by Court Ellyn
She took the high road, along the top of the wall, to avoid the disgruntled press of soldiers in the bailey. With the return of the siege, there was barely enough room to breathe. The great beast longed to stretch out in a cage too small. The Elarion had moved their camp atop the wall, uneasy among the suspicious glares of men. The dwarves squeezed in between the Aralorri and Fieran camps, and the highlanders had rebuilt their shaggy village inside the walled pasture that was reserved for Lady Tírandon’s personal livestock. Tents were lined up side to side, canvas touching. Horses were picketed in long rows and snipped at each other. Maybe the animals felt the shift in the air, too. Maybe they just wanted room to run.
Everywhere Carah turned an ear, she heard rows and complaints and bickering. Perhaps it was only the friction among the soldiers that caused the air to ripple at her nape.
In the infirmary, the Madam Sergeant greeted her with a terse update on her patients. Did Agna feel it too? Her terseness wasn’t out of the ordinary. Did the wounded soldiers feel it? They seemed restful, no more demanding than usual. Carah began to attribute the feeling to an excessively good night’s sleep, something she hadn’t enjoyed in a while. Rhian had not come down from the wall last night, but his scent had cocooned her, so she had slept in the big bed alone, untroubled by nightmares.
She visited the room reserved for the Elarion first, as always, in an effort to keep the Madam Sergeant accountable in her treatment of them. Only then did she discover that she was not the only one who detected the change. The Elarion had limped from their pallets and gathered into knots, whispering excitedly. Azhien saw her enter and left the congregation to join her. Carah’s work on his injuries had let him remove the bandaging from his head and around his chest, but he still moved stiffly.
“Do you know what’s happening?” he said at the very moment Carah asked, “What’s going on?”
Azhien shook his head. “There is something…”
“I know. I feel it. But you don’t know what it is?”
He pointed at the ceiling. “Some of us went up to see, but there is nothing to be seen. Only ogres building, ogres eating, and men shooting at them. At dawn it started.”
“Yes, it woke me. This odd tingling sensation.” She chafed her arms roughly to ease the prickling. “It’s beginning to annoy me.”
“Yes, it feels like—”
“A storm,” she interrupted.
“Avë. It feels like avë.”
“What does that mean?”
“Avë is energy, magic—”
“Yes, I know that, but what does it mean that we can feel it?”
“That’s what we are arguing about. Some think …” He lowered his voice. “Some think the Mother-Father draws near, that she walks among us.”
Carah blinked at that. “What do you think?”
He smirked. “Me? I think Dathiel is causing trouble.”
Carah laughed. “He’s powerful, but I don’t think he’s that powerful. What did Laniel say?”
“Nothing. He said nothing. He just, you know—” Azhien mimicked a shivering motion. “… and looks up at the sky and tells me to go back to bed.”
“It couldn’t be that avedra out there, could it? Lothiar’s avedra?” If the Valroi was up to something … did he have the ability to implode an entire fortress?
Azhien shrugged. “Could be. But…”
Yes, but. Until the Something showed itself or stopped troubling her, Carah had work to do. “If you need a distraction, I could use the help,” she said. For the rest of the morning Azhien followed her around the infirmary like a puppy, poking into crates and drawers, asking a thousand questions, carrying fresh linens and the bottle of poppy wine. Carah made her rounds with the tray of thimble-sized cups.
A patient’s pain usually intensified on the second day. A curious discovery, and one Queen Briéllyn had confirmed: “The body gets over the shock and starts to repair itself, and, well … there you have it.”
The wounded highborns had been given a spacious room on the second floor, and the better cots, and the first helping of boiled eggs and oats. Highborns, being highborns, got to eat while the food was hot. Haldred was in no condition to eat. He groaned and sweated on a cot beneath a sunny arrow loop, his leg swaddled in thick bandages. During the rout, an ogre had flayed open his thigh with long claws, trying to drag the newly invested knight off his horse. By the Mother’s grace, the claws had missed severing the artery, but Carah had work to do if she was to prevent the onset of infection.
“Maybe I was too eager,” Hal said as she poured him a dose of poppy wine.
“Aren’t we all?” she said, smiling, and helped him drink.
He settled back in his blanket. “I’m not really immortal, am I?” He chuckled balefully. “Since I was kid, I felt as if I were shielded by a great golden bubble. Nothing could hurt me. But …” His eyes grew heavy; his voice began to slur. “When there’s no one left, who will live in our houses?”
Carah patted his hand. “That’s the poppy talking. You’re going to live to fight another day, noble knight.”
Maeret lay in the next cot. When Carah approached, she turned her face away and stared at the wall. Her arm was wrapped in a sling. The War Commander’s horse wasn’t the only one slain by the Valroi’s fiery disks. Maeret had landed badly and managed to fight with one working arm. Her shield had become worse than useless, the weight and assault upon it compounding the injury, and finally the bones below her elbow had snapped.
Not that Maeret was one for high spirits and exuberant expressions, but she was more melancholy than usual. “Morning dose?” Carah piped a measure too loudly, too amiably, in an attempt to rouse her friend. She held out the thimble of poppy wine, but Maeret kept staring at the wall.
“My mother once told me she broke her arm.” Her voice drifted out of a gloom. “It was in a race. Two horses collided or something. It’s what kept her out of the first year of the war. The last war with Fiera, I mean. I’m out of it too now, aren’t I? They’re not avenged yet.”
Oh, so this mood was a matter of guilt. And a large portion of self-pity. Would any amount of ogre blood fill the void left by murdered parents? “Oh, Maeret, stop whining.” That got her to look around fast enough. Carah ploughed on, relentless, “You’ve always been practical, unimaginative, and unsentimental. Why change that now? Give me a few days with your arm and you’ll be back to bashing skulls in the next couple of weeks. All right?”
Maeret’s eyes narrowed, but it wasn’t a sign of anger. “Two weeks? You promise? Not a day longer, I mean it.” She might’ve extended her broken arm, but the sling held it fast. “Well? Get started.”
Carah raised the thimble. “Drink this first. Believe me, you’ll want it.”
Such a vigorous healing session exhausted Carah well before noon. Despite her dose of poppy wine, Maeret had cursed and groaned like a woman in labor, which had proved wickedly satisfying.
Afterward, Azhien escorted Carah downstairs, holding her by the elbow since she was a little wobbly on her feet. In the main room, across the rows of cots and pallets, she saw Aisley hovering uncertainly at the door. Madam Sergeant hadn’t noticed her yet, and good thing too. Agna might’ve scared her off.
“I didn’t mean this soon,” Carah said, meeting Aisley at the door. “It was only yesterday that…”
“Yes, but it’s wrong of me to lie in bed crying for the dead when I could be here helping the living.” Her black hair was bound up in a practical coif, and she wore a plain day dress she had scrounged up somewhere. Aisley had come to get her hands dirty.
Carah hugged her about the shoulders. “There’s a lot to learn, so you’ll want to shadow someone for a while. First, I need to warn you about Madam Sergeant—”
A horn blew. Another echoed in the distance. Beyond the arrow loops, ogre horns bellowed as well. Carah groaned. The infirmary was running out of room. How many more souls would be stuffed here by tonight?
The tingling across her shoulder
s increased, like a hot breath blown across naked skin. Azhien gripped her round the wrist, gave her arm a jiggle. His gray eyes stared at nothing as he listened, head tilted. “What is that?” he asked. “Something is out there.”
He and Carah exchanged a glance. Together they darted from the infirmary, dragging Aisley with them. They raced up the tower stair, weaving around soldiers and archers who were answering the horn’s call.
Upon the battlement, Aisley looked through the crenel and down at the ogre camp. But Carah and Azhien looked skyward. Fluffy white summer clouds paraded across a blue sky, and a vast shadow rippled across them. A roar, like the shaking of the world, like the roiling of the sea, like the hammering of the wind, struck Carah in the chest. The sensation that had troubled her all morning multiplied, fell like a weight upon the crown of her head. It filled her lungs, too, and she felt that she breathed for the first time since the moment of her birth. She raised her arms, certain she could fly, and without thought or effort, lavender fire filled her palms.
The roar waned, the shadow passed, the fire faded, and she staggered into the wall. She found Aisley staring at her, open-mouthed. Azhien, too, but he’d collapsed to his knees.
Every able Elarion came running or limping to the battlement. Laniel plucked his cousin off the stones and whispered one word: “Avarith.”
Azhien argued in Elaran.
“What else would it be? And look! It brings that with it.” Laniel pointed along the highway that led south to Fiera, south to lands far and unknown. The air shimmered with a mirage. Roads in summer always shimmered with mirages, but this one moved. “Where is the Sheannach?” Laniel demanded. “Where’s Dathiel? Someone find them. Hurry.”
~~~~
Black threads, like spiderwebs made of liquid night, were strung between the spindle and Thorn’s splayed fingers. Carefully, oh, so carefully, he turned the spindle between his thumb and forefinger to spool the abyssal thread. The strands sapped the warmth from the room, from Thorn’s hands. It wasn’t that the threads were cold; it was that they lacked energy at all. They were nothing, and they longed to devour everything. The words of the spell, chanted lowly, were all that kept them in check.
Once the last scrap had been collected, when he was sure none had escaped, Thorn picked up a jar of lamp oil and dunked in the spindle. As he stirred the thread around, the spell changed rhythm on his tongue, a new verse to bind the Abyss to the oil. The thread uncoiled, the oil darkened, the glass frosted. His fingers stung with cold, but he couldn’t afford to drop the jar. One slip…
A frantic knock resounded on his door. He was partly aware that someone had been knocking for some time, calling his name. “Are you in there? Dathiel? Damn it, there’s something coming. You must see. Dathiel?”
He sped through the chant; the last of the thread came free of the spindle, and he smashed a cork into the jar. “What the hell do you want?” he growled, flinging open the door.
Tarathien, one of Laniel’s dranithion, staggered back from the threshold. “The Captain has sent for you.”
“Have the naenion broken in?”
“No, sir—”
“Then what can be so important—”
“We don’t know! That’s why you must come.”
Thorn didn’t take the time to saddle Záradel, nor did he wait for Tarathien. The sooner he dealt with this mysterious trouble, the sooner he could return to his task. He rode bareback at a canter through the camps. Soldiers mustering to the shouts of their sergeants scrambled from his path. As he climbed the Bastion he shook the sting from thawing fingers and noticed the peculiar feeling in his skin had returned. This morning he woke from a nightmare of insects crawling across his skin, only to find that the tingling wasn’t his imagination. He’d attributed it to the effects of working too much with the abyssal thread, but after breakfast when he resumed the task of fusing the oil, the sensation had faded. He’d forgotten about it. He chafed his arms, raked a hand through his hair to make the tingling stop. It didn’t. There was a ringing deep in his ears, like when he passed through the boundary of the veil.
As he emerged onto the battlements, Carah ran at him. “Did you see it? Did you see the dragon?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
“You felt the dragon, didn’t you? You can’t have missed it.”
Thorn turned to his oath-brother for explanation. Laniel pointed toward the southern horizon.
Beyond the wall, there was no great winged lizard crouching on the highway, only glaring bright sun, a wide green plain, a strip of white road, and heat waves. Thorn wanted to call his niece, his oath-brother, the lot of them crazy, but something had unsettled the naenion too. They were filing from camp. Phalanxes formed, but they showed no interest in attacking the fortress. Instead, they turned their attention southward.
“Can you explain this?” Kelyn stood at his elbow. He moved a trifle stiffly; the bruises from tumbling off a horse, of being clubbed at in the melee, had caught up with him.
“I don’t even know what I should be looking at.”
Kelyn pointed, alarm plain in the sharpness of the gesture. “The mirage! It’s creeping toward us. Is it some device of Lothiar’s?”
Thorn squinted against the sunlight. On the edge of the highway, half a mile away, a scrawny andyr tree stood a lonely vigil. The mirage inched forward and enveloped it. For a moment the tree quivered, like an image reflected on rippling water, then it disappeared entirely.
“It’s a veil,” Thorn said.
“Then why can’t you and I see through it?” asked Laniel.
Veil Sight, which should have revealed the azethion of those inside the mirage, showed him only a vast dome of energy roiling with rainbows and fire and darkness.
Laniel whispered in Elaran, “Might Lothiar have put that book to use again? The one he stole? He could be hiding thousands of ogres in there.”
Kelyn must’ve suspected the same. He called along the wall, ordering the engineers to prepare the catapults. Five were now in operation, and six ballistae. The builders had labored through the night. Time to test their handiwork.
But if this massive … thing … was an ally of the ogres, why did they counter it with arms? In the camp below, the phalanxes shifted into a wedge formation. Blades beat upon shields. Braying voices bellowed a challenge.
From a corner of Thorn’s memory a verse rose: “Go not into the mirrored light for sudden death awaits, red on the sand.” He turned to Laniel. “Do you remember that canta?”
Horror contorted Laniel’s face. “The Miraji are legend. They were annihilated during the Human War.”
“Really? Tell that to them.”
From inside the mirage, a horn trumpeted a crystalline note. A rumble erupted and the veil surged up the highway. Haunting ululations rose on a blast of hot, dry wind. The ogres locked shields, row upon row, a chitinous shell. The mirage swallowed them. The clash of hand-to-hand combat shrieked up the tower. Murky shapes of ogres swam inside the curtain alongside vague golden shimmers.
“Elarion, look!” Laniel exclaimed.
Lithe warriors in golden armor spun free of the mirage, wielding curved swords and shields like scarab shells, but in a blink wrapped themselves inside the shimmering light again and disappeared. Repeatedly this happened, and Thorn decided it was a purposeful maneuver, to show oneself, then hide again, to confuse and lure the enemy into a vulnerable position.
“I can’t do that,” Laniel said. “Can you do that?”
Thorn shook his head, awe stealing his speech.
A mass of ogres broke free of the mirage. Da’ith himself led them north, riding a stolen blue warhorse. He attempted to form a defense on open ground, but the mirage pursued. Fast, relentlessly fast. Rather than let themselves be overtaken again, the ogres fled in a wild retreat. The highway carried them away, back toward Bramoran.
A shadow glided over the towers of Tírandon. Thorn’s skin prickled. Carah shook his sleeve. “Yes, I see,” he said, m
arveling at the shape of wings, a long serpentine tail sweeping across the plain. Once, long ago, he had seen their like among clouds of light. He’d flown with them, aching with longing but unable to reach them. Quick as a thought, the shadow was gone. The tingling waned until it too was gone, and Thorn’s bones felt heavier inside his flesh.
The rumble of the charge grew still, and the mirage drew up before the castle gate. The disorienting shimmer upon the air dissipated, revealing four companies of warriors in parade-perfect formation. The midday sun danced blindingly upon golden armor, the points of javelins, the curve of shields, bows, and scimitars. And the horses! Every warhorse’s coat was as sleek and golden as its rider’s armor. Flaxen tails and manes were pale as sunlight. Their legs were thick and sturdy, their hooves broad and tufted.
And this was merely the vanguard. Thousands more filled the highway to the south. Strange creatures with spotted necks pulled dozens of wagons. Banners gilded with the rays of the sun danced in the wind.
All along the wall, Tírandon’s defenders gazed in breathless wonder. There was no sound but the wind, the occasional jingle of a horse’s harness, the snap of a banner.
“Commander? They’re waiting.” Thorn’s whisper barely rippled the silence.
Quickly Kelyn gathered his wits. “Brother, come with me. Falconeye, you too.”
The twins rode across the drawbridge at a pace that Thorn hoped looked regal and not hesitant. Laniel strode beside them, trying to keep signs of his astonishment reined in. He would have one hell of a report to send to Aerdria. The desert cousins they thought dead thrived.
One of the Miraji rode onto the bridge to meet them. A woman, by the curves molded into her armor. That she approached alone demonstrated great confidence, or vast arrogance. Her complexion was darker than that of the Elarion of Avidanyth, aged bronze instead of ivory pearl. Golden war paint striped her cheeks, and her eyes were the ancient orange of sea-smoothed amber. They flayed with the skill of knives, trying to lay bare the secrets of those approaching her.