Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy)

by James Mallory Mercedes Lackey

  “What have you done?” Thoromarth bellowed as he reached her, his voice a battlefield shout.

  I have found the Unicorn Throne.

  “I claim this place—it is mine—and yours. All of you—go through it—everyone—” Her tongue tripped and stuttered over a thousand commands. “Clear the rock—set my marker stones—!”

  Pelashia’s Children had come home at last.

  * * *

  A sennight ago, the victory song had been in every throat. The Alliance scouts had brought the same word for a fortnight: Vieliessar drove her army directly toward an unbroken cliff wall. She would be trapped against it, unable to retreat, and when they held her at bay, they would drain the Southern Flower Forest—it did not truly matter which army accomplished that—and then the Alliance would drive the rebel’s army of losels and rabble down into dust.

  Then, astonishingly, instead of preparing for battle, Vieliessar had set a wall twelve cubits high around the whole of her encampment—and to mock them, set such doors in its gate as might grace any High House Great Hall.

  “Siege,” Bolecthindial growled. “She can’t be serious.”

  “You keep saying that,” Runacarendalur said. His smile was bitter. “She has always done exactly what she says she will.”

  Bolecthindial gazed into the distance. Behind him, the Alliance camp spread over miles of this desolate plain. Shield shimmered above and around them, a constant unwelcome reminder that this was a war of Magery and not of honest skill. In the distance, the last light of day turned the silver gates of Vieliessar’s encampment to fire and blood.

  “Once the Light fails, we can starve them out,” Bolecthindial said.

  “If we have, oh … ten times their supplies,” Runacarendalur answered lightly. “I trust our Lightborn are moved to prepare such bounty? Or does the War Council mean us to die here in the moment of our victory?”

  “That is hardly your concern,” Bolecthindial said repressively.

  “No,” Runacarendalur said quietly. “It won’t be.”

  Bolecthindial regarded his son narrowly. Since the retreat from Jaeglenhend Keep, the Heir-Prince had been in a strange humor, by turns rebellious and reckless. He sees the disaster this war has brought, and what it has cost us, Bolecthindial thought grimly. Half a year ago the War Princes had made grand promises to one another—of setting aside old grievances, of unifying in the face of a grave threat, of increased wealth and dominion and security for them all. And at first it had seemed an easy thing, a possible thing, to strike down Serenthon’s mad whelp and thus secure their safety and prosperity forever.

  But disaster had followed disaster. In Jaeglenhend she gained victories where she should have suffered defeats. The Alliance might have turned back then, awaiting a more fortunate moment to smash Vieliessar’s ambitions., but the secret the High Houses held silent in their throats was that Windsward Rebellion was too recent, too nearly successful, for them to permit Vieliessar even the illusion of victory.

  And so the Alliance had followed Vieliessar beyond the edge of the world.

  We were fools, Bolecthindial Caerthalien thought bleakly. Better to have let her claim the Uradabhur, the Arzhana, the Grand Windsward. Such a “kingdom” would never endure. We could have crossed the Mystrals in spring, taken the Uradabhur back domain by domain, gaining wealth and provisions and sending a vast sea of commonfolk running to their “High King.” If she rejected them, her claim of being their savior would vanish. If she claimed them, she would be forced to feed them in their thousands and ten thousands, and thus render herself vulnerable.

  The thoughts were bitter, for they were not his own words Bolecthindial called to mind, but his son’s. His Runacarendalur, the flower of the Caerthalien Line—the glorious prince who could have made Caerthalien’s long-held dream a reality and claimed the Unicorn Throne for himself. From the time Vieliessar had gained Oronviel, Runacarendalur had warned and pleaded and badgered him, until Bolecthindial had shut his councils from his ears and his son from his sight.

  But he’d been right.

  “We shall not gain the victory by gazing upon the foe,” Bolecthindial said. “I shall take my leave. You are expected, of course, to dine with us.”

  “Of course,” Runacarendalur said. But he did not look away from the distant walls.

  * * *

  That night, the Alliance War Council debated long into the night. The strategy was clear: drain the Southern Flower Forest so it could not be used, then besiege Vieliessar and take her fortress by traditional means. In the end, the Alliance would triumph. The War Council had even agreed that they would question Vieliessar before executing her, to see if Celelioniel had told the truth about being able to interpret the prophecy contained within The Song of Amrethion. Once Vieliessar was dead and her Lightborn reclaimed or executed, the Twelve could set to work discovering the source of this “Darkness” and deciding—if it existed at all—how best to crush it.

  Implementation of this simple plan, however, was a matter for endless debate. What spells should they order their Lightborn to cast to achieve this? What stockpiles should they conjure? How would their injured be tended, if only Lightless healing could be offered to them?

  The War Pavilion was Shielded by the conjoined spells of a thousand Lightborn. No spell could be worked within it, no listener could eavesdrop upon it, no blade could pierce its fabric, no fire could burn it.

  No sound could penetrate its walls.

  But even its labyrinth of bespellings was not proof against the shaking of the earth that came in the darkest candlemark of night. Cups fell from tables. Tent pegs worked free of the earth, until the gold fabric hung limply from its wooden framework and the slender shafts creaked alarmingly. It took candlemarks to restore order in the camp, and it was not until dawn that they understood what had happened.

  The distant cliff was no longer a seamless unblemished sweep of stone.

  There was a pass.

  * * *

  For the next six days, as the army advanced, the Alliance Lightborn attacked the High King’s keep. They scoured the ground with winds that ripped the grass from the soil and the soil from the stone beneath. They struck the cliff face with Thunderbolts until the vitrified stone glittered like ice. Waterspouts ripped from underground rivers spun across the gutted land, turning the churned earth to mud. Hyperborean winds turned mud to ice. Fire seared the very air, turning ice to steam, turning steam to blinding blizzards that left the walls of Vieliessar’s fortress drifted high with snow.

  The fortress itself was untouched, and on the evening of the sixth day, there was no more prairie to cross.

  “This is madness!” Sedreret Aramenthiali said, when the War Council had gathered once more. “We have achieved nothing!”

  “Oh, I hardly think it is nothing,” Consort-Prince Irindandirion of Cirandeiron said, fanning himself languidly. “It is entertaining, after all.”

  “And useless!” Sedreret snapped. Bolecthindial found himself wishing for his old enemy’s return. Manderechiel had been a bloody-minded brigand, but he’d never belabored the obvious.

  Dead. Like Jaeglenhend, Mangiralas, Araphant, Ingelthendragir, and half the Houses of the Uradabhur.

  “What do you suggest, Lord Sedreret?” Edheleorn Telthorelandor asked. “With a pass through the Southern Wall available to her, we must assume Vieliessar retreats through it. Once she has accomplished that, she has won. Or do you mean you will send Aramenthiali into such a killing box—in the event her walls fall?”

  “I am saddened to hear such … prudence … from your lips, Lord Edelhorn,” Dormorothon said, the twist of her lips indicating she meant another word entirely. “My son is correct: we have thrown the whole power of our Lightborn against her fortress and done nothing but make a waste of the land. And what shall we do tomorrow? We are within the shadow of her walls. Do we ask her politely to ride forth and give battle?”

  “I’m surprised you dare rebuke us, Lightsister, when the failure is y
ours,” Girelain Cirandeiron said silkily. “The walls were raised by Magery. The pass created by Magery. Yet your own spells have been … surprisingly ineffective.”

  “How dare you so insult my lady mother?” Sedreret demanded, rising to his feet. “I demand—”

  “Aramenthiali demands?” Girelain asked in feigned disbelief, her lips curved in a chill smile. “I did not know you had such a sense of humor, Lord Sedreret.”

  Bolecthindial rose to his feet. Around him, conversation died.

  “Call me,” he said heavily, “when you have discovered something that will work.”

  He turned and strode from the tent.

  * * *

  Runacarendalur was waiting for Bolecthindial when he reached his pavilion. He was sprawled in Bolecthindial’s favorite chair, a cup of wine in his hand. He did not rise to his feet when his father entered.

  “I am in no mood for your whining tonight,” Bolecthindial snapped. No servant came forward to take his cloak. The servants had been running off or dying for moonturns now—to the point where the komen diced for pavilion servants instead of gold—and even Bolecthindial’s household was a shadow of what it had been half a year before.

  He dropped the garment on the floor and glared, but Runacarendalur did not move. If it were anyone else, Bolecthindial would have punished such insolence with his sword, but it seemed to him almost as if Runacarendalur had courted death for sennights. He would not oblige him.

  “No?” Runacarendalur asked. “Then what of my counsel?”

  “What counsel can you offer?”

  “Better than your War Council,” Runacarendalur said, and despite himself, Bolecthindial laughed sharply.

  “I shall have you flogged.”

  “Do,” Runacarendalur invited. “But Heal me afterward, for you will need me to lead your meisne into battle. She will fight—and soon.”

  “You’re insane,” Bolecthindial said. “Why should she fight when she has somewhere to run to?”

  “Because she means to be High King,” Runacarendalur said evenly.

  Bolecthindial looked around. He frowned anew at the absence of servants, then walked to the sideboard and selected a cup and a bottle before settling into a chair. “That is hardly fresh news,” he said as he filled his cup.

  “Perhaps not,” Runacarendalur said. “But it is information you have all chosen to disregard. She flees, you follow, nothing changes. She must offer battle and force your surrender. Until the Houses gathered here have pledged fealty to her, she has not won.”

  “So she will fight,” Bolecthindial said in disbelief. “When?”

  “As soon as she can,” Runacarendalur said, as if it was obvious.

  “She’s done nothing but run since Jaeglenhend.”

  “And a costly flight—to us—that proved to be. It is not running, Father, when you are traveling to your chosen battlefield.”

  Bolecthindial regarded him measuringly. He had seen such despair before, but only in the face of a vanquished enemy. “Go to bed, my son,” he said with surprising gentleness. “Tomorrow, we begin our siege.”

  He was wrong.

  INTERLUDE FOUR

  INVASION AND INFAMY

  Mist rose over the surface of the blood in the obsidian bowl. With the Obsidian Mirror shattered beyond re-creation, Virulan had to find new ways of seeing beyond The World Without Sun. This one combined business and pleasure.

  He gazed at the images of blood and slaughter forming within the mist and smiled, baring gleaming fangs. The Elflings were so proud of their armies, of the skill of their warriors. Virulan knew the truth. Skill was meaningless when confronted with power.

  The dainty banquet of death was a pretty sight nonetheless.

  “They are so confident,” he murmured aloud. “Century upon century, they have bred like the vermin they are, refining their arts of war, believing themselves the greatest power in their world. They slaughter brother, sister, their own children. They make war upon those creatures whose lands they have claimed. And they look to a time when they will be victorious over all. But that time will never come.”

  And best of all, a faint echo of true Darkness had found a home within their hearts. He had watched, gleefully, as fear and ambition caused them to cast aside the rules of chivalry by which they had lived for so long, watched as expediency tempted them to commit greater and greater atrocities. Only the Elfling Mages had stood aside from that rush to infamy.

  Until now.

  Now, at last, one of the Elfling Mages had followed his brethren down their twisted path. Anger and cheated ambition had gnawed at his soul since childhood, and slowly—oh, so slowly—it had led him to … compromise. From the moment Virulan had found the Elfling, drawn by the sweet scent of moral rot, he had watched avidly as Ivrulion of Caerthalien made bargain after bargain with himself.

  At first, the Elfling Mage had acted to further the ambitions of his House, holding himself above the promises he had made to his teachers. He had done what he thought best, never realizing that from the moment he placed his will above that of his masters, all was lost.

  Always, Ivrulion chose the logical, the expedient, the efficient over oaths and honor. Virulan was charmed. No Brightworlder could ever hope to equal the majesty of the least of the Endarkened. They were too cowardly, too weak. But the spark of Darkness Virulan saw in Ivrulion grew in unexpected ways. Sometimes the Elfling lied to himself about his motives. Sometimes he saw them clearly and rejected anything that might curb his desire.

  Ambition was the link between the Endarkened and the Brightworlders, the one thing that could cause Virulan to name those evanescent bags of meat his distant kin. Ambition led them to war. Ambition led them to treachery. Ambition led them to betrayal.

  Ambition led them into the Dark.

  Virulan could not know where this would ultimately lead. He could know Ivrulion’s intentions, it was true—they were so clear that only his blind, foolish, Brightworld kin could remain in ignorance—but he could not see What Would Be. Still, he could watch as, sennight by sennight and moonturn by moonturn, Ivrulion expanded the catalogue of things his ambition found acceptable.

  He could watch as Ivrulion led his people to war.

  It was delicately done, the work of a lifetime of idle remarks and casual observances. His colleagues and his masters drank his poison as if it were sweet milk, certain of his loyalty and his honor. Certain of the presence of all the things he had abandoned so long ago. Soon every death among the Hundred Houses could be laid at his doorstep.

  Soon the end would come.

  Soon it would be time for the Light to dim, and then gutter out entirely.

  The images faded away.

  Send me a sign, Elfling, Virulan breathed over the cooling blood. Send me a sign that the day has come for the Endarkened to ride to war.

  To war, and to triumph.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  THE FALL OF THE HUNDRED HOUSES

  It is said the High King gained her throne through seven great battles: Oronviel, Aralhathumindrion, Jaeglenhend, Niothramangh, Cirdeval, the Barrens, and the Shieldwall Plain. Oronviel was a Challenge Circle, Aralhathumindrion only a skirmish, and the Barrens was not a battle at all. But Storysingers shape history as cabinetmakers shape wood, and it is left for Loremasters to decide the truth.

  —Thurion Lightbrother, Vieliessar’s Tale

  It was nearly dawn. The fortress the Warhunt’s Magery had made echoed with emptiness; its tents and pavilions, herds and flocks, wagons and all who would not take the field this day, were gone. The last of the wagons labored through the pass; the sound of hooves on stone, the creak and thump of wagons, was loud in the night silence.

  For nearly a sennight, her folk had passed through Dargariel Dorankalaliel into the Vale of Celenthodiel. Reports had trickled back of a vast, lush, deserted domain ringed by mountains, of a deserted Great Keep atop a spire of rock, of Flower Forests too vast to map.

  Vieliessar had not yet seen it. It wo
uld be hers—if she could win the day.

  She had thought that claiming the Unicorn Throne would be enough to gain her the victory, and it would—but only if she could show her enemies what she held. The pass stretched for miles. The Alliance would not follow her through it—Arilcarion taught that such a tactic was suicide, and the Alliance Warlords would heed that ancient counsel.

  And so she’d planned this battle, the words Princess Mieuroth of Gerchiliael had spoken moonturns ago echoing through her mind: My lords, we are not alone in this! There are many who would choose to join your cause—but how can it be, when each knows any they abandon will be cruelly punished?

  Today those lords and those princes would have their chance. All they need do was throw down their swords and ride to her lines. Let enough of the Alliance army pledge to her, and the victory was hers.

  The only way to get them to do that was to offer her enemy a show of battle.

  Her commanders had tried to argue her out of taking the field in her own person, but she’d never considered agreeing. Perhaps there was wisdom in their words, but how could she ask her foot knights to stand against charging destriers, ask the Lightborn to believe she would never lead them to flout Mosirinde’s wisdom, if she did not trust in being Child of the Prophecy as her armor and shield?

  She’d never had any other choice. She had never forgotten her vigil in the Shrine of the Star.

  “You have come to end Us … for you are Farcarinon. Death in life. Life in death. You will be known when We are forgotten.” The Starry Huntsman had spoken, and within that vision had come another: a cold and darkling plain, a balefire burning star-pale with magic, a creature neither alfaljodthi nor Beastling standing tall and proud beside a komen in whose veins her own blood coursed. “The Land calls you. The People call you. I call you. He Who Is would return to the world, and so we summon you.”

  “And will you spill your own blood to save the land?”

  I will. The question had not been asked of her, but every day she had answered it. I will. I will.