To Ride Hell's Chasm
‘Within this precinct,’ said Taskin, ‘they fall under my rank, no less subject to Sessalie’s crown authority.’
On the bed, the king lay quietly sleeping, his gaunt hands stilled on the blankets. Before anyone could move to disturb that healing peace, Jussoud unfolded from his cross-legged seat on the floor.
‘No. Don’t wake him. If his Majesty shows his face at that window, he’ll very likely be killed.’ Point taken, the nomad’s formidable glare shifted focus. ‘Nor will you arise,’ he added to Taskin, lest the commander should think to attempt the unwise intervention himself. ‘No, don’t argue, old friend. This goes beyond protecting your hurt shoulder. As an archer’s mistake, or a minion’s picked victim, you or King Isendon would be just as dead. Like it or not, the heart of the kingdom’s rule is immured here. If Sessalie is going to stand firm for the princess, she can’t withstand the loss of anyone in this company’
The wisdom of prudence could not be argued. Even through his white-knuckled rage, the commander grasped the stakes plainly. To Bennent and Vensic, and the determined handful of his conscripted sentries, he rasped, ‘Stand down, soldiers. Until we actually see an attack, we can’t do a thing but abide with our weapons held ready. If they ram us downstairs, the door will soon splinter. We’re better off meeting their headlong assault right here at the upstairs landing.’
That way, words or blows must occur face to face, with cedar and shielding talismans at hand to unmask any man bound by spells, or coerced by the work of a sorcerer. A useless distress, to dwell on the uncertainty, that if Taskin’s authority and the voice of crown sovereignty both failed, the attackers would simply retire below and fire the beams underneath Dedorth’s quarters.
The choice to wait became no easier to bear, despite the clear-cut course of logic. The ongoing sequence of orders filtered through the latched shutters, closing Jedrey’s men into position. Their numbers were inevitably bolstered by the High Prince of Devall’s elite honour guard. Isendon’s defenders endured the slow torment of anticipation, while the massive log ram was rolled in by wagon. They heard each called instruction, and the grunts of the labourers who hefted its weight into position before the lower entry. Though the activity could have been hampered with arrows, Taskin forbade direct action.
‘These are our own men, entrapped by political pressure and Devall’s insidious plotting.’ Even faced with assault incited by foreigners, the few arrows at hand in the tower were insufficient to effect a changed outcome. Freed from the diversion of cut-throat chess, Taskin surveyed his guardsmen. He met each man’s worried eyes, approving their unflinching fibre. ‘Soldiers, don’t for one second forget the true enemy,’ he reminded them. ‘We must conserve our copper-tipped shafts to strike down the sorcerer’s minions.’
Beyond the gapped shutter, the relentless sun shone on the team preparing to shoulder the ram in the courtyard. Their supporting troops formed ranks to back the first foray. Jedrey’s self-satisfied praise rang through the clear air, while the gleam of the men-at-arms’ helms and the blinding flare of gold accoutrements marked the high prince’s strategically placed crossbowmen.
‘Stay back from that window,’ Bennent cautioned as a guardsman sought to peer outward. ‘That lowcountry marshal wouldn’t choose slackers to safeguard the heir to his kingdom.’
Yet even as Devall’s crack archers spanned their weapons, and the front-rank officer exhorted his team to take up the ram, a disturbance flurried up from the causeway. Female voices arose, upbraiding a drover for what seemed an undue delay. An officer’s shouted order to halt came unravelled to astonished outrage. ‘You pestilent harpy, turn back I say! Now! This street is closed until further notice. Pack up your foolish offerings and go home!’
Helmets turned, flashing, on the front lines as the readied men jostled to stare.
‘Upon whose authority may I not pass?’ the woman yelled back, beside herself with impatience. ‘These wagons will move straight through to the Sanctuary There are poor children, babes and mothers in need, you rock-headed oaf. Your arrows and swords won’t lose their sharp edge while we deliver bread for the hungry!’
Taskin lifted his head, his glance grown piercing. ‘Bertarra?’
The Duchess of Phail coughed behind her ringed hand. ‘None else, powers bless her.’
‘Quite. Worth a spy’s insights, and ten berserk soldiers.’ The wounded commander’s wry features showed sympathy for the officers under fire as the harangue outside erupted into a cat fight.
‘I don’t care how many towers you plan to put to the torch!’ Bertarra howled. ‘I have eyes, you tin nincompoop! Looks to me like somebody did the task for you, or hasn’t the roof already been gutted? Who do you have mewed up in there, anyway? No, Jedrey! The chancellors have mouthed that lame drivel all morning. I don’t believe everything’s under control! We’ve already had two unfortunate fires. Now you claim you’re going to set more of them?’
Jedrey answered, too low to be heard. Whatever he said failed to placate the queen’s niece.
Bertarra’s voice reached the next piercing octave. ‘Well, I say not! This is Sessalie, idiot. We’re not plagued by sorcerers! Our poor king is dying, not dodging intrigues! And no foreign despot within his right mind mounts a war over barley and cattle!’
Jedrey’s tone, rising, was cut short again, as Bertarra ran over him roughshod. ‘Well, you’re full of cow pies up to your ears! I don’t give way on the orders of rabble, or bow to Devall’s uppity marshal. He can stuff his gold braid! Yes, up his tight arse where it will hurt the most, for all that I care for his posturing! These wagons will pass. Afterwards, you can shoot all the crossbolts you like, and ram yourselves straight to oblivion!’
Poised like a discomposed cat in her chair, the Duchess of Phail raised her eyebrows. ‘Does Bertarra have the other court ladies in tow?’
A thin spear of light pierced the gloom as Captain Bennent cracked the shutter. Shielded by the stone wall next to the sill, he stole a cautious glance downwards. ‘Apparently so.’ After a moment of tacit reconnaissance, he resumed, touched to awe. ‘Blinding glory! No wonder she’s got Jedrey flummoxed. Every matron from Highgate has come, bearing baskets. The wealthy society from the Middlegate is present as well, all decked out in their jewels and silk, and wearing white veils to accept the priest’s blessing. They’ve also rolled in five loaded wagons, escorted by a tame pack of house guards.’
Just finished treating the last copper-tipped arrow, Vensic burst into laughter. ‘That’s going to make chaos of Jedrey’s fixed lines.’
‘Already has,’ said the palace sentry placed at the adjacent window. ‘What a damnfool embarrassment! The ladies are barging straight through with their baskets.’
The next moment, a volley of curses arose, as fully armed men were scolded to shame, and jostled out of position. Without discharging their loaded weapons, Devall’s crack archers could scarcely turn back the silk-clad invasion. Nor could a man from the Lowergate garrison gainsay the late queen’s niece. Still bellowing imprecations, Bertarra accosted the outmatched front ranks, ploughed through to the causeway, then waved for her liveried contingent of house guards to follow through with the wagons.
‘Vensic!’ cracked Taskin. ‘See those arrows distributed! Move, soldier! Hurry. If I’m not mistaken, those women are serious! They’re launching a courageous, frontal assault, and those wagons weren’t filled by the bakery.’ Awarded a wise smile from the Duchess of Phail, the commander rousted his sleeping reserves, and positioned them at the windows with bows.
‘Keep a hawk’s eye and tight aim upon Devall’s guard!’ Taskin added, his whisper imperative. ‘Also watch Jedrey Some of those men will be more than catspaws. The ones suborned as minions won’t stand interference. Before they let their sorcerer’s plan become thwarted, they’ll draw killing steel on the women.’
XXXII. Widow’s Gauntlet
IF THE NOSE DID NOT NUMB TO THE SMELL OF THE POACHER’S CONCOCTION, THE KERRIES ALSO FOUND THE ODOUR REP
ELLENT. THE FEW THAT sailed down to size up the horses flapped and circled, and hissed plumes of smoke, but did not attack. Even with daylight blunting their senses, the breeze of their passage whipped overhead with dauntless frequency. Their hazing inspection reduced Anja to anxious silence. The creatures had hungry, reptilian eyes, and the sliced air fluted over their scales like a knife’s edge parting a gale wind.
Tucked under the shade of a leaning boulder, while the horses grazed at the verge of a marsh, Anja cleared her raw throat, then wiped welling eyes with the back of a grimy wrist. The hair she had neatly rebound that morning flew in torn wisps at her temples, with her braid dried into a shrunken snarl from the morning’s harrowing immersion. Dirty, scraped, and miserable with her own indescribable stench, the princess paused and looked back. The weight of the moment forced her to acknowledge the inspired scope of her victory.
The rickle of ledges at the head of the valley loomed upwards, sliced by the rebounding jet of the falls. Seen from below, the descent seemed to hold more beauty than hazard, spread like a tapestry embellished with gold thread under the fall of noon sunlight. Diminished with distance, the stark memory faded, of the harrowing, steep cliff, and the uncertain footing where the rock face had cracked from seasons of ice melt and frost. That all the horses had emerged unscathed seemed the work of a given miracle.
The accomplishment did not leave Mykkael complacent. He stood vigilant guard beside his strung bow, his hands busy doctoring arrows. Having scrounged for the copper-laced rock he required, he was shaving crumbles of verdigris ore into pine pitch, then moulding a layer of the particulate gum on to the shafts behind each flanged point. Although he seemed engrossed, a predatory tension infused his calm bearing, as thoughtlessly natural as breathing. A man who walked free through hostile territory, he recorded the play of the air through his skin, and attended the rasp of each insect and frog.
Mykkael did not look tired or hurt, only dangerous as the held spear that could be cast at an instant’s notice. Anja strove to encompass that elusive awareness. Tested by her own uncertainty, she tried to measure the volatile nature of a spirit who could not be contained or predicted. She studied the living man, and encountered a presence, a potential whose imprint on the world could not be known through its state of pent stillness. The warrior himself could not be understood. His power could not be analysed. He could only be recognized by his impact, as movement and action begat consequence.
Anja ached to embrace that self-aware vitality. She desired the touch that would describe Mykkael’s being with the same passion that drove her to try to capture the essence of a falcon within a written line of poetry.
The princess observed the transition as the bearing intensity of her regard hooked that superlatively tuned self-awareness. Mykkael raised his head. An inquiring gaze flickered over her. ‘Your Grace?’
Words fell too far short of the question her burdened thoughts sought to express. As the shadow of another passing kerrie raked over the sunlit marsh, Anja blurted, ‘Another man standing here with a bow would think of nothing but slaughtering monsters.’
Mykkael smiled. ‘Because he could? Because they exist? Because they pose the possibility of inflicting a terrible death?’ He slid his finished arrow back into the quiver, then reached for another shaft. ‘An act made in fear is not the same thing as an action taken for necessity.’ He regarded the kerrie, now past their position, as it banked with a crack of spread wings and whipped its streaming, kite tail to sweep over their vantage again. ‘That creature is curious. It is also a predator, testing itself against the unknown. In that respect, the beast and I understand each other quite well.’
‘I don’t,’ Anja said with wretched simplicity.
Mykkael thumbed up another dab of pitch, then set to with the knife and the ore. ‘That is why you are a princess, and I am a man with a sword.’ The arrow point flashed as he turned the shaft between his deft hands. Though he could have retreated into his busyness, he chose not to insult her intelligence.
‘The thread of intent is a moving tapestry between me and that deadly creature. If the kerrie chooses to strike, then it dies, or I will. That is the certainty. Today, I am your defender, and it is the hunter. It must make the first move. That is the order I choose to enact, an important truth to remember. The attacker makes his choice subject to mine. If I know this, then I hold the clear-cut advantage, because I am always prepared. Response is more powerful in the barqui’ino mind, because it places the limitless potential of passive possibility foremost.’
He glanced at her sidelong. Her perplexity raised his quiet smile. ‘Your sire rules. He has charged me to act, even kill, as your protector. My strength, my choice, my will, arise in answer to his Majesty’s demand. Here is the paradox. I am the weapon a king has taken to hand, yet I am not his to possess. My power to act in his name is not his. I know this. He may not. Or he might forget, at his peril. Therefore, the gift of my oath to serve enacts the potential for dangerous consequence. If I misuse his Majesty’s trust, the earned debt is entirely mine. If he misdirects me, there could be a dreadful cost. The balance becomes mine to guard, do you see? I choose when to strike or when to stand upon mercy’
Anja shivered as the shadowing kerrie crossed between her and the sun. ‘You stand upon mercy, more often than not.’
Mykkael’s smile vanished. ‘I am barqui’ino-trained. When I act, death follows. Mine, or your attacker’s, that is the destructive certainty.’ He slid the doctored arrow back into the quiver, then reached in fluid grace for another. ‘Death has no repeal. It is a brute ending that leaves us the legacy of an inscrutable silence. Therefore, I understand the voice of mercy very well.’
The ruler in fact was not truly the master, and the ethic of choice stood or fell by the hand that commanded the sword. Anja regarded the desert-bred captain before her, whose strength and restraint had just redefined her with a mirror’s unflinching honesty. She understood, watching him, that she would not bear a crown the same way, ever again.
She shivered, eyes shut. When she recovered, she encountered Mykkael’s gaze, perhaps measuring. She was not brave in that moment, only daring. Like the kerries, curiosity ventured the question. ‘What do you see?’
A genuine amusement softened his face. Yet whatever he might have said became lost as his skin ruffled up into gooseflesh.
‘Witch thought!’ she cried. ‘You’re having a vision?’
Mykkael managed to nod.
Eyes locked to his, Anja observed the shift as his awareness plunged into a depth beyond conscious reason. His mind went elsewhere, even as the trained pitch of his bodily reflex rose to the trembling forefront. Instinct warned against trying to touch him. Poised in a space only his mind could see, suspended above the abyss, he closed ready fingers over his sword hilt…
Sergeant Jedrey strode forward, shouting, unable to stop the silk-clad volunteers who had challenged his cordon. The women broke through and invaded the courtyard of Dedorth’s observatory before Devall’s exasperated marshal could gather his wits to intervene. Ahead of both men and their flummoxed officers, the enormous matron who had stymied the crossbowmen beckoned to her female colleagues.
‘Ladies, act now!’
Each woman bearing a charity basket bent and whipped off the cover. Beside them, veiled collaborators whisked out flint and steel, striking live sparks to the contents. Flame blossomed. The fuel just ignited was not baked bread, but fronds of green cedar. The smoke billowed into a spreading haze that engulfed the array of armed men. Some of them coughed. Irate expressions transformed into startlement, as though some of the garrison soldiers were slapped into a startled awakening. Others backed away from the fumes as though wary. Foremost among these were the Prince of Devall’s smartly appointed honour guards.
Yet their retreat became blocked from behind. The canvas covers masking five wagons unfurled to reveal a hidden contingent of soldiers rolled in from the Lowergate garrison. Others, salted into the ranks with the women,
tore away their concealing white veils.
Smoke drifted, relentless, and immersed Devall’s men. The contact touched off a hideous change, as crossbows fell from hands transformed into ravening claws, and faces dissolved into the flanged aspect of minions. Shouting erupted among Sessalie’s guard. Before their startled, horrified eyes, winged monstrosities emerged out of human concealment, and shrugged off their false covering of armour and clothes. Man and monster closed into rending conflict, while the women flung baskets of blazing evergreen against the demonic attack. Claws raked. Teeth closed. Bloody mayhem ensued. The raw screams of the dying shattered the morning, as from Dedorth’s tower, the first flight of Vensic’s copper-tipped arrows hissed down in a vengeful swarm…
Mykkael’s vision broke, unstrung by the disruptive awareness of Anja’s rising alarm.
‘What’s happened?’ The princess’s frantic gaze searched his face. ‘Captain, what did you see?’
The gyrating spin of turned senses required a moment to reorient. Mykkael shivered, unable to subdue his raw prickle of gooseflesh. Worse, the low thrum of his warded sword poured ranging chills down his spine. He sensed the close pressure as Perincar’s geometry tightened down like a seal on the unseen air. Set under the protection’s resharpened awareness, Anja’s distress snapped like sparks through his unsettled nerves.
His onslaught of witch thought still bled chaotic images across his unshielded mind. His immediate surroundings seemed overlaid by a haze of run blood, punched through by the scream of copper-tipped arrows striking targets of corrupted flesh. Juxtaposed on these gleanings, he beheld Anja’s struggle to handle a destiny outside her familiar experience.
‘What did you see?’ Still the princess, she showed her brave heart, and her selflessness. ‘Has Sessalie fallen in my absence?’