The Fall of Neskaya

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “Sire.” He gave the word both honorific and familial inflection. “I wish to report that although I was unable to fulfill my mission of seizing control of the lands beyond the Drycreek border, it has been secured against Hastur aggression.”

  At that, the King’s eyebrows lifted. His expression lightened. He listened with evident and growing interest as Belisar told his story, finishing with his departure from the border. Curious, how less frightening it seemed in the telling. His own deeds seemed bolder, the colors of the day brighter. Horns rang out brassy challenge behind his words. He could almost see the pennants shimmer in the sunlight. His legs grew steadier beneath him with each phrase.

  It was a pity, he thought as he came to the end of his tale, that he had not stayed to see the bonewater dust sifting down from the sky. From everything he had been told, that would have been a sight indeed. He could only imagine its deadly beauty.

  When he finished, Damian sat silent, brows drawn slightly together.

  “Are—are you displeased with my command?” For the first time since his escape, Belisar felt unsure. “I assure you, there was no possible better outcome, not after the Hastur treachery—”

  “Where is the army I entrusted you with? Where is The Yellow Wolf? And where is Rumail, my brother?”

  “Oh, they are following. The orders to retreat had already been given. I could not, of course, allow myself to be captured once the second ruse was discovered, and so their slower pace afforded me some protection.” The Hasturs would have had to push their way through the entire Ambervale army to get at him. It had all worked out rather nicely.

  “Protection.” A pause, the flicker of eyes gone suddenly cold. “And what protection did you afford them?”

  “I don’t understand.” Belisar shifted from one foot to the other. “Against what? They already had safe passage home.”

  “Against the bonewater dust.”

  “Well, Rumail wasn’t going to unleash the stuff over them. It’s not as if the men were in any danger.”

  “But you did not stay to see to it yourself. To make sure there were no other . . . surprises.”

  Now Belisar’s spine prickled with irritation. “I told you, the Hasturs had demanded my surrender. Should I have risked my freedom—my freedom, as the heir to Greater Ambervale? I don’t understand your point. If you think I should have acted otherwise, stop dancing around and tell me.”

  “Yes, it is clear you don’t understand.” Belisar caught the growl of resignation in his father’s voice. With a barely-disguised sigh, Damian heaved himself out of his seat. He crossed the distance between them with two strides. For an instant, Belisar was afraid Damian was going to strike him, or walk right by him, which would have been worse.

  Damian grabbed him in a rough hug and pounded his back several times. “Ah, well,” he said, half under his breath. “You cannot help it, I suppose. But you are still my son and heir. There is much good in you. I will have to teach you better.”

  For days, soldiers poured into Acosta, weary in body from battle and flight, wearier still in spirit. They offered a patchwork tale of entrapment, surrender, and an orderly retreat turned into a rout. None of them knew exactly what had happened, only that they had bolted for their lives at the command of their officers.

  The next men to arrive were already dying, their guts turning to water even as their hair fell in patches. In his presence chamber, Damian interviewed those who could still talk. He forced Belisar to listen, to face the human wreckage from his aborted command. To cover his escape, Rumail had indeed released the bonewater dust over the Hastur army. But something had gone wrong, so that the Ambervale forces had also been exposed.

  Belisar left his own men to die while he saved his own skin . . .

  A pang shot through Damian as he glanced at Belisar’s uncomprehending expression. Perhaps the shortcomings of the son were the fault of the father. He had not spent much time with Belisar as a child, for that was during the long, difficult conquest of Linn. That was before the vision had come upon him. Then he had assumed Belisar would tread in his footsteps, be molded by that same vision. He thought of Belisar as a young man, hair like a cap of gold, Belisar out on the practice field, mastering a fiery horse, Belisar grinning at him across a banquet table with torchlight burnishing his skin, Belisar wooing that Hastur vixen, Belisar so tall and proud as he led out the army. . . .

  Belisar the coward.

  It was probably Damian’s own fault. The boy was young, untried, idealistic. He had been fed on visions of victory and glory. He knew nothing about honor in defeat.

  Damian dismissed the last of the soldiers and downed a goblet of wine, an exquisitely rich vintage even though well-watered, and set it down on the little inlaid table. The wine sloshed onto the polished surface.

  This much sitting around waiting would drive Aldones himself mad. What he needed was action. The border skirmish was a minor setback, that was all. He still held Acosta and the mountain kingdoms, as well as his home territories of Ambervale and Linn. The better part of his army was intact.

  Voices reached him from the outer room. Though the words were muffled, he recognized the baritone of his personal guard. A prickle swept up his spine as he heard the subtle rise in pitch of the guard’s voice. He gestured to the page standing at the door to admit whoever it was.

  The man had ridden long and hard, Damian saw at a glance. Travel grime darkened his leather-plate armor, the worn straps which once held sword and dagger. Sweat and dried blood etched the seamed scars on his face. What struck Damian as the man fell to his knees, trembling, was the mixture of horror and despair in the whitened eyes. So should a man look, who had seen defeat turned into disaster, and his own fellows die from bonewater dust. Yet the man before him was no raw recruit, but a battle-hardened veteran.

  “It’s all right,” he said, gently gruff. “I already know.”

  The man’s mouth opened and closed. A sound came from his throat, half gasp, half moan. He shook his head, and Damian saw the tears.

  “Vai dom—Lord—!” The man passed one hand across his face, visibly struggling not to fall on his face. A moment later, he had control of himself, although he did not meet Damian’s eyes. When he spoke, his voice sounded hollow, like an echo of the grave:

  “The Yellow Wolf is dead.”

  For a long moment, Damian sat, uncomprehending. He was beginning to suspect, from all the reports, but the words carried a dreadful finality.

  “The general, dead?” His voice seemed to belong to someone else, someone immune to grief.

  “By the Lord of Light himself, I wish it were not true! He stayed behind to make sure we got safe away.” Now the man’s words came in a rush. “At first, I would not leave him, but he commanded me. I went with the others.”

  Now Damian recognized the man, one of The Yellow Wolf’s most trusted captains. Battle and desperation had transformed his rugged features. His name was Ranald Vyandal and though his family was poor, his lineage was honorable. Strange that Damian should think of that now.

  “We got well clear of the dust, then I waited for him while the others went on. And then those who came had blistered faces. Some could not run more than a few paces without puking out their guts.” Ranald gulped, memory paling his face to the color of bleached bone. Damian saw death in his eyes, but whether his own or only a reflection of all he had seen, he could not tell.

  Ranald went on as if desperate to tell his whole story while he could. “Still I waited. Toward the very end, when I could see only a few still on their feet in the distance—four of them carried him. They could barely stand, and yet they would not leave him—” his voice broke, but only for a moment.

  “He was still breathing when they laid him at my feet. His face was horribly burned, his lips blackened. He looked at me and did not know me. He—oh, Dark Lady Avarra! Have mercy on us!”

  Ranald buried his face in his hands, choking down sobs. “He was a father to me. I should have—”

>   I should have died at his side. Or in his place.

  Damian, unexpectedly moved, reached out to lay a hand on the man’s shoulder. His fingers moved over leather stiff with filth, to feel the deep racking sobs.

  I have lost my general, and maybe my brother, Damian thought. My son is a fool who can command but not lead.

  “I will hear no more of this. Dying is the easy part!” Damian said. “You have done your duty, a far more difficult task. You have brought this news to me, your King.”

  “That’s—that’s what The Yellow Wolf said. That I must live, and tell you he did his best. He spoke those words with his last breath.”

  “And what of the laranzu, Rumail?”

  Ranald knew nothing of his fate. He had not seen or heard of any gray-robed wizards.

  Damian called for servants to see to Ranald’s needs, and a physician to assess his exposure to bonewater dust. As for The Yellow Wolf, there would be time enough to mourn, once the battle was won and Hastur ground into dust.

  I will need another general. If this man lives, perhaps he might serve. He seems capable of both loyalty and initiative. And he has seen the worst of battle.

  Damian sat for a long time in his war chamber, with his hatred for Rafael Hastur growing like a cancer in his heart.

  With The Yellow Wolf’s death, Damian had lost a friend as well as a brilliant war leader. Yet to give himself over to grieving now would mean throwing away whatever The Wolf had died for. He, Damian, was still king. He might have failed to gain the border territory, he might well have erred in giving Belisar so much responsibility or in underestimating that snake, Rafael, and his witch niece, but by all the gods he knew and any others who would listen, he was not finished yet.

  Rumail’s first waking awareness was warmth and a deep sense of well-being, then movement. He drifted in and out of true consciousness with the swaying of his body. The wound in his side had faded to a tightness, like the drawing of a stiff, old scar. At first, he thought some soft thick blanket swathed his body, then he realized it was not a physical fabric but an encompassing field of laran. When he tried to open his eyes, he saw only a blurred swathe of blue and golden green. His energies were depleted, but he was moving, perhaps on a cart or sledge. Through the muffling shield, he felt neither jolt nor bumping.

  Voices reached him distantly, the harsh tones of the poorer sort of foot soldier. From time to time, the swaying halted and then went on with hesitation. He continued moving by fits and starts away from the heart of the contamination. That much his laran senses told him.

  In his desperation, he had reached out for help, and had been answered. It was best to keep quiet and let events take their course. With any luck, he would be out of the danger zone before the Hastur fools realized who they’d helped.

  When he came to full consciousness, the protective, smothering blanket of laran had lifted. Rumail found he could lift his head. He was lying in the back of a cart, the sort used to transport provisions to the battlefield, and the cart had tipped half on its side. In place of a pair of mules, a single animal stood in harness, lazily shaking flies from its long ears.

  By his thirst, days had gone by. Rumail sat fully upright, grasping the side of the cart for balance. The mule had come to a halt in the middle of a rutted, churned morass which might once have been a road. A man in a soldier’s jacket slumped at a precarious angle in the driver’s seat. Rumail’s movement tipped the cart and sent the man tumbling face-down into the mud.

  Cautiously, Rumail used his laran to taste the air for poison. It was clean, although some residue of bonewater dust clung to the wheels of the cart. He slid to the ground, sinking ankle-deep in the muck, and rolled the man over. The mule cocked one ear in his direction.

  The soldier whose compassion or duty had gotten him this far was too far gone for even a trained monitor’s skill, which Rumail did not have. He bent closer as the man’s lips moved. No sound came from the blistered mouth, but Rumail caught his dying thoughts.

  For the King . . . save his wizard . . . tell my son . . .

  And then nothing.

  Rumail passed a hand over the staring eyes. It would have been decent to bury such a man and not leave his body for the kyorebni, assuming any would venture this close to bonewater-polluted land. But he could not delay. Taking the soldier’s knife, he cut the mule free from its harness, shortened the reins to a manageable length, and clambered on. Its backbone made a ridge like a knife and it limped a little, but it moved off willingly enough.

  When Rumail was within view of Acosta Castle, his mule, which had been stumbling with exhaustion, lowered its head, set its hooves, and refused to take another step. Whipping the animal produced nothing beyond ears laid flat against the thin neck. He slid from the mule’s back and took up the reins, clucking encouragement. The animal sighed and followed at an easy amble.

  A pair of guards stopped him at the edge of the army encampment and demanded his business. When he gave his name and rank, laranzu and nedestro brother to the King, one laughed. Eyes flickered over his torn, mud-smeared breeches, his patched tunic. He knew what they saw, an exhausted civilian trying to pass himself off as one of his betters for a bed and hot meal.

  “Dom Rumail perished in the battle of the border,” the other snarled. “You should be torn apart by banshees for besmirching his memory.”

  Rumail was in no mood to explain himself to ordinary men, let alone such inferior ones. One hand crept upward to his starstone. His fingers touched its warmth. It would not do, he reminded himself, to kill or cripple. These men, coarse and ignorant as they were, belonged to his brother. Their lives belonged to Greater Ambervale. So the first guard, the one who had laughed, tumbled to the mud, clutching his throat but still alive.

  “Sorcerer!” the other man cried, his eyes bulging in his weathered face.

  Rumail lifted one eyebrow. “Precisely.”

  Casting bewildered glances at his hapless mate, the guard fell to his knees. Others in the outermost camp circles took notice and a few made their way over. An instant later, a dozen broke out at once, although they kept their distance.

  “It is the King’s brother—the sorcerer—he’s alive!”

  “Come back to us from the dead!”

  Rumail smiled inwardly, enjoying the reaction.

  “How do you know—I’ve never seen him before.”

  “Look how he witched Seamus!—Seamus man, can ye stand? Are ye all right?” cried a soldier, helping the choking guard to his feet.

  “Quickly, send word to the castle!”

  “No, bring him a horse!—a drink—a clean cloak!”

  “Vai dom—” One of the soldiers dared to approach Rumail, hands outstretched in entreaty. “If it please you—we are but poor soldiers—”

  Please don’t curse us.

  Rumail thought wistfully of commanding them to carry him on their shoulders up to the castle, for they would have eagerly done his bidding, but in the end, he settled for an escort and an easy-gaited horse.

  By the time he approached the outer gates, they were already swinging open. There stood Damian, resplendent in golden brocade and white fur. His arms stretched out to meet Rumail and he embraced him with such fervor, pressing Rumail’s filthy garments against his own costly ones without the least concern. Rumail caught the expression on his brother’s face, far more than delight at discovering him alive.

  He needs me. He is desperate. It was a good thing Damian had little laran, or he would surely have picked up Rumail’s surge of exhilaration. And I will use him to get what I most desire—to be Keeper of a Tower today and to rule all the Towers on Darkover tomorrow.

  31

  Edric flew his sentry-birds several times more, following the path Deslucido’s forces had taken. A small group of horsemen had broken away from the rest, moving in the direction of Acosta Castle. Undoubtedly, Prince Belisar was making a swift escape, using the confusion to cover him. The ragged remnants of the army remained straggled over the incre
asingly hilly terrain.

  Edric pointed out their location on the maps spread over the improvised war-room table in the command tent. Coryn had been included in the planning. Caitlin, after sending word to Hali with her starstone, had withdrawn to replenish her strength.

  “It gripes me fierce to see them get away, when we could so easily run them down,” one of the generals said. “With the Drycreek border fallen, Acosta’s vulnerable from this direction.”

  “Or would be, without the bonewater dust,” Rafael commented. “Caitlin, who knows about such things, says it may be a generation or more before the land is safe for passage.” He looked grim. “To reach Acosta, we’ll have to backtrack and go through the Venza Hills, with all the nightmare logistics that entails.”

  “Aye,” said the senior of the officers, “the danger will be if he mobilizes quickly enough to meet us in the middle of the Hills. The major pass is shaped to even the odds for a smaller army and he’ll be approaching with advantage of terrain. If I were Deslucido, I’d lie in wait right here—” he indicated the area on the map, “—where we’d have to charge uphill with no cover. If it rains, as it often does at this season, we’ll be slogging through mud up to our knees.”

  “He’s no fool,” Rafael said. “And neither is his general, The Yellow Wolf. If we know about the pass, we must assume he does, too.”

  “About a half-day’s march past the funnel, there’s a wide valley,” another officer said. “If we can force the battle there, we’ll have room to maneuver.”

  “Our best chance is to get there before him,” Rafael said. “Yes, I know we’d all have to sprout wings to do that. We must find a way to slow him down, keep him pinned at Acosta.”

  “How?” the first general asked. “The cub has sealed himself a very effective barrier. There’s no way we can cross it.”

  But bird-things such as Rumail had used to launch the bonewater dust could cross the desolation. Aircars could rain clingfire down on Acosta Castle. Rafael had pledged himself to restrain such horrors. Would he now use them to further his own ends?