TWOLAS - 08 - Stormed Fortress

  'I will ask, as a liegeman,' Sidir appealed. 'Leave this place in our company, Jeynsa. Set your sovereign prince free. Duke Bransian's people are fit to handle the fate they have flaunted before Lysaer's war host.'

  Jeynsa lifted her chin. 'I don't promise false hope to the mothers I've seen. Or desert my Named word. I would die by the sword, in this room, before I allow you to force these folks' deaths on my conscience.'

  'My weapons lie in the hands of the duke,' Sidir declared in strait scorn. 'Nor would your feal escort strike an under-age child in the back! You insult us, as a galling snip of a girl. The adult would step in with bare hands and disarm you. Bend you over a knee, for the strapping your bluster deserves!'

  Jeynsa pulled a riled breath. 'Just you try -' she began.

  Sidir overrode her. 'Act your age! I wouldn't soil my hands, or my Name! In this, I am not Feithan's ally!'

  That icy wording slapped Jeynsa white. She was shivering, though protocol spared her: as the welcomed guest of Duke Bransian s'Brydion, nobody present could touch her. 'I will not release Arithon,' she announced, sounding plaintive, though her manner gave not an inch. Afraid she might be, wrung to sweating disgrace, still, no doubt assailed her fixed purpose.

  Sidir bent his head, his sudden tears masked as he ceded his lead to Elaira.

  Who still did not move: Koriani, and dangerous, her cold regard held the surgical edge of her training. At a word, she could lay open a soul to the bone or drive a wrought spell for the viscera. Had that been her way, the girl would be dead, before Talvish's reflex could unsheathe his steel.

  'You will not bear the cost' warned Elaira, point-blank. 'His Grace will, to the agonized depths of a spirit not made to divide you from your poisoned claim to integrity. This is no longer grief, but a back-stab done only for pain, and self-punishing, vicious contention. The exchange, if you stay, will not be one-sided. You will lose your light heart. I would suggest, Jeynsa, that if you fail to listen, you will hurt Arithon. Wound him this way, and you could destroy the last shred of your true peace of mind in this life'

  Jeynsa glared, fighting tears. 'Will the children who die care a jot for my pride?'

  'Arithon does!' Elaira attacked. 'Not even a blood-binding can halter his being! His Grace can break his pledged oath through bare will! You left that knot incomplete and unreciprocal. The option's still open. Your crown prince may well choose the personal penalty, before being drawn to self-sacrifice.'

  'He will not' stated Jeynsa. 'For Jieret, he won't.'

  The truth rang incontrovertible. After all, the young upstart had taken her crown prince's measure in Halwythwood. The gift of his presence, bestowed without strings, had exposed his core self beyond salvage. The girl knew her quarry. Birth talent had driven her insight too far and too desperately deep.

  'Then woe betide you, we are done.' Dakar heaved himself upright. "This has all gone wrong. Far more than this citadel is going to burn, if the Master of Shadow takes up your brash challenge.'

  'He already has. He is here' Jeynsa stated, made wild by salacious relish. 'You don't see? Elaira has brought his Grace's awareness. Arithon doesn't intend to back down. Or his woman would have withdrawn from this room and abandoned my case without pleading.'

  Sidir lifted his head. Helpless, beyond weeping, his features were haggard. Beside him, Dakar recoiled in disgust from the girl's overblown histrionics. 'Ath's mercy, your crown prince was made party to this?'

  When Elaira returned no word of denial, Talvish stirred fast and moved in.

  'I'll take her!' he cracked, to spare Sidir's stunned grief. His mailed grasp caught Jeynsa's wrist from behind, spun her headlong toward the doorway. 'We're off to your room! Believe this, girl. If you spurn Bransian's guest oath and fight, I'll break your damned neck, and crow to Dharkaron Avenger for seizing the privilege.'

  The instant the door slammed, Dakar found his wits and rousted Sidir with hard urgency, 'Out. Let the enchantress have her time, alone. This has been a raw set-back. If Elaira's still in rapport with your prince, they should be left in communion.'

  Sidir rallied his poise. But before he took Dakar's advice and stepped out, he went down on his knee. His considered clasp gathered the lady's chilled hands and lent her the solace of his warm fingers.

  'Mi a'daelient,' he murmured in cadenced Paravian. Before he arose, he touched Elaira's palms to his bent forehead in the formal salute only given to the realm's queen ...

  * * *

  In the foil-and-felt tableau of moonlight and shade, Arithon held to the peace of the greenwood. The strength of his calm met the brute storm of heart-ache, and clung to grim balance, unflinching. Through the tearing interval, as Elaira wept, nothing moved through his linking presence beyond the cosseting flow of affection.

  Her sore disappointment could not be assuaged. 'I've failed you,' she sent. 'Feithan, as well, and not least, Sidir. You know what he suffered to come here.'

  Whip scars and shackles, and the ignominy of a branding that would gall him, lifelong; Arithon was experienced enough not to bury the black rage under platitudes. Since he had no avenue to console Sidir, he tempered his touch, for Elaira. He let the held cup of her being fill all that he owned in the world.

  'I know Jeynsa,' he stated aloud, that the site he had chosen to greet the full moon could transmute his burden to sorrow. 'She is Jieret's daughter, with her mother's more-quiet resiliency latent. I think that her father foresaw her rebellion when he asked for my vow, by the Aiyenne. Don't ache for the spirit that girl can't deny. I don't need to come north to protect her.'

  That he would leave his warded haven in Alland was never in doubt. Embraced by his care, Elaira was given the question that stabbed like cut glass.

  'Why should I rise to a stroke of foul play?' Arithon grounded his naked feet into the stream bottom. While the water purled over mossy rock, and the breeze riffled the surrounding evergreens, he leaned upon calm, soothed down Elaira's rife hurt and from somewhere bought courage to answer. 'I will come because Jeynsa will not be left to her scars. She shall have one more chance. This much, I can grant her. To take charge and learn that pain and loss are not life. That her will is no weapon, to forge betrayed love into a shackle of tyranny' He added, still settled, 'I promised Earl Jieret not to abandon her.'

  At which point, Elaira's linked sensing could snatch the silk from the dross: see just how much of his poised equilibrium had been borrowed at need from the forest.

  Arithon changed the subject. 'I've a sovereign charge to lay on Sidir, though Ath knows, he doesn't deserve the rough burden after tonight.'

  'Fionn Areth?' sent Elaira, acquiescence not fooled. At one with his thought, she knew not to ruffle the vessel that rode such stilled waters.

  Rueful equilibrium met her, gratefully warmed by her tactful understanding. 'I gave my word, once. The grass-lander was to have an eye-witness to sort out the criminal evidence listed against me. Please ask Sidir to stand as my spokesman. Let him deliver his honest testament, even to the most damaging questions. This is no time to shelter my dignity. I want that young herdsman kept safe. Or he will be destroyed, run under by Desh-thiere's machinations and the strife between me and my half-brother. Expose me, and Lysaer, for what we are, when the curse drives us outside all mercy'

  'Burn away the false dross of idealism?' Elaira's wry amusement uplifted him. "That's a signal task, while mewed up with s'Brydion, who live by the skin that hangs their brass bollocks, and breathe on the passion of brimstone heroics!'

  Arithon laughed. 'They thrive in a fight. Even my brother's mad pack of fanatics are going to be vexed by the reckoning. Your stirred nest of hornets will not crumple without sting! I am not worried, yet.' The assessment was sincere: he owned the rogue gifts of the s'Ahelas blood-line, once crossed with the seers of s'Dieneval. Yet the shadowy offshoots of probable futures posed an abyss he was forced to skim lightly. 'Bereaved mothers and widows won't embellish the Alliance's grand cause. And Duke Bransian's wicked bent for dark strategy sh
ould secure the gates until the hour I can rejoin you.'

  'I'd hoped to be left to my own devices,' Elaira said, tart. As the warmth of his smile dissolved, she thrust again, in stripped wording: 'not least for the sake of the script that drives my Prime Matriarch's grasping agenda.'

  'At her own peril!' Arithon snapped, not offended. No brazen threat from the order could move him. 'I'll come in my own time,' said the Teir's'Ffalenn, 'and by my own terms, which won't be entirely for the sake of my binding oath to Earl Jieret.'

  'It's Feithan's debt on you,' Elaira accused, also aware that her phrasing encompassed all of Sidir's future happiness.

  'Some gifts of friendship cannot be earned, no matter how hard we try to live up to them.' Recognition leaked through, of the grief lately cleansed by the cautery of remorse. 'Rathain's clan families have suffered too much. All I have, I would give for s'Valerient.'

  There was more - too much more, walled behind that stripped statement. Yet Elaira chose not to encroach. However the Prince of Rathain met his debts, the man who was Masterbard needed to lay his own course through the obstacles at the s'Brydion citadel. When Arithon plunged into the hotbed of jeopardy to confront Jieret's wayward daughter, he would act by a strategy to shatter all precedents.

  'Beloved, don't weep.' The flood of aimed strength that came through in parting, this time was not taken from Selkwood. Arithon's surety was as honed steel, forged by a conviction in the fullest command of all his protective male instincts . . .

  * * *

  Elaira shivered, chilled and apprehensive as the contact came to an end. Even she dared not try to fathom how Arithon might reclaim the slipped reins of his fate. Cold, though she sweated within a closed chamber inside of a threatened citadel, she dried her last tears with the back of her wrist.

  'Merciful grace, Jeynsa!' she swore at due length, when composure returned and sparked anger.

  The girl was a fool - no, all the worse - a naive, callow spirit, to believe she could confound Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn or tie up a man with initiate stature in the strings of a sworn obligation.

  * * *

  While the Alliance war host surrounded the s'Brydion citadel and dug in for an entrenched siege, the full moon waned and the forest of Selkwood tossed under a whipping cold rain. The soaked canvas of the caithdein's lodge billowed, punched by buffeting gusts, until Lord Erlien called for torches to relieve the gloom behind the laced door flap. The sumptuous, dyed carpets had been rolled aside, with a mat of pine-needles laid down to blanket the sodden ground. The scouts came in drenched to make their reports, while the fire pit fluttered and smoked, and delivered no warmth to offset their damp misery.

  The afternoon brought Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn, politely requesting an audience.

  The scouts caught lounging off duty ceased their horse-play. They retrieved their oiled cloaks and filed outside without grumbling. The bard who had wakened the old centaur wardings had earned their uneasy respect. Only Kyrialt walked without nerves in his presence. If this prince preferred to evade crown formalities, his liegeman would not let his entrance pass unremarked.

  Given privacy, Arithon came forward, skin wet. He offered due courtesy to the reigning high earl with no trace of needling irony.

  Lord Erlien did not rise. He laid down the strips of oiled leather in his hand and raked his diminutive royal guest over with his usual aggressive inspection. 'My sentries are all dripping like drowned foxes, too. Why aren't you singing for one of my women, being plied with mulled wine in comfort?'

  Arithon flipped back his streaming black hair and showed his teeth in delighted affront. 'Because wet fingernails tear, on a lyranthe's wound string. And because your huntress in residence likes to use darts before words to nail down my wool-gathering attention.' He added, across the pervasive ambience of goose grease and freshly honed weapons, 'I've brought a wine-skin. The vintage is an exquisite year, from the vineyards of West Halla.'

  'The prize you won over a contest with bows? I heard about that. My scouts don't, as a rule, lose their bouts to outsiders. They're never going to settle your triumph without demanding a rematch.' Lord Erlien leaned forward, his folded arms braced on the boards, where he had been wrapping new grips on his knives. 'What's my woman guessed that you haven't told us, your Grace?'

  'Am telling you.' Arithon uncorked the shoulder-slung flask, pulled a neat swallow, and passed the choice red across the razor array of bared steel on the trestle. 'I need to ask a boon of the land's steward.' He did not take a seat on the vacated bench, plain enough indication that his request would be other than commonplace.

  Erlien belted back a stiff slug, though the fine wine deserved a more-delicate appreciation. 'You drink like a milk-nosed virgin,' he accused, his frosty eyes kindled to warning. 'Did you come bearing sops as bribe to appease me? Or did you think to bolster your courage before asking for something unreasonable?'

  'Merely unreasonable? Why not outrageous?' Arithon accepted the gurgling skin. He sipped without hurry, and smiled with a candour that would have pitched Dakar to jangling anxiety. 'After all, I bear the lineage of Shand's ancient kings, along with the mettlesome brew sprung from Dari s'Ahelas's rogue talent.' Before the realm's caithdein could bridle, Rathain's prince attacked without blinking. 'I want no authority, but only permission to visit the King's Glade in Selkwood.'

  Steel rattled, as Erlien slammed to his feet. 'Dharkaron Avenge! Your gall has no limits! You may have blood heritage, but no rightful claim! Don't cite me Rathain! Your legitimate inheritance remains incomplete. As an affirmed prince, you have yet to receive the attunements that finish a royal coronation.' To the son, whose steadfast bulk guarded the shut door flap, Erlien snapped, 'Kyrialt! Did you know his Grace meant to ask this?'

  'I didn't consult,' Arithon broke in, tart. He recorked the flask, tossed the last of its exquisite joy to his liegeman. Throughout, he regarded his outraged antagonist with maddening, unruffled sobriety. 'Do I have your blessing? Or will I have to play games and win my way past the ornery knives of your war-captain?'

  'We should stand aside while you take such a risk? Ath's blinding glory! You could shred your mind! Lose yourself, until you forget every tie that preserves your earthly identity.' Erlien peeled off his fringed jacket and paced. 'Sky above, prince! What wretched point are you trying to prove? Selkwood lies under sufficient protection to weather this rising of town-based fanatics.'

  "This is not about adding to Alland's defences.' No longer reticent, Arithon stepped into the light. Haunted tension sharpened his face. Even within the wood's guarded preserve, his aroused gift of far-sight entrained disturbed dreams: the overlaid patterns of violence spun off by the s'Ilessid assault on Alestron that would come to abrade his held mastery of Desh-thiere's curse. 'If I'm to surmount what awaits in the north, I'll need more than commitment and courage. Bound by oath alone, I can't stand off disaster. Dangerous measures are called for, I think! I would go to the King's Grove to invoke higher wisdom. Beg for the strength to lay claim to this task with more than my own human grace. There are risks,' he agreed. 'But where's the alternative? Who am I, to shoulder the perils of a geas-cursed war on the faults of my blind limitations?'

  Chill truth gripped the stillness. Even Lord Erlien's contentious nature could not deny this appeal had true cause. The depths of those green eyes upon him retained the unquiet imprint of nightmare. When Arithon chose to expose his defences, the ugly reminder shocked thought: that little more than three fortnights ago, his horrific travail with the Kralovir's witcheries had all but torn the spirit out of his breathing flesh.

  Arithon pitched his case now, unswerving. 'No man might ask this permission of you. But I am a high kingship's sanctioned heir, and also a titled masterbard. Even without the fulfilled powers of Rathain, a liaison with the force that quickens the groves is a claimed part of initiate heritage.'

  Erlien dared not reject this request. Yet neither could the titled ruler of Shand turn a blind eye to such scalding presumption. He had been asked
to bless an unguided encounter with the perils that guarded the sacrosanct mysteries. No light matter, to be dismissed without fear. 'If you do this, your Grace, you will take my son Kyrialt with you. He will watch your back at every step.'

  Arithon knelt. 'My lord, no. I implore you. Allow me to court this particular danger in solitude.'

  But under his ironclad oath as caithdein, the High Earl of Alland planted his feet. 'Set-backs are life, and my heir is the realm's pledge. He will be there to safeguard your welfare for as long as his strength can give service. You have earned that regard from my people, your Grace. If Kyrialt comes to harm as your man, another of my lineage will supplant him. We are the ones transient. Shand's legacy will survive all of us.'

  'Kyrialt,' said Arithon, still on bent knee amid the soaked scatter of pine-needles, 'I would reject the choice that demands your feal company.'

  'Never.' Kyrialt strode forward, caught his liege by the elbow, and raised him. 'You would go in the morning? Then I will be ready.' At the slight shudder of recoil, he added, 'Say nothing! Abide. Selkwood's seeress has already joined my fate to yours. Nothing you try will gainsay this. Beyond argument, you can't deny that you'll need a s'Taleyn to show you the hidden way.'

  Naught could be done. No protest might sunder the bond with the self-contained swordsman who braced him. Arithon tried anyway. The taut moment hung, while he sorted the tissue of prismatic far-sight that razed him through like a fire-storm. Some lines converged with too cruel a clarity. Arithon was forced to acknowledge the shimmering knot that twisted the threads of paired destiny. Regret remained: that Lady Glendien had once entrained a bold bid to turn her husband away from a loyalty that might rob the fruits of her marriage bed. Her brazen tactics had failed, the opportune victory ceded in spring when her stubborn courage had faltered. Now, while a rampaging autumnal storm battered the peace of the lodge tent, the double-edged gift of joined fellowship with s'Taleyn could never again be dismissed.