It was, therefore, to Alleron that the enemy also looked.
His weapon was his voice; it could be used to comfort. It could be used for other things, as well—but as any man, he could not speak two things simultaneously. He spoke to the people whose panic he had broken, his voice sharper, the words shorter. And then he spoke to the creatures who had found purchase, at last, in the cobbled stone of the main streets.
His voice had power, this bitter morn. It was a power that had grown steadily with the passage of time. In the last few weeks he had achieved a peak that had never been his, even in his distant youth. He felt the truth of it now; the grounded forces of their ancient enemy froze for a moment in the act of hunting, of killing, of feeding.
But when they moved again, they moved toward the bard.
People streamed past Alleron, toward where the Ellariannatte grew thickest, and he held his ground as they, at least, escaped. He poured power into his voice, into his commands; it hit the winged predators in a wave, as if it were a strong wind and they were a field of wheat.
He knew it would not last. But while he spoke, people continued to flee—both toward him, in his bardic colors, and past, where they vanished beneath the shadows of branches, stumbling over the rounded curve of great roots. He knew what awaited him when his voice gave out.
And he knew it would give out soon.
In service to the Kings, he had walked the edges of battlefields before, raising his voice to pass the messages of Commanders to their soldiers. That work was fine, precise; it required practice and knowledge. It did not require strength in the same fashion; he had never once been ordered to bring an entire enemy army to its knees.
He could not have done it, on any of the occasions he had served at the Kings’ pleasure. Not then. He could do it now, but understood, as he did, the cost he would pay. But there was cost, and then there was cost.
The largest scar on the heart of the man Senniel students would have sworn had no heart was the Henden of 410. He had, of course, survived to bear that scar, but his nightmares always returned him to the streets and the screams that had grown in volume, hour by hour, to all but break the will of a city.
He had been all but powerless then. He had forced himself to sing sleep to the terrified, the tormented—the tortured were beyond the reach of even his voice. Sleep was all he could offer them. He had had power, yes. He had had prestige. He had had enough money that he might never fear starvation or cold. He had been accepted by patricians across the breadth of the Empire as guest.
And all of that—everything he had built for himself, of himself, in his adult life—had counted for nothing. Those lives, those citizens whose voices he could hear so clearly, were beyond him. Beyond them all.
And these citizens were not. Yes, dozens had died—and more would join them—but here, at last, Alleron could save them. His power and his knowledge could make the difference between painful, terrible death and the possibility of life.
He would willingly have died on that Henden’s darkest day, if his death had somehow been able to buy freedom and life for those to whom he had been reduced to singing lullabyes. On that day, the coin of his own life had been worthless. On this day, beneath these strange and terrible skies, it was not.
And he spent it freely.
The power of his commands diminished; his voice grew hoarse. He did not stop. He heard The Wayelyn’s sharp concern but could not reply. Every time he forced the enemy to stop, people ran past them, ducking out of the range of their exposed and bloodied claws; every time he demanded they freeze, the injured who could move struggled free.
And this was everything he had wanted, on that long-ago, terrible day. This was what he had daydreamed of, in the wake of the terrible nightmares that had been that Henden’s only gift to him.
He knew the moment his power began to falter; knew the moment when the last command he could utter left him. He felt the tremble and shudder of mage fevers, and he forced himself to give more. Because every second bought life, even if it was not his own, and every second bought peace.
And as the creatures he did not name broke free from the moorings of that shattered voice, he heard horns; saw the gleam of metal, of armor, in the distance behind them. A banner flew—and although his eyes were not so good as they had been in his youth, he recognized it.
Even as the winged creatures leaped, claws extended toward him, he smiled.
Siodonay the Fair was in the streets of the city over which she presided as Queen, and at her side, the Princess Royale, Mirialyn ACormaris, and their swords were as bright as their armor.
Chapter Seventeen
THE WAYELYN HEARD ALLERON’S voice more clearly than he heard his own, and he understood, instantly, what Alleron was attempting. He knew the cost; they all did. But he was the only bard to speak to Alleron as the bard-born do. Alleron’s lack of response was response enough. As he could, he commanded the bard-born, ordering them to stand their ground or leave the streets depending on the ebb and flow of the crowd that now fled in all directions, as if they were ripples on the surface of a pond into which someone had thrown a heavy stone.
He did not have the experience that the Master Bards did; he had not seen the battlefield in the same way, had not delivered—and accepted—messages that might otherwise be lost in the battle’s din.
He utilized the experience he did have, and knew, bitterly, that it would not be enough. When Alleron fell silent, he understood that the Master Bard’s voice would never be raised again. He felt it as a blow but could not allow it to stop him. There would be time for grief later, if the city survived.
Averalaan was the heart of the Empire, its crowning city. It had existed in one form or another before it was newly named; this would not be the first time in its history that the demonic preyed upon the citizens who worked in its most common streets. This was the first time that he contemplated its end; the Sleepers were not concerned with either the citizens—even as slaves—or the structures in which those citizens both worked and lived.
He saw a flash of fire—golden fire—streak past him; heard the shriek of pain that followed in its wake and turned. Ten yards away from where he stood, a flock had landed, Ellariannatte leaves protruding from their raised wings. One had been pierced by a golden arrow that even at this distance seemed to burn.
The magi had arrived.
* * *
• • •
Gyrrick did not carry a quiver; he knew nothing about fletching. What he knew could be summed up in two words: magic and intent. He had devoted his life to the study of magic, to the understanding of the talent to which he was born; more than that, he could not say about himself. If asked what he loved, his answer was magic; if asked who he loved, his answer was vague. Magic had been his toy, his entertainment, his devotion.
When asked to learn the arts of magical warfare under Meralonne’s tutelage, he had not hesitated. He had first drawn bow on a day when most of his compatriots had failed to grasp the lessons Meralonne had attempted to teach them, and he had held on to that bow while his companions had been pared away, one by one. Two had died in the attempt to create what Meralonne considered their only true weapon. Their deaths had angered the guildmaster, and Gyrrick had understood, when that anger had been seen, categorized, absorbed, that the only member of the Order of Knowledge that Meralonne considered, in some fashion, an equal was Sigurne.
But when she had attempted to put a stop to these deadly lessons, Gyrrick had defied her. He was not the only one; he was simply the only one to have already succeeded. Because he understood, the moment he had first drawn the bow from the core of himself, that Meralonne was right. This was his only true weapon.
He had drawn it—for real—on the day the Common had been attacked by demons in the past year. Where simple swords and man-made arrows had failed to pierce their targets, Gyrrick’s arrows flew true. Struck true.
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br /> He had been taught to summon fire; he had been taught to chill the very air; he had been taught to see, and to defend against, magical attacks. He knew that in a different part of the city, those lessons were being put to use by the mage-born. Had he been deprived of his weapon, he would be scattered among them. But those spells were not these arrows, and there was very little the winged predators could do to stem their flight or divert them.
He shouted orders to the bards, shouted different orders to the people under his command, and began to move. The guildmaster had given orders, and Meralonne had made clear that it was Sigurne’s orders Gyrrick was to obey.
* * *
• • •
Throughout the hundred holdings, horns began to sound.
Those who understood the call of horns knew what they presaged, and those who did not nonetheless took comfort in the sound: the army had arrived.
The banners of Queen Siodonay the Fair and Mirialyn ACormaris were carried at the head of a host of the centrii. So, too, the banners of Kalakar, for the Kalakar House Guard had left their house all but undefended; they rode at the command of The Kalakar. Mixed among them were the Kings’ soldiers, those men and women who had come victorious from the South. They had not thought to fight a war when their feet at last touched the soil of Essalieyan; they certainly had not thought to battle in the streets of the city itself. Most of the Kalakar forces were therefore unhorsed.
The Berrilya’s forces were likewise on foot, all save a handful—and The Berrilya abandoned his horse when he saw what awaited: chaos, civilians mixed in with the enemy, the dead already numerous in the streets.
He turned to the man by his side. “Orders?”
“The Kings command you to defend the citizens, where possible, against the aerial threat.” Almost without thought, the young bard looked up as the vast, almost silver underbelly of a creature out of legend blotted out the sky.
The Berrilya nodded. “We go,” he said, “to the North. Follow the tree line.” Lifting an arm, he signaled two units. “Lead the citizens into the trees.”
A decarus saluted.
“Our concern,” The Berrilya continued, answering the question no one asked openly, “are the winged creatures. Attempt to fend them off with bows; keep the combat at range for as long as possible.” He glanced up. He did not mention the dragon. They waited for the signal of the bard before he set his men in motion.
* * *
• • •
Jarven studiously avoided fleeing, screaming people. He stepped fastidiously to the left or right of bodies, pausing only to examine those that were not human. So, he thought, observing the wings, the claws, the flattened tail, of the creature that had died to the magi, the whispered reports had been true. The creatures that occupied the skies above The Terafin’s library were in no way natural.
Ah, no. They were not native to Essalieyan, not native to any lands that mortals had called home. The hides of these creatures were tough, more animal than human; the claws were claws. He detected no hint of magic about them. Magic, however, was not necessary. Very few of the citizens found in the holdings would survive such a creature’s attack.
He heard the raised voices of the magi, nodded, and rose.
The sky above the city was a shade of amethyst, a clear, deep purple that contained, at the moment, no clouds; no clouds save one. Above him, above them all, was a great, winged creature he presumed was a dragon, given its size and its voice. In the sunlight—where was the sun?—it almost glittered, and childhood fancy called that glitter scales; when it opened its jaws to roar, he could feel the sound in the earth beneath his feet. It was the dragon’s voice; at this remove, that was troubling.
Its roar was like the howl of the bitter winds in the Northern Wastes; people froze in terror every time they heard it. Nor was their fear simple panic; Jarven had far better control of visceral impulse than they, and he could feel the chill pierce skin, as if cold, as if freezing, were pure emotion, and not physical at all.
He was armed but chose not to be seen; he did not engage. As if he were standing upon a cliff that overlooked a battle, rather than on the field itself, he surveyed, he calculated.
He knew that he was not—or had not been—the equal of the Chosen on their own fields of battle and had never desired to be so; they served another. He served, as he had always served, himself. He was ATerafin because it suited him; it had been a goal because it was a fine weapon indeed with which to do battle among the patriciate.
That battle was now irrelevant. What he had learned in his years in the Merchant Authority, what he had learned before he had proven himself worthy enough to be offered the House Name, would do him little good today. He shook his head. He understood that he was mortal and understood, as well, that his mortality had been elongated, stretched; that he had the vigor and the strength he had once possessed, in the streets of the poorer holdings.
He had left those streets behind, but the cunning, the survivability, he had brought with him. And one part of that was his understanding of people.
He had only rarely engaged in the politics of the House; he knew the ways in which the House and its constituent members could turn upon itself, and he knew that surviving obvious entanglement might prove difficult. He had considered it, briefly, on the day The Terafin had died—not Amarais, but her predecessor. But if he was a man who valued the weight of position, he was also pragmatic. With weight came the yoke of responsibility. Could he advance the House? Yes, in theory. But Terafin was not the underdog in the Council of The Ten; it was, only arguably, the premier House.
And babysitting the fretful egos of the House Council might have caused him to murder them all and replace them with people less likely to be demanding.
But no. Murder was not, as he had believed as a youth, a simple affair when one lived among people. For one, the magisterial guards existed to discourage it. And when discouragement as a broad principle failed, they existed to investigate. Jarven was confident that he could slip under the net of that investigation—but that game would have to be played, and he could not afford to lose it.
Had never lost it, in fact.
But violence and murder were not something he enjoyed. If forced to descend to them, he had misplayed his hand. He did not, in the eyes of society, lose the game, but the eyes of society were frequently averted or turned inward in such a way that they did not see what was in front of their faces. Therefore, what they saw was irrelevant. To Jarven, it felt like a loss.
Someone had once asked him—ah, no, Haval had once asked him—in that peculiar, flatly neutral fashion, if Jarven valued people at all. Given their duties at the time, Jarven considered the question both impertinent and intriguing. He had always considered Haval intriguing; they were men possessed of the same raw ability, but Haval’s use of that ability had never been completely predictable.
Is that a personal question? he had replied, after genuine thought. Haval did not respond to the slightly pointed teasing. Yes. Nor did Haval offer sarcastic rejoinder. He simply waited, aware that Jarven had not finished.
As a reward for that patience, which Jarven was not above testing with a much longer pause, he said, Yes. Where there is only one man—even be he as impressive a man as I—there is no contest. There are no games. There is no hierarchy. No winner, no loser. There is a wasteland, Haval.
And the Kings? They are, in your scenario, the absolute winners?
Jarven had laughed. Jarven chuckled now. That was clumsy, but I will allow it. The perception of winning that others have is irrelevant to me. Do you believe that the Kings are, in any way, free? They rule, yes. They can, with some finesse, condemn a man to death. But they are not free to simply kill him themselves. They are not free to react as people; they carry the weight of the crown, the dignity of the crown, the responsibilities of it. They were born to it, and they come into their own only upon the death of their
parents; they cannot retire, cannot leave the palace without a flock of humorless men and women to stand between them and any meaningful interaction.
But I believe them to be necessary. I believe they hold the fabric of society stable, inasmuch as such a thing is possible. It is in part because they exist that I am free to do as I desire. I consider their existence of value to me.
Haval had simply nodded.
Jarven sighed. He had not yet been seen, but invisibility, such as it was, was annoyingly wearying. He turned, then, toward the heart of the Common. Toward the Kings.
* * *
• • •
In the South of the city, The Kalakar stood in a loose knot of her people. Her Verrus stood beside her, surveying both land and sky. Neither liked the fact that they would be fighting in the city streets; that they would, in the din and clatter of a battle that would bring down AKalakar, be surrounded by screaming, terrified civilians. Very few of her people were trained for combat in cities. The only unit she had once commanded that could fight anywhere were the Black Ospreys, and they were gone, their colors laid to rest, the people who had sworn by them in the Dominion, serving as guards to the newly established Tyr’agar.
The Ospreys, on the other hand, had never been particularly careful about civilians. She looked at the tree line. It was a literal line, which wound out from the Common, roots snaking through the hundred holdings as if they were long, long fingers in which to grasp and hold Averalaan itself. They were called the Kings’ trees by the citizenry.
They were called something else by her experts. The Kalakar, however, chose to refer to them as The Terafin’s trees. And although The Terafin was fully adult, the difference in their ages made her uneasy. The Terafin was, in some fashion, naive. Naïveté would correct itself, given both time and experience, but mixed with that naïveté was a dangerous, unpredictable power. More proof of that than these full-growth trees was not necessary.
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