The Misted Cliffs

by Catherine Asaro

  Mel’s power flagged. She had held her spells for too long. Varqelle’s charge had started their collapse but her own exhaustion sent them spiraling down. She slumped against Smoke and bent her head. As the blue and green light faded around her, Smoke whinnied and blew out air.

  “Mel?” Matthew laid his hand on her arm.

  She straightened up and gazed dully at him. No other of Cobalt’s men would dare touch her or call her by her first name. Did he even realize he took for granted privileges allowed no one else? Dancer had brought him to the Castle of Clouds thirty-four years ago and he had been a part of her life and Cobalt’s since then.

  “Are you all right?” he asked.

  She answered in a low voice. “Who is your father?”

  “What?”

  “Your father.”

  He lowered his hand from her arm. “A blacksmith. Why?”

  “At Castle Escar?”

  “Yes. I was born there.”

  “And your mother?”

  Puzzlement creased his forehead. “A seamstress.”

  “For who?” But she already knew.

  “Varqelle’s father.”

  “You are sixty-four.” Her voice was almost a whisper.

  “Mel, what is this about?”

  “You are the eldest.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you see it?”

  “See what?”

  She pointed to where Varqelle was leading a charge on the Azure Field. The horses built up speed as they approached the enemy line, led by the king. The conqueror. “It should have been you on the throne.”

  He gripped her arm. “What strange spell do you weave now?”

  “It is no spell.” She pulled away her arm. “Is your mother still alive? Your father?”

  His posture had become rigid. “They both died years ago.”

  No one remained who could reveal the truth. “The blood is in you, Matthew. You are an Escar.” Varqelle’s half brother, if she was right, born on the side of the sheets that left him with nothing, even though he was the firstborn son.

  Emotions sped across his face: fury, dismay, shock. But not surprise. “You go too far.”

  Too far? She thought no one had gone far enough for him. “You deserve so much more in life.”

  “I am happy with my life, Mel.”

  “I know.” Whatever drove Varqelle and Cobalt wasn’t in Matthew. She wished it were otherwise for Cobalt, but even having been raised by Matthew rather than by Varqelle, Cobalt reflected his father more.

  She could see them in the fields below, Varqelle and Cobalt, together now, on horseback, no longer fighting. The battle had begun to wane. It could have been so much worse; it hadn’t spread beyond the Azure Fields, and Mel thought that less than five hundred men had died on either side. From the remnants of her mood spell, she felt Zerod’s will fading. If he surrendered now, Cobalt would accept it. And if Cobalt accepted it, so would Varqelle. It would end. Today would see no massacre.

  Then catastrophe hit.

  20

  The Mortal Spell

  For Cobalt, it was an apex in his life. He sat on his charger at his father’s side, his blood fired, his head high, his body powerful, and he knew they had been destined for this. He had never fought so well as today. His men had isolated the Shazire forces into controllable pockets of resistance. Prince Zerod had to surrender; his army was no longer a coherent force. The Jaguar King would triumph. Even better, they would manage as Mel had asked, with a minimum of bloodshed and death.

  The fighting had stopped around the hillock where Cobalt and Varqelle were now. They rode up it together, each looking out for the other while their men stayed on guard below. From this vantage, they could survey the remains of the battles.

  A flurry of motion erupted to Cobalt’s left. His men were fighting again—a mammoth of a warrior had engaged them. Tall and immensely broad-shouldered, the man wore Shazire armor and rode a mount as large as Cobalt’s horse. He wielded a massive sword. He cut his way through the defenders with ease, and his horse lunged up the hillock. He was the largest man Cobalt had seen this day, possibly the most formidable he had ever faced.

  As the Shazire man bore down on him, Cobalt lifted his shield. They were on a slope, a difficult place for the horses, but he was above and the other man below, which could give him an advantage. Then the giant was upon him, and their blades rang together. The man’s mouth pulled back in a snarl under his helmet. Cobalt blocked his next thrust, but the blow vibrated along the sword through his arm to his shoulder. Such power!

  For the first time, Cobalt faced someone of his own strength. He shouted a war cry as his blade sliced through the air. The other man deflected the blow, and the impact nearly unseated Cobalt. Filled with battle lust, he saw only the giant before him. Their horses slipped as they fought and churned the ground with their hooves as they struggled for purchase.

  The Shazire man turned.

  For one instant, the man left himself open, his left side only partially covered by his shield. Cobalt went for the vulnerable spot and slashed him across the ribs. It wasn’t a fatal wound, but it would slow him. But even as Cobalt struck, the Shazire man was lunging to the right—

  At Varqelle.

  With sudden, chilling clarity, Cobalt knew his mistake. He had never been the target. This warrior didn’t want the general, he wanted the king. By leaving himself open, the man had distracted Cobalt for that one second he needed to go after Varqelle. His and the king’s blades clanged as they came together. Caught unaware for that single instant, Varqelle countered a moment too late and didn’t recover fast enough to stop the second blow from his attacker.

  The Shazire warrior buried his sword in Varqelle’s chest.

  Everything around Cobalt stopped: the battle, the shouting, the setting sun, all of it. He saw only his father’s shocked eyes through his helmet.

  An agonized cry tore out of Cobalt’s throat. Time snapped back and the Shazire warrior yanked his blade out of Varqelle’s chest. Cobalt’s vision turned red. His fury exploded as he bore down on the Shazire man, who in attacking Varqelle had left himself open to Cobalt. His had been a suicide lunge, for he must have known even he couldn’t take on both Cobalt and Varqelle. The giant tried to counter Cobalt’s thrust, but he had no chance. Cobalt drove his blade into the man’s torso with so much force, it went through his body and lifted him off his mount. He swung his sword with the Shazire warrior still on it and literally threw the giant. The man fell through the air, ripped and bloodied, and hit the ground hard.

  More Chamberlight men were moving in to defend the hillock. Cobalt jumped down from his charger and dropped to his knees near the fallen giant. The man was dead, his body broken. Cobalt scrambled to Varqelle, who lay on his back staring at the darkening sky.

  “Don’t die.” He grabbed his father’s hands. “You mustn’t die!”

  “Cobalt—?” Varqelle’s eyes clouded.

  “I’m here.”

  “You must…keep fighting.”

  Cobalt looked up as men gathered around them. “Get him to the physicians. Now!”

  Several men knelt around the king, and another was guiding a cart up to them. Most of the fighting had moved elsewhere or stopped, but it made no difference whether a thousand warriors or only one had attacked the hillock. It had taken only one thrust to topple the king.

  Cobalt had seen mortal wounds before—and he recognized his father’s. He had no name for the pain within him. Grief, shock, rage: none were enough. He clenched his father’s hand as the men lifted him into the cart. “I will avenge you.”

  Then they took Varqelle away.

  Cobalt grabbed the reins of his horse from the man who had caught them. He swung back on the charger and spoke to the cavalry officers around him.

  “Kill them.” Cobalt ground out the words. “Every last Shazire man on this cursed field.” Grimly he added, “And when we’re done here, we will burn Alzire to the ground.
”

  “No.” Mel cried out as Varqelle fell from his horse.

  Cobalt’s fury swept through her like fire. She couldn’t stop watching, though she wanted to hide her eyes. When he killed the giant who had struck down his father, a brutal echo of the blow vibrated through her fading spell. She groaned and felt as if a part of her had died as well.

  It ended in seconds, and Cobalt jumped down from his horse. He knelt by his father, leaning over Varqelle’s body.

  “He’s alive!” Matthew said.

  Mel wasn’t certain. Although the vitality she had sensed in Varqelle was gone, she couldn’t tell much else with so many fragments of her spells swirling and fading. But nothing could mute Cobalt’s fury. His rage immobilized her. He mounted his horse again and his resolve shattered the night.

  There would be no mercy.

  “Saints, no.” Mel wanted to shout her protest. The overcast day was nearly dark now, but nothing would stop Cobalt. He would drive his men to fight by torchlight if he had to, but drive them he would, for Shazire had ripped away the father he had waited a lifetime to know, the man who had made him believe he mattered.

  Matthew grabbed her arm. “We have to leave.”

  “No!” She pulled away from him.

  His voice snapped with authority. “You must go. This is going to get a lot worse. If anything happens to you, it will kill him.” He reached for her again—and Mel drew her sword.

  She held the blade up between them. “I mean it, Matthew. I will not leave.”

  “What are you going to do?” he demanded. “Go down there and stop them? It’s going to be a bloodbath, Mel. You’ve done what you can. You must leave.”

  She gripped the hilt of her sword with both hands and held it upright before her body. The blade glinted in the fading daylight. She had worn out her high-level spells; she had to go to a lower level or she would kill herself and achieve nothing.

  What was lowest? Red. Simplest? Light.

  She pulled the ball out of her sling and clenched her sword again, this time with the ball pressed between her palm and the hilt. A red spell was so simple. Simple—and useless. How would light stop the carnage?

  Mel made the spell anyway. Driven by the sphere, the power swept through her like fire. Red light ran up the blade, deepening until the metal seemed to burn. Matthew took a fast step backward and the horses of the sentries shied away.

  Mel gripped the ball and focused. The light flared in brightness. She concentrated harder—and it leaped into the sky. Across the Azure Fields, heads turned toward her and the fighters paused. It was only light, nothing more, and it could do nothing to stop anyone, but it stretched in a column up to the darkening sky.

  She had no armor. She could barely do more than maintain the spell. She was defenseless. If she went down on that field, it could be her death.

  Mel took a ragged breath. She left Smoke with one of the sentries and started walking down the hill. She held the sword high in front of her body, the blade pointing up, and a pillar of red light stretched from it up to the sky. It surrounded her in a brilliant red glow and cast shadows from every rock, every tree, every person around her.

  None of her three guards spoke. Incredibly, neither did they leave. Matthew walked beside her, far enough away that the light didn’t envelop him. The two sentries rode behind them, bringing Smoke and Matthew’s horse.

  Mel continued down the hill.

  By the time she reached the field, the fighting at the base of the slope had stopped. Men from both armies were watching her, standing with swords at their sides or bows in hand. The cavalrymen sat on their horses. She saw them through the light, as if she burned without heat. The lull spread as more warriors turned to look. Mel kept going, terrified, walking through the middle of the battle with no protection other than red light.

  Far across the field, a hillock jutted upward like the clawed hand of a stone giant. Varqelle had fallen there. Mel walked toward the knoll, and crossing that distance seemed to take forever. By the time she reached the mound, no one was moving on the Azure Fields. No one approached her. Matthew and the sentries stopped at the bottom of the hill, leaving her to go on alone. She never paused. She never looked around. She just climbed. And concentrated. As she ascended, her spell grew until it encompassed the entire hill. The blaze from her sword reached into the darkening sky as if it would pierce the clouds.

  Finally she reached the top. She raised the blade above her head, holding it in one hand with her arm extended at its full length over her head. The radiant sword blazed across the land and Mel stood there, bathed in its fiery light.

  Someone moved at the base of the hill. A tall man. He climbed up to her and stopped at her side. Of all the people on the fields, only he stepped close to the light.

  Cobalt.

  “No more,” Mel said. She meant the words only for him, but her spell amplified them and they resonated across the Azure Fields. Her hair tumbled around her body, and tears streamed down her face.

  “No more killing!” She shouted the words and her grief fed the spell. Her voice rolled like thunder across the fields, the armies, the thousands of warriors.

  Cobalt regarded her with an expression unlike anything she had ever seen from him before, a satisfaction so intense, it burned as fiercely as her light. He spoke in a voice only she could hear.

  “You are a goddess.”

  “Let them surrender.” This time she kept her voice low enough that only he would hear.

  He turned to the field. “Zerod!” Caught in her spell, his shout thundered and echoed many times before it died away.

  Mel stood with her sword high, blazing. She felt as if she were on fire, though the light generated no heat. She had pushed herself too far, even with this simplest of spells. She had to rest. But she couldn’t, not yet.

  Cobalt stood at her side, his feet planted wide, his body bathed in the light. Everyone else throughout the Azure Fields remained where they were, staring at them.

  Movement came from the east. A group of warriors was riding across the fields. As they drew nearer, Mel recognized them as a Shazire honor guard.

  Zerod rode in their center.

  The Shazire ruler sat astride a magnificent stallion with a tasseled bridle and ornate saddle. He was a stocky man of middle age, with black hair and eyes, a hooked nose, and heavy eyebrows streaked with gray. He had married the daughter and only child of the previous ruler, and in Shazire that meant he would always have the title of prince, though he ruled here.

  Zerod and his men halted at the bottom of the knoll. The ruddy light cast his face into sharp relief. Mel swung her sword down, the weapon streaming radiance, and drove the blade deep into the ground. The light flared as if it would consume her and Cobalt. She could see the two of them reflected in the metal shields of Zerod’s men, their images distorted, blurred and red. Cobalt towered behind her, fierce in the darkness, and she blazed, her hair wild around her body.

  “Surrender,” she told Zerod. She was pleading with him, but it came out with the same resonance as before. “Surrender or they will massacre your army and raze Alzire to the ground.”

  Without taking his gaze off her, Zerod dismounted from his stallion. His honor guard followed suit. He walked up the hill and his men came with him, resplendent in their bronzed armor. When Zerod was several paces from Cobalt, he stopped.

  Then the prince of Shazire went down on one knee.

  Zerod bent his head and set one arm across his raised knee. His men knelt, as well, in a semicircle around him. Zerod removed his belt with its sheathed sword and laid it on the ground, and his guards did the same with their weapons.

  Cobalt spoke. “Rise.”

  They all stood, quiet, somber. Zerod spoke in his Shazire dialect, which clipped consonants and drew out vowels, giving his voice a richness unlike the colder speech of the north. “The House of Zerod surrenders to the House of Escar.”

  Cobalt spoke in a shadowed voice. “Escar accepts.”

>   The relief that hit Mel was so intense, it hurt. They would see no slaughter, no carnage, no sacking of the capital, neither tonight nor tomorrow. She let the light fade then, until the red glow covered only her body. She wanted to collapse, but she didn’t dare, not now. She could do nothing less than stand next to her husband. Cobalt the Dark.

  If Varqelle died, Cobalt would rule Shazire, Blueshire, and soon the Misted Cliffs as well, given his grandfather’s advanced age. He would reign over the largest empire ever united in all the settled lands.

  Cobalt rode Admiral without a saddle, and Mel sat in front of him. Admiral might not have as much speed as the charger Cobalt had taken into battle, but with his great strength, he easily carried his two riders. Mel sagged against Cobalt’s chest, limp in his arms. Her red light had vanished, and they crossed the Azure Fields in darkness, Matthew riding on one side and Leo Tumbler on the other. People with torches moved on the fields, tending the injured or lifting them into carts so they could be taken to the physician’s station. Some were picking up weapons or catching horses that had lost their riders. Others were trudging off the battlefield.

  The torchlight seemed paltry to Cobalt after Mel’s light. He would never, if he lived a century, forget that moment when she stood on the hill with her sword thrust in defiance at the sky, her body radiant in a column of flame. Except it had been light, not fire, no matter how dramatic it appeared. He had stood within it and felt only the barest hint of heat. Nothing would have stopped anyone from killing her. And Mel had known. She had walked into the middle of combat with no more than red light as her defense. His witch of a wife had pulled off a monumental bluff. He would never gamble with her at cards, but he would admire her bravery from now until forever.

  None of that changed what had precipitated it all, however, neither his raging grief nor her desperate attempt to pull him back to sanity before he laid waste to Shazire.

  His father.

  His men led him to the medical station where they were bringing the wounded, between two rows of hills in a grove of trees. Admiral walked with care past the men on pallets. Those who could raise their arms saluted Cobalt. He nodded in return, subdued in their presence.