There came a screeling cry of steel on steel, blade raking blade from tip to crossguard. Borne backwards into a whippy mass of saplings, Arithon dropped, twisting, to one knee. The sword in his hand sang protest, locked still to Erlien's crossguard.
The chieftain found himself hampered in the narrowed press of the branches. Smaller, slighter, better able to move in close quarters, Arithon snatched his sole chance.
In a flying, sun-caught arc, he wrested his blade clear and hooked the point. Metal bound to metal. The chieftain lost grasp on his weapon to a stinging clamour of stressed sound. Through a short, hampered flight through close brush, the sword tangled and sliced down, point first, to impale itself in dark earth.
Erlien backstepped to recover, hooked a leg, and crashed onto his rump. Head flung back, blue eyes of feral intensity wide open, he sprawled with his chin upturned to meet the black blade that descended in fine, ringing temper to lick the bared cords of his throat.
Running blood, scuffed and nicked by briar and brush, Arithon glared through a soaked fall of hair. Sweat glued his hands to a sword that quivered in unsteady, lightcaught spasms. 'Why?' he gasped, his voice husked out of true by his racking tremors of exhaustion.
Erlien glared up that bared ribbon of steel and said nothing; and silence itself spoke as signal.
A ring of clan archers rose from hiding. They gripped bows with nocked arrows and their aim was trained at short range upon Arithon s'Ffalenn.
He greeted their presence with a wordless cry, spun on his heel, and cast his sword away. The black blade tumbled through the briar with a sharp, outraged ring, then thudded to rest at the feet of the scout, who dared make no move to recover it. Back turned, his arms braced between the trunks of two trees as though he begged help to stay upright, Arithon waited.
The expression on his face was not relief, not fear, not impatience: it was anger, naked and hot enough to wrench through his body in spasms. When the command to loose was not given to the archers, he pulled in a screaming breath. With all of his masterbard's diction, he demanded, imperious, 'Why?'
Erlien's first word was to his bowmen, a curt command to stand down. His answer to Arithon came inflectionless and short. 'As the clan chief responsible for this realm, I found it needful to test your mettle.'
'With your very life?' Fury overlaid with incredulity, his fine hands clamped into fists, the Shadow Master spun again to face the clan chief.
'Did your man Steiven leave you in ignorance? That's how it's given to caithdeinen to test princes, if need provides no other way.' Erlien mustered his will and arose, brush-scraped and weary, but unscorched by the royal ire bent upon him. 'You heard how Lady Maenalle of Tysan came to die?'
A wretched, prolonged shiver wrung Arithon from head to foot. 'I heard two days ago, about Maenalle.' Then he shut his lips, aggrieved and grim, not only for the fate the Lady s'Gannley had suffered at the hand of her prince, but for the goods which funded his shipworks, that laid guilt for her death at his feet. Erlien's statement also forced him to reassess a past the more painful, for indeed, it had been with his life that Earl Jieret's father, Lord Steiven, had compelled his prince to swear crown oath before the bloody battle at Strakewood.
To this living steward who sought to try him to the bitter limits of integrity, Arithon said, 'Your reason hasn't answered my question.'
'Because it's obvious.' Erlien brushed off the leaf mould that clung to his sweat-damp knuckles. 'You're living bait for a war host thirty-five thousand strong. If you come here to involve my clansmen, I would measure firsthand what took place on the banks of Tal Quorin. Did your sorcery and your shadows defend your feal following, or in fact, merely shield your own life? I was duty-bound to find out.'
As Arithon stiffened, Erlien raised a swift hand. 'I wished to know, too, if you could fight. Before Ath, I've sworn! I'll not offer my people as a shield for a weakling prince who lacks courage. And if you proved true to honour and seized no advantage through fell powers, though you died on my sword here and now, there's a balance met. Shand would be spared from your nasty coil of contention.'
'With my body sent off to Alestron for bounty?' Arithon unbent his fists to peel back the hair slicked to his forehead and temples. The anger had gone out of him as water might spill from a sieve. He looked and moved as if his wounds stung, though his sarcasm bit as he added, 'You made just one bitter mistake. I didn't come here to ask any clansmen to stand in my defence.'
Lord Erlien looked chagrined as a bear caught by bees while licking a muzzle glued with honey. 'Fiends plague! Then why are you here?'
Arithon gave a sour laugh. Touched to distaste by the widening stains on his shirt, surrounded by the avid band of scouts, he said, 'When I've finished being the subject of a bleeding exhibition, I'll recover my manners and tell you.'
* * *
The council arranged by Lord Erlien at Arithon's request had been called under open sky. Present were clan chiefs from Atwood in East Halla, and others from Orvandir's hill country. Not a few had travelled an inconvenient distance to be present. Given the nature of the caithdein who ruled Shand, the smell of tired horseflesh, the dry rounds of whispers, and the poisonous curiosity that pervaded the encampment scarcely came as a surprise.
Few of the elders called into attendance were inclined to share counsel with a stranger.
Lent the afternoon to apply his insight into the character of Alland's high earl, Arithon reviewed his conclusions. Erlien's authority was trademarked by a quick, inquisitive mind. In love with talk, jocular in dismissal of his guarding ranks of archers, his strength was quirky humour and an unfailing eye for detail. He liked surprises, encouraged combative rivalries among his captains, and seemed to thrive on keeping light guidance on disordered, freewheeling enterprise.
Gathered without ceremony at twilight beneath the sandstone ledges of an abandoned quarry, the inner circle of Shand's old-blood clansmen waited around a communal fire.
The introduction Lord Erlien offered his guest came typically pointed in acid. 'On my honour, I've determined this prince is not here to claim loyalty for the distaff side of his pedigree.'
'Did he try, he would die here,' a hook-nosed granddame in a snowy battle braid cracked through the gathering dusk.
'My clan elders,' Erlien presented. He jostled Arithon forward with an expansive, bold gesture toward the tight-gathered band who owed the realm of Shand feal allegiance. 'As you see, your welcome won't be tender.' His broad, tanned palm clapped the slighter man's shoulder in yet another boisterous round of challenge.
Braced like still iron as the blow fell, his unbound scabs crusted to discomfort, Arithon gave way but one step.
In vicious approval, Alland's earl finished, 'Master them, mage, if you can. For by Ath, they're a bloodthirsty bunch. All week they've been vying for the chance to be first to stake out your carcass for the ravens.'
'Despite your pledged life as my surety?' Arithon's bow answered cold as a slicked glint of steel. The rent and bloodied edges of his shirt fluttered, plucked by the pine-scented breeze which flowed over the quarry's far rim. Above jumbled stones clothed over in creepers, the sky paled to lavender, stippled by faint early stars.
Erlien assumed the high seat, a flat-topped boulder set apart by a woven red throw rug. Replete as a sun-warned adder, he surveyed his disgruntled pack of clan chiefs and chuckled. "Ware Torbrand's temper. I've tasted its sting. Rathain's royal line might breed runt-sized, but there's mettle enough for all that. His Grace has come here to bring warning. By right of arms, he's earned his chance to speak.'
Arithon did not sit, but strode into the cleared ground by the fire. His footfall made scarcely any sound, even over washed gravel tailings. Splashed in the copper play of firelight, he was a form rendered in planes and shadow, the hawk-sharp angles of cheekbone and chin seared into profile against the gloom. His glance raked over the hardbitten company who waited to hear him bearing weapons and bows, and no small measure of distrust. Arrogance bracketed on
e elder's mouth; hard patience stiffened another's back. A flaxen-haired woman near the sidelines stared in frank curiosity, while others projected unsettled hostility on faces lined like worn leather from lifelong exposure to southern sunlight.
Exposed on all quarters to unfriendly stares, Arithon would not be hurried. He measured them all, to the last, most inimical granddame, until not a clan chief among them could mistake the stamp of his presence.
This prince was s'Ffalenn, and touched bitter by his past, and above any other thing, dangerous.
Run short of patience since his trial at swordpoint, Arithon plunged straight to the crux. 'A war host thirty-five thousand strong is on the march to the coast of Minderl Bay. Although the feal clans of Rathain have been given my leave to cause their companies delay as they can, without additional intervention, the army could put to sea before winter. A fleet of galleys for transport is already mustering at Werpoint.'
He let no shred of sorrow show for the fact that Lord Jieret and his war captain were belike to use his royal sanction to spill townborn blood in punishing revenge for past losses.
Focused at need on necessities, Arithon let the chisel-cut buttresses of sandstone throw back the temper in his voice. 'If any portion of this army wins through, they'll eventually sail here to Alland. I've undertaken to escape, self-sufficient to sea by that hour. My departure should draw any threat away with me. But the best laid plans are not enough. The curse Desh-thiere has woven over me is remorseless, a compulsion inflicted without quarter. I would have you understand what that means.'
Evoked to a masterbard's command over language, he described the fearful loss of control he had suffered, when, on the banks of Tal Quorin, he had come to face his half-brother. The moment, wrenched out of harrowing memory, when nothing and no one had mattered; when the last of his integrity had been torn away and undone, consumed by a storm of blank hatred. Terror remained. The truth could not be glossed over or evaded. He would have sacrificed all without compunction, from the green growing land to the life of his last feal clansman to meet the curse's insatiable demand for the life of Lysaer s'Ilessid. While the geas held sway, all his love and conscience and humanity could be twisted to count for nothing at all.
In the bleak depths of nightmares, Arithon still tasted the poisoned ecstasy which had gripped him through that past second in time. Once, his half-brother's life had lain in his hand to crush without mercy, without thought.
Only young Jieret's intervention had averted irremediable disaster.
'The compulsion I bear lies beyond sane control,' the Master of Shadow said in summary. His forced, iron stillness lent a civilized mask over scouring humiliation. Through every day that he woke and breathed, he fought to withstand the vicious irony: despite his most diligent effort, the horror might happen again.
'If I chance to be cornered,' Arithon finished. 'If I should once encounter my half-brother on the field, my actions will brook no conscience. Shadows, sorcery, or human lives, whatever lies to hand will be seized as a means to wreak destruction. Lysaer's obsession with my death will stop at nothing, and I am mindful this is your land. The scope of the peril I may draw here is without precedence, and I've come to entreat your clans to withdraw to safety until this pass is finished. I've made plans as I may to distance myself from my enemy, but there can be no guarantees. Before the drive of the Mistwraith's curse, my best-laid strategy could run afoul.'
The stunned and thinking silence that gripped the council circle lasted for scarcely a heartbeat.
'You can't expect us to turn tail!' snapped a frosthaired scout on the fringes. 'The false prince murdered his caithdein. Before we see his annexed war host run riot through our territory, we'd sooner quash their effort at the start.'
Shouts hailed back in agreement. 'Who needs foreign headhunters riding for scalps here in Alland! Even without their interference, an army that size would strip the land as it passes.'
Braced for the wrong sort of argument, Arithon rounded on Lord Erlien in incredulous, exasperated dismay. 'Are your elders all deaf ? Have none of them heeded a single word I've said?'
The regent of the realm twitched his huge shoulders the way a wolf might shrug away flies. 'For Shand, we judge as we see fit.'
'If you're offering help to fan the fires of this war, I refuse you.' Scalded to impatience, Arithon flung back an ultimatum. 'This time, I'll give townsmen no cause at all to link my name with clan defenders.'
Erlien stretched, unbiddably tempered in mischief. 'In that case, my friend, you should've lost a certain sword fight.'
There was more; a depthless black malice gleamed in the clan chief's eyes, even through the shifting play of firelight.
'You've cause to oppose Lysaer already, I see,' Arithon probed in hedged caution.
'Prince Lysaer's no clansman's friend,' Alland's high earl allowed. 'Not since he proclaimed and enforced the execution of Tysan's sworn caithdein.' Sharp enough to note the Shadow Master's catch of grief, he added, 'You're no uninvolved bystander. Clan news passes more swiftly than before. The affray by Tal Quorin saw to that.'
A locked moment passed while Shand's chieftains looked on. Then Erlien grinned like a shark and confessed to Arithon, 'I drew steel in addition to address a complaint on behalf of the caithdein of Melhalla. Your attack on Duke Bransian's armoury at Alestron was unprovoked, and against one of her feal vassals. Since you crossed into Shand, by kingdom law, form demanded her claim should pass to me.'
'Oh Ath,' said Arithon, suddenly laughing. 'I thought that's why you tried to take my head.' He pressed a forearm to his stinging ribs, rueful enough to be honest. 'Your ally should get her facts straight, though. That wasn't an attack. I had a charge that turned awry to lend help with Fellowship business.'
Erlien's smile stretched wider. 'Well, Prince, for my part, by right of arms, you're acquitted. I found out well enough. You don't use your sorcery for spite. The s'Brydion line always did have a nose for foolish trouble. When Duke Bransian's liege lady asks, I shall say you disarmed me, yet mind well: Lysaer s'Ilessid may have revoked his right to safe conduct, but the s'Brydion of Alestron are clanblood. Should that hawk come to roost in a nest outside your favour, the duke's within his rights to claim your life.'
'Should he come to me for due reckoning,' Arithon said dryly, 'I will answer him fairly on my own.' Satisfied at last to dispense with past grudges, Lord Erlien stretched the kinks from his shoulders. His slanteyed glance of appreciation encompassed Arithon's too-straight stance. The prince looked more than ever like a boy who had suffered a beating, each tender move considered in advance to minimize stiffness and discomfort. 'Well, be advised to give Alestron wide berth until your scabs heal.' Enjoying Arithon's glare of black rancour he added, Where are you bound in that toy of a sloop, after you leave our forest?'
A log fell. The sullen leap of sparks flicked a dancing, a hot gleam in the depths of Arithon's eyes. 'North.' A corner of his mouth crawled up. 'Why rely on the fickle course of storms? I'd a mind instead to try to turn Lysaer's fleet before he can sail from Werpoint harbour.'
Erlien sank his knuckles in black beard and gave his chin a vigorous scratch. 'Well you're not my sworn prince. That being beyond your power to change, you lack any grounds to deny my clansmen their due share of the fun should the Fatemaster turn your plots astray. If you've got a mind to stir a hornet's nest through sabotage, let me tell you, in Shand, we're crack experts at cattle raids.'
Indeed, armies could not move, even by galley, without sustenance in the form of beasts. A whoop erupted from a clan lord. Someone else shouted for a cask to be broached. With a burgeoning flare of enthusiasm, leather jacks were fetched out, and someone unrolled a dogeared set of charts from a saddle pack. Played across by moving shadows as the chiefs he commanded plunged headlong into plans for their most cherished pastime, Erlien summed up in complacence, 'Yon false prince from Tysan can recruit his fine army as he pleases. He may find it tough to invade foreign country if his men have nothing to eat.
'
Arithon's scathing rebuttal was forestalled as a scout in a braided leather vest dug his sore ribs in laughing sympathy. 'Accept your lot and be merry. Anyone who bests our clan chief at swords, Lord Erlien adopts as a brother.'
Once started, the idea of resistance gained momentum with wild enthusiasm. While the fire collapsed to red embers, the celebration grew rowdy to cement shared friendship and genius. A half-drunken contest at archery commenced with a torch on a pole as a target. The air gained a taint of singed fletching, and silver changed hands in spirited wagers as contestants compared bows and cracked disparaging remarks. Erlien's clan lords drew lots and shot against a vicious and inventive interference to spoil the aim of close rivals.
No one noticed until the cask reached the lees that Arithon s'Ffalenn had left their company.
The band of scouts dispatched to the shore in haste brought back their belated report: Talliarthe had sailed, most surely under cover of shadow. Despite four men set as sentries, the cove where she had anchored lay black and empty under the moon.
Erlien s'Taleyn, High Earl of Alland, received the news with a head-shaking, throaty spill of laughter. Dharkaron himself! Should yon Shadow Master think we are quits after he's fairly disarmed me in a fight, he shall in due time be shown better. If this false prince, Lysaer, and his war host plies south, we shall give him sharp welcome, with or without s'Ffalenn sanction!'
Tidings
As near as Koriani scrying could determine, the Fellowship of Seven met the imminent collapse of the peace with indifference, despite the fact that Athera's royal ines were their own irresponsible creation. While war against the Shadow Master mounted to a certainty, the sorcerers kept close in their own affairs, as reticent as they had ever been at the time Etarra was abandoned to the destruction unleashed by Desh-thiere's curse.