TWOLAS - 08 - Stormed Fortress

  'Draw!' howled Bransian. 'Prove you're a man and no scampering rabbit! Or are you fit for nothing but flight, and cowering under my furniture?'

  'Quite fit!' rebuked Arithon. His wide-lashed glance was a child's, bemused, while the Duke of Alestron tensed his ox frame to plough aside the riven table.

  The Master of Shadow squared his shoulders, as much to resettle his untouched weapon, as a shrug to acknowledge obsessive ferocity.

  Mearn suddenly found himself holding his breath.

  Then Arithon s'Ffalenn set hand to his sword and cleared the black blade from the scabbard. Alithiel spoke!

  Light bloomed, and sound, a swell of wild harmony that smashed reason and hurled Duke Bransian's pitched might to its knees. Glued into glass air, every human awareness abandoned willed thought and let go: into sweetness like spring, and dark mystery like moonlight, scribed silver across restless ocean. Mortal existence lost every fixed boundary. No flesh-quickened memory could ever hold the moment's shattering fullness. The trembling heart ached to be free, unfolded into exaltation. The peace in the cry of the sword was not passive, but the flow of inspired creation. A note that sustained, then beckoned the leap: to vault consciousness into the limitless vista of imaginative invention.

  Through the unbearable, ecstatic crescendo, a masterbard's speech emerged clearly. I will fight, but not to take lives in this war!' Arithon spun the charged length of Alithiel. Before Bransian's dropped jaw and unstrung aggression, against Mearn's and the soldiers' astonishment, he impaled the sword through the tactical map, with its disarrayed scatter of counters.

  There, in a not-quite-quenched ring of sound, the blade stood upright and quivering. The rune inlay shimmered, still active, a sheen of opalescent illumination playing down the length of the steel.

  'A'liessiad,' said Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn in lyric Paravian. 'Let peace bide between us, regardless of differences.'

  He stirred then, recovered the uncanny sword from the table-top. Alone in the room, he seemed able to move as he sheathed the blade and silenced its uncanny vibration. The will in that choice shook the air like scribed fire and left behind shocking, dimmed silence.

  Loss swept the onlookers, which wrenched like blind pain; pitched them reeling across an abyss of dark separation. Through their helpless tears, they watched Arithon walk out with no hand in the room raised to stop him.

  Late Autumn 5671

  Refuge

  Parrien s'Brydion was fed up with fighting heated engagements to seize a safe harbour to shelter his fleet. The deadly bother was not going to ease, while the autumn squalls built towards winter. Each storm that roared in off the Cildein crammed the coves that pocketed the coast of Melhalla. Oared ships were forced to jockey for space, or else battle outright for anchorage. Unlike peaceful years, the seafaring captains abroad were not mercantile, eastshore galley-men.

  Today, the blazons that streamed from their mastheads might hail from the northernmost ports. Crews used to rough waters, and determined fishers whose encounters with icebergs and rock shoals bred iron resolve and an unflinching stare. The stout vessels beneath their commands braved the chop that broke hissing in whitecaps. They rode the stiff winds that foreran the wrecks which claimed human lives in gale season.

  'Rot their confounded hardihood, timbers and flesh!' the duke's brother fumed in the lamp-lit darkness. He peeled off his oilskins. Tossed their soaked bulk to his hovering steward, while his flustered arrival fogged the latched casements, and rove the taint of wet wool through the warmth belowdecks. 'Every damned bolt-hole we've picked to snug down in is stuffed full of their wallowing tubs!'

  Oared hulls as viciously guarded as a silk guildsman's prime bales, and as handsomely paid, to move the resupply for the enemy war host.

  'Opportunistic toadies' Parrien ran on in distemper, 'the lot of them teeming like curs with the lice, and burdened a yard past their load lines.' To the steward's prim silence, he jabbed, 'One gets tired of sticking a sword in the guts of their wall-eyed, fanatical officers. Not to mention the cowering, Light-blinded dupes just rounded up green from the ale shops!'

  Paused frowning, Parrien shook like a bear. More wet showered off him, hissing against the hot panes of the gimballed lamp, and spattering over the tally-sheets spread on the chart desk. 'Dharkaron wept! We'd find cleaner sport chopping rabbits!'

  To the clamped mug of his long-suffering purser, he snapped, 'You aren't sick of the screams? Here's a fresh blow, and no haven in sight without another bitch-bred stint of slaughter.'

  The prospect rankled, beyond hope of let-up. For months to come, the open coast would stay lashed to rampaging spindrift. Amid heaving seas, pebbled grey with cold rain, the fleet's hard-bitten oarsmen were suffering. Too many had salt-water sores from the benches. Galls that swelled into festering malady.

  Still snarling, Parrien heaved onto a locker, pried off his boots, and dumped out a brown stream of run-off. 'It's a goat-humping lash-up! Beats my good sense, why the mayors and their gabbling excisemen don't levy new fines for stupidity. Like whoresons with clap, they're all bent arse up for Lysaer's milk-sucking religion!'

  The steward dutifully stowed the sopped oilskins, while the purser glowered in silence. Both men stayed loath to cross Parrien's temper. The siege at Alestron left his fleet stranded outside of the blockaded estuary. His crews had no choice but to shoulder their forced tour of duty without respite.

  Stalled at last by his officer's jaundiced stare, Parrien exclaimed, 'Well, spit out the sour news, man! We're caught lean on stores again, aren't we?'

  'Not well-set, at all,' the purser admitted. He scratched beneath his fusty jacket, upset by his harried assessment. 'Provisions are critical. The weakling ship's boy's got bleeding gums. We're facing a spreading case of the cough. Our rowers can't stay in fit strength on hard biscuit, and the village fishermen are learning to run before selling us contraband barrels of salt meat.'

  'All right!' Eyes red from exhaustion, and chapped by harsh wear, Parrien embraced the inevitable. 'We'll assault the bolt-hole in the crab shallows to the leeside of Lugger's Islet. If we strike fast, and risk a few casualties, we can board what's afloat. Take a few officers hostage for ransom and ransack their holds for provender.'

  The purser gaped over his pen in astonishment. 'Have we sunk to the morals of forest-bred clansmen? Or fallen to justified piracy?'

  'Yes!' Parrien shot off the locker. Shivering in his stockings, he slammed back the lid and fetched out his helm and bracers, and the cutlass preferred for close combat. 'Because if Alestron's citadel falls, and my brother is forced to defeat, we'll be stuck begging for sanctuary with our barbaric cousins in Atwood! Or would you rather kiss arse with their sea-going brethren, and prey on the slave-trade that's poisoning Tysan?'

  No seasoned retainer stuck out his neck with a s'Brydion hell-bent on battle. The steward scuttled to oil his master's dropped boots. The purser ducked fast and rolled up his accounts, while Parrien's bellow to the ship's mate ordered the desperate course change.

  If Alestron's crack seamen were taxed by privation, their discipline remained as adamant as iron. The five galleys formed up on his relayed command and struck their last stitch of reefed canvas. Under oar, they sheared into the teeth of the storm, against gusts that ripped the seas into spume and hurled opaque sheets of rain. Four helmsmen muscled the buck of the rudder, their corded wrists cuffed to the whipstaff. The steersman called off the bearing from below, his compass dial lit by a candle-lamp, while the quartermaster howled over the gale and verified the new headings.

  Parrien rode the toss of the deck, tied in to the flagship's stern-rail. Every man not streaming sweat at the bench worked the pumps, battling the green gush let in as each thudding wave deluged the oar-ports.

  No ship's hand was fooled. Their hard labour could not subdue the raw elements. Above, the stripped yard reeled against tattered scud. Shrieking wind punched through the rigging. No galley could withstand the relentless punishment. She might pound and rol
l against such a sea until her crew dropped from exhaustion, or until the working strain burst a seam, or a crest broke over and broached her. The weather might snap the men's courage before they reached land, or drew steel on the enemy.

  No use to pretend that their straits were not dire. Hungry, storm-battered, and shivering, they rounded the north point of Lugger's Islet and threaded the narrows that guarded the anchorage. Drove in at attack speed, despite wallowing hulls and sinews nigh crippled by weariness. They prepared to do battle against suicide odds, with frozen fingers clenched numb to their weapon hilts.

  Parrien braced his stance at the stern, moved to pride by the fight in the men. None would be starving at sea like chased wolves. Battle would meet them, unvanquished. If the sousing rain spoiled the aim of his archers, the surprise shock would do damage, ram a few Sunwheel hulls to the bottom on the sheer force of momentum.

  The five galleys rounded the spit at the headland. They shot into the lee side, beaked prows knifing into the billow of shoaling waters. The steersmen squinted through short visibility. Storm in their eyes, they saw little beyond the flare of the lanterns, pocked amid the blurred shadows of anchored ships.

  'Stroke, you weasels!' screamed Parrien. 'No one's belly gets filled till we've torn out the throats of the pullets before us!'

  Oars bit and spray flew. Iron-shod prows sheared down on their prey, primed for ruin and havoc. Leading the wedge, the flagship struck first. The ram crushed into timber. Water gouted and splinters exploded. The rocking, hard impacts slammed at each side, as the s'Brydion ships pounded into their targets. Men loosed their grip upon rigging and rails. They swarmed over the bows in a berserk attack, steel raised to grapple the enemy.

  No blade met their rush. No yelling watch officers or armed defenders. Over the surging heave of the deck, and the judder of rain-wet, shocked planking, the oar benches yawned, dark and empty of life. No voices called, and no bells clanged alarm. No boatswain's whistle shrilled to roust up laggards from berths belowdecks. Right and left, as the adjacent hulls shuddered under the brunt of invasion, the s'Brydion rush met no resistance.

  The Light's galleys wallowed on pebbled grey waters, deserted of human life.

  Parrien snapped out of stunned incredulity. He bellowed for caution, too late. His first mate sounded an instant retreat, every nerve jabbed by suspicion. This unlucky foray surely had run them into an Alliance trap. Fallen back, shrill with panic, men stumbled in recoil. They crowded in distraught confusion. Frayed edgy by danger, they milled to regroup, while the overhead look-outs peered into the murk.

  The storm yielded its secrets with eerie reluctance. Ahead, past the anchored hulls they had rammed, the harbour held flotsam and splintered timber. Here, floated the gleam of an overturned tender, and there, a smashed spar, or sunk wreck, with its canted mast pricked through heaving, black waters. The dotted flare of lit lanterns still blazed from the wrack of uncounted, smashed hulks.

  'Dharkaron Avenger!' Parrien swore. 'Looks like the hammer of Sithaer has fallen and kicked the Light's faithful ahead of us.'

  That discovery barely sank in, when another light flashed from the wooded shore-line.

  The look-out's confounded cry from the crow's nest exclaimed, That's our own coded signal!'

  Translation was swift, that s'Brydion forces occupied the inlet and anchorage.

  Parrien shuddered, nipped into awed gooseflesh, as the next winking sequence identified the field-captain whose prowess commanded the beach. 'Vhandon! Come here? Sweet tits on a bull! How did he know that our straits were pressed beyond desperate?'

  The bellow to sway out the flagship's tender was belayed over the pound of the rainfall. Apparently the empty, rammed hulls had been secured by ropes to barricade the hazards that had beset their Alliance counterparts.

  Take a close look!' The boatswain's excitable shout cut through Parrien's roaring displeasure. 'Past the rafted vessels blocking our bow, everything else in the water has been either stove in or sunk!'

  The vicious truth registered, with the stalled oarsmen wretchedly shivering. Men and ship's boy shared the strain of delay as Parrien snatched out the ship's glass. His survey swept the shadowed curves of holed keels, then the glints of reflection nicked off burst timbers and snarls of drifting cordage. Ruin had left no vessel afloat, nor any living survivor.

  Voices died, as battle-brash courage went cold. One man, then another sheathed weapons before the impact of utter catastrophe. Mollified, stunned, or subdued by bone chill, they shrank to grapple the vista unveiled through the sheeting rainfall.

  'We're being hailed,' the sobered boatswain observed.

  Parrien swung the ship's glass. He picked out the small boat on approach, then the upright, soaked form, draped in a field officer's surcoat. 'Have a welcoming party at the rail, amidships, and ascertain a loyal identity before you take on any boarders.'

  Inside a short interval, Vhandon drew alongside. His square-cut face had grown chiselled and gaunt, and his chin bristled silver with stubble. His greeting no more than a curt nod to Parrien, he said, 'We've staked the harbour bed with cribs of stone and sharp logs to kill ships.' Beyond terse, he added, 'We had no other way to send warning, except to lash these few prizes in place as a barrier. Stand down your armed crews. I've come to guide you into safe waters.'

  Too exhausted to cheer, and worn ragged by hunger, the battered war fleet regrouped, then rowed limping towards shelter.

  * * *

  Two hours passed. Sated on hot stew, with a draught of Sanshevas rum now warming the chill from his blood, Parrien s'Brydion sat in his steaming clothes inside the flagship's stern cabin. Outside that haven, with its desk of spread charts and its lockers of varnished bright-work, the gale still lashed, unabated. It howled through the galley's stripped masts, and rattled the winter-bare trees on the mainland.

  Amid the fusty glue of close air, with his clan braid crusted with salt, Parrien lacked the words to measure his gratitude. His weary crews were sheltered and fed. After a night of unbroken sleep, the damage to worn lines, and worked seams, and torn sail could be assessed and mended.

  Of the eighteen Alliance ships ambushed to grant his five galleys survival, Vhandon's statement was bitter and brief.

  'We've been fugitives ourselves. Set too hot on the run from Lysaer's foot-troops not to guess how sorely your fleet needed respite.' He paused, his competent, blunt fingers clenched on his mug.

  Parrien weathered the interval, silent. Vhandon's clipped speech and lined features often lent the misleading impression of gruffness. Without Talvish's banter to strike the hidden spark, his taciturn humour and sensitive insight eluded most casual eyes. Yet Parrien s'Brydion had learned his every trick from the mentor, seated before him.

  Yet tonight, the veteran officer's ferocious stillness was utterly new.

  'You've met him?' Parrien pressed at last on brash impulse. No need to mention the name of s'Ilessid, self-styled as Prince of the Light.

  Vhandon's flint regard flicked away, loath as he was to answer. 'I did not understand the dynamic charisma that walks in the man's living presence.' A shiver raked him, not due to the cold. 'What chance do those lost, blinded followers have? The logical fire of Lysaer's convictions will admit to no creeping doubt. Mankind is born craving such absolute stability. Our mortal nature strives for a known order, though we tend to forget structured limits deliver stagnation that leads to sterility. Had we not met the s'Ffalenn half-brother first, would we ever have questioned? Dare we judge others who have fallen prey to the weakness that begs for a saviour?'

  'You don't like killing men who flock to die like tame sheep,' Parrien said with cut-glass acuity.

  'No.' Vhandon looked up. "That's too dangerously simple.' The horror had eaten him down to the viscera. 'The slaughter is ugly, but what lives is worse. I cannot stand by and allow this infectious dogma to grow entrenched. These are men, made as weapons that kill without conscience! Like the farmer who harvests his croft with the scythe, they r
aze down all that stands without quarter. Nothing is left to give voice to diversity. True freedom can't thrive under one creed in conformity.' Now shaking, he set down his mug before he slopped the hot contents. 'Did you never see Lysaer unleash his royal gift?'

  'Not in his element,' Parrien admitted. 'Years ago, he once ventured out hunting with us. He'd arrived in petition for an alliance of war, which required my brother's good graces. His silken tongue wooed us with reason, then caught us short by the fears underlying our drive for security.' His mouth tightened, strained by a memory no belt of rum could erase.

  'Bransian swallowed the strategy, head first,' Vhandon murmured, not without sympathy.

  'We all did!' Parrien shot to his feet, jabbed to shame. 'How do you withstand a statesman who leads his game with the cards of your wishful, self-serving agenda? You kiss his boots for saying what you'd like to hear, and before you think to examine the motive, you've sold yourself out! Bransian's not wont to forgive that mistake. The humility's not in him, to just walk away from the sting of being played by our whimpering short-falls!'

  Yet Vhandon's rooted disquiet intensified. He covered his face, forced to stifle his impulse to weep. 'You've never witnessed Lysaer's destructive powers under sway of the Mistwraith's directive.'

  Parrien sat. Tired frown and cold eyes, he measured the crisis that wracked his family's most dependable field-captain. Vhandon was worse than shaken. The grief that distressed him, somewhere, somehow, had caused his matchless character to falter in stride. No care could approach what had crumbled his poise; yet the friend who observed had to try.

  'I've already heard the most damaging news,' Parrien opened with heart-sore reluctance. 'That Lysaer immolated our outlying troop, and that Keldmar died at the forefront.' Since the hurt was too brutal, he asked the steward to fetch in the vintage brandy.

  'We stood witness to everything,' Vhandon said through shut hands. 'All ten of us, trapped on reconnaissance inside the s'Ilessid field camp. Keldmar sent us, I think, as a misguided effort to keep us this side of Fate's Wheel.'