Braenlicach

by Michelle L. Levigne

  If not our lifetime, then perhaps Emrillian's, she responded, and met his gaze across the corner of the massive, octagonal table of the Warhawk's council chamber. For a few heartbeats, the world seemed to fall away around them and he didn't sit in the fortress but somewhere far away in time and space.

  "Lady?" Athrar stood and stretched out a hand to Ceera.

  Mrillis blinked and shook free from the slight haze that came from mental speaking, and focused his physical eyes on her. Ceera sat still, her eyes pale and wide, staring, lost in the mist of a Seeing.

  "All is well," Breylon said, even as Mrillis hurried to stand with her and keep anyone from disturbing her until the vision ended.

  Triska stood behind Ceera's chair, as Deyral stood behind Breylon's chair. The young woman glared at Mrillis for usurping the duty she obviously considered hers. He nearly snapped at her that if she didn't want others to do her work, then she should be quicker in responding.

  "Our blood will see the day," Ceera whispered, and reached blindly for Mrillis' hand. He knelt next to her chair and she turned to look at him, but her eyes remained white, blinded by the Seeing. "Our blood will hate you and fear you. Our blood will free you and weep for you, and will entrust you with the greatest treasure of her heart. Then the blood of the blood will see that day and will give the sword made of stars into the hand of he who must stand between the World and the stars."

  She gasped and slumped back against the tall back of her chair, and closed her eyes.

  Mrillis clasped her hands between both of his and waited, barely daring to breathe for fear of disturbing her. What had Ceera seen? He knew sometimes chance words triggered a Seeing, or some key event. She had spoken of Emrillian, just before the Seeing began. Did this mean Emrillian played a vital role in history after all?

  Their blood would hate him? He tried to free himself from any personal ties or concerns over what she had said, to analyze the words, but it was hard. He would have to be as unfeeling as ice-encased stone not to see the implications and fear them. Ceera had spoken of Emrillian, and moments later, said their blood would hate and fear him, then free him and weep for him.

  "The blood of the blood?" Athrar murmured. He went down on one knee next to Mrillis. "That's part of the prophecy of the Three Drops of Blood."

  "Yes." Mrillis found it a little easier to breathe. He could concentrate on that part of her vision. They had learned something new today about the prophecy, and it tied into the sword of stars.

  But how?

  Determining what to do about the increased Encindi threat had precedence. Mrillis and Ceera chose not to speak of her Seeing even in private, but he knew she pondered it at every free moment, just as he did. He could see it in her eyes, when her gaze darkened and went distant.

  Endor joined the gathering on the fourth day. He and the band of Valors, warriors and enchanters who gathered around him were tireless in trying to track down who was responsible for the deaths of Afron Warhawk and the Valors who had died while protecting the High King.

  Mrillis looked for some signs of falsehood when Endor knelt before Athrar and reported where his band had gone, what they had learned and done in the moons since the murders.

  "Both our nations thank you for your loyalty and diligence and sacrifice," Athrar said when he finished, amid the murmurs and comments of all those seated at the table.

  "If we have pleased you, High King," Endor said, "give us two thousand soldiers and ships to go to Flintan, the fastest you have. We will strike at night and burn every village, destroy every Encindi we see, until our enemy rises from his hiding place to defend his lair and we force him to fight for his life."

  "Animals backed into a corner are the fiercest and most dangerous," Ceera said.

  "True, but they also don't think clearly and can be forced to act foolishly, out of desperation. Always before, the enemy has known that we were coming after him. He has always had time to prepare, to erect his defenses, to plan his escape. But not this time."

  "How can you shield the physical presence of your army from the enemy's eyes?" a battle-scarred counselor asked.

  Mrillis noted the man didn't scowl or snarl as much as he had in previous council sessions, arguing against a proposed plan when Afron was Warhawk. Was that hope he saw in the man's eyes, heard underlying his voice? Or was it just weariness and desperation?

  "How can you hide your imbrose from the gaze of the Nameless One?" Master Tieran asked. "And how can you hide it from him without him sensing that imbrose is being hidden, and thereby giving him warning that you prepare to strike? It is one thing to hide what you are doing with the Threads. Blood magic has taken away his ability to even touch them, much less use them. It is impossible to hide the presence of imbrose. Especially as many enchanters as you wish to gather together to strike at him."

  "All valid concerns, honored elders and warriors." Endor bowed, turning his head to include everyone at the table in his salute. "Please consider that the Nameless One--may the Estall curse him for the injustice that I must name him my father--the Nameless One does not have one-quarter of the power he commanded before Master Breylon and Lady Le'esha led the combined armies of the Noveni and Rey'kil against him."

  Endor paused, allowing the gathered company to think over what he had just said. Mrillis thought he detected a slight smirk on his friend's face, when more than half the company flinched at his vehement hatred for his father. Or was it the shock of reminding them that he was the son and firstborn of the Nameless One?

  "Consider the prophecy of the seer, Graddon, who spoke of the Three Drops of Blood. Consider that when Mrillis and I were born, tied together by my father's foul magic, many considered me the Child of Blood and feared I would bring death and destruction. Well, I say, let those fears come true. Let me be the betrayer and abominator, by turning against the one who sired me. Consider, wise lords and ladies, that the Nameless One still expects blood to win out over training and the wisdom, kindness and friendship that has surrounded me and my sisters all these years. He still believes he can turn me against all of you, who are more family to me than he ever was." Endor's mouth pursed as if he would spit.

  "The day he prepared to sacrifice us to gain his triumph over you, he destroyed all ties between us. But he does not believe so. I do confess that he comes to me in my dreams and tells me sweet lies, trying to woo me to his side, thinking to make me betray those who have shed their blood for my sake."

  "And what does he say when you resist him, when you refuse his promises and gifts?" Ceera asked, her voice cool.

  "I never answer him. I act as if I have heard nothing, until his rage breaks the link between us." Endor shook his head, gesturing as if to push away even the suggestion that he might be tempted. "I say, let us use his delusion as a weapon against him."

  "What is your plan? Will you sail to Flintan with enchanters imprisoned by magic, to present to him as prisoners, and then free them to attack from within his stronghold? Will you persuade him that the soldiers who sail with you are your loyal followers, and you have come to join him?" Athrar asked after a long, pensive silence fell on the gathering.

  "Better." Endor bowed to the young Warhawk and bared his teeth in a fierce grin. "We will come openly against him, with a pretense of trying to hide our strength in imbrose. I will open my mind to my father's touch, so that he will finally call to me in daylight as he tries to do in my dreams. I will convince him that I have come to betray the best and brightest of Lygroes' enchanters and warriors into his hands, to prove my loyalty, and all the years of trying to woo me in my dreams have worn me down."

  "And when he reaches out to take control of the sheep you have led to the slaughter, the touch of his magic will spring a trap," Mrillis guessed.

  Endor laughed, tipping back his head, his face alight with mischief and life like in the days when they played pranks on the older students on Wynystrys. "It's time to end the misery that has plagued us since the Estall put our ancestors here." He thumped th
e table hard enough to make quills roll off their stands and the frames of wax slates to rattle against each other. "Time to destroy Flintan, once and for all."

  It was a daring plan. Most of those sitting at the table were weary enough of the decades of battle to seriously consider it. Endor had answers for every objection and question, and gradually won over all but the most cautious and pessimistic. And even they admitted, after two more days of talk and argument and proposals, the plan had a slim chance of success.

  The plan was simple in concept, almost childish, yet terrifyingly complex in the actual execution--and the disasters that could result if anything went wrong.

  Endor proposed that teams of enchanters and Valors would work together to wrap Threads around the very foundations of Flintan and tear it apart at the bedrock, crack the crust of the World, and let everything crumble to pieces from the upheavals that would result.

  "But what about the innocents?" Lady Myclan asked.

  Mrillis watched how some opened their mouths to shout her down, their disdain for her concerns clear on their faces, then they paused and grew thoughtful. Lady Myclan held land on the southernmost tip of Moerta, closest to Flintan, one of the first spots the Encindi raiders hit every spring. If anyone on Moerta had cause to hate the Encindi invaders and raiders, it was her. For her to concern herself with the innocent among the Encindi--the mothers and children and elderly--had far more impact than some noble who had never seen an Encindi.

  "Excuse my bluntness, Lady," Endor said, standing to bow to her in deference. "There is no one innocent on Flintan. The mothers raise their children to hate us, to think they have the right to kill us all because our land is safe from star-metal and theirs is eaten away, more leagues every year. The children grow up believing that battle rather than cooperation is the highest good. The old women and men, if they are not chosen as sacrifices to feed the cauldron of blood, raise the young to believe that they will earn indescribable bliss by dying in pain and bloodshed, and in the Afterlife, they will have slaves of everyone they kill before they are killed. Just because they don't take up weapons in their hands and sail to our shores doesn't mean they are innocent." He offered a crooked smile. "After all, did any of you consider my sisters and me to be innocent, even though we were so young when we were rescued from death at our own father's hand?"

  "Choices," Ceera said softly, yet with enough strength that her voice seemed to echo in whispers all around the council chamber. "We are what we choose to be and believe."

  "Exactly. And all the people of Flintan have chosen death and destruction--either theirs or ours. Well, in the name of the Estall, I say let it be theirs!"

  "They will have no place to regroup and recover, if we destroy the land itself," Baedron offered. He sat on the council as a representative of all Valors. "No source of supplies and reinforcements. They'll be forced to be on the move constantly, and they don't know the land like we do."

  "And that will make them more desperate than ever to take over Lygroes and Moerta," Master Breylon countered.

  "It has been a well-known, predictable dance for generations," Mrillis said. "The Encindi advance, burn some villages, raze a section of forest, we rally and take back the land, reinforce our defenses and drive them into the sea. They retreat to Flintan, lick their wounds, devise a new plan, and come back in the spring to attack a new spot that they believe we don't thoroughly defend. This time, when they retreat, the only place they can go is into the sea."

  "Exactly!" Endor's eyes gleamed with triumph.

  "Men who have nothing to lose, who have nowhere to go but forward or perish...will be more violent than a maddened beast, more crazed than a drogos in mating frenzy." Mrillis met Endor's eyes, fighting guilt at being the voice of reason and caution when something inside him wanted desperately for his friend's otherwise brilliant plan to work.

  He nearly laughed aloud when he realized he felt envy that he hadn't thought of it first. And yet, what if it failed? What if the worst possible result came of this effort, and the Encindi rallied and became ten times stronger, instead of finally being beaten down so far they could never rise again? With no homeland, no recourse but to take root and stay where they had never been wanted, what new cruelties and desperation would the Encindi be capable of?

  The Encindi were barbarians at the best of times, destroying any plunder that they couldn't take with them, killing prisoners who would not make good slaves or who were too much trouble to keep imprisoned. They didn't redeem or ransom their own people when captured in battle, no matter how valuable their minor magic-wielders or healers, no matter how valiant their warriors. When captured in groups and imprisoned, they had been known to kill their own people. Whether this was an attempt to arouse the blood magic that the Nameless One practiced or keep their captors from using them for blood magic against their own people, no one could guess. Prisoners were more likely to gnaw their own tongues off, or have them ripped out by their fellow-soldiers, rather than speak and give answers to their captors.

  There was no way to win against such foes, Mrillis knew, except to wear them down to nothing.

  Destroying an entire race, fracturing the land they lived on, that had been granted them by the Estall in the misty beginning time, would in effect lower the Rey'kil and Noveni to the level of the Encindi. Mrillis was certain that was what made Breylon and the others argue against the strategy so diligently.

  Endor and his growing number of supporters won, in the end. Dread of the war between the Encindi and the other two races of the World going on for countless more generations persuaded those who might otherwise have advised caution. Yes, Endor and his allies argued, the Encindi would be fiercer, dig in and plant roots where before they only set up temporary camps. They already had small settlements for their women and children, in rocky, barren portions of the coast and the southernmost, unfriendly parts of Lygroes and Moerta, and especially the Taywauk Mountains.

  Let them have it, Endor and his allies argued. Let their numbers swell with refugees. We know where they are. Let them grow too many for the land to support. Let them wear themselves out struggling to survive, where even the land fights for us and against them. When they've degraded to the point of fighting amongst themselves for survival, we will attack and take advantage of their weakest moments.

  Mrillis shuddered at the mental image of thousands of Encindi living and settling where before only hundreds eked out an existence. He feared that, like trees pruned back nearly to their roots, the Encindi would burst forth in an excess of life and strength.

  Arguing wasted time and energy, and after a point, Mrillis and Master Breylon and the others turned the discussion to refining the plan for the destruction of Flintan, to cause as much destruction as possible in as short a time as possible, using as little energy as possible. And leave as few vengeful survivors as possible. Let the blood of thousands of innocents rest on them, but at least they would protect future generations.

  Triska went with Endor in the fleet that would surround Flintan, as Ceera's representative, the focus for all the power fed from the ladies of the Stronghold. Mrillis gathered up the power fed to him from Master Breylon, Deyral, and the scholars of Wynystrys. Nearly the entire combined fleets of the Rey'kil and Noveni gathered under Endor's command for the attack.

  Nixtan served with the spy ships sent ahead to keep watch on the enemy, and he sent warning that the Encindi fled Flintan in droves, in every ship they could find or steal, no matter how small or un-seaworthy. No one accused Endor or Triska or Nainan of sending warning to their father, and Mrillis was relieved.

  Ceera was the one who put an uneasy, nebulous speculation into words: What if, as Endor had sometimes feared, the Nameless One had a bond with his children that no one could sense or block or break, and everything his children planned to aid in the battle against him, he knew? What if Endor said and did things at his father's urging, and never knew? Was that why all the Encindi who could fled the land before it was ground to dust and rub
ble?

  "More likely, their scouts have noticed the withdrawal of every ship from every port, gathering in the sea near their land," Athrar said, when he met with Master Breylon, Mrillis, Ceera and the other leaders before the assault began. "They're barbarians, but they're not idiots. Some are dangerously intelligent. They know we're massing for some grand, devastating attack, and they're wisely taking everyone away who could be a liability." The young king snorted and shook his head, and Mrillis' heart ached for the weariness and somber weight of responsibility he saw in his former pupil's face. "It's really rather brilliant of them. What better way of defeating a massive windstorm than to simply remove everything that will stand in its way? It just keeps blowing until it blows itself out, and nothing is damaged."

  "Send everyone we can to the coasts, to watch for Encindi ships," Lyon instantly responded. He served his son as Warlord, just as he had his brother, though at this point in the young High King's reign, he acted more as advisor and guide than the right hand he had been in Afron's reign.

  "Do we have anyone to spare?"

  "You forget your lessons," Ceera said. Her smile was resigned, with a brittleness of resolve that Mrillis responded to by wrapping his arm around her shoulders. "The Rey'kil do not need to lie inside sealed rooms to manipulate the Threads. We can just as well walk the coastlines of both Moerta and Lygroes, keeping watch, our physical eyes wide open and our mental hands grasping the Threads."

  "Thank the Estall for that," Athrar murmured.

  * * * *

  Years before, the leaders of the Rey'kil had speculated that some great cataclysm in the past had drained the vales of their stored power. The massive effort to mitigate the destruction that followed the cataclysm had most likely killed many Rey'kil leaders and visionaries, and caused so much damage throughout civilization that the memory had either been lost, or deliberately wiped out. No one remembered this theorizing until Endor's fleet had encircled Flintan and moved into position to begin the assault. Then, there was nothing for the Rey'kil enchanters to do but watch through the Threads and prepare to feed all the power of the vales, all the imbrose they could spare, to the destruction of the third continent.