A command would have carried the day, but it was not in Solran to command him; not tonight. The Wayelyn did not know what the Order of Knowledge had discussed with the Kings; nor did he know what the Exalted had discussed with their parents—the gods who existed just within reach of their living children. But he understood that tonight, all bards were necessary, and every Master Bard within the confines of Averalaan was out in these streets. Solran had emptied the college of every able-bodied person within arm’s reach. And she had done so as bardmaster to the Kings.
Nor were the bards solely from Senniel; many of the bards from other colleges throughout the Empire regularly made their way to Averalaan for the celebration of lights. They, too, were in the streets, on the ground in which legend had stepped, firmly, into reality.
Songs would be written, of this dawn. Songs would be sung.
But only by those who survived.
The Wayelyn raised voice again, lending it the urgency of command. He was considered something of an outlier, among The Ten; he did not dress or comport himself in the typical manner of patricians. But he was The Wayelyn, and accustomed, in the end, to both command and obedience, where it was not his own; Tallos approached the largest group of people he could find and began to give them instructions.
In the end, Tallos was forced to lead them—and Tallos, bard-born, had a voice that might soothe the most terrified of people. They wanted the comfort, now, of leadership; they wanted the assurance of safety. And he gave it to them, inasmuch as it was possible.
* * *
• • •
Jester knew that Haval and Finch were on the move—in a manner of speaking—when the shadows across his feet began to ripple. He looked up, looked away from Birgide, who seemed for the moment as rooted in place as the trees she loved, and saw the arborii. They were tall; silver-barked, golden-barked, brown-barked; some had eyes of ebony, and some of pale wheat. He watched them pass between the rows of the Ellariannatte, their weapons raised, their shields taller than he stood.
The roots creaked beneath their feet—their bare feet—as they approached Birgide. She did not lift her head, did not open her eyes, but even so, she spoke.
“Protect the people of this city. They will retreat into The Terafin’s forests; see them to safety, where it is possible to do so.”
“At what cost?” one said.
“Any.” Her voice was low. “They are coming.”
“Yes.” They did not salute; nor did they bow or raise arms in an obvious gesture of respect. But the single grave word was all that was required. “And, Jester?”
“I’m staying,” Jester said, before Birgide could answer.
“We cannot afford to lose you,” Birgide whispered.
“According to Haval,” Jester replied, “Finch is the valuable person. I’m staying, Birgide. Don’t waste their time. If they drag me off, I’ll come back.”
Birgide was silent.
“And I’ll come back alone, isolated, without so much as a guard. Unless you put me in a cage.” He glanced at the tall, broad trunks of the Ellariannatte, aware that she could do just that.
“Leave him,” Birgide whispered. “Unless the Councillor commanded otherwise, leave him.”
They walked past her then, single file where the trees were most tightly placed, but three abreast where they were not. Their hair was a tangle of leaves, of vines, of moss; some bore buds and some bark. They wore no helms, no armor except their shields. Jester had seen them train and did not understand why Haval felt they were up to the task of fighting—not with the weapons they now carried.
Those weapons seemed symbolic, to Jester—as symbolic as their presence here, in the Common, as the forest that Jay had planted spread to cover the streets.
It was not.
* * *
• • •
“Warden,” the fox, almost forgotten although he had not moved, called. “They are coming. Stand your ground.”
It was Jester who asked—who demanded, “For how long?”
The Sleeper looked past the being who had been—who still was—fox. Jester did not look away in time; their eyes met.
“It will be an interesting evening,” the fox then said as he glanced at Meralonne. “Illaraphaniel, is it time?”
To Jester’s surprise, the mage shook his head. “Not yet. Not yet, Eldest, but soon. I know who you are. I know who you were. Not even I would be foolish enough to attack you from behind.”
This seemed to please the fox, or rather, the creature that had once been fox, and had never been fox at all. “They hear you,” the fox said.
“Yes.”
“Be careful, then; they look certain, now, to speak your name.”
Meralonne nodded.
Birgide whispered a word in a language Jester did not recognize; he looked up then. Above them all, the colors of dawn had begun to spread; to leak into the darkness that was, by sun’s rise, almost obliterated. What had once been midnight, what had once stretched naturally toward the vivid blue of clear, Averalaan skies, shifted color, becoming, at last, a deep, clear amethyst.
Jester almost closed his eyes. But if he was here for Birgide, he was here as witness. He watched as the amethyst skies opened, disgorging, at last, the creatures that had once flown above the library. Jester had seen Celleriant and Meralonne engage them; he had seen the cats hunt them.
They had always done so at a distance, at a remove.
Now, the dark wings of dozens of flying creatures grew larger and larger, as if they might, fully extended, blot out the sky. Jester had no names for them; some seemed bestial, in form and shape similar to the cats; some seemed vaguely human but winged. And the last, the last shape had wings that he thought might cover the newly risen cathedral if they were spread, tip to tip.
And this one, he did know, from childhood stories.
Dragon.
The Sleepers lifted voices, almost in unison, and the almost incoherent mass of aerial creatures shifted in an instant, as if they had drifted lazily in the sky waiting only for a command.
* * *
• • •
Birgide was aware of the shift in the skies above them both; aware of the creatures that accompanied that sudden, sharp drift of color. She was aware, as well, that they were not the only soldiers in the army of the Sleepers, but they were the only ones who were an immediate threat. She raised her face, opened her eyes, and saw nothing.
She opened her eyes again, as if she had failed to give her lids even the rudimentary command the first time; either they would not obey, or she was blind. She did not give in to panic because she had no room for more of it. Instead, she tried to speak.
Jester’s voice accompanied the attempt. She was aware of him as a pressure on her hand; aware of him as a warmth. There was no other warmth in this place; there was the heat of fire and the debilitating chill of the worst winter frost; he remained between them.
She could feel the fall of every tree that that her enemies destroyed; where she could, she tried to fortify the trees, to inure them to the magic the Sleepers commanded so casually. And she was aware that it was casual. The trees were like insects to them.
They were so much more than that to Birgide.
“The gates,” she whispered. “The demi-wall.”
Jester cursed.
“We’re not going to make the gates,” he said, his voice unusually grim.
She smiled; tasted blood in it. Her own. “The others can’t land. Not yet.”
“Birgide . . . there’s a dragon.”
“Not yet,” she whispered again.
* * *
• • •
The Wayelyn heard the tenor of screams shift before they banked. He understood that the silence that followed was not a cessation of terror, but a deepening of it. It was the long breath drawn before the true scream.
&nbs
p; Into that silence, he laid the whole of his voice, strengthening the power he now exerted. He labored under no illusions; people would die tonight. There was a very good chance, if the enemies were at all strategic, that he would be among them. The best work of the bards did not guarantee the city’s safety.
But fewer people would die with his intervention.
He did not lead the citizens he could gather to the forest; he ordered other bards to do so. If the bards were fractious—and they were, given their vanity and the healthy certainties of their own egos—they were responsible; not for something as petty as momentary prominence would they rebel against his commands.
He did not count the citizens that passed from the range of his voice into the hands of others born to the same talent; he did not count at all. The shadows that struck ground were as chilling as demons themselves might be; he was certain that the people whose lives he now struggled to preserve couldn’t tell the difference.
* * *
• • •
Gyrrick noted the shift in the color of sky; he noticed the change in the play of shadows, although the shadows cast by the looming crowns of the Kings’ trees were dense enough across the ground.
He noticed the chaos in the streets; saw people—of all ages—join the crowds in the streets themselves. They were like shadows themselves, to his eye, and they became almost insubstantial as he marked them; they were not the threat. Had they not been watching the skies around the spire of this new and unwelcome building—and how the magi would argue and fight over what its existence meant, if they survived—they might not have noticed the winged creatures that now approached from above.
But even those who paid little attention to anything but the new trees froze when the dragon roared.
Gyrrick felt that the sound of its voice was a blow, a physical sensation. He was mage-born, not bard-born, but he understood that the dragon possessed some thread of the bardic talent. Its voice could not be ignored; no shout, no scream, no other growl could equal it.
“Gyrrick,” Darniel said. “Yours.”
He grimaced. The bow he held in shaking hands flared to life as he gazed up, and up again, to see the dragon. The harpies had not yet landed; nor the gryphons; they seemed to avoid one another as they claimed dominance of the skies. The trees seemed to shift their crowns to prevent descent. Here and there, Gyrrick could hear the enraged cries of the predators; once or twice, he heard screams of pain.
He highly doubted that his bow—his arrows—would count for much against the dragon, the only creature in the sky who seemed likely to land, regardless of the trees’ attempts to hinder it.
* * *
• • •
The forest guard stepped out of the forest itself and into the streets of the city; they took care to remain beneath the shadows cast by the Ellariannatte. They flinched as the trees of their expanded forest were attacked, but did not appear to be injured by the destruction.
Finch watched them. Although Haval had taken command, in a fashion, he had given orders to the trees with regard to Finch. Finch had half expected to be left behind in the safety of Jay’s wild domain. Haval, however, had chosen to allow her to accompany his small army.
She wore the clothing of the Terafin regent, in itself impressive only to those with no experience of the wealthy patriciate. But she walked beneath the standard of Terafin, the House colors visible even in the shadows, the banner magicked in some fashion so that it might be seen. And she understood why.
The forest guards were not human. Although their forms were similar, there was nothing about them, even at a distance, that looked like people. Haval did not stand out in any significant fashion, but Finch did. So, too, the Chosen who accompanied her. She had not wanted to take them.
Haval, however, had insisted, and, as usual, he was right.
“We cannot leave all of our forces in one place,” the tailor told her quietly. “And I fear that they will not be enough.” They had both seen the dragon, but when Finch’s glance went, immediately, to the partially obscured skies, he shook his head. “Not there. The Sleepers were not, according to legends, beings of air or wind. No, Finch; these are not the only dangers the citizens of Averalaan face.” He raised his head and looked to the south. “There are others, and they will approach on the ground.”
She didn’t ask how he knew, nor did she ask what he could see; she could see the crowded streets of the Common, made new—and difficult to navigate—by the encroaching forest. She had walked those streets as a child; had come with Jay, avoiding the magisterial guards. She would never have dared to approach the Terafin Chosen, or the Terafin House Guards, circling the streets to avoid them as they passed.
“It is the festival of lights. On that day, the banners of The Ten are not terrifying and even the children you were did not go out of your way to avoid them.”
“We did.” Ironic, then, that she was here as one of the voices of authority; that she required people who were living as she had once lived to do what she had not dared to do then: approach. Trust. But no, she thought, there was one occasion on which even the den might approach the standards of The Ten. Advent. The gathering of The Ten, ten days in which each of the great Houses took turns, one House per each day, offering food and drink to any who approached the platforms set up for just that purpose, was ceremonial.
And it was now to the ceremonial that Finch’s thoughts turned. She had not, of course, come prepared as The Ten would be prepared; she had no food, no wine, no water with which to tempt the hungry. But her own experience of those blessed days of celebration guided her demeanor. She could not project as the bards did; could not awe as the magi did. But the people of this city—the people in these streets—had grown up, as she had, celebrating that one day of each year in which Terafin offered its bounty to the citizens of the hundred holdings.
To her, they had seemed magical, the scions of The Ten, the people special enough, talented enough, impressive enough to be offered a House Name. They had seemed so far above her she couldn’t resent them, couldn’t resent what they had. The House Guard, of course, wore dress armor, dress uniform; she had assumed—they had all assumed—that somehow House Guards were, like the people they served, perfect.
She had never dreamed that she would be on the other side, never dreamed that she would be regent to the most powerful of The Ten. It was to that foolish, naive child that she now turned, and from those early, almost daydream impressions that she now drew.
She understood why Haval had all but commanded the House banner that she, as regent, could request. Because Haval missed nothing. It was the exact banner, in size, in shape, that Finch herself had approached, once a year. It was the banner that offered—for one day—the safety of approach for people like the den.
She glanced at Torvan. He was not wearing the perfect, polished armor that he was required to wear on that day; she knew, now, how very little he respected armor meant entirely for display. She also understood why—on a day when his actual combat skills might be required—she wished he had.
“Captain,” she said.
He glanced at her, although his gaze flitted away, constantly in motion.
“You are to serve me now as if it were Advent.”
“Finch—”
“We need these people to trust us. We need that trust to be personal and instant.”
His lips thinned, but he considered her words, and she watched his expression until she was certain that he understood why. Torvan was not a fool, but the whole of his focus, from the moment he had approached her in the back of the Terafin manse, had been turned toward her protection.
He nodded, grim now. He did not tell her that he would not be able to protect her properly; he understood why she required this of him. So, too, Marave. Finch then gestured at four of the forest guard. “Hold the banner,” she said softly. “We will make our stand there.” And she pointe
d toward a copse of trees shadowed by the dark spire in the amethyst skies.
* * *
• • •
Farther from the dark cathedral, the winged forces finally found space to land. The Ellariannatte had spread throughout the hundred holdings, but not with the speed that the trees in the Common had multiplied; people had stopped, for a moment, to gaze up at the crowns of these new—and inconvenient—trees, in wonder and awe.
Whatever the Kings had been expecting, it was not this; precious few of the Swords had taken to the streets beyond the Common, where the Kings now stood.
Awe did not disappear immediately; it shattered only when the winged creatures began to kill—and feed.
* * *
• • •
The first of the Master Bards to die was Alleron, veteran of many wars, a man who had walked through torture and torment—if not his own—during the Henden of 410. He was older, wearier, and although in his youth he had been sent across the continent at the behest of Kings, he had spent the past few years in Senniel College, teaching.
The Wayelyn himself had sat by Alleron’s feet, listening to his humorless, stern lectures—lectures that could not and did not hide his love of music, of composition, and, in the end, of audience. Siobhan had admired him, in her tenure as bardmaster; Solran, her successor, did the same.
He could quiet a panicking crowd. The stern lack of humor he brought to a rambunctious class of the talent-born could be brought to bear instantly, it had become so instinctive. Every person present had a disappointed parent or two in their background. Every person, anywhere.
And when the screaming started, it was Alleron who spoke first, who sang first; Alleron who approached through a street becoming something unwieldy and other with the proliferation of trees. It was Alleron’s voice they heard, and it was to Alleron that they turned, because in his sternness was the hint of a distant authority. Authority that promised, in some measure, safety.
War Page 49