Goldenmark

by Jean Lowe Carlson

  “The Menderian army isn’t going to be stopped long,” Ihbram observed. “As soon as those bulwarks in the river burn up, they’ll begin rolling siege-towers back in. We’ve got a night before that happens, tops. They were going to take the fortress today, but now they have to wait. Arlen bought himself one night with his little trick, but not a lot more. I don’t know why he’s not using those trebuchets of his, but maybe they’ve been sabotaged. It’s hard to tell from here if they’re operable.”

  “There could be another way in, away from the fight.” Khouren’s eyes narrowed upon where the northern split of the river rounded the city’s cliffs and was lost to view. “But I don’t see any ledges up into the fortress anywhere else.”

  “Brenner knows how the people who built that fortress got into it,” Merra snorted sourly. “I don’t see any ramps or bridges or anything.”

  Eleshen gazed through the rain that sheeted in curtains upon the wind now, seeing that Merra was right. The fortress had no ingress, only a broken ramp in the river that had probably been Arlen’s way in. The archways began fifty feet up and there were no bridges to the surrounding cliffs. Eleshen’s gaze lingered upon the statues of winged people that flanked every enormous arch. Some were headless, some had spears or half-broken upraised arms. But seeing them, gazing up at the towering minarets and doorways that went nowhere, Eleshen finally understood.

  “They flew.”

  “What?” Khouren glanced over, watching her intently.

  “The people who built this citadel. They had wings,” Eleshen spoke again. “They didn’t need a ground-level ingress or bridges to their fortress.” Khouren and Eleshen returned to watching the battle. The Menderian’s remaining siege towers were out of the river and safe, their soldiers once again in protected phalanxes with shields. Khouren sidled his cat closer to Eleshen so their legs touched as they stared out over the battle below. He smoothed his hand over Eleshen’s thigh and she shifted into his touch, welcoming it.

  “Lhaurent’s forces will be up inside that city at first light,” Merra growled from atop her snowy mount. “And then it’s sword on sword. How many fighters does Arlen have in there?”

  “Arlen doesn’t have eight thousand fighters,” Ihbram spoke soberly. “Maybe he’s got fifteen hundred. Maybe. The rest would be just villagers.”

  “He’s going to get clobbered, even with the skill of his Alrashemni,” Merra growled, her blue eyes furious in the darkening twilight. “We need to move. Tonight. But I won’t send our forces in ta die in droves.”

  Suddenly, Eleshen had a thought. “Khouren, you can walk through walls. Could you get inside and alert Arlen that we’re here? Have him make a distraction for the Menderian army while the keshari sneak down in the dark tonight and jump up those ledges into the fortress?”

  “The fortress’ walls are natural stone down below,” Khouren lifted his chin, his blue-black braids haloed by the wet. “I can’t breach natural stone. I’d have to climb up.”

  “I could climb lead, you could follow,” Ihbram glanced over, a sparkle of intrigue in his green eyes. “Get us high enough so you could pull us inside. We could find Arlen and get him to make a diversion tonight as Eleshen said. Arlen knows me. He’ll trust my information.”

  Merra had ceased pacing her mount and drawn close, a thoughtful expression upon her face. “If Arlen can make a big enough distraction at the fort, we can slip up and in with minimal losses. Cats are stealthy in the dark, an’ this rain will cover any noise an’ make it hard ta see us from across that river.” She glanced at Ihbram. “If ye can find Arlen tonight, we can do the rest.”

  “Done.” Ihbram nodded briskly, his grin vicious. “Khouren?”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to get us inside. Up the northeastern face, where the army can’t see us.” Khouren glanced at Eleshen, something worried and protective in his gaze. She knew what he was thinking; that she would be left with Merra’s riders, away from his protection.

  Suddenly, a flaming shot went up from the western ridge, where they could just see another catapult through the curtaining rain. Merra flicked her fingers and Rhennon jogged his cat to a brazier under a guard-hut. Dipping an arrow into the flames, he shot an answering flare from his enormous Elsthemi warbow. Another shot came from the northeastern cliffs, and Merra cussed. Rhennon returned and Merra growled at him, “Take twenty down to the river and up the northeastern cliff. Eliminate the watch there. We can’t have them spying on us tonight. Join us down by the river after dark.”

  Rhennon gave a quick nod, then signaled his elite group to peel away. Twenty cats slipped out of the trees and over the shadowed northern edge of the cliff – gone down the side. Eleshen blinked, that the keshari could just jump down cliffs like that. But she had no time to ponder, as Merra signaled them to retreat back into the dripping forest. They soon returned to the main host, who idled, taking a rest in the dripping gloom.

  “Finish yer food and empty yer loins!” Merra hissed to her company as she moved her cat into their midst and briefly summarized their plans. “Check yer weapons! Tonight’s silent running, hear? Kingsmen, watch yer keshari Lieutenants fer hand-signals. Once we go down into the gorge, if I hear so much as a growl from cat or rider ye’ll be shot full of arrows!”

  A brisk nod came from the keshari riders, with a two-finger affirmation. The Kingsmen saluted with a palm to their hearts and the Roushenn Guard with fingers to the brow, though many shifted in their saddles. Riders dismounted, bumping heads with their cats. Saddles and cat-bridles were left on and the keshar-cats didn’t wander, knowing that it wasn’t yet time to rest. Fighters hauled out jerked meats and nut-and-berry waybread baked just before they’d left Gerrov-Tel. All supplemented their meal with boar-lard, dipping fingers in the grease and licking them off. Eleshen had seen how the keshari riders took lard and salt during the day, eating little else on the road.

  “Fat’s the best meal before a fight,” General Merra sidled up, offering Eleshen an oiled pouch of lard. “Light on the stomach and ample fuel. Have a good dip, lass. We’ll be hard in it tonight. May not be a chance ta eat again fer a while. Doan’ want yer muscles ta fail if we see battle.”

  Eleshen dipped her fingers in and licked them, finding the fat gamey and thick. But it cleared her tired mind and smoothed her parched mouth, though she turned away Merra’s second offer. Khouren sidled up as Merra left to give fat to her snowy cat.

  “How are you?” Khouren’s smooth voice slid down Eleshen’s body like something alive as he stepped close.

  “My ass hurts, wouldn’t you know?” Eleshen quipped.

  Khouren missed her humor, his opal eyes narrowing with tension. “You may see battle soon, if things go wrong. Are you ready?”

  Eleshen eyeballed him. She couldn’t deny that she was developing feelings for Khouren, but his hovering had begun to grate. Whenever they stopped, he lingered like a specter. When they bedded down, he slipped to her like a shadow with a hand on his blades, watching the night until she invited him to lay beside her in his bedroll. She lifted her eyebrow. “Are you ready? What if you run into a problem in the fortress?”

  “I know how to solve problems.” Khouren’s eyes were dark, a look Eleshen was beginning to know well. He moved in, catching her around her waist, his grey gaze fervent. “Stay close to Merra if there’s any fighting. I couldn’t bear it if—”

  “I’ll go where I please, thank you very much.” Feeling irate with all this jangled energy flowing through her for an upcoming battle, Eleshen picked his hands off her waist and squared her shoulders. “I don’t need any man telling me what to do.”

  “I just meant—”

  “I know what you meant,” Eleshen flicked her sable braid back over her shoulder. “And I’ll not be patronized. I appreciate you trying to protect me, but—”

  “But you don’t want me.” Something in Khouren’s eyes died, going from worried to utterly bleak in an instant.

  “No, I just meant—”

  “I kn
ow what you meant,” Khouren set his jaw. “But it’s my right to care about you. I—”

  “Your right?” Eleshen had been about to apologize, when his possessive tone caught her all wrong. Her heart boiled; her limbs trembled. She didn’t know where this fury came from – as if her body wanted any battle it could get. Stepping back into the fur of her dappled grey cat, she gave Khouren a nasty look, as Moonshadow turned her great head and gave Khouren an additional nasty look. “Saving me from death at the hands of a madman doesn’t give you any ownership over me.”

  A stricken look seized Khouren’s face. He reached out, but then his hand fell to his side. Eleshen watched a bleak woe take his opal-dark eyes before they went carefully blank. “As you wish.” Turning away, Khouren stalked to a copse of sycamore trees to the north and slid through them, lost to sight.

  “Oh, Halsos!” With a frustrated sigh, Eleshen turned into her cat and buried her face in her cat’s silvery fur, her heart hammering with twin emotions of fury and heartache. With a growl, Eleshen pulled one of her longknives. Setting the blade back along her forearm, she focused on the deep rhythm of the cat’s breath. She’d once dreamed of finding a man like Khouren: someone strong and passionate who idolized her every move. But now, she’d been so eager for battle that she’d provoked a battle with Khouren.

  “Don’t take what he says to heart.” Ihbram’s smooth voice came from her left, with a hint of sad amusement. “Khouren really has no idea what to do with women.”

  “He is infuriating!” Eleshen snapped, pushing up from her cat’s fur. She rounded on Ihbram, her longknife still to hand as she set fists to her hips. “He’s so – old-fashioned! If I needed a man to step all over me, I’d lay down like a daisy in a cow pasture!”

  “Easy, keshar!” Ihbram’s green eyes flashed humor.

  “Well? He pissed me off.” Eleshen slid her blade back into its sheath with a huff, wiping rain off her forehead with the back of her hand.

  “Khouren has that effect on people.”

  “So do you. You’re a rogue.”

  “Always.” Ihbram gave a grin, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “That said, I do know a bit about women. Give Khouren a little patience. He doesn’t know how to court.”

  “I don’t need to be courted.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Ihbram’s emerald gaze pierced Eleshen. “You do need to be courted. You think you don’t, but you’re a Dhepan’s daughter. You’re well-bred, Eleshen. You have high standards for your men, and only court the most noble. Khouren’s a challenge to your sense of nobility. But you see something in him, something that has only begun to know its own honor. Love him for what he is, milady. And pardon my nephew for what he’s not yet become.”

  “You’re silver-tongued,” Eleshen blinked, her fury cooling somewhat.

  “Unlike Khouren, I’ve spent hundreds of years navigating royal courts.” Ihbram’s renegade smile didn’t touch his eyes. “I know love and loss. And I tell you this: don’t push Khouren away. He may be rough, but his heart is more passionate than any man I’ve ever met. Excepting one.”

  “Yours?” Eleshen snorted.

  “No, not me. Someone you met... a while back.”

  Unbidden, his face rose in her mind, and Eleshen knew exactly of whom Ihbram spoke. Sea-grey eyes full of loss and woe. High cheekbones and black curls brush-cut for a soldier’s life. Brooding brows, with a lean and regal strength to match any king.

  “Elohl.” Eleshen’s heart gripped her, and she fought back a sudden sting of tears. “How did you know?”

  “Back when we first met, I... read your thoughts, just a little.” Ihbram’s gaze was apologetic. “I didn’t mean to pry, I was just curious who you were. And Elohl’s image—”

  Eleshen stared out through the settling darkness, fingering her longknives. “He still haunts me, sometimes. When he—”

  “Left you. Alone. I know.” Ihbram moved closer, taking up one of her hands. “I cannot apologize enough for Elohl. He’s got trouble down deep in his soul. I was his friend for many long years and it never got any better. His love is deep, but it’s a frightening thing. That kind of love only goes two ways – bliss, or destruction.”

  Eleshen sighed, staring down at Ihbram’s hand. He was a rogue, but something in him was also kind. “I know. If I die tonight, I’ll go knowing it was better for Elohl and I to part ways. His love for Ghrenna – how could any woman match that? I felt lost when he left me for her. But I won’t go to my death tonight pining.”

  “Don’t go to your death tonight at all,” Ihbram squeezed her hand. “Khouren offered you good advice. Stay close to Merra tonight, or Rhennon. Don’t remain alone if it comes to a fight, Eleshen, just because you’re pissed off at Khouren. Let your friends have your back.”

  Eleshen breathed deep as she considered his words. She watched rain gather upon a golden alder-leaf and splatter to a dark hummock of moss in the waning light. “So. I suppose you and I are friends now?”

  “I’ll be your friend if you’ll be mine. Comrades-in-arms.” Ihbram gave her a hot glower, subtly shifting his posture so it simmered with sex. “Unless you’ll come to me at night and be comrades-in-bed.”

  “Rogue!” Eleshen pushed him with a laugh. And suddenly, her spirits brightened. The gloomy nightfall looked more luminous, the rain less chill. The autumn leaves were a warmer shade in the heavy twilight, and the forest loam smelled rich and earthy. Reveling in it, Eleshen gave a smile at last, her heart easing for the first time in days.

  “Ready for battle?” Ihbram eyed her, not the look of a rogue but the frank gaze of a comrade.

  “Yes.” Eleshen lifted her chin, and with that word, something in her was set free. As if she could feel her soul winging away already into any possible fray. Feeling the jolt of a sword-strike shivering up her arm, hearing her own battle-roar calling for blood. Eleshen set a hand to her heart, feeling it. She’d never been in battle, but this body understood it.

  And was eager for it.

  “Ihbram, mount up!” Merra’s low bark came in their direction suddenly. “Rhennon’s cats ahv decimated the watch at the northeast ridge an’ returned. Ye’ve got a clear path to the fortress. Find yer kinsman and take yer mounts down. When ye’ve got Arlen’s assistance, light a signal fire east where the Menderians canna see. We’ll be waiting in the gorge. Swift riding.”

  Ihbram gave a quick nod and mounted his cat. With a last look at Eleshen, he gripped the reins and moved off into the trees where Khouren had headed earlier. As Eleshen watched him go, Merra signaled the group, her voice ringing out softly from where she sat ready upon her snowy mount.

  “Time ta ride! We pause in the cliff-shadows until dead midnight. When we see a signal fire, it’s chase-me-fast! Tonight, it’s stealth an’ glory – let no man take ye down!”

  Merra made a hand signal at her heart, her fingers clawed, then thrust her polearm to the charcoal sky. The signal was repeated all around as riders set foot to stirrups and vaulted up. As Merra thrust her polearm again into the wet dusk, the Elsthemi riders repeated it, wheeling their mounts into a long column that spanned the northern drop-off and sidling through the last of the brush. Eleshen twitched her cat’s reins so it fell into line at the ridge past the last clump of alders. Rhennon, returned from his mission atop his blood-smirched cat, gave Eleshen a wink as they came shoulder-to-shoulder at the edge of the steep cliff down into the gorge.

  “What does this mean?” Eleshen hissed, making the cat-claw signal at her chest, as all the cats lined up at the drop-off, shivering with eagerness.

  “Victory!” Rhennon growled back, a battle-ready grin upon his lips.

  A third time, General Merra turned in her saddle and made the signal, death and purpose in her ice-blue eyes. As one, the entire battalion repeated it, and then the riders found their stride, flowing forward and down over the jagged northern cliff.

  CHAPTER 32 – KHOUREN

  The grey night was nearly full dark by the time Khouren and I
hbram ran their cats to the fortress’ northeast wall. Though Khouren’s cat was old, it was still fleet, out-pacing Ihbram’s on the rocky flats as they slid through the shallow river and dismounted by the upthrust crimson rock. Ihbram glanced behind and Khouren’s gaze followed. No flaming arrows had been shot from the rim of the canyon nor from the edge of the Menderian camp, now obscured from sight at their position behind the fortress’ stone.

  “Thank fuck for small favors,” Ihbram breathed in the darkness. “You’re up, ghendii.”

  Khouren set his cat free, no love lost between them, and approached the sheer wall. He slid his hands over the rock, closing his eyes. Feeling subtle vibrations in the stone, he tried to match it and slide his way in, but at last shook his head. “We’ll have to climb, just as I thought. The stone is solid down here, for at least ten lengths. I can feel a cavern on the other side, but it’s too far.”

  “Damn.” Ihbram’s voice was hardly a breath as he gazed upward. Following his uncle’s sightline, Khouren saw that this entire wall of the fortress was smooth, no ledges to rest upon. The first archways began higher than on the southern side, one hundred feet up rather than fifty. His uncle’s visage was shadow-on-shadow in the shrouded night as he slung a rope from his shoulder. “Time to climb.”

  They worked quietly and quickly, in a coordinated rhythm both knew well from long ago. Khouren readying knots and clips that made makeshift harnesses in the line, Ihbram setting them in with metal clips and then thrusting a bolt-setter to the rock. Ihbram covered it with his shouf to mask the noise, but the sprung hammer inside the bolt-setter made a hard ka-chunk as it hammered the bolt in – rippling every nerve in Khouren’s spine.