The Bitterbynde Trilogy

by Cecilia Dart-Thornton

  Angavar’s voice rang out strongly in the common tongue, for all to hear.

  ‘Then, my brother, since there is to be no accord between us,’ he cried, ‘thou must needs face me in battle.’

  With that, he ordered his own Royal Attriod to ride back through the lines of his loyal knights and down the ramps over the rim to fall in with the Legions below, leading and defending them against the forces of Unseelie.

  But upon the Plain, trumpets sounded. The lances of the foremost ranks of both companies of Faêran chivalry, which had been pointing to the black and zodiacal sky, were now lowered to the horizontal. The knights couched the butts of the weapons in the lance rests beneath their armpits. In the middle ranks, swords slid from scabbards with a long ringing rasp of thirsty steel. War-horns sounded a second signal, and both sides charged at full gallop. With a terrible roar they met like thundering ocean breakers, and the shock of that collision caused the ground to tremble to its uttermost foundations.

  As the Faêran knights engaged, down in the lowlands Attriod rose against Attriod, and a thick mist poured out of the forest and from every well and waterway, to twine about the struggling Legions. Through these smokes, fell shapes could be glimpsed issuing from among the trees, from pools and subterranean clefts, and there could be no doubt of their murderous intent. Yet eldritch manifestations of another kind moved also in their midst, defending the soldiers of Erith. Never visible to a direct stare, they could only be seen from the edge of one’s eye—urisks, and fierce men with silky grey hair wielding tridents, black dogs as large as foals, stunted fellows hefting pickaxes, cowled figures upholding lanterns, and other beings too elusive to perceive at all.

  Faêran blades rose and fell, a-glitter with stars. The conflict appeared to Ashalind a milling chaos, a jostling, seething dance of death and destruction. She, transfixed in disbelief, could only watch from the ruined tower, unable to deflect her gaze.

  Angavar did not join his knights in their battle. Instead, he galloped through the ranks of the knights of Morragan, ignoring them, as though they had never taken part against him. In amazement, they fell back at either flank without offering resistance. Splendid he rode in vengeful majesty, and the chivalry of Raven’s Howe were reminded afresh that he was indeed their King, that they themselves were treasoners.

  On powerful pinions the eotaur Hrimscathr bore Angavar to the lowlands, where he fought beside the Royal Attriod, opposing their malevolent counterparts, defending the mortal Legions. The great Cuachag fell beneath the blade of Arcturus, and the Athach also was overthrown, but Octarus Ogier was toppled from his eotaur by Gull, mightiest of spriggans. He fell among the blazing tents, to be ripped limb from limb by the Each Uisge, while the Cearb impaled bold John Drumdunach through the heart before Angavar could hew his way through the melee to aid his comrades. When this happened, it was clear that Angavar’s wrath reached greater heights and he began to smite the incarnations of unseelie to right and left with a terrible vengeance. The clear light of Arcturus became dimmed with lurid blood.

  High in the blasted keep of Annath Gothallamor where ivy sprawled over the corroded stones and lilies sprang within crevices, a Faêran stallion pranced agitatedly, scraping the floor with his silver forehooves, throwing up his long head. His master’s eyes rested thoughtfully upon Ashalind. He was armoured now, she noted dully, and some steady purpose resided in his glance.

  She was angry with herself for being unable to deny his Faeran power, even though she was aware that it would be useless for any mortal to try to resist. It hurt her pride to know that although she might rant and struggle, it would do her no good. What little dignity remained, she clutched to her like the remnant of a torn cloak. She did not and would not protest, knowing that to do so would not only be futile, it would bring humiliation. Thus she appeared compliant, while beneath the facade her passions seethed.

  The Prince lifted her up. He placed her sideways on his horse’s back and sprang up behind her. They travelled not through the air, but clattering down the tower stairs, out through the main gates of Annath Gothallamor, to descend the road which twisted itself about Black Crag. At their backs rode Morragan’s cup-bearer, his bard and the ladies of his court. A multitude of wights followed in the wake of the Faêran.

  The Crown Prince was going to parley with his brother.

  Through her indignation, and the delirium induced by the nearness of Morragan’s Faêran vigour, and the dizziness brought on by his every incidental touch, Ashalind alternated between dread and desire for the fast-approaching rendezvous with Angavar-Thorn. The imminence of the meeting thrilled her. She longed to see him again, but to what measure he might scorn her was difficult to reckon. His slightest revulsion would be too much to bear.

  ‘And how dost thou like riding upon my Faeran steed?’ murmured Morragan at Ashalind’s ear.

  The uncharacteristic posing of the question struck a warning note. Ashalind made to reply but a coin of lead weighed upon her tongue and she could not lift it. Morragan laughed. She felt the thrum of his laughter through her shoulder.

  ‘Didst thou think I kissed thee for love?’ he said. ‘Vain and foolish damsel. Alas, that thine expectations are dashed.’

  Outrage and despair laid hold of Ashalind. With his kiss, he had rendered her mute. Her one fragile thread of hope had depended on the use of that intrinsically mortal weapon—the lying tongue. Once more she had been deprived of speech, and for an instant there came on her an irrational dread that all the other injuries would befall her again, and she would become misshapen, abandoned, reviled and amnesiac. Somehow, the foresight of Morragan must have warned him of her intentions—There is one who shall betray me—shall it be thee? For in truth, she had intended to cry out and betray him, if she could, and now that gate was closed.

  Yet, even while she rode with the Prince down Black Crag, an alternative aspiration born of desperation took form, feebly, and began to grow.

  As Morragan and his entourage approached the battlefield a great shout went up from the Faêran chivalry, and the two companies disengaged, drawing apart. Faêran chargers wheeled to a halt and a stillness spread from them like ripples in a tarn. All across the lowlands the fighting paused, as unhuman things suspended their quest for mortal blood. Drawn by some elemental intuition, the soldiers of Erith turned their heads towards the High Plain.

  The Eagle and the Raven converged.

  A short distance apart, all riders dismounted; however, Morragan kept hold of his captive, encircling her wrist lightly with his fingers. Seeing Thorn again triggered in Ashalind a rush of excitement. Warriors made of flame and shadow, tall heroes out of legend, these Royal brothers who now faced one another in bitter feud were both handsome enough to stop the heart and take the breath away. Dangerous they looked, and too beautiful to comprehend.

  This was the first time Ashalind had set eyes on Thorn without the screens of assumed personae, the first time he had beheld her stripped of all pretence. No reproach stained his glance, no bitterness that she had not confided her secret to him. He looked upon her with such fervent intensity and sorrow, it came to her that if it were possible for the Faêran to love deeply, then such a passion she was perceiving in his eyes. At that she marvelled, and was overcome with joy so intense it was torment. And she felt humbled, to think that she had doubted him so undeservedly and was chastened by understanding, at last, perhaps too late.

  Angavar-Thorn did not smile at her, nor, after his first brief flicker of appraisal in which so much had been conveyed, did he look at her again. He seemed to turn his full attention to Morragan, dismissing Ashalind from further consideration. She knew him well enough to be aware that what appeared to interest him least actually intrigued him most—that his ostensible carelessness cloaked his prime focus. He was, in fact, conscious of her every movement.

  ‘I have the key in my grasp,’ said Morragan without preamble.

  Angavar replied, and the clear tone of his voice was gentle, like a calm ocean conce
aling lethal undercurrents.

  ‘No key, but a damsel. Hadst thou the key, thou wouldst now be standing upon other shores.’

  ‘She is the key, as thou know’st,’ returned Morragan, ‘knowing too late. I might slay or petrify her with a thought, before thou couldst prevent it.’

  ‘An thou dost so, where is thy key?’

  ‘An thou dost act against me, what care I if the key is destroyed, as long as thou art denied access to the Realm? What care I for exile if it means thine exile too?’ The Prince’s smile was insulting.

  Ashalind wanted to say to Angavar-Thorn, ‘He would not do it, he would not hurt me,’ but her tongue was a wooden stick in her mouth and her wrist burned where Morragan’s fingers encircled it.

  Angavar said, ‘Thou wouldst not harm this caileag. Thou dost forget, I wist thy humours.’

  ‘Not I,’ said Morragan. ‘Others might.’

  Furtively, Yallery Brown, who had sidled close, fidgeted.

  ‘At thy bidding only,’ parried Angavar evenly.

  ‘Shalt thou put me to the test?’ inquired his brother.

  Silence descended—a hot, tense silence of barely leashed fury. The two Faêran lords held each other’s gaze without flinching, as though an iron girder joined them, eye to eye. So terrible was that regard that no mortal could stand to look at them, and they must turn their heads away.

  ‘An she dies at thy command, I shall never rest until thy heart is riven by my blade,’ said Angavar in bizarre echo of his brother’s earlier words. ‘I swear it.’

  ‘How tedious, to be without rest for eternity.’

  Another silence, more imminently dangerous than the first.

  ‘Thus we return to the beginning,’ Morragan remarked. ‘Stalemate.’

  ‘There is no gain to be had in this parley,’ said Angavar, harshly now, ‘or in full-scale battle. Our knights are equally matched. I might vanquish thine unseelie hordes single-handed. Further slaughter is without purpose. Thou and I shall meet in single combat, without use of gramarye, to decide the outcome.’

  ‘We shall cross swords if thou dost like it,’ answered Morragan offhandedly, ‘at another time. For the nonce, I have something thou dost want. If thou carest aught for it, swear to lay down thy weapons.’

  Angavar spoke in a voice of steel. ‘Thou hast tarried long in thy dark keep, mi fithiach. Thou hast been missing the action.’

  ‘Better action was to be found in the fortress, brother,’ said Morragan provokingly, ‘since the company there was pleasant. Fain would my weapon remain oft in the sheath, it filled that receptacle so well.’

  From some abyss beyond time blasted a frost-bitten wind. The gusts lifted the long hair of the High King in streamers that flowed from his brow like the rays of a black sun. Now softly spoke Angavar, and perilously.

  ‘Is the sword at thy side so rare that you are loath to notch it, Crow-Lord? They say the coward’s blade never needs reforging.’

  Morragan’s hand jumped to his sword belt.

  ‘He who fights carrying no shield is called a swordsman of valour,’ continued Angavar, throwing a swift glance towards Ashalind. ‘He who shields himself behind a woman deserves a worse name.’

  At that, Morragan thrust Ashalind aside and Lord Iltarien caught her. There came the sweeping rasp of a crystalline zing! as sweet and poignant as morning bells. The Raven Prince had drawn his sword, Durandel. Arcturus gleamed, already in the grip of Angavar.

  Angavar’s lords started forward to wrest Ashalind from the grasp of her guard.

  ‘Stay!’ Iltarien roared at them. ‘It is to be single combat. Do not try to take her!’

  The Faêran King weighed his sword deliberately.

  ‘Now,’ he said to his rival, ‘feel the wrath of the left hand of Angavar.’

  All of Erith was centred around the vortex of the storm’s eye. From every corner of the known lands, beings both mortal and immortal grew still and looked towards Namarre.

  In the forests, mortal woodcutters, well guarded by charms, stood beside trees part-hewn, with their axes hanging limply in their hands and dusty sweat trickling unheeded from their brows—they knew not why. From verdant waterways the asrai water-maidens lifted their lovely forms, ivory draped with green silk, with innocent, passionless gazes fixed upon the distance. By village ponds, goose-girls forgot to shepherd their wayward flocks. Their long whip-sticks of willow dragged on the ground, but the geese had given up their honking. They grew tranquilly vigilant, craning their long necks towards the horizon.

  Under Rosedale, eldritch spinning wheels lost momentum and ran down. The spinners raised their large heads from their work; the thread ceased to run through their knobbed fingers. Beneath Doundelding, all sounds of industry were interrupted. Not a pick-axe, not a hammer smote another blow; not a wheel performed another revolution. Out in the oceans, the wild seal folk emerged to sit upon rocky isles, hearkening to the north wind.

  In Stormrider stables, winged horses quit their whickering and stamping. Not a pinion bustled, not a stirrup jingled. Blacksmiths stood idle at their forges. Farmers ceased their toil in the fields. Wizards left off supervising esoteric experiments and hiring out their astute observations. On Windships and Seaships, captains found themselves giving orders to slacken the sheets and lose the wind. Sails flapped as flaccid as empty bellies, until even the wind tapered off, and they dangled limply.

  In the abodes of Men, the hearth-fires died down as if they crouched to listen. Where rain had been falling the clouds dried up, withholding their bounty. The leaves of yew and myrtle, pine and lime hung static as though splintered from precious stones. On walls of dominite stone, tiny lizards stopped their scurrying and became statues of miniature dragons, or tiny, jewelled brooches. The ocean itself waxed calm and slow, with the watchful, awful serenity of controlled violence.

  Amber lions woke watchfully in the tawny ruins of Avlantian cities where red leaves scraped cracked pavements. In Finvarna, the herds of giant elk browsing on the grasslands swung up their heavy heads, their gigantic racks of antlers upholding a racing sky. In Rimany, the snow bears paused like carvings upon icicle-draped cliffs. Spiders hung transfixed upon the lace wheels of their webs in the spidersilk farms of Severnesse.

  Flocks of swallows gathered in the skies of Erith, swooping to perch amongst the topmost boughs and sway there, beaks closed, heads cocked to one side. In the wide, rolling lands beneath a peppercorn tree, there existed a horse-shadow the colour of translucent quartz. The cuinocco jerked its finely made head, flourishing the glistering icicle jutting from its brow, and looked to the north.

  Sheep and cattle stood immobile in the meadows, as though embroidered on green baize. Fish hovered in deep caverns of indigo gloom. Heartless mosquito-queens folded tenuous wings about their wasp-sting forms. Flies swarming above the marshlands settled like iridescent beads on slender stems of water-grasses. Silent, Erith held its breath.

  And no birds sang.

  Perhaps even in Faêrie they felt it, even behind closed Gates—this conflict between the mightiest of Faêran lords.

  Ruby and sapphire the Faêran broadswords flashed upon the High Plain, and never was such swordsmanship seen in Erith, before or since. So swift was every parry, thrust and riposte, that mortal eyes could not follow—could only make out a brilliant, glittering star-burst, like crystals shattering repeatedly—the awesome, bright shafts of the light-swords clashing together in a wicked storm of sparks like sharp flames of ice, like jagged shards of cobalt and copper. And somewhere in the core of this icy blaze, glimpsed or imagined, two terrible warriors met in a deadly dance of unimaginable precision, speed, strength and timing. Thunder shook the roots of the mountains of Namarre. Lightning climbed, aghast, the skies of Darke.

  The onlookers had pulled well back from the site of the duel, giving the combatants a wide berth, careful not to step within range. Such virulent sparks could burn a tiny hole right through flesh and bone, through bone and sinew, through the very essence of being,
drilling through body and spirit a keyhole or porthole to look out upon the long, grey desert of annihilation.

  In a wide circle the mounted knights of Eagle’s Howe and Raven’s Howe viewed the struggle, intent, their Faêran vision missing nothing. The survivors of both Attriods watched also, despite the agony of their wounds, and so did many men-at-arms of the Legions who had ascended the cliffs of the Plain. Dainnan warriors and Stormriders were there, and wights both malign and benign, including scrawls of spriggans, sprawls of hobyahs and the mad goblin Red Cap with a dead, red rooster swinging from his belt.

  Yallery Brown was close by, and Withiue and Tully, holding the mane of Tighnacomaire. The goblin Snafu was there, and the enchanted brothers Maghrain, and Young Vallentyne with his brother ganconers Romeus and Childe Launcelyn, and other wights too numerous to mention.

  The eyes of all the Faêran were dark with pain.

  ‘Has it come to this?’ muttered Lord Iltarien. ‘That the best among us, the jewels of the Realm should take up arms against each other? Cursed was the day I followed the Fithiach, yet I could not do otherwise, for I hold him dearer than a brother and my loyalty cannot swerve.’

  ‘Thus we continue to support him,’ murmured Lord Ergaiorn, ‘out of fierce comradeship, and honour, and perversity, and beloved folly.’

  As they watched, it became apparent that Angavar and Morragan were well matched, for neither was gaining the upper hand. But Tamlain Conmor cried out, ‘Angavar King is already weary from battle. Morragan is fresh from the fortress. There is no justice in the Prince’s advantage!’

  At his words, roars of agreement and disagreement broke out on both sides, but no one could gainsay him, and Ashalind, standing untouched but helpless at Iltarien’s side, felt the chill of fear. The blue sword flashed so swift, so keen, every stroke a masterstroke.