TWOLAS - 02 - The Ships of Merior

  Lysaer advanced a sharp step and touched the man's wrist in restraint. 'If you please, just open the door without fanfare.' To Avenor's Lord Commander, straightlipped and furious at his side, he flipped an insouciant shrug. 'What became of your Etarran taste for bloodsport and nasty politics?'

  Diegan returned a tiger's smile. 'Allow our sworn allies to argue themselves to paralysis? Well if you fail to master the pack this time, and Pesquil doesn't murder you for indecent lack of priorities, I'll personally remedy the lapse.'

  He trailed his prince through the archway to accost Etarra's grand war council.

  * * *

  Under the musty fringe of trade guild banners, mewed in by dagged drapes of red velvet pulled over the hall's lancet windows, the war commanders in their blazoned surcoats, dyed leathers and mail, and the trade ministers in ribbons and creased sarcenets locked horns in belligerent contention. The hall rocked with echoes. Marble friezework and groined arches resounded to a hell-bent boil of high temper. Secretaries scribbled notes and ran messages. Every man a seasoned master of dissent, the trade ministers connived in stifled whispers, faces masked beneath the deep brims of their exotic feathered hats. Atop the high dais, crammed into a conspicuous gilt chair, the Lord Mayor Supreme of Etarra dabbed sweat off his quivering double chin. Flushed in his overtight layers of brocades, he flailed like an agitated puppet, and failed at each turn to make himself heard through the clash of raised voices.

  Cryptic good sense drove one visiting foreign dignitary to avoid the crush on the benches. Keldmar s'Brydion of Alestron leaned on a square gilt pillar, an arras at his back and one negligent shoulder turned toward the gathering. His other hand masked beneath his cloaked elbow, he kept gripped fast to his dagger. Appointed by his brother to represent Alestron's case against the Shadow Master, he had to display the earl's blazon everywhere he went, lest his accent get him skewered for a forest barbarian each time he opened his mouth.

  After seven days of insults stopped just shy of bloodshed, and apologies from fools invariably attached to commiseration over the political misfortune of his speech, Keldmar's countenance was slit-eyed, his mood jumpy, and his contempt for the doings of pompous officials explosive as live eels in a cask.

  When the seneschal's harebrained assistant had the temerity to leap into the face of the black-bearded veteran, Commander Harradene, then pulled his eating knife to batter the table to seize attention, Keldmar stifled a burst of laughter behind upturned, sardonic lips. Etarra's vaunted alliance was about to erupt and run riot. The ranking officers of Rathain's city garrisons were inflamed enough to draw steel and gut the trade ministers and their secretaries, to say nothing of the other nattering windbags in stuffed velvet who objected to the costs of campaign warfare.

  Keldmar cheerfully prepared to field whatever mayhem swirled his way. He weighed the prospect of pinking a few lame-brains who had dared mistake him for the get of the fugitive clanborn, while the spat between war captains and the hatted ranks of ministers climaxed in screaming crescendo.

  A crack of whipped air rocked the chamber, to an actinic burst of white light over the central dais. Shouted invective died as if slammed by a thunderclap into stunned and terrified silence.

  'Ath have mercy on you all!' pealed an acrid, carrying voice. 'For believe it, the Master of Shadow will show none when his ships are built and he takes up the piracy of his ancestors!'

  Blinking through flash-blinded vision, Keldmar saw a vivid, fair-haired figure stride through the press from the doorway. Laced in a dazzle of gold and the ice-point sparkle of royal sapphire, the newcomer's advance was attended by a dark man muscled lean from hard training, then a compact knot of officers in a smart polish of accoutrements.

  'What a perfect, meek target we offer, bent one against another, and over a matter as transient, as petty as expense.' Lysaer s'Ilessid, Prince of Tysan, mounted the dais with quick grace. Every eye in the chamber fastened on his person. Sizzling silence met the outraged fury which charged him from head to heel. The royal presence of him towered. Before the chair of Etarra's Lord Mayor Supreme, he spun and glared over at the gathering. 'Arithon s'Ffalenn is indeed ensconced at Merior. His location has been chosen most carefully, and I warn, to a trap him there won't be simple. War against any scion of s'Ffalenn has never been bloodless. This campaign will cost more than gold, more than lives, more than heartbreak, if we bicker ourselves into failure. Give anything less than total effort, and I promise: no city in the land will stay scatheless. No innocent life will escape suffering.'

  The alderman of Etarra's south quarter swiped his bonnet off his bald head, inflated for passionate rebuttal. Lysaer rounded fast and cut him off. 'Seven thousand lives were lost against the Master of Shadow in Deshir. Would you make that ten thousand more? Twenty? This encounter against a criminal sorcerer must be fought on his own chosen ground - a deadly proposition. We must overcome any odds set against us, else give this man time to complete the fleet of ships the barbarians of Camris have funded. Let that happen and you'll see a scourge upon your sea trading galleys such as you have never imagined.'

  Splendid in rage, Prince Lysaer played his words like shot arrows, straight enough to flatten pride, kill objection, shame petty and divisive rivalries that would undermine his sworn cause. Keldmar s'Brydion curled his lip at the deference shown by the cowed city ministers. The garrison captains, too, were mollified, dressed down like children caught brawling. They might not relinquish their commands outright. But as they gave this prince full attention, their allegiance would be pulled in and knotted like so much wound string. Gold would be given for ships at Werpoint to transport the war host downcoast.

  The Duke of Alestron had dispatched two brothers to attend his complaint against the Shadow Master. Mearn had carried formal protest in appeal for kingdom justice to the clanborn regent of Melhalla. As envoy to Etarra to gather news, Keldmar had neither authority nor desire to tie s'Brydion interests into alliance. The family quarrel lay with Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn, a claim of bloodprice for seven guardsmen and the wanton ruin of their armoury. Keldmar need only return to tell his brother's captains to engage a blockade, then smoke the slinking sorcerer out of Merior by the Sea.

  On the dais, impassioned in his tirade, Lysaer glimpsed movement at the edge of the grand hall. Attuned to every small shift in the ranks, he turned his head and caught a flash of scarlet on gold: the tooprominent blazon of Alestron's grand duke, that signalled an untimely departure. His discreet and timely signal wakened an answering deployment from the royal officers beneath the dais stair.

  Once Keldmar s'Brydion worked clear of the press and slipped through the pillared arch to the foyer, four of Avenor's glittering captains barred his way to the street.

  Tall enough to intimidate, his clansman's plait as haughty a statement of his bloodline as the tabard that clothed his straight back, Keldmar measured each officer with narrowed, stone-coloured eyes. 'Am I a prisoner?' he asked, his challenge flung into their very teeth.

  Yet the discipline instilled at Avenor would not rankle at words. 'You are the prince's invited guest,' said the senior man among them. 'His royal Grace would not have you leave without extending his hospitality.'

  No use to argue the points clan custom held in difference with merchant city law; that to bow to sovereign power from another kingdom's prince denounced Melhalla's founding charter. Avenor's officers closed about their quarry, gracious, but unsmiling. Since the sincerity of the s'Ilessid intent could only be tested through steel, Keldmar s'Brydion held his temper, and went along.

  Permitted to go mounted, his escort saw him from the posthouse where his horse was stabled to a field camp wedged between the rising ridge of the Mathorn mountains on Etarra's northern quarter. The site commanded a view across the Plain of Araithe, with its broad roads branching east and north. In glittering disarray, like opals spilled by haphazard hands into folded sable velvet, the campfires of the Rathain's city war host flickered and burned across the lowlands. Black as
an ink spill to the east spread the marshes that fed the headwaters of the River Valsteyn, the croaking tempo of night-singing frogs scared mute by the shouts of men dicing away hours in idleness, or quarrelling for the favours of camp followers.

  A sullen wind prowled the hills, stirring through layers of muggy heat and the louring pall off the cookfires. Churned dust hazed the moonbeams, shot through broken clouds above an earth that wore its burden of armed troops like a beggar's rags of motley. Keldmar awaited his appointment on a cushioned stool, a goblet of good wine in his hand, while the tap of bullion fringes edging velvet hangings whispered of pending storm. Lysaer's equerry, a liveried manservant, and two pages hovered in the shadows to serve his slightest want.

  The pavilion's rich appointment masked no softness; its doorway boasted two outside sentries, and beyond them, the competent deployment of a first-class field troop at rest. Keldmar knew war. No fault could be found with the force Lysaer s'Ilessid had mustered and trained at Avenor.

  Three thousand four hundred eighty-three men; the captain who lingered from the escort expressed his regrets for another seven hundred, forced to remain behind at Isaer.

  'Why were they left?' Keldmar asked to carry the conversation.

  He heard then of the execution that had ended in chaos when a terrible, sorcerous portent crossed the sky. 'Our liege could ill spare the men,' the captain finished. 'But Avenor couldn't shirk its due part in suppressing the unrest expected from Tysan's clansmen. The condemned was Lady Maenalle s'Gannley, descended, they say, of the old Camris princes.' Keldmar sipped his dry wine and scarcely marvelled. Townborn upstarts dared to describe the honourless act of a caithdein's murder to his very face because competence such as this camp possessed required no excuse for effrontery.

  His own brother was an old-blood duke; that Alestron remained governed under the charter granted at the hand of a duly crowned high king was no pittance. Without prior cause against Arithon s'Ffalenn, for the lady's ill usage, Keldmar would have spurned the cup for his dagger.

  Only for the sake of shared enmity would the Prince of the West receive his hearing.

  The hour grew late. Pages set out fresh candles, while campfires in the valleys dulled to a glaze of red embers. The coming and going of wakeful men gave way to the tramp of posted sentries. Clear above the camp's settled quiet came the sound of jingling harness. Then a man called in challenge and was answered. A ripple of awareness like a biting snap of frost passed over those field tents still lighted.

  Warned by the signs that stamped brisk command, Keldmar arose as the horsemen drew rein beyond the tent flap. The equerry hastened through to grasp the reins of a gold-stitched bridle.

  Then a stuttering flicker of torch light licked over a tabard flecked in jewels and bullion, and Lysaer s'Ilessid strode in from the dark. He peeled off his fine gloves and circlet, tossed both with a smile to the younger of his pages. The elder one handed him a goblet and flask. Hands burdened, the prince crossed the thick carpet, replenished Keldmar's empty cup unasked, then poured for himself and sat down. The camp chair cupped his frame in easy grace despite the encumbrance of state clothing.

  'I'm sorry for the inconvenience of your wait, my lord.' Up close, his eyes were unflawed as a zenith sky, direct I and sharp under brows the stretched arc of a hawk's wings. Burnished in candle glow, his straight cut hair gleamed a pale, fallow gold as he added, 'I envied your escape from the tedium. Etarra's minister of the treasury is slow as old frost when it comes to sealing writs for supply draughts.'

  'Then you won your gold to hire a fleet,' Keldmar surmised, the curl to his lips very much an amusement, and his hand on his goblet pinched white. 'Did you also gain consent for your officers from Avenor to displace the captains of your allied garrisons?'

  Lysaer sipped his wine, sparked to a lucent thread of laughter. 'My designs are so obvious?'

  Keldmar's false levity tore away. 'I judge what I see. Your camp is professional. Has resentment on the part of Rathain's city captains indeed tied your vaunted royal hands?'

  Unmoved, unstung by the sudden probe, Lysaer looked down; the charged, ruler's presence about him lent a stillness akin to sorrow. 'If our disparate commanders can't pull themselves together, I'd have them mend that weakness early. For against Arithon s'Ffalenn, the rank and file who follow their orders shall have no second chance at all.,

  'They rejected your officers, the green fools.' Keldmar did not mock. The untouched wine in his goblet hung like pooled ruby against the brighter scarlet of the ducal tabard.

  'A folly to be cauterized in bloodshed. It stands to reason,' Lysaer said. The late meeting had fretted away his serenity, and yet he was proud; he refused to give rein to restless pain and pace in the private comfort of his pavilion. 'Our late crossing through Halwythwood passed without incident, but my headhunter captain, Mayor Pesquil and I, share agreement. Rathain's clansmen only wait upon our weakness, our disorder, and our sorry, unwieldy lack of unity. They'll strike between here and the coast. We can't take the easy route to East Ward. That road crosses low country where our supply carts could bog down at each rain. Nor can we risk the trade galleys to an unsheltered northcoast harbour. Our march is for Werpoint, and harder. It's a cruel step to suffer, but the trials ahead will force our war host to its temper. The army that sails from Minderl Bay will be my honed weapon by then.'

  Keldmar regarded the royal person, his admiration silent before challenge. Let Lysaer be first to broach what lay between them, intangibly thick as the storm now brewing in the dust-flat, sultry night.

  Like the sword tempered to welcome hard blows, the Prince of the West opened the match. 'The Master of Shadow despoiled your armoury by sorcery and killed good men in your service. For that, you would fly south and raise your garrison at Alestron, and attack him in his haven at Merior. Why should your duke wait, you will say, upon a balky alliance of town garrisons? Why bide, while we argue among ourselves and leave the enemy at large to slip away?'

  'You left one thing out,' Keldmar said, and slammed his filled goblet on a side table. 'You have Daelion's own bollocks, for expecting my brother to swear you s'Brydionloyalty.'

  Lysaer looked up then, degrees colder than the frostpoint gleam in his sapphires. 'I know clanborn pride, none better,' he said. 'I put Lady Maenalle to death.'

  A moment passed in glaring silence while, royal to the bone, the prince in his majesty refused outright to explain or excuse his summary act.

  Blistered by that courage, then forced to unwilling respect, Keldmar was first to look away.

  Lysaer's smile warmed then like a sudden fall of new sunlight. 'I don't ask your duke's word in vassalage. How could I dare? You've lost an armoury and seven worthy lives to the wiles of Arithon s'Ffalenn. Over wine, for an evening, let me tell you what my father and grandfather suffered. At the end, I will ask, and you will answer as your brother's interest requires: to wait, and time Alestron's attack in concert with mine, or to risk your loyal following alone in unsupported action.'

  When Keldmar drew breath to retort, Lysaer forestalled him. 'No, listen. Let me tell you why your fifteen thousand, no matter how trained, will never seal your success.' And in the sultry dark, across veiling candleflame and above the growl of distant thunder from the ridges, he spoke of the sea raids on the world of his birth that had brought his father's kingdom to its knees.

  * * *

  The storm broke over the Mathorns at dawn, smacking the oiled canvas tents like sails and upsetting the horses on the picket lines. Lightning flared across clouds churned like dirtied fleeces, until the rains fell and rinsed the air grey. Lord Commander Diegan found his royal liege still curled in his chair, his head cradled in forearms clothed yet in the sparkle of last night's crumpled finery.

  A virulent slam of thunder shocked the earth. Lysaer's recoil from the overwhelming bang scribed in the arc and flare of every unmerciful band of braidwork.

  Lord Diegan grinned over the litter of emptied wine flasks at the prince's dishevelle
d state of grooming. 'Well,' he said, cheerful, 'did you win him?'

  'If I survive the hangover, I think so.' Lysaer pitched his words in precarious care through the shuttering rungs of ringed fingers. 'Is it raining?'

  'Ath,' Diegan said, appalled to an evil grin. 'The vintage must have been excellent. The sky is gushing floods to swamp the frogs. Are you going to move? Or shall we call off that tactical meeting you scheduled for fast thing this morning?'

  'I hadn't forgotten.' Lysaer stirred and settled tenderly erect. 'Mind you remember when we meet the Duke of Alestron, in case the trait runs in the family. Keldmar s'Brydion has a demon's own tolerance for drink.'

  * * *

  The war host gathered to rout out the Shadow Master organized itself, and arranged its vast lists and supply lines, and coalesced in a seething morass of steel helms and spears and ox drays. The last march began to cross one hundred and twenty leagues of road between Etarra and the port on Minderl Bay. On departure, the banners snapped in fresh wind and horn calls wailed salutes from the city battlements.

  Within an hour, the panoply paled. The columns laboured east in a soup of sucking mud, while supply carts stuck and foundered to curses from the men, stripped bare to the waist, who levered the mired axles from greedy earth. Horses lost shoes, and wet leathers chafed sores that stung to the run of salt sweat. Through the final, sweltering grip of late summer, the ground baked hard, and the dust rose, choking, to sting nose and throat and rim the eyes red to a punishing sting of raw glare.

  Garrison banners and the surcoats of the officers lost their colours to a settled layer of grime. Man and beast and ox dray groaned under a brassy arch of sky. Like toiling ants, the army crawled across the dry plain toward the city of Perlorn. Supply wagons gouged the way into ruts, their teams harried on by the flat snap of ox goads. By night, the provisions were sheltered in palisades built by the vanguard as drop points, each one defended by its allotment of bored guards.