by Sean Rodden
There came a thud and a muffled curse, and the Iron Captain accomplished the landing with a scowl and a grimace, stumbled toward the encircling balustrade, leaned upon its sun-warmed stone and veritably willed air into his lungs. Pained moments passed as the elder Teagh devoured oxygen. Then, his breath not quite his own again, he raised his eyes and fixed the Shield Maiden with the blackest of looks.
“Teller of…the Tale…woman!” panted Bronnus. “You might have… walked up the steps and then simply…thrown me over the railing…the result would be no different.”
Caelle laughed aloud, merriment in her dazzling eyes, sunlight flashing across her perfect teeth.
“Oh, come now, Captain,” she said good-humouredly, “surely the ‘Iron’ of your epithet does not refer to the composition of your legs.”
“Nor my…constitution,” Bronnus half-gasped, half-growled.
Caelle’s wondrous eyes narrowed.
“I see now why you abandoned the Legion Foot for the Legion Horse.”
The Iron Captain glared, waiting for his heart to slow. “Shield Maiden, you are…a cruel woman.”
“And one wonders that you remain unmarried, Captain.”
Bronnus grimaced, sucking air.
“Oh?” chuckled Axennus. “Really? I don’t wonder. Who wonders?” He looked toward a stony sentinel of the Grey Watch. “Do you wonder?”
No response.
“See? No one wonders.”
Caelle cocked her head to one side, regarded the Iron Captain with an intentionally wicked gleam in her eyes.
“Well, there is a certain animal magnetism about him…”
Axennus looked genuinely shocked. “There is?”
Caelle’s laughter was like the dance of a northern aurora, a thing one could not experience and remain unchanged.
“Oh, come now, Commander.” She flashed a flawless smile. “Envy does not become you.”
Axennus found himself flushing again.
“This is one of those rare times that Bronnus is actually quite right,” he muttered in exaggerated misery. “You are a cruel woman.”
The Shield Maiden laughed once more, then patted the Erelian’s arm lightly.
“And you would do well to remember that, Southman.”
Axennus’ mouth dropped open, then flapped closed and curled into a happy smile.
Count your losses, Axo…there is no winning with this one.
Caelle came to the balustrade where Bronnus yet wheezed for wind. She merely placed one fair fine hand on his shoulder, whispered the word breathe, and immediately air flooded the Iron Captain’s lungs, and his heart settled to a slower, more regular thud. The Erelian looked upon her with brief surprise in his eyes, then inclined his head gratefully.
The Shield Maiden shone a small smile in return. She then turned her starred grey gaze to the northern inlet below them, the harbour known simply as the Bund.
“Prince Arbamas makes good on his promise, Southmen,” she said softly, her words afloat on the whisk of the wind. “Ithramis has come.”
Axennus and Bronnus followed the Fiann’s gaze.
The Bund was bustling with activity as barge after heavily laden barge rode the Ruil into harbour under the watchful eyes of mirarra-mounted warders of the Grey Watch. From the extreme height of the brothers’ vantage, the Ithramen seemed so very small, like a horde of bipedal mice hurrying to and fro, scurrying back and forth. Even the hoarse barking of the Ithramian officers’ commands and the answering cries of the labourers reached the brothers’ ears as little more than a half-heard symphony of chirps and squeaks.
“Indeed, Shield Maiden,” mused the Commander. “It would appear all Ithramis is here.”
War horses and work horses, carts and wagons of all shapes and sizes, innumerable crates and sacks, cattle and sheep and goats and chickens, weaponry and armour, foodstuffs for the Ithramen and feed for the livestock – all were unloaded onto the docks of the Bund with remarkable speed and efficiency. The organization of the Ithramen was superb, supported by thousands of workers labouring in the cold with neither curse nor complaint.
“Such efficiency and practiced precision speaks to long preparation,” mused the Erelian Commander, one hand on his chin. “It is as though the Black Prince expected this call to arms.”
“So it would appear, Commander,” agreed the Shield Maiden from beneath slightly knotted brows.
And the splendidly helmed warriors of the Ithramen were a spectacle in themselves: One thousand heavy foot, clad in solid plate, bearing great shields at their backs and long swords at their sides, and carrying tall halberds in their strong hands; two thousand light foot in chain and banded mail armed with swords and spears; five hundred bowmen with long slender bows of ash; four hundred heavy horse in chamfrons of shining steel; one hundred brilliantly armoured knights of the Prince’s Own, long lances tapering to the heavens, the Three Lions of Ithramis emblazoned on steel breasts and shields; and Prince Arbamas himself, standing tall and black at the prow of the Prodigal, great bear brush cape undulating about him like the shade of a sea serpent of olde.
“How well do you know the Black Prince, Shield Maiden?” queried Axennus quietly.
Caelle looked upon the Commander, and there was a quirk to her lips.
“Well enough, Commander. But would your question be asked of curiosity alone? Or mayhap you seek something insidious in the Prince’s intent?”
The Erelian’s mouth answered the Fiann’s quirk for quirk.
“Humour me, my friend, if you would.”
The Fiann peered at the Commander, striving to read the riddle in his keen grey-green eyes. But despite the brightness and honesty of their light, the eyes of the Southman betrayed nothing to the Shield Maiden, save an active intellect and the hint of thoughts well hidden.
“I think not, Commander,” Caelle responded at little length. “Rather, I would hear tell your own thoughts of our friend Arbamas of Ithramis.”
The quirk of Axennus’ mouth quickened to a smile. An odd light played in his gaze as he looked from the Shield Maiden to the Ithramian army mustering below, its serried rows of swords and spears glittering in the sun. Even the non-combatants among the Ithramen – metalsmiths, armourers, wrights, teamsters, physicians, cooks, scribes, runners – were impressive, assembling themselves with such martial efficiency and orderliness as to suggest they were a single creature, or many of one mind.
The Commander’s smile shone whitely, but did not reach his words when next he spoke.
“I know little of the Black Prince,” said Axennus, “and likely less than most. But the little I do know only leads to wonder and gives rise to questions.”
“Wonder and questions?”
The Commander nodded. And then a shiver took him. For Prince Arbamas of Ithramis had turned upon the prow of the Prodigal and was gazing upward at the Light of Idallion, his head curiously cocked as though harkening to a half-heard whisper. Despite the considerable distance, Axennus caught a flash of shining silver in the tall Ithraman’s eyes.
“Such as, Southman?”
The Shield Maiden seemed oblivious to the Black Prince’s scrutiny.
The Commander cleared his throat, chasing the chill from his spine.
“The noble intentions of the recipient aside, Shield Maiden, do you not consider the gifting of the first city of the Fiannar in this world to a moneyed stranger from the South somewhat…irregular?”
“Ithramis was abandoned long ago, Commander,” explained Caelle, “and long ago did she become a derelict of sea-washed stone – a dead thing. People are a city’s flesh, a city’s blood, its very heart and soul. Verily, a city is not a city without citizens, but a skeleton of rock and wood only.”
“Nevertheless, I find the situation odd, and the more so when I consider the heritage and legacies that define the Deathward folk. One would think the Fiannar might be loath to part with the treasures of their past. Was Ithramis not the very place where Vallian first set foot ashore this Secon
d Earth?”
“The Fiannar possess and are possessive of nothing, Commander, save liberty only.” Caelle smiled, but there was little humour in the curve of her lips. “Might you doubt the Lord’s wisdom in this matter?”
“Nay, Shield Maiden, not that. Never that. I do but remark upon the singularity of the gift, and wonder of the motivations that underlie the giving.”
“Giving is its own reward, Commander, and needs no motivation,” Caelle responded. “But should you need to further rationalize Lord Alvarion’s generosity, you need only look below you – for there be four thousand swords here this day that were not here yesternight. A fair return, I would say, on the giving of a thing long disused and abandoned, though that return has been thirty years in the coming.”
“But those thirty years are a curiosity in themselves, Shield Maiden,” the Commander said enigmatically.
Caelle raised one fine brow. “How so, Commander?”
“Thirty years has Arbamas governed in Ithramis,” Axennus replied, “yet he appears little older than do I, and certainly no older than Bronnus.”
The Fiann shrugged and smiled, but her eyes were thoughtful.
“Some men age well, Commander.”
Axennus shook his head.
“Not that well, my friend. And I wonder that you did not mark it aforetime. Tell me, has the Black Prince aged at all since first you made his acquaintance? Have you never considered the prolonged youth of the man?”
Caelle’s brows fell and furrowed.
“Mayhap the blood of the Fiannar yet runs hot in the Southman’s veins – as it does your own, Commander. Some among the Erelians enjoy unusual longevity for this very reason.”
But Axennus only shook his head once more, and his eyes were focused and strangely fierce.
“But you did not think on this until now, Shield Maiden, and would not have done had I not raised the issue.” The Commander’s gaze narrowed. “Ever alert, ever watchful daughter of the House of Defurien and protector of its Lady, and this thing you did not mark? If nothing else, then this absence of observation alone should alarm you.”
The Fiann’s frown darkened and she turned from Axennus to peer down upon Arbamas from Ithramis, and was startled to see the man staring up at her with bright besilvered eyes. Something stirred within her then – a memory, perhaps, or the feel of a familiarity half-forgotten – and it seemed that a mist that had lain long upon her mind was parting.
“Odd indeed, Commander,” she agreed, her voice little louder than a whisper, “that it appears I and my Deathward brethren, father and cousin included, have never considered this Southman’s evident fraternity with the Fiannar.”
“Odder still that you choose the term fraternity, Shield Maiden.”
“And why is –”
But Caelle’s question died unfinished on her lips as her sidesight caught a brisk movement near to her right.
There the warder of the Grey Watch who kept vigil on the west stood like a living replica of the Colossus of Defurien, his weapon raised high, swordpoint to the heavens, its bare blade glittering bright and brilliant in the white light of the sun.
Silvery steel flashed in immediate answer from the shores both north and south, and mounted companies of the Grey Watch sprang westward, riding swift and hard.
Caelle hastened to stand at the sentinel’s shoulder, her sapphire-specked eyes as intent as his own upon the west. The sentry remained motionless, not a muscle moving to acknowledge the presence of the Shield Maiden. Then Caelle spoke “Where?” in a voice as cold and as hard as her father’s had ever been, and the sentinel lowered his sword arm, and with no word he extended the blade westward.
The far-seeing gaze of the Fiann followed the line suggested by the shining length of steel, peering over and past the last stragglers of the Ithramian flotilla, along the thinning blue thread of the River Ruil to the distant place where the sky knelt upon the earth.
And she saw there the coming of dragons.
Out from the horizon they came. Dozens of them. Great pine-masted longboats of oaken plank stained scarlet beneath square black sails, the carven figureheads of horrible sea monsters and fell gods rearing at their prows. Onward they came, dread dragon ships riding the Ruil in a long single line that seemed to mimic the undulations of an enormous sea serpent, though this was likely a trick of mind and distance only. Arrays of colourful circular shields lined wales where toiled burly oarsmen, muscles wet with sweat and spray, heavy oars hammering water with a fury marching on frenzy. But ever at their fore was the largest of their number, a great drakkar dyed entirely crimson, plank and keel, mast and sail, and ribbed with the bones of a leviathan of the ocean. The figurehead had been fashioned of the dead monster’s draconic skull, and upon this, high above the tall and terrible men massed on the deck of the dragon ship, stood a huge blond warrior with eyes like glacial ice.
A shiver shook the Shield Maiden’s spine, and a sound like a serpentine hiss escaped from between her clenched teeth. One to each of her shoulders, the brother’s Teagh strained to see the thing that she saw, but their eyes had not the long sight of the Fiannar. Caelle felt Axennus’ hand close upon her own, strong and sure.
“What is it, Shield Maiden?” the Southman asked, his smooth voice soft and near at her ear. “What thing do you see?”
Tightening one hand about that of Axennus, the other about the haft of her sword, Caelle suppressed her shudderings, sent them away. Her eyes, when they turned to meet Axennus’ own, were cold and clear, and a wary wonder swam in their depths like silver-tailed mermaids beneath the ice of winter.
And in time came her reply, and it was one word only, and had long been the watchword for terror and doom descending from the fjords of the great white north –
“Nothirings.”
“Nothirings?”
Lord Alvarion stared into the glow of the Hearth’s ever-burning stones.
“Of this you are certain?”
Marshal Varonin nodded.
“Thirty-seven longships carrying nearly five thousand men,” he confirmed. “Ingvar Dragonsbane son of Eleric Bloodhand leads them.”
“Dragonsbane? The Mad Earl of Invarnoth?” A storm of consternation blackened Alvarion’s noble brow. “How is this so?”
But Varonin only shrugged.
Alvarion turned from the Hearth, closed his eyes and sighed. In days counted upon the fingers of one hand, the host of the Blood King would fall upon Eryn Ruil from the east. And now an entire army of heathen Nothirings were come from the west. He reached for the pommel of Grimroth, but the Blade of Defurien was not at his girdle, and for the first time Alvarion felt a pang of regret for sending that ancient talisman of his House into the murky wastes of Coldmire.
“What is the Dragonsbane’s intent, Marshal Varonin?”
“I do not know, Lord Alvarion.”
“What of the Nothiric Ambassador?” asked the Lady Cerriste, her eyes not leaving the form and face of her husband. “What knows he of this?”
The Marshal shook his head.
“Ambassador Sunderstrum was as surprised as are we upon learning of Ingvar’s approach. More so, or I am much mistaken.”
“You are not mistaken, Marshal,” spoke Sarrane, Seer of the Fiannar. Violet swirled in her cool clear gaze. “It is in my heart that Ingvar comes to us at the behest of a friend to the Fiannar, though that friend’s face remains shadowed in my sight as one hooded and cowled.”
Cerriste stepped nearer to her husband, and touched his hand to still its restless search for the sword that was not there.
“The Dragonsbane was sent to us, sister and Seer?” asked the Lady. “You know this to be true?”
“That is my thought, Lady, though I cannot discern whence it came.”
Cerriste nodded, sighed.
“And it is my thought that we shall have no answers to our questions, save from the tongue of the Earl Ingvar himself.”
Alvarion gazed into Cerriste’s glittering grey eyes, took her
calming hand into his own, and a smile warmed the corners of his lips. But his words when he spoke were as cold as the icefields of Nothira.
“Bring the Dragonsbane to the Colossus, good Marshal,” commanded Alvarion. “We shall treat with him beneath the long shadow of Defurien.”
Nearly four hundred years had passed since the first dragon ships of the Wulfings of Var had been sighted off the western coasts of Second Earth. What followed were two centuries of Wulfic raiding of coastal Rheln, of the Dice, of the southern shoals of the Erelian Republic and of the sandy strands of the Southfleetian Empire. Terror ever spread like wildfire at word of a Wulfic raid, for the huge horn-helmed marauders were a cruel and bloodthirsty race to whom war was but sport, and death in battle a glory to be sought and savoured. And none, it seemed, could withstand them.
None but the Wulfings themselves.
For then, in the farthest northeastern reaches of the known Second Earth, the Wulfings descended into a long and catastrophic civil war between the Kyetniks, those loyal to the hereditary king, and the Ustashnir, the supporters of a pretender to the Ice Throne of Var. The Ustashnir were backed by a deep dark power far to the south, and strange and fell creatures flocked to their black banner. In time, the loyalist Kyetniks were defeated, and the king was killed, and his rightful heirs and family hunted down and annihilated. All but a few of the mighty Clan Kyet went to their ends on the iron blades of Ustashnik axes.
But Noth the Red, the eldest of the king’s many bastard sons, escaped the slaughter of his kin, gathered to him the surviving Kyetniks that he could find, a mere two thousands all told, and in fourteen water-weary ships did he come by storm and sea, sailing south then west then north again to the harsh and rocky fjords of northwestern Second Earth. There he was met by Ri Donnal, High King of Rothanar, who had crossed the Steppe with a mighty army of Rothmen, a great force of fierce and fearsome caelroth at the fore. The Wulfings had never before encountered upon Second Earth a host whose might and battle-fury matched their own – as they had never pressed any significant distance inland for rumour of the Fynnir, a fair and fell folk that would see the Wulfings swift and soon to the Halls of Valdarra – and in his wisdom, Noth the Red laid down his battle-axe and sued for the High King’s mercy.