“What is this?” the hunter said, and as he spoke, the host slowed, turning back as the Arianni shifted the direction his mount faced.
Teller could see him, but only barely; the forest guard stood before him like a living shield. His long arms bent as he leveled the weapon he had only just learned how to use.
“Do not move,” the guard who held Teller said softly. “No matter what is said or done, do not move. The land upon which you stand is not theirs.”
“If they attempt to cut me down, can they?”
“Yes.”
Teller did not ask the obvious question. He did not understand what the tree spirits now hoped for; did not understand how they expected to survive, or rather, how they expected that he might. Given the expression on the faces of these hunters, he did not think he would survive for long.
Chapter Eighteen
8th day of Lattan, 428 A.A.
The Common, Averalaan
JESTER CURSED THE FOX. As the elder growled at the obvious lack of respect, Jester said, “I wasn’t whining.” The fox did not remove his teeth. They had pierced skin, and any rejoinder save growl was functionally impossible.
It is not.
Great.
I simply chose not to dignify your pathetic attempt at justification with comment.
He’s lying.
The fox’s voice had not jarred Jester for reasons he could not explain, but this voice did. It was Birgide’s. He opened his eyes and saw her, eyes closed, head bowed. She hadn’t made a sound.
I do not understand why mortals have such a dim view of lying, the fox added. Lies are merely a patina one places over words, a type of dance, a verbal performance. They do not change what is. They merely change what is believed, and one can change the beliefs of fools with ease. Folly persists. Were it not my lie, it would be another’s; they cannot see the world as it is.
It is dangerous, indeed, to walk the wilderness when one cannot observe it, cannot understand it. My lies, such as they are, are not the words of a god; they do not change what you label truth. Do you understand?
I understand, Jester said, that this hurts a lot.
Were you not beloved of the Lord I serve, I would sever your hand and eat it. Doing so now, however, would damage the Warden, and it is to succor her that I have come.
Jester wondered if Birgide felt pain.
Of course, Birgide replied. I am accustomed to hiding it better. Far better.
Why, exactly?
Because there are circumstances in which expression of pain is viewed as an invitation to receive more of it.
Do you understand what the eldest wants us to do?
Yes.
Can you do it?
She did not answer. But he wondered at the nature of lies. Words. Silence. He could hear, in the absence of the former, doubt. Fair enough. He had doubts of his own. He wanted to help her. He wanted to be of aid. But what she needed now was not lock picks, not sleight of hand, not loud, flamboyant distraction. She needed something solid. She needed someone competent.
Gods knew that wasn’t Jester.
He was surprised on some level that any of them were still standing, and this included a fox that would no doubt take that surprise as a personal insult.
I will not, the fox replied. The four are gathered, and we are closest now to where they stand. Do you not hear them? They have called their ancient hosts, and soon they will be mounted. When they ride out into your streets, they will cut a swathe of death through anything that stands in their way, or in their reach.
If people were smart—and demonstrably, most weren’t—they’d flee.
Their reach is very, very long. Warden. You see what your impertinent colleague cannot, and you were born as he was born. He cannot now see what you see, cannot hear what you hear, but nonetheless he wishes to plague you with his ignorance.
Birgide laughed.
It was not a sound. It was felt, a small well-spring of mirth where none should have existed. He had been surprised by her earlier laughter; this was stunning in comparison. He felt, for a moment, that he did not know her at all; that he had never known her at all. He had assessed her—at Haval’s unfortunate command—but understood now that that assessment was entirely based on her competencies; he understood the ways in which she might harm or kill.
He did not understand anything else about her. Ah, no. He understood that she loved the Ellariannatte; that she had spent her adult life attempting to root them in foreign soil; that she had come to Jay because of the rumor of those very trees. And he understood as well that Jay had allowed her into a forest that she had forbidden angry, drooling mages, because Jay had perceived in an instant what it would mean to Birgide.
Birgide had not thought about it in that fashion. She had assumed that Jay’s offer, that Jay’s acceptance of her, was tied to Duvari, in a bad way. Jester had made clear, or so he thought, that Jay’s decision was more than that—but in the tangle of the Birgide he was now aware of, he understood.
She was Warden because, in the end, Jay—shoveled into The Terafin’s title, The Terafin’s schedule, The Terafin’s clothing and seat—nonetheless understood the hope for, the desire for, joy. For home. And she had, Jester thought, understood that home for Birgide Viranyi could be found only in the silent confines of the forest itself.
But it was a home of Jay’s making.
Just as the den was and had been.
Jester and Birgide had much in common in the early years of their life, and almost nothing in the latter half. But Jester had learned all the shades of home in the years he’d spent with the den. He understood the way Jay picked things up—he’d been picked up the same way—and found something of value in even the deadliest of them.
Duster, he thought.
The leaves of silver, gold, and diamond.
The tree of fire.
Birgide herself.
Birgide could hear him. And he could hear her, although she did not speak, did not try to put her chaotic thoughts into palatable words. The fox was almost, and would have liked to be entirely, absent. But he did not intrude—not the way either Jester or Birgide did. He was a bridge. No, Jester thought, he was the bridge.
Jester wished Finch were here. Or Teller. Or Arann. Anyone but Jester, who was not the most welcoming member of their family. Birgide didn’t trust any of them, of course. But here, the pain of fox teeth binding them together in ways nothing else could, she would have. And, instead, she got Jester.
You can do this, he told her. You can do this because you’re like the tree of fire. You’re like the trees you couldn’t study because they didn’t exist in your world. What you’re doing now, in Jay’s name, they’ll do as well. You only have to call them.
How do I do that? There was anger in the words. Anger and fear.
Jester smiled. I have no idea at all.
His amusement annoyed her. Had possibly always annoyed her. But annoyance was not rage, and it certainly wasn’t fear.
You know I don’t want this?
Jester said quietly, Yes. And before Jay, I never wanted anything, either. It was safest. What we wanted, what we valued, could be used against us or broken or taken away. The pain wasn’t worth the risk. But, Birgide, this is. You were willing to die if you failed the forest’s test. You’ve already taken that chance.
I wanted the forest.
Yes. But the thing neither of us understood is that the forest is Jay. You can’t have one without the other.
The Ellariannatte existed before her.
Yes, Jester agreed. But now they will grow anywhere in the city. They will grow anywhere that she walks. He stopped.
How do you know that? Did she tell you?
And the truth was, Jester didn’t know that. He looked down at the fox, who had, he assumed, been silent throughout. His arms tightened, bu
t only slightly.
Oh, very well. It is true, the fox said. Jester could feel Birgide stiffen. The forest is its Lord. The wilderness is waking. A change of seasons is in the air we breathe. And yet we are awake, who lived in winter until Jewel woke us. She offered us three gifts, the fox continued, his voice recognizably his own, but altered by the absence of sound. Three gifts, and those gifts were accepted. But the rest was unforeseen. Understand that the Lord of the land is the land. If you wander the wilderness, if you wander the many demesnes, you will come to understand.
You will never, the fox added, understand it so well as we, for we are of it; it is our home. Before Jester could reply, the fox added, But what you understand of our Lord is mortal, and that, too, is part of what she is. Perhaps a mortal Warden was inevitable, and perhaps a mortal Warden is the best, the most, our Lord could do. You understand war, Warden. You understand death. You understand the preservation of lives, for your deaths were in service to that cause. You understand that those that rule require service, protection.
In the wilderness, they do not. If they are so easily killed, they do not rule. They cannot. But it is not our Lord you protect now. It is what she values. It is what she holds dear—too dear, too close. It has been a long, long time since I loved as she loved—it is an act of youth, an act of defiance, an act of hope. And hope is dangerous. Where it is lost, it destroys.
But she is young. As you are. Therefore hope and love are inevitable. Hope, then. Love, then. And in service to the truth of that, the strength of that, wake your forest. It is waiting, Warden.
It is waiting.
* * *
• • •
The Wayelyn had heard and sung songs of the ancient Wild Hunt; he had penned a fair few in a youth of yearning and broken dreams. The horns of the hunters were not mortal horns, the notes not mortal notes. In his talent-born hearing, they resonated as if they were words or more than words; he could hear the whole of their intent. They did not sound a simple retreat, did not throw a simple direction into the din of clashing arms.
Mortal service was imperfect, incomplete; mortals required rest. Sleep. They were subject to the dictates of time, and a simple change in the weather could kill them. Not so the hunters; they were not so weak that they fell prey to something as negligible as time or a simple shift in the temperature of the air.
And they had been born to the forest, they had wakened the trees. This was their natural environment. In it, mortals foundered, mortals fell. In it, they screamed, they shouted, they wept.
But the hunters did not. They had come to reclaim this forest in the name of their lords.
All of this, The Wayelyn heard. But the one thing he could not hear, did not hear, were the names of those lords. He raised voice, commanded the bards to gather those they could reach; it was time, now, to retreat. The trees were the only safety offered, and he was not at all certain they would be enough. Solran had prepared them for this: she had made clear that in the worst case, all of the city would perish when the Sleepers woke. And in the best?
In the best case, they could save thousands. But they could not stand and fight. There were others who might do that for some small time, but they were few.
“Wayelyn.”
The Master Bard turned.
“It is time, now, to do as you have commanded. I am impressed.”
In the brightness of this purple dawn, The Wayelyn turned in the direction of that voice. He did not recognize it; was not even certain that it was a single voice. And he could not clearly see the speaker, although there were no shadows in which that speaker might hide. Here, even the shadows cast by the Kings’ trees were thin, sparse. It was to drive panicking people to the thicker shadows that The Wayelyn now worked.
“Impressed?” the bard asked. He had husbanded the power of his voice, understanding that the tools to which he had not been born were of similar value: he wore Senniel’s colors, and he had both the age and the gravitas of a man of power; he knew, as they all did, how to work a room. That the room was the size of a city made the endeavor far more of a challenge, and it made the bardic voice a very helpful tool, but the voice alone was not the only necessary tool.
“Impressed. You must, however, vacate this road. It is down this road that the hunt will ride. And Wayelyn, this hunt is not the hunt of the Winter Queen. It is an echo, a memory, something trapped and preserved. Only the wilderness gives it form, and it cannot be moved by mere weapons. I will stand my ground here; if you are standing even in the edge of my shadow, you will be devoured.”
“Who are you?” the bard all but demanded.
Silence, and then, softly, “I am Andrei. For the moment, and while this city stands, I am Andrei.”
The Wayelyn did not recognize the name but heard no lie in the words. No lie in the blurred overlap of voices. He was moved to bow, but it was a gesture of respect, not a political maneuver, and he once again lifted voice, demanding what this Andrei had demanded. If the Master Bards did not heed his call to flee, he was certain they would at least heed the demand to empty this one street. Bards were very good at avoiding danger while simultaneously breaking the rules.
* * *
• • •
“Sigurne.”
Sigurne glanced at Matteos. He had served her for years; she understood the question inherent in the lift of the second syllable of her name, and shook her head. “They will come here,” she told him. “The Kings stand here.”
“They should retreat to the Isle.”
“The time for that is passed. It was gone the moment Moorelas fell and the spire rose to take his place.”
“Can’t Duvari intercede?”
“If you have not noticed, he is as grim and fell as death. Were it in his hands, they would be well away—possibly in a summer retreat, well quit of the city. It is not, however, in his hands. They are Kings; they are our Kings. And it is to the Kings, now, that the four will ride.”
“Four?”
“Four,” she said softly. “They will not fall here, not easily.”
Matteos looked out across the city, or the parts of the city he could now see through the trees. “How long?” he asked, his voice soft, his hands shaking. “How long do we have?”
“As long as we have ever had,” Sigurne replied. “Until our lives are spent.”
“That is not what I was asking.”
“No?” She exhaled. “Look at them, Matteos. Look. Fabril crafted weapons for their use against such a day as this.” She did not tell him that this would be the only day, for she believed that Fabril’s gifts were meant for a different battle, if they but survived this one.
But she could see the Kings clearly in this place. She could now see the Kings, even when the trunks of these towering trees should have obscured them. She could hear their voices when those voices were raised, although they were not raised now.
She did not know what the sword was meant to cut, to pierce; did not know what the rod was meant, in the end, to rule or command. Nor was it necessary; the comfort of one old woman in the bitter haze of this new sky was irrelevant. The ring on her hand burned a bright sigil into the air, and when she opened her mouth again, she whispered a single word, and it was like a prayer.
* * *
• • •
And beneath the purple sky, above the wreckage of trees made brittle and cold by its breath, the dragon finally descended.
* * *
• • •
None of the training the House Guard received had involved an opponent of this size. Seen from the sky, its size obscured by distance, it had seemed enormous, but as that distance diminished, the truth grew, and grew again. Buildings gave way—far more easily than the trees had—and Arrendas hoped that those buildings were as empty as the street had become. He spared no other thought for the possible victims; if rescue was to come to them, it would not be at the hands of the
Terafin Chosen.
But the Chosen stopped a moment ten yards from the closest part of the dragon: its tail. The tail was forked, and it moved, rising and falling. As it landed, stones shattered, trunks splintered. Its hind claws could be seen, raking runnels through broken shards. Had the dragon spoken, Arrendas would not have been surprised; it did not. It roared.
A plume of frost distorted the heat of the air, as if the creature had swallowed the whole of winter and now disgorged it at its own convenience. The dragons in Arrendas’ childhood stories—and there had been many—were creatures whose breath melted gold and armor; fire was their weapon. This dragon did not breathe fire.
But he thought that the frost it did breathe would be just as deadly.
“Gordon.”
The Chosen stepped forward. Of the Chosen, he was the only one who had taken a shield from the walls of The Terafin’s war room. Gordon’s choice had been a kite shield.
“Flank?”
Arrendas was captain. Grimacing, he said, “We don’t know how to kill a dragon.”
“Kill it? Are we sure we know how to survive one?”
Arrendas chuckled. “We’re about to find out.” He backed away, taking advantage of the natural alleys that formed between buildings. He did not, however, retreat. Given the destruction of other buildings, being caught between them meant that falling stone or timber might do the dragon’s work for it.
“Corrin, stay with Gordon. The rest of us will try to attack from the flank.” Corrin’s weapon of choice had been a bladed pole-arm. It had the reach a sword did not, and it had come from the walls of the same war room. He had practiced with it from the moment he had taken it down, but in theory his skill with a sword was greater.
“I want a raise.” Before Arrendas could answer, he added, “You know Gordon’s almost impossible to partner.”
“Says the man who almost lopped my arm off.”
“I was testing the shield.”
The Chosen spread out, leaving Gorden and Corrin in the alley’s mouth. They moved quickly, but not silently; their movement was partly obscured as Gordon raised his shield and bellowed for the dragon’s attention.
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