The Wars of Light and Shadow (9) - INITIATE'S TRIAL

  To the scout, who still stared, the chief surgeon suggested, ‘For the sake of your health, watch your step, not that horse, while you’re out on patrol.’

  The wisecrack dismissal of that sound advice was cut short by a grizzled veteran. ‘Haven’t yet seen a spring trap rip up a man’s guts? Then don’t slang the blighter stuck with the needle, stitching you up as a casualty.’

  The chaffed scout retorted. Through jocular noise and the screen of blown smoke, the evasive eye-witness slipped from the cook tent.

  Grown accustomed to the solitary rambles that replenished the healer’s herb stores, the camp sentries passed Arithon through their lines without question. Cued by his shoulder-slung satchel and the spiked mattock for harvesting plant stock, they waved him on his way without care that he wore no Sunwheel insignia. His issue scarlet cloak stayed behind, too likely to fray on the briar.

  The drab leathers and dun wool jacket he favored blended into the scrub. Arithon required no furtive play of Shadow to vanish from casual sight. Scarpdale’s gravel soil resisted tracks, except in the gullies, bogged with black mud, where the game trails ran tangled through thickets of thorn and dense, greening willows mottled in sunlight.

  The other hoofed fugitive lurked in the same cover, too sly to be overtaken. But the plight of the errant black horse could be read from the prints left pocked in the puddles. Arithon encountered the ripped shoots of grass uprooted by voracious grazing. The filched caches of oats he sometimes laid out for the animal were always accepted.

  He carried no such token kindness today, having drawn unwelcome eyes and a tracker’s meddlesome interest.

  Nor did this secluded gulch shelter the elusive runaway. No flicker of night black hide drank the sun: only the flit of small birds and two crows, raucously vexed by a ruffled hawk, perched a stone’s throw from their nest site. Arithon stripped off his boots, hung the slip-knotted laces over his neck, and wended his way through the marshy pools. He parted the streamered fronds, newly stitched with their delicate peridot leaves. The sapling trunks yielded medicinal bark valued for drawing down fever. If the routine patrol detected his activity inbound from their sweep, any veteran dedicate knew at first hand: sound leather would crack, soaked too often.

  Though in fact, Arithon walked barefoot to open his subtle faculties and sound the flux tides to the extent of his sensitivity.

  Vivid, immediate, the robust activity closest at hand surged through his awareness. The chaotic, shuddering pound of iron hooves gouging turf told where the lancers charged at straw targets. A shrill, ringing overtone spoke of red-heated steel being shaped by the armourer’s mallets. Arithon knew the flamed lust in the tents of the harlots and the brittle rage of rambunctious men kept leashed under martial discipline. Deeper, he picked up the dissonance fused by violent death in the metal of multiple blooded weapons. His stripped nerves twinged in revolt as clear-sighted talent shrank from that remnant horror.

  Shocked dizzy, Arithon flattened taut hands against a gnarled tree trunk. The exuberant flow of quickened sap soothed and grounded his jangled balance. A deep breath and a poised moment let him resettle his tuned senses. Again, he extended his initiate awareness. Past the brute roil of the Sunwheel encampment, the flux currents rippled outward across the sere brush, which thinned eastward into the glass-chime harmonics of mineral across the lava stacks that rimmed Scarpdale. Westward, the signature energy bloomed to the rich, fecund chord of the free-wilds heath.

  There, the melodic symphony of renewal unreeled like painted silk before heightened awareness: the land’s teem of divergent life showered through him, preternatural details gilded in splendour. From the explosive burst of seeds out of dormancy, to the musical swell of the melt streams and the purposeful doings of insects, the majestic tapestry’s intricacy outmatched the fullest reach of his stretched senses.

  Arithon drank in the mystical symphony, thrilled to ecstatic enchantment.

  When had his bereft spirit revelled in this wonder, before? Blocked recall stirred up an echo of the exquisite epiphany. Once another initiate mage had lent greater wisdom to show him the way. Almost, that dimensional encounter resurfaced: an expert touch of such immense scope, the charged moment of guidance had gentled the shock of a thunder-clap down to a whisper. Solid, the presence that had shielded his raw inexperience: tender enough to wring him to tears, the hand of the master whose care had protected him from destructive beguilement. A man might go mad, caught staring into the unbridled expanse of the infinite.

  Arithon threw off his bitter grief for the knowledge his flawed mind denied him. Caution demanded tight focus to cross-check his surrounds for hostile pursuit.

  Hoof-beats splashed through the back-drop swell of motion. This time no feral stallion’s frisky display but a group in formation, ridden inbound at a workmanlike trot. Steered without haste, their rhythm matched that of the daily patrol under orders to sweep for enemy clansmen. Yet none moved abroad. Days since, the last war bands had withdrawn to the south, their efforts regrouped to defend the crown’s lines and the sacrosanct borders of Elkforest.

  But today, the flux currents transmitted the pattern of a second band of armed horsemen. Another party approached from the west, the drummed pace of their mounts spurred to urgency. Arithon froze, pricked to warning unease. The nuanced impression disclosed a company pushed at speed in full armour, collectively stamped by the pride of a mission entrusted to the elite. And yet, by strict count, two of the saddled mounts carried intangible riders.

  Amid the volatile surge of the flux, even a corpse wore an imprint. Yet the animal sense of weight slung in one set of stirrups stayed blank. Patience tagged the halo of a temple talisman, wrought to shield a questing diviner.

  Reflexively, Arithon softened his step. He doused his feet into the chilly freshet that snaked through the covert that sheltered him. Running water dispersed the star-burst of emotion shocked from his rattled nerves. A diviner in camp posed a dangerous set-back, perhaps even suggested a Sunwheel talent could have come actively seeking him. Worked song or cast Shadow wrought to hide him now would only confirm his exposure. Until he saw proof, he must stay as he seemed: a healer abroad in rough country to restock the camp’s store of remedies. Pressed to cautious stealth, Arithon extended his senses again to explore the other, evasive void: one that demarked the being astride the horse at the head of the column.

  Darkness met him, impenetrable. Nothing leaked through the flux from that source, not a quiver of emanation. Warded, a person might be cloaked that way. But such a dense shielding demanded adept mastery and more than exceptional skill. Flashback fear raised the spectre of the seamless walls once woven to seal his imprisonment. Arithon recoiled, his visceral shudder barely dispelled by the rush of the streamlet.

  The mere prospect of meddling by the Koriathain kicked every gut instinct within him to screaming.

  Traumatized, Arithon leaned into a tree, bowed head cradled against his forearm. Though he shivered with chills that chattered his teeth, he dared not forsake the water’s protection. His straits must be endured. At least until the reception that greeted the irregular cavalcade disclosed the business that brought them.

  Bright-edged, the electrical shift swept the flux web once the sentries sighted the riders. Arithon required no second glance to know when the mounted arrivals reined in. The initial crackle of consternation swelled to a galvanic burst of alarm: the same heightened nerves had rattled the underlings caught in the breach when his ruse with the chariot impersonated The Hatchet.

  Only one reason could draw the Light’s Supreme Commander of Armies backed in force by a talent diviner. Somehow, somewhere, a busy informant had unmasked Arithon’s presence. That fast, the stir of excitement swirled towards the wicker kennels. Dedicates ran to roust up their dogs and trackers in pursuit of the Master of Shadow.

  Caught too close to run, cornered without supplies and dressed in unsuitable clothing, their tagged quarry had little recourse. Only dim hope, that the thorny th
icket that sheltered him might discourage the first wave of searchers.

  Against the diviner’s alert sensitivity, initiate knowledge could bleed the spark of his live signature into his natural surrounds. Not as the gifted clan hunters would bend the flux lines into blanketing mimicry: that working at close range risked flagging the temple’s fanatic. Arithon chose the more difficult feat. Skills honed through the desperate handling of free wraiths and lately refined under need to save Tarens let him slacken every barrier he possessed. He sank into blank stillness. Rinsed of identity, he let his auric field subside into transparency, then resonate to the background surge of the flux.

  The tactic seemed sound enough under principle. As midday sun dried the ground, the scent thinned, which hampered the coursing hounds. Deep shade obscured the muddy prints on his back trail, with all trace of his recent presence erased by running water. Unless diligent squads of beaters on foot quartered every last covert, he should stay overlooked; if not, the clamour induced in the flux would forewarn him of an encroachment.

  Chill became his first adversary, and erosive anxiety, that challenged resolve with impatience. Arithon steeled himself to hold out, even as his drastic state of inertia unbearably fueled his subtle senses. That drawback also expanded his range, until the seethe of the disrupted encampment scalded across his naked nerves. The intimate dread of scared men, and the whiplash scourge of humiliation as The Hatchet grilled his flustered officers spiked crackling ripples of livid frustration. Pinned down, and defensively passive to thwart the diviner’s keen Sight, Arithon dared not raise the resistance of sensible boundaries. Too fast, beyond his rushed wits to stem, the barrage of unfiltered sensation hurled him into the throes of rogue far-sight. His balanced awareness tumbled and fell, haplessly pulled as a magnet to iron into the scene at the east-flank command tent . . .

  The Hatchet’s stumpy legs propelled him up to the trestle top hastily draped with an unreeled map. His frenetic gait was more choppy than usual, crimped by the nuisance of a dwarfish frame, bounced astride since the uncouth terrain forestalled the use of his chariot. The sting to his saddle-sore flesh chafed his pride, already raw from his foe’s wily cleverness and now galled the worse by the stammered excuses just thrown into his teeth by the east flank’s captain.

  Savage, he vented, ‘You’ve lost him! By the Light, we’re too late. The slick bastard’s flown this miserable coop and bolted flat out for the mountains.’

  ‘Surely not!’ Summoned from drill in his mud-spattered armour, the remiss officer protested, ‘You’ve heard the reports from my sentries.’

  The Hatchet kicked a straw hassock aside. ‘That an innocent herbalist left, whistling, to gather wild posies, lightly dressed and without packed provisions?’ He stopped his juggernaut tirade and spat into the brazier. Through the sizzle as the cherry coals wisped up steam, he snarled, ‘We are chasing a lethal master at subterfuge!’

  ‘My Lord, beyond question.’ But the hasty agreement sounded unconvinced. Even the rank-and-file men in the camp smirked in complacent amusement. Few believed that a black-haired runt who dressed pustules and dispensed oil of camphor for lice could be the dread Master of Shadow.

  Only the mousy temple diviner viewed the threat of the living Dark seriously. Sweating and pinched to a miserable headache from the arduous use of his talent, he pledged to redeem his late failure. ‘I will seek the fell creature again after sunset. If he doesn’t walk back into camp unsuspecting, he’ll be cold, weak from hunger, and tired. My search will find him. Amid the night’s quiet, I assure you, he cannot evade me.’

  The Hatchet’s expression twitched into a sneer. ‘I should stall for your puling, ninny’s excuses? Suck milk!’ He stopped short and yanked off his lathered cloak. The ping! as a dislodged gold button bounced off the map stand punctuated his staccato bark. ‘Get me a task squad. Veteran lancers, fully equipped! I’ll have this rat flushed in an hour!’

  ‘Your Lordship! The men will assemble, directly.’ The east flank’s captain snapped off a crisp bow. The breeze from his brisk exit fanned the sprawled charts and disgruntled the upstaged diviner.

  ‘My great lord,’ the temple’s sent talent began.

  ‘Get out!’ cracked The Hatchet. ‘Take your prayers and sealed sanctions! So far as I’ve seen, your thrice-hallowed canon would make a more useful napkin for wiping my arse.’ His glare as stark as the shine on a dagger, he dismissed the priest’s lackey, then expelled the command tent’s cowed pack of servants. The last of them sprinted, sent packing with curses, except for The Hatchet’s fresh-faced equerry.

  ‘Secure my privacy, little man. Then fetch me a filled wash-basin.’

  The jumpy servant untied the tent flap, which unfurled with a slap, leaving darkness. Clumsy with nerves, he bumped past the strewn furniture on course for the resident master’s quarters.

  The Hatchet rooted under his breastplate and gambeson meantime and retrieved a grimy silk bag. He freed the purse draw-string as the terrified boy returned with the porcelain ewer.

  ‘Set that on the trestle. Yes! On top of the map.’ The taciturn flare of temper provoked a slopped spill as the equerry quailed. Excused with a brusque wave, the boy snatched his exit, gone before The Hatchet bared the unwrapped the talisman bestowed by the Koriathain.

  Alone, without witness, he brandished the uncanny object in his gloved hand. The white glint of spellcrafted sigils glanced through the sliver of crystal, energized by the coiled copper wire when he set the cork wafer afloat. Enabled, the construct roiled a disturbance like smoke through the flux. As its charged purpose ignited, it swung like the magnetized point of a compass.

  The Hatchet hissed with satisfaction as the frail marker steadied into alignment. ‘Straight and sweet as the flight of a crow, I have the sly bastard’s location!’

  No warning arose, and no grace lent its targeted victim a second’s delay. The chain of inducted spellcraft unfurled, tailor made for its hapless prey. An eruptive bolt of pure emotion torched the lane flow into conflagration.

  Branded heart and mind by the adamant scald of love’s boundless longing, Arithon reeled. The instant awoke a cherished joy past imagining, then sheared him with loss stark enough to unravel him, life and breath. The impact pitched him onto his knees in the icy streamlet. Wrung to a gasp, he could not grapple the shock of the terrible need that stormed through him. He knew nothing, felt nothing else but the intimate agony, diabolically magnified by tuned crystal, that spoke of a woman bonded to his spirit so deeply, he ached beyond tears for her absence. The scream torn from his throat shredded the stilled air, though his flawed memory held only raw yearning. Arithon did not know the name she had borne, or what cruel stroke of fate had robbed him of her matchless presence.

  Shattered by passion that upended sense, he could do naught else except own the fact that he loved her. The excited flux pulsed to his naked reaction: for her, sweetly nameless, whoever she was, the bale fire flare struck the temple diviner’s poised talent like a weathercock raked by a gale. Arithon’s flimsy cover was stripped. The hunt would be after him, fever-pitch hot, while his wits were unstrung past recovery.

  Shuddering, Arithon shoved to his feet. The ruthlessness of the set barb defied sanity, that Koriathain had rifled the clarified imprint of her private feelings to abet his enemies. That such beauty as this had been twisted as weapon to wreak his destruction tore him to rage beyond measure.

  ‘Beloved!’ The visceral jab of his pain trampled even the reflex of mage-taught restraint. Rock and stone, plant and animal, water and air – all resounded to his torment. Hope did not speak in such tones of despair. He never expected an answer.

  Except that another lone spirit in range was just as bereft as he, aching for the absent call of another cherished companion. The abandoned black stallion flung up its head, nostrils flared and ears pricked for the voice that, long since, should have sent summons.

  Arithon sensed the horse’s stark longing. Empathic sympathy entrained his awareness, and su
rfaced a fragment of memory in recognition: ‘Isfarenn?’

  Not the precise Name, but another that bestirred the ancestral imprint laced into the horse’s live being through the rainbow change of a dragon’s dreamed recall.

  The black stallion answered. Moved by greatness of heart that burned like a torch, the horse gathered powerful hindquarters and galloped, its tangled tail streaming. It hurtled into the gulch, smashed through the dense thickets, and splashed headlong down the streamlet where Arithon huddled.

  He vaulted astride. Without saddle or bridle, bereft of provisions, and shivering in his soaked clothes, he had only his satchel of harvested willow bark, and a forager’s knife and spiked mattock. He spoke a melodic appeal in Paravian. The horse underneath him bolted flat out, barely seconds ahead of the dedicates’ pursuit. A trumpet’s pealed warning flagged his break into the open. Angry, Arithon gritted his teeth. Driven, he did as he must.

  His crackling, hard burst of Shadow clapped down like a pall cut from the dread cloth of oblivion. Inside, kindly darkness cocooned him like nightfall and deadened the pound of the stallion’s hooves. What ringed the periphery was not gentle or safe, a bitter cold not quite fatal at first encounter. Those lancers caught at the forefront cried out, slammed as the arctic vortex struck them with the thunderous blast of a gale wind. The blanketing chill bit their frail, exposed flesh. Dire enough to blight fingers with frost-bite and flash-freeze the spring shoots underfoot to blown glass, the pressed, brittle air scoured feathers of iced condensation on helms and breastplates. Hoar-frost bursts of precipitate snow whipped men back like a madman’s breath in white chiaroscuro. The uncanny phenomenon balked their dogs and their destriers, and unmanned the bravest among them. Blinded, the trackers abandoned the chase. The devout lancers turned tail and ran, convinced more than their lives lay in jeopardy. Doubters mouthed prayers as faith destroyed reason, replaced by Light of the canon. Confirmed by six thousand eyewitness accounts, the Spinner of Darkness had risen.