Aelfric’s heart skipped a beat. “Wulfgar is here?”
“Aye. I came ashore with him southeast of the Widow Tears. They set up camp in Idungrove.” He hesitated. “Near Vik I encountered an army led by the East Sentinel, marching south. I came north in hopes of finding the Raven of Eusiron, who planned to come ashore with his Raptors by high tide. I never found them.”
“I did.” In a quiet voice, he told the warrior what he had seen. “It’s possible some of them survived, but my heart says otherwise. I believe Ragnvald either believed them all destroyed, or didn’t know what happened. I saw to it that no oborom warrior escaped with the news.”
Adelan’s face turned white as a sail. “I don’t understand. Master Eaglin knew when the moon was dark. He couldn’t have miscalculated.”
“What do you mean?”
The warrior began to pace. He told a cruel tale of Princess Rhinne, an oborom priest, a war god and a curse by the Mistress herself. When he was done, he added, “I have to get word to Wulfgar.”
“I won’t stop you.” After a pause, he asked, “Did you come here alone?”
“Aye,” the warrior replied quietly. “To avenge her.”
Aelfric’s impression of what of what happened to Rhinne at sea rattled him enough, but the emotion in the warrior’s voice when he mentioned the North Born revealed another facet. “Are you and Rhinne...?” He made a gesture with his hand.
“Aye.”
Love. Aelfric didn’t know whether to be cheered or frightened. “Well, Adelan, that makes fools of both of us. I owe the princess a debt for failing to save her from a similarly bad situation. When I heard she escaped the isle, I didn’t believe it. Neither did Prince Wulfgar.”
“It was only by the favor of the Otherworld that she managed it.”
“Speaking of that. Put out the lamp.” The warrior complied. Aelfric moved to the door, cracked it slightly and leaned out. The hall was empty but for several oborom milling around near the high arched opening to the gatehouse. He withdrew and positioned himself against the wall so he could see the portcullis through the crack. Not taking his eyes from the hall, he then described his experience with Hemlock, such as it was.
Adelan took the tale in stride—unsurprising, given the things he had recently seen. “Then our task is the same,” he said soberly.
“Close enough. While I now understand why this place has been emptied of warlocks, I fear for your men if the king sent the Eldest to deal with them. They’ll not get much help from the Raptors, if any.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I must complete my mission. Assuming I survive it, I will help you. But do what you will.”
“I am torn on it.”
Aelfric held up his hand as the portcullis screeched again. Black-cloaked men moved in the fog beyond the bars. “Here he comes.”
Adelan drew close and leaned around to see. The priest’s company moved urgently into the hall as the portcullis lowered behind them. “Och! Wicked lot. No matter what happens, the king must fall. I’ll help you if I can.” He paused. “You didn’t mention how you were going to get the herbs into the priest’s basket.”
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“We don’t stand a chance in a fight. On my journey here I watched a Master of the Eye fall to a priest.”
Aelfric threw him a stare. “And yet you seek the king? The priests are nothing compared to Ragnvald. He is the incarnation of the Riven God.”
“Rhinne told me the king is weakening because the god is using him as an eye. That he drinks a bitter brew to keep his strength and vision. I intend to poison it.”
“You’d best cloak that intention, ere he sees it.” As the idea took hold in Aelfric’s mind, he suddenly realized the meaning of Hemlock’s instructions. “I believe my immortal friend gave me a recipe for doing the very thing you describe. Though I fear we’re too late.”
“We must try. There is more at stake than the outcome of this war.” He fell silent as the dark entourage filed by. Then he whispered, “We could pick a fight. In the upshot one of us could get to the basket.”
“The priest won’t be deceived by that.”
“Leave it to me.”
“I’d rather not.” His heart thumping evenly, Aelfric drew forth his pouch, removed the whistle and handed the herbs to Adelan. “Can you hide your identity?”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Let me do the talking.” Aelfric settled into himself and wove a web around his body as the queen had taught him. Pulling their hoods over their faces, they stepped into the hall. As they walked towards the group, Aelfric turned to his companion, keeping his voice low. “If the king is weak, this priest won’t be wasting time. He might kill us outright if he’s in the mood. Whatever happens, just get to the basket.”
The two men quickened their pace. Aelfric said, “Milord.” The company stopped and turned around in question. The priest gazed from the small, expressionless orbs of a crow. Aelfric gestured to the closest man, and paced before him. “This man is a spy. He was seen slipping out of an enemy encampment last night.”
The man blinked.
Adder said, “He serves the Sentinel of the South.” He drew his sword.
The warlocks reacted at once. So much for subtle, Aelfric thought. He unsheathed his blade and joined the fray as the oborom defended the accused. Swearing on the king, Aelfric shouted something about his word. He made a point not to kill anyone; but delivered his would-be spy a bad enough injury to justify his makeshift accusation and keep things stirred up.
The priest snarled a command in another tongue. The warlocks withdrew their blades to their chests; Aelfric did the same. Adelan, on the other hand, positioned himself in line with the priest, with the accused between. He threw a knife. It missed its supposed target and struck the priest in the arm, causing him to drop the basket. “Milord!” Adelan cried in mock astonishment. He ran to the priest as if to help him. Livid as an infection, the sorcerer yanked the knife from his flesh and tossed it aside. With his good hand, he struck Adelan across the face so hard it spun him around and dropped him to the floor, where he didn’t move.
With a convincing expression of horror at this unintended development, Aelfric dropped his blade, raised his hands and backed away. “Milord,” he called out. “Please hear me.”
Clutching his arm and glowering with malice, the priest pushed through his rattled company. He was not interested in anything Aelfric had to say. He made a movement with his head that shattered Aelfric’s spell and stole his vitality, leaving him as weak as a broken reed. “Kill him,” he snarled. Then he turned, retrieved his basket and strode off with great haste.
Like attack hounds released from their chains, the warlocks advanced. Aelfric scuttled back, fumbling in his pocket until he found Hemlock’s whistle.
He raised it to his lips and blew.
*
Fog shrouded the forest of Stoneval south of the East Road into Tromblast. Sullen and ready for battle, Wulfgar rode beside his brother Bjorn amid the front lines of the Keepers’ alliance of Eyrie, Ostarin and Tromb. Outriders flanked the small army, watching for trouble. After resting and tending to their wounded and dead, the alliance had passed through the coastal towns, where they were greeted with suspicion by some and hope by others. They saw few oborom, who had no doubt retreated to the keep in preparation for a siege. Bjorn informed them that the king had mustered an army several thousand strong, and while many of the oborom held towns and ports across the island, the chances were good the alliance would find themselves outnumbered again.
Eaglin and Lorth rode ahead, working their arts to discern magic and foes in the fog. The wizards talked together quietly. Shortly after his scuffle with Lorth in the forest, Wulfgar had learned that the man the oborom killed on the plain was not Adder. The news didn’t soften him. Lorth had believed it was Adder just as the rest of them had.
Wulfgar had thought he knew Lorth well enough. He respected him, and while the wizard showed all the compassio
n of a spider at times, he understood suffering and balance. Wulfgar wanted to believe the wizard had a good a reason for watching Adder die, allowing Dore to take Rhinne as a war trophy and preventing Wulfgar from doing anything about it. But he could no longer make assumptions based on experience. When he went to Laegir with a report, the captain had fallen silent and said of his old friend, Lorth of Ostarin serves himself first, the Otherworld second, and the rest of us last.
Wulfgar’s heart smoldered. Until now, he hadn’t questioned Lorth’s connections to the Otherworld, as those connections had saved Elspeth’s life. According to Lorth, the gods were as interested in taking down Carmaenos as he was. But earlier, the wizard had all but admitted he abandoned Rhinne at Ascarion’s bidding, possibly in return for his protection. What did a dead god care for the lives of mortals? It caused Wulfgar to realize, with no small disquiet, that the North Born of Tromblast belonged to another realm—one that Lorth knew intimately, for it was the source of his most disturbing characteristics. And the Raven hadn’t hesitated to remind Wulfgar of the fact.
“They are serious men,” Bjorn said, bringing Wulfgar from his troubled thoughts. He gazed ahead at the two wizards cloaked in the early morning mist. Wulfgar had briefly told his brother of his experiences in Eyrie and Caerroth, including a notion that had been growing in his heart of joining the Keepers of the Eye as an apprentice. But that was before the Ninth Seat of the Aenlisarfon had condemned his sister and her lover to the machinations of the oborom.
“Their power comes with a price.”
“I’m as frightened for Rhinne as you are. But I’m thinking men like this do nothing without a reason.”
Wulfgar cast him a sidelong glance. “Don’t let their stature beguile you. They aren’t above reproach and neither are the gods they serve.”
Bjorn pursed his lips. “I know a man who served in the High Keep of Os. The Eye tends a Waeltower there, as in Wychmouth. One night my friend and I had a great deal to drink, and he got to talking. He said the Keepers of the Eye didn’t worship their gods, but sought to become one with them by the powers of nature. He spoke with great respect, and talked of the ‘price’ you mentioned. He said, ‘A wizard is only as powerful as his conscience.’ They can’t misuse their powers or it will be stripped from them.”
Wulfgar reached down and pulled forth a flask of water to ease his throat, which had gone suddenly dry under his older brother’s patient analysis. Bjorn always did have a way of dousing his fires. He took a long draught. “Perhaps. But what looks to us like misconduct might to them be simply a matter of context.”
“He might have been under orders.”
Wulfgar snorted. “Aye. That’s the problem.”
Bjorn fell silent. Eaglin halted and lifted his hand into the air, causing a wave through the ranks as the men reined in. After a moment, Laegir, two of the Raptor commanders, Gareth and Galbraeth rode up beside the lines. Galbraeth nodded to the princes, his blue eyes shining. For his courage and service to the queen, Bjorn had made the salty islander a captain.
“Can’t see a thing in this murk,” Laegir complained. “How far to the gates?”
“Less than a mile,” Wulfgar said as he and Bjorn rode forward.
“There’s a large force awaiting us,” Eaglin said. “They are using the fog to hide their numbers. Are there other ways in besides the gates?”
Wulfgar said, “We’d have to go around to the North Cave. It’s not an easy way in, and they can easily defend it. The east gate portcullis will stay open as long as their army is out here in force. If one of us could get in there and replace the gatekeeper...”
“I’ll do it,” Lorth said. “I can get in unseen.”
Eaglin nodded. “Our priority is to find Rhinne,” he said to the others. “Take prisoners; don’t kill anyone you don’t have to. We’ll get into position on either side of the road, and then I’ll clear the fog. Spread the word. This will get ugly quickly.”
The commanders swung their mounts around and separated to their tasks. Lorth lifted his voice and called out a name, then rode out along the tree line in the direction of the road. A company of Raptors separated from the ranks and followed him.
Wulfgar joined Bjorn, Gareth and Galbraeth and rode into the woods. He, his brother, the captains, Brigid and Pike had sat long into the night, sharing news and talking quietly of Aelfric, whom they now assumed had fallen to the oborom. Orders reached the ranks. The companies rode through the trees until they reached the wide, rock-strewn road, where they emerged from the woods and into the open, spreading out.
The fog began to whisper into the overcast sky as the Keepers’ Alliance moved into position. The wind blew steadily, tearing ragged gaps of pale blue in the cloud cover to the north. In the distance, dark shades moved and pooled amid the brush and outcroppings of the windswept plain east of the keep. Wulfgar grew still inside as battle fire burned in his blood. His father’s army spread out far beyond the edges of the allied lines. Orders came again: stay together. Archers on the flanks. Men began to move.
Everyone paused as a strange, harsh sound emerged from the direction of the keep. The sound, like that of an aggressive bird, rippled into the forest like a groping hand. Wulfgar shook a chill from his spine. “Keep moving!” he called out. They did, their faces pale as they awaited another rift to open from the Otherworld.
None came. The oborom ranks moved as if stirred by a stick.
Gareth rode up to Wulfgar’s side. “What the hell was that?”
Wulfgar shook his head. At the front of the line, Eaglin sat on his horse, still as a specter, the leafy star on the back of his cloak shimmering in the wind. Slowly, he moved, turning first in his saddle, then reining his horse around, staring at the sky above the forest. His face changed. Murmurs passed through the ranks as a new sound came from the east, a wild, raucous wave. Warriors drew their swords and lifted their bows, arrows nocked.
“Hold!” Eaglin commanded, his voice booming around them.
Warriors shouted, ducked and hit the ground as an enormous murder of hooded crows bore down from the sky. The birds tore through the tops of the trees and engulfed the plain, flying like arrows for the keep.
In the distance, the oborom screamed and scattered.
Eaglin raised his blade into the air and released a fierce battle cry to charge.
A Murder of Crows
Rhinne opened her eyes to the sound of a harsh birdcall. Silence reclaimed the halls beneath Tromblast Keep, chambers built by the ancestors of the Circle to honor the forces of the earth. A dream. No birds lived down here, where the ancient stones said nothing.
She closed her eyes as Adder’s death tore through her body like a knife, leaving her numb and cold. The vision didn’t fly or fade, even in sleep. The vision of a warrior; the vision of a wolf. A vision she never saw coming.
She lay in the silks and furs of a bed surrounded by a massive frame of black wood carved into gnarled branches laden with thorns. With a catch in her breath, she pushed herself up and scrambled out of it, throwing the covers off as if they were stitched with poison. She backed away, her bare feet sinking in the animal furs on the floor.
A fire roared in the hearth, drawing an icy draft over her feet. Heavy tapestries covered the walls. Near the hearth, a table held a fine meal, growing cold. Rhinne grabbed her boots by the bed and dragged them on. In the shadows loomed an ironclad door. She walked there and tried to open it, knowing better.
Like a trapped cat, she explored the boundaries of the room. Another worthless exercise. She returned to the fire, sat on a wolfskin rug and gazed into the flames. Adder was dead and she was alive, though for how long she couldn’t guess. For now, her only chance lay in avenging her love and possibly preventing the world from being recast into a desolation ruled by fiends.
The earth keeps secrets, Lorth had told her, his expression both gentle and chilling. You are the ground. A path for lightning.
The wizard’s words meant nothing, now. Ragnvald had
known about Adder just as Rhinne had feared and she never saw it, no more than she had seen his vision of the High Guard landing in Idungrove. Nor could she summon the Mistress as she had on the ship, as if the very stone of the island prevented her. One of many secrets it kept.
As for being a Web, a portal to the Old One? Why did Ascarion answer Lorth at a summons and then appear, like a harbinger of death, right before the oborom killed Adder? The Old One, Lorth had once told her, was fickle and beyond reproach. Though she knew the heart of a galaxy and every blade of grass within it, her concern for the balance took precedence over broken hearts. Time, ages and suffering didn’t matter to her.
Carmaenos had power to destroy the world by altering its history to his own intention. All for that accursed book. Surely by now Ragnvald had seen its location in their minds, their intentions, their actions. But if the Riven God knew or suspected Ealiron had the book, why had he not plunged the world into war? Ascarion had assured her he would.
Only you can stop him.
Rhinne put her head in her hands. Maybe Carmaenos had already done it. Imprisoned down here, she wouldn’t know; in fact, she wouldn’t know at all. Lorth had told her such shifts were seamless, and mortals didn’t, as a rule, perceive when it happened. They knew only what existed. But then, if this had changed, she wouldn’t remember Lorth having told her that. Would she.
She lifted her head again to the fire. On the battlefield, Dore had made a point to state his knowledge that Rhinne was an aspect of Eusiron. Why would he do that? Ragnvald obviously knew the Eusiron High Guard had joined the fight. Perhaps that confirmed his knowledge of the book’s location, or aroused his suspicions. This would explain why Dore didn’t use Adder’s life to force Rhinne to tell him where the book was. Her brother had never been one to miss an opportunity like that.
Unless his mention of Eusiron was designed to bait her, and Adder’s death staged to make her think they already knew. Because if they had, none of this would be necessary. Including taking her prisoner.
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