War

by Michelle West

  Teller asked the only relevant question, then. “What if their call to war is to ride down, to hunt down, my kind?”

  “Then you will perish here. Against those who ride now, we cannot stand for long. But, Teller, it is the desire of our Lord that we make that attempt.”

  And he thought, no, it’s not. Jay would never ask the servants to pick up a sword and fight to protect the House Council. She’d ask them to flee, to hide, to send word if it was safe to send word—but maybe not even that much.

  8th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.

  The Common, Averalaan

  When the dragon roared, the whole of the Terafin guard froze. Even the House banner seemed to stiffen, the small movements of weighted cloth vanishing until the dragon’s voice could no longer be heard. At that point, movement resumed, and speech; tears and shouts of anger or fear.

  Finch motioned people toward the trees, adjudicated the quarrels that occurred when panicking people saw something other than fear for their immediate survival. Some people wanted to go back to their homes, to retrieve whatever possessions they prized. Finch could not order them not to do so, and she did not try. There were too many people to deal with; she could not prevent what might well be suicide.

  Only where there were small children did she attempt to intervene, but even then, it was costly. She could hear the clatter of weapons in the distance, and that distance was diminishing.

  Arrendas came to report. He was armored as a member of the Terafin Chosen, but the weapon he carried was not a sword; it was a pole-arm of some type. Finch had never been martial; she didn’t have a name for it, and at the moment, it was not relevant.

  “Torvan and Marave will remain with you.” It was not a question.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To test a weapon,” he replied, with a half-grin. “Can you hear the horns?”

  She nodded. Horn calls reverberated throughout what she could see of this forest-transformed city.

  “The last two mean there are now non-aerial enemies approaching.”

  She started to answer and stopped as a blaze of fire streaked up from the ground, illuminating a purple day that was already bright.

  Arrendas nodded. “We’re out of time, Finch. When Torvan tells you to leave, heed him.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The Kings were situated beneath a grove of Ellariannatte. The central tree was natural; it had existed as part of the Common for the entirety of Sigurne’s life. The rest of the trees, however, were not. She now watched what remained of the Common with care and deliberation. The Astari could defend the Kings against simple physical attack far more effectively than she; her role, her responsibility, was protection against foreign magic.

  Queen Marieyan had remained within the confines of Avantari; so, too, the princes. The Kings’ Swords considered that wise, and Sigurne had not the heart to tell them that wisdom would avail them nothing, in the end. She understood that what Jewel ATerafin had, unconsciously, made of large parts of the palace itself, any demi-god might make with equal alacrity. But the Kings were not fools; they knew what she knew.

  They knew that there was no safety anywhere on the Isle, anywhere in the city. But against such creatures that had filled this sky, Avantari had defenses, and some of those defenses were ancient. Had the Kings not been required for the ceremony itself, they, too would have been ensconced behind the walls of their home. They were not worried about the princes. The princes understood that if the palace came under attack, they were to call upon the aid of the gods that had parented them. They would enter the Between, the land where gods and mortals might meet without danger to either one.

  But they could not enter the Between if they did not have both time and the ability to prepare. Regardless, they were ready now, for attack. The palace was as safe as any mortal place could be; the preparations—the braziers, at least—were in place. They remained in their home.

  Queen Siodonay would not. Nor would the Princess Royale. They had girded themselves in the armor that was meant for royal parade. As they had done at need in the darkest of hours Averalaan had ever faced, they did now: they rode. Theirs was not a mission of mercy, but of war; they meant to fight. They meant the people of this city, attacked by intruders who had appeared at its very heart, to know they had not been deserted by their rulers.

  Something tugged at her protections, her permissions, and she turned to look in the direction of the Kings; because she was too quick, she was almost blinded by what she now saw.

  In the place of King Reymalyn, there was a golden glow, fringed with the colors of every magic known to the Order, and tinted with colors she did not. She blinked, blinked again as Matteos Corvel was startled into a curse. Gavin Ossus was younger and more inherently suspicious; he squinted, uttered two words, and continued to look. Sigurne did not. Those two words dampened the visual sensitivity toward magic, and she could not be without it. But she did narrow her eyes until they were almost completely shut as she shifted her gaze to King Cormalyn.

  He, too, was a brilliant slash of multihued gold, and the gold, she realized, was the color of his eyes. Of their eyes. She understood what she now saw, and once again shifted her attention.

  The Kings were armed with Fabril’s gifts: the sword and the rod. She had never once seen them wielded. It was believed, even understood, by the Order that the princes were taught, each generation, how to call upon the power of those Artisan-created symbols of the highest office in Weston lands—but they were not taught within the city itself; they were taught in the Between, by the parents of their blood, the gods of Justice and Wisdom.

  The Exalted were not likewise armed. They were not without power, however.

  If the Sleepers were not Kialli lords, the powers the Exalted could bring to bear were not absolute in their effect. But the Sleepers used Winter and Summer magic, both, and if what Sigurne had inferred from years spent at the side of Meralonne APhaniel was true, it was Winter magic that the Sleepers would use most freely, for it was the Winter of the hidden world.

  A new light caught the corner of her eye, and she turned, and turned again; she could not find its source.

  “Matteos, can you see it?”

  Matteos Corvel was silent. His gaze, however, was riveted upon Sigurne herself. And as she lifted hands to reinforce the weave of defensive spell, she saw it: the ring upon her hand. She had never desired to wear it, never desired to discover, in the end, its purpose.

  But she was guildmaster to the Order of Knowledge; she had come of age in the Northern Wastes. Her first teacher had been a demonologist; her second, a demon himself. What she desired had never made much of a difference to her circumstances, or she might have remained at home with a family that needed her and grieved at her absence as if it were death.

  And to them, it had been.

  What she had become—apprentice to the Ice Mage—was worse, by far, for her family and clan than a simple death would have been. And when the mage had at last died, at the hands of no less a mage than Meralonne APhaniel, she could not return to life in their eyes; she was tainted.

  Yes, what she wanted had made no difference then. It had made no difference to the Ice Mage. It had made no difference to anyone except Meralonne. Because on that day when she had made her extraordinary act of defiance, on the day that she had earned her freedom, what she had expected—what she had desired—was death. And because both of these were true, Meralonne had not killed her.

  Instead, he had brought her to the Order of Knowledge. He had taken her under his figurative wing. He had been one of her many teachers, for the Order was not small, and with time, had become the greatest of those who had informed her life with his lessons.

  But she had understood on that distant day, without the need for verification, that Meralonne was neither human nor mortal. It was understood in the Order, but it was never spok
en of except by the callow, the young. And tonight, as the ring she had so reluctantly donned flared to life, enveloping her in something that seemed like a fine, silver mist, she had all the confirmation she might have required, had she not witnessed him first in the glory of combat.

  Meralonne was gone. What remained of him, she did not yet know, could not yet say. But this ring, he had offered her as a bridge, a tenuous, slender thread that might still, regardless, bind them together while she lived.

  * * *

  • • •

  Across the city, the dragon roared as he circled. He was not yet looking for a place to land, in Haval’s opinion. The other creatures, however, did. There seemed to be no end to them. Different in form and appearance from the vultures that circled mortal skies in the wake of a battle, they nonetheless reminded Haval of those carrion birds.

  Vultures, however, did not create the corpses upon which they would feed.

  He was aware of the presence of the forest guard, as Finch had taken to calling them.

  “Councillor.”

  “How many?” Haval asked.

  “Some few thousand,” the tree replied, divining the question’s context and meaning with a rapidity that only those who served under Haval directly ever had.

  “That is not what you wish to report.”

  “No. What do you wish us to do with those who break the . . . laws?”

  “Cage them,” Haval replied. “Where it can be done with subtlety, kill them.”

  “We do not understand why some break those laws in the face of war.”

  “People are capable of great acts of heroism. They are also capable of egregious stupidity. In general, in an emergency, the best that a person can be comes to light. Sadly, the worst also comes to light.” He turned his attention, once again, to the skies. But the forest guard did not leave him.

  Instead, he said, “We have lost Teller.”

  Haval stiffened. “He is dead?”

  “He was not yet dead.”

  “He did not evacuate the manse with the rest of the Terafin occupants?”

  “No. We are with him, but he cannot move now, and we cannot reach him, who were not in his company when the fracture occurred.”

  “Fracture.”

  “The Sleepers have summoned their hosts. They have opened the ways to their own lands, and those lands are spreading across the manse. What would you have us do?”

  “Continue as you have been.”

  “But Teller—”

  “The Terafin, your Lord, would not sacrifice the many for the one, no matter how beloved that one is. She is lord, not mother, not child. You understand the heart of her desire, of her love. But I understand the heart of her duty, and in the end, duty is enough a part of her that she would not countenance the risk.”

  “We think it will break her,” the forest guard said at last, although this took some minutes to emerge. “The eldest says—”

  “It may,” Haval replied. “But what you have failed to understand because you are not mortal, is that the loss of hundreds, or thousands, of lives would also break her. I am not lord; I am Councillor only. What I have offered must be measured against what the eldest—far older, far wiser—offers. But whatever the decision of the forest, it must be made soon.”

  When the forest guard failed to move, Haval said, “She is Lord. She understands that when she sends soldiers into battle, some will die. No matter how beloved they are, no matter how talented, no matter how worthy, some will always die.”

  “She did not send Teller to war.”

  “Yes,” was Haval’s soft reply, “she did. He will not be the first person she loses to war, and she has survived.”

  This time, the forest guard once again vanished into the shadows of the Ellariannatte.

  * * *

  • • •

  Arrendas had not lied to the regent because lies were not necessary. He had not been entirely truthful. He considered Finch ATerafin a different caliber of ruler than The Terafin; Finch, in his opinion, might one day rise to become as Amarais. He had offered his oath of allegiance to Jewel Markess ATerafin. He had not offered it to Finch.

  But if Finch did not hold the oaths of the Chosen, she had their loyalty regardless. If she could not ask for or take the oaths of those who might join their number, it was not required. While they lived, while they breathed, and in the absence of The Terafin, she was their commander. Only when her commands were nonsensical did the Chosen invoke The Terafin’s specter. She accepted it, of course.

  But were she two decades older, she might have the sense to command them to do as they were now doing: watch the dragon’s very slow descent. They meant to meet it on the ground when it did finally land. They were, of course, a proud force of men and women; Arrendas did not consider this simple vanity.

  But The Terafin had opened up the armory that had come to her when her personal quarters had first been transformed, and the Chosen had accepted her offer. They understood that the weapons they bore into this battle were Artisan weapons, all; they were meant for wars such as this.

  Some spoke. Arrendas’ weapon did not, or if it did, he could not hear it. It made no difference. The weapons that could speak spoke of this fight, this battle, and that dragon, to the exclusion of almost all else.

  8th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.

  The Terafin Manse, Averalaan Aramarelas

  Teller had listened to Lord Celleriant speak of the Arianni. He had even asked the occasional question, which was met with frosty disapproval, as if the questions of the merely mortal were so far beneath the subject of which the question had been asked it deserved death, not answers.

  Answers had been given, regardless.

  He knew that the Arianni served Ariane, the woman they called the Winter Queen. Sometimes they called her the White Lady, and Teller had assumed, at first, that Winter and White were interchangeable. She was the heart and the head of the Wild Hunt; she was their reason for existence. They were not Chosen; they did not take oaths. They were hers.

  But they, like the Chosen, had will and choice, and that had consequences. Thus the Sleepers existed. He understood this as well. What he didn’t understand was the host that, at last, came riding through the widened halls of winter stone, their horns a cacophony, an unadorned concert of death.

  In seeming, in bearing, they were indistinguishable from Celleriant; they wore the same armor, and their perfect platinum hair was a stream of snow down their backs; they had no need of capes or cloaks with hair such as theirs. Not for the Arianni the braids of the far north; not for the Arianni the cut-close crop of the Empire.

  They did not ride horses. They rode what looked, to Teller’s entirely inexperienced eye, to be stags, but stags unlike the Winter King; their coats suggested the patina of well-polished and aged silver; one or two were golden, as the fox the trees called eldest was golden.

  But their antlers were smaller than the Winter King’s crown, and their hooves heavier against the stone. Yet even though they made this much noise, there was something unreal about them; they seemed to move at the speed of dream, or nightmare. Lord Celleriant had never felt unreal in quite this fashion. If he was condescending and arrogant—and he was—the shift of his mood could be easily read, and the things that might cause it, both observed and learned. These riders were all of one thing.

  He did not ask his companions their opinion, although he had no doubt they could answer the question he couldn’t quite formulate; the riders were closer now, and Teller had the sense that they would hear both his voice and his words. As the forest guards had commanded, he was still, silent, his only movement the very slight rise of his chest. Even his cat had stilled at the sound of the approaching host, as if understanding instinctively that this was the time to be quiet.

  It was a small mercy.

  The forest guard said nothing, did nothing, un
til the horns sounded once again, shattering stillness and more. The ground beneath Teller’s feet shook, and beyond his toes, it fractured, all but falling away to expose what lay beneath it. There were no joists, no darkness that hinted at basement storage; instead, there was the darkness of ancient earth.

  And that earth now rose, its surface pebbled literally by shards of stone and broken roots. No more proof that these weren’t Jay’s lands was required; Teller knew that the earth would not lift itself at any command but hers without her permission, and Jay would never give permission to these fell, grim riders. He wondered who had commanded the earth; wondered what that command entailed, even as he watched.

  But the ground beneath his feet did not break or shatter; the rising of the earth did not dislodge the fine polished, wooden planking. The forest guard whose hand remained upon Teller’s shoulder now drew close enough that the whole of his torso was flush with Teller’s back and head, and his legs braced Teller’s as well, all of this in silence. The tree spirits did not otherwise move, not even to breathe; breath, if trees required it, could be had in the forest in which they were rooted.

  And that forest bordered these winter halls in some fashion.

  The horns sounded again, and this time there was a subtle difference in the notes, one of beat, of timing.

  The second of the forest guard, the one who did not speak, now stepped in front of Teller, his larger feet touching what remained of the broken stone in the wake of the earth’s rising. He did not speak, but speech was not required, for the last of the riders slowed, turning to look back at the earth itself.

  That earth had formed columns, rounded and taller than the previous hall this Winter landscape had supplanted, as if a different building was emerging, whole, behind the host. And between those columns stood the lone forest guard.