And that sparked explosion, an incensed cry torn from her stung heart. 'Not at the cost of your sacrifice! Arithon! If Feylind were alive, she'd back this fight, tooth and nail by innate woman's wisdom. My hurt is not blameless! I helped shapechange that child. You can't lift that pain from me, however you try. Fionn Areth himself never asked for your help. He has not offered a trustworthy friendship. I will not see your life thrown to risk for an undervalued relationship!'
Arithon waited, steady. The torrent that broke loose was too friable, begun in lone anguish on the cold, Araethurian night when the order's might had compelled an untenably harsh set of choices. 'Fionn's character, or lack of it, does not revoke his birthright.' The correction was careful, almost too mild to declare an unbreachable stance. 'Rathain's chartered provenance makes that boy's cause mine for what he has suffered in violation. As a subject under crown auspices, he bears my explicit claim of protection.'
Upwelling tears snapped Elaira's last poise. Dakar seized the moment and arose on quiet feet, assured he could quit the arena. Love's tenacity must now secure the thread of Rathain's threatened legacy. The armed core of Arithon's will was exposed, and the pitfall that terrorized foresight: that if the extreme escape plan went forward, and a repeat attempt could unleash Alithiel's power, with the last Teir's'Ffalenn moved to imbue his stripped spirit into the awakened sword, the ungrateful ally might snatch that opportune opening for his betrayal.
The muted clink of the door-latch signalled the gift of the couple's privacy. No other disturbance would visit tonight, to intrude on that haven of shared solitude. Arithon laid his cheek overtop of Elaira's head. While the lamp-flame fluttered, and silence settled, fragrant with the herbal melange wafted up from the downstairs still-room, he cradled her searing flood of distress.
Unrushed, at due length, he addressed her in soft quiet, "This is not about Fionn Areth, entirely'
A shudder raked through her. 'You know me too well.'
'Ah, beloved!' Tenderness infused Arithon's touch as he mapped the true source of her misery. 'You are regretting your return to the citadel. Don't. Did you fear that my measure to disarm this cursed conflict may also have been tried in your behalf?'
Not waiting for answer, Arithon shifted his grip. He tipped her cupped face to his matchless regard. 'Do you know of your worth to me? Hush! Words can't fathom the substance. Forget the conniving hooks of your Matriarch. Regrets of all kind are not seemly. My joy in your presence remains without fault, no matter what straits lie against us.' As her eyes welled again and spilled over, he smiled. 'Never doubt' He bent farther and kissed. The salt tears on her lips were absorbed, then melted away by an onslaught of caring too sweet for denial.
Dakar kept his jagged urgency hidden from Kyrialt's sight. He dodged from the stairwell into the still-room, grateful that Glendien's tasked work engrossed her with restocking the remedies. He moved abreast of her, yawning, then flipped off a critical comment that hackled her to a flush.
'Braying jackass!' Glaring daggers, she snapped, 'Where were you? Bent over kissing your bollocks while the brave fallen lay in their blood, dying?'
'Why, bouncing the jennet' Dakar cracked with a smirk. She flailed at him with a pestle. He ducked, chased safely past striking range. Out of the far door without flagging her inquisitive instincts, he dropped his buffoonery and bolted for the ground floor. Outside the guest keep, his pounding rush collided with Talvish, striding inbound across the foot-bridge, since squaring affairs with the coachman.
Rammed to a grunt on sharp impact, the swordsman's field reflexes saved them both from a tumble into the snowy ravine. 'Fiends plague, Dakar!' Mail-clad fingers relaxed their vexed grasp and shoved the spellbinder back upright.
'If you've unearthed another rough crisis, we've got trouble ganged up on all fronts already.'
Chill slid like a blade through Dakar's layered cloaks. No mistaking that tone of urgent concern, though the scud of cloud obscured the expression beneath the guardsman's spiked helm. The Alliance's whelming assault has begun?'
'On-going, and laying on pressure like vengeance.' Talvish darted an unsettled glance to his rear, that the action took place without him. 'Sea Gate's holding out. Can't last, up against Lysaer's perishing numbers. The duke's critical short-fall's going to be the hard fact that we're now under strength.'
Which was Arithon's doing; blame would come to roost. Talvish's razor-thin nerves gave that warning.
The Mad Prophet tugged his rumpled cloak back to rights, uneasy for another reason. 'Where is Fionn Areth?'
Talvish frowned. 'Haven't seen him.' He was on fighting edge: that fast, he fielded the change in pursuit. 'Not since he delivered the wretched bad news, that Evenstar's snagged in a lash-up.'
'Can I ask your assistance to find him?' Dakar blurted, 'I have a bad feeling.'
Talvish expelled a fretted breath, his poise now charged to leashed lightning. 'My liege? Was his late feckless enterprise thwarted?'
'Diverted, for now,' Dakar reported. 'He's settled with Elaira. She sees well enough. Expect she will try the time-honoured gift to serve his obdurate grief consolation. Kyrialt's guard will handle the door. We haven't much time. Will you help?'
'Bad feeling, or augury?' Talvish rapped out, then swore over Dakar's clammed-up silence. 'Never mind. His Grace doesn't know?'
'I'm not foolish!' The Mad Prophet clutched two-handed to batten his billowing cloak. 'Though, Ath wept! Stalking a live stream of prescience past the thickets of s'Ahelas far-sight felt like hopping live toads through a fire pit.'
'Let's move on it, then!' Talvish wheeled back across the plank-bridge. 'Damned well I don't like leaving Arithon now. But worse, if we're caught blindsided again by some ugly prophetic vision!'
'Premonition,' Dakar qualified, tart. 'Not quite the same thing.' Short legs pumping to match the tall veteran's fast clip, he puffed too hard to lament the dismissal of the loaned four-in-hand coach.
The citadel streets teemed with frenetic activity. Hand-carts packed rag tinder, and sheaves of arrows and crossbolts. The larger drays bearing stone-shot and oil casks were pulled by sweating men, the oxen long since butchered to feed the populace. Courier's relays sent from the duke's command eyrie threaded through, run on foot or mounted on small, agile horses. The riders passed off their sealed batons with fresh orders at speed, and received in turn the breathless reports dispatched from the fighting at harbour-side.
Through drifting smoke and ragged torch-light, stumbling in the chopped slush, Dakar croaked for a reprieve. A misstep that tore the nails in his boot-heel bounced him off a wagon's pinned tail-gate.
He yelped, hopping lame, as the flapping leather tripped him again. Forced to rip off the hindrance, he sliced his thumb. 'Dharkaron's vengeance! Why bother hauling these forsaken rocks?'
"The trebuchets can't bear on a target, close in.' Talvish shouted above the rumble of wheels and the clatter of messenger ponies. 'Small shot's for the catapults and the large arbalests. They'll heat the rocks red. Then lever them into the sling beds for firing through the hide shielding that covers the galleys landing the siege towers. Or else drop them down upon enemy heads through the murder holes in the barbicans.'
Where Dakar would have lagged, to escape being trampled, Talvish snatched his stout wrist and towed him headlong. The duke's men still honoured their ex-captain's prowess. As his insistent questions crossed their fraught activity, supporting the Sea Gate defences, several brief facts were ascertained: Fionn Areth was not ensconced with Lord Bransian, nor with Parrien's posted lookout at Watch Keep. He had not tagged along with the armed guard attending the s'Brydion wives still in residence.
Moving apace, Talvish snapped in pared summary, "That leaves Vhandon's command. He's assigned at the winch platform, handling resupply for the battle-front.' To get there, they flagged down a fast-moving wagon and hitched a ride to the cliff-side bastion.
The smoke drift thickened, fouled by the reek of singed hide and the rolling billows thrown off
by torched oil. Coughing behind his mailed fist, Talvish croaked to the driver, who answered, yelling through the rag tied across nose and mouth.
'Aye, fires enough. Siege towers, mostly' The burly man veered for a galloping messenger. While his sweated team skidded, he steadied the lines, coaxing still more reckless speed. His scrambling wheel-horse swung the tight corner, shod hooves nicking up sparks. 'Bad, on the dock quarter,' the man shouted, as the cart rumbled beneath the arched entries of the guild-halls. Above, the three-story facades were faced granite, with flat roofs notched with crenels, as battlements. The unflinching driver whipped his horses on, the hubs of his vehicle clearing the chipped balustrades of the bottom stairs by a cat's whisker.
'Sevrand's got shipwrights to whip-saw through the bollards on the south wharf,' he told Talvish, who clung to the load, alert as a leopard poised in a half crouch. 'Else the enemy might've winched them up with a capstan and seized the tarred logs for a ram.'
"That near, they've tried landing?' Dakar exclaimed.
'It's a gang-up swarm,' said the driver, morose. A clattering slide down the last, icy incline reined the wagon up short at the press by the windlass. His imp's grin flashed sidewards. 'Here you are, then.'
Talvish vaulted down, belting out a shrill whistle.
The signal brought Vhandon, bearing full arms, in a running charge from the lift shack. Where his bark met resistance, he elbowed through the pack-train of burdened stevedores. 'There's trouble, Tal?'
'Aye. Maybe.' Talvish gestured towards Dakar, who was still wedged fast between the stacked casks in the cart. 'Yon prophet's gone lathered. Where's Fionn Areth?'
'Not here.' Vhandon instinctively vaulted ahead. 'You think that boy might try to upstage Feylind's heroics and offer himself in Prince Arithon's stead as a sacrifice?'
'No.' Dakar grunted, straining not to cough as thicker smoke streamed from the harbour-front. 'Much worse, more's the pity'
Vhandon was less tolerant of gut-shrinking cowardice. 'The grassland rat's hopped off to turn coat? Dharkaron Avenger's Black Spear! I'll wring his slinking, goatherder's neck! Damned fast as that, if he thinks to crack open a postern gate and betray us.'
'He wouldn't.' Dakar redoubled his struggles, red-faced. 'Not consciously. At least, not yet.'
As one partnered move, Vhandon and Talvish grabbed hold of the stout prophet's arms and slung him headlong from the wagon-bed.
'Then say what you've seen!' Vhandon bellowed. Talk fast!'
'Prime Selidie's immersed in a fresh round of conjury!' Dakar yelped, stung by the harsh impact to his mangled boot-heel. 'Her activity's too busy for anything innocent. The posited horror's quite real, that Fionn Areth may pack a masked sigil very like the one tagged on Elaira as a specific trap to snare Arithon.'
'What harm could it do?' the two swordsmen asked as one voice.
'Could the working crack through the Paravian wardings?' The new question came from the by-standing watch sergeant, just barged in to query his diverted captain.
'I don't know.' Dakar shut his eyes, abruptly wrung sick as his senses plunged into vision again. As before, he captured the flickered impression . . .
. . . of Prime Selidie, bent above the flame of a black candle, her pale hair twisted and pinned at her crown like a coil of adders. Across from her, serving for her burn-scarred hands, Lirenda sat, dark as twinned night. Neat fingers laced chains of lightning-sharp seals over the cloth of an effigy: a man's crude figure, painted over with runes, and wound in gold wire stamped crosswise with sigils . . .
Then the gut-wringing wave of raw vision released. The Mad Prophet gasped, propped upright in the grasp of the impatient sergeant.
'Vhandon?' Dakar craned his neck, senses swimming, while the buffeting press jostled past, muscled men rolling barrels, or burdened with sacks of small shot. Someone nearby was swearing mayhem over the nuisance of obstructive idlers.
The sergeant said something.
Dakar understood that he needed to move, or risk getting trampled. The absence of Vhandon's authority gave short shrift to his debilitating fits and histrionics. He yelled anyhow, then spotted Talvish's tall form on the winch platform, lowering from the cliff rim. The watch sergeant in charge refused to flag down the windlass team to let the spellbinder join the descent.
'No civilian goes down! Duke's orders. Now clear yourself out of the warfront before someone spits your fool gut on a pike!'
'Ath's own grace, I've just signed that boy's death warrant!' Dakar shivered and wept, while the duty-bound officer hurled him aside without sympathy.
Left at loose ends, exhausted, Dakar crumpled against a stone buttress, out of harm's way. Woe betide him for his jelly-legged weakness, and Dharkaron's curse on the lapses brought on by his unruly talent. For if the paired veterans caught up with the Araethurian, they would act first for Alestron's security: take down the suborned double by expedient force, then settle their frank questions afterward.
Early Winter 5671
Bid and Opening
A terrier would release a live rat from its teeth, before Fionn Areth gave up a chase driven by an obsession. Never mind that the moment was inopportune, with the Sea Gate's defences at wharf-side being stormed under full-scale assault. The roaring noise all but deafened thought. Unfazed by strayed quarrels that hissed down and cracked, striking sparks off the cobbles and chimneys, the goatherder scuttled through the deserted fish-market, and ducked into the darkened alleys laced through the dock quarter. His footsteps passed the shuttered fronts of the wine-shops, and the galleries of emptied brothels. Scarcely one street removed, the enemy siege platforms rammed in and engaged Alestron's defenders. Steel clashed, and men shouted, where skirmishers raged in close combat. Through the ink palls of smoke, under the notched peaks of the dormers, the Araethurian raced in furtive quiet, while the scream of hot stone-shot creased the night air, and starved rats skittered into the culverts.
No torches burned in these tangled by-ways, the oppressive gloom flitted with shadows cast by the red arcs of fire-arrows. Against the shoreside bedlam, and the officers' trumpet blasts, the Araethurian found what he sought: two men calling comments in broad-vowelled southcoast accents.
Fionn Areth changed course and followed. From doorway to warehouse, past the silled well by the cooper's shack, he tailed his quarry: a pair of muscular sawyers bearing tools on their shoulders, split away from the crew just returned from demolishing the trade wharf. Unaware that two crack field-captains scoured in search of his whereabouts from liftside, the Araethurian chased in single-minded pursuit of the rogue master shipwright, Cattrick.
That errand led down a ramp through an arch, customarily kept locked and guarded. The entry to Alestron's secretive dry dock did not admit prying strangers. Yet tonight, with the walls under dire assault, Fionn Areth crept through, unchallenged. He plunged down a dank stair tunnelled beneath the paved street. Ahead, the sawyers' voices threw muddled echoes off vaulted brick, where the passage intersected the sewer laced under the cliff head. A pine knot blazed in a fixed bracket by a stone landing, jutted into the eddied black current. Several empty pole skiffs were left moored to crusted green rings. Again, the short garrison had upset the roster. The routine sentries were reassigned elsewhere, with the men he shadowed already afloat and making headway downstream.
Fionn Areth muffled the chink of his sword, untied the next boat, and launched off through the underground drain that unfolded in darkness ahead of him. Swift current nudged his craft down the closed water-way, then into the high, buttressed cavern where Alestron's warmongering dukes berthed their ships for refit and laid the new keels for their rapacious fleet.
There, also, Parrien's seamen had warped the charred hulk that remained of the Evenstar. Sorrowfully ravaged, she floated, lit by the gleam of fish-oil lamps that winked into view past the low mouth of the channel. The once-graceful curve of her stern-rail was shattered. Fionn Areth saw that the wheel mount was gone, and the mizzen rat-lines burned wholesale. Beyond her wr
acked fore-deck, her shorn bowsprit jutted over spangles of yellow reflection. Her jib-boom still trailed tattered rigging. The parted port chain stay dangled, submerged, beneath the singed breasts of her star-crowned figure-head.
Nestled in the wreckage, also, was a man, slung in the gloom of her beak-head. Expert hands were quite busy, threading new blocks to the freshly spliced bobstays. Beside him, the flash of a knife showed another, clearing away the snapped cordage.
If the ghosts of her crew seemed scarcely departed, the wracked main-deck crawled with activity. The lantern hanging above the main pin-rail rimmed the heads of more men, wielding tools at the mainmast.
'Steady on! Lower as she goes!' The booming command, unmistakably Cattrick's, raised the creak of a burdened sheave. Movement stirred overhead, as the shipwork's massive tackle and rope eased a net of casks towards the open hatch.
The sawyers in the pole-boat up ahead skimmed alongside the berthed hull. They hailed their fellows, tied off to the bollards, then collected their saws and debarked. Someone's comment raised rowdy laughter. To more ribald whistles, the pair crossed the plank gangway and boarded the derelict brig.
Brazen as brass, Fionn Areth did likewise. He first presumed the work aimed for a salvage, until he stumbled over a pile of burlap. Experience with Talvish's troops made their musty scent too familiar: the sacks contained lint floss. His blunder fetched him up against a cache of split pine, green and sap-sticky with pitch. The wrecked hull packed torch kindling, taken from weapon stores, and wound over for business with oil-soaked rags.
His racket drew notice. Someone's hard fists seized his collar and wrist from behind. Twisted into an arm-lock, Fionn Areth was hauled up, yelling, and dealt a shove that staggered him onto his knees. More angry craftsmen closed in a circle. Then a capped sea-boot hammered him flat, grinding into his spine and pinning him helpless.
The light shifted sharply. Somebody lifted the hung lantern down and thrust the hot glass towards his face.