“Close ranks!”
In dreamlike disbelief, Darion stepped forward, sword held lifted in frozen hands, and eyes fixed upon the apparition that reared above the heads of the men. “Ma’Diere, he’s raised the Demon of Hellsgap.”
A pike struck a scaled shoulder and glanced, rattling, aside. Its owner fell, but Darion had eyes only for the rider. The familiar, light hand on the rein caught in his memory like a barb.
The captain caught his arm roughly and jerked him back. “Let the men handle it, your Grace!”
Something struck a shield with a belling clamor, overlaid by the brighter chime of swordplay. Darion whirled, half-lit features stamped with denial. “By Eternity’s Law, they cannot!” He tried to fling off the restraining hand. “The rider of that fiend from Hell is my dead sister, Avelaine!”
Steadfast and experienced, the captain tightened his grip. He spoke calmly over the clang of arms. “Then leave her to the men. What can you do, except throw your life away, as Faisix intends?”
Iron struck steel with a screech, countered by a choked-off human cry. Darion flinched and tore free. “I can stop her killing.” And he saw the captain’s face slacken with fear as he turned to meet his nemesis.
A ragged shout arose as another man went down. The shield wall crumpled like a burst dam. The demon horse surged through the gap, its rider’s hair a spray of ebony against the glare of the ward. Shod hooves chewed gouts of soil from the earth, and slitted eyes glimmered, hooded by horny sockets.
The Prince braced himself, sword upraised. The stag blazon on his surcoat leaped in the ward’s light as his chest heaved with each labored breath. Close up, he saw memory had not tricked him. The face beneath that wind-tossed net of hair was his royal sibling’s, but the gaze she fixed on him was inhuman as a cat’s.
“Avelaine!”
Darion’s voice came hoarse from his throat. The demon steed reared over him, fetlocks spurred like a fighting cock’s. He parried, jarred to the shoulder as steel cracked against a taloned hoof. Air buffeted his ear, plowed up by the other hoof, and the spur caught his sleeve like a razor. Cloth fluttered, opened to expose the fine mesh of mail beneath.
Darion stepped back, recovered, and saw the thin, hard edge of Avelaine’s sword thrust at his throat. He twisted, ducked, vision filled by the bullion tassels of the beast’s saddlecloth, and an armored boot driving at his face.
“Sister!” The word was a gasp as he dodged. He slashed at the horse’s hamstring, but it sidled, serpent tail smashing downward. He took the blow with his sword edge. Steel quivered, and stung his palms, but the blade opened a line of scarlet between closely lapped scales.
Darion recoiled, his sword poised. The horse snorted, breath like streaked smoke on the night air. Muscles bunched under scaled hide, and both forelegs lifted to deliver a second barrage. Darion back-stepped. He thrust upward, hoping to catch the softer heel of the hoof, or the exposed ridges of tendon above the spurred fetlock. But Avelaine yanked the reins hard left, driving her steed off balance, and into safety. She parried Darion’s lunge and riposted, her slim body utterly at home in the saddle as the beast recovered equilibrium, sidestepping.
Steel struck steel. Darion feinted and retreated to recover himself. His heel mired in the folds of an abandoned blanket. He blocked a thrust at his neck and sprang clear before his footing could be spoiled. Sweat burned his eyes, transforming the reflections of scales, weapons, and caparisons into starred points of light. Dazzled, he blinked, and almost missed his parry.
“Avelaine!”
The plea caught between breaths. Dimly, he heard shouting. The horse reared. One or the other forehoof would smash him before he could impale it. The sword dragged at his wrists. Yet he lifted the blade, and noticed that he had somehow bloodied his knuckles. The demon loomed over him, black as the shadow of Eternity. Its evil head seemed to rake the sky, neck muscles rippling against tasseled reins. Darion angled the sword’s point for the belly just behind the dark line of the girth, oblivious to the flash of Avelaine’s steel, which swung at him from the side.
A snap like a whipcrack sounded almost at his elbow. The night split with a cruel flare of light. The horse screamed and staggered back, its rider thrown into the black tangle of its mane. Her sword scraped Darion’s mailed shoulder, scattering sparks.
He stumbled, blinded. His own blade struck earth, plowed up leaf mold. He freed it instinctively and looked around, saw the blue-white blaze of a warding spell circling the spot where he stood. And the shouting, finally, resolved into words in his ears.
“Your Grace, stand guard!” The voice was Taroith’s. “The circle will stay the demon. But the woman is flesh. Her weapon will wound.”
Sweat trickled coldly down Darion’s temples. “She is flesh?” He shaped the words with disbelief, eyes pinned on the girlish form that reined her horse around to renew the attack. “Ma’Diere’s mercy, you expect me to kill her?”
Her sword flashed in a feint at his chest. He parried and stepped back. “Taroith!”
The Sorcerer spoke again, somewhere to the side. “Her body has been borrowed from another soul and shape-changed to your sister’s likeness.”
“Whose?” Darion deflected a vicious riposte, but did not press his advantage in the opening that followed. The hesitation cost him. Avelaine scored a light touch on his shoulder. The stag on his chest showed bloodstains as he loosed a pent-up breath. “Damn you, who is she?”
Taroith answered with weary patience. “We don’t yet know.”
And Emrith qualified with what might have been a deliberate effort to throw him off stride. “The body might be Elienne’s.”
Darion flinched, and gained another slash in his surcoat. The cloth gaped, stag blazon neatly beheaded. “No. It can’t be.” His voice lacked conviction. Such a combination would match Faisix’s style.
“Defend yourself, your Grace!”
Yet more than Taroith’s reprimand, something in the knowing state of the demon horse’s eyes stung Darion to muster his self-command. His fingers tightened on the sword’s blood-slicked grip, and his body moved, blocking the blade that sought his death until his arm ached to the elbow from the endless, jarring blows. He was tiring. His feet dragged and slipped over torn earth. Mounted, Avelaine’s advantage of height easily countered his greater reach. Her weapon licked down from above. Darion deflected the stroke, knuckles lined blue with reflections from the ward circle. He wondered whether Faisix had augmented Avelaine’s natural endurance with sorcery; the skilled swordplay he parried certainly had never been hers in life.
Lights flickered suddenly at the corner of his vision, bright and brief as fireworks. Taroith had engaged in sorcery, but pressed by Avelaine’s steel, Darion dared not glance aside.
“Your Grace!” the Sorcerer shouted.
Darion barely noticed, intent upon the weapon that flashed toward an opening in his guard.
“It is Jieles’s daughter, Minksa, possessed by your sister’s spirit.” Taroith ran forward. Something faint and luminous trailed him.
Darion twisted, caught the blade in a bind on his crossguard. For a suspended moment he swayed, tried to force his spent muscles to hold Avelaine’s weapon locked and harmless. Yet she jerked free with a ferocity that wrenched every tendon in his wrist. Unbalanced, Darion stumbled back. Avelaine’s sword rose.
“My Prince!”
Taroith’s words held no meaning in his ears as he parried, beat, and lunged offensively to drive her back, allowing himself a brief space to recover. That moment, Avelaine’s outline shimmered and blurred. Her blade hesitated, mid-swing.
Darion realized, horrorstruck, that his stroke would go home, unimpeded.
“... Jieles’s daughter!” Taroith cried, desperate.
He dropped the sword, there being time for nothing else. The grip fell, tumbling the weapon in the air. Steel rattled across Avelaine’
s mailed calf and chimed against her stirrup. Darion glanced up, seeking the return strike that would take him disarmed, and saw Avelaine’s features run like wax. The weapon flew, spinning from her hand, straight for his throat.
The Prince threw himself flat, felt dirt carved up by the blade spray his neck and shoulders. When next he looked up, the girl on the demon mount had transformed. Gone was Avelaine’s eflortless grace in the saddle. A child clung in her place, white-faced with terror, her slippered feet too short for the stirrup, and her hands inexperienced on the rein.
The black horse screamed, and tried to throw her. The stamp of iron-shod hooves shook the ground where Darion lay. The child cried out, piteously. The Prince rolled and pushed himself to his feet.
“Don’t leave the warded circle, your Grace.” Taroith flung himself between, blocking Darion’s rush. His voice gentled. “The League will protect her.”
And the woodland night exploded with the brilliant, pinpoint blaze of a dozen soulfocuses. The demon form plunged, bellowing, black mane softened to smoke against the light. Scales winked, dimmed by misty fumes, and the Sorcerers of the League converged inward, their circle narrowing. Wind arose, and the fumes cleared. A man stood with wrists shackled in bands of light. His head was bent, as though with sorrow, and a small girl cowered at his feet, trembling still with fear.
One of the Sorcerers held out his hand. “Minska?”
The girl rose, went to him, and buried her tearful face in his embrace. At Darion’s side, Taroith released a pent-up breath, and the sharp blaze of the wards snapped out like a pinched candle, leaving only the ruddy glow of the campfire.
“Torches!” The captain’s order roused a flurry of activity, and voices. Somewhere in darkness, a wounded man moaned. A healer arrived at the Prince’s elbow, inquiring after his hurts.
Darion shook him off. Though his muscles quivered with exhaustion, he reclaimed his fallen sword and followed Taroith to the place where Faisix stood captive. The circle of Sorcerers parted to admit him.
“What have you done with the Lady Elienne?” he demanded sharply.
The fair-haired man at its center stirred reluctantly and looked up, tears startlingly bright on a face that seemed rinsed clean of madness. “She is at Torkal,” said Faisix softly, “held under guard by the mutes.”
Chapter 11
Foreshadow
THROUGH a haze of delirium, Elienne heard running footsteps, half-blurred by echoes. There followed a sudden crash of splintering wood, and a draft buffeted her. Nearby, someone blundered into something metallic.
Elienne flinched. Though her vision blurred and spun with dizziness, she focused enough to receive an impression of dribbled candles, laced still with the opalescent glimmer of unspent spells. Beyond, an armored figure plowed through a tangle of furnishings, the needle-gleam of polished steel in one hand.
“You’ve come for me,” said Elienne indistinctly, certain she addressed the Khadrachi Inquisitor. “Is it sundown?”
She bit her lip, abruptly aware that her checks were wet. The tears annoyed her. Cinndel disliked women who cried.
A thick shadow loomed above her, and fingers gripped her shoulder. Elienne looked up, saw a woman with closely cropped hair bending over her with a knife; not the Inquisitor. Terror caught the breath in her throat.
“Aisa!”
The dagger moved and sawed at the cords that bound her to the chair. A blinding rush of pain tore at her senses. Elienne heard a male voice call her name. Then Aisa jerked her upright, and the world upended, tumbling her sickeningly back into oblivion.
* * *
“... trying to delay us,” said Taroith in a tone spiked with urgency. “Faisix left the mutes with instructions concerning your Consort, should he fail to return to Torkal.”
Elienne struggled weakly, unable to move. Aisa’s hands gripped her roughly from behind. Her eyes burned, gritty with ash. She blinked and attempted once more to sort her surroundings. Suddenly a door banged open. Light slashed across the murky haze of smoke-laden air.
“Here!” shouted Darion. “I’ve found her.”
A clash of steel punctuated his discovery. Echoes shimmered against Elienne’s ears. Dimly she realized Denji had engaged the Prince, and that he fought, hampered in the narrow hallway, to win control of the doorway.
“Your Grace, put up your blade,” commanded Taroith. He came into view beyond Darion, his lined face anxious with worry. “Your Lady will not be won back through violence, I think.”
And only then did Elienne identify the thin edge of cold against her neck: Aisa pressed an unsheathed dagger against her throat.
The fighting ceased at once.
Elienne swallowed, and felt an unpleasant sting. Blood traced a hot line across her collarbone.
Darion swore. “Eternity witness, you’ll pay for that.” The Prince stood just beyond the doorway, sword rested point downward against the floor. His face dripped sweat, and his surcoat hung, slashed and stained, from shoulders that trembled with fatigue. Suddenly he stiffened. “Taroith, Elienne is injured!” He stepped forward.
Denji raised a mailed fist in warning. Aisa’s grip tightened harshly. Elienne gasped. A flash of pain pricked her neck. The room turned under an onslaught of vertigo, and her vision dissolved into slivers of light.
“She’s going to pass out,” Darion said.
The hands around her shifted.
Then Taroith said something low and urgent. An object struck metal with a high-pitched clink, against which Darion’s reply fell like a peal of anguish. “Ma’Diere’s mercy, Taroith, they’re going to kill her right in front of me!”
“Wait,” said Taroith. “Aisa, listen to me.”
Through ebbing consciousness, Elienne felt the mute gesture denial.
The Sorcerer addressed the guardswoman again, but more gently. “Did Faisix never tell you your tongue, and your powers of speech, might be restored?”
Elienne sensed stillness, and realized Aisa had stopped breathing. Taroith had her attention. Yet the arm that held the knife pressed like a rock against her chest.
“The Sorcerer speaks truly,” said Darion. “By Ma’Diere’s Law, any injury not natural at birth can be reversed.” With desperate sincerity, he turned his sword and offered it, point reversed, to Denji. “Here is my oath, as Halgarid’s heir.”
“I will bargain with you,” Taroith said. “I offer healing and freedom in exchange for the Prince’s Consort, unharmed. That’s a fair trade, I think.”
Aisa moved. Elienne knew a horrible, numbing sensation of falling, and darkness obliterated her mind.
* * *
Elienne drifted, lost in a fog of oblivion, until a gentle voice spoke her name repeatedly and shepherded her back to awareness. The mists that held her captive began gradually to lift. Her wrist no longer ached. She lay cradled in someone’s arms, wrapped warmly in a cloak that held the clean scent of leaves and woodsmoke. A hand lightly smoothed the hair back from her face.
“Your Grace,” Taroith said softly from a place very close by. Satisfaction shaded the note of exhaustion in his tone. “Your Consort has suffered no lasting harm. And I can tell you, beyond question, that she is with child.”
Elienne opened her eyes, saw Darion’s face bent over her. His features relaxed into a smile, and his arms tightened protectively, drawing her close against his chest. The gesture dissolved the last of her confusion, and full recognition burst through. She was free of Torkal; Cinndel’s son was safe. Tears started, sudden and bright, down Elienne’s cheeks.
In a voice that shook she said, “My Lord?”
The Prince leaned down and kissed her. His lips tasted of salt. Elienne clung to him, and for that moment Trathmere and Cinndel were obscured by an almost forgotten sense of peace. For the space of a second, her heart lay open to the man who held her.
Darion raised a face t
ransformed by joy. “Did you hear?” he shouted. “My Lady shall bless the Kingdom with an heir!”
A raucous cheer arose. Elienne realized they stood ringed by the entire company of men-at-arms. Yet the Prince allowed no chance for embarrassment. He shielded her from public view with his own body and spoke quietly into her ear. “Let us go home, Lady of my heart.”
His words twisted Elienne’s thoughts and killed the spontaneity of the moment. She had no home. Recognition of reality chilled the warmth within her. She could not afford to allow the Prince’s love for her to grow, trapped as she was by her fate. Although Faisix was imprisoned, the mutes had overheard her relate the Seeress’s prophecy of failure to Kennaird the night of the betrothal banquet. Now, presumably, they had won their speech and their freedom from Taroith, making that knowledge a threat to her safety. The Prince would have to be told. But Elienne could not bear to murder his moment of triumph after so many had labored to win her back. No harm would result if she mentioned the fact another time, and when Taroith urged her to rest, she made no effort to resist.
* * *
Elienne wakened, disoriented, in a strange bed surrounded by luxury. Puzzled, she raised herself sleepily on one elbow and stared in horrified disbelief at gold-sewn bed hangings, paneled walls, and a white silk coverlet emblazoned with the royal stag of Pendaire.
“No,” she said softly. Anger blazed within her. “Eternity take it, what have they done to me?” She remembered nothing beyond blankets and an open-air camp among the men-at-arms.
“Your Grace?” A beautifully groomed Lady-in-waiting stepped into the room and accorded her the courtesy of a Princess of the realm.
“Where in Ma’Diere’s Name am I?”