Stormed Fortress

by Janny Wurts

  ‘Through Sidir’s ready sword,’ Talvish said, straight-faced.

  To which stark rebuff, Bransian stalked off with a jingle of steel to target his grousing elsewhere.

  No mounting pressure of public disgust swerved Arithon from his abstruse cause. By then, he tapped the stonework in the Mathiell Gate’s left-side drum-tower. Clad in his worn leathers and Davien’s rich cloak, he sat as still as the day, limned in the ice-fall of sunlight, while the wintry air quivered off the warmed rock, scoured a bleached white by the elements. He had not shifted position for hours, while time’s stream seemed to part and slip past him. Sidir stood his ground with a hunter’s fixed patience, until afternoon waned, and a saffron sunset stained the low-lying cloud banks.

  Arithon arose then with an air of finality. Unspeaking, he wended his way towards the guest tower. As he walked through Alestron’s darkening thoroughfares, the evening around him stayed cheerless: another severe cut had shortened the rations. Children wailed in the tent shelters jumbled into the muddied practice grounds. Taut-faced mothers complained. Angry young men met on the street-corners, while the tired town guard hauled water by hand, and shoveled the reeking cart-loads of waste, brusque to the point of explosion. If Sidir met such hardship with forest-bred stoicism, Alestron’s folk were never bred to endure such pinching uncertainty.

  The Companion noted the changed, glass-stark edge to his liege’s habit of silence, yet had the wisdom to withhold his questions. He endured the catcalls dogging their heels, perhaps recalling the past. Once Rathain’s prince had carved whistles to distract the toddlers when crisis had shadowed Deshir’s threatened clans during childhood. The frivolity had masked an active defence.

  Others had no such experience to bolster the onslaught of mounting pressure. Though Fionn Areth vented balked steam in the taverns with Dakar, and Kyrialt fretted to redirect Glendien’s shameless badgering, Arithon did not unburden. He kept his own counsel until the late night, when he was alone with Elaira. ‘I found no good news, beloved.’

  They curled together on the wooden bench before the banked fire, while the north gusts whined down the flue and flicked sparks across the slate apron. The chill huddled them beneath a shared blanket, as the sparse fuel burned down. Elaira traced the jet hair at Arithon’s nape, raising shivers deep in his viscera. ‘I daresay your diligent hours of study cannot have been wasted effort.’

  ‘No.’ The lift of his chin denoted the pain sprung from his cutting frustration. ‘But my best hope has foundered. All of my gifts, to the limit of talent, have granted no avenue to spare Bransian’s domain. The Paravian wardings laid into this citadel are too deep a force. They cannot be moved to man’s bidding. However I ask, or assay strains of harmony, I can’t find the key to turn such a power to serve in relief.’ Anguish broke through as he admitted, ‘Though I would spare lives, the greater mysteries are too wild for our mortal reckoning!’

  Elaira laid her head on his chest. The same distressed beat raced his pulse. Arithon was a spirit that always would argue the sting of a hard-fought defeat.

  ‘I can spare Jeynsa, maybe,’ he allowed, for the first time broaching the prospect of failure. Even with his face muffled in her scented hair, his strained doubt could no longer be masked. Or the uncertainty, as he added, ‘How much more than that, only Daelion knows! The lyranthe can’t speak here. Her sound is too refined. I’ve no help to call on. Just what inadequate skills I can weave through the purpose the Paravians forged into Alithiel.’

  ‘Those things are not small. And you are no less, Teir’s’Ffalenn.’

  Yet amid the silence that fell as the coals flickered down into darkness, the enchantress sensed the fibre of the innermost man. Before others, she shared the decision locked in his Masterbard’s heart.

  ‘You will act on the morrow,’ she stated.

  He moved. Tipped up her face, that he could meet her eyes, his own deep as evergreen ravaged by winter. Before she cried out, he savoured a kiss that was poignantly bitter-sweet. ‘I must. Though Dharkaron knows, I could wish that every bright star would fall from Ath’s heavens, beforehand.’

  One last night, they would have, to indulge their rare love, held secure by the stones of the citadel. His arms closed. Linked to his enchantress with all his fierce strength, he swept her up and bore her, cherished as song, to the bed. There she could not do aught but succour his need, and savour the joy only found in his matchless presence.

  Attack visited the deserted outer fortress again before dawn. Repeated light strikes unleashed by Lysaer rattled the casements and shuddered the guest keep’s foundations. The black sky rinsed red. Fire silhouetted the drum-towers flanking the Mathiell Gate. Across the tide-race, vacant buildings exploded, masonry unravelled to rubble. Tossed wreckage flew air-borne. The crenels that once hung the Wyntok Gate melted to slag and collapsed into the flooding channel. Steam clogged the cold air, while the scent of brimstone wafted across Alestron’s secure inner battlements.

  Although Lysaer’s display claimed no lives, and ruined no more than the blasted ground of the outlying town, the virulent power of his inborn gift sowed fresh fear. However Duke Bransian encouraged his troops, he could not stem shaken morale. The refugee families packed in the baileys turned on a breath from hungry, to desperate.

  Seasoned sentries quailed at their posts. Livid, they watched the bulwarks that had sheltered their homes since their birth become cratered to wreckage. Today, from the warded walls of the heights, they were made aware that the Paravian protections safeguarded no more than their breathing flesh.

  The purposeful life they had promised their loved ones had lost direction. Day upon day, they could only sustain their meaningless, sorry existence.

  Lysaer’s cursed might possessed no moral bounds, and no conscience. Man, or woman, or innocent child who set foot outside the citadel would become just as wantonly reduced to ash. The duke’s people were helpless as cornered rats. They had risked everything, holding their ground for no more than the gleam on a principle.

  Tomorrow changed nothing. They would starve without rescue, their children’s well-being at risk for a bankrupted future. Hope died, and laughter, along with every wistful, sweet fancy that offered them warmth and happiness.

  Despair struck, of a depth to darken the dawn. If Arithon might have acted before, the staging-point for his effort now suffered a cruel reverse. From difficult, he faced a feat beyond hardship.

  His farewell to Elaira had already been said. Arisen by the stripped thread of his courage, and wearing yesterday’s garments, he seemed insubstantial in forest leathers, dyed black, and the mantle stitched with silver embroidery, gifted by the whim of a Sorcerer. What lay beyond words had been conveyed by his tenderest care, and the intimate congress exchanged through the night. He bent his head, touched his cheek to Elaira’s raised palm. Then he took up the sword, forged at Isaer from star-fallen metal by the artistry of three ancient races.

  When Sidir arrived, Rathain’s prince knelt, the traditional acknowledgement of crown obligation bonded under sworn service. ‘Liegeman,’ he stated, formally brief, ‘enact my royal charge for the sake of your kingdom. The task I lay on you, before life and death: safeguard Jeynsa. Return home with all speed to your people, and Feithan, and defend the free wilds of Halwythwood.’ Arithon straightened. The grave parting that could not find a carefree smile became a firm clasp of wrists. ‘Ath’s grace, and bright guidance guard all your days.’

  Sidir was near weeping, as Rathain’s heir stepped out. Last of Torbrand’s lineage, he did not go alone: at his back on this critical hour went Shand’s honour-gift of Kyrialt, once Teir’s’Taleyn. Overmatched by his muscular escort, Arithon did not look back, but crossed the narrow foot-bridge, under the rose light of dawn. Cat-slender, he did not seem any force to stand down the cursed rage that now creased the air with crackling, white bolts.

  While stone rumbled and shook, slagged to gouts of red magma, Arithon made his way through the twisting narrows of the citade
l’s streets. By the stairs laid by centaur masons, his rapid step took him upwards, towards Watch Keep. He did not go unremarked. Some, stiffly solemn, saw him pass with resentment. Where once they had followed, expectant with hope, a fortnight of his isolate silences had poisoned goodwill to rebuff. Some jeered. More, whose craft shops were being razed by the violence of a cursed half-brother, called out insults, blaming their bitter misfortunes on Duke Bransian’s ill-starred alliance.

  ‘Why should s’Ilessid attack, but for you, Teir’s’Ffalenn?’

  And once, with venom, ‘Why else, bastard-born!’

  A red-faced wife hurled a bucket of slop hard on the heels of the prince. ‘Perhaps we suffer for the low fact that your bloodline was saved by a harlot!’

  The hatred that burdened the morning was palpable, while the ground shook to Lysaer’s assault. The ugly crowd by the wayside kept shouting, their mood almost pitched to throw stones. None dared raise a hand. Kyrialt’s presence denoted the living witness of Shand, and the crown scion they reviled still remained Fellowship-sanctioned. His person might not be touched, although outraged voices decried that his fickle character shamed his royal station.

  If Arithon heard, his indifference appeared unassailable. A wraith in dark clothes, he stepped through the wreathed smoke and mist, that the sun’s early rays pierced above the steep eaves of the roof-tops. He made his way beyond the last, guttered drain, where the paving lapsed into mud footpaths. The frost-brown grass of the commons no longer grazed cattle or goats. He walked on, shocked by the recoil that slammed through the headland at each strike from his half-brother’s hand.

  Here, the glaring charge of shed light made his features seem spun from white glass. Arithon did not look aside. As day brightened, Kyrialt saw what Alestron’s goodwives could not: that contact with the earth seemed to flinch through drawn flesh. His Grace would not speak, now. Each breath deliberate, he forged ahead up the steep, switched-back trail.

  The tower at the crest of the promontory stayed under vigilant patrol. Two sentries challenged, surprised by the invasion of their staked turf.

  ‘Give way!’ stated Arithon, past heed for propriety. ‘On peril of your lives, do not stop me.’

  ‘Watchword, first!’ came the bristled response. The guards were large men, chapped red from exposure. Entrusted for courage, they were also afraid, with the light raging on in actinic bursts and the rolling thunder of concussive report.

  Arithon had no statement to give. His fixated stare never wavered. While he showed no aggression, and his sword remained sheathed, point down in the folds of his mantle, the fact he came armed riled the sentries.

  ‘Hold your weapons!’ Kyrialt snapped. ‘His Grace is in magetrance!’ Shown dubious scorn, he said with crisp authority, ‘Yes! I do know the signs. I watched him raise the centaur wardings on Selkwood, and again, when he faced the mysteries that hallow the King’s Grove in Alland.’

  While the bearded soldiers glared in suspicion, they still must acknowledge the prince’s sworn man.

  ‘Let my liege pass!’ Kyrialt appealed. ‘By the name of my family, I will swear surety for his harmless intentions.’

  Which stark declaration could not be ignored: the s’Taleyn sire’s belligerent honesty was held in widespread renown. If Kyrialt stood false on Lord Erlien’s reputation, the Kingdom of Shand would owe the s’Brydion no less than a crown reparation.

  Prince Arithon pronounced with a quiet but ominous edge, ‘I have not come to abet my half-brother’s destruction, or to inflame the grip of Desh-thiere’s curse.’

  Since no man alive might guess his intent, the sentries must strike or stand down. They moved, not for Kyrialt’s word in the end, or for royalty’s forthright insistence.

  ‘Our duke’s gone up ahead of you,’ warned the taller guardsman. ‘Try him at your own risk.’

  Arithon entered the squat tower that commanded the view surrounding the citadel and the spread of the signal turrets overlooking the harbour. Inside, past the ground-level ward-room, a spiral stair led to a second chamber, where a ladder accessed the wind-swept catwalk above. Through the flurry of men startled up from their posts, Arithon mounted the rungs.

  Kyrialt’s worried agility followed, while Bransian’s truculent bellow filtered down through the open hatch. ‘Bedamned if I like this unnerving assault! Surely such force serves some evil design beyond an accursed fit of madness.’

  ‘Lysaer has a purpose.’ Black hair wind tousled, green eyes wide in trance, Arithon emerged through the trap. Sword in hand, his mantle on fire with silver embroidery, he stood up on the gust-raked battlement, with its fire-pan and signal mirrors sheltered by a peaked roof, ringed around by a catwalk for archers. The sun’s red disk, risen, threw Bransian’s shadow, and cast the slighter man into eclipse.

  The duke’s narrowed eyes showed contempt as he turned. ‘Upstart sorcerer. Can you know?’

  Wind flapped the mantle, and scattered blood high-lights across the rich threadwork. ‘I have seen on the tides of s’Ahelas far-sight.’ With an ominous calm, Arithon added, ‘Pound enough force through the headland, and even firm bed-rock will shear.’

  ‘Lysaer seeks to tumble the cliff into the estuary?’ Bransian’s scowl darkened. ‘That excessive display won’t breach our walls!’

  ‘Not at once.’ Arithon’s manner stayed queerly remote. ‘They will send sappers. Mine the scarp under your warded walls, as your crews at the trebuchets falter.’

  The duke spat. ‘Not while I live to prevent them!’

  ‘You won’t,’ stated Arithon, and on that shocked note, side-stepped, and moved to the rim of the battlement.

  ‘I could kill, for your insolence!’ Duke Bransian howled, while Kyrialt cleared the trap-door at speed and placed his own person between.

  The duke goaded, furious, ‘What are you worth, prince? A few paltry visions, delivered too late?’

  But Arithon seemed beyond provocation. Immersed as a dancer who followed a melody nobody else could perceive, he turned back his mantle and drew Alithiel. He touched the flat of the upright blade against his forehead for a suspended instant. Then, as though reverent, he lifted the sword. Mortal man, and the first of his kind who ever attempted to wield the black steel’s primal purpose, he apologized first for presumption.

  Then, the duke’s rage a gathering storm at his back, and Lysaer’s cursed fury destroying a hill-side before him, he bowed his head. Softly as a whisper, he started to sing.

  The melody emerged with the beat of a dirge, cadenced in measured Paravian. His spare a cappella delivered each note with the ringing purity struck off tempered steel. At the crux, no one present could do aught but listen as Athera’s Masterbard engaged his art.

  Sorrow spoke through him, the veil of indifference torn away. The fortnight just spent in strict silence had never been what it seemed: every moment Arithon had not deigned to comment, throughout days and nights, as he listened into the secretive quiet of stone, he had not been oblivious. Never had he distanced himself from the misery of Alestron’s populace. Nothing escaped his exacting attention: not the wails of a single distressed infant; never, the cries of frustrated anger; no word and no sight and no hurt, however inconsequential. Not once had Arithon closed his mind or heart to the pain and privation around him. Masterbard, sorcerer, attention to myriad detail wove his invention. The groans of the deprived, and the strained exhaustion of soldiers, and the lost laughter of children crafted his lines. Like the filled vessel painstakingly emptied, all that he held, he poured into song, while the sundering boom of Lysaer’s assault framed his ominous refrain.

  That raw light flared and cracked incandescent reflections off the Paravian sword he held upright. Spear-shaft straight, Arithon sang of himself. His humility scoured, for a depth of experience that fell too far short of the wisdom that might have disarmed a cursed conflict. All the ache of his short-falls, every prior defeat he had suffered and forgiven within Kewar’s maze, he restated in sorrowful honesty.

 
; He sang of hope, forgotten, and joy abandoned, and the balm of healing and peace. Then, as the tears streamed down Kyrialt’s cheeks, and Duke Bransian covered his face before his stunned officer, Arithon forged his heart-wrenching melody into a blazing appeal. To the magics imbued in the sword, whose latent force held the power of air to inspire the freedom of lifting transcendence, he asked: for grace, and in human admission of fault, a demand that begged footing for change.

  The sword shimmered, then lit. Incandescent, the opal runes streamed sound and light. This was not only the chord that had once Named the winter constellations, but something other, that upended belief. As though Arithon’s song had spun the first overture, the sword’s response flowered as no living ear had heard, and no history at Althain Tower had ever recorded: a sound that climbed register and entered fast silence, underscored by a light that waxed blinding as a refined star come to earth.

  The shock travelled outward. Its unleashed force ranged through the citadel like bolt lightning that engendered no following thunder-clap. Only pure energy, sweet as a struck chime.

  Rathain’s prince grasped the sword. Alone, he sustained its vibration, a note beyond hearing that answered the searing appeal in his question by harmony.

  The miracle could not be contained within walls: on the mainland, Lysaer s’Ilessid collapsed. His crazed, elemental explosions cut short as he dropped unharmed at the feet of his banner-bearer. Still, the clarion cry of Alithiel ranged outward, unstoppable. More than Alestron’s folk were affected. Every spirit enthralled by the Alliance’s cause, no matter which side of the conflict, all were compelled to take pause: from camp-followers to grooms at the picket lines, to the servants who polished their dedicate officer’s boots.

  On a note beyond hearing, those who loved war heard only rage, and these would seek solace in fighting. Others who yearned for creative peace moved to abandon the field and return to their distant homes, or, in the case of Alestron’s free citizens, to uproot their families and claim life, resettled amid the free wilds. While the untamed grace forged by Alithiel sustained, hostilities calmed, with the blockade in the estuary paralysed.