by Angus Wells
He watched as Nassim sprang down onto the first deck.
“Shall you not inspect them?” asked Mother Hel.
“Nassim knows his business,” Kerid said, patting her hand. “And I’d sooner stay here with you.”
The Mother smiled and waited until Nassim was done.
“They’re fine boats,” he announced, “but our lads are more used to ropes than oars. I wonder how they’ll like sitting on those benches.”
“They’ll learn,” Kerid declared. “And now we’ve a means of fighting Danant.”
“Can we crew them.” Nassim opened his pouch, extracting a wad of tobacco, then glanced at Mother Hel and thought better of it.
She said, “You shall. Trust me.”
They went along the harbor to where the other Chaldor craft were anchored. Soldiers fell in about them, more than Kerid remembered coming with them, and then others, herding grumbling rivermen from the taverns and whorehouses until a great crowd, augmented by curious onlookers, watched as the three captains appeared.
Kerid was about to speak, but Mother Hel motioned him silent and stepped forward. She was flanked by her guard, six to either side, the rest watchful behind.
“You know who I am.” For one so young and seemingly delicate, her voice rang loud, carrying through the noonday air so that it seemed even the squalling gulls fell silent. “I rule here; it is my word that decides your fate.”
One captain—Julyan was his name, Kerid recalled—stepped a pace forward and offered a curt bow. “Madam, I am captain of the Justice, which is a Chaldor vessel. How shall you decide my fate?”
“Do you dispute my right?” Mother Hel’s voice was mild; Kerid felt suddenly nervous. “You come running to Hel’s Town seeking refuge from your war, asking my protection, and then wonder what right I have?”
Julyan said, “Madam, I do. The Justice is mine, and I decide her fate.”
“And did you buy this vessel? Or did Andur give it you to command?”
Julyan shook his head. “You know I did not buy her, madam, but Andur is dead and Chaldor broken. I claim the craft as my own.”
Mother Hel smiled and nodded and raised a hand, and two men stepped forward and plunged their swords into Julyan’s belly. He screamed and fell down onto the cobbles.
“Now, who else disputes my right to judge?” asked Mother Hel in the same mild voice as the corpse was kicked into the river.
None answered, and she clapped her hands like a delighted child. “This is my judgment and decree—that all those Chaldor craft come into my domain are forfeit to me, and I give them to Kerid of Chaldor, who in return shall receive warboats, and men to crew them. Those men he cannot take with him shall receive the hospitality of these islands until such time as Kerid can repay his debt and purchase more boats. How say the rest of you?”
The two remaining captains ducked their heads; their crews shouted approval.
Nassim whispered, “Was it a very hard bargain?”
Kerid said, “You command one boat. Pick your own crew and mine.”
Nassim chuckled and asked, “And the third?”
Kerid studied the two remaining captains. Roburt he knew for a sound riverman; Yvor he knew only a little. But Yvor’s craft was battle-marked, the thwarts were scorched by fire and one mast stood splintered: Yvor had fought. So he said, “I’ll take Yvor.”
And so it was decided. Kerid had three warboats under his command, and—the gods willing—more to come. He felt ready to fight.
He turned to Mother Hel and bowed deep. “Thank you, Mother, I appreciate your judgment.”
“You shall show me how much,” she returned, and beckoned him to her cart.
“Select the crews, Nassim,” he called back. “I’ll see you …”
“No sooner than tomorrow,” Mother Hel declared. “Or perhaps the next day.”
Kerid climbed into the cart. He wondered which he’d sooner do: see the warboats fit and the crews chosen, or spend another night with Mother Hel. But he had no choice, and so he decided to enjoy his lack of opportunity. He turned to the blond woman and smiled.
“I trust, Mother, that you remember I have a war to fight?”
“Indeed, but first some lesser battles, eh?”
Kerid wanted to agree, but he could not speak because her lips locked tight to his and he was pressed for breath as the cart rattled back toward the palace.
“Loose!”
A trumpet sounded, and the mangonels and trebuchets rattled upward. Stones and bundles of tight-wrapped straw soaked in oil that was lit by the torches of the catapulters soared into the sky and struck the walls of Chorym—some over, some under.
Egor Dival assessed the aim and shouted further orders. The catapults were wound back, reloaded, and fired again. Showers of stone rained against Chorym’s walls; burning bales struck at the gates. But those gates were doused with water, and the walls were high and strong. And the miners digging under them had a long way to go. Egor Dival wondered how long this siege should take, and what part the Vachyn sorcerer should play. Nor less what part those few prisoners who remained might take: he did not enjoy this business of burning and crucifying farmers, but Talan listened to Nestor, and the Vachyn had advised those horrid executions. Egor Dival’s sworn liege lord listened to the Vachyn as if the sorcerer owned the king’s mind.
Dival raised his helm and wiped a sleeve across his sweaty brow, then called out further orders and went to find Talan.
“So, how goes the siege?” his king asked him.
Dival shrugged. “As any siege—slowly.”
Talan chuckled. “Perhaps quicker than you think. Nestor’s a trick or two to come.”
Dival grunted and helped himself to wine. “He’ll bring down those walls?”
“He works on it now.”
Dival did not like to contemplate just how, so he drank his wine and asked, “When shall we know?”
Talan shrugged, “In Nestor’s good time, General. And meanwhile, what of the outlands?”
“We hold this valley,” Dival explained, unrolling the map that sat between them, pinning it with cups. “This is the heart of Chaldor, and it’s all ours. Two thirds of our force is despatched, and holds a ring around the heart just as we ring Chorym. Do the clans rise, they’ll find our men waiting for them.”
“Shall they rise?” Talan asked.
Dival shrugged inside his armor. “Likely not. It’s the time they go hunting horses, and my spies have heard they fight a war of some petty kind. It would seem there’s some Devyn lordling who’d conquer his fellows—we might make him our ally.”
“Against what promises?” Talan frowned. “I’ll not make treaties with Highlander savages.”
“They’re fine soldiers,” Dival said. “The gods know, but Gailard and his clansmen held us long enough at the Darach Pass. Could we win them over …”
“Nestor won us that battle,” Talan interrupted.
“I’d thought,” Dival said stiffly, “that my men played some part in that.”
“Of course they did.” Talan smiled placatingly. “But it was Nestor who broke them, no?”
Dival poured himself more wine, drank before he replied. “His sorcery had a part, yes. But even so …”
“He shall win us Chorym,” Talan said. “Do the Highlanders not agree to my terms, we shall destroy them. But it should be easier if they agree to my terms—so look to that, eh?”
He waived a dismissive hand. Egor Dival grunted and set down his unfinished cup. “As my king commands. But meanwhile, what of the Vachyn?”
“I shall let you know,” Talan declared.
The king of Danant waited until Dival was gone stamping back to his troops before he quit the pavilion and went to Nestor’s black tent. He hesitated outside the sable construction, aware of an unpleasant smell that reminded him of middens and charnel houses. Then, as if he were expected, the Vachyn sorcerer called that he enter.
Inside, the tent was dark and filled with smoke and stench
. A brazier burned, its light a flickering alternation of fire and shadow in which Talan wondered if he truly saw pieces of human bodies littering the carpeted floor, and if the coloration of the carpet was a trick of the light or bloody stains. Nestor squatted at the center, before the jar that contained Andur’s severed head. He beckoned Talan closer and said, “Listen.”
Talan knelt beside the Vachyn, who pointed at the floating head.
“So tell me, Andur, are there no secret ways into your city?”
The walls are strong, and the gates. There are no secret ways.
“No tunnels? No secret passages from which you might escape?”
Why should I need them? My people loved me.
“How shall we attack then?”
You shall find it hard.
Talan watched mesmerized. The head floated in the liquor Nestor had inserted, surrounded by the little fishes that darted hither and yon as if disturbed by such arcane communication. The eyes were all gone now, only sockets remaining, like underwater caves, and the slack jaw did not move, but still he heard the words his hired sorcerer elicited. They came slow, like the speech of dreams, but still clear. He sensed resistance, as if the head that had no right to speak or think, and must surely be dead, was forced to unwilling communication by the Vachyn. He saw a fish emerge from an empty socket and dart between the gaping teeth to appear again from the tunnel of the neck.
“It should go easier if Ryadne surrendered.”
She’ll not. We agreed.
“Did she surrender, then your people might live. Talan Kedassian would wed her. He’d make her his wife—queen of Chaldor and Danant, both. She could be a great queen.”
It seemed to Talan that the floating head voiced silent laughter as it said, The gods condemn Talan. Ryadne will never wed him. She’ll die first.
“Then he’ll wed your daughter. He’ll take Ellyn for his bride.”
The subtle, silent laughter came again. Never! Ellyn’s gone.
Talan gasped as he saw Nestor scowl.
“Where?”
I don’t know.
“Alone?” Nestor reached toward the brazier, sprinkling some concoction onto the coals that brought a fierce burst of fire, flames reaching high, augmenting the stench with some further foulness that prompted Talan to cough and cover his mouth and nostrils with a sleeve. He wondered how much more of this necromancy he might take before he emptied his belly.
She’s a guardian. He’ll protect her until she comes into her power.
“Who is her guardian?”
Gailard.
“And her power? What power does she own?”
She’s her mother’s blood. She’s Dur.
“We knew that,” Talan said. “Ryadne’s father is Mattich of the Dur.”
Nestor clamped a hand over his mouth. “Quiet! You do not understand this.”
Long and dirty nails dug into Talan’s flesh and he cringed, suddenly aware that he was frightened of his hired Vachyn.
“Why should the Dur frighten us?”
They’ve magic. Ryadne has it, and Ellyn.
“Dur magic is only for the scrying.”
But Ellyn’s more. She has true power, when she finds it.
“Where shall she find it? Where has Gailard taken her?”
I don’t know.
“Who does?”
No one.
“We can put Ryadne to torture. I can set such pain in her as shall loose her tongue.”
She doesn’t know. Only Gailard knows.
Talan was unsure whether the floating head laughed or wailed. Surely, the fishes grew agitated, darting wildly through the tendrils of hair, the empty sockets, the jaw and throat. Then he started as Nestor rose to his feet and picked up the jar and flung it across the tent. It shattered against a pole, spilling acidic liquor and the fishes and the head in a great flood that washed back and sent Danant’s king lurching away for fear of some contamination he had condoned but did not understand.
Nestor said, “Damn you,” and kicked the head wither-shins about the floor.
Then: “We must act fast. Tell Dival to speed his siege.”
“And you?” Talan stared wide-eyed at the Vachyn, struggling against the desire to flee the tent. “What shall you do?”
“Give you Chorym,” Nestor replied, delivering Andur’s battered head a last kick. “Then Ryadne, save she does not die first. Then, all well, Ellyn.”
“Have I Ryadne,” Talan said nervously, “what does Ellyn matter?”
“Everything!” Nestor shouted. “She’s the key, you fool! I must find her. Now go!”
Talan stumbled toward the tent’s opening. His head felt thick with the fumes, and it seemed that Andur’s ephemeral laughter echoed inside his skull.
“Wait!”
Danant’s king halted as if paralyzed.
“Tonight, a little before midnight, bring me five of your best men. Strong, eh? And battle-hardened. And five dogs—strong dogs, with good teeth and fierce tempers.”
Talan found the courage to ask, “Why?”
“I’ll show you,” Nestor promised. “Now go.”
Talan went, clutching his robe about him, and scurried to his pavilion, where he called for strong wine.
Ryadne woke from a dream in which she stood naked in a howling wind that blew her long hair out behind her head and plucked at her breasts like violating fingers. She stood against a battered oak and the sky above was dark as the night before her eyes, and lightning flashed, illuminating the figures that stood before her, each one calling to her in words she could not comprehend. She saw Andur, and Ellyn, then Gailard, Talan, and a dark-robed figure she knew was the Vachyn sorcerer. Then another: a woman armored, with long black hair and a face she did not recognize, who raised a gleaming sword and beckoned her toward a precipice that fell down into glorious light.
She woke to the hand upon her shoulder and saw one of her women standing, face concerned, above her.
“Something is happening, my queen.”
Ryadne dismissed the nocturnal images. “What?”
She could hear, even this far, the thud of Danant’s missiles against her walls, and when she rose and went to the window, she saw the trails of fire the lit projectiles left across the sky.
“I don’t know.” The woman—by the gods, what was her name?—paced nervously behind the queen. “But your generals would have your attention.”
“Ask them to wait a moment while I dress.”
Ryadne splashed water on her face and pulled on a gown, then motioned that the waiting woman open the door.
It was not all of her commanders who attended. Only two appeared, but they wore grey faces and hollow eyes, and one bore great burns on his armor, and more on his face.
“They bring magic against us, my queen.”
“We expected as much.” Ryadne felt her heart flutter. “After all, we face a Vachyn sorcerer.”
It was the unmarked one who spoke. “We cannot defeat a Vachyn.”
He fell to his knees, and Ryadne saw tears stain his cheeks. She felt his dread then, as if it pervaded her sleeping quarters like some miasmic fog. It seemed to emanate from him like the sour stink of old sweat; and from the windows, as if the night were filled with it, and the moon sent it down; and from the candles that burned in her chamber, filling it with the persuasion to accept defeat. She felt it in herself, coming from her armpits and from between her legs. It was defeat made real, fingers beckoning and unheard voices whispering, Give in. You cannot win. Give up. Surrender.
She steeled herself. I am Ryadne of the Dur, she told herself. I am Andur’s widow, and I can defeat this.
She knew she could not, but even so she said, “Tell me what happens,” in as firm a tone as she could manage, “and then I shall dress and come to the walls.”
“They send fire against us.” It was the unmarked, frightened man who spoke.
“We expected that,” she said.
“No, this is not what we expected. This is
different.”
The burned commander set a hand on his companion’s shoulder and said, “They send strange fire against us, my queen. Vachyn fire, I think. And … other things.”
Ryadne thought an instant on what Gailard had told her of the defeat, the retreat from the Darach Pass, her own dreams.
“Wait, and I’ll come with you.”
She donned her armor and went with them to the walls. It was akin to walking into a fog of despair. She remembered a time she’d been lost in the Highlands, when a mist had settled in and she could not discern any landmarks. She had known that stream and bogs lay ahead, and ravines, and thought that she must surely die, and it was like that now: all insensate terror and despair.
She could hear the thud of missiles against the walls and see the blazing bundles landing. She could hear men weeping, and the whistle of arrows, and had she not been a mother afraid for her daughter, she would likely have given up. But she could not. Ellyn ran abroad in Gailard’s care, and she must live long enough to grant them the chance of survival.
So she steeled herself and dismissed the phantoms, calling for her troops to stand firm and ignore the Vachyn’s magic.
Which was very hard to do, for it came in that foggy nightmare form that prompted folk to dwell on ancient fears and dreads, old guilts and shames, embarrassments and unrequited loves, old hatreds and slights. And with it came the thunder of Danant’s catapults, the mangonels and trebuchets and heavy arbalests hurling stones and blazing bundles and severed heads. And then the worst: a column of fire that gusted like the breath of legend’s dragons against the gates and set them, despite the drenching water, aflame.
Ryadne knew then that Chorym must fall; Talan’s Vachyn sorcerer owned too much power. But she’d not give up; she’d hold so long as she could, and hide her daughter’s tracks as best she could—for Ellyn and all the world she knew. For which end, when finally the gates broke, there could be only one fate for her.