By the hour Sulfin Evend's force hailed into Adruin, the contrary current hissed to sea in full ebb. Crossing to Kalesh must wait until the slack-water past sundown to avoid being swept offshore. The galley-men refused to make the anchorage temporary, demanding their pay packets for hired transport to East Halla's war straightaway. No passage, they claimed, should have taken so long. Choleric captains were determined to clear the Light's brawling army out of their cabins and off their packed cargo decks.
'Hit port, and the rankers will scarper like mice,' grumped Sulfin Evend's barrel-chested first officer, parked with ill grace at the flagship's stern-rail. The tide surged in black eddies, beneath his bristled stance. 'The troop sergeants are frothing. Makes for a bad mix. Set a sorry impression on Admin's town council, if the rushed landing won't let us keep discipline.' He scarcely dared to belabour the rest: that Avenor's flag galley should demand a mooring. In the lull at slack-water, she should pull into the wharf with dignified ceremonial honours, and not wrestle their arrival by swearing and sweat, while the white rip raced through the estuary.
Dark hair clipped short, his shaven jaw brooding, Sulfin Evend chose not to hear sense.
Whorled chop swirled below, as the breathless rowers strained and backed oars. Under the harried eye of the master, the flagship's mate bellowed, while crewmen, crammed into their white livery at speed, set fenders, and tossed off the docklines.
Sulfin Evend's spiked posture did not relent.
The troop officer knew that vicious quiet too well. His shrug was resigned. 'The town better have enough beer in the taps, and trollops prepared to appease twoscore's worth of ships' rowdy companies.'
'Your problem,' dismissed Sulfin Evend. His whipcord fitness was turned out for parade, the helm he shoved on with curt irritation buffed to a dazzling finish. His mail shirt chinked under a Sunwheel surcoat, agleam with gold thread and dress accoutrements. 'I'll be ashore without any pause for Adruin's foppish amenities.' He snapped to drive off the persistent equerry, who had chased him topside to fuss. 'Damn the forsaken braid on my finery! I'm not dawdling through the welcome reception. Get the boatswain's attention! Tell him to ready his crewmen to run down the gangway at once.'
Wavelets slapped against the hull's planking. Riffling current shuddered the keel as the galley's bulk was warped in and turned to by the muscle of two dozen longshoremen. Sulfin Evend fumed like the hungry, jessed hawk, too long teased by the lure.
Electrified tension also gripped the crew, as fishermen mending their nets at the harbour-side shouted the most recent news: the siege of Alestron had started in earnest. Before the return of the Light's first commander, Keldmar s'Brydion and his field company had been burned alive by Lysaer's retribution. Worse, a determined assault on the wall had ended in chaotic set-back.
'Scorch all to Dharkaron!' Sulfin Evend cursed under his breath.
'Well, you had to expect this!' the troop officer cracked, prodded to slit-eyed frustration. 'All this time, spent dallying through the southern ports, fiddling with lists and dickering with roomsful of pinch-fisted merchants. Why, in the Light's name? While the men ploughed the whores long enough to sow bastards, we could've saved a month's fees for wharfage! What weasel-faced supplier couldn't we have slapped into line with an Alliance writ of requisition?'
'Are we the fools?' Sulfin Evend shot back. 'Or do we scrape, nose to dirt, for a delusional icon who's become a magnet for rabid fanatics? Vainglorious tactics against the s'Brydion will only slaughter my troops like hazed game! Lysaer s'Ilessid won't have my applause. Not for the making of martyrs.'
'Well tread carefully. Lord,' the captain replied, his sunburned brow creased with concern. 'Fifty thousand armed zealots aren't here to make peace. Fly in and accuse their idol of foolishness, the priests might be moved to cry blasphemy.'
'Flip the lot straight to Sithaer! I don't kiss their pink arses. Or bow to their simpering theology!'
A string of flag-signals snapped at the masthead, the request to assemble a courier's horse and swift escort already in motion. Sulfin Evend planned to ride post until the tide changed, then catch a fast boat on the flood. In scorching haste, he could close the last fifty leagues of his journey by sunrise.
'Billet the troops, get them rested and fed,' he belted off in last-minute instruction. While the gold-and-white galley nestled into her berth, and the gangway rumbled into position, he called over his shoulder, 'The men can be marched to Alestron in stages. No need to rush them to the front lines unless I send word they are needed.'
The veteran officer snapped off a salute. Wasted motion, since his senior commander already strode down to the dock. Sultry gold amid the drab press on the wharf, Sulfin Evend shoved shoreward with an urgency fit to clip the god-sent wings of the avatar himself.
Autumn 5671
Stand-off
The afternoon following the ungainly rout at Alestron, the reek of char and corrupted, burned flesh lingered on, laced by the mineral taint of glazed slag and the tang of smelted metal. The pall spread on the sea-breeze, razed off the husks of slagged buildings and the tumble-down walls left by Lysaer's first strike. The poisoned gusts riffled the lists of the bursars, who plied pen and ink upon makeshift trestles to tally the rout's mounting toll of tactical embarrassments. The high temper of after-shock quickly sunk into gloom, then progressed to dour grumbling as reeling captains measured their damages. The loss lists crept upward: a laboured assessment attempted to catalogue which critical short-falls demanded the Light's requisition for resupply at short notice.
Those ranking officers who nursed complaints were granted short shrift by their avatar. Their clamour for an audience chased a moving target, since the Blessed Prince still pursued his unswerving tour of inspection. Lysaer turned a deaf ear on disgruntled petitioners. Done with the strings of burned horses that languished in the care of the grooms on the picket lines, and moving apace towards the camp's outer fringes, he snapped, 'Did you think you would not become tested and tried?'
When no one answered, he spun sharply about; faced down the whiners with scourging amazement. 'Our cause is not changed by a minor defeat! We fight traitors who seek an evasion of reckoning behind walls defended by sorcery. They will be taught otherwise. But not by the weak! Do you mope at my heels like whipped dogs, cowed as the chase draws first blood?'
The stout captain from Jaelot, who mourned a close cousin, exploded with indignant injury. 'Blessed Lord, even your god-sent power -'
'Is only as strong as the faith that stands in the breach!' Lysaer's blue eyes flashed in searing rebuke. 'Have you come here to resign from your post?'
The stonewalled officer blinked. 'Light's mercy! No.'
That's good to hear. For I haven't the time.' The shamed man and his shrinking companions received the Divine Prince's relentless dismissal. 'For anyone else who brings a faint heart, my seneschal would be the proper authority to strike unworthy names from the roster.' Lysaer surged on his way, his profile keen as an axe.
The tongue-lashed party stared after him, speechless, while late comers bearing legitimate grievances scrambled to assay the next bitter salvo.
Lysaer paid their chorused objections no mind. Light glanced on blond hair, trimmed free of scorched ends, although no one had seen the avatar retire for sleep, far less pause for grooming. Throughout the disaster, and during the long night, he had stayed with his troops, making dispositions and speeding the orders to clear stunned inaction and debris. His voice restored calm, soothed nerves, and brought reason wherever confusion was thickest. While the wounded were shifted and salvaged tents were reset, his exalted person had worn the same grime as the meanest recruit.
Every trace of shared suffering seemed vanished by afternoon. Of yesterday's burns, no discomfort showed. Lysaer's trim frame displayed no suggestion of bandages. His fresh surcoat and gold braid shone pristine as new snow, clothed over in icy composure. 'I have no use for men who fall victim to hardship,' he cracked through the tirades without breaking strid
e. 'You'll leave my ranks now if you fold under pressure. The Light's work will be finished by more-steadfast hands, and by men who will not abandon this field before the hour of victory.'
The balked officers choked back their seething excuses. Invalidated, disowned, they bristled to realize: their avatar crossed the perimeter set by his sentries. Now, his insolent daring approached the pavilions that housed the Order of the Koriathain.
The collective cries of dismay raised Lysaer's redoubled contempt. 'Have you nothing better to do?'
No hale officer could afford to stay idle, in fact. The sprawled factions of the Alliance war host struggled yet to treat their wounded. They still faced the rows of their unburied dead and a crippling morass of ruined equipment: holed tents, splintered siege engines and burned harness that could not be replaced. Stocks of food stores, weapons, and fodder lay in wreckage beneath the slagged walls.
The unwieldy piles in process of salvage teemed like a hill of kicked ants. Whole companies languished to lick bleeding injuries while some rank-and-file dedicates sought to desert, and others affirmed their raucous survival on the hot flesh of the camp-followers.
Faced by trauma on one hand, and the uncanny power wielded by Koriani, the distempered troop captains stifled their badgering. Far safer to redress their own human troubles than risk the affairs of the initiate sisterhood. If their avatar would tread on the Matriarch's turf, he must go forward alone.
Lysaer spared no glance at the retreating stragglers. His formal dress proclaimed his approach, a shout of authority that required no herald's flourish. He passed the rampant swan banner, with its gold fringe and amethyst field. His direct step assailed the rush mat, then the runner of carpet before the canopied entry to the central hospice.
A sister with coiled wheat hair and the grey robe of charitable service intercepted him at the threshold. A band of white ribbon bordered her cuffs, badge of her lowly rank as a first-level initiate. Despite common stature, she showed no deference to honour a state arrival.
'How may my order grant service?' The same address met every supplicant, or petitioners who bargained for talismans.
Lysaer's level survey matched youthful, clear eyes that overlooked magisterial splendour. His testing regard did not ruffle her poise. Patient as she seemed, she must be unaware of his past confrontations with the order's senior authority.
Therefore, his request was well-spoken and genuine. 'Since your healers are consoling my critically wounded, and also attending my dead, I have come to express the Light's gratitude. More, please offer your colleagues my help if there's aught I can do to assist them.'
'A worthy intent.' The sister inclined her head, smiled, then blushed under his regard. 'You are permitted to enter.'
Lysaer followed her lead. A thicker, spread carpet absorbed his firm step. Softer lighting gentled his eyesight: not coarse candle-flame, but a steady glow that issued from crystals in gold-wire cages. The air smelled of herbals, and also the sharp, ozone tang that discharged with the use of strong spells.
'You have asked to serve?' This polite challenge arose from the left, the new speaker's approach gone unnoticed.
Lysaer paused. 'Where need will allow, yes.' His cool glance appraised the older initiate, seamed with years, and yet still supple in movement. Her austere robe bore three bands of rank, the glint of ribbon like moon-caught silver at sleeves and hood. 'You are the sister in authority here?'
'I am the ranking peeress, directing our mission to ease the afflicted.' Her eyes were kindly brown, and her welcome, graciously honest. 'Follow me, if you will?'
She ushered him into a small, curtained alcove, where an injured man sprawled on a pallet. Two healers attended him: the first clasped his unconscious head between gentle hands, while the other probed an ugly wound on his thigh, the swollen flesh purpled around an embedded splinter of wood. Lysaer recognized one of yesterday's casualties, dragged from the wreck of a siege engine.
The peeress presumed, touched his wrist, and inquired, 'We know you can manifest large-scale destruction. How finely can you control your given gift to raise light?'
Lysaer searched her face but encountered no arrogance. 'What are your needs?' Gravely still, while only his diamond studs shimmered, he added, 'I could illuminate your surgery, or provide warmth. Perhaps boil a cauldron of water, or ignite a lamp's wick.'
The peeress nodded, then invited the enchantress who frowned over the maimed leg to speak.
The kneeling initiate never glanced up to acknowledge the imposing state visitor. 'What about cautery?'
'I don't know.' Lysaer lifted his opened, ringed hands. 'I never tried. The skills of your trade could be learned?' A touch on his shoulder, and the elder peeress departed, leaving him with the pair who tended the stricken soldier. Lysaer bent his knee and smoothed the prostrate man's arm without squeamish hesitation. 'Perhaps,' he suggested, 'you could explain how my gift might improve your prognosis?'
The healer beside him owned three bands of rank, though her rolled sleeves were damp and her pink wrists flecked with blood. She had rich brown hair, but pulled back and pinned with an unbecoming severity. When at length she looked away from the leg wound, she lost her breath, as most did in Lysaer's close presence. His fair-skinned, male beauty was not contrived but a natural force to stun thought.
She shut her eyes, shivered, then rallied her discipline. "The sliver has split.' More effort still, and she steadied her voice. 'If we try to draw it, the fragment will tear the artery. Removal by surgery could damage the nerves. Blood loss stays problematic. Hot steel to stop haemorrhage will leave intractable scars. At best, if he lives, your soldier will limp for the rest of his days.' Regret raised a tired shrug. 'If only we could have attended him yesterday, before the tissue became congested -'
'Others you saved had more critical injuries?' Lysaer clasped her stained fingers. 'Wars force hard choices.' His comforting squeeze flared to a dazzle of rings, then withdrew. 'How may I help?'
The healer lifted her chin, now determined. 'If you sourced us your light, subject to our sigils, I could burn that wood out. A stay spell could contain the applied energy to the torn muscle that's in direct contact. The cauterized wound might then cleanse itself. We can induce a select amplification to spur the body's reflex to regenerate. Could you grant us the bale-fire use of your gift and entrust us to channel by spellcraft to achieve what's necessary?'
Lysaer smiled like sunrise. 'Lead on, enchantress. My talent is yours to be guided.'
All business, despite her embarrassed blush, the Koriani sister directed the initiate who cradled the prostrate man's head. 'Hold your trance, keep him under. I'll need the small copper coil, and a few minutes to align the appropriate crystals. If this should work -'
The hope that blazed after her unfinished sentence flushed indelicate heat to her cheeks.
'You have other cases as difficult as this one?' Lysaer asked, despite himself moved.
'Many.' The healer delved into the satchel at her hip. 'Some who are worse off.' Despite discouragement, her movements stayed crisp as she handled the tools of her trade. 'I'm called Samaura, and if you are willing, we could keep you busy all night.'
Then we have all night.' Lysaer fielded the woman's surprised glance, amused.
She pursed her lips and tried not to grin back. 'Why are the Koriathain led to believe that Avenor's state policy condemns the practice of spellcraft?'
All white elegance blazoned in Sunwheel gold, Lysaer s'Ilessid stayed unoffended. 'My examiners burn rogue talent that defies a just law. To that end, I will bear no exceptions.' Against ultimatum, he added, precise, 'This man fell at war against Shadow. Any who act for his benefit will receive the Light's gratitude and support.'
'Will you recognize the possibility, yet, that such cause may pose the common ground to extend your alliance?' The intrusive, cultured voice that observed arose from the main tent behind.
Although taken aback, Lysaer kept his poise. The two healer initiates owned no suc
h grace: without regard for the fact he stood witness, they abandoned the hurt soldier and bent prostrate in supplication.
'Your will. Matriarch,' they declared, unimpeachably obedient, and prepared to forsake their suffering charge on the instant.
Prime Selidie enforced her due claim to such service. 'Carry on as you are by my will, and none other!'
Despite the sudden, electrified atmosphere, Lysaer turned not a hair. 'My pledged word is never subject to interdict.' He did not turn from the soldier before him, but with calm disdain, ignored the haughty authority crowding his back.
His comment raised no disturbed rustle of cloth; no hiss of breath, or rebuttal. Yet the enchantress who minded the wounded man's trance blanched with near-paralyzed fright. Her sister initiate trembled, bobbed her head, and murmured, 'Prime Selidie, forgive this man's ignorance.'
Yet the white-clad avatar brushed off her plea. 'I am no supplicant!' he chided, his goodwill toward the attending sisters still without due regard for the peremptory presence behind him. 'Nor shall I take pause for your Prime's dispensation, if my loyal men become compromised. Their lives are not tossed as bargaining chips into the arena of politics. My wounded have come seeking help in good faith. Your order chose to admit them. If my offered talent can spare even one, or renew the least hope of hale function, then your Matriarch had best heed the judgement I laid upon each of her two former messengers.'
'And that would be?' The slim figure swathed in the Matriarch's purple mantle sounded no more than amused. Yet the avid peeresses arrived with her presence caught their collective breath: they were of the order's Prime Circle, invested with the red bands of senior rank.
Lysaer inclined his head, and said, frosty, 'Honour the dignity given in trust. These men are under my oath-bound charge. Fail their genuine need at your peril.'
Prime Selidie smiled, only the curve of her coral lips visible under the shadow of her hooded cloak. 'You presume. In your arrogance, did you believe I had come to brangle over the sick? Our order has provided charitable service for millennia before your first forebear set foot on Athera. Royals leave guildsmen to oversee trade. While you might play at slumming alongside my healers, I am no shopkeeping merchant. Should I trifle with you as you kneel in the dirt? Or fiddle with verbal contests of power concerning the devotion you wield through your followers? You are mistaken, son of s'Ilessid. I am not to be measured, based on your encounters with underlings.'