Fellowship business, given over to their spellbinder, Dakar. A record exists. Apparently the Warden of Althain suspected some kind of foul play. You’ll recall, an inspection Asandir asked of your steward was summarily refused. Your keep was to be searched, and I lent my help, with my shadows and Dakar’s ploy with the emeralds used to gain covert entry. To the sorrow of us all, there was unexpected violence in the outcome. No one thought to warn us that you stored some sort of fire spell inside those barrels in your dungeon.’
‘We don’t use any sorceries, stuffed into casks or otherwise,’ Mearn pealed in mercuric protest.
Keldmar and Parrien flushed matching shades of deep puce. Their simultaneous charge was stood off by Bran-sian, who stepped into the breech and planted a knee into one brother, and a massive fist against his other sibling’s breast.
From the corner, volatile as fanned flame, Mearn said, ‘Now you’ve told us a lie. We saw your spells wreck our keep!’
‘Mine?’ Touched to queer sorrow by denial, Arithon shook his dark head. ‘But that’s not possible. Jieret’s Companions can testify. I lost the trained use of my mage talent since my abuse of grand conjury on the field of blood at Tal Quorin.’
‘That’s what your clansmen did say,’ Bransian lowered his leg to free Keldmar, then shook Parrien off with a sharp backward thrust. ‘Also, Erlien’s scout confirmed. He told me he saw you fight nearly to a standstill, and yet you called down no shadows, even when you thought you’d end up maimed. This doesn’t sound to me like a sorcerer given over to carelessness.’
Arithon said nothing. The light let through the cracked shutter left his green eyes disturbingly clear.
Mearn, in steamed movement, began to pace. ‘Well if the sorcery wasn’t yours, who would’ve dared interfere with us? Some enemy must have planted arcane seals in our dungeon, if you say you happened by and set them off.’
‘Sethvir could have been trying to find that point out.’ Bransian sighed, grinned, then shrugged like a rawboned hound, beaten often but never quite housebroken. ‘We were rockheads and obstructed his investigation. For not heeding the Fellowship, likely we deserved all we got. But if we misplayed things then, we need not add to the problem. There’s a bigger injury over the theft of our mercenaries and the misuse of our clan honour. I’d say we have cause to apologize for one wrong, and help Rathain to bloody Lysaer to right the other.’
‘I don’t want any support,’ Arithon interrupted. ‘When the shepherds are settled, the Vastmark lands will belong once again to their flocks.’
Keldmar brushed aside protest. ‘Lysaer’s no man to give up his grudges. Over beer at Etarra, I found out. Yon prince recalls every slight, even to the ones your dead father dealt his family during his childhood beyond the West Gate. That’s obsession, his pretence at justice. You didn’t just break Lysaer’s warhost here in Vastmark. You stuck a thorn in his family pride.’
‘I don’t want your alliance,’ Arithon insisted, shot straight to emphasize his point.
‘By Ath, man, don’t spit on good fortune!’ Bransian towered over the smaller, dark prince with his arms crossed and his eyebrows bristled down like the boss of a bull set to charge. ‘After what you accomplished in Dier Kenton Vale, you have to know you’re going to need us.’
‘Ath forfend!’ Arithon melted back into laughter. ‘I should hope not! At least, not for a very long time. Besides, if we’re both plotting to get rich off your freedom, the peace might last longer if Lysaer was left to believe you’re still loyal in support.’
Bransian scratched his head. ‘You know,’ he said in dawning and devious joy, ‘that misapprehension might be a useful thing to foster. Serves the canting liar right.’
‘Do you think so?’ An answering spark gleamed in Arithon’s eyes. ‘I’d never presume to ask, but truly, the warning could be useful, next time, to know what sort of counterploy my half-brother’s got brewing inside his closed city councils.’
‘I like this.’ Keldmar grinned like a wildcat. ‘It will be my born pleasure to make that yellow-haired pretender pay our ransom, then use his private trust to strike him back. It’s fitting. He got me drunk to mislead me as Alestron’s envoy, a cold-handed breach of hospitality. And the blood of his own caithdein’s on his hands. No one’s made him answer for that.’
‘It’s the classic mistake.’ Parrien finished in bleak ire. ‘We’re clansmen, and always those cityborn upstarts forget, and try to treat with us under town law.’
‘Then it’s settled.’ Bransian yanked out his dagger, spat on the blade, and grinned through his frizzled nest of whiskers. ‘You’ve got allies, your Grace. If you want them or not’s a moot point. Sure as you’re born the sanctioned Prince of Rathain, you have no vested sovereignty in Melhalla. Nothing’s to prevent us from acting in your favour. Not unless you want to challenge my authority with bare steel and send me to the Fatemaster unrepentant.’
‘I wish to challenge no one.’ Arithon looked up in chagrined impatience. ‘And we won’t need the services of any divine office. I asked your authority, as I said, to stop your belligerent company of lancers from scouring the hillsides to skewer shepherds.’
Still smiling, Arithon s’Ffalenn leaned aside and raised the door latch. The panel swung open to reveal the anxious faces of several tribesmen waiting in worried clusters outside. ‘The war’s over. Duke Bransian s’Brydion and his brothers have agreed. Our purposes lie in accord.’
Then he stepped out, the weight on his shoulders lightened at last, and the way to his freedom at hand.
Propped up in bandages amid the group of shepherds, Dakar the Mad Prophet saw a flare of rare joy transform the face of Rathain’s prince. After horrors and pain, here lay a moment of precious victory.
Vastmark could be left to its wild, bucolic splendour. Beyond the winter peaks of the Kelhorns, wide oceans awaited, with the Khetienn already provisioned to sail where no enemy could navigate to follow her.
Views
At Althain Tower, Sethvir resifts a triad of auguries made upon winter’s solstice to unriddle the bearing axis which turns future threat from the Mistwraith: the split arc of mass faith, undermined by s’Ilessid from the guardianship of Ath’s adepts; the resurgence of Koriani interference upon recovery of their Great Waystone; then at the crux point of all, the life of Rathain’s prince, and twined through his Name, to help him stand or bring his downfall, the Koriani healer who stole possession of his heart since Merior by the Sea …
In Tysan, while snowfall dusts the roads, Lady Talith watches from a tower window as Avenor’s surviving garrison marches in, battered, from Vastmark; and though she sits at Lysaer’s side when Tysan’s city delegates present their official charter, sealed under ribbons of blue and gold, to grant a high king’s office to its steadfast defender, the fair-ha
ired Prince of the Light, she is no longer privy to her lord’s gracious smile, nor does she share his royal bed … Elsewhere, on an unbroken circle of ocean, a lone brigantine bowls ahead of the winds toward the forgotten Isles of Min Pierens, marked on a Paravian chart; and the hand at her helm is that of a young girl, grown lean and sun-browned and angular; and beside her, his black hair blowing loose, his clothing a sailor’s simple linen, the Master of Shadow stands content …
Glossary
ADRUIN – coastal city located in East Halla, Melhalla. One of two at the head of a sea inlet, at odds with the brothers s’Brydion of Alestron, usually over the setting of blockades to interfere with trade.
pronounced: ah-druin like ‘add ruin’
root meaning: adruinne – to block, or obstruct
AL’DUIN – father of Halliron Masterbard.
pronounced: al – dwin
root meaning: al – over; duinne – hand
ALESTRON – city located in Midhalla, Melhalla. Ruled by the Duke Bransian, Teir’s’Brydion, and his three brothers. This city did not fall to merchant townsmen in the Third Age uprising that threw down the high kings, but is still ruled by its clanblood heirs.
pronounced: ah-less-tron
root meaning: alesstair – stubborn; an – one
ALITHIEL – one of twelve Blades of Isaer, forged by centaur Ffereton s’Darian in the Second Age from metal taken from a meteorite. Passed through Paravian possession, acquired the secondary name Dael-Farenn, or Kingmaker, since its owners tended to succeed the end of a royal line. Eventually was awarded to Kamridian s’Ffalenn for his valour in defence of the princess Tali-ennse, early Second Age. Currently in possession of Arithon.
pronounced: ah-lith-ee-el
root meaning: alith – star; iel – light/ray
ALLAND – principality located in southeastern Shand. Ruled by the High Earl Teir’s’Taleyn, caithdein of Shand by appointment. Current heir to the title is Erlien.