Stormed Fortress

by Janny Wurts

  Strayed in the clogged air, the customs fleet’s barges fetched up in a snarl of oars on the shoals. There, the hysterical occupants howled, clinging in soaked misery upon canted decks, until the slack tide permitted a rescue.

  The rogue lugger, meantime, thrashed away down the narrows, ramming up spume like a juggernaut. Kalesh dispatched fast couriers at a lathered gallop. By dint of post-horses changed every league, the riders smoked blisters on leather to outstrip the moth-eaten fishing craft’s run towards Alestron.

  Breaking news of the inbound blockade-runner reached Sulfin Evend at his morning conference in the command tent. He was standing, irritable, sparkling in state regalia, dark hair tied back beneath his shining helm. His mailed fists stayed planted on the table-top where his war council sat dead-locked in another snapping dispute. Day upon day, he was forced to crush the next clamour to waste troops in a frontal assault through the breach at the Sea Gate.

  ‘Damn you all for a flock of rockhead spring rams!’ he snapped in his withering accent. ‘The citadel’s garrison’s starving and cold! By now weakened enough to succumb to disease, if not dropping within the next fortnight. Bedamned if you think your bickering can wear down my sensible patience. I’ll have no more widows! The victory is ours. Naught’s left to be done, beyond wait for it!’

  Sudden, rushed footsteps from outside turned heads. The heated talk stalled as a courier burst in through the tent-flap. ‘Bad news, your lordships, brought at speed from Kalesh!’

  Breathless, the fellow unburdened. ‘Sorcery!’ he gasped. ‘Light save us from evil, with our Blessed Prince gone to Avenor!’ Into an atmosphere whiplashed from fractious anger to disbelief, he announced, ‘Raise arms! We’re set under assault by the powers of Darkness!’

  Mayhem erupted. Alarmed officers shoved to their feet. Against their hoarse outcry, Sulfin Evend banged the trestle and raised a field officer’s shout. ‘Silence! Sit down!’

  No one subsided. Blocking the rampage to roust idle troops out for battle, the Light’s first commander snatched the hysteri cal courier by the collar. A shove backed his whining against the oak table, where harder questioning plumbed his message for clarity. ‘You mentioned a strange banner flown by a lugger that sails contrary to natural forces?’

  ‘Yes, my Lord!’ The pinned courier swallowed. ‘The craft bears a flag the port look-outs cannot identify.’ Hedged by glittering steel, surrounded by volatile tempers, the stammering description emerged: of a deep blue, triangular streamer, marked with specific white symbols.

  ‘Ath, I know that device.’ Sulfin Evend’s sharp features turned pale. ‘No attack!’ He released his grip, a lone voice in the crush, as the Light’s fractious officers surged to seize charge.

  He flung his state chair against the stampede. Hurled himself bodily into the breach, clubbing back the armed bodies that shoved to displace him. ‘Hold your lines, on my order!’

  Under dire threat, as the jostling unsheathed killing steel, Sulfin Evend pealed warning. ‘Fools! That lugger’s defended by powers your Blessed Prince could not thwart. Interfere by assault, and you’ll seed wrack and ruin. Stay your swords! Though your faith in the Light might insist that aggression can triumph, weapons cannot prevail! I forbid an attack. At your peril, defy me.’

  ‘Wise choice,’ declared a disembodied voice, arrived to a snap of stark cold. The uncanny draught billowed a shrieking rip in the canvas roof overhead. Its tight blast also checked the murdering rush against the staunch ultimatum declared by Lysaer s’Ilessid’s foremost captain.

  ‘Oathsworn to the land, Sulfin Evend, you are called to serve!’ cracked Kharadmon.

  The next instant, the Sorcerer’s image unfurled standing four-square before the Alliance’s Lord Commander at Arms. ‘Under the auspices of the Fellowship of Seven, the assault on Alestron is ended. Your troops make war upon ground ruled under old law, and threaten a citadel defended within charter grant under the Crown of Melhalla. King’s justice, as served by the Teiren’s’Callient, shall administer the terms by which the combatants will lay down their arms under truce.’

  A smile curled the Sorcerer’s lips, wickedly framed by his coal-black moustache and spade-point beard. ‘At your peril,’ Kharadmon repeated with a joy that simmered toward impatience. ‘Upset your ranking officer’s order and leave me the pleasure of shredding your war camp!’

  The hour of summons found Lord Bransian in a temper, haranguing his mutin ous cooks. ‘I don’t care blazes if you pucker up at the taste! You will butcher those rats! Every squeaking wee carcass! Stew their plucked flesh to a mush even your shrinking gut will take kindly. My fighting men can’t hold the walls without rations. Serve up what you’re given! Or by the unvanquished name of my fathers, you’ll be set in chains and left to gnaw your own turds in my rodent-free dungeon!’

  The boy runner sent by Sevrand plucked up his courage again. This time, he tugged at the duke’s pumping arm. Through stammering fright, his message was finally heard. ‘A patched lugger flying the standard of the Fellowship of Seven has tied up to the ruined landing.’

  ‘Dharkaron’s black bollocks!’ Duke Bransian scowled. ‘If this is my cousin’s idea of a joke, I’ll chop off his right arm to thicken the gruel in that pot.’

  Yet the startling truth already wrought change: the hollow-eyed duty watch had pulled a dispirited team off the trebuchets. While the men rigged a new cable to replace the torched lift, the duke pelted to convene his blood family for a Fellowship reception.

  ‘Confound the Sorcerers,’ he gasped, hooking clasps, while his wife thrust his scarlet surcoat and state collar past the equerry, just suborned to clean his scuffed boots. ‘Why couldn’t they have made their timely appearance six months ago, when we weren’t reduced to pulling brass tacks and boiling the leather off the good furniture?’

  ‘You gave Kharadmon’s diplomacy a blithe lick and a shrug,’ Liesse pointed out with acerbity. She added, before fielding obscene imprecations, ‘Sindelle and Tiassa are already dressed. And no! There’s not a single wax candle left in the citadel, unless you’ve got a stash tucked away in the armoury.’

  ‘None, you bloodsucking shrew! I have not stooped to lies among family.’ Bransian bent his bare head, morose, as the ruby seal on its chain settled around his hunched neck. ‘What about lamp oil?’

  ‘Gone up with the Sea Gate.’ Liesse sighed. ‘Trust me, a spouse with no spine would have poisoned you on your wedding night.’ She tied her laced bodice, too bitter and gaunt, and more drawn than the short rations warranted. ‘I’ve taken the liberty of opening Dame Dawr’s apartments. The south casements there at least will provide light for this cheerless arrival.’ But no warmth, the last fuel being reserved for the kitchen’s vile stew, by the duke’s enforced orders, that morning.

  Bransian’s chapped lips cracked to show teeth. ‘Let the Sorcerer freeze his rump in a cold seat. He can chew on rat’s arse, if he’s hungry.’ But the bite to his bluster was sheer bravado, as his trembling wife surely knew.

  ‘Which of the Seven, do you think?’ she whispered in dread, gripping her husband’s stout arm in descent through the frigid staircase. ‘Sethvir won’t have dispatched a shade on this errand.’ For no boat and no lift tackle would be needful for a visitation, breezed into their midst.

  ‘It would be Asandir,’ Duke Bransian snarled, ‘since Traithe would scarcely announce himself flying that brazen pendant! Never bang in the eyes of the blood-sucking towns that host the Alliance’s war host.’

  Hard on the heels of the scrambling servants who snatched off the sitting-room’s dust-sheets, Asandir assumed the winged chair that had once belonged to Dame Dawr. The seat still commanded the space before the stone pilasters of the darkened fire-place. To his left, the latched casements spilled in streaming sun, brilliant day to storm-lit, azure night, where his velvet mantle draped upright shoulders.

  Since Bransian s’Brydion was too massive to slink, he stalled until the last moment. Sevrand and both bereaved wives sat in silen
ce, as his bold-as-brass tread crossed the threshold and hammered the carpet. He settled his duchess with immaculate deference. She was forced to fold her hands in her lap, or else risk her lace cuffs to destruction: the scarred trestle pulled in haste from the armoury had stayed bare in the rush to accommodate. Yet the juxtaposed setting of rich comfort and rude function was thrown into eclipse by stilled power, leashed in waiting to address Alestron’s duke.

  Bransian chose to remain on his feet, his last refuge his heavy-weight muscle.

  ‘Old law still reigns here,’ Asandir opened in declarative quiet. ‘When did you think you became the exception, wielding the privilege of title above the terms of sworn service accorded to this ancestral seat?’

  Though the steel in that gaze raised a glaze of flushed sweat, Bransian answered directly. ‘My banner still flies above walls not yet overtaken in conquest. I may not be applauded for every mistake. Fact remains, my defence has not faltered.’

  Asandir laced his large fingers; leaned forward, his face chiselled bare of expression. ‘Defence by extortion, manipulation, and conspiracy?’

  Cloth rustled, down the table. ‘Prince Arithon spoke for his liegeman, and Jeynsa, who has been released without harm,’ Sevrand dared. A brief pause ensued. ‘Lawful terms put the grievance to rest,’ he went on in his kinsman’s defence.

  A mistake: the Sorcerer’s drilling attentiveness only resharpened upon the duke’s steaming discomfort. ‘My selection for the late high earl’s post in Daon Ramon, as Arithon’s intended caithdein, but a girl not yet sworn, in her teens. She was not sent home in corrected disgrace! Intrigue and collusion saw her brave folly reduced to bloodshed and bullying abuse. Rathain may have accepted compensation for damaging injury,’ the Sorcerer amended in blistering censure. ‘But no foreign prince on Melhalla’s ground can usurp the right to declare for the crown’s arbitration.’

  ‘We are at war!’ Duke Bransian pealed, laid raw as Liesse masked her face to stifle her ashamed tears. ‘What of the enemies hounding our walls, laying siege while my people are starving? What of the holocaust that razed our farm-steads, and slaughtered our innocent villagers?’

  ‘The Alliance will disband.’ Asandir inclined his silver head in respect to the destitute wives, as he added, ‘Each troop returns home to its town of origin, under a Fellowship fiat. Sulfin Evend’s commanded to retire to Tysan. He will turn his crack troops to relocate the squatters encamped at the Second Age site at Avenor. That nest of iniquity will be swept clean! No more threats will be issued by a false court against the Kingdom of Havish! Lysaer s’Ilessid shall no longer house his pretensions at the crown seat of Avenor.’

  A scraping disturbance arose at the door. Bransian turned his head, met by the mailed tread of his acting captain. The man’s hands were the same, in their battered gauntlets, that had wielded steel through a lifetime of loyal campaigns. Only now, he carried the scarlet standard bearing the s’Brydion bull, just run down from the Watch Keep’s flagstaff. The folded cloth was remanded to Sevrand, which at last ruffled Bransian’s crowing defiance.

  ‘Ath above!’ he cried, shocked. ‘You can’t strike our colours in front of that mincing faker’s religion!’ Spurred yet by the courage of his stubborn heart, his anguished bellow gained force. ‘That abrogates every term of the compact. Rams hard against every principle my ancestors died to preserve.’

  ‘On no terms will I declare a surrender!’ Asandir snapped in rebuke. ‘The Fellowship’s pendant takes sovereignty, here. This citadel holds too much strategic importance to stand at strength under any armed faction’s self-serving brutality! Neither will an heir of s’Brydion reign, unless a Paravian presence returns to the continent. I have come to enact Alestron’s entailment! This fortress will lie under Fellowship seal, until such time as a centaur guardian may declare in your favour for a reinstatement!’

  ‘Then where will we go?’ the deposed duke gasped, pale. The sun through the casements blazed down, too bright. He could not bear the sight of Liesse’s bowed shoulders, or face his displaced cousin, or answer for the gaunt desperation endured by his lost brothers’ widows. ‘There would be no mercy shown by town mayors for the least of my children and kinsfolk. No secure place for any fighting man in my company who’s resisted invasion.’

  ‘Your place,’ declared Asandir unequivocal, ‘will be to serve Atwood’s defences henceforward, with your war band kept under arms at your Teiren’s’Callient’s right hand. Your head of household shall fall to Mearn. He will hold the chieftain’s seat on her council, until time determines what honest mettle your lineage matures for review.’ The silence was stark as the Sorcerer finished, ‘No one else dies for your family pride. The craftsfolk who have held out within the walls will be asked to resettle themselves in the trade towns. Since those who possessed a tuned ear for the mysteries have departed, called out by the song of Alithiel, they remain free to set roots where they please.’

  The Sorcerer’s unabashed sorrow emerged, then, as his mild closure scored the air like a line of engraving. ‘By these terms, your people are granted their right to continued survival.’

  Bransian shoved forward and banged on the trestle. Debased by shame, he shook off the imploring hands of his wife and glared down at his Fellowship arbiter. ‘Let me die here. Strike me down, before I slink off to the forest, tuck tailed and grovelling.’

  Asandir sighed. ‘Just once, I might have seen you show the natural grace to apologize.’ He stood to full height. Not a silver hair turned as he inclined his head towards the side doorway that led from the bedchamber. ‘Dakar? Bring the prisoner, please.’

  The spellbinder entered, to the rasp of Tiassa’s shocked breath. Short-strided and fat, still fumbling with the role of authority, he ushered in Parrien’s aggressive step. But this hour, the larger man’s prowess wore the ridicule, tied in restraint as a felon.

  ‘I will read you a choice,’ said the Sorcerer softly. ‘Parrien’s sentence for the murder of Kyrialt s’Taleyn, struck dead while defending a fatal assault on Athera’s titled Masterbard. Or, you accept a quiet exile in Atwood, with your brother exonerated by Arithon Teir’s’Ffalenn’s sealed reprieve. Cross me again, Bransian, and I burn the royal writ that grants Tiassa’s children their blood heritage, and her husband the privilege of retaining an ancestral name.’

  Bransian raised his bearded chin. Shut his harrowed eyes, before weeping. Defeat branded him there, a huge, wounded lion torn by too many battles, waged through generations of vicious adversity. ‘Tiassa,’ he grated, ‘set free your bound man.’

  Clear sun shone, still, through the casements. Glints sparkled, blood deep, through the rubies in the state collar just unclasped and laid down on the trestle. Then a shadow eclipsed them, not Asandir’s: the shaft of winter light illumined the reunion, as Bransian s’Brydion embraced the lost brother that fate had restored at the price of humility. Before Tiassa’s joy, and Sindelle’s faded mourning, he had nothing to do, and nowhere to turn, except to brace Liesse’s tearful distress and step from the chamber in silenced ignominy.

  Days later, the Second Age citadel of Alestron stood emptied of people and parading sentries. Dakar stood at the side of the Fellowship Sorcerer on the stilled, midnight eve, when Asandir spoke in actualized Paravian to rock, and mended the cracks in the underground cisterns.

  At sunrise on winter solstice, the spellbinder also was granted the gift to bear living witness: as the Sorcerer mounted the height at Watch Keep and declared his address to the wind. Through an appeal to air element’s grace, Asandir summoned the power of the wardings the centaurs of old had laced into the citadel’s stonework. A heart-beat in time brought his answer. The solid ground sang underfoot, as the light and sound force of the defences blazed active, and ran gilded ribbons of ecstatic joy through flesh and bone, and ephemeral spirit.

  How long the Sorcerer and his apprentice endured the struck note that streamed through the eye of eternity, no human senses might measure.

  Yet when Asandir shout
ed the Named rune for ending, the fortress of Alestron lay under seal. No step would trespass here. Man, woman, or child, none might enter unless Mankind’s presence was granted leave by Athera’s Paravians. The high walls were left silent. Vacant crenels lay washed in a faint, silvered nimbus, until the summoning force of grand mystery dwindled to moonbeams in daylight, then faded quiescent. Nothing spoke then but the cry of a hawk, and the salt-laden gusts off the estuary.

  The Sorcerer faced north-westward, and offered his opened hand, palm upwards. His silver-grey eyes appeared fixed into distance, as he touched the listening presence of Sethvir, who awaited, poised at the focus laid into the vault beneath Althain Tower.

  ‘Are you coming?’ Asandir admonished the spellbinder, still gawping over the memory of marvels.

  Dakar started and yelped, seized by Asandir’s fist. Ever and always, the fat seer was granted no warning to brace for the gut-wrenching upset that followed.

  ‘Reach!’ sent the Warden.

  The clasp of Asandir’s raised wrist was received, bridged across yawning oblivion.

  The next instant, the crag of the citadel stood empty, the only trace of a Fellowship presence the midnight blue and white pennant, streaming above the fast quiet of Watch Keep’s squat spire. For passing years that extended to centuries, the men in the crab skiffs that trapped in the estuary, and the caravans bound down the trade-road attested the fact that the cloth never frayed in the grip of the elements. Unlike the worn lugger, that stove in forlorn planks in the next winter storm, and sank under the waves at the landing.