“Why should they hurry?” Messire Den Fellaemion scrubbed a bone-thin hand across his bloodless face. “They can take their time, rest and feed their men; we’re not going anywhere, are we?” The dry note in his commander’s voice was threatening to take on the hollow ring of defeat to Temar’s ears.
“Perhaps we might. I know it’s reaching for a single rune but we should explore the caves further,” he urged, stifling his own qualms at the prospect of going still deeper under the earth. “We should start at once, widen some of the fissures and see where they take us. We know that at least one river travels through plunge pools as it comes down the gorge. If water made these caves, it must have found its way in somehow, and in some force. There could be a way right through the high ground, out to the far side, out of sight of these bastards. Then we could strike out for the new port, where the stockmen have been building these last seasons. They’ve seen no sign of the invaders, have they, Avila? You said so yourself.” Temar bit his lip in frustration and sat down again, seeing that his words were going unheeded as Den Fellaemion turned his attention to Vahil’s approach, a sheaf of crumpled parchments clutched desperately in the younger man’s hand.
“Our supplies are very limited, Messire, no more than will give short rations for a scant handful of days. We have bread enough for several meals, cheeses and the like that people managed to grab as they fled, but many came empty-handed. We managed to salvage some sacks of meal from the ships and some small store of vegetables, but no meat or wine to speak of, and there’s precious little means of cooking anything. It is far too dangerous to send people out for fuel or foraging.” Vahil’s normally robust voice was as colorless as his face. “With the attack coming at dawn like that, few were in a position to take more than themselves and their families, if they were to escape at all. A good number are still in their night-gowns or simply their linen. We have some blankets, but nowhere near enough, especially for the wounded. There are still twelve children separated from their parents,” Vahil reported bleakly and now his voice was raw with grief. “I think we have to assume they are lost, the parents that is.”
Temar closed his eyes on his own anguished remembrance, the sight of Messire Den Rannion lying in a welter of blood, guts spilled across the muddy ground, sword still clutched in the hand that had been hacked clean from his wrist as he fought frantically to protect his people. The gems of his rings had shone in the dawn light, a detail of memory that confused Temar until he realized that the invaders were too set on bloodshed to bother with looting their victims. Worse yet was the other hand Temar had seen reaching blindly for the fallen Den Rannion, that of the Maitresse, her white hair trampled bloody into the black earth, that shrewd and kindly face destroyed utterly by the pitiless boss of a shield sweeping her aside with vicious disdain, boot prints plain on the fabric of her night-gown where she had been trampled heedlessly underfoot.
“Avila, why don’t you take Vahil and get him something warm to drink?”
Temar opened his eyes at Guinalle’s soft words, forcing away the horrid image.
“No, there are others in greater need than I—” Vahil began to object uncertainly, but he followed Avila meekly enough when she took his hand, forcing a smile on to her own worn and tear-stained features.
Den Fellaemion looked up at Guinalle from his seat on a low rock ledge. In the dim light filtering through the greenery fringing the cave’s mouth, he looked almost as gray as the rocks around him. “What have you to tell me, my dear?”
The blend of love and grief in Guinalle’s eyes as she gazed at her uncle tore at Temar’s heart when he could not have imagined anymore emotion could have been wrung from him.
“We have tended the wounded as best we can, with Artifice and with what medicaments we were able to salvage.” Guinalle unconsciously pushed a blood-stained sleeve back above one elbow. “Most are settled and, Ostrin be thanked, most of the injuries are relatively minor. Still, there are a number whom we simply dare not move, not for some days, if we are not to send them straight to Saedrin’s mercy.”
“Have you determined how many of your Adepts escaped?” Temar wondered at the urgency in Den Fellaemion’s question.
“Nearly all.” Guinalle’s answer was bitter with irony. “We were so much better able to defend ourselves when the invaders started using that Artifice of their own.”
Temar’s urge to demand aid from Guinalle and her students in surveying the caves died on his lips as he was suddenly overwhelmed by remembrance of the horror of the previous sunrise. Waking from a contented sleep to the sound of screaming, pure terror ripping through the air, horrid shrieks rising to be cut off by merciless blades as black-liveried invaders poured from ships driven high on to the mud flats to fall upon the undefended colonists. Temar’s hand groped for empty air at the memory of grabbing his sword, rushing from his bed in Den Rannion’s steading, only to see fires raging all around, women and children fleeing in desperation from the flames only to die on the greedy tongues of swords flashing bright as the building inferno struck a false dawn from the glowering clouds.
Temar’s heart began to race, anguish twisting within him as he tried to think what he could have done different, how else he might have succeeded in rallying the men who appeared, whatever weapons they might find in hand, desperate to gather in some concerted defense of the frail wooden gate. Cold fingers gripped Temar’s heart, cold sweat beading on the back of his neck as he heard again the echo of their screams, flinching from his own memories of the evil Artifice that had robbed so many of their wits and will, leaving them standing dumbly like beasts awaiting the poleaxe to die under the black metal weapons of the invaders. A tear trickled unheeded down one cheek and he looked down to see his knuckles shining white in a very death grip on his sword.
“You had to flee when you did, Temar,” Den Fellaemion laid his own desiccated hand over the younger man’s. “Saedrin be thanked that you had some little Artifice of your own to defend you, or we would have lost you as well.”
Temar could not trust himself to speak but neither could he resist a guilty glance at Guinalle. He saw only understanding and sympathy in her eyes, and for an instant that made everything even worse.
“Who are these cursed people?” he demanded hoarsely. “Why are they doing this?”
“Since any attempt at a parley has ended with our envoys meeting a hail of missiles, it’s a little hard to tell.” Messire Den Fellaemion’s mirthless smile would not have looked out of place on a deathmask. “I can’t see us resolving this by negotiation.”
“I have some idea of where they might be from,” began Guinalle hesitantly.
“What?” Temar and Den Fellaemion demanded in the same breath. “How?”
“When I was repelling their attacks, I made an unexpected contact with someone imperfectly practiced in their Artifice.” Guinalle looked uncharacteristically defensive. “Last night, when I was sure the youth was asleep, I used that touch to look into his memories.”
“The risks—” Temar drew breath to remonstrate with her but subsided at the Messire’s warning glance.
“What can you tell us, my dear?”
“They come from a place far to the north of here, small, barren islands locked together in the heart of the ocean,” Guinalle’s eyes grew distant as she looked again on the images she had stolen. “It’s a cold place, pitiless, few trees and bleak, gray rocks all around. They have very little, and what they have they steal from each other, counting blood well spent for a few measures of land. Lives are renewed in due season but land ends at the water’s edge.” Her voice deepened and took on a harsher inflection. “Artifice is used to keep the priests as rulers of the people. They can sniff out disloyalty in the sleeping mind and kill with a thought. Unity is everything when both nature and culture surrounds you with perils, foes always armed against you.”
She caught her breath on a sudden shiver and her expression and tone returned to normal. “They have discovered what they see as an endl
ess land of unimaginable riches and will not share it with anyone, no matter what,” she concluded softly.
Before Temar could speak, Den Fellaemion rose and gathered Guinalle in a close embrace. “My dearest child, such insights may be valuable but you are more precious still.” A hint of rebuke stiffened his words. “Your skills are our only defense against the evil of their artifice and we cannot risk you in this way. You are not to attempt such a contact again.”
“He would only have thought he was dreaming of home,” protested Guinalle, but her expression was chastened nevertheless.
Temar interrupted as an urgent thought demanded immediate speech. “Have you managed to contact home—Zyoutessela, Toremal, anywhere that might be able to send us aid?”
Guinalle shook her head unhappily. “I have been trying, but something is preventing me, some kind of smothering that is limiting the range of my Artifice.”
“Have you tried working with some of the others?” Den Fellaemion looked up from studying the rocky floor of the cavern.
“I have and that was even worse; we found ourselves harried on all sides by hostile Artificers.” Guinalle shuddered at the memory. “We barely broke free of entanglement, Larasion blight their seed!”
“So we have only ourselves to rely on,” said the Messire softly, grimly.
“We’re well into the sailing season,” Temar protested halfheartedly. “There will be the new ships on the way who can break through the blockade, if we can only hold out for half a season, maybe less. How close would they have to be for you to contact them, Guinalle, without making yourself a target?” he added hastily.
Den Fellaemion sighed. “There will be no ships, Temar, in this season or any other.”
Temar could only stare, first at Den Fellaemion and then at Guinalle, who colored and hung her head. “What do you mean?”
“There will be no new colonists this year, Temar.” Den Fellaemion could not keep the bitterness out of his voice. “We had precious few last year, didn’t we? The last ships of the season brought me several letters, from my House and from others, all saying the same thing. Nemith is running the Empire into the sands on all fronts, hamstringing his troops with lack of resources at the same time as driving them on like a madman with a metal flailed whip. No one has men or coin to spare to venture overseas; all the provinces are going up in flames. We are on our own here.”
“You’ve known this all winter?” Temar stared at Den Fellaemion’s pallid face, the sunken eyes still steady and stern.
“What difference would it have made to spread such news?” demanded the older man. “What benefit would there have been to stir up despondency and doubts when we were doing so well, had gathered a bountiful harvest, Drianon be blessed? We were set fair to spend a busy winter making ready to spread our wings further in due season. From all I could see around me, we had no need of further men and women from Tormalin, if none should choose to come.”
Temar opened his mouth to protest but shut it again, feeling foolish as the force of Den Fellaemion’s words struck home. “And I was so sure we had driven off whatever sortie these invaders had sent against us,” he remembered bitterly. “That the loss of the Salmon was the end of it.”
“We all were,” Guinalle spoke up, her face somber. “It’s as much my failing as anyone’s, Temar.”
“We cannot simply sit here like rats in a trap, waiting for someone to put in our skulls with a club!” Temar sprang to his feet again and ripped a handful of ferns from the rocky wall, peering up hungrily at a distant patch of uncaring blue sky far above. A wisp of cloud was tinged with gold, mute evidence of the unseen sun sinking toward evening.
“There is an alternative, Temar,” Guinalle began hesitantly, her eyes sliding sideways to her uncle who gave her an encouraging nod. “There is a way we can use Artifice to hide us all in the caves until help can be summoned from Tormalin itself. We can be concealed from any search the invaders might attempt.”
Temar blinked, startled. “How? But even if you can conceal us, how will we survive? You heard what Vahil said about our lack of supplies. Curse it, Guinalle, there must be close to a thousand people here by now, and more will find their way in before nightfall, Talagrin willing, if they escape the invader’s hounds. I’m none too happy about the water supply and think how cold it was last night. To send a vessel to Toremal and wait for rescue, you’re looking at the best part of a full season, maybe more if things at home are as bad as Messire thinks!” He shook his head with fresh determination, ignoring the fear of confinement in the caves that was clamoring in the back of his mind. “No, whatever the risks, we must find a way out of here and try to make it overland to the new settlement. Use your Artifice to conceal us while we’re doing that, to stop these murdering bastards hunting us down and cutting us to pieces again.”
“Even if we could find a way out undetected, half these people would be dead before you’d crossed the first range of mountains, Temar.” Den Fellaemion looked down the rough-cut steps crudely hacked into the rock to give access to the main body of the cave. Temar followed his gaze, to the knots of families huddled together over a few meager possessions salvaged from the nightmare, at the individuals sitting isolated in the horror of their memories, at the still ranks of wounded, laid carefully on beds improvised from cloaks, blankets and in not a few cases leafy branches and sacking. The oppressive silence had a dull, defeated quality, broken only occasionally by a child’s whimper or a low sob of pain, mental or physical.
“We can’t just give up!” protested Temar, fighting to shore up his own determination.
“We can hide ourselves in a sleep woven of Artifice,” Guinalle said softly, boundless pity in her soft eyes as she looked down at the ragged remnant of the once optimistic colonists. “We can give these people respite, all life and thought suspended, Arimelin willing, until help can come to drive away these invaders.”
“How?” demanded Temar, incredulous.
“There is a way to separate mind and body,” Guinalle shook the loose hair back from her face and fumbled in a pocket for something to tie it back. “It is a rarely used technique…” her voice faltered for an instant, “only considered in times of grave illness, as a rule. The mind, the consciousness, the essence of the person, is bound into something they value, something they have an attachment to. With the mind removed and in stasis within the artifact, the body is held uncorrupted in an enchantment until the two are reunited.”
“And how would you propose to do that, even supposing you manage to do this with so many people?” Temar stared at her, absently handing her a scrap of leather thong pulled from the trim of his jerkin.
“This is where sending a small detachment overland to the new settlement becomes a valid plan. You’re right, Temar, there is a way through the caves; some of the miners found it a while back. It’s difficult and narrow, underwater in places but it’s passable with care and Misaen’s favor.” Animation brought a false hint of color to Den Fellaemion’s wasted cheeks. “We send a picked band, fighting men, good in the wilds, to get past the invaders undetected, with the aid of Artifice if we can spare someone. They can take these valuables, wherever the minds of these folk left behind reside.”
“To tell the stockmen to strike back, to mount a rescue?” Temar’s doubts warred with gathering hope in his voice.
“No.” Den Fellaemion shook his head decisively. “To tell them to take ship and flee, Dastennin guard them. Curse it, Temar, you’ve served your House in the Cohorts; how could farmers and stockmen hope to take on greater numbers of trained troops, secure in a defended position, even without the complications of Artifice? No, my orders will be absolutely clear; they must make all speed back to Zyoutessela while the weather is favorable. Then they must enlist the aid of every House that has blood or tenants here in gathering a fleet to come in force and drive these white-haired demons back to their barren islands.”
“You think the help will come in time?” asked Temar, struggling to absor
b this astounding proposal. “Could force enough be rallied to cross the ocean before the autumn sets in?”
“Could the Sieur of any House deny his support, given tokens that contain the very life-essence of his people to hold in his hand? Could he face his brothers and sons knowing he was condemning those minds to forever remain frozen and insensible, far from their bodies sleeping in a distant cavern for all eternity?” Den Fellaemion’s voice was soft, but his eyes were as keen as steel.
“I see what you mean,” said Temar faintly. “How could they refuse?”
“So will you help us?” Guinalle asked, her eyes pleading with Temar. “We need to persuade our people here that this is their only hope. We have to call on all the ingrained loyalties to each Name that we bear, give them just enough information to convince them to do this. Without their belief in the plan, it cannot work.”
Temar nodded, his mind already searching the plan for any flaw or opportunity. “So who will you be sending overland?” he asked Den Fellaemion, “Those with families in the new settlement might be best—”
“They will be the first to submit to Guinalle’s ministrations,” Den Fellaemion said sternly. “Use your wits, Temar, these people have been through a waking nightmare and I am only going to put demands on them where I must.”
“I don’t understand,” frowned Temar.
“Think about it, lad,” the Messire rubbed a weary hand over his bloodless lips. “If we are sending people away from horror and death, toward safety and their loved ones, if danger threatens, who among them is going to struggle to protect a burden, however precious they have been told it might be? I don’t mean to condemn our people as cowards, but be realistic, Temar, we need to send men who will lose their lives before they lose these valuables. More than that, we need to give the settlers at the new port every incentive to get home, to rouse a riot if need be, to summon aid and bring help to restore their own loved ones to life again.”
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