Blade of Empire

by Mercedes Lackey

  They started the burning before sunfall and it’s nearly the wolf hour now. What’s taking so long?

  “It won’t burn either faster or slower for you staring at it,” Pelere said, coming up to him. She held out a steaming leather tankard. “Drink, if you won’t sleep.”

  Runacar drank thirstily. The mulled ale took some of the chill from the night. “So much could go wrong,” he said aloud.

  “And yet, you said this was the safest way to win, and everyone knows Leutric wants to win.”

  “So do we,” another voice said.

  Runacar turned toward the ocean. It was one of the Ocean’s Own who had spoken: small as a Faun, it somewhat resembled one, save for the fact it was covered in shining scales. It was impossible to tell their true color by moonlight. Blue? Green?

  “If the killers are gone, we will have the sand for dancing again,” the sea-Faun said, blinking its large pale eyes. “We will have the rivers for swimming. No longer will we have to hide beneath the waves, waiting for dark moon nights to sneak ashore. No longer will our nests be destroyed, our eggs broken. You have given us the great river to walk upon and now you burn the nests of the killers. This is a good thing.”

  Having said what it came to say, the sea-Faun turned and dived into the wave, vanishing from sight.

  Runacar sighed. “And I suppose the forest will grow back, someday,” he said. “And the fire won’t overrun all of us before it burns itself out.”

  “You’re gloomy tonight,” Pelere said. “I’ll be glad when Andhel gets back to cheer you up.”

  “She won’t approve, you know,” Runacar said. “She complains about everything I do, and how I do it, and—probably—about the fact I’m still breathing.”

  Pelere gave him an opaque look, switching her tail meditatively. “And have you ever wondered why that is?”

  Runacar shrugged. “Not really,” he said.

  Pelere shook her head. “And yet your kind became the masters of the world. I give you good night, Runacar. Some of us intend to sleep.”

  “Sleep well,” Runacar said automatically. “And without dreams.”

  I wish I might never dream again, he thought.

  * * *

  Dawn came, and in the far distance smoke was a dark veil in the air. By midday, Hippogriffs and Gryphons had begun bringing out the fire-teams that had been running across the forest since yesterday’s sunfall. Despite the fact that many of them had been working desperately to stop the forest from burning only a moonturn before, there was a Festival Fair atmosphere to the day, with cheering and boasting and lurid recountings of wild feats of pyromania. It was both too familiar and too alien for Runacar to take any comfort in it—so much like the revelry following a sunturn of battle, and at the same time so different.

  By sunfall, the last of the fire-teams had left the forest and the fire was bright enough to cast shadows even on the shore.

  They’ll see the smoke on the other side of the Mystrals, Runacar thought, knowing it to be a fanciful notion. But the nagging question at the back of his mind never quite went away: Where are they? Where is she? Why doesn’t she come back?

  He found Keloit and asked him to pass the word that they would march in the morning, then curled up in his stormcloak to sleep.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  SWORD MOON: SMOKE AND VEILS

  As the Light is the heartbeat of the world, so the Lightborn are its guardians. They pledge to no faction, for their greatest allegiance must always be to Creation itself, not to any of the forms in which Creation manifests.

  —Mosirinde Astromancer, The Covenant of the Light

  Herdwatch was one of the pleasanter tasks that a Lightborn might find themselves doing. It fell only to the older and more experienced Lightborn, for if their help were needed, it would be needed instantly, without self-doubt or hesitation. Today, Harwing was assigned this duty, and so he rose at First Bell and, in company with his brethren, quickly washed and dressed. But while they proceeded to the Refectory, Harwing did not. Today he and the other Lightborn sharing his duty would take their meals with the herders.

  The chosen Lightborn walked in sleepy silence from the Sanctuary toward the Western Gate. Some Harwing knew well, like Ulvearth Lightsister and Irchel Lightbrother, and others less so—those who had trained at the Sanctuary outside of his Postulant years. The Candidates now came entirely from Areve, but Light be praised that they still came, for there was nowhere else for them to come from. The village had grown until its walls enclosed more space than a Great Keep. Stone houses and dormitories lined wide streets in orderly array—by unspoken agreement from the earliest days, living space expanded northward while storage and workrooms expanded westward.

  Which still doesn’t keep the tanners and soap-boilers far enough away from everyone’s noses, Harwing thought irrepressibly. How wise Hamphuliadiel was to find the komen who came to us so many tasks, for it would not do the people good to see them idle, yet they are truly not good for much but fighting …

  As always since his awakening, his thoughts ran in two rivers, and the uppermost one contained only the most loyal and innocent of thoughts. No matter where he was, or who he was with, Harwing guarded himself closely. The final task he had set himself was one too important to fail.

  The drovers and their dogs were gathering their charges from goat pen, sheepfold, and barn, and the village gates had been opened by the komen. Harwing waved farewell to Irchel, who was (as always) sent with the horses, while he and Ulvearth joined Herder Ongil with the goats. The moment the beasts were unpenned they went racing through the gates, with the herd-dogs galloping after.

  “Where shall we feast today, Master Herder?” Harwing teased lightly.

  Ongil awarded him a small smile. “We go west to clear the nettles and thorn bushes, so the sheep may graze there after. T’will make good farmland next planting season, unless we leave it fallow another year,” he said, turning to walk after his charges.

  Harwing gestured for Ulvearth to precede him, and the two Lightborn followed the herdsman. Harwing had known Ulvearth from his Sanctuary days, and so he knew she was from the Western Shore—

  He knew she had come from Daroldan to beg the Sanctuary for help and had never been heard from again.

  —and so it would be reasonable of him to wonder how she had come here. But he never did. Nor did he think of what he knew anywhere anyone might hear his thoughts.

  Even her.

  They walked side by side through the grass in silence as the sun rose and brought color to the world. The dawn birds fell silent, and the birds of day took their place. The wind blew from the west, and the air was filled with the clang of herd-bells, the occasional barking of the dogs, and the muttered complaints of the herds as they dispersed to graze.

  “Harwing,” Ulvearth said, stopping and putting a hand on his arm. “Do you smell that? It’s smoke.”

  “What? Where?” Fire was always a danger in a village or town. But the wind was blowing toward Areve, not away.

  “There,” Ulvearth said, pointing. “You can see it, too.”

  He followed her gesture with his gaze. There, on the far horizon, the sky was not blue, but grey. And not merely in one place, as a forest might burn from a careless fire or a lightning strike, but all along the horizon. The wind strengthened, and now he could smell it as she did. Smoke. A forest fire.

  He quickly told over the map he carried in his mind. Ullilion lay west of here, but it had been burnt over a decade before. Beyond Ullilion lay Cirandeiron …

  He looked at Ulvearth questioningly. Her face was pale and grim. “It is Delfierarathadan that burns,” she said, as if to herself. “It can be nothing else.”

  * * *

  The messenger from Areve’s watchtower had reached the Sanctuary just after the morning meal, but by the time he did the news he carried was already known. From the highest window of the Astromancer’s tower, the veil of smoke could be clearly seen, and Hamphuliadiel had seen it.


  The Astromancer spent little time in the tower from which the stars were tracked in their courses, for to bring his acolytes here might raise thoughts in their minds of who was to be the next Astromancer, and that would be unfortunate. This abstinence was no hardship, for Hamphuliadiel took little interest in the paths of the stars at the best of times; the secrets he wished to know were written on the land, not in the sky. But this morning he had risen as early as any of his Lightborn and hurried to climb the long and winding stair to the tower’s very top. His dreams had been unsettled—as they so often were these days—and he had …

  The comforting lies his thoughts formed died away unfinished as he gazed out the western window of the tower. You have come to prove to yourself that your dream was an empty and meaningless thing, Hamphuliadiel of Haldil, while knowing it was not. No wind will blow away this black cloud …

  Hamphuliadiel’s Keystone Gift was Farseeing, something that had been of great use to him on many occasions. Today, it brought him horrors. The Angarussa gone, its bed dry and empty. The forest beyond, blazing red-gold the whole of its length and breadth, the smoke of that great burning rising into the sky in just the way that blood would eddy through a bowl of clear water. The Flower Forest was burning. Delfierarathadan of the Shrine was burning.

  Past that conflagration he could see nothing, for Farseeing only permitted one to see things, not to see through them, but Hamphuliadiel did not need to see more than flames to know far more than he wished to. Amrolion and Daroldan were lost. The Beastlings had destroyed them.

  Until this moment, Hamphuliadiel had been content to let the Beastlings bellow and rave through the wilderness until he had a use for the land they occupied. They had been useful in ridding him of challenges to his rule, and their raids against Areve had been easily rebuffed. At the bottom of his mind he had supposed that in a Wheelturn, or perhaps two, he would send an embassy to the Western Shore to humble those proud princes and bring them beneath his authority. They would swear fealty to the Sanctuary of the Star, and bring him their wealth and their armies, and that would set the capstone and seal upon his rulership.

  And now he knew there were no longer any armies, any War Princes, any wealth. The Western Shore had fallen to the Beastlings.

  Hamphuliadiel Astromancer, Sovereign Lord of Areve and the Sanctuary of the Star, was … concerned.

  * * *

  “They will not come here,” Momioniarch said. “They are afraid of us.”

  Hamphuliadiel had gathered his Lightborn advisors to him in his inner chamber. Galathornthadan had already set the whispers circulating: the Western Shore burned, but it was merely the just vengeance of the Silver Hooves on those who had pledged to the traitor and usurper, Vieliessar Lightsister. Those whispers would be enough … so long as the Beastlings stayed on the Western Shore.

  “They do not seem to have been particularly afraid of Daroldan and Amrolion,” Sunalanthaid said. “And those domains had many Lightborn aiding them.”

  “Unless they fled,” Momioniarch replied. “Or refused to fight.”

  “Even to save their own lives?” Sunalanthaid asked.

  “Silence.” Hamphuliadiel had not raised his voice. He did not need to. His four acolytes fell instantly silent, looking to him to speak. “Many have suggested that the Beastlings have found a leader. These are only unlearned guesses, but even a fool may guess rightly on the Midwinter cake. What have you learned?”

  “Little, Lord Astromancer,” Momioniarch admitted. “Birds will not fly through the smoke, nor deer approach the flames, so Overshadow can see nothing. Nor can the weather be worked to bring rain to douse the blaze.”

  “My sister in the Light tells no more than the truth.” Orchalianiel spoke for the first time. “The west reeks of Beastling sorcery. Nothing of the Light can pierce that veil.”

  “And yet,” Hamphuliadiel said with heavy irony, “I have heard tell that among the Lightborn there are some whose Keystone Gift is Fire. Perhaps such a one might be of some small use.”

  “Tangisen Lightbrother was the strongest in that Gift who ever served here,” Momioniarch said reluctantly. “But he was among those who went west with the traitor Rondithiel. And even Tangisen himself could not work Fire over such an area as we see burning.”

  “I do not wish to make this small matter seem great to tale-bearers by sending an array to investigate it,” Hamphuliadiel said briskly. Whether they were slaughtered and vanished without a trace, or returned bearing a river of gossip I could not staunch, the risk would be too great. “But … perhaps a small party. Three or four at most. If there are any survivors of the Western Shore Domains, we must of course open our walls to them in mercy and charity, no matter our past quarrels. But those whom we send must be … adaptable. And loyal.”

  There was a moment of silence, then Momioniarch spoke.

  “Why, I think you must already know what I would say if I were asked, Lord Astromancer,” she said blandly. “Who shall we send but Harwing and Ulvearth? They will suit this purpose well.”

  Hamphuliadiel smiled. “Just such names as were already in my thoughts, Lightsister. They shall go upon this mission of mercy as soon as the moon is full once more.”

  * * *

  The Great Keep of Daroldan was a block of stone skirted by a vast open space of short grass and sandy soil, built at the very edge of a sheer cliff. The outermost castel wall extended past the edge of the cliff, making the structure impossible to surround, and there was no concealment to be found between Daroldan’s walls and the verge of Delfierarathadan. The outermost edge of the Flower Forest lay four leagues away, and the land sloped slowly upward for the entire distance between there and the castel, so that any attack upon Daroldan’s Great Keep must be made across a rising grade. The open ground near the castel was hard-packed from centuries of use as a mustering and drilling ground, and was now covered to the distance of a bowshot with the stones the Folk of the Air had dropped upon the tower, rendering the footing even more treacherous.

  When the Otherfolk army was within a dozen furlongs of its walls, it began moving up to encircle the great dark tower on its landward side—as none of Daroldan’s remaining defenders was lunatic enough to hazard a descent into the ocean and what waited there for them, a semi-encirclement would be enough. It would take the attacking force most of the sunturn to take their chosen positions—Runacar had not bothered with any specific orders, other than that they stay out of bowshot range and not fall off the cliff.

  After sennights of aerial bombardment, Daroldan Keep no longer possessed any of its wooden watchtowers, but the Otherfolk army would be visible from any landward window—as would the Flower Forest. By now smoke poured from Delfierarathadan as from a smelter’s chimney—the fire had not yet reached the near edge of the forest, but it was probably visible from the higher windows of the Keep.

  Even at twelve leagues’ distance, the Otherfolk army would be at risk from the fire once the fire reached the forest’s western edge. The larger it grew, the faster it moved; his scouts kept an eye on its progress, but even they could not say when the flames would reach the western edge. Even before they did, the heat would be enormous, and because of the updrafts, the Folk of the Air would have to withdraw seaward early on. The fire would also make an eastward retreat impossible, and even so deep a battlefield was a small area in which to maneuver so many thousands of troops. Runacar was counting on the sight of the two Otherfolk armies—land and sea—and the sight of the Flower Forest unquenchably ablaze to convince Daroldan’s defenders to commit to a hasty attack that might give the Otherfolk the chance to storm the castel. He had chosen his own position in the vanguard to put him directly opposite the entrance to the keep. There was no moat—why bother, when so many of your attackers could fly?—but the outer gates of the fortress were an interlocking series of bronze gridirons that ran the whole thickness of the outer wall. They glittered in the bright sunlight.

  They glittered even more as they began to move.

>   Runacar stared for a moment, at first thinking it was the fire glittering off the metal that gave an illusion of movement. He instantly dismissed that notion as the cloudwittedness it was, but was left staring at the gates in disbelief. No besieged force opened its gates to the enemy in the first sunturn of a siege.

  “What are they doing?” Keloit asked. “Are they coming out?”

  “Maybe,” Runacar said. “Stay back. Tell everyone to be ready.” Though for what, I cannot imagine.

  As Keloit bounded off to pass the word, Runacar let Hialgo pace forward a few more steps, and then stopped, automatically raising his hand in the signal “halt column.” He could almost feel the ripple of stillness pass through the Otherfolk behind him. If Daroldan had more komen than he’d thought, the mounted knights would be able to cut a column into shreds.

  The gates took a very long time to open.

  Frause came up on his tuathal side, and another Spellmother, Helfgand, to his deosil. The two Bearwards flanked him in silent—and wary—support. Runacar didn’t know if their magic could protect him from the enemy’s Lightborn, but he supposed he’d have to find out sometime.

  Then Drotha landed with a thump just in front of Frause, causing Runacar to startle and Hialgo, responding to the unintentional command, to rear. Drotha turned toward Runacar, grinning widely. “They’re coming out to fight? Excellent!”

  “‘Stupid,’ you mean, you great fool,” Helfgand said, wrinkling her muzzle disdainfully. “Why come out if they can sit and starve in peace?”

  “I see something,” Frause said quietly.

  Runacar looked. A single mounted figure was coming through the gate—a Lightborn in the traditional green robe of office, riding a white palfrey mare. The Lightborn carried a banner: it was white, without blazon, and its carrying pole was wreathed in greenneedle boughs.