The Weaver's Lament

by Elizabeth Haydon

  The Bolg king pulled her close and allowed his cloak to whip around her in the wind, seeking to shelter and warm her. The elemental fire that burned constantly in her soul had diminished considerably; her hands were chilled to ice when he took them in his own.

  “I can’t find his heartbeat on the wind,” he said quietly into her ear. “Is he dead?”

  Rhapsody could only bring herself to nod, wracked by sobbing.

  The Bolg king took off one of his gloves and let his veined hand come to rest, shaking, on her flying hair, battered around her by the increasing wind.

  “In the wagon?”

  She nodded again against his neck.

  “What happened?”

  Rhapsody opened her mouth to speak, but instead a sound emerged that made the nerve endings in Achmed’s skin come alight with pain.

  “Shhhh,” he said, not unkindly, but with more command in his tone than had been in it the moment before. “All right. Cry, if you insist. Get it over with, but do it by yourself.” He loosed her gently and made his way to the back of the wagon where the body lay.

  Rhapsody wrapped her arms around herself in the brisk breeze, her tears slowing. She had come out into the night in her dressing gown, and only now had come to realize it. She thought she could hear Achmed’s intake of breath when he beheld their friend, but there was no further comment or sound.

  From in front of the wagon she could hear the gate of the bed being pulled up again. She turned and waited as the Bolg king returned.

  Fire as bright as that at the heart of the Earth was burning in his eyes.

  “Who?” he demanded as he came to her again.

  “A horrific misunderstanding,” she stammered.

  “Who?” The word seethed from his mouth.

  “Soldiers of the Alliance,” she whispered. “They misinterpreted something Ashe said.”

  The Bolg king stared down at her in the dark, his eyes boring through her soul.

  He said nothing.

  Rhapsody’s eyes overflowed again, the tears spilling down the sides of her cheeks.

  Finally he turned away and climbed onto the wagon.

  “You will need to choose a side now, Rhapsody,” he said softly. “The middle ground has just vanished.”

  “He’s my husband,” she whispered again. “The father of my children. They will stand with him.”

  “Grunthor was your friend,” Achmed said, louder now. “One of the Three. It appears he was ambushed; he has only defensive wounds. His bandolier is full—he never had the chance to draw a single weapon. I imagine it was a grotesquely unfair fight, though he probably took a good number of them with him.”

  His eyes narrowed and the fire in them gleamed even brighter with building rage. “You know what they did to him? You know everything that they did to him? Do you, Rhapsody? Do you?” Rhapsody closed her eyes and nodded, tears racing down her cheeks. “Semen is dripping from his mouth and his fundament. Your abandonment of him now is sensible and would certainly not be the biggest betrayal he suffered after death. Go home if you want. Go back to your children. Take one of the horses. I will travel by land to give you a fighting chance to ensconce in Highmeadow or any fortress of your choosing prior to the beginning of the war.”

  Her green eyes met his mismatched ones staring down at her from the wagon board as if sighting down a crossbow or his self-designed weapon, the cwellan.

  “Well? Are you going home?”

  She swallowed, her tears drying in the wind.

  “Yes,” she said. “The first home I knew on this continent. Take me to Ylorc. I need to bury my friend. I need to sing his dirge. I need to mourn with the other one of the Three. You are the only person in the world I want to be with right now.”

  In spite of the agony in his eyes, a small smile took up residence on his face.

  Achmed put his glove back on. Then he reached a hand down to her.

  She took it as he lifted her onto the wagon board.

  They made their way grimly back to the Manteids, the mountains known as the Teeth, at the far eastern edge of the continent.

  This time, as the wagon traveled into the darkness, she turned around and looked back.

  But only for a moment.

  Then she turned around again and stared east, lost in consuming grief.

  15

  HIGHMEADOW

  When the wagon had departed and was swallowed up in the darkness, Ashe sank to his knees on the ground of the courtyard.

  The dragon in his blood, long the hated undercurrent of insistent commentary in his brain, was preternaturally silent.

  If it had been whispering to his brain, it was unlikely he would have heard it anyway.

  Meridion, the last child in the fortress who had no spouse or progeny to care for, stood by him.

  “Father,” he said quietly. “You have to go after her.”

  Ashe’s head remained bowed.

  “You know the Bolg will not be contained or satisfied unless there is an apology, some sort of diplomatic settlement.”

  “They will not be contained by those things either, Meridion.”

  “If you do nothing, if you wait, war will most certainly erupt, a war of far greater brutality and destruction than the continent has ever seen in its history,” Meridion pressed. “It will be mass slaughter, undoing a thousand years of the thwarting of cannibalism. And Mimen will be on the other side this time—it’s Gwylliam and Anwyn all over again. I see no other choice.”

  Ashe lapsed back into silence, his head still bowed.

  “Father?”

  “I am willing to go, Meridion, but only to seek your mother’s forgiveness. Achmed will never give it to me; I do not blame him for that.”

  “We can hope for the best,” Meridion said. “She always did.”

  After a few moments, shadows emerged in the lanternlight.

  One by one, his children were gathering again.

  The first to approach him was Stephen, one of his high-ranking military commanders.

  “I’ve had the guards take the prisoners to the stockade, Father,” he said.

  “And I’ve dismissed the chamberlain and the quartermaster, though they stand ready to be recalled at a moment’s notice,” added Joseph, his younger brother.

  Ashe said nothing.

  The brothers exchanged a glance, then turned in the direction of their youngest sister, Laurelyn the Invoker, who circled around in front of their father and crouched down before him.

  “I must return to the Circle forthwith, Father,” she said, quietly but calmly. “War is likely coming to the Great Forest, and it is my responsibility to prepare for it.”

  “We are readying to evacuate the Grands and the Greats to Tyrian,” Elienne added. “Achmed will never attack Mother’s realm, no matter how angry he is.”

  “She would never allow that,” Joseph agreed.

  “I will remain here with you to defend Highmeadow and the forest of Navarne, Father,” said Allegra, an even higher military commander than Stephen. “I’ve sent a messenger to the summoning stations. Reinforcement brigades will be here by morning.”

  Silence returned.

  Ashe remained on his knees for a long moment. Then he exhaled and dropped his head.

  He rose slowly, feeling every one of his years.

  “I will go to her,” he said.

  The five youngest siblings looked at one another.

  “In her last words to you, she commanded otherwise, Father,” Joseph said.

  “It will be further provocation,” Stephen cautioned. “I’m not certain how this situation could be made more grave, but if it can be, it will be if you do so.”

  “I have never heard her speak so commandingly to you, Father,” Elienne added. “I do not think you wish to cross her further.”

  Ashe sighed. “What would you have me do then, children? It is not for me, but for the continent that I do this. Achmed has an army of a half million monstrous men, plus cavalry and special forces bet
ter armed and equipped than any in the Alliance, including that of Roland. Grunthor sired half of them. Should the continent die because I am a fool?”

  He looked up finally to see them exchanging glances, all of them sad.

  “I will go on my knees to them both, once they have had the chance to bury and mourn him initially. I will beg her forgiveness, and his, and will surrender whatever it will take to cool his rage—my office, my sword, my body, or even my life. I want our legacy as the husband and wife who reluctantly took up the mantle of leadership in order to reunite the Cymrian Empire to be a continued peace and stability, not a reenactment of Gwylliam and Anwyn. There are many horrific possibilities I have contemplated over the centuries, but that one is beyond imagination.”

  His children looked at one another, then back at him.

  The expressions in their eyes acknowledged acceptance.

  “I will go with you, Father,” Meridion said. “Perhaps my training as a Namer can help in the negotiation.”

  “It will be an abject apology and capitulation, a surrender, not a negotiation, Meridion. But if you want to come with me, I would be grateful for your company—as long as you keep your distance from Achmed. I don’t wish to see you get caught in the middle.”

  Laurelyn, the oaken staff of her office in hand, came to him and tenderly kissed his cheek.

  “Give her a few days,” she advised. “I know you do not want to tarry long, but, as you said, they need time to mourn and to grieve.” She looked around at her siblings. “As do we all. My love remains with you.”

  Ashe took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead.

  “You are so like her,” he whispered. “I love you, little bird. My love goes with you.”

  The Invoker smiled, then bade her siblings farewell and headed west.

  * * *

  Later the next afternoon, Stephen had just finished bidding his wife, children, and grandchildren goodbye when Ashe came into the courtyard to do the same.

  A caravan of carriages and riders accompanied by four cavalry regiments was assembling somberly, in relative silence. Only the youngest of the Greats were buzzing with excitement at the sight of all the horses and soldiers gathering in the great courtyard of Highmeadow. Ashe kissed each of them as they ran to him, and directed them back to their parents.

  “Elienne and Joseph will remain in Tyrian with the family for the moment,” Stephen said, ruffling the hair of three of his great-nephews as they ran past, back to their parents in the caravan. “I will ride rear of the caravan, and return as soon as they have successfully arrived, to aid Allegra with the defense of Highmeadow.”

  Ashe smiled slightly.

  “Thank you, my son, but if I am successful, these precautions will have been undertaken for nothing.”

  Stephen shrugged. “That’s why they’re called precautions,” he said lightly, quoting one of his father’s many teachings. “Undertaken before the actual need to worry.” His light words took on a heaviness. “I still am not certain that this wouldn’t be best undertaken in writing and by messenger, Father. Now that Grunthor is gone, Achmed will have no reason to stay his hand against you. The law of one-for-one is strong among the Bolg.”

  “Actually, the Bolg live by the law of one-thousand-for-one,” Ashe said. “Whatever revenge he might exact upon me is deserved, remember that. And if the alternative is that I end up dying of old age on this side of a divided continent, without your mother, it would have been a blessing to be torn asunder and eaten alive, or whatever punishment he condemns me to.”

  “If that was supposed to make me feel better, it failed miserably.”

  Ashe smiled brokenly as Allegra joined them, wearing her armor and leading Stephen’s mount to him.

  “It was only meant to tell you the truth,” he said, returning his eldest daughter’s salute. “You are a good man, Stephen, the very image of the man you were named for, my dearest friend and brother, Stephen Navarne. I am grateful to God, the One, the All, that you have his qualities rather than those of his idiot friend. Travel well.”

  “Do not gainsay my father,” Stephen said, mounting up. “He is the best man I have ever known, and I will defend his honor with my life—at the cost of that of anyone who insults him—so you are generating a paradox I would rather not bring into existence. My love remains with you, Father.”

  “Mine goes with you, Champ.”

  Stephen’s eyes glistened at his father’s use of his childhood nickname. He raised his hand and clicked to his horse.

  Ashe and Allegra watched him ride off to join the caravan, his red-gold hair that matched both of theirs glowing in the patchy light of the afternoon sun.

  “The redheads will hold Highmeadow,” Allegra mused once Stephen was out of sight. “It figures.”

  Ashe chuckled in spite of the despair that was bagging the loose skin around his eyes. He looked at his eldest daughter, the strongest and most martial of the three women, and smiled fondly.

  “On the night I asked your mother for her hand, deep in the grotto of Elysian, she told me her own mother’s name had been Allegra,” he said. “When I said I thought that it was beautiful, she asked, ‘It would be a good name for a daughter, wouldn’t it?’ I don’t believe I had ever been happier than I was at that moment—until you arrived and we named you thus.”

  Allegra, a woman of few and always carefully considered words, smiled slightly but said nothing.

  “I am deeply sorry for having put you in this position, my Heartsong,” he said, calling her by the appellation he had whispered to her upon her birth. “I still am hoping to awaken from this nightmare and discover that this is all but a dream.”

  “Sadly, we are awake, Father,” Allegra said regretfully. “But we will be prepared, at least.”

  She squeezed his hand and returned to her duties.

  16

  When night fell, while Meridion was working with the quartermaster, readying the riding and dray horses for their journey to the Bolglands, Ashe made his way to the stockade. He entered through the front gate after saluting the guards, then through the front entrance, where even more guards saluted him stonily. Whether they know of what happened or not, they are still stoic, he thought as he returned the salute and entered the building. Good. They’ll need that.

  He passed easily through all the remaining layers of guards until he came to the cells in which the four commanders of the armies of the Alliance were imprisoned. He stopped in front of Reynard’s cell, where the general was pacing back and forth, stanching his bloody nose, and crossed his arms.

  Reynard stopped short and turned toward the Lord Cymrian.

  “M’lord—”

  “Don’t,” said Ashe unpleasantly. “How dare you, you verminous piece of filth? You thought you could murder one of the Three and blame it on the misunderstanding of a comment made in annoyance?”

  “M’lord, I thought you wanted—”

  “Silence!” The multiple tones of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass, the hallmark of the dragon’s voice, rattled the bars of the cell.

  Reynard stepped back in terror.

  “You are a bloody general, Reynard. Perhaps a private could claim he or she didn’t understand, but a general always seeks clarification of intent if he is not absolutely certain of what he is commanded to do. You pathetic prick.” He leaned closer, his hands gripping the bars.

  “You will be facing military justice, rather than my own, Reynard,” he said softly, his tone deadly. “For this you should be profoundly grateful. Are you, Reynard? Are you and your cohorts grateful?”

  The men in the cells looked askance at one another.

  Ashe slammed his hands on the cell bars, sending shock waves of sound through the echoing halls.

  “Are you?”

  A terrified chorus of yes, m’lord rang out.

  “Well, that’s good, at least.” The vertical pupils in the Lord Cymrian’s searing blue eyes expanded in the dim light of the cellblock. “I have a question, Rey
nard, for you and you other men. Come closer, so that I can see the answer in your eyes, and be certain that you are telling me the truth. Come closer.”

  Reynard began backing away. “M’lord—”

  “I said come closer!” Ashe shrieked. The multiple tones of the wyrm caused the metal of the bars to ring discordantly.

  Shaking, Reynard obeyed.

  Ashe pressed his face up to the bars. “Sickening as it is for me to have something in common with you gentlemen, you will be pleased to know that, like you, I am about to face military justice also.”

  The commanders exchanged as much of a glance as they were able in their separate cells.

  “So I now ask you a question, each of you, a question that I know that I, at least, can truthfully answer ‘no’ to. I wonder if any or all of you can do the same. Are you ready for the question, gentlemen? And please bear in mind that I probably already know the answer, being a dragon.”

  When silence answered him, he pounded on the cellblock doors again, making the hinges on the door of Reynard’s cell squeal threateningly, as though they might break.

  Yes, m’lord, came the hurried communal reply.

  The Lord Cymrian’s voice dropped to a whisper.

  “Here it is,” he said, his eyes gleaming with an angrier light. “The question to each of you is this—does any of the spunk dripping from the mouth of Grunthor’s severed head belong to you, gentlemen? Or from any other orifice, for that matter?”

  The four men went white. Three of their mouths dropped open as Goodeve lost his water, pissing himself.

  “Well?” the Lord Cymrian demanded.

  The men just stared in return.

  Ashe’s voice dropped to a deadly low. “I could have imagined, though I never contemplated it, that I might one day have to answer for actions like this perpetrated by ordinary soldiers or conscripts. But the thought that my squadron commanders and generals, for the love of God, the One, the All, would even entertain the thought of committing an atrocity against the supreme commander of an army that is part of the very same Alliance in which they serve has truly caught me by as much surprise as you gentlemen seem to be experiencing.”