by Widowmaker
He could have played the coward’s part and kept quiet, let the older man have his dreams until all was over, and he knew that it would have been the most dishonourable thing he had ever done.
There was nothing to be gained by the news now, and nothing to be lost. No more than two hours past, he had been determined, proof or no proof, to use his knowledge of Ivern’s death as a lever against cu Ruruc, if Gerin couldn’t be swayed by anything else but anger. And then it became unnecessary. More than that, it had gone in a single instant from being no longer needed, to being far too late to say a thing about it.
But now, when the cue had been spoken and the time was right at last, Bayrd wanted above all else to be able to say something else. Your son betrayed you. But your son was suborned, your son was enchanted, your son is alive. All of it was true.
All but the last part.
“How did it happen?” Gerin’s voice sounded just as it had always done, but his face had the look of a man stabbed to the heart. Whatever hard words had passed between him and his youngest son when they parted would be there forever now. Whatever hopes of reconciliation he had been concealing behind that swarthy mask and brutal manner were dashed beyond all hopes of recovery. And though it had come from the lips of the man who was his ally now but his enemy at all other times, yet he was pathetically grateful for the news.
“Kalarr cu Ruruc killed him,” said Eskra. She didn’t offer any harrowing details, and was glad to asked for none.
“Why?”
Eskra hesitated, and Bayrd could see her consider and discard half a dozen comforting lies. That Ivern had defied Kalarr, that they had fought, that Gerin’s life had been threatened… But in the end, she told only the truth, and Gerin knew it.
“Because he was like his father,” she said. “Stubborn.”
“Thank you.” Just that, nothing more, and still there was no change in his voice. “Do what you must to free us from the threat of Erhal’s army, purkan’th-eir. So that we can turn our attention to…to this Red Serpent. Just one thing more.” He didn’t shout, but for all that, the words filled the room. “When we meet his army, the rest are yours. But cu Ruruc is mine and mine alone. He owes me a life. The bastard killed my son.”
“There are some things I’d rather not have had to say,” said Bayrd quietly, when they had a few moments to themselves, “and that was one of them.” He glanced at the little gaggle of ar’Diskan retainers surrounding their clan-lord at the other end of the room. “How long have you had this scheme about Erhal in mind?”
“Long enough. But I couldn’t suggest it myself. An Alban had to ask – and that Alban couldn’t be you.”
“Why?”
“Be sensible. I’m the ony Elthanek in this room. What would your honourable companions do to an Elthanek who suggested killing a high-clan lord by magic? They’d have taken off my head, and yours if you tried to stop them.”
“They’d have tried.”
“Brave words. You’re just one man, loved. You’ve just one sword. They’d have succeeded. But it doesn’t matter now. The idea’s their own.”
“And will you do it?”
“Oh yes. Bayrd-ain, understand this. Once all the talathen who raided Dunrath-hold were dead, I made a promise. That I would find out who was responsible, and I would kill them myself. Erhal or Yraine, Kalarr or—” she shot a covert sidelong look towards their grieving host, a look that lasted too long for Bayrd’s comfort. “Or Gerin. Even now would have made no difference. I would have done it anyway, somehow, somewhen. And I’d have made sure that whoever it was knew why they had to die. Not for me. But for the children. For Marla and Harel. Ours – and the ones who didn’t get away.”
“Then it’s all turned out very convenient, hasn’t it?”
“‘Convenient?’ Now you sound like ar’Diskan in full flight. Don’t tell me you disapprove?”
“I wouldn’t dare.” It rang false, and they both knew it, but Bayrd had long abandoned his own people’s notions of the niceties of war. It had earned him the sort of reputation that Dyrek ar’Kelayr had thrown in his teeth all those weeks ago, but it had also brought a certain peace to his domain that few of the other lords enjoyed. “‘If one death can prevent a thousand…’”
“‘Kill the one.’ Then you don’t think there’s anything wrong about an evil action done with good intent?”
“Is it evil? You’ve spent long enough telling me that there’s nothing evil about the Art. Just what it’s used for.”
“Bayrd, please.” And it wasn’t until then that he realized Eskra was really concerned. Despite all the hard words, all the toughness. When it came to the push, she needed reassurance after all. This wasn’t hot blood or fear, in defence of life or family. No matter how sound the reasons behind it, the deed would be as cold and calculated as the use of a block and an axe.
“Do it,” he said. “As well as you know how. This Land can well spare Erhal ar’Albanak.”
“More than you can spare Marc ar’Dru.”
Bayrd’s eyes widened slightly. Of everything discussed today, he had done his best to keep that one subject from his mind, and he thought that he’d succeeded very well. Until now.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes… What are his chances?”
“No worse than anyone else’s. Kalarr never learned how he was being spied on, so,” and she shrugged “he’s alive. You think you owe him something, don’t you?”
“Not just think, and not just something. His life, or at least a fair chance at it. He let us prepare, he let us overhear cu Ruruc’s plans – and he would have tried to do it even if you hadn’t helped him. Whether it’s Kalarr’s glamour, or because he really hates me now as much as he pretended, he was still my friend. He put himself in harm’s way and tried to help. If I can do something, I will.”
“Forward…!”
The trumpets blared and the drums rolled until their echoes came slamming back from the walls of Segelin, and the army of Clan ar’Diskan began to march. Their armour glinted for a while, and their crest-coats shone with the rich scarlet and white colours of the clan; but before they had travelled more than a hundred yards from the fortress, the glinting dulled and the colours muted as a drifting cloud of chalk-dust from the scoured perimeter rose and settled in their wake.
They moved forward in a single long column six men wide, footsoldiers leading and mounted kailinin bringing up the rear. Bayrd had been curious to see how that unwieldy mass of men and horses would negotiate the twisting route to lead them safely through the field of lilies around Hold ar’Diskan.
In the event, they didn’t have to. Thick, circular slabs of timber were laid across enough of the spiked pits, plugging them so that the path from the fortress gate was almost a straight line. It had taken twenty men, three hours and four carts to make that road; but with all the wooden plugs connected to each other by hundreds of yards of rope, it would take only minutes for two men and a windlass to let the lilies bloom again.
Bayrd, Eskra and the others sat well off to one side and watched them pass through the gate. “Cu Ruruc will be approaching from the north, lord,” said Kian ar’Terel, “and Erhal’s army from the south. How will we know to place our force correctly?”
“Kalarr cu Ruruc is a wizard, Kian-an,” said Eskra. “So am I. Rest assured, we’ll all find each other soon enough. You can tell Lord Gerin so.” The man saluted his acknowledgement and cantered off.
When he was well out of earshot, Bayrd turned to Eskra and looked at her in silence for a few minutes. “And then you’ll kill Erhal,” he said at last.
She stared back at him, armoured and helmed, unaccustomed to the weight – and less than happy with where it had come from. Bayrd and the other Talvalin kailinin were wearing their own battle armour, packed in case of need before leaving Dunrath, but Eskra was encased in a harness given to her by Gerin, the only tsalaer in the armoury that had been small enough to fit her slight frame.
It was inevitable that it should once have
been Ivern’s.
“I’ll do that at the proper time and not before,” she said, shifting uncomfortably with a slight rattle of mail against plate. Whether her discomfort came from the heat and weight of the armour, or from the subject under discussion, it was impossible to tell. “It’ll have to be the most effective time. Remember, we don’t just want him dead. The High Council can’t be given time to think of anything but the enemy who killed him. And it’ll have to seem to be the right enemy, or I’ll have done it all for nothing.”
“Then how will you…do it?”
Eskra drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, then gave him a tight, mirthless grin like those he had seen on the heads spiked above Segelin. “You don’t really want an answer to that, loved,” she said. “But you’ve seen a few examples of a killing sorcery. Just think about those – and rest assured, I’ll do him justice.”
“There they are,” shouted Kian ar’Terel, standing in his stirrups and pointing. “There, there!”
A constellation of tiny points of light twinkled far out across the moorland, edging a distant shadow that had nothing to do with the darker shade of Baylen Forest to the west. On this perfect summer day, so perfect that even Bayrd Talvalin could find nothing to complain about, a faint wisp of dust meandered into the blue sky. It looked so insignificant that Kian’s response seemed out of all proportion.
“Stay calm, dammit,” Bayrd snapped. If he couldn’t complain about the weather, except that it was already too close to the solstice for comfort, then he could at least vent some of his nervous annoyance on his excited retainer. Anyone else, and the reaction wouldn’t have been so out of the ordinary; but Kian was normally such a cold fish.
Eskra was watching him, and smiling a neutral sort of smile. “I told you there’d be no trouble about finding them,” she said.
“Yes,” said Bayrd. “But which them are these?”
“They’re coming up from the south. Erhal’s people.”
“Then,” and Bayrd rose in his own stirrups and peered at the visible horizon, “where’s Kalarr?”
Eskra stared thoughtfully at the edge of the forest, three miles away across open, rolling country. It was no great distance to cover in a cavalry charge, and she was remembering cu Ruruc’s words, overheard through Marc’s encharmed ears. We’ll
wait until Erhal and ar’Diskan are done hacking at each other, then move in and make an end…
“You know more about troop movement that I do,” she said. “Could they be among the trees?”
Bayrd looked, waited, considered, and then nodded. “Possibly. But Fire Above, that would mean they’ve been tracking Gerin’s army for more than a day, that they’ve missed a dozen chances to take the entire column in flank, that they didn’t even attack the camp last night…”
“All right. I understand now. But could they be there?”
“Yes.”
“Then that’s where they are. Tell Gerin.”
“What…?”
“Do it!”
This time there was no dignified cantering. Once he had the message, Kian ar’Terel wrenched his horse around, clapped heels in its flanks and took off full-gallop in a showy spurting of dust. Eskra watched him go, shaking her head. She ran her fingers through her hair, grumbled something about wearing a pot-lid in this heat, then put on her helmet and began very carefully to tighten its chinstraps.
“You really mean it, don’t you?”
“I don’t make jokes about men carrying steel. At least, not unless I know they’ll laugh. I told you before, Bayrd-ain. I can recognize him. I can sense his presence. Just as you can close your eyes and still point straight to where the sun is. He’s in the forest. Watching and waiting like the scavenger he is.”
“But if he’s hidden, then how—”
“Am I going to throw Erhal’s army at him? Just wait. Leave that to me. You won’t have to wait long.”
Bayrd could see how she was nipping her lower lip between her teeth, and could even see a thread of blood where she’d broken the skin. “Is it dangerous?” he asked gently, even though he wasn’t sure what he could do if she said ‘yes’.
“Dangerous? A little. All sorcery is dangerous. But I’m healthy, well-fed, well-rested,” – she forced a grin at him – “and the spell I have in mind needs no more effort or risk than having a baby.”
“No more…”
“I know what I mean.”
“Yes. So do I. That’s the point.”
The two armies had been drawn up in their various ranks for half an hour now, and still nothing had happened. There was no wind to cool them, and that half hour of immobility in the hot sun, the grittiness of the settled dust, and the flies that battened on men and horses alike made their patience a punishment. If Kalarr cu Ruruc was truly watching from beneath the shadowed eaves of Baylen Forest, then there was little for him to see.
“What are they doing?” muttered Eskra, as Gerin and his personal retainers trotted up and down the length of the battle-line for the fifth – or maybe the fiftieth – time. “What are they waiting for! An engraved invitation on a silver tray?”
“More or less,” said Bayrd. “A formal exchange of challenge and defiance, anyway. But Gerin’s not going to offer that until he’s sure he’s chosen the best formation against superior numbers.”
“Doesn’t he trust me?”
“It doesn’t matter if he does or not. Why make it obvious that he could have something in mind besides a proper battle? And, well, just in case. Look.” He pointed as a hundred or so horsemen wheeled out of their position and took up another fifty yards to the rear. “You see. That covers the flank against any—”
“What I see is that Lord Gerin has spent too much time with his map and his little wooden counters. They don’t sweat; they don’t get thirsty… And they don’t need to pee!”
“Ah…And you do?”
“Fortunately not. I need all my concentration for the spell, so I – oh Firefather, now what?”
“Count yourself lucky there aren’t any mercenary troops on either side.” Eskra glanced at him from under the rim of her helmet and pursed her lips, determined not to satisfy him by asking why. So he told her anyway. “Because the next step would be for the mercenary commanders to meet with each other and the opposing lords, to possibly renegotiate their contracts.”
“You mean to tell me that one of them could buy up the enemy’s army?”
“Part of it, anyway.”
“This is a joke.”
“No. A standard tactic.”
“I wasn’t laughing, loved. This is a joke. For six years I’ve heard and read how your people won your invasion because the old High Lords of the Provinces – my people – made war for sport and didn’t treat it seriously. Yes?”
“Well, yes. I suppose.”
“You suppose. So how does treating war as a business make it any more serious?”
“Profit.”
Eskra turned her head and stared at him, waiting for the smile, the wink, the grin that never came. “You mean it. Light of Heaven, you really mean it.”
“No. But Gerin does, and this is his…What is it?” Eskra said nothing, but Bayrd closed his teeth on whatever he might have said next because her expression changed, became distant and unfocussed, almost as if she had fallen asleep with her eyes wide open.
“Marc’s there,” she said, coming back with a blink. “He’s with cu Ruruc.” Bayrd didn’t ask how she knew. There could be a dozen ways, and he might not understand half of them. “And the glamour’s slipping.”
Now that, Bayrd did understand. “Glamour? Not your charm? Then it was cu Ruruc all the time?”
“So it seems. Good.”
“Why, good?”
“Because Kalarr’s using his power for other things. Once he’d killed Ivern and Etek, he was able to focus more fully on Marc. That swamped my little spell, and made me think that it didn’t work – or need to work – any more. But Kalarr cu
Ruruc knows I
’m here just as much as I’m aware of him. He knows you’re here, and that makes it even worse.”
Bayrd looked blank, and Eskra patted him on the arm. The rasp of metal against metal sounded anything but romantic. “He knows you have the Talent, hopes you can’t use it, but doesn’t dare assume. You’re an unknown factor in his planning. So he’s taking precautions. A spellshield, by Heaven and the Light of Heaven!”
“So you can’t do anything to him,” said Bayrd dourly. “And we’re up against Erhal’s unbroken army.”
“No, no! I never intended to do anything to him. But he doesn’t have the sort of mind that could grasp such a simple difference.” Her impulsive good humour faded to grimness as swiftly as it had arisen, and she swung from her saddle to the ground. “All right,” she said. “It’s time.”
Bayrd dismounted as well. Not knowing what to expect, he grabbed both horses by the reins up near the bridle and held on tight, only to be somewhat disappointed by what followed.
There was no drawing of circles, no chanting of eerie spells, not even a consultation of the two books of sorcery that he knew Eskra carried in her saddlebags. Instead she simply plucked a handful of grass-blades and began to weave them into a loose braid. She added more and more until the braid became a sphere, and all the while she was talking gently to it – or perhaps only to herself.
But as the braid grew longer and curved around on itself to form the first curve of the hollow globe of grass, Bayrd saw sparks begin to crawl along it. A hotter and more vivid green than even the summer grass itself, they moved like tiny spiders, leaving a fine thread of silver webbing in their wake. Before many minutes had passed, the loosely braided stems of common moorland grass had become a thing more like a costly jewel of emeralds and spun glass. It lay on the palm of Eskra’s hand and sparkled in the sun, no larger than a child’s fist, delicate, harmless and altogether beautiful.
Until she raised her arm with a creak of leather and a scrape of mail that sounded harsh and jarring after the soft murmuring of her voice, and flung it overarm towards the forest. It was too fragile for such treatment, and should have flown apart or drifted to the ground. It did nothing of the sort.