No sooner had she asked the question than someone rapped urgently at the parlour door.
‘Enter!’ she cried.
Her butler, Giles, appeared and bowed. ‘My lady, pray forgive me for this interruption. A post rider has just now arrived from the palace.’
‘Usher him to me forthwith!’ Asrăthiel’s heart thudded. Beacons or no beacons, she hoped, desperately, that the messenger would be bringing a long-overdue communication from her weathermaster kindred who had journeyed to Cathair Rua on what she considered to be a perilous mission.
Foreseeably, the urisk Crowthistle was nowhere to be found during the time that Giles or King Warwick’s post rider occupied the parlour. The incoming envoy swept his hat from his head and saluted the weathermage on bended knee as she stood, tall and elegant, beside the divan, anxiously awaiting his news.
‘Most esteemed Storm Lady,’ said the messenger, ‘King Warwick has charged me to proffer you his most cordial greetings. He begs to inform you, my lady, that grave tidings have lately reached King’s Winterbourne.’
‘Tell on.’
‘My lady, the countries of Slievmordhu and Ashqalêth have mobilised in war against Narngalis.’
Asrăthiel said nothing, but her left hand gripped the back of the divan as if she required support to remain on her feet.
‘The armies of King Uabhar and King Chohrab are on the march,’ the post rider continued. ‘At their current rate of progress they will reach the borders of our country in ten days, maybe as few as eight. The defenders of Narngalis are being called to arms. Battle will be joined anon.’
‘Has Grïmnørsland been informed?’
‘Indeed, my lady. Semaphores confirm that King Thorgild has been notified and is preparing to come to our assistance.’
The damsel quizzed the envoy further as to what else he knew. When she was satisfied that he could tell her no more she dismissed him, bidding Giles attend to his needs. For a while she remained in taut silence. The only sounds in the parlour were the crackle of flames, the soft swoosh as a burned-through log shifted, the mutter and moan of a rising breeze against the leaded windowpanes.
The Councillors of Ellenhall and their companions had long been absent from Rowan Green, ostensibly enjoying King Uabhar’s hospitality in Cathair Rua. Only a single message had they sent home. In it, they stated that all was well. In sudden hindsight, Asrăthiel wondered whether the communication had been concocted by Uabhar, to mislead Avalloc and herself. The weathermasters had failed to return, and now Slievmordhu marched to war. All was now terribly clear. With his military offensive in mind, the king had undoubtedly taken the weather-masters hostage to prevent their opposition. Ruthless intriguer that he was, he had betrayed his own guests. In all likelihood they were at this very moment chained in his dungeons. It must have been their attempts to save themselves that had caused the atmospheric disturbances that had so unsettled her.
Asrăthiel could barely contain her anger when the treachery of Uabhar was borne out by the tidings of war. Her initial impulse was to fly Lightfast to Cathair Rua so that she might rescue her kinfolk. Even as she commenced to plan the excursion, however, she recalled to her chagrin that it was possible for sky-balloons to be shot down. The envelope’s fabric could not resist metal barbs; besides, Uabhar’s archers could launch flaming arrows at it and at the wicker basket, so that Lightfast would catch fire and fall from the sky like a meteor. Even though Asrăthiel could not be harmed, if she were captured and thrown into prison she, like the others, would be unable to aid Narngalis against the invaders. With her impetuous scheme of action in tatters, she could only bluster and fume.
As she pictured her beloved kindred and friends chained to the walls of some dank cellar, the damsel’s rage redoubled. Yet she mastered her temper swiftly; this was no time for tantrums, there was work to be done. To ensure their freedom, Uabhar must be quelled.
She had no doubt the urisk still lurked nearby. ‘Urisk,’ she said then into the shadows—for unaccountably she could never bring herself to address him by the odd name he had once revealed to her—‘you have heard the news; ’tis grim indeed! I can scarcely believe it! I must hasten, forthwith, to King Warwick’s aid. It may be that I shall not return to The Laurels for some long time.’ She hesitated, made as if to impart more, then subsided, her mind racing.
‘Well then,’ said the voice of the wight, ‘so be it.’ The urisk moved from the gloom into the firelight and stood on the hearth rug, the coarse, curly hair of his head haloed in gold. ‘You must leave this place, and so must I.’
‘You?’ The declaration startled Asrăthiel, jerking her out of her state of feverish abstraction. ‘What can you mean?’
‘What do you mean, What can I mean? Did you suppose I had made your brick pile my home, as if I were some stray hound you’d adopted?’
‘Nay, of course not,’ the damsel bluffed, although she had assumed exactly that. ‘Where will you go?’
‘Where I will.’
Feeling fractious because this blow fell on the back of the first, the damsel sought to dissuade him. ‘These are dangerous times.’
Firelight laved the ragged and diminutive form of the wight. He uttered no word, but his nonchalant pose and the contemptuous tilt of his goateed chin communicated, Do you truly believe I am unaware of that? Do you suppose I care?
Asrăthiel was smitten by an unexpected sense of loss. She had presumed that the urisk would remain at The Laurels, even while she travelled about on the king’s business, and that he would be there to converse with her, delight her and vex her whenever she came home. Understanding afresh that nothing eldritch could ever be truly tamed, she felt bereft, as if something valuable had been stolen away.
All at once there seemed to be countless matters stored in her mind that she had intended to discuss with the creature, yet had never mentioned. She tried to recall them all, but in the urgency of the moment most of them eluded her. Seating herself on the edge of the divan and twisting her hands together in her lap she said, endeavouring to keep plaintiveness out of her tone, ‘Why do you want to go? Have I offended you?’
‘My reasons are my own. No, you have not.’ The wight crossed to the window and leaped agilely up onto the ledge. Resting his forearm against the panes and his brow on the back of his wrist, he stared moodily out towards the far-off beacon fire. In the fireplace the black husk of a log imploded, setting off a brief fireworks display and conjuring a swathe of smoke ghosts.
At length the damsel said resignedly, ‘I see you keep your own counsel, as ever. I will not pry. Allow me to say, though, that I will be sorry at your departure. Long have I believed you to be—’ she broke off, paused, then stammered with gaucherie that surprised herself, ‘extraordinary. That is to say,’ she went on hurriedly, ‘I believe you are different in most respects from other wights of your kind. I have learned that you possess deep knowledge of the great sciences, encompassing vast lore that reaches from the paths of the stars, to the minds of humankind, down to the roots of the mountains. You will tell me that I am not as well acquainted with other wights as I am with you, and therefore have no basis for comparison. Yet many tales are told about eldritch creatures, and not in any of them is there reference to one such as you.’
‘Every living being is unique.’
‘Are you the king of the urisks?’
The urisk laughed, but with no good humour. ‘Quit conjecture,’ he said. ‘Keep to your weatherworking, which you are better at. Urisks are solitaries, and have no king, as anybody knows.’
‘Are you determined to leave this house?’
‘I am.’
‘Will you sometimes return? Will you visit?’ she persisted.
‘Weatherwitch,’ the wight said, ‘I seldom make promises.’
Asrăthiel nodded, struggling to keep her face from crumpling into an expression of disappointment.
‘But this I avow,’ he went on. ‘In your most bitter hour, look for me. I will come to you.’
Touched by this unusual gesture of kindness from a creature prone to be as prickly as his namesake, the weed crowthistle, Asrăthiel was on the verge of thanking him for his offer of protection, before recalling the eldritch prohibition on that form of expressing gratitude.
‘Your courtesy is appreciated,’ was all she could manage, shyly, suddenly awkward for no reason that she could fathom. Ridiculously, she almost laughed at the concept of such a small, innocuous object, no matter how unlike other urisks he was, proposing to aid a weathermage. Promises made by immortal entities, however, always held fast, and eldritch protection could be formidable even when offered by a dwarfish domestic creature who walked on the hooves of a goat.
Giles rapped at the door a second time, and during the ensuing bustle the urisk disappeared. Later, when her thoughts turned to her odd companion once more, it came to Asrăthiel that it should be no surprise the wight would wish to emigrate now that battle loomed nigh. The quarrels of men would hardly be to the taste of one such as he, who considered himself infinitely superior to the human race, and it was unlikely he would risk accidentally becoming embroiled in them.
Over the years his companionship had pleased her more than she had ever admitted to herself. They had shared numerous jests. Her confidence in him was such that she had entrusted him with many of her innermost thoughts and feelings. Besides, she would grievously miss his treasuries of knowledge. The erudition of this immortal being seemed boundless; she supposed he had lived long enough to know practically everything. He could describe events of the dim past as if they were still fresh in his memory. He proved himself master of the lore of hidden things. Once, he had described to her the strata buried miles below the surface of the ground, the layer upon layer of clays and shales and sandstones; the fossils held frozen in time within those layers . . .
Had the weathermage but known it, one of those fossil-bearing layers ran deep beneath The Laurels, its carbonate-rich beds preserving a wide variety of petrified invertebrates. Sporadically other such shale strata stretched underground for many leagues; beneath mountain ranges, rivers and lakes, beyond the Riddlecombe Steeps, all the way to the caverns perforating the Great Eastern Ranges in Slievmordhu.
From those exact stenchful caverns the last of the Marauders were marching out to make war. They issued forth in no orderly way, not in ranks or files, not marching in step nor organised into battalions and regiments, but in ragged groups or pairs or alone, each making his way as he thought fit. These haphazard crowds had been instructed by their leaders that their only purpose was to attack soldiers who wore the battledress of Narngalis or Grïmnørsland, and to leave the other uniforms alone—for now. Later, when otherkind—the rest of the human race, including their allies—had been weakened and their numbers thinned by their struggle against each other, and their farms and villages left unprotected, when they were at their most vulnerable, then would the Marauders turn upon them all, and rend them. But for now the comswarms must appear compliant.
The tardiest stragglers amongst them, Scroop and Grak, were reluctant conscripts. They had spent the evening endeavouring to keep a low profile—no simple task, with profiles that resembled barnacle-covered flotsam—and in their efforts to spy on everyone else, they had inadvertently become witness to a large company of trows gliding northwards, flitting almost soundlessly through the twilight like bundles of tattered webs on spindly sticks. The uncanny sight had unnerved them further.
‘Shake an ’ind leg, ya misfits,’ their captain bellowed, pinning the stragglers with a baleful eye. ‘Do not think I cannot see youse loitering be’ind, up to ya sly tricks. Youse are comin’ to ’elp us foight, by ’ook or by crook, ya cowards!’
Unwillingly the pair loped along in the wake of their cohorts.
‘Gunna get skewered if we obey orders,’ Grak said to Scroop out of the side of his mouth.
Scroop blinked two of his eyes and nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he replied in his peculiar, high-pitched voice. ‘Kings’ war boys got wicked weapons. Skewered, all right.’
‘Don’t wanna get skewered.’
‘Nope.’
‘Captin’s takin’ us north, inta Narngalis, inta the ’ome territory of the Narngalishes.’
‘Them with reel sharp swords.’
‘We ortta disguise ourselves. Ittud be safer.’
‘Yeah.’
They scratched their flea-bitten ears.
The same stars glittering peacefully above the caverns of the Marauders also glimmered above the city of King’s Winterbourne. Their light silver-plated the basalt battlements of Wyverstone Castle. Within that fortress much urgent discussion was taking place. Royal personages were consulting with advisors, secretaries of state, bailiffs and other well-informed members of the household. Around this inner conclave soared oak-panelled walls, detailed in gilt and hung with crimson damask. Through traceried windows the stars were shining, but it was lamplight that sparkled upon the gold-threaded fabrics and jewellery of the room’s occupants.
Asrăthiel was present, clad in a travelling cloak almost as blue as her eyes, and a square-necked gown of brocade. Upon her head she wore a stiffened coif whose front edge was decorated by a band of fine silverwork set with moonstones. The white jewel that had belonged to her mother glistened on a fine chain hanging about her neck. In honour of her parents she had taken to wearing it; a token of her father who wandered afar in mapless marches, and her mother, safe at home but doomed to sleep endlessly, high against the wind-scoured alpine sky in a glass cupola fretted with roses.
The damsel had just received a semaphore message from her grandfather at High Darioneth, the contents of which she made known to the conclave. Uabhar’s display of military aggression had confirmed Avalloc’s suspicions. Like Asrăthiel, he and the few remaining weathermasters were now convinced that the King of Slievmordhu had captured their kinsfolk; that he was holding them prisoner, bound and gagged, so that they would be unable to use their powers to interfere in the conflict. The first investigators Avalloc had despatched from Rowan Green had mysteriously failed to return. Since then the Storm Lord had sent a second company of daring and capable men on a mission to infiltrate the palace at Cathair Rua, by use of deception, or disguise, or whatever means were required. They intended, if necessary, to break into Uabhar’s very dungeons. To locate the captives and set them free was their purpose.
‘Even if this rescue expedition meets with no success, my kinsmen will surely find a way to escape,’ Asrăthiel said to King Warwick and his two sons. ‘Surely Uabhar cannot keep their hands and tongues immobile forever. A few words, a slight movement of the fingers will be all that is needed to command the brí, then wind and fire and water will burst lock and key asunder! When we have defeated Ó Maoldúin I will destroy his dungeons. How dare he treat my kinsmen so foully! Let us to the battle front forthwith!’
‘We ride south this night for the Eldroth Fields,’ said the king, ‘but you, Asrăthiel, will not accompany us. I would fain keep you safe from the fighting. You must remain here at the castle. If my troops cannot achieve victory on the field without your aid, we do not deserve to win.’
‘What? By your leave, Majesty, I yearn to avenge the wrong done to Rowan Green!’
‘Rest assured, I will send for you if needs be.’
‘Harm cannot be done to me.’ It cost the damsel dearly to reconfirm the qualities that set her apart from the rest of the human race, especially in front of Prince William, whose sudden recollection of her immortality was manifested only in a flicker of his facial muscles. ‘I beg of you, my liege—’
Warwick cut short Asrăthiel’s speech. ‘Of course I fully understand that you are invulnerable, Lady Maelstronnar; however, I direct you to remain here, for now. I am not willing to put you at risk of being captured.’
Despite her yearnings, the damsel knew she must comply with the commands of her sovereign. To indicate acquiescence she bowed to him, somewhat stiffly. Inwardly, she seethed. Masking her frustration with the accom
plishment of a true diplomat she asked, ‘How long will it be before Thorgild’s reinforcements reach us?’
The king nodded to his eldest son, and William answered, ‘We estimate that if he can marshal his troops within a week, then make a forced march across country, he will arrive in the middle of Juyn.’
‘So late!’ Asrăthiel cried in dismay.
‘By then we will have the victory,’ William’s brother Walter said a little too loudly, as if by sheer force of conviction he could overcome the formidable odds.
‘If not, we can, at least, hold out until then,’ William said resolutely. ‘We are on home ground. Our troops are familiar with the terrain, unlike the southern invaders. It is not merely by chance or necessity that we have chosen the Eldroth Fields to make our stand. We possess maps of the maze of ancient fridean delvings beneath the landscape. The largest of these tunnels and channels can be used for communications, and as fortified trenches for defence. Our nimblest raiders may suddenly appear in the midst of the foe, cause mayhem, then disappear, bringing down rockfalls behind them to seal the passageways. Ó Maoldúin knows nothing of this. The Fields of Eldroth will prove to be our allies.’
‘We need all the allies we can muster,’ Asrăthiel said bitterly, picturing the noble Councillors of Ellenhall under lock and key. She addressed the king. ‘My liege, I beg you to allow me to go and meet Thorgild on the road so that I may protect him and his troops, in case Ó Maoldúin sends a swift vanguard to ambush him, or in case unseelie wights waylay them. I will not be at the battle front, yet I will be aiding your efforts.’
The king pondered. ‘A splendid scheme,’ he answered presently. ‘Do so, Asrăthiel, and choose any of my people to accompany you.’
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