* * *
Talvish's prior projection proved wrong. The sail-loft over the chandler's was not barraged by pillagers fired with the passion of conquest. What thundered up the stair in hobnailed boots was a Sunwheel officer, in crisp command of a task squad. His duty, to mop up an ordered assault, encountered no futile last stand; no suicidal charge by panicked citizens trapped by the harbour keep's downfall. The door he kicked in broke a stifling quiet, cut across by the piteous moans of the prostrate. His raking glance scarcely absorbed the rowed cots, before Glendien scalded him scarlet.
'Idiot man! Take your warmongering elsewhere! No one lies here but the sick and the maimed.'
'You say, forest bitch!' yelled a soldier from the landing behind. 'My sword says your accent makes you the Light's enemy!'
Before his startled sergeant-at-arms could agree, or snap a reprimand for impertinence, Elaira arose from the trestle, both hands stained with gore to the elbow. 'Sir! You've dared to break into a Koriani hospice. If your man speaks ill of our novice again, I will silence his rank tongue.' As the lead officer straightened, fast, to apologize, she cut him short. 'Leave this place! Here, where we undertake a charitable service, your steel and your blundering pose an offence.'
Shamed stiff, the sergeant refused to be cowed. 'I go nowhere, enchantress. With all due respect, you are harbouring Alliance traitors, if not outright minions of Shadow.'
'Glendien,' said Elaira, her voice dripping ice. 'Deal with this. Now!' Back turned, she resumed her grisly work, where nobody's eyes wished to linger. Her blanketed charge displayed a hideous sword wound, a gashed length of pink gut laid out on the plank for cleaning. The stink lingered, beyond ripe. What the woman's fingers were stitching with spells would wring a staid veteran to heave up his breakfast.
The barbaric redhead laced in straightaway, a scathing reminder that Koriathain did not take sides. 'By all means,' she challenged with venomous sweetness, 'march in like butchers and clobber your own. Your dumb interference comes at your own peril!'
The officer took pause. His survey by then had swept past the cots, and covered the farthest, dimmed alcove. There was a blond casualty who reeled on a stool. He did have an ugly slash on the wrist, stanched with the wadded hem of a Sunwheel surcoat. Not yet convinced - the chap might be an imposter - the sergeant regrouped and tried reason. 'If you truly have any Alliance men sheltered here, then you'll have to show me firm proof.'
'Koriathain don't lie!' cracked Elaira. 'Inspect and be quick! You'll see faces you recognize. But I warn! Show all due respect for the ones not your own. If anyone under the sisterhood's care takes harm by your prodding, if I'm forced to stir to mix a fresh posset, or if Glendien must reset a bandage, be sure I will visit my undying curse on the manhood of every last wretch in your company.'
Before the hazed officer could protest, Glendien lit in ahead of him. 'Can you be so arrogant?'
'Have you no need at all for our skilled help to attend to your mortally wounded?' Elaira pealed, pushed beyond tolerance.
The sergeant blanched. 'Sisters, forgive. My duty commands me.' He waved a subordinate forward with the curt imprecation to review the bedridden casualties. 'And touch nothing!'
'Aye, sir!' Horror met the man's flinching glance. Pity tore, for the mangled children and unconscious boys, who languished past hope of a hale recovery.
The crippling wounds, the ghastly, weeping burns, and the blistering reek of strong unguents wore down brash nerve and sapped the will to continue.
'These two are ours,' the man-at-arms verified. He glanced up in sweating appeal, that his senior officer would choose to be satisfied.
Again, Elaira seized the initiative. 'Have your bearers bring the worst cases here. You'll find litters, there. Yes! Propped in the corner. I'm sorry one's burdened with the sheeted dead. The corpse goes wherever you're planning to burn the citadel's fallen. If you'll hear my suggestion, take the fat servant with you. He knows enough to set the bleeders in field dressings, and bind splints so the broken bones and the paralyzed can be moved without further trauma.'
* * *
Dusk fell, palled in smoke, which fore-promised a night limned in the flitter of torches as the assault companies came in, worn, off the siege front. Shouts criss-crossed the Alliance camp, as replacement companies from Etarra marched aboard waiting galleys to shoulder the relief watch inside the broached harbour. The troop change proceeded with seamless discipline, as Sulfin Evend returned to the calm surrounds of the Light's high command tent. Fast strides and a nod from the guard at the threshold admitted him. He plunged past the rich hangings of the ante-room, the ruddy crackle of pitch pine outside replaced by the polished glimmer of candle-lamps.
Ranne's sombre report met his rushed arrival at the tapestry that partitioned the trestle and tactical maps. 'No change,' he assured, in reference to Lysaer.
'I came as fast as I could.' Sulfin Evend slowed down. Shut his eyes, and swore out of simmering distaste. The row between officers, just broken up, already clamoured towards riot concerning the upcoming seizure of spoils.
'Bulls in the porcelain shop?' Ranne murmured in sympathy.
'I told the grasping fools I'd wring their necks if they unleashed their troops like raiders on a stricken caravan!' The discomfited twitch of broad shoulders resettled the Lord Commander's mussed surcoat, but not the burdensome weight of his mail. 'Except, to be fair, the damned clansmen don't rape.' Remiss for his bad temper, Sulfin Evend concluded, 'It's the head-hunters' lewd viciousness that incites our fresh troops to rude expectations and swaggering.'
Past the flap, the large trestle and siege models remained in place for debates over strategy. The rowed chairs stood empty, the last stage of the battle already closed. If the velvet-and-wood furnishings escaped the grime of war, the taint of char and oiled steel rode the air, oppressive as everywhere else.
Sulfin Evend encountered Lysaer, standing, back turned to the entrance. Ranne's reliable eye had not sweetened the truth. Under stainless white cloth and gold trim, the crown regent's carriage reflected the strain of a sleepless night. Inexperience might not see beyond his innate majesty. But the more intimate survey sensed a pressured stillness that trembled like an indrawn breath, denied from explosive release.
The fight to resist Desh-thiere's geas never ceased. Hard against flinching nerves and hazed will, the hateful drive flamed on consuming course to shatter the veneer of sanity.
'The body's not his,' announced Lysaer s'Ilessid, quite aware of whose presence invaded his fraught need for solitude.
If his opening seemed casual as a tea-room discussion, Sulfin Evend dared not rely on appearances. Straightaway, he approached the draped plank by the lamp. Flipped back the stained sheet, and exposed the muddy, mauled corpse retrieved after the melee that swept the sea quarter caverns, and now delivered here by his diligent second officer. The light unveiled a young man with black hair. The green eyes were dulled glass, and the angled cheek-bones, crusted over with blood. Feature for feature, the face was the same, recalled from the past encounter at Sanpashir.
Memory resurged, fit to raise the gorge for the ring of forthright conviction: 'Nothing I know could force me to this!' Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn had insisted. 'No concept of honour will be made the cause to destroy another clan enclave of women and children.' That ringing, clear voice, gifted to render a masterbard's music, also had carved a living miracle. Sulfin Evend bristled to primal rage. He could not reconcile the unearthly, grand chord, which had founded the bid for Lysaer's redemption, evoked as well through callous duplicity to gull his effortless trust. The murderous liar had moved with such grace! Even laughed with engaged abandon.
And there, reason snagged on the glaring discrepancy. In death, one detail mismatched the impression left by the bastard's live presence. These awkward hands, nicked with wounds, were all wrong: the wrist-bones too coarse, that suggested the stocky frame of a labourer. In fact, no old scar seared by a past light-bolt marred the stiffened right forearm.
Sulfin Evend reined in his unruly emotions. 'I agree,' he told Lysaer. 'This would seem an imposter. Though the likeness is quite astonishing. Your priests did not sense any residue laid by a worked enchantment?'
'None.' Not moving, which was no good sign, Lysaer added, 'I still feel the gnaw of the curse in my vitals. Which would not be so, if the Master of Shadow had crossed Fate's Wheel.'
Sulfin Evend lowered the shroud and stepped back. Every instinct he had shouted wrongness. 'If we are supposed to be duped, this faked carcass lacks the murderous artifice we've always met on the field.'
No one had died, beyond mundane casualties. No spectacular provocation had been staged to upset the campaign's ordered progress. The broadscale chaos unleashed on the troops who had marched upon Vastmark and Daon Ramon gave the lie to a ruse of such obvious transparency.
Frowning, Sulfin Evend hooked a chair, spun the seat to face Lysaer, and perched. His uneasy senses shrilled with the need to stay vigilant. Lysaer's volatile state remained driven past surcease by Arithon's close proximity. Each passing hour, that peril increased as the pressure leached his reserves.
While the siege approached closure, Sulfin Evend had no choice but to keep watch at his liege's shoulder. No one else had the talented Sight to prevail, if crisis broke in his absence. He could not stand down, though the arduous demands of the upstepped campaign wrung him to blinding exhaustion. The befogging ache pierced his bones, to sleep like a rock where he rested.
'What is your intent?' he probed at quiet length. 'It might suit our purpose, and perhaps blunt the rabid aggression of conquest, if we let the ceremonial burning to rest the shade of a sorcerer go forward.'
'You want that diversion to lend the free rein to investigate on your own,' Lysaer surmised. 'For what gain?' He turned around, his cranked tension unveiled by the bruised rings that shadowed his eye-sockets. His state collar glittered under the force required to steady his breathing. 'Who handles the parade of appeals to the Light, if you are not here, and I have to answer directly? My Sunwheel priests already realize the Spinner of Darkness still lives. You wanted the guiding presence of talent. I haven't the means to blindside that array of trained sensitivity! Gag them outright, and I cannot mislead the dedicate fervour of the rank and file with lies. Not without sending them to self-destruction, since the criminal sorcerer is surely at large, and quite busy supporting the s'Brydion resistance. As well as I, you must realize our victory progresses too easily to be trusted.'
'The risk mounts, the tighter we corner our prey,' Sulfin Evend agreed. 'The object is not to fall for his wiles but to take him down clean, before spending the lives of the war host positioned to flush him. That calls for swift stalking ahead of the lines. You can't act there with covert anonymity, my friend.' In unvarnished honesty, the fear could not rest, that a direct encounter must trigger the insane ferocity of Desh-thiere's curse.
Worse, the sensitive discussion could not stay private. Warned first by Ranne's challenge, then the sound of an approaching tread from without, Sulfin Evend shifted his form of address on delivery of his ultimatum. 'If you try. Blessed Lord, we have thrown away sense! Might just as well pin your bleeding heart on the gauntlet we throw to the enemy!'
Lysaer inclined his fair head to the senior officer who entered, the dangerous, deep glitter roused in his blue eyes a threat that seized on distraction. 'You have a recent development to report?'
'I bring triumph, Divine Prince!' The man bowed in worship, his soiled surcoat and gear arrived straight from the battle-front. 'Alestron's sea quarter bailey is ours. All resistance is routed, though our push for complete occupation is hampered. The s'Brydion defenders launch cross-fire from the upper citadel. They have set the harbourfront burning.'
'Rise and sit.' Lysaer flicked imperious, ringed fingers to summon his valet. 'My servant will bring wine. Once you are comfortable, your Lord Commander will share your account.'
The report that followed was mostly routine. While Lysaer paced to bridle frayed nerves, a list of casualties changed hands, followed by a detailed assessment of the numbers who could fight again after rest and refreshment. Sulfin Evend heard out the names. He asked after the performance of his squad sergeants, then pounced on the lapse, that one company was late in at the watch change.
'That would be Gevard's division, from Telzen,' the staff captain disclosed, flushed. Those squads stayed on to oversee transfer of the wounded, and help the Koriani enchantress whose hospice required moving to secure turf on the mainland.'
'What?' Sulfin Evend's barked incredulity shocked Lysaer from midstride to standstill. With a gesture to forestall undue divine interest, the Lord Commander demanded, 'What Koriathain? Why was I not informed? Since when have we had more witches sticking their noses into Alliance affairs?'
'One sister, my lord, and her novice assistant.' The staff captain cleared his throat, set aback. 'She is most diligently tending our casualties. Unlike the ones with the gaudy pavilions, this healer does not put on airs. She flaunts no silk mantle and attaches no retinue beyond a male servant who runs menial errands. If you would judge her harshly, she's saving our men. Her conjury has spared many injured we would have lost without her learned practice.'
'Where is she now?' snapped Sulfin Evend, shoved to his feet.
'Adruin's galley, my lord. The ship's master agreed to bring her convalescent charges across. He had little choice, after the hospice she kept in the sail-loft was set ablaze. Since the rest of the harbourfront's burning past salvage, she was offered safe passage and a tent shelter next to the war camp.'
On one knee before thought, Sulfin Evend presented his rapid appeal to the white-and-gold majesty of the Blessed Prince. His request for leave was placed without pride, under the name of true service. 'My Lord Regent of Tysan, let me intercept that galley before she makes landing among us.'
For the thornier handling of Arithon's demise had to wait. At least until he thwarted this bald-faced attempt to insinuate another Koriani presence in the teeth of the Alliance campaign.
Early Winter 5671
Dark Hour
By sundown, a biting east wind razed the estuary, whipping gusts that hampered the loading of Adruin's out-bound galley. With the sabotaged wharf left a mangle of sunk timber, and the upper-tier catapults busy hammering ruin on any ship caught within range, the craft lay tied in close to the battered stonewalls. A rough gangway lashed from loose planks and moored tenders boarded the assault troops due for leave from the harbourfront. Elaira attended her wounded, beleaguered, on the vessel's exposed upper deck. If the freezing weather endangered her critical cases, the blaze in the sail-loft forestalled better handling. The Alliance captain's offer of transport defrayed the certain destruction that swept through the sea-quarter streets.
'That's setting your crown prince, stunned helpless, within the cursed reach of his half-brother's fury' Dakar accosted Talvish in a searing whisper. 'Not to mention, we'll be under the itching noses of the Light's watch-dog priests!' Dockside, the pair of them grunted to heft the locked chest that hid the Paravian sword and the heirloom lyranthe. While the enemy assisted the on-going task of hauling their litter-bound casualties across the heaving span from the ruined landing, any snatched conversation was risky.
Yet the blond liegeman, who gimped with his sword-arm strapped up, only backed Elaira's decision. 'How else to challenge the Alliance's cordon?' He tipped his chin towards the lights of the patrol galleys raking to and fro across the closed harbour mouth. 'We're bang in the midst of those blood-feeding sharks! Bravado alone cannot jack a small boat, or slip past that accursed blockade! We will cross alive if we go under sanction by Lysaer's officers.'
But the persistent hunch to the Mad Prophet's shoulders decried the logical option.
'Trust Davien's working!' Talvish urged in clipped haste. 'Our chances are sure to be better ashore, where our leaving won't be as nakedly obvious.'
Against Dakar's steamed silence, and all better sense, Arithon's wrapped
form was bundled aboard by two Sunwheel soldiers, under Glendien's rapacious oversight. Talvish perched atop the stowed trunk, strategically placed in close reach, as the galley's crew raced the changed tide to cast off.
The vessel embarked under cover of darkness. She surged into the icy race of black water to a blare of horns, and the crackling flutter of her Adruin registry and Sunwheel pennant. Errant danger increased as the oarsmen dug in, driven at double-stroke pace. As they pulled the ship clear of the looming cliff, only nightfall and speed could foil the defenders' hurled shot. Under hot fire from the upper citadel, the galley ran, lanterns shuttered. Her zigzagged course dodging the whistle and splash of lofted boulders unleashed by the trebuchets.
A glancing hit splintered the yardarm and topmast. Deck-hands sprang to jettison the entangled wreckage, while a luckless by-stander writhed underneath, screaming with a compound fracture. The bone-setting left Elaira too engrossed for worry, or Glendien's shattering grief. The clanswoman mixed remedies without anyone's prompting, while Dakar, reluctant, wound cantrips to ease the seaman's piteous suffering. Throughout, Arithon lay senseless. Kept under Talvish's tacit watch, his condition stayed changeless, while the galley bore off, and the tumult of battle fell away astern.
Parrien also remained blessed by unconsciousness, while beyond the wake thrashed up by the oars, the stamped silhouette of the citadel brooded over a necklet of flame. The conflagration streamed from roof to roof, roaring throughout the tight streets of the sea-quarter bailey. The galley made steady headway through the fouled air, until the rolling billows of smoke chased away on the wind off the Cildein.