Not in a lifetime of service had he seen a war cause such damage as this one. To the prince still determined to lend comfort, he added, ‘I doubt this lad knows why you’re there. The wagons are loaded. Did you want to see Lord Diegan on his way?’
‘I’ll go in a moment.’ His head bent, the damp ends of his hair flicked in coils over his arm sling, Lysaer let the healer study him in a mix of exasperation and approval before, fed up and weary, he finally gave in and stalked off. One dying garrison soldier might well be past solace. But the prince responsible for the strike into Strakewood needed the interval to think.
Lysaer buried his face in the hand not strapped up in bandaging. Far off, the pop of a carter’s whip sounded over someone’s hoarse shouting; another officer striving to curb the paranoia that had men drawing steel at plain shadows.
No one who had tangled with Arithon’s sorceries in Strakewood would ever again view darkness as friendly.
Grooms hauling buckets to the picket lines observed Lysaer’s pose of despair. They murmured in sympathy for his exhaustion, for all the camp knew he had not rested. The prince had laboured with Pesquil to compile losses too massive to list. Commanding despite his discomfort, he had been on the riverbank to encourage each wave of tired soldiers who emerged alive from the forest. He had walked beside litters, talking, reassuring. Cracked bones had not stopped him from breaking up disputes, or throwing steady light with his gift to quell massive hysterical fear. Throughout a long and terrible night, he had chaffed frightened squires and bloodied his hands beside the surgeon to clean and staunch open wounds. However a man might deplore royalty, this prince had accepted no cosseting.
To find his ragged magnificence still among them in the cheerless grey of the morning made men break their hearts to meet his wishes. That Etarra’s concerns were foremost in his mind, no town survivor ever questioned. Without Lysaer’s light to stay the shadows, many more would have died by the grottos or been abandoned to the mindless distress induced by Arithon’s maze wards that had ensorcelled the troop in the west valley.
If not for Prince Lysaer, Lord Commander Diegan himself would not have left Tal Quorin’s banks alive.
In nervous speculation and vehement rage, Etarra’s garrison made clear whom they blamed for the carnage. Men hailed the prince, then brandished weapons and cursed the shifter of shadows their campaign had failed to take down.
Unsettled by his reflections, Lysaer stirred. At his knees, the soldier tossed and groaned, an arrow that had not quite killed lodged deep inside his lower gut. His suffering would be prolonged and painful and a peppery barmaid who wore his trinkets would be widowed with no parting kiss to cold lips. Without enough wagons for the wounded the dead must be interred where they lay, amid the flinty soil of the tors with only piled stones for their markers.
‘I’ll see you avenged,’ the prince vowed in a spiking rush of sincerity. He touched the man’s shoulder and arose.
While darkness had lasted, the cries and the noise of arriving stragglers had filled the camp, queerly amplified by the fog. The scope of disaster had loomed through the night, still possible to deny. But now as day brightened and the mists shredded away, the damages became appallingly apparent. In a campaign planned for easy victory, two thirds of a war host of ten thousand had been decimated in a single engagement. Lysaer walked as the impact of sight rocked the campsite, men’s voices tangled in anger and shrill disbelief. The worn band of officers struggled yet again to rechannel shock and grief into tasks, while others exhorted crushed and silent men to gather for biscuit and beef around the cookfires.
Raised to rule, well hardened for the trials of leadership, Lysaer shared the burden where he could. He spoke and touched shoulders, and once faced down a man who had wildly drawn a dagger and raved to anyone who would listen that he intended to lead a foray to go reiving back into Strakewood. Sympathetic to the men but possessed of a cool self-containment the s’Ilessid prince reviewed the wreck of Etarra’s garrison with no incapacitating pang of conscience.
Where he passed, his unassailable assurance touched the men and left them silent with awe. His equilibrium could encompass seven thousand casualties. He could feel haunted and sad that Arithon had engaged in unscrupulous use of little children but not have lasting regrets that the wholesale elimination of barbarian women and young had been necessary to guard town security. No city could recoup from a defeat as terrible as this, were they left with belief such casualties could recur again.
‘Your Grace, have you eaten?’ A fat cook tagged at his shoulder, diffident and anxious to please.
Lysaer inclined his head in courtesy. ‘I’ve hardly noticed I was hungry.’ He let himself be led to a fire; politely tasted the soup that was handed to him.
Haunted by association as his gaze became tranced by the flame, he found himself reliving the moment when he had actually endorsed self-destruction to buy the Shadow Master’s death.
Although no cost could be counted too great to eradicate the s’Ffalenn bastard before more innocent lives could fall prey to his wiles, in daylight and cold reason, hindsight recast self-sacrifice as an impulse of hot-headed idiocy. Lysaer shivered, set his soup bowl with a clink on the board the cook used to stack utensils. No guarantee insisted that Arithon should have died in that strike. He was clever enough to escape, perhaps; Rauven’s teaching lent him tricks.
The stalking uncertainty lingered, that the inspiration to risk martyrdom for the cause might not have been Lysaer’s own.
Once in Briane’s sail-hold, and another day in the Red Desert, Arithon had used mage craft to turn his half-brother’s mind. Plagued by doubts, Lysaer wondered. Had the bastard plotted the same way in Strakewood? For if mockery and goading had been paired with sorceries to eliminate the only man with powers over light that might threaten him, the evil inherent in such design upheld a frightening conclusion.
How better for Arithon to win licence to toy with this world as he pleased, than to dedicate his enemy to self-destruction? Lysaer burned inside with recrimination. If faintness from blood loss had not disrupted his attack, worse horrors could have visited Athera than seven thousand dead Etarran soldiers.
‘Your Grace?’ interrupted a staff messenger.
Lysaer glanced up and identified livery with the black and white blazon of the headhunters’ league. Immediately contrite, since the boy could have stood several minutes awaiting acknowledgment, he said, ‘Pesquil sent you?’
‘The wagons are ready to leave, your Grace.’ Embarrassed by the intensity of Lysaer’s attention, the boy regarded the grass, in this place trampled and muddied by the grinding passage of men seeking comfort to ease their misery. ‘My lord Pesquil said Lord Commander Diegan is awake and asking after you.’
Lysaer dredged up energy to give a quick smile of reassurance. ‘Would you lead me to him?’
The boy brightened. ‘At once, your Grace.’
Together, they crossed the camp. The mist was thinning quickly now. Grooms stood in for tired messengers, since sorrowfully decimated horse lines left them short of duties. Some of the watch fires were doused. Between the leaning scaffolds of weapon racks and the comings and goings from the officers’ pavilions, patrols prepared to ride out. The nearer circuits would be quartered on foot, sound mounts being precious and few.
Lysaer assessed all with the sure eye of a ruler and where he made suggestions he was given deference and respect. He took care to acknowledge every greeting with a nod, a smile, or with names, if he knew the speaker: Pesquil’s young staff-runner was overwhelmingly impressed.
In subdued little groups, conversation underscored by the screeling hiss of busy grindstones, the veteran pikemen mended gear. A few commiserated over losses. Most others slept sprawled on wet ground, their blankets reapportioned first for litters and then used for pallets and rough bandaging. Past the phalanx of the supply stores, unloaded in haste from the wagonbeds and lashed under tarps by the carters, the racket and confusion of the night was subsiding
. In sunlight, the green recruits who had seen their companions half-butchered or drowned were less driven to seek blind relief in scraps and hysterical boasting. Shrieks from the campfollowers’ tents raised in dissonance over the sobs of refugees from the west valley still deranged by terror of the dark.
The core of the army remained, Lysaer assessed. Carefully handled, these men could be reforged into a troop of formidable strengths. All he lacked was excuse to stay; already his authority was not questioned.
The wagon-train bound for Etarra formed up, its escort of fifty lancers in twitchy lines as men made last minute adjustments to tack and gear. One of the few banners not lost in the river flood flapped erect at the column’s head. Pesquil gave instructions with rapidfire gesticulations to the dispatch rider who would report to Lord Governor Morfett. A mule strained at its lead rein to graze, bearing a lashed bundle in city colours; Captain Gnudsog’s remains, to be interred in the mausoleum gardens reserved for the city’s most revered.
The rest of the wagons bore wounded, ones with privilege and pedigree foremost. The little space remaining had been allotted to men with irreplaceable skills or standing, and then grudgingly, to the staff and supplies needful for a slow journey home.
The cart draped in the Lord Commander’s horsecloths was easy to spot. Lysaer dismissed his young guide with a word of praise that left him blushing. Then he crossed the open ground, threaded past an ongoing, heated dispute and dismissed a hovering servant.
Lord Diegan lay under blankets, dark, untidy hair emphasizing a drawn face and eyes that wandered unfocused from soporifics not fully worn off. He murmured in question as Lysaer’s shadow fell over him, then settled as his sight recorded a sun-caught head of gold hair.
The prince said gently, ‘I am here.’
‘Your Grace?’ Diegan struggled with a fuzzy smile that dissolved into discomfort. He struggled painfully to concentrate.
‘Don’t trouble,’ Lysaer said. ‘I shall speak for both of us.’
‘We lost Gnudsog.’ The Lord Commander plucked at his blankets. ‘You knew that?’
Lysaer captured the wandering fingers and caged them in gentle stillness. Clearly, firmly, he said, ‘Pesquil has charge of the garrison. He’s got twenty good men left who will instruct on barbarian tactics. Enough men remain to finish our original intent. If you still want to destroy the Deshans, Strakewood’s springs will be poisoned and the game by the river shall be hazed and killed. With nothing to hunt, the few clan survivors will be starved out of the forest. The north will be cleared of such pests. No disaster such as happened by Tal Quorin shall visit these northlands again.’
Colour flushed Diegan’s cheeks in patches. ‘They say you’re staying with the troops.’
Lysaer smoothed the Lord Commander’s hand and let go. ‘I must. If I cannot bear arms, I will use my gift of light to safeguard our forays against sorcery.’
Weakly, Diegan cursed. ‘He survived then.’
The name of the Shadow Master hung unspoken between them as an answering grimness touched Lysaer. ‘We haven’t lost. The Deshir clans are finished, there will be no next generation. And your city now knows the measure of its enemy.’
Lord Commander Diegan shut his eyes. A frown pulled at his brows, and shadows of stress and fatigue seemed etched in the hollows of his bones. ‘This pirate’s bastard. You know we can’t take him alone. Without your gift of light, any army we send to the field would be ensorcelled and ruinously slaughtered.’
Lysaer weighed the wisdom of pursuing this subject with a heartsick man who was also drugged and gravely ill. Heavy between them lay the unspoken accusation: that Lysaer had sent Diegan into safety on Tal Quorin’s banks and by risking himself to the river had exposed them all to unconscionable peril. Aware that Lord Diegan had rallied himself and was watching in fragile-edged fury, Lysaer smiled. ‘I’ve had all night to ponder regrets. Here’s my promise. No more exposure on the front ranks for me. The next campaign you launch should be planned and executed to make use of every advantage. Years will be needed to prepare. I could suggest you have the headhunters’ leagues train the garrisons, then sharpen their field skills in small forays to eradicate barbarians. And when the army is readied and equipped to perfection, send out heralds to recruit allies. The burden should not fall to Etarra alone.’
Diegan shifted in distress. ‘You say nothing of yourself.’
‘I am royal,’ Lysaer said, his eyes clear blue and direct. ‘Once, you thought that a liability.’
Lord Commander Diegan swore explosively, then curled on his side in a spasm of wrenched muscles and bitter pain. ‘If I get Lord Governor Morfett to issue an invitation under the official city seal, would you stay?’
Lysaer smiled. ‘Do that, and I shall labour with you to mobilize cities the breadth of Rathain. Then we shall march upon Arithon s’Ffalenn, and we shall take him with numbers no sorceries can overwhelm.’
Lord Commander Diegan relaxed in his blankets, his eyes veiled in drug-hazed speculation. ‘I like your plan. Pesquil agrees?’
Lysaer laughed. ‘Pesquil made your scribes miserable jotting letters to headhunters’ leagues the breadth of the continent before our casualties were tallied.’ For Pesquil, the near total loss of his troop had been a sore point, alleviated by moody bursts of elation that, after feuding years and too little funding from city council, the Earl Steiven’s dominion over Strakewood had been decisively broken.
‘I shall have to buy manuscripts on strategy,’ Diegan said in mixed recrimination and distaste. ‘They’re longwinded and boring, I presume. Hardly entertainment for the parties.’ But fall season would be dreary as it was, with so many ladies forced to mourning. Diegan drifted for some minutes near sleep, while the prince, who knew far more about armies and the art of command than he, attended him in tactful respect. Finally, eyes closed, Lord Diegan murmured, ‘Come back to us safely in the autumn. My sister Lady Talith will be waiting.’
‘Tell her…’ Lysaer paused, gravely pleased, while the captain at the head of the column shouted orders, whips snapped in the hands of cursing drovers and carts began, groaning, to roll forward. Striding alongside Diegan’s wagon, the sun in his hair like sheen on the wares of a silk spinner, Lysaer spoke from his heart. ‘I’ll return to pay court to the lady. No Master of Shadow with his darkness shall be permitted to keep us apart.’
Last Resolution
The deadfalls, stripped of stakes, became grave-pits to bury the fallen, Deshir’s clansmen accomplished the work in whirlwind expedience, laying loved ones on top of dead horses or the bodies of enemies still clad in plumed helms and mailshirts. Plunder entered nobody’s mind. On a field holding slain by the thousands there were more abandoned weapons than living men to wield them; and by long and bitter custom, Deshir’s clans gave no time in respect for their fallen that might endanger the living.
Of Strakewood’s complement of nine hundred and sixty, scarcely two hundred men lived, half that number wounded; fourteen boys of Jieret’s generation were all that survived Etarra’s campaign against Arithon. The Tal Quorin’s waters rolled muddied and stinking, and a swathe of ancient greenwood lay razed and fire scarred and smoking.
Unless the hunters ranged far into the mazed back glens of the river basin, game for the stewpots was thin and scarce.
As hungry and tired as the men who had lost their families and their lifestyle to defend their rights of territory, Arithon s’Ffalenn raised a stone still clotted with mud and moss and placed it against the cairn that marked the burial of Steiven, Earl of the North, caithdein and Warden of Ithamon. Interred at his side rested his beloved Lady Dania, whose piercing wit and intuition would provoke and delight no man further. Silenced by remembrance, the Master of Shadow scuffed dirt from split fingers on the leathers her kindness had provided him. Then he bundled an arm about the shoulders of the boy who stood motionless at his side.
‘Your parents were fine people, Jieret. I was proud to know them. Forgive me if I can’t always match up
to your memory of their example.’ Under his hands, the boy quivered.
Arithon tactfully let him go.
Jieret pushed back his sleeve cuffs and pulled out the whittling knife he had used to carve toys for his sisters. He turned it over and over like a talisman while, careful not to watch the boy’s tears, Rathain’s prince knelt on earth still thrashed and torn from the passage of heavy destriers. ‘Here,’ he said, and gently removed the dagger from the boy’s hand. With a care that appeared to consume his attention, he began to scratch runes of blessing and guard on the river slate that crowned the cairn.
The patterns used in the ritual configuration of magic held a certain stark beauty; each traced line captured thought in severe simplicity which offered its own consolation. As Arithon sketched the intricate angles, the circular curves and interlocked ciphers, he spoke. ‘A kingdom and its prince are only as strong as their warden. Caithdein, when you come of age, I’ll be honoured to swear oath on your blade. I can already say you’ve served this land’s prince. If not for your courage, Rathain’s royal line would be ended, and your father’s fine work gone for nothing.’
Jieret dashed his cheek with the back of one dirt-grained wrist. Red hair sprang like wire between the folds of a bandage, cut from the silk shirt sewn by Sethvir for the ceremony of Arithon’s coronation. The peculiar sharp attentiveness he had taken from his mother stayed trained in unswerving contemplation of the gravestones. In words not those of a child he said, ‘Your Grace, my father’s life was never wasted in your service. He made me understand as much, when he told me he knew he was going to die. One day, perhaps before I come of age, you will need me again.’
Oddly caught out in embarrassment, Arithon paused. ‘Well. On that, Ath forfend, I hope you’re wrong.’ The figure under his hands was complete. He lifted the blade and studied the balanced geometrics of patterns learned when his fingers were barely old enough to grip a chalk stick. But unlike his childhood scrawlings on slate in his grandfather’s study, he sensed no subliminal surge of energy. Whether this mark in Strakewood held power to ward, or whether its lines were just pretty scratchings copied over by rote from memory, he had no means in him to tell. The odd, static flashes of mage-sight that had plagued him since shaping the banespell had diminished, until finally he could summon no vision at all.