“No, you don’t,” agreed Brohan. “But Sir Calvraign does. You see there was no lie in her words. The lie was in Jildi’im’s ears. He listened carefully, but only heard the meaning he expected. The prophecy said that he would die by her sword, and her oath promised that she would never woo the Princess Riazel, and both came to pass just as promised. The sword of Z’yuul did kill the Golden Padrah, if by another hand. And upon his death, Riazel became paladirha – queen. She was no longer a princess, you see.”
“Bah!” Willanel snorted.
“No,” Osrith said. “He’s long-winded, but he’s right. Once you spell it all out, you can’t see around it anymore. Like a dog worrying a wound – sometimes it just makes it worse. We take the warning for what it’s worth. Leave the rest.”
“And what does that mean?” asked Ezriel. There was more confusion than confrontation in his words. “What’s it worth to us?”
“It’s worth knowing that every kin here has fought shadowborn,” Vaujn said. “We’re equipped for it, we’re ready for it, and Hiruld won’t be out of our sight or in front of our lines. I don’t know if the All-father put us here to this purpose, but we are well-suited for it.”
The king scratched at his face to hide the hint of scowl curling his lips. “Yet you ran from the Pale Man. We’re warned against him as well. What if he comes along? Will you run again?”
To his credit, the kin soldier shrugged off the question without any sign of offense. “I would retreat with the prince, yes. I’ve already been over this with Osrith, and that seems the safest course.”
“Perhaps I should stay with the prince, My King,” Willanel offered, and not for the first time, looking down at Vaujn with some distaste. “I will not run.”
“I’d rather find a roundabout way to victory than go straight to defeat,” Osrith countered, with the affront Guillaume expected from the kin brimming in the mercenary’s face instead.
“You paraphrase Retreat to Conquest from The Stands of Kiev Vae,” Ezriel said, surprised.
Guillaume recognized the pensive look transforming the knight captain general’s features, and the king steeled himself. He’s going to quote some sacred truth, the pious bastard.
Ezriel closed his eyes and spoke with reverence: “The road traveled to victory oft wanders, yet the course to defeat may be a road both straight and smooth, paved with easy temptation. That tactic won him the Western March. The Stands were five years of retreat.”
Osrith rolled his eyes. Guillaume joined him in spirit, but managed an appreciative nod at the Baron Malminnion.
“Blood and ruin!” Calvraign’s execration took the room by surprise, and Ezriel’s look darkened. Calvraign continued, oblivious. “Fools we are, one and all! Fools!”
Silence.
Realization spread across Calvraign’s face in an awkward smile. “My apologies, but, I’m afraid we’ve been missing the point.”
“Explain,” Guillaume said, both encouraging the boy and stilling any protest from the others.
Calvraign nodded, looking around the room. His gaze fell on a decorative game board of Mylyr Gaeal, and he hurried over to it. He took a moment to arrange the pieces, then looked up, eyes bright.
“Look here-” he pointed to the middle of the boards “-the Dark has taken the nexus on the Rahn tier, and it threatens the regent from here, and here. But the next move is not to take the regent. Too direct. Potentially too costly. There are too many pieces left to defend him, and nine out of ten players will start focusing on protecting the regent to distraction, because losing the regent could be an immediate and disastrous end to the game. But that is not how the game will be won.”
Guillaume didn’t play much Mylyr Gaeal – real war had taken him from such leisurely pursuits in his youth – but Vingeaux had made a spectacle of it in court for several years, and so the king was familiar with it. He stilled his impatience, hoping that Calvraign could deliver some substance with his enthusiasm. Brohan and Agrylon were bobbing their heads in rare agreement. He took that as an encouraging sign.
“No, the proper stratagem is diversion.” Calvraign placed the pieces in a fictional move and counter-move. “Not a simple feint, or a single sacrifice, but a gradual repositioning of pieces on all five tiers. One that appears intent on the regent, but in truth only serves to slip pieces into place for a grander and more patient strategy. The regent may be doomed for any number of reasons, but his doom does not have to come first. Indeed, often it’s the regent left scurrying from tier to tier at the end of a game, clinging to life and relevance as his opponent claims tiles and pieces and even whole tiers around him.”
Calvraign threw his hands into the air, turning to address Guillaume directly. “But we’ve already lost this round of the game, Your Majesty. They are hoping we’ll tail around our regent to the exclusion of all else, when in truth I fear it is all else that they intend to take first.”
“You refer to the force massing across the High Ridge?” Guillaume glanced at Symmlrey, then back to Calvraign. “Even assuming such a large force is ready to invade, the Marches would not fall quickly or easily.”
“No, Your Majesty. That threat is real, and I’ve no doubt it’s immediate for the Marches, but I refer to something right here in King’s Keep. I think the shadowyn is here for some other purpose than Hiruld.”
Guillaume stilled a bubbling murmur of dissent with a sharp look, allowing Calvraign to explain.
“It was Lord Malminnion’s quotation that sparked the thought: a road paved with easy temptation. It made me think of Rivers’ Run and the Sentinels. We’re rushing down the road, but I think the enemy is preparing to circle in from behind. We will crow in victory for a moment, but when we turn around, we’ll find we’re surrounded, our Regent in a corner with no escape.”
“Sir Calvraign,” said Vanelorn, “and I mean this with the utmost of respect – having a head for Mylyr Gaeal and having a grip on war in the world of blood and steel are two different things. Mastering a game and mastering life…” The old knight turned to the king. “Your Majesty, the fact is that forces beyond our control and understanding wish to bring us down. We know this. If we believe this prophecy, which I do with some reluctance, we know that the crown prince is a target, and must ensure his protection without trying to decipher grander strategies that may or may not prove true.”
Rel laughed, a soft sound like rustling leaves, but it crept up Guillaume’s spine like ice. “Vanelorn, you have long guided this realm true,” she said. “But here, you are wrong.
“It’s apt that you mentioned Rivers’ Run.” Rel stepped to the game board, next to Calvraign, and smiled down at his game in progress. The king wouldn’t have been surprised if the intensity of her gaze melted the pieces. “The Ceearmyltu played a version of Mylyr Gaeal called iyanliyanu – siege.” She looked up, locking eyes with Calvraign. “If the besieged player loses her nexus, the sieging player gains a strength of arms from within the defender’s ranks. It’s called raising the sentinels.”
Agrylon stepped forward, frowning at Rel and exchanging a knowing, if cautious, look. “Meyr ga’Glyleyn,” he muttered.
She smiled. “When all the pieces protect one thing, it tends to leave others undefended.”
Agrylon pursed his lips in thought for a moment. “Your Majesty,” he said, with some reluctance, “she is not wrong. If somehow the magic within Meyr ga’Glyleyn is tapped, our footing would change. There are great magics that could be unleashed upon the city, and we would have little defense. It is a remote possibility that anyone could unlock the aulden wards, but a shadowyn….”
Guillaume read the implication in the unspoken word.
“Then stay and defend it,” said Hiruld, his voice firm in the silence. “I have many and more swords at my call, and one of my own. Any attack on my person at Saint Kaissus Field would be folly, and easily overcome. But if there is magic here that must be defended, I say stay and defend it.”
“An admirable sentiment,” Gui
llaume said, somewhat surprised that he meant it. “And a brave one – but not an advisable strategy, I think.”
Guillaume held up a finger, again silencing the burgeoning arguments around him. He wanted time to think, and more nattering would simply fray his nerves. Two threats. The symmetry of it actually calmed him. Two fronts.
“We split our forces,” Guillaume decided. “Sir Calvraign, as you brought the threat to light, you shall lead a small force to defend the aulden garden. You will have Sir Osrith and his experience at your disposal, as well as some men-at-arms, as you might require. The rest of us shall defend Prince Hiruld at the festival.”
“I…” Calvraign paused, blinking in honest surprise. His eyes darted from the master bard to the mercenary at his side, then back to the king’s. “As you wish, Your Majesty.”
Vanelorn sighed, and his shoulders sagged. “Your Majesty, if he’s right, and there really is a shadowyn here within the keep, I’m afraid he’s damned by his own perception. Even with experienced knights at his side…” His voice trailed off, and he cast a sympathetic look at Calvraign.
Brohan stepped forward. “I will-”
“No,” Guillaume interrupted. “You will be at the festival, in the royal pavilion. Agrylon as well.”
Brohan was stricken to silence. Guillaume pressed his rare advantage before the bard found his tongue. “We are guarding against possibility, not planning for eventuality. Calvraign is our rear-guard. The rest of us here, the vanguard.”
“I will stay here,” said Kassakan Vril. “It is my place.”
Guillaume considered the hosskan for a moment, and then nodded. She would do as she wished regardless if he granted her permission; therefore, he gave it freely. “So be it.”
“Take this,” Agrylon said, offering the dreamstone to Calvraign. “Its purpose is fulfilled, but it may offer you some protection if you encounter any shadowborn.”
Guillaume hoped the wizard was right. It was a risk leaving Calvraign behind. It meant fewer swords to defend Hiruld against the shadowyn. And, if by Oghran’s darkest whim the boy was right, and the danger was here at King’s Keep…
Calvraign tied the leather thong about his neck and tucked the stone under his shirt. “Thank you,” he said.
Osrith made a noncommittal grunt.
“And so your tier is set, King Guillaume,” Rel said. “Agrylon and I had best be about preparing ours. Swords will win you only part of this battle.”
“Do as you will. But you must keep this to yourself, Rel.”
“Must I?” she replied archly. “The Black Robes answer only to the Emperor of Dacadia.”
“The Black Robes died out with the Empire,” dismissed the king.
Rel smiled, her lambent eyes fixed on Agrylon while she spoke. “Sleeping is not the same as death, Your Majesty.”
Guillaume suppressed a shiver. If there was one thing on which he and the grand dukes agreed, it was that the Black Robes must never rise to power again.
“Yes, it’s a good thing, too,” said Brohan, melting the cold pall that had fallen on the room with Rel’s words. He stepped in to usher the king away from the wizards. “Or there’d be a lot less napping, all around.”
Guillaume let an honest chuckle escape his tight control and shook his head. He put a fond arm around the bard’s shoulders as they left the room and the wizards behind. “I have missed you, Brohan. That I have.”
“Well, then, let’s the two of us share a cup of wine. I’ve a very special vintage in mind, but… it’s best enjoyed before the end of the world.”
“Ha!” Guillaume laughed again, and felt some tension leaking from his tired bones. “Then I suppose we’d best start drinking.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
A MOMENT TOO SOON
DARKNESS fell in upon Callagh. She didn’t know where she was or where she was going. The path behind held nothing for her. That, she knew. She pushed forward, waving her hand in front of her face, but she could only imagine the outline of her fingers. She heard the flutter of low flame, but saw not even a hint of its light. She shivered, the muscles of her shoulders bunching into a painful knot at the base of her neck, yet she felt no chill.
Caw.
Callagh heard the raven croak, somewhere ahead. She dragged her sluggish feet onwards, her soles scraping along with an effort.
Caw.
She tried to speak – to call out in response – but her throat was tight, and no sound came. The ground gave beneath her feet, not crumbling away like a rockslide, but softening and congealing, thick mud sucking at her ankles, pulling her down like bogsand.
Caw.
The mud crept into Callagh’s mouth: tasteless, textureless ooze seeping between her teeth, clogging her tongue, filling her throat. She thrashed, kicked, sank further. Her eyes bulged and lungs burned as she fought for breath.
You can’t fight your way outta bogsand, she warned, like she was shouting at herself across a great chasm. Her own voice seemed distant to her ears, but she mustered calm.
Like sighting down an arrow, she thought, the hammering of her heart steadying as she imagined the string taut against her cheek and goose-feather fletching brushing her skin.
Caw.
Callagh reached up, stretching her fingers, straining upward toward the sound, toward the raven, the ferrier of souls, the roibhe ahn cranaoght.
Callagh sat upright in bed, kicking her blanket off with a scream, not so much waking from her dream as being thrown from it.
Iaede and Braede were already awake and sitting on either side of the bed they shared with her, eyes wide, skin pale and lips trembling.
Iaede reached out to brush Callagh’s sleeve with a gentle but uncertain touch. “Are you all right?” she whispered.
Callagh rested her elbows on her knees and her sweaty brow in her palms, sucking in a welcome breath of air. Her nightclothes were also damp, steaming, and she trembled as the chill in the air cooled the fabric against her skin.
“Just a wee bit of the terrors,” she answered, peeking over her fingers at the younger girl.
“It’s not the raven?” Iaede asked, face ashen. “My ma said ravens were messengers for the spirits.”
Callagh brought her gaze out of her hands to meet Iaede’s eyes. “Did you hear it, too?”
Iaede nodded.
Is she in my dreams? Callagh wondered.
Iaede pointed behind Callagh. “It’s been there for a bit, now.”
Callagh turned to find an enormous raven perched by the washbasin, staring back at her.
Oh, she thought.
“Caw,” it said.
“Blood and ruin,” groaned Callagh. “I’d still prefer a bloody unicorn.”
Braede had turned over and returned to sleep, the quilt up over her head. Iaede still propped herself up in heavy-eyed consternation. “What?”
“Ach, it’s nothin’,” dismissed Callagh. “An old jest. Go back to sleep, I’ll take the damned thing out.”
“Don’t,” Iaede breathed. “Don’t go.”
Callagh was already lacing her boots. She spared a quick grin for the younger girl. “Don’t be daft,” she teased gently. “I’ll only be a moment.”
“Fiogna…” Iaede struggled through a lump in her throat. “Fiogna said the same, and the spirits took her that very night.”
Callagh grabbed her cloak from its hook and fastened it with the brooch she’d bequeathed herself from Old Bones. It felt warm to the touch. Wonderful. “I thought you said she just ran off?”
“Aye. She just ran off – followed some vision o’ hers in the middle of the night – and then the spirits took her.”
“Well, no spirits or visions here.” The words came with ready confidence, but it was a shallow reassurance considering Callagh was confident it was indeed one or both. She knew better than Ieade the full extent of Fiogna’s unfortunate and fiery end, if not exactly how it came to pass. “Just a wee birdie lost his way, is all.”
Lost his way into a locked
room with shuttered windows, you mean, she thought.
“Saints defend you, then.”
Callagh smiled at the girl, but shook her head. “They’re not my saints,” she said. “Or yours.” She poked a finger at the master’s door. “They’re his.”
The raven punctuated her remark with a timely cackle, and took wing to flee the room as soon as Callagh opened the door. She followed it close, she and the bird together barely gaining a distracted glance from the sentries as they passed.
Seth hesitated at the darkened entrance to the cellar, but a nudge from Faeldor sent him through into the dark, a step ahead of the wan nimbus of torchlight.
“Ha. A’feard summin gonna eat ya?” the old soldier guffawed. “Get on, then, and get out. I’m a mind to sleep now, hear it? No bellar’ achin’.”
“Stop it, Faeldor,” begged Seth, his legs all but buckling beneath him. “It’s not funny. Give me the torch or come closer. I’ve not had a good run of luck lately.”
Faeldor whistled, and his eyes bulged from his scraggly grey brow in mock fear. “Ha. Is’n a drauogh in dar, munchin’ on bones? Ha, ha! I’d say yous luck ain’t so much bad, now is it? Should be dead twice, as I count. But mays be tha’ Lady Luck smiles a bit brighter on yous ‘n the rest of us souls?”
“I’d just as soon have a nice bright torch, thank you,” implored Seth.
Faeldor chuckled but stepped closer. Seth wondered why the torches in the cellar had been allowed to go out at all. Although the church called this the Day of Respite, that was a misnomer for the servants of King’s Keep. There was no jousting or games or formal feasts, but the lords and ladies still required food, drink, and fresh linens for their repose. Repose could be hard work.
The pitch boys had best be dead already to leave the cellars dark the night before the Feast of Illuné, he thought, or Markus will kill them. He’d certainly never dared when he’d done his turn as pitch boy, years ago.
“Huh,” puzzled Faeldor, pointing his torch at an empty bracket in the wall, his grizzled cheeks scrunched into a scowl. “No torch here neither. They take up all them torches every night, them boys?”
In Siege of Daylight Page 64