by Ru Emerson
Brit Arren turned back to his crew and gave them the order to sit at the oars and wait. He could have laughed at it all, suddenly: Lord Corry himself! And it seemed that Lord Captain Mal Brit Arren was going to live to tell the tale.
Galdan spoke against Ylia's ear: “Pull back! Count of three!” Fighting had been heavy here, and they'd both been in the thick of it for a long time. She let him guide her back by her left shoulder, twisted aside as one of Erken's lads slid forward to take her place. “All right?” he shouted.
“All right!” she shouted back. He eyed her critically. He hadn't realized how unlike herself she had still been until they bridged her back from the Fury. Until she had killed Vess.
Fortunately the day had gone warmer and the sun was out: She was still soaked from her unexpected dunking in the bay.
Those they were fighting broke suddenly; the Nedaoan armed sprinted after them, bringing Ylia and Galdan in their midst. Someone in the fore shouted warning, and Nedaoan and Narran armed further down the beach turned to catch the enemy in a neat pincer. Ylsans bridged hastily away; several Ragnolans broke and ran for the water. None of them made it, the remainder—seven men in all—fell to their knees and waited for death.
“There can't be many more of these,” Galdan said as he gazed down at them. “I wish someone spoke their language, though.” He sighed. “Someone besides Corlin, before anyone says it again.”
Ylia shook her head. “The Narrans must be running out of room. Has anyone kept count?” Shrugs. “Doesn't matter. We—” Galdan waved her silent, tipped his head back, shielding his eyes with his sword.
“Thullen,” he announced tersely.
“Bow, at the ready!” Levren was nearby; she could not see him, but his voice was as unmistakable as the red-fletched, red-shafted arrow that killed the first of them. Ylia fell back a pace, sword ready, but there was no need: One spiraled into the bay, sending a geyser of water two lengths into the air; the other two went down moments later.
“They're a bother,” Galdan said. Someone laughed. “However he intended them, they're a bother. Man can't see them, the way they pop in and out.”
“Well, I can't see them any better,” Ylia said dryly, “and I doubt Eveya or Sartha, or any of the other women can, either.” Galdan laughed. Bendesevorian bridged into their midst moments later; one of the Ragnolans screamed and the rest fell flat. The Nasath paid them no heed: He was listening, testing the air. “What?”
“There's—something,” Bendesevorian whispered. “They're about to try something, can you feel it?” Ylia shook her head.
A swimmer out in the bay shrieked in terror, a towering cry cut off abruptly as the waves above the focus stone erupted once again. Water began to spin, and the sky above the growing whirlpool darkened. Men, debris, bodies—the burning wreck of the Venom—all were dragged down. The greedy suck of the water rose above all other sounds. “Ah, gods and Mothers,” Ylia whispered. “No!” The Ragnolan prisoners flung themselves frantically toward the cliff base, huddled together in a terrified clutch, not daring to look as the sky went from pale washed blue to deep purple. Shadow spread across the water, touching now on ships that were hauling wildly away from this new danger.
There were no broken ships left out there now; nothing but a vast whirlpool that dragged at everything near it. And far overhead, in the very midst of the darkness, something was forming. “No,” Ylia whispered again. “It's—that thing! He's—made another. But the size of it! It will have us all!” She stumbled in the thick sand and would have fallen but for Galdan.
All fighting stopped; enemies turned from each other to gaze in fear at the bay. The whirlpool lapped greedily after the Fury; the shape overhead writhed against some unseen bond. Dull red light ran in a thin line from the vortex to the darkness, feeding it.
A deep growl came from the sky, growing by the moment. Then Bendesevorian's joyous shout suddenly topped it, momentarily drowning even the suck of water out in the bay. He ran past the Nedaoan armed and into the open to cry out in his own language. Ylia pushed through the Inner Guard, Galdan at her back, in time to see him surrounded by Nasath. He spoke quickly, words she could not understand, but the urgency needed no translation. Twenty heads lifted to where Bendesevorian pointed. The thing there was growing by the moment: It stared back at them out of blood-red eyes, and something came free.
Twenty-one Nasath simply vanished. Someone behind her wailed in despair as their last and only defense disappeared. “Wait!” Galdan bellowed; his own hand stabbed toward the sky. Flickering, golden light surrounded the darkness, pressing it inward. The whirlpool faltered; there was half a length more distance between it and Fury's retreating prow. “See!”
“Look to your backs!” Marhan roared, overtopping him easily. “Mathkkra!” Galdan thrust Ylia behind him and worked his way to the Swordmaster's side. It was visibly too light for the creatures’ liking, but dark enough under that cloud that Lyiadd had loosed. Mathkkra poured down the sandstone in a wave, and flung themselves against the hated Nedaoans. On the ledge above them stood three red-clad shamans, acolytes crouched at their feet.
Ylia was still vibrating from Bendesevorian's outcry. Galdan shoved her into the very midst of the guard and took up his bow once again. She saw him teetering on a pile of rock so he could fire over the heads of the guard, saw the guard around both of them, fighting for all their lives. Two of her women fell and she thought she heard Eveya cry out—Eveya fallen, ah, Mothers, no! But the gap was sealed before she could be certain. Something ran light-foot across her inner being; she spun about, eyes on the sky.
The Nasath were fighting their own battle up there: The thing began to shrink, ever so little. Mathkkra squealed and gibbered as the light increased. But then certain of the faint points of light that opposed it would be scattered, or pressed back, and the thing swelled again. The whirlpool spread and shrank with it but the connecting thread of light never wavered. The focus stone was exposed. If they could destroy it—! But she could not and the Nasath had not attempted it. She groped under her cloak to touch the horn. No. It was not yet time for that.
Someone caught hold of her arm and was pulling her along, keeping her in the relative safety of the guard's protection. She stumbled, nearly fell as her heel caught on a small, fallen body; the hand hauled her upright by main strength. “Thank you!” she shouted.
“Lady!” someone shouted back.
“Look!” someone else cried. Eyes were dazzled as a blaze of light burst into the sky directly above them.
Eya. “They are ours!” Ylia cried out. Bars of red and blue and golden light, points and luminous bands of silver swirled, broke, formed and broke again overhead. The Folk rose in a single glorious pillar, arced over high above and plunged into the very heart of the vortex.
Water shot high; myriad lights gave it an iridescence as it cascade, back to the bay. The Folk, an intertwining ribbon of sound, color and motion, rose above it. In their midst, borne upon a pillow of water, was Lyiadd's focus stone. Almost before Ylia could realize what it was; it vanished in a whirl of fast-moving light. The thread of Power that connected it to the sky-born monstrosity shrank, thinned, faded. Was gone. For one brief, uncertain moment, she thought she saw the stone—a dull grey lump of beach pebble—waver mid-air. Light enclosed it again, hid it, and it vanished.
The far-spread ring of pinpoint golden lights closed in, driving darkness before it. Until it was gone, and there was only pale blue sky, and high overhead, the sun.
Mathkkra screamed in sudden terror. A wave of Lyiadd's Power swept over them, taking Mathkkra, what remained of the Thullen, Ylsans and southern mercenaries with it. Far out in the bay, near the mouth of the southern inlet, a deserted Holthan ship rocked as the incoming tide washed it to and fro.
But near the mouth of the Aresada, an army—Lyiadd's reserve Ylsans, fresh Holthan and Ragnolan and Osneran mercenaries—waited. The battle was not yet over.
“Lyiadd?” Marrita somehow gained her feet, staggere
d around the seeing bowl. Lyiadd had not moved since they unmade the stone; it had been her Power that bridged what was left of their armies and sent reinforcements to the river's end. Movement beyond Lyiadd caught her eye; his generals hovered there uncertainly. “Not your fault, we'll talk later. Go!” They went, hurriedly, before she could change her mind or Lyiadd could rescind the order. She braced herself, touched his shoulder. “Lyiadd?”
“I am all right,” he whispered. “What was that, what did she do?” That sound had torn through him, left him huddling on the floor, hands vainly clapped to his ears. He'd felt everything disintegrating out there and had not been able to fight it. Ayater had been right, they should have pulled back, saved their strength for another day. It would be another day, now; they would both need rest before they dared try again.
Not that it made any difference to the end result. No. It merely extended the time that was theirs, not the outcome.
“Could you not tell?” Marrita had sensed them—had even seen them, for one brief moment. But then, they were no longer trying to hide. “The Guardians came to Nedao's aid.” She fell silent as Lyiadd brought his head up; he stared at her incredulously, then began to laugh. “And the Folk,” Marrita overrode him loudly. The laughter ceased as abruptly as it had begun.
“Catalyst,” Lyiadd whispered. Somber eyes met Marrita's. “It cannot matter, not in the end.” But for the first time, he sounded uncertain. A little. And it chilled her.
“No, it cannot.” She could have believed it herself, hearing her own calmly assured voice. “Next time—next time, we will not try to control the battle from such a distance.”
“No.” Vess. My son. He had nothing of him, not even his body; that had gone overboard when Mal Brit Arren took back the Fury. The whirlpool had it, moments later. “No matter,” he whispered, unaware that he spoke aloud. “There will be another son.”
Marrita's free hand clutched at her skirts; the chill deepened and nearly stopped her heart. A son—but not mine, who cannot bear sons. She stared after him as he stood, walked unseeing from the chamber. He cannot mean that. Another son. But she could be certain of nothing. Nothing save the death that was regrouping on the south shores of that bay, the death that waited for her—and for him.
She would not tell him; he would never believe it, It would not matter to him; he would do no single thing different, knowing it. If he believed. My knowledge, my burden. She steadied herself against the wall, followed him out. In all the years since she had left this palace to follow him for the first time, she had never felt so alone.
She had brought together Folk and Nasath, Narrans, Sea-Raiders and Nedaoans, who could have foreseen such a thing? More than we could have foreseen that Nesrevera's arguments would bear fruit at that very hour, and that twenty of their kind had defied their Elders’ decree to step across that threshold separating their world from the Peopled Lands. Or that once again it would be Ylia's blade and not her Power that so harmed the Power ranged against us?
27
Nalda was a hill ablaze with lights for most of the night, as deliriously happy folk celebrated. Even those Nedaoan sword who ranged the docks, keeping watch over the six black-hulled Sea-Raider vessels tied there, laughed and joked and traded winejugs and song with those aboard the ships.
Here and there through the streets or above them, a few guards were posted, though Bendesevorian had assured them this was not necessary. He had not only seen, he and several of the others had gone to verify, what he saw. Lyiadd and Marrita would not come against them this night. There was a strong allied force strung across the beach, north and south of Lyiadd's army. Three Sea-Raider ships and Shark blocked the mouth of the river, and Nasath watched there too.
The Lord Mayor's doors were open, and wine casks had been set by them so that anyone passing could have a cup, in celebration of the victory of the Battle of the Bay of Nessea. But inside there was a meeting somberly at odds with the celebration without. The Lord Mayor was there, surrounded by his own Council; Ylia and Galdan, with most of their own War Council; Bendesevorian, his cousin and the two older Nasath who had defied the Elders’ thousand-year order; Eya and three of her Council, these last uncomfortable indeed at being inside a building. And, at Ylia's left hand, at her own request, Lord Captain Mal Brit Arren, to represent their new ally.
The first flush of victory gone, the newly renamed Lord Captain was eyeing his so-called comrades uncertainly, hoping his face hid what he was thinking. None of these had any reason to love his kind. But at the moment, he was very aware of what he had deserted. Lyiadd was no one to cross, and in the heat of battle, heady with Vess’ death and the scent of freedom, he had done precisely that. And Lyiadd lay squarely between Nalda and the Isles.
Ah well, he thought uncomfortably, it would have been an impossible situation, whatever he did; perhaps this way some of his men might survive this wizard's war. Whatever became of him. But he must have been mad to swear faith to Nar, and worse, to join hands and take oath with a woman!
These others at the table: women, not only her but another, and she full Ylsan by the look of her. Nedao's King, but unlike any Nedaoan he had ever met, this one had Power. Her doing, perhaps, or that of one of the others, beyond him—it made his scalp crawl, even after all he'd seen of sorcery these past years, to look beyond Galdan at the creatures there: Guardians! Folk! Landlocked myth, all of it, but there they sat nonetheless, and he in their midst! Well, he wasn't the only one nervous about them. The old man at the Nedaoan King's elbow—Swordmaster, wasn't he?—looked like he'd be anywhere away from magic, looked unhappily aware that he was surrounded by it.
“We cannot let them recover. Lord Corlin spoke up from his place half-way down the table. “Nothing was destroyed but a stone—and Vess. Against what is left, that is not enough. There is a fresh army out there, and we know that is not all Lyiadd's armed.”
“No,” the Lord Mayor said uncertainly. He was out of his depth, but he had pledged Narrans to the fight to come; and felt obligated to say something. “Once that army is gone—do we take Yslar?” Erken shook his head.
“Not sense,” Brit Arren found himself saying, though he'd intended to keep his mouth shut for present. “Beyond Lyiadd's Power, there are seventy more of our ships in Yslar Harbor. There are also Ylsan ships, those of the Osneran mercenaries. We haven't the strength of numbers to attack Yslar, and I cannot yet swear to the allegiance of half the men of my kind there.”
“Not Yslar,” Galdan said flatly. “As the Lord Captain says, not sense.” In spite of himself, Brit Arren smiled faintly. If this Nedaoan King had any grudge against Brit Arren and the ships and men under him, he gave no sign of it. He thought he could like the man, given half a chance. “Not yet. And if we destroy Lyiadd's army, we may never need go there.”
“Perhaps,” Corlin said dubiously. “He cannot leave us the advantage; we took that; here, no matter how strong his Power or his strength of armed in Yslar. And he lost allies.” He glanced at Brit Arren. “But we cannot let him live!”
“There is a place—I will know it. We will destroy him there. Lyiadd.” Ylia spoke for the first time in hours; she looked dazed. She shook herself. “Don't look at me like that, I'm neither mad nor possessed,” she added flatly and much more like herself. “I will know. You of Nedao, at least, have trusted to my sword for a number of years now; trust to the Power that is mine also.” Can I blame them for such looks? she wondered unhappily, Too many things were changing and she was so sensitive to so many kinds of Power. It frightened her, as the sword once had. What will all this leave of me? But what was left of her now? Friends dead, her son dead, her Power twisted and changed until she was no longer certain of all its form or its direction. Her body—
But that at least no longer mattered. Vess had done things, but he had paid for them all. It was past, gone. Another life. Other people, both of them, that Vess, that Ylia.
“Lass knows,” Marhan growled. The dubious looks were transferred from her to him.
The Swordmaster glared back at them. “She has Power, ye all know that. Hasn't played us false yet, has it?”
“We had best be ready to fight at first light,” Galdan said before anyone could take up Marhan's argument. He, for one, was too tired to either listen to squabbling or to separate any who chose to fight tonight, and Erken looked tired enough to argue. “We have watch out; those of us in command will not watch tonight. I suggest those who have beds find them, and get what sleep we can.”
“He's right,” Erken said. “We had a certain advantage today; we cannot count on that tomorrow. Save that Vess is dead.”
Bendesevorian leaned forward. “There are now more than twenty Nasath here, which will simplify certain matters for you. We can bridge full companies of Nedaoan armed back to the valley and bring fresh armed here. What we can do to help, we will. Also my sister is meeting with the Elders tonight, and while my cousin doubts she will succeed, there is that chance.”
“We will count on what there is to count on,” Galdan said. He smiled. “My friend, you and yours have already aided us greatly, and we are grateful. An exchange of armed will be most useful. Corlin, you should return to the valley to take charge there. Trade off as many companies as you can; remember Lyiadd's troop is fresh. Send Brel and Golsat back.” Corlin nodded.
Brit Arren hesitated, then cleared his throat. “I do not have enough ships to harry Yslar, or even to be much use in a battle. But we can guard your backs.” The wary looks he got were no more than he expected, and old Marhan looked just short of laughing aloud. His mouth twisted. “Even a lifelong enemy can have honor, according to his own lights. I have sworn to the Nedaoan Queen, and to King Galdan. Trust us or not, as you choose! But Lyiadd might think this good opportunity to burn Nalda to the ground. He is devious.”
Like a cat, sneaking and sly, he would have added, but the four-footed creature down-table was watching him. Gods. Ylsan cat, AEldra and yet cat ... and that full-blooded Ylsan noblewoman holding it. He pulled his gaze away from the cat's level, unblinking—he would almost have said measuring—gaze. The thing might be able to read his thought, and if it did not like what it saw—!