The ravine tightened down, roofed over by deadfalls capped in glaze ice that plunged into gloom. Here, the branch streamlet they followed lay frozen, buckled to rills that tumbled over the log-jams and boulders. With Khadrien leading, Esfand and Siantra dodged through, bundled tight in their cloaks to avoid snagging the furs. Shared grins acknowledged their scatheless escape, with the settlement fallen behind them.
Khadrien dared a low whoop, as the steepened pitch of the gulch dipped sharply towards the main river-course. Reckless enough to savour rough thrills, he barreled ahead onto the crusted ice, then flopped on his back and tucked up his feet. Momentum hurtled him into the bowl, where the falls splashed in summer and swirled the green depths of a trout pool.
The snow-drift at the base was spring-soft. Khadrien crunched, laughing, into the granular mass, and just missed overshooting the verge of the creek. The basin beyond was iron-hard still, rimmed with lace frost, except where the open sluice tumbled, roiled to froth and skeins of black ripples.
Since the iced surface was too unstable to cross, the pranksters dropped panting on the stony shore.
‘Why swap a fine dagger to duck the few minutes needed to split a few logs?’ Esfand remarked, dogged as a terrier in his pursuit of loose ends. ‘That’s daft!’
Khadrien’s lips curled, pink and smug as a clam. ‘Had secret business.’
Esfand rolled onto an elbow, dark brows gathered above the glint in his pale hazel eyes. ‘What business?’
But his cousin’s evasive grin vanished fast. Khadrien shifted the subject. ‘What do you think Prince Arithon is like, really?’ When no response came, he poked Esfand’s ribs, exposed as the s’Valerient heir leaned forward to toss a loose pebble downstream. The throw splashed where the current rushed, gurgling, under the next shelf of ice.
‘Who knows. Why wonder?’ Esfand’s challenge bared teeth. ‘The accounts all agree his Grace shows Torbrand’s blood. Which means royal-born to be difficult.’
‘Yes, but difficult, how?’ Khadrien persisted, steered by some circuitous point behind his evasion. ‘You ought to be curious.’
Since, after all, the prince was alive, the encounter with crown rank seemed likely to happen. Siantra listened, obliquely absorbed with picking out the snagged sticks from her clan braid.
Khadrien’s impetuous prod would not rest, with his cousin in line for the title as Rathain’s caithdein. ‘Esfand, come clean! If you must stand shadow for your sanctioned liege, you had better grapple some sense of the man who’ll hold your pledge of life service.’
For the loreist’s archives contained a disparate collection of stark contradictions. Where Esfand admired the dauntless courage recounted in the ballad of Braggen’s Stand at Leynsgap, the ferocity there did not mesh with the tenderly vulnerable spirit that Siantra imagined, sung with passionate sorrow in Jieret’s Lament. Nor, to Khadrien’s undisciplined buoyancy, did the steel-clad will described in the meticulous record of Sidir’s difficult service match the pithless weakling reviled in the Lives of the Fourteen Companions. The three comrades pictured their crown prince quite differently, reflected within a shared moment.
‘Can’t outsmart the trained mind of a sorcerer, anyhow,’ Esfand concluded, impatient. ‘What good should I try? No question, that weaselly spellbinder Dakar seemed terrified of his Grace!’
‘Surely the Mad Prophet has reason to fear,’ Siantra broke in, disgusted. ‘I would, too, had I been the one to bind our liege over to the Koriathain after Eriegal’s gutless treachery.’
Esfand flicked a snow-crusted twig and shivered beneath his tucked cloak. His slump suggested resistant dismissal, except for the frown, which spoke volumes.
‘You do want to know!’ Khadrien wagged a roguish finger. ‘As I breathe, show me wrong? You’ve probably thought about nothing else since we heard that Prince Arithon was set free in Tysan.’
But the steadier insight of Siantra’s truth-gift made her drop her mussed braid in anxiety. ‘The council’s decision is taking too long.’
Even Khadrien’s thoughtless tongue stilled when the s’Valerient heir matched her glance with piercing acuity. ‘You, too, Sian?’ Rail thin, an immature scarecrow where his turbulent father wore tigerish muscle, Esfand inherited the same chill hazel eyes and seal hair, glinted red, where the sun kissed. ‘I’ve felt gnawed to my nerve ends, if not eaten alive for more than a sennight!’
‘You’ve approached the camp seer,’ Siantra prompted, the sober remark not phrased as a question.
‘Didn’t listen!’ Esfand shot upright, his anger uncorked. ‘In fact, the damned hag turned her back! She brushed me off though I’ve dreamed for nine nights something bad’s going to happen to Arithon!’
Surprise spurred Khadrien onto his feet with a haste that dropped one careless toe through the sugary ice. But the splash that wet his boot went unnoticed. ‘That doesn’t make sense!’ An embarrassed flush rose beneath his scatter of freckles, that his heedless shout may have threatened their pact to evade the outlying patrols.
But his companions reproached that impulsive carelessness with dead-pan silence. S’Valerient carried the talent for Sight. That famous endowment – possessed by an ancient, long lineage bred for the courage to stand behind kings – should have stopped talk, even called the stubbornest minds in the council to rapt account.
Siantra asked, thoughtful, ‘What did you dream?’
‘It changes,’ Esfand admitted, then unburdened the rest in an explosive rush. ‘Always, the prince has appeared as a hidden shadow, pursued. His step in flight on the land seemed almost insubstantial. I watched his Grace sought by Koriathain, tracked by a circle of seers using crystals. Next, he was running from Sunwheel diviners, and another time, he fled across a battle-field soaked in fresh blood. That vision showed me a wide-open vista scattered with war dead. Fallen horses lay snagged in the wreckage of chariots.’
‘Which banners?’ Siantra probed gently.
But Khadrien broke in, excitably awed, ‘Ath wept! You think the True Sect might break the hundred-year stand-off with Havish?’
But Siantra’s self-contained urgency struck the more strident note. ‘What else? Go on.’
‘Last night.’ Esfand paused, shut his eyes, then resumed in distress, ‘Last night, I saw the prince shelter a man in his arms. The fellow was fair-haired, strong as an ox, and dressed like a ploughman. His nose had been crushed by a blow to the face. The recent scar had healed without sepsis, and yet, he appeared to be dying.’
‘What was the season?’ Siantra stood also, her grace distinctly feminine though she wore the same scout’s leathers and hide cloak. ‘Were the trees leafed, yet? Did the dream show green grass? If so, you’re precognate. The dreadful events you perceived may not have occurred, yet.’
Esfand unbent enough to rub his damp palms on his sleeves. ‘I just have this feeling! Every day, our war band’s inaction is driving the prince into deadlier danger. And, no, before you ask, Khadri, I can’t think of a reason between sky and earth why my father’s dug in his heels. Never before this has he blathered on, hell-bent upon useless stalling!’
Khadrien heatedly opened his mouth, cut off by Siantra, who argued, ‘Esfand, your foreboding matters! Yes, I’m sure, since you’ve chosen to speak. What changed?’
The High Earl’s son shuddered, arms clasped to his ribs. Desolate over the thrash of the falls, he admitted, ‘The prince glanced upwards in my latest vision. His eyes focused, directly. He saw me! Somehow he sensed my awareness, I swear! The contact felt downright uncanny.’
The inflection of horror sobered Khadrien finally, as Esfand’s hoarse recount continued. ‘His Grace seemed lost. No, confused. As if in his heart, he believed himself wholly alone, trapped in dread of both past and future. A man might have that look if he had endured a whole lifetime, cast adrift with no knowledge of family. This morning when I awoke, I just knew! We can’t wait. Someone must shoulder the miserable odds and go after him.’
Siantra paled with dismay.
‘You think your inexperience will prevail? Esfand! That’s crazy as leaping head first off a cliff!’
But this time, Khadrien’s flighty impulse interpreted his cousin’s crest-fallen hurt, first. ‘Not you, alone, friend. If you try this yourself, we’ll be there to back you.’
Siantra gasped, horrified. ‘Are you both suicidal? Lord Cosach was right. Any clan presence sent abroad in Tysan will draw True Sect diviners like flies. More, a move in defiance of the chieftains’ council is no childish adventure. If not outright treason, you toy with a choice more than likely to get yourselves killed!’
‘We have to go! Us,’ Khadrien insisted. He planted himself, squelching with one ankle drenched, and confronted Siantra with the feckless humour stripped from him.
Which forced the reluctant acknowledgment: he shared the matrilineal legacy of s’Valerient, one generation removed.
‘Oh?’ Siantra folded her arms. ‘If this bent of madness is rooted in Sight, then show me something more than a hunch. Explain how you plan to blind talent diviners, not to mention deflect the Senior seeresses engaged by the Koriathain.’
‘We don’t have to,’ Khadrien admitted, his manic features no longer animated by impish laughter. His wild mood banished, he confessed the unthinkable. ‘I had this prompt to break into the hidden armoury.’ Burned scarlet again, mulishly determined before the appalled stares of his companions, he shrugged off the criminal feat. ‘At the time, I believed we’d be pulling a prank—’
‘What?’ Siantra’s shock overran his speech, roughshod. ‘You dishonoured your father’s life pledge as a caper?’
Khadrien bridled. ‘I had no idea the affray would turn serious! Trust me, the move just might save our lives—’
‘You’ve dared to steal the black sword, Alithiel?’ Esfand pealed, unaware he had struck the bass tone of authority his father used to curb the fractious war band. ‘Cousin! Don’t try the rash claim, that the family heritage brought you to this insanity.’
‘No.’ Impulsive, but never dishonest, Khadrien came clean. ‘But I woke in the night gripped by the most horrible precognition. I knew we’d be leaving the settlement. Now. We won’t be going back. I’ve already cached the provisions we’ll need, and the weapons to hunt on the trail, though this morning, I didn’t know why.’
The breeze through the branches suddenly chilled, with spring’s song in the brook a lost memory. Iced drifts and stripped trees appeared stark under the failing light. The bite of evening’s frost braced the air, each drawn breath cruel as a knife in the lungs at the prospect of night, without fire.
Nailed by his best friends’ stunned incredulity, Khadrien lifted his chin. ‘Why else did you think I staked my forebears’ knife to bait my young brother to cover my absence? Esfand, trust me, under seal of Dharkaron’s Black Vengeance! Your vision was real. By fate, it’s my duty to back you. We have to rely on ourselves, or Prince Arithon may die in the breach. What else do we have for right guidance if we don’t heed the prompt of our ancestry? Please bear the black sword in your liege’s behalf. If you don’t, I believe that the last of Rathain’s clan honour will become forfeit.’
‘For the true cause of a prince’s survival, the great blade is bound to awaken,’ Siantra allowed with shaken reluctance.
‘I love a good scrape, sometimes to my folly,’ Khadrien agonized in appeal. ‘But on matters that threaten the roots of our heritage, we cannot stay safe and live up to the names of our forefathers.’
While Siantra weighed over the desperate measures behind Khadrien’s shaky defense, a glance at the iron behind Esfand’s frown ripped down her cobweb rebuttal. His uncanny dreams had convinced him already. No coward, the caithdein’s heir designate: he would act before the council’s delay abandoned their crown prince to jeopardy.
With little more than the clothes on their backs, two boys sealed their choice to leave the free wilds in Halwythwood. Ill-equipped for the lethal dangers, they faced a perilous journey of six hundred leagues into strange and unfriendly territory if they sought to brave the True Sect’s guarded turf within Tysan.
Siantra swallowed, much more than afraid. Between Esfand and Khadrien, she was the cool head that restrained them to natural balance. If she stayed behind, their brash effort very well might become doomed to fail.
The tears welled, too fast. Siantra s’Idir dashed the moisture away. Her trembling uncertainty hidden, and her sweet alto voice drawn to steel, she engaged her cunning to help map the steps to cross the scouts’ lines, undetected. None of them dared to take leave of their families. They would be stopped if anyone in the settlement caught wind of their intent. The prospect was frightening, that every covert skill they possessed would come to be bitterly tested. Overfaced against the unknown, cast as pawns before powers beyond imagining, they hung their young lives upon legend and hope: that the Paravian star spells laid into the sword of Rathain’s ancient high kings held the potency to disrupt hostile scrying and defy the might of Arithon’s fatal enemies.
Long after sunset, the Halwythwood clan council’s dead-locked debate over the fate of their stranded crown prince suffered an untoward interruption. Under the blaze of the wall sconces, close air soaked into fever-pitch tension almost sparked bloodshed when the infraction involving two boys and a dagger was presented before High Earl Cosach.
The knife in question rested on the board trestle, a stag-handled heirloom laid down in agitation by Khadrien’s grandmother. The pert woman looked as quaintly hard-used, red-cheeked, and cocky as a spring robin in a traditional hide skirt with split panels. Her spare manner garnered widespread respect, and her lively, dark eyes, missed very little.
Yet she was not smiling when she snapped her closed fist to her heart in formal salute.
‘Speak!’ Cosach cracked, sharpened gruff since the wrangle deferred his evening meal.
The old woman never flinched from his temper, despite her unpleasant news. ‘I’m here to report one of my own, who failed to come home after sundown. Sadly, a point of clan honour’s been breached.’
Cosach raised bristled eyebrows. ‘That’s a grave offence. Which lad? Do you carry proof?’
Lips pursed, the old woman inclined her white head towards the blade on display. ‘Khadrien left that dagger in the hands of my youngest grandson to seal a promise not to speak out. Here is evidence enough, since bequest of this knife is bound to our family name. Had the lad not been bent upon untoward mischief, he would never have gone without such a gift sheathed against need at his belt.’
Cosach stood. Broad-shouldered, severe, his clan braid draped down his taut back, he addressed the scout on guard at the hall door. ‘Find the captain in charge of the watch. Ask if anyone else has gone missing.’
While talk broke out, and a clan elder’s irritable inquiry demanded why the misdeeds of children should disrupt more important affairs, another arrival in female dress slipped into the lodge and braved the clamour to address her husband.
Cosach confronted his wife, wrapped in a robe of white ermine and pinched to a pallor that stopped his heart. Hit gut deep by a qualm worse than any endured amid an armed charge at the battle-front, he said, ‘Jalienne? Esfand hasn’t come in.’
‘No.’ Up to the board trestle, her pregnant step firm, his lady came on unswerving. Her anguished eyes searched his rough-cut features. ‘Our whelp’s gone with Khadrien. Did you ever doubt?’ A harried glance sidewards acknowledged the anxious brown eyes of Laithen s’Idir. ‘Siantra, too, near as we can gather. No one in the settlement has seen the three of them since early afternoon.’
Laithen said nothing, but shuttered her eyes with her tapered fingers. Known to be whipcord tough, she quailed under a distress that shattered her famous composure.
‘You expected this!’ an elder from Fallowmere accused in aghast discovery. ‘Or something like it?’
‘There is more, High Earl Cosach,’ the granddame snapped, grim. ‘The black sword is gone. Alithiel’s been taken from the hidden armoury.’
&nbs
p; Cosach heard, stone-faced. His shout of quittance disbanded the rest of the council from session. ‘Debate here is finished!’
Against the torrent of explosive surprise, suddenly deaf to all urgency, he abandoned the chieftain’s place at the central board and swept his distraught wife into his arms. She buried her grief into his warm shoulder. He held her, his cheek pressed against her fair hair, breathing in the evergreen-scented warmth of her. While the uproar around them mounted towards frenzy, he lifted one arm and drew the slight form of Laithen s’Idir inside the comfort of his massive embrace.
‘They are away,’ Cosach murmured to both mother and wife. ‘At long last, and in time. Ath bless their young strength. I may die with regret. But let us be grateful, together. We were never forced at need to lay this dread duty upon them.’
‘You knew?’ screeched the granddame, obstinately planted outside of the parents’ closed circle.
Cosach lifted his head, his iron beard bristled over his clamped jaw, and his surly glance gone defensive. For a terrible moment unable to speak, he nodded, then managed, ‘Not everything. The prophecy given said three would go. But we weren’t sure who.’ Now the moment had come, wrung deathly white, Cosach realized he must nerve himself to confide in his flustered council.
A push at his arm, and Laithen ducked free. ‘I’ll tell them,’ she offered. ‘Let me do this in your stead.’ Dauntless before Khadrien’s outraged grandmother, she addressed the gathering at large, ‘Ath wept! By now a deaf post should have guessed an unnatural delay was afoot. No one’s seen such a display of arse-sitting obstinacy for as long as Cosach’s served as Teir’s’Valerient. Always before, we’ve been forced to knock down his bullheaded plunge to take impetuous action.’