by Peter Fane
Below, on the Long Bridge proper, nothing moved, of course. Several moments ago, everything and everyone had stopped, as if frozen in time. Formal parley was about to begin. The Tarn’s men, the enemy’s men—both sides—neither would stir until negotiations were complete. Yet even in stillness, the presence of the enemy’s vast host filled Kyla with a strange mix of rage and dread and sadness.
She shook her head, looked down below her toward the Tarn. Everywhere she looked, she saw Garen’s star trees, a coppery canopy throughout the fortress. Wherever there was room—in courtyards, on towers, on the walls—the trees’ thick trunks were tucked into massive root-boxes, clay pipes running everywhere, feeding their strange soils, their coppery leaves, and the near-magical fields the trees produced. Even the little tree up here with them on the Pinnacle was accompanied by a water barrel which Ponj diligently tended. It was as if the Tarn had been transformed into a great forest of copper trees. Over there, in the High Square, Kyla could just make out the peak of their High Gate, huge and proud, ten times the height of a man. Even now, with parley only moments away, the Gate burned with silent silver light, the Square a flurry of activity.
“When will we see Uncle Garen?” Susan whispered, using her softest voice. She’d stepped up onto Bruno, on her tiptoes, straining to look over the battlements, out at the surrounding army. The big cloud mastiff didn’t seem to notice the weight of a seven-year-old girl. Susan didn’t seem to be asking her question of anyone in particular. “Will Uncle Garen convince them to leave?”
The air smelled of snow, stray flakes dancing here and there. Filip Toller glanced at Kyla, then at Susan, then back again at Kyla, as if he was waiting for her to answer her little sister’s question. It was the first time their eyes had really connected since he’d been back. Kyla looked away. Filip turned and knelt before Susan. “Lady Susan, your High Lord uncle is the smartest man in the Realm, believe you me. If there’s anyone who can send those armies on their way in peace, it’s him. You watch.”
“But how will Uncle Garen do that, specifically?” Susan asked, not so easily satisfied.
“That’s why we’re meeting, Sue,” Tarlen said, taking his telescope out, extending it, the oiled brass segments clicking, not looking away from the Long Bridge. “Garen wants to stop the fighting so everyone can talk and try to come to some arrangement. But it’s complicated. There are strict protocols.”
“I get it.” Susan nodded matter-of-factly. “Rules.”
“Exactly, my Lady,” Filip said. “Everyone on the bridge will say the right words, and those words will open the parley. But everyone will want to say everything just the right way. It’s important that the honor of both sides be observed. That’s why they say their lines just so.”
“I understand.” Susan nodded. Then she glanced at Filip, then Kyla, and gave a little frown. She turned back to watch. “I suppose it’s like a play.”
“Except nobody’s pretending,” Tarlen said, not taking his eye away from his telescope.
“Is Garen going to get hurt?” Susan asked.
“No, my Lady,” Filip shook his head. “High Commander Ruge is a friend. A friend to Kon and to the Tarn. You remember Lord Ruge and his boys, my Lady? Lords Jannon and Jared and Jon? They’re good friends. They’d never hurt Lord Garen.”
Susan nodded, understanding perfectly, still frowning down at the bridge.
“W-w-we l-l-like J-J-Jared,” Tarlen said, using a playful, stuttering voice, mimicking Jared’s stutter. He winked at Kyla, then looked back through his telescope.
Kyla smiled, despite herself. She did like Jared. And she liked Jon and Jannon. She cared for all the Ruge boys, actually. In that, Filip spoke true. Jared did have a horrible stutter, but he didn’t take himself too seriously; he was a normal person, not some highborn twit. The oldest brother, the rascal Jannon was the same. Jon . . . well, he was a little snooty, but still a good fellow. At least she hoped that was still true. After what she’d heard from Garen’s silver golem, Kyla was no longer so sure. She shook her head. Why assume the worst? The truth was, Filip was right. Ruge and his sons were their friends, but the thought gave little comfort. She looked out at the vast army. Despite her training, her careful breathing, her stomach and hands still felt cold and clenched.
Kyla noticed that Filip was looking at her again, gauging her reaction. She gave him a polite smile.
“There they are!” Susan cried. “There they are!” She hopped up and down, forgetting that she stood on Bruno. The cloud mastiff growled softly. Susan leaned down, patted his thick grey fur. “Sorry, Bruno.” But she didn’t step off him.
Everyone moved to the battlements for the best view. The star tree behind them seemed to sigh, its coppery leaves tinkling. Kyla reached for her pouch and took out her own telescope, a special gift from Garen years ago. She trained her eye on the Long Bridge. Filip and his scouts had done the same with their own, less expensive, spyglasses.
There they were.
At the Great Door, just below them, Garen and his retinue were marching forward onto the Long Bridge. Garen was at the front of his party. He wore ornate high silver plate and a heavy blue cloak trimmed with sable. He was flanked by two squires and two standard-bearers. One standard-bearer carried the banner of the Duchy of Kon: high blue with the Dallanar Sun embroidered in silver at its center. The other standard-bearer carried the banner of the Tarn itself: midnight blue with a silver book stitched in its middle. Kyla hit the moonstone button on her telescope’s side, activated the telescope’s ancient magic, and immediately heard the scrape of armored boots on bridge’s granite, as if she was standing there beside Garen. The ancient artifact would allow her to both see and hear the coming action.
In front of the standard-bearers, right behind Garen himself, one of his squires carried a silver box. Kyla focused her telescope on it. The box was made of pale korom’s wood and locked with a mechanism of high silver. She frowned. She didn’t know what the box contained. The banners fluttered softly as they moved down the bridge. A few more snowflakes danced around them. Colj and a double squad of ten ogre guards followed Garen and his retinue, serving as his honor guard. Such squads at high level parley were always from a different duchy than the principals, Kyla knew. The ogres did make for an imposing sight. Each carried an enormous, ogre-sized shield of high silver and wore a great suit of ancient, high silver plate. Concealed beneath their blue capes they carried massive, ogre-sized axes of the best Konish iron. The High Laws did not forbid ceremonial arms at parley, of course. But they must remain unseen.
Kyla swung her telescope down the length of the Long Bridge, toward the barbican, about three hundred paces in front of Garen. There, High Lord Commander Vymon Ruge and two of his sons, Jon and Jared, had walked out of the barbican’s gate and had stopped to wait for Garen on the edge of the Great Seal. Like Garen, Ruge was accompanied by two squires, two standard-bearers, and an honor guard. One of Vymon Ruge’s standard-bearers carried the banner of Rigel: dark blue with the Dallanar Sun emblazoned in silver at its center. His other standard-bearer carried the imperial banner of Paráden: creamy ivory, marked again with the Dallanar Sun, this time in gold. As custom dictated, Ruge’s honor guard was not of his own House, but rather came from an allied duchy, in this case House Julane of the Duchy of Gelánen, just as Kyla had heard from Garen’s golem. The men of Gelánen wore dark green. With royal Dallanar suns on nearly all the banners, with the once-loyal men of Gelánen standing at attention behind Vymon Ruge, the meeting looked more like a summit between friendly allies, not a conference between the belligerents of a civil war.
Kyla moved her telescope, looked more closely at High Lord Ruge. The commander seemed much the same as when she’d last seen him four years ago. Perhaps a touch greyer in the beard, but still tall and broad of shoulder, his movements smooth, like a man half his age. He was a true warrior, that was certain, a legend in his own time—and he looked the part. His mail was some of the most storied in the Realm, a gift from Grand
pa over two decades past, ornate high silver plate reflecting grey winter sky. He wore a cloak of dark blue, the color of his high House, the sides of his cloak properly covering his sidearm and sword.
Garen was well along the Long Bridge now, about twenty paces away from the Tarn’s Great Door, when a second squad of ogres exited the Tarn. At the center of this squad, the mighty Doj, Colj’s biggest ogre, pulled a small, ornately carved wagon. Inside this wagon, set in an engraved wooden root box, was a sapling star tree about ten palms taller than a full-grown man, just a bit shorter than a full-grown ogre. The little star tree’s coppery leaves clinked like a thousand tiny bells.
“Look at that.” Filip pointed.
“What is it?” Susan asked, staring. “I can’t see.”
“Uncle Garen set a star tree up in that wagon, Sue.” Tarlen’s eye was pressed firmly to the telescope. “They’re bringing it over with them. Ostensibly, a gift for the High Lord Commander.”
“Doj is pulling the wagon by himself,” Quine said.
Ponj grunted.
“A present for Vymon Ruge.” Kyla nodded, the genius of the plan dawning on her.
His eye at his telescope, Tarlen grinned.
“Interesting gift, Lord Tarlen.” Filip cleared his throat. “If you’ll permit me, my Lord.”
Tarlen nodded, still not looking away from his telescope. “It looks like the little tree’s field will shield them as they exit the Tarn’s defensive perimeter.”
“Hmm.” Filip nodded.
“The best gifts serve both sides of the exchange, as you said, Master Toller,” Tarlen said. “Lord Garen is the son of the Silver Fox, after all.”
“Of course, my Lord.” Filip bowed. Kyla could tell that Filip approved of how Tarlen carried himself—like a proper Dallanar prince.
It took Garen several long moments to cross the rest of the bridge’s length—three hundred paces in all—to reach the far side and the Great Seal there. The second squad of ogres and their little tree stayed ten paces behind him, every step of the way.
“They’re starting,” Tarlen said.
Kyla wiped the oculus of her telescope, put her eye back to it.
Garen had stopped on the near side of the Great Seal, five paces in front of Lord Ruge. One pace for each of the Great Sisters, Kyla remembered. The protocols were precise. Each party would take two steps forward, but only after they’d re-affirmed the preliminary terms of the meeting. Their handshake would bridge the final distance over the Great Seal, and then parley itself would begin.
The squire on Garen’s right began the ritual. He bowed to Vymon Ruge and his two sons, then called out for all to hear:
“High Commander of the Silver Legions, Lord Vymon Ruge, Duke of Rigel, Master of Aaryn’s Cry, and Lord Protector of Remain, we bid you peaceful greetings in the names of the Five Sisters and the Silver Kingdom. We stand with you here, over the Tarn’s Great Seal, under the protection of the Realm’s High Laws, to reach terms for formal parley.”
Ruge and his sons bowed to Garen.
Then Lord Ruge’s squire answered:
“High Emissary of Kon, Lord Garen Dallanar, Duke of Jallow and Lord Librarian of Remain, we honor your peaceful greetings in the names of the Five Sisters and the Silver Kingdom. We stand with you here, over the Tarn’s Great Seal, under the protection of the Realm’s High Laws, to reach terms for formal parley.”
Garen bowed to Vymon Ruge and his sons.
Still looking through his telescope, Tarlen said, “Lord Ruge’s squire called Lord Garen ‘Lord Librarian.’”
Kyla nodded, not looking away. “And Garen addresses Ruge as ‘Master of Aaryn’s Cry.’”
“Both are older titles,” Tarlen said. “Given before the war began.”
Kyla nodded. “‘Master of Aaryn’s Cry’ is a Konish honorific, while ‘Lord Librarian’ is a title that belongs to the Kingdom as a whole.”
“A good sign,” Tarlen said.
Kyla felt herself unclench a little. With their formal greetings, both Garen and Ruge appealed to past attachments, to the friendships that bound their two families together.
Both squires took two steps back. Garen took two steps forward. As the representative of the party initiating parley, these first two steps were his right and duty. Ruge would then step forward and respond with his own formal list of terms.
“High Commander,” Garen said, his voice clear and strong. “For the Realm’s people and its peace, we beg parley from your High Liege and Lord, Dorómy Dallanar. We seek your terms, High Lord Commander, so that we might end this conflict for one day, a day of peace that might model years of tranquility for the people of Remain.”
Ruge took his two steps forward. A few snowflakes caught in his grey beard. “High Lord Emissary, as a servant of the Realm, I am privileged to receive your honorable request and to speak on behalf of my High Liege and Lord. It is Lord Dorómy’s deepest wish to end this conflict for one day so that we might sit in free and fair discussion. In so doing, my Lord hopes not only to find a way to peace but also to strengthen and guard the Realm against those who would do her harm. Thus, in accordance with the High Laws and in the names of Acasius and his Great Sisters, we offer the following terms.”
Jared Ruge stepped forward with a silver tube, uncapped it, and withdrew a single sheet of thick parchment lined with a densely written order of protocol. Jared handed the tube to one of the squires and then, with his familiar stutter, he began reading the formal terms of parley.
28
WHEN FELLEN COLJ marched with Lord Garen down the length of the Long Bridge, when he and his fellow ogres arrived at the High Seal, when Colj looked into the eyes of the enemy, he saw deceit.
And the war song blossomed in his heart.
It was a trap.
It had always been a trap.
There would be battle today.
Lord Michael, Lord Doldon, the others—all had said it would be so. Colj had believed them. But now that Colj saw it with his own eyes, it was obvious.
The enemy lied.
Most of them, at least.
A few did not.
The stuttering young man, Jared Ruge, the young man who now read terms of parley, he did not lie. The father of the stutterer, High Lord Vymon Ruge, grey-bearded and solemn, Dorómy Dallanar’s High Commander, the Pretender King’s Lord of the Siege, he did not lie. The soldiers in the honor guard behind them, those in dark green livery, Lord Marden Julane and his men from Gelánen, they did not lie. Indeed, there were many here who thought they met for peace. But the young man beside Vymon Ruge, the youngest son of the High Commander, the young man with narrow eyes, Jon Ruge—he lied. And there were many others with him, also.
The war song hummed in Colj’s heart. He wanted to fight. And he was ready. He had been ready for months. But the war song made it hard to think, the savage side of his ja overcoming reason. Colj took a breath, let it out, felt his huge muscles flex like living stone beneath his armor.
“War is truth.” So his father had taught him. A lesson passed down from father to son, all the way back the beginning. An ancient truth, and like all truths, eternal. A truth that would be revealed once more today.
Colj looked at Jon Ruge, at the deceit in the young man’s eyes. It was easy for these people to lie. Colj knew that. But it was hard to make eyes match tongue’s deception.
Colj flexed his fingers. His gear felt good, solid and tight. Beneath his cloak, slung on his wide leather belt, he carried a double-bladed axe of the finest high silver. The rest of his ogres carried strong Konish iron. Only he, Fellen Colj of Jallow, carried the Tarn’s silver into battle. “You’ve been chosen, Captain Colj,” Lord Michael had said. And then Master Falmon had opened the cabinet, had given him the axe, and had told Colj that the ancient weapon had been carried by the dread Hakon Dallanar, Hakon the Terrible. “Lord Hakon was a big man,” Lord Garen had said. “He could only use this axe with two hands.”
Colj used one.
Jared Ruge
still read from his parchment, stuttering. The young man did his best. A good man. An honest man. He would surely die.
And then Colj realized another truth.
The reason why the stuttering Jared Ruge spoke for the enemy.
It was part of the trap.
The Pretender King used Vymon Ruge and his son Jared to speak truly, to speak the truth as they saw it, to hide the lie inside the truth of past friendship. The Pretender understood the old bond that lived between Vymon Ruge and Bellános Dallanar, the ties of loyalty that linked their families. Lord Michael and Lord Garen would never have asked to meet with any other High House. And so the Pretender used Vymon Ruge and his sons, their honesty and their honor, as weapons to bait the snare.
Colj grunted with disgust. He was not surprised. He would be glad to fight today. His ogres would be glad to fight today. They had waited a long time. Today was a day of release. There would be some signal. Some word. The attack would come. And they would fight.
And with this thought, the war song swelled in his mind, filling his ja with holy music.
29
LITTLE DAN WAITED behind Stormy with Chief Tendal and the other helpers. The helpers were standing behind their squires, and the squires were standing behind their war adepts, and the adepts were standing behind Stormy and Oblivion. They were waiting by the huge door, waiting to go out and fight. The adepts’ hands were on the big guns, humming. Stormy and Oblivion hummed right back—but it was off to Dan’s ear, something not right, but Dan didn’t know how that could be. He did know that Stormy wasn’t happy about it. Dan wanted to give Stormy a little pat on the side, tell him it was gonna be fine, but that wouldn’t be how a proper soldier did it. So, Dan just stood there humming a little song himself, hoping Stormy would be alright and that he’d hear Dan humming.