Shadow Star

by Chris Claremont

  She flushed, the rush of blood touching her argent features with the palest hint of rose, casting memory back a few scant months to the nights she spent here in the company of a troubadour named Duguay Faralorn. Through him she had found in herself an ability to sing and through those songs to inspire powerful emotions in her audience. Like many she had known, Duguay turned out to be far more than he seemed. He wasn’t human at all, but an otherworldly entity of transcendent power called the Lord of the Dance, who had sought to win her to his side as his eternal partner. Instead, it was she who’d won his heart and as a consequence in the Dragon’s Realm he had sacrificed himself to save her and her companions.

  “It was kind of you to remember, Colonel,” she replied.

  “Nothing of the sort. It was a rather remarkable performance. Capped, I believe, by a tumult at our main gate that involved you.”

  “And some Maizan,” she finished.

  “Then as now, we are in your debt.”

  “How may I help?”

  She wasn’t conscious of swaying, and only barely noticed an answering flick of the hand from DeGuerin, she was mainly concerned with stifling a sudden great and unexpected yawn. A moment later, an orderly stepped up behind her, campaign chair in hand. Gratefully, she sank onto the leather-covered seat and pulled her cloak more snugly about her, acutely conscious of how sickly she must look to the others.

  She met Thorn’s gaze, intense and concerned, and managed a wry grin.

  “More tired than I thought,” she said.

  “Hardly a surprise,” he answered, “considering.”

  “In that case,” the Colonel said, “we’ll be brief.”

  He set both fists on the table and leaned his weight on them, giving his attention first to the maps, then to Elora.

  He didn’t request her own recitation of events. Instead, he looked at her from under his dark brows, reminding her disconcertingly of a Highland wolf, and asked simply: “How many?”

  She took a breath to settle her thoughts. An answer leaped to the tip of her tongue but she kept it captive a small while longer, letting her body curve against the back of her chair as she considered what she wanted to say. Some of the officers thought she was being disrespectful; she didn’t care. She was returning to the earth, reaching downward with that part of her spirit which resonated most strongly with the world beneath her, feeling once more the tread of countless feet upon its surface.

  She blinked once, twice, restored her posture.

  “If you kill a hundred of them,” she said, “for every one of us within these walls—warrior and civilian, man, woman, child, Daikini and Veil Folk—they’ll hardly notice the loss. A thousand, perhaps, might give them pause. Nothing less.”

  “Impossible,” snapped one of the officers. “Who could muster such a force?”

  “The one thing the Chengwei have never lacked,” replied the Colonel, “is manpower.”

  “But to march an army through these mountains? Colonel, they’d have had to cross the Stairs to Heaven themselves!”

  “Evidently they found a way, Lieutenant.”

  “But to bring such a force this far undetected?” questioned another.

  “Frontier’s been pretty much deserted these past months,” said the Chief of Scouts, a lean, laconic man whose dress was as individual as his manner, a haphazard combination of military uniform and outback buckskin. Of them all, he was the only one to wear his hair long, gathered together in a queue the same way Rool wore his and held by a similar clasp.

  “A raiding party, I can understand, slipping past our patrols. This is an army!”

  “Din’t slip past nothin’, Cap,” growled Shando. “Ran right over the patrol what found ’em.”

  “Your point being, First Sergeant?” prompted the Colonel.

  “Weren’t newbies, that lot, sir, none of ’em. Were a good troop, well led. They knew the ground, they knew trouble. They had experience fightin’ the likes of us”—meaning Daikini and specifically the Maizan—“an’ the likes of them.” He poked a thumb toward Tyrrel. “Meanin’ no disrespect, Highness.”

  “None taken, First Sergeant,” said the Faery sovereign in acknowledgment.

  “So how come they got so dead so quick? Not a one of ’em managed to get hisself clear?”

  “There’s a more disturbing implication,” interjected Thorn. “Originally, our enemies hereabouts were renegade forces of the Realm of Greater Faery.” Lesser Faery consisted of those races among the Veil Folk who lived mainly in the world, on the Daikini side of the Veil. Fairies, sprites, boggarts, trolls, ogres, nixies and pixies, naiads and dryads, Nelwyns like Thorn Drumheller—and, of course, brownies—to name but a few of their number. The peoples of Greater Faery resided on a different plane of existence; the world was someplace they chose to visit, and then only rarely—it was never their home.

  “As a consequence,” he continued, “and thanks to our alliance with Tyrrel and his folk, all Sandeni patrols should have included representatives of Lesser Faery, to warn their Daikini companions of any magical attack and provide a more secure and efficient means of communication with headquarters.” He looked to Tyrrel. “I take it you felt nothing amiss in this instance.”

  Tyrrel slowly shook his head. The thought hadn’t occurred to him.

  “So,” said Thorn, putting a period to his ruminations. “Their powers are arcane as well as temporal. Moreover, they have the means of keeping their deeds close and well hidden.”

  “How long?” Colonel DeGuerin demanded of Elora, but it was one of his staff who answered.

  “From where the girl and Master Drumheller encountered the patrol”—he consulted one of the maps to be sure—“better than a week. Possibly even closer to a fortnight. Plenty of time to prepare proper defenses, and possibly bring up reinforcements.”

  “A day,” Elora countered flatly. “No more than two.”

  “This is our business, young woman,” said the officer who’d just spoken.

  Elora felt like she’d been thrown into the suttler’s store and told to fill her arms with supplies; given a scant minute to grab hold of everything she could possibly carry, she clutched at ideas with frantic speed, trusting instinct to guide her as she gave voice to her thoughts without even the barest moment to evaluate what she was saying. When she was first at the fort, she’d spent many an evening listening intently to the Colonel and his officers relaxing after dinner. They never noticed the serving girl who hovered in the shadows, ever-ready with the wine as they talked strategy and tactics until all hours. Now, she put all the knowledge she’d gathered from him—and Drumheller, and Khory, and others along the highway of her life—to the test.

  “A hundred men, no matter how skilled, can’t hold the main gate of this fort for a week. Even if they torched it, and the wall as well, that week’s more than enough time to effect repairs. True,” she acknowledged, “the main body of the Chengwei army is farther back. There’s no way to hide the tread of so many feet, especially as they close in. But put a force between them, a proper regiment, heavy cavalry most like, and it’s a whole different game.”

  “Your sorcery tell you all that, girl?” scoffed the officer.

  My wits, she almost said, but fortunately managed to bite back her reply. I have no sorcery.

  “Suppose the commando assault had proved successful,” Elora continued to make her case, ignoring the interruption. “Right away, we’re on the active defensive, fighting desperately to retake positions already lost, or repair what’s been destroyed. We’re so caught up in one threat—because we believe we know how far away the main body is, and how much time that likely gives us—we’ve no resources to spare against another. Even if we defeat the second strike force, we’ve lost troops and matériel and especially time that can’t be replaced. When the final assault comes, we’ll be that much weaker.”

  Her gaz
e met the Colonel’s and found confirmation of her analysis. He’d come to the same conclusion, had entered the room hours ago with it. He’d brought her here, invited her to speak her mind, as a test of her own ability.

  “Your response, Elora Danan?” he asked her. To both the Chengwei threat, she realized, and the implicit challenge of his officer.

  She shrugged her shoulders, pursed her lips. “Truth to tell,” she confessed, “I haven’t a clue. As you say,” she told the officer, “this is your business. I’ve only just begun to learn the craft.”

  She evidently struck the proper note of respect and contrition because the mood among the officers eased a fraction. Before they got too comfortable with themselves, however, their commander cast their presumptions to the dust.

  “As it happens,” he said, “the Sacred Princess’s strategic and tactical analysis squares with my own.” His use of her title was intentional and deliberate, to remind his staff of her proper place in the scheme of things, one that stood far higher than their own.

  “Only an idiot throws away a force of this caliber to no purpose, and whatever we may think of this Chengwei commander, he is no idiot. The fact that he was able to cross the Stairs to Heaven at all is proof of that.

  “I believe we can expect a significant assault at any time. Convey that alert to the watchtowers. Anyone who sleeps at his post had best pray the Chengwei slit his throat because I guarantee to make him wish he’d never been born.

  “Our one advantage is that this second force shouldn’t have much in the way of siege equipment. Bridges to span the moat, ladders for the wall, battering rams for the gates, that should be the extent of it. Anything more will slow them down too much. So, fortunately, no catapults of size, no engines, no assault towers. They’ll come later.

  “And when that main force of Chengwei does arrive, I want them to have to reach our walls over a carpet of their own dead.”

  It was a sober speech, and a somber group that broke not long after to continue preparations for the fort’s defense. Only four remained with the Colonel as he set glasses on the table and opened his sideboard for a bottle of fine cognac and his humidor of cigars. With an air of tradition, DeGuerin poured each of them—Shando, Tyrrel, Thorn, and Elora—a double thimbleful. Then he raised his own glass and though he was looking toward them his gaze encompassed far more than this room and those within.

  “I could ask for better odds,” he said, “but not comrades.” His eyes turned to Elora and she rose to her feet. “And certainly not a better cause. It is both honor and high privilege to stand with you, Lady,” and he touched the rim of his glass lightly to hers, the crystal sounding a pure, clarion note at the contact, “and with you, my friends.”

  Shando drained his glass in a single gulp, then withdrew, taking refuge from the emotions of the moment in his duties as First Sergeant of the Regiment.

  “My folk are already at work,” Tyrrel told the Colonel. “Come morning, our foes will have an easier time crossing a bog than the field beyond the moat.”

  Elora shook her head, savoring the heady tang of the cognac as it scorched flame over her tongue and down her throat. It was a little like swallowing a firedrake and she had to restrain herself from an attack of giggles.

  “By midday,” she said, “the ground will be bone dry, with the Caliban and his pet monsters waiting for any of your folk foolish enough to venture forth to try to reenergize the spells. Would they come so far, Colonel, without preparing for every contingency?”

  “They’re a methodical people, the Chengwei.” They were the oldest Empire in the Daikini world, and the most arrogant race. They dominated the eastern half of the continent and if not for the presence of Sandeni would have long ago fulfilled their manifest destiny and pushed their borders to the Sunset shore. Too often in past days, a new Khagan would claim the Jade Palace in the Imperial Capital of Daido and proceed to forget the lessons of history, or believe he was brilliant enough to overcome them. Once more, armies would follow the sun and a new generation would spend its best and brightest on the highland plains before Sandeni as the Republic sanctified its freedom with blood.

  With the rise of Angwyn in the west, a balance of power had been achieved across the continent. No longer did Sandeni stand alone and the Chengwei seemed to discover the value of coexistence. Sadly, though, old hatreds die hardest of all and the sudden fall of Angwyn to the Deceiver created a political and military vacuum the Chengwei had evidently found irresistible. With the Maizan pressing from the Cascadel side of the Wall, this must have seemed the perfect opportunity to catch the Republic between the jaws of a monumental nutcracker, especially considering their contemptuous opinion of the Maizan, whom intelligence reports said the Chengwei considered prairie nomads, barbarians who would prove a foe of minimal consequence.

  In that respect, the Chengwei were in for a rude surprise. But that realization was of little comfort to the defenders of Fort Tregare.

  “By all means, Highness,” DeGuerin finished to Tyrrel, “do your best, but as the Sacred Princess says, keep your folk within the walls when the enemy arrives.”

  “Truly the Caliban, Drumheller?” Tyrrel asked of Thorn. “In all my years, I’ve felt no sign of its feet upon the earth.”

  “By rights, by legend, you’re not supposed to. Like a demon, the Caliban walks beyond the boundaries of the Twelve Realms. Like demons, the price of its summoning is…” Drumheller’s voice trailed off, his words inadequate to encompass the horror of his imagination.

  “What is it?” Elora inquired. “Before this, I’d never heard of the monster.”

  “It’s a name rarely mentioned,” Thorn replied, “for fear it might hear and answer the call. It slays those who work with magic, and claims their power for its own. Hence, the Barontës. It travels with its own sorcerous circle. Some tales call it the one foe the Malevoiy respect and possibly even fear. Others say it is their creature. On one thing the stories all agree, no one who ever faced the Caliban in battle survived to tell the tale.”

  “How do you kill it?” the Colonel asked.

  Thorn looked lost. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Can it be killed?” wondered Tyrrel aloud, to receive the same reply.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Colonel,” asked Elora, “what about the women and children? There must be something we can do for them.”

  DeGuerin shook his head. “I’ll tell you what I told the ranchers and homesteaders earlier today, lass; I can’t spare the troops for an escort back to Sandeni. Even if I could, time’s too short. Chengwei cavalry would quickly catch them on the open road. I’m sorry.”

  After that, there was little more to say, so Elora took her leave.

  Luc-Jon was waiting on the porch, along with his hound. Without preamble, without even a word, Elora pressed herself against him, gathering him as close as she could in a fierce embrace that the longer it lasted, the less she wanted it to end. The young man didn’t know what to do with his hands at first. The naked declaration of her feelings startled him, stripped him at first of the ability to respond. His own initial touch was far more gentle, even though her own strength left him near gasping. Her rangy figure was deceptive, masking muscles he suspected could lift him from his feet without exceptional effort.

  There was no flex to her as his own hold tightened. She might well have been cast from the pure metal she so closely resembled. By contrast, each breath filled his head with the scent of her. A soft perfume from the soaps used in her bath. A clean, windswept tang to her hair that reminded him of highland woods on a crisp spring day with the breeze rippling through the trees. An underlying taste that was uniquely her own and that he knew he would never forget.

  “It can’t be so bad,” he offered by way of comfort, after what seemed like an indecently long while.

  “No, it can’t,” she agreed, her voice muffled against his cloak-
covered shoulder. Then, she pulled away, breaking his grip on her as if it were nothing, and when she spoke again both eyes and voice were haunted. “But it is,” she said.

  And she told him why.

  “You need sleep,” he recommended, as they walked hand in hand through the compound.

  “I’ve had my share and more.”

  “You need food.”

  “I’ve eaten. I’ll be fine, Luc-Jon.”

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”

  “I’m just sorry for the circumstances.” She uttered a small sigh and scuffed the hardpan dirt of the parade ground with the toe of her boot. “There are times I really wish disaster didn’t follow quite so close on my heels.”

  * * *

  —

  The Chengwei didn’t come that night, nor the following one, and Elora began to hear mutterings throughout the stronghold that she’d sounded a false alarm, though none of those comments came from any of the garrison. Among the troops there was a deep and lasting fury, at the way the raiders had dishonored the murdered patrol by using their uniforms. The frustration here came from waiting for the enemy to make the next move, when every desire in these proud, professional soldiers was to seize the initiative and take the fight to their foe.

  The civilian residents of the fort, the refugees, quickly began to chafe under DeGuerin’s strict martial regime. He was preparing for a seige they doubted would come. Some even scoffed at her report of the main force itself, speculating that the raiders who’d attacked the fort were no more than what they seemed, a band of overly ambitious renegades. It didn’t seem to matter that all the decisions were the Colonel’s, based on his own assessment of the situation; somehow, it seemed more natural to heap all the blame on the Sacred Princess.

  As a consequence, Elora stayed pretty much to herself. She stuffed herself to bursting, scarfing food like a starving wolf as she rushed to rebuild her strength after her fever, and she slept. Time and again during the day she cast her consciousness into the earth, seeking any sign of the approaching Chengwei, only to find an eerie and uncharacteristic silence. When she reported the experience to Thorn Drumheller, the best description that came to her was of an aural fog, that occluded sound the way its counterpart did sight. She’d never experienced the like and though she had no tangible evidence to support her assertion she was sure its presence was both artificial and malevolent. At the same time, she never allowed her spirit self to stray too far nor to roam free of her physical body for too long. She remembered how close the Caliban had come to catching her; she didn’t want to give it even the ghost of another chance.