He sucked air and coughed, gagging on the dust. The grass is gone, he thought in vague surprise. All that remained was a pale, soft dust, so fine-grained it was slick as oil. He coughed again and blood spattered the backs of his gauntlets. He would not admit fear, but the sight of his own blood galvanized him, and he clawed his way to his feet. He took a step, slipping and staggering as if buffeted by stormwinds. Pain made him gasp and shudder and fall again. Ivrulion seemed farther away than before. The rings on Bolecthindial’s fingers had charred through the gloves beneath them, the jeweled clip in his hair had burned through it.
I cannot die before I make right what all of us set wrong out of fear and greed and ambition, Bolecthindial thought vaguely. Those were the tools all of them had used against others all their lives. Double-edged tools, like the swords they gave their sons and daughters while they were still children, before sending them off to war. We should not be surprised our children become sharpened blades as well.…
Blisters welled up on his skin, and broke, and bled. He gasped for air, but there was nothing but soft dust, stifling him, strangling him. He made one last attempt to get to his feet. But what rose and walked long moments later was no longer Bolecthindial Caerthalien.
* * *
“Fall back!” Rithdeliel shouted, hoping he could be heard. Horses screamed as they were pulled down by mazhnune wearing komen plate or sellsword chain or the leather of infantry. Strike off head or limbs, and what remained kept fighting. Worst were the mazhnune destriers, who trailed their spilled guts across the ice or galloped with broken necks flopping limply. The living destriers feared them more than they feared the mazhnune alfaljodthi.
The first ranks of the komen were fighting on foot now—even if there had been enough horses, they were impossible to control close to the mazhnune. When the mazhnune began attacking, they’d scavenged whatever infantry weapons they could find to arm themselves—you couldn’t kill something that was already dead, but at least you could hold it in place while your comrades chopped it into enough pieces that it stopped moving. The Lightborn were the easiest, for they’d worn little or no armor. The horses and dogs were hardest—the dogs were small and fast, and while the horses could be stopped by striking off their legs, it was nearly impossible to do that without suffering losses. We can’t afford losses, Rithdeliel thought bleakly. Every living thing that dies on Ifjalasairaet rises again as an enemy.
The komen knelt, one knee raised, each holding a pike or a spear. They might have been waiting to receive the charge of a maddened boar, a bear, a stag—winter was a time for hunting, just as summer was a time for war. Or had been. The seasons had all run together. It was winter, and they stood on a battlefield … being hunted. Rithdeliel watched bleakly as the lines of defenders shattered instead of retreating. Only about a third of them were retreating to regroup. The rest had become monsters.
“Rithdeliel! Hurry!” Gatriadde shouted, staggering as he ran past him. Rithdeliel turned and followed. Gatriadde had anchored the tuathal center of the outer defense. He couldn’t remember now who’d been on the deosil edge. Thoromarth? Atholfol? It didn’t matter. Whoever had been there had let some thing approach too closely, thinking it was still alive.
Thinking it was some comrade.
He reached the next line of defenders. On the battlefield things burned, adding smoke to the dust that filled the air. Desperate for light, the komen had set fire to everything that would burn. The burning wreckage gave barely enough light to show the mazhnune walking slowly and with terrible patience toward the defenders. Perhaps it was a mercy that it was too dark to let Rithdeliel easily distinguish the surcoats they wore. Soon enough the deathless enemy would reach their lines, and they would fight, and lose, and retreat again. They were dying by fingerswidths. Half the Alliance was fighting at their side now, and half the High King’s army had become mazhnune.
The sounds of battle were strangely distorted, for only the living cried out. Somewhere in the darkness Rithdeliel could hear the high frantic yelping of a terrified dog; he felt shame at wanting it to go on suffering so the mazhnune would not gain another warrior.
Somewhere behind him, Rithdeliel heard komen shouting wildly. For a panicked moment he thought the mazhnune had broken through. Then he heard hoofbeats and saw a destrier charge across the battlefield at the gallop. Another of the defenders, heart and spirit broken, had been driven mad by the bright torches of the Alliance encampment. The sight of it mocked the defenders with the promise of warmth and light and safety: the mazhnune were not attacking them. Yet, Rithdeliel thought grimly, but for once thoughts of vengeance did not comfort him.
The deserter managed to force his mount through the first line of mazhnune before it threw him. He got to his feet and ran on toward the travesty of sanctuary. Rithdeliel had seen what came next too many times tonight; he pulled his gaze away from the running figure. The horse was galloping wildly around the battlefield, seeking escape but shying away from the clusters of mazhnune. Eventually it would exhaust itself or fall into one of the traps and break a leg, but in the end, the outcome would be the same. Nothing left Ifjalasairaet alive.
The lone komen was pulled down and the screaming began. For an instant, Rithdeliel permitted himself to close his eyes. Every bone and muscle ached. He had no idea how long he’d been fighting.
War was like xaique: a master player chose the desired outcome before the game began. On this xaique board there were no good choices left. Vieliessar could seal herself, the commons, and a few thousand of the komen into the Vale of Celenthodiel and lose her bid for the Unicorn Throne. She could stand and fight—and die.
There was no third choice. They’d tried over and over to kill Ivrulion. Spells didn’t touch him and no warriors could get close. Rithdeliel had even called up one of the rangers to try the forester’s bow: Terandamil Master Ranger himself had come. Three tailles of dismounted knights had accompanied Terandamil to keep him alive until he was within range of his target.
Terandamil had loosed a dozen arrows. All had been whipped away by the wind. Terandamil and all but six of the komen who had stood with him were now mazhnune, and Rithdeliel knew it was useless to keep trying. Every failure armed the enemy further.
In the last moments before the new assault, Rithdeliel walked up and down the line, offering quiet words of encouragement and issuing final orders. He made it to the far end of the line without seeing Thoromarth, but Thoromarth might have taken an element of the line and moved forward. When the mazhnune concentrated on the center, the flanks did all they could to regain ground; when the flanks were attacked, the center moved up. They fought endlessly over the same few yards of ground, but the alternative was to lose.
The mazhnune were close enough now that faces, surcoats, and armor could be identified. There were groans and muffled curses all along the line as warriors recognized their dead comrades among the ranks of the enemy. Rithdeliel recognized more than one of the attackers, but his rage and despair were too deep for speech.
Thoromarth of Oronviel advanced toward Rithdeliel’s position. He wore no helm. The broken shaft of a spear protruded from between the bands of his faulds. The hilt of a dagger glinted in his eye socket.
Rithdeliel tightened his grip on his swordhilt and prepared to fight on.
* * *
Vieliessar did not know how long it was before the world righted itself again. She forced herself to open her eyes. Better to know the worst at once. She was almost surprised she could see.
“Praise Sword and Star—I thought we had lost you,” Aradreleg said in a shaken voice.
“Not yet.” Vieliessar blinked at the fabric blocking her sight of the sky. An unfamiliar pavilion. “Where…?” she croaked. Her tongue felt thick and her mouth tasted foul.
“We did not wish to place you in one of the Healing Tents, lest the people worry. This tent is mine.”
“I am in Celephrandullias-Tildorangelor,” Vieliessar said, and Aradreleg nodded.
“I
had been seeing to the wounded who came through the pass, making a tally of the Alliance komen who surrendered, so we might know if any were of sufficient rank that they must swear to you. Then the sky…” Aradreleg swallowed hard. “The sky went black. A candlemark later, Lord Rithdeliel brought you. He said to keep you here, then went back to the fighting.”
“Rithdeliel must ever believe himself to be my nurse,” Vieliessar said dryly. “Where is my armor?” she asked, for she had been uncased as she lay insensible.
“I—Lord Rithdeliel said…” Aradreleg said desperately. Her thoughts swirled, making them difficult to read.
“Send someone for it. And I will need a destrier,” Vieliessar said. “And find someone who can tell me what’s going on out there.”
It was Atholfol of Ivrithir who came, with Dinias Lightbrother beside him. Dinias was hollow-eyed and pale, so weak Atholfol gave him support as he walked, though Atholfol was missing his sword arm from the elbow downward.
“Sit quietly, my lord,” Atholfol said as he entered. “For the news is bad and you must hear all of it.” He gestured with the bandaged stump. “I am grateful to see you alive, my lord. They say I can be made whole again, but that I will sleep for a sennight afterward. I say this is no time for sleeping.” Aradreleg’s tent was but a single chamber. Atholfol lowered Dinias to the chamber’s only stool and passed Vieliessar a flask. The tea it held was cold and sour, but no chilled cider had ever tasted so sweet.
“I will show myself once I have heard your report,” she said. “Then I must return to the fight.”
“You must not,” Dinias blurted out. “And I don’t think you can. None of us can—Lightborn, I mean. Those of us who were on the field…”
“Screamed as if poisoned,” Atholfol said, “and fell insensible to the ground when they stopped. I had just put Dinias over my destrier’s saddle when I took this hurt. And yet I account myself fortunate.”
Vieliessar waited in silence, for Atholfol’s telling of his tale would shape his thoughts to make them more easily read. When he had finished, she regretted her Gift of True Speech, for it had showed her more than he wished her to know. Two candlemarks ago Atholfol had been on the field, watching the Alliance array gather as the abeyance ended. Dinias had ridden to his side with fresh orders, for much of the Warhunt was acting as messengers. Atholfol’s meisne was ordered up the field to support Thoromarth’s force. He had given the order for them to regroup and form column when he saw two men—one of them Lightborn—walk out from the Alliance lines.
“I did not mark them, beyond calling them fools, for any cloudwit could see the Alliance was preparing to take the field. Then the bane-storm came, turning day to night, and Dinias fell. I think many—all the Lightborn—were struck down in that moment. I rode to him and slung him over Penstan’s saddle…”
And one of the dead lying nearby rose to its feet to strike at him.
“The horses went mad,” Atholfol said grimly. “Dead were rising up everywhere. I grabbed Penstan’s stirrup. He dragged me from the field. I ordered retreat. I do not know if anyone heard me.”
“I came to myself in the pass,” Dinias said, taking up the telling of what had happened. “I stopped Lord Atholfol’s bleeding. Dargariel Dorankalaliel was filled with retreating komen. We had no choice but to go all the way to Celenthodiel. After the first wave, they started bringing in the Warhunt. Those they could reach. Everyone wasn’t affected equally. It seemed like the stronger you were in the mind magics, the worse it was. But I went back as soon as I could.” He shuddered, and swallowed hard. “My Keystone Gift is Transmutation. Some Lightborn talk to horses. I talk to rocks. Even so … it was bad. One step past the border stones and you feel that all over again. No one’s made it even ten paces past the border stones before being overcome. I tried. Isilla too. I can’t even sense Janglanipaikharain anymore. Tildorangelor is still safe—for now,” he said, wiping his eyes dry with his fingers. “We are helpless.”
“Mazhnune,” Vieliessar said. The misplaced dead. It was something from a nursery tale: Heir-Princess Berendriel of House Notariel fell in battle, and when the Starry Hunt came for her, she refused to go with them. And so Berendriel of Notariel became mazhnune, unable to live again or to truly die.
“A counterspell—there must be something—” Vieliessar said.
“It doesn’t matter what we try—Dispell, Rot, Storm, Thunderbolt, Overshadowing, Fire—nothing happens. They walk through Shield as if it is not there. Whatever the spell is that has raised the mazhnune, it devours all magic. Isilla said we were only feeding it on Tildorangelor’s power.…”
And without Magery to stop them, only her army lay between the mazhnune and the pass. If they broke through that cordon, they would carry the spell of their raising with them, and so destroy the protection of the boundary stones. They would consume Tildorangelor as they’d devoured Janglanipaikharain.
“How far can you retreat from the entrance to the pass?” Vieliessar asked.
“We have not yet had time to map the vale,” Aradreleg said. “Many miles.”
“That much is good,” Vieliessar said. She forced herself to stand, to walk to the door of the tent. The sky above was dark, black clouds glowing green with sullen flares of lightning.
“Bring my armor,” she said. “And a horse.”
The destrier they brought for her was a stallion whose coat was the pale silver of a swordblade. The ostler who brought him said his name was Winter. She swung herself into his saddle and looked around.
Her people had set up the encampment about a mile from the entrance to the pass. A cloud of Silverlight hung over it, bringing its tents and people into sharp focus. The once open space at the mouth of the pass was clogged with komen and destriers—even at this distance, she could see that most of them wore the livery of Alliance Houses.
“Dinias, seek your bed; you have done well this night. Lord Atholfol, if you are the most senior of my commanders, I must ask more service of you this night. Aradreleg, find me those whom I may use to carry messages through the camp.”
She set Winter off at a slow walk, wondering if she presided over her own defeat or if victory was still possible. From the moment she’d realized what path was laid out for her by The Song of Amrethion, she’d told herself this war was the only way, even while she’d wondered if there was another. Each death suffered in her name made her more determined to avert the next: having begun by believing the war yet to come must be fought by all the Hundred Houses together, she’d still desperately yearned to fight as a lone champion so no others must die. It was a deadly flaw in a General of Armies, a worse one in a High King. If she did not apportion both responsibility and danger to all her subjects, she would leave them unable to act save at her order. Helpless.
And so, even though every fiber of her being urged her to spur him through the pass, to take the field, she knew she must show her people she yet lived. They gathered around her, making Winter fret and sidle, reaching out to touch her, to reassure themselves.
“Vielle!” Thurion pushed through the mob of people. “You live!”
“As do you,” she said on a wave of relief. “Walk with me.”
With Thurion at her stirrup, it seemed the people did not press as close. She ordered the flocks and herds moved south, away from the encampment, the palfreys and destriers unsaddled and turned loose, the mounts of the enemy komen who had given their parole unsaddled and freed as well. The baggage train she had sent through the pass this morning—still intact—would go south until a messenger reached it to tell it to halt.
None of those she asked after—Gunedwaen, Thoromarth, Rithdeliel—could be found. Save for Atholfol, her War Princes were all on the field—or dead. The encampment was a scattered thing of households and families with no clear master. In desperation, she placed Lord Atholfol in charge of it, and gave him orders to move everything he safely could southward, away from the entrance to the pass.
“And you, my lord? Where will you be?”
Atholfol asked.
“Where I must be,” Vieliessar said.
She turned Winter’s head toward Dargariel Dorankalaliel. It was empty now; she did not know whether that was a good sign, or bad.
Thurion caught up with her soon after she had entered it, seated on some destrier he had snatched from its master. They rode in silence. There was nothing to say.
She did not summon Silverlight to guide her through the darkness, for it would mark the entrance for the enemy. Silversight showed her the carven walls as sharp as if by day. But beyond the entrance of the Dargariel Dorankalaliel, everything on the plain was darkness and shadows. She could see her army forming a barrier between the entrance to the pass and what lay beyond it. Those she could see were only the last line of defense; from the sounds, the fighting in the front ranks was heavy.
Vieliessar dismounted, walked forward until she stood just inside the boundary stones. The field was dark, lit only by the eldritch glow of the clouds and the flare of lightning. The clouds above shone with the black-green of a long-dead corpse. They swirled around a disk of unclouded sky, and within it the stars burned blood-red. Jagged violet lightning sketched across the clouds and swirled around the window to the stars. Lightning struck the ground all around the figure who stood in the center of a circle of lifeless dust that swirled as the clouds above swirled, a desert that grew larger with every moment, and though the wind raged across the plain, it did not touch him.
“How in the name of Sword and Star did we come to this day?” she said softly.
“There stands Ivrulion of Caerthalien,” Thurion said, pointing toward the distant column of dust and lightnings. “Ask him.”
Vieliessar drew a shaky breath. She’d feared the Light, hated the Light, and loved the Light, but no matter how she had changed, the Light had been as constant as sunlight and stars. Thurion had once called it the heartbeat of the world, and told her sensing the Light was like hearing the heartbeat of a loved one. She’d accepted his words, but she only understood Thurion’s truth in the moment it became a lie.
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