“Indeed,” said Innisth, in a tone that did not precisely indicate disbelief, but certainly disapproval.
“The Fortunate Gods may act only through men,” Quòn said. “Lest they create a disaster worse than the one they strive to prevent.” He was studying the Eänetén duke, his expression bland and interested. He added, “The cooperation of mortal men is thus indispensable.”
Innisth’s expression did not change.
“He saved me from the Irekaïn Power, you know,” Kehera pointed out.
“Yes,” Innisth said, a little testily. “I recall your mentioning the incident.” He gave the man a look of dislike, but he also raised a finger to indicate Captain Deconniy need not attempt to remove Quòn from the room, and he gave the sorcerer a nod that permitted him to speak.
“Three times,” Quòn explained absently, as though not very interested. “I’ve saved you from Irekay three times thus far. I, or the God.”
The very disinterest in his tone compelled belief. So did the scattering of fortunate coincidences that had brought them all to this place. Kehera reached out and laid her hand over her husband’s. He looked at her, and the hard line of his mouth eased, just perceptibly. Kehera said to him, “Tiro and I can do this. I know we can. But you have to give us the chance to try.”
Innisth said softly, “I do not doubt you. But in the end, it will not matter. If you create this bridge and I bind Eäneté into Raëh, then we will simply all be destroyed together when, in destroying Raëh, the Irekaïn Power becomes a God. I see no way any man can prevent this now.” He gave Quòn another look, no kinder.
“That is certainly one possible outcome,” said the sorcerer.
“Even that would be better than doing nothing,” muttered Deconniy, then glanced down in embarrassment when the duke fixed him with a cold stare.
Undeterred, Gereth said quietly into the little pause that resulted, “Verè is right. If we do nothing, Innisth, then we’ll be destroyed anyway, and we wouldn’t have even tried to prevent it. How would that be better?”
“They’re right,” Kehera declared fervently. “They’re right, I’m right, Quòn is right, and you know it, Innisth. So I trust you to make sure we all have a chance to do what we must do.”
She met his dangerous wolf’s stare without doubt, because she knew he would.
29
“They are being destroyed,” Kehera Raëhema said softly and agonizingly. “We will be too late.”
It had taken so long to organize everything. Too long. Innisth was almost entirely certain of it. But Quòn, on the other side of Kehera, said dispassionately, “Until the very end, there is always a chance for fortune to turn. Bridge the distance.”
Innisth half hoped she would refuse. But he knew she would try. She was brave. So of course she tried. He felt her reach out to her deep-seated Raëhemaiëth and take the tie from her brother. He felt it through Eänetaìsarè, which gave her some measure of its ferocious determination. If Tirovay Elin Raëhema tried to keep the tie, Innisth could not feel it. But Innisth thought the boy did not fight. That was what he felt: unspeakable trust and a yielding of the tie.
So Kehera took the tie. She took the great tie, the ruling tie; she took it away from her brother. Eänetaìsarè supported her, and Raëhemaiëth allowed her to take the tie, and Kehera opened a way between Viär and Raëh, through the screaming obsidian winds of the Iron Hinge. A way to step between the earth of Viär where now Eäneté had rooted itself and the home of her heart; a single step that spanned the hundred fifty miles between with glittering magic. Innisth wouldn’t have known how to do anything of the kind. Perhaps his wife did not know; perhaps it was Raëhemaiëth or the peculiar sorcerer Quòn or the Fortunate Gods themselves that made it work.
Then his wife gave the tie back to her brother. Innisth felt the boy take it.
Innisth knew that somewhere beyond air and earth, the Fortunate Gods battled the Unfortunate to make the chance his wife and her brother had seized. Mortal men had cast a handful of tiahel rods, and the Fortunate Gods were making them fall into the pattern they desired. Only it was men the Gods picked up and cast, and they were ruthless in the design of their hand.
Kehera was shaking. Innisth could do nothing to help her, except tell her what she wished to hear and then see to it that he had told her the truth. So he said, “We will come late to that field. But too late? Perhaps even the Gods have yet to determine that. We need not win. Only hold until the hinge has passed. Then Irekaìmaiäd will have missed its chance, and at very worst we will not find ourselves battling a God.”
“Four days!” said Kehera, all the dire impossibility of it in her voice.
“As we must do it, we shall do it,” Innisth told her flatly. He reached down and took his wife’s hand and swept her up into the saddle before him. Then he turned his neat-footed black mare and called out, “Eänetaìsarè! Eänetaìsarè!”
And from very far away, from the black forest and the gray rock where the wolves sang, the Immanent Power of Eäneté rose. He called the others, too, all the lesser Powers immanent in these southern provinces and in the lands of western Pohorir. He called them all, and then he lifted his hand high and brought it down in a sweeping gesture, and his mare leaped forward into the air, crossing all the miles between Viär and Raëh in a single stride.
Behind the mare the world cracked open, blazing with all the terrible brilliance of a lightning strike, and the first ranks of their own armies poured after them, followed them across all the miles of air in one lightning-lit instant, and struck the flank of the Pohorin force, hurling it back as a thrown rock will hurl back water.
Innisth steadied his wife as she perched before him, clinging to the black mare’s mane with both her hands. She did not seem afraid, trusting that he would not let her fall. He reined his mare sharply aside along the edge of the battle, her men Tageiny and Luad following, but his army—the men of Eäneté and Coär, of Viär and Risaèn all together—had driven hard forward. The Pohorin force seemed to take an astonishingly long time to realize what had come against them was not some little force, but a combined army very nearly as large as the one they already faced. The field was locked in disorder. Almost at once, Innisth gave up trying to understand the battle with ordinary human sight, listening instead to the brilliant, savage awareness of Eänetaìsarè.
“Are we too late?” his wife asked him, sounding overwhelmed.
The way back to Viär was gone now, dissolved back into the light. Innisth was almost glad it was impossible to retreat, because he knew with hard, clean certainty that this was the moment at which they must succeed or die.
“No more than we always were,” he told his wife, distantly pleased by his collected tone. He stood up in his stirrups, scanning the line of battle. He saw the dead Pohorin soldiers, blank-eyed, but still terribly, remorselessly, on their feet and advancing. But facing the Pohorin army, not too far away, Innisth glimpsed the Briar Rose of Eilin and the graceful Willow of Leiör, sweeping together to cut off and destroy a small part of the Irekaïn forces and then another small part after that, whittling away at the enemy like a man shaving slivers of oak away from a bit of wood he carved.
Eilin and Leiör were Harivin provinces, but Innisth also saw the fawn-colored Hound of Emmeran Nuò and the great-spreading Oak of Daè, both of which lay in the south of Emmer. So he knew that Tirovay Raëhema had done as he had promised, persuading many of the lords of Emmer to support Raëh and Harivir. And he had persuaded many of the lords themselves to take the field, carrying with them the strange unhuman awareness of their Immanences. Even the ladies had courageously ridden out onto that bloody field, unarmed against the empty-eyed dead men belonging to Irekay—unarmed save for the ties they carried. The woman on the tall bay horse beneath the briar rose banner must be Lady Viy, and there beneath the willow rode a younger woman who must be the Lady of Leiör, Lady Taraä. Where they passed, the hollow soldiers fell, though untouched by any ordinary weapon; their Immanences inhabite
d them and surrounded them and reached out to fight the Immanent of Irekay.
So much Innisth saw. Then curtains of snow came between the Eänetén force and the field of battle, confusing vision; and the light itself became unchancy under the black winds of the Iron Hinge. But he saw, through the snow and the obsidian winds, the Irekaïn standard-bearer ride slowly across the field on a terrible double-headed mount, a beast like a horse and also like a dragon. Behind him dead men rose and took up arms. It struck Innisth with terrible force that despite everything, he might indeed have come too late. He looked for the Gods’ servant, Quòn, but he could not see him.
The Winter Dragon standard swept forward and cut down the Blue Swallow banner of Lanis, and Innisth saw how the whole detachment faltered. He saw how ice spread out from the shadow of the Irekaïn banner, how the dead rose to their feet to follow the standard-bearer. He knew, coldly, that not even all the Fortunate Gods together could shift chance and fortune enough to save them in the face of that terror.
Then he felt a tiny shudder go through his wife and said coldly, “Do not fear. We shall throw them back.”
Before them, someone more daring or foolhardy than most rode a heavy horse between the Lanis detachment and the standard-bearer and personally draw the Dragon away. The obsidian winds tore past overhead and when a dragon screamed in balked fury, Innisth could not tell whether it was a man’s voice that cried out with the voice of an Immanent Power, or the voice of a true dragon overhead.
“Gods!” Deconniy said, fighting his bay horse to stay close beside them. Deconniy was on one side of Innisth’s mare, and Tageiny on the other.
The standard-bearer swung the Dragon banner around and sent his mad abomination of a horse leaping forward, and for an instant it seemed certain his challenger would be struck down, but at the last instant, the man spun his horse aside and sent it racing for shelter against the walls of Raëh. And the standard-bearer turned away.
“Raëh still holds,” Kehera said, like a prayer. “We have a chance after all.”
“Yes,” said Innisth. “The city will not hold another hour without us. Your brother will not hold without my support. But we are here, and I am here, and I shall support him as I must, if not as you desire. Perhaps we may yet prevail.” And he swung Kehera from his saddle across to Tageiny’s, snapped at Deconniy, “Protect my wife,” wheeled his mare around toward the battle, and sent her leaping forward.
If his wife said anything as he left her, or reached out after him, he did not know it. It was too late. He had left her behind and entered the battle.
No one—not Tirovay Elin Raëhema, nor Gereth Murrel, nor the cold and brutal Power that had mastered Methmeir Irekaì—could have truly expected the Wolf Duke of Eäneté to abandon his own lands and people in order to cast his strength into this desperate battle that was already lost. The new young Raëhema king had asked for him to do this, Gereth had asked, but Innisth was certain they had not truly believed he might agree. The Irekaïn Power, selfish and ambitious to the core, certainly could not have conceived of the possibility. Only his wife had actually believed that Innisth might choose to risk Eäneté to this end.
Yet she had been right. He had come straight into the jaws of winter, into this dark day of the Iron Hinge. He would not subordinate himself or Eänetaìsarè to anyone. But short of that, he would give what support he could.
There was no dragon above—not yet, at least, though one could not forbear to steal a glance upward now and again. But no winter dragon rode the black winds that streamed above. Those high winds themselves were terrible: the sun seemed to gleam dimly through an obsidian veil; curtains of snow and fine stinging granules of ice whirled among the embattled men so that visibility came and went. The entire field and Raëh beyond had become confused and uncertain.
At first Innisth had hung back, trying to see the underlying order to the battle. He had meant to find his wife’s brother so that they might see which of their Powers was greater and forge a bond between their lands stronger than either. He was confident his Eänetaìsarè could not be overmastered by any Immanent born from gentle Harivir and mastered by a boy still in his teens. He was nearly confident of that encounter. He would have mastered Raëhemaiëth, brought all Harivir under his own Power, and cast out the Irekaïn Power and all its works. He would have tried. But now he saw no way to even find Tirovay Elin Raëhema, far less come to him across this bitter field.
Nevertheless, he sent his black mare racing forward into the teeth of disaster. Eänetaìsarè rode at his back. If Innisth had turned his head, he thought that the tracks his mare left behind her in the churned mud and crimson-flecked snow would be the tracks of a wolf. But he did not turn. He singled out a Pohorin officer who wore the double-headed dragon badge on his shoulder and three marks of rank on his other shoulder, and struck him down. The man did not even have time to turn his head.
The death of ordinary men would not matter on this field, where the bitter Irekaïn Power filled dead men and brought them back to their feet, cold hands gripping their broken swords . . . but the officer’s death was still satisfying. Innisth wrenched his sword free and lifted it. The blood of the man he had killed ran down over his hand. He laughed. Eänetaìsarè lifted him up and threw him forward, a savage presence within and around him.
The White Stag of Coär swung into place at his side, and Riheir Coärin lifted his sword and pointed forward, to where, as the veils of whirling snow parted, he saw that part of the Pohorin army pressed the defenders hard. Innisth gathered his mare and sent her that way, with Eänetén soldiers to either side supporting him and the cries of the embattled sounding in his ears very like the singing of wolves.
The Pohorins gave way before the furious attack of these fresh and angry new attackers, and gave way again before the strength of the southern Powers. Anchored and unified by Eänetaìsarè, all the Immanences were for once in full accord with the stronger Eänetén Power that had mastered them.
The hard-pressed defenders cried out hoarsely in a fury of desperate relief and pressed forward with new heart. Before their determination, the Pohorins gave back.
For a long, trembling moment it seemed that the tide of battle might have turned, at least here, at least for this moment.
Then the white rider on the double-headed dragon-horse rode slowly and deliberately across the leading edge of the southern armies. The monstrous animal strode forward at a high-stepping walk, tossing its two heads and snapping its fanged jaws both to the left and the right, and where its clawed feet touched the ground, webs of frost spread outward across the ground. Where the standard-bearer passed, cold mist billowed outward in slowly descending clouds of vapor, and where the mist touched the earth, the mud froze into sharp glittering ridges.
The standard-bearer passed through the ranks that had come from Loftè, from Risaèn, from Coär as though he hardly noticed they existed; and men flung themselves away from his shadow in terror. His dragon-mount seemed to take pleasure in trampling the bodies of the fallen, and it reached out with both its long heads to slash at men or horses that did not flee quickly enough. Innisth could see that the white rider had bent his path toward the blue-eyed Cat of Nuò, and Irreith Nuòriy spurred bravely forward to meet him.
The Winter Dragon banner dipped and swung, its bladed tip glittering. The icy blade cut across the throat of the Duke of Nuò, who seemed to fall more slowly than he should. But he fell. Innisth felt—not his death, but the death of the Nuòrin Power, as Irreith Nuòriy struck the frozen earth at the feet of the Winter Dragon.
At his side, Riheir Coärin swore softly and fervently. “We should not be on this field, you and I.”
“We have no choice. Ordinary men cannot defeat that,” Innisth answered flatly. “That will require a true tie and a Great Power. Irreith Nuòriy was right to make the attempt. But the Immanent of Nuò did not have the strength.”
Coärin swore again. “You can’t think you can face that!”
Innisth lifted
one shoulder slightly in a minimal shrug. “The Power of Eäneté is far stronger than that of Nuò. And, of course, Eäneté is supported by many lesser Powers, including your Coäiriliöa.”
“For which chance I thank the Fortunate Gods, though I never thought I’d say so. But—”
“Someone must break the Power of Irekay or the day will turn,” Innisth said, which was obvious. “Tirovay Raëhema has gathered a great deal of strength to himself, and of course his strength is greatest within the precincts of Raëh. But I think he has not taken the field. Probably that restraint is wise. He is only a boy. And Eäneté is far better suited for this battle.” Innisth paused. Then he added, “I will save him if I can, Coärin. If Raëhemaiëth is broken, my wife will break as well.”
Their eyes met. The other man said quietly, “All right.” Then he said, “I’ll ride with you. To be sure no one comes between you and . . . that.”
“Yes,” Innisth said distantly, and sent his mare forward.
Across the field, the white rider turned his head, his face invisible behind the mask of his helm, and met Innisth’s eyes. He jerked both heads of his monstrous horse around and spurred the beast, which reared and flung itself forward, fanged jaws dripping blood and foam. The standard-bearer laughed. Innisth heard him even above the crash and clamor of battle. His laugh was not the laughter of a man.
In the forested depths of his soul, where Eänetaìsarè dwelt, the duke felt a blaze of—not fear, as a mortal man might feel fear, but a vivid awareness of peril. It was Eänetaìsarè’s awareness. A midwinter wind, too cold to be natural, came against him, sharp as shards of glass and ice. He shuddered involuntarily, but he did not turn his mare aside, nor look up to see whether he rode into the shadow of obsidian wings.
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