In Siege of Daylight

by Gregory S Close

  Renarre sheathed Elèndere in similar fashion to Calàthiél, but crossing from left to right, as the throng responded in unison, “Illuné, Second Sword among us, may your Honor enlighten us.”

  When he hefted the last of them, a two-handed great sword, Aeolil could see the strain on his face. It was large enough that even a man the size of Grumwyr might have trouble wielding it effectively in battle, but the archbishop managed to hold it steady for the blessing, at least.

  “Gliyhtmuong,” he said, lingering on the final g with a theatric and somewhat sinister intonation. Unlike its siblings, the steel did not glow or shine, but as its name was spoken, flames erupted on its blackened blade, licking from hand guard to point and burning with a heat Aeolil could feel even from her seat. The archbishop grimaced as sweat broke out on his brow, but finished the chant without interruption. “You are the fire that burns. It was with you that Kazdann brought the High Towers blazing to earth. May you bring us the Valor of Kazdann, this day.”

  “Kazdann, Third Sword among us, may your Valor swell in our hearts.”

  “Let those who do battle here today follow in the Wisdom, Honor and Valor of the Three Swords. If victory does not find the strongest among you, let the strongest among you find victory!”

  “Victory!” responded the crowd.

  Gliyhtmuong’s fire extinguished as Renarre plunged it home in its resting place in the center of the hanging shield. With the last of the swords in place and the proceedings thus sanctified by Holy Mother Church, a huge roar erupted from the crowd in anticipation of the coming contest.

  Aeolil did not share in the exuberance. She did not like sitting idly, and she found feats of arms fairly routine. Instead, doubt gnawed at her. They were fighting blind, and for all Agrylon’s assurance that both the keep and the prince were defended from the shadowyn, whomever or however the creature might strike, the image of the Neva Seough sending the arrogant wizard flying bloody and broken in his tower hung persistent in her mind.

  She watched Artygalle draw his lots and take his place with Windthane on the outs, waiting his turn. The marshal of the field and his scurrying minions combed the dirt of the list one last time, and the oddsmakers trekked around the field, placards in hand.

  Artygalle has drawn Grumwyr, she realized with a pitying cringe. Winning on points was the only way to beat the Bear. He hadn’t been unhorsed in recent memory. Points were not easy to come by, either. Avoiding his blows would deduct points from the tilt, and taking the blows had left many a knight littered upon the hard turf with little sense left rattling in his head. Mellieux had proved his only consistent challenge over the last few years.

  The archbishop made his perfunctory graces to the king and prince, and retreated with haste to his own pavilion prior to the first joust. Aeolil thought perhaps he spared a bit of extra glower for the kin bodyguard around the crown prince, but she couldn’t be certain. For their part, Vaujn and his cohort betrayed no sign of emotion through the intricate glares crafted into the faceplates of their helms. The war face, Vaujn called it, as she remembered.

  “Agrylon cast an active warding,” a voice whispered into her ear. “If this thing is about, we will know it.”

  Aeolil smiled and nodded at the master bard as he took a seat next to her. “And if it eludes this ward, as it apparently has those at the keep? Then what?”

  “Ah. Well, those were passive wards, mind you. But if it can elude an active ward of a Black Robe, then it is far too powerful for any of us to even hope at victory. So we can rest easy. If we have any chance to stop it, then we will know when it comes. If we have no chance, it will pounce on us unawares and spare us a lot of fretting before we die.”

  “Don’t jest,” Aeolil scolded, watching Chadwick as he waited in parade rest for the signal to charge. He was up against Niklhas adh Boighn, who sat at the other end of the list chatting with his squire. Niklhas was confident and, given their comparative skill and stature, deserved to be.

  “Sadly, I’m not joking,” Brohan assured her.

  Aeolil turned to the bard, searching his expression for a hint of levity, but his smile was a sad and uninspired one. He looked out past her, past the field, perhaps out past the Veil for all she could tell. Even a lowly sensitive, just barely touched with the barest sympathy for the iiyir tides, could feel the change in their flow. And Aeolil guessed that Brohan had more than simple sympathy.

  The sound of hard contact brought her attention back to the field in time to see her cousin lurch out of his saddle, the victim of a stellar first blow from Chadwick. Her surprise evaporated into a moment of honest cheer at her guardsman’s good fortune. Chadwick was tenacious and loyal and dutiful beyond compare, but if he was oft noticed by Oghran, it was only in her foulest moods.

  The rounds came and went in a blur. Derrigin fell on points to the precise strikes of Jocelin, and Calamyr’s youth and strength fell prey to the wile and skill of old Mellieux in a close match-up decided by a difference of but one contentious point. Nevanne won his tilt against Tremayne with surprising ease, but then the wolf captain was not known as a tourney-fighter. No one took him lightly on the field of battle, however.

  When Grumwyr took to his massive warhorse and raised his lance high over his head, he received the loudest of cheers yet. He was a powerful knight with an explosive temper, and a crowd favorite.

  They enjoy a little blood, don’t they? When he knocks some lord on his arse or breaks his arm, it’s a healthy reminder that we all may bleed.

  Aeolil was surprised that Artygalle received a hearty welcome as well, including a full salute from the lancers across the field. She supposed, with Derrigin out of the hunt, he was the last of Mother Church’s disciples still in the fray for the King’s Lance. And, even if his mail was now polished, he did still bear that tattered banner of sackcloth.

  “Do you see the tides, Aeolil?” Brohan’s voice was distant, almost unrecognizable in its languor.

  “I’ve not yet graduated the iiyiraath. Soon, perhaps,” she sighed, “given the chance. I do feel the pull and flux.”

  His head bobbed in a slow nod. “If you are feeling what I am seeing, you must know that the tipping of scales is well under way.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, a bit startled that Brohan, master bard though he was, had completed the tests of wizardry.

  Artygalle and Grumwyr made their final salutes and kicked their steeds into a gallop. Aeolil counted the moments to impact with a trace of anxiety. She could spare only a little of her fear for a joust, but she pitied anyone struck by the Bear, man or horse – and in this case, either or both.

  When their lances shattered without any unhorsing, Aeolil was slightly ashamed that she had never considered the possibility that Artygalle would keep his seat. Mostly, she was hoping he’d pull through with bruises rather than broken bones. But, to her amazement and that of the crowd, both riders discarded their splintered poles and circled the list to prepare for a second tilt.

  The marshal held up his point tally, scoring even at three points apiece for solid blows to the shield. Grumwyr was looking over his shoulder, his visor raised to display a face with wide eyes and an open mouth. The drum of stomping feet and call of cheers was deafening. Even those in Grumwyr’s quarter knew a good fight when they saw one.

  “Well, this proves more a distraction than I’d thought,” she muttered. The pavilion behind her was atwitter with discussion of the unexpected turn.

  “Pair a knight and rider of Artygalle’s skill with armor worked and bonded by the underkin, and you have a foe not easily dropped,” remarked Brohan with a distracted air.

  “Bonded? You mean enchanted? Faerie armor? He could be disqual–”

  “No. The marshal wouldn’t be so sloppy as that,” dismissed Brohan. “Bonding is not enchantment so much as a seduction of steel. As the aulden once wrought this place with song, so can a skilled kinsmith bend rock, ore and metal to his will. Sir Artygalle’s armor is not just mended; it is brought into its most
perfect state. Good thing, too.”

  “Yes, good thing,” echoed Aeolil.

  “Chance would even dictate there are more than a few such suits among the wealthy and storied families here, and we may need them. But none of them are so fresh, I’ll wager.”

  Artygalle’s second charge left another lance shattered, even as he turned the point of Grumwyr’s tip on the edge of his shield, deflecting the thrust harmlessly away. Aeolil couldn’t recall the last time Grumwyr had failed to smash his lance.

  “Is he drunk?” carped the king. “If he falls to this boy, Mellieux will be prancing around Praed with my lance for the next year, and I’ll never hear the end of it from Rian.”

  “He’ll unhorse the boy,” insisted Hiruld. “He’s taken by surprise, that’s all. It’s Grumwyr.”

  “With strength his only strength, his weakness shows,” counseled Brohan over his shoulder.

  “Strength his only strength,” scoffed Guillaume. “Don’t be daft. When we begin taking advice on battle from a bard, we shall know the kingdom is truly lost.”

  The horses charged, and Artygalle’s lance shattered a third time on Grumwyr’s shield. Grumwyr swept his lance in hard on Artygalle, but skewed high, taking him on the side of his helmet and knocking him off of his horse. The smaller knight fell into the list fence and spun to the ground with a metallic crash.

  Both cheers and hisses greeted the strike, and there was great commotion in the common seating. Inoval sprinted toward Artygalle, who staggered to his feet, dazed. Grumwyr spurred his mount over to his fallen foe and dismounted to offer a steadying hand. Aeolil knew he would be disqualified for an illegal blow before the marshal even raised the red flag, and she suspected Grumwyr knew it, too. Though a brutish oaf, he was an honorable brutish oaf, she supposed.

  The crowd was finally sated when the official declaration was made. “Sir Artygalle advances!”

  Brohan shared a sly wink with Aeolil. “Desperation makes for carelessness. A lesson well learned.”

  Aeolil nodded. Artygalle and Grumwyr exchanged their knightly pleasantries and departed the field. Less pleasant discourse had erupted behind her, but she was not in the mood to join their spirited verbal quarrels. Brohan seemed to share that inclination.

  The marshal paired the two lowest scoring knights to even the ranks for the second round, and Jocelin defeated Nevanne for the first time in their rivalry. She moved on to face Chadwick, and Artygalle was paired with Mellieux, and the final match-up seemed a foregone conclusion. As it turned out, the second round bore its fair share of surprise, as well.

  When Artygalle dispatched Mellieux on their second tilt, sending the old veteran to the dirt, she could not feign astonishment. For all that he was relatively unknown, he had survived the brutal rigors of the Opening Melee and just unseated a perennial champion of the tourney. But when Chadwick, of all people, managed a startling blow that knocked Jocelin to dreams, Aeolil was truly shocked.

  “I’d no idea your guardsman was such a fine jouster,” commented Brohan. “He seems to have put you in quite a dilemma. Your House or your horse? Which will it be?”

  Aeolil managed a grin. Windthane, of course, she thought, but only gave the bard a coy wink in response.

  The marshal was announcing the final round and recounting the victories of the last knights standing as the oddsmakers were tallying up the wagers. Aeolil looked back at the royals and Agrylon. The former were exchanging hopes that Chadwick, as improbable as it may seem, might provide some hope of keeping the King’s Lance from the gauntlets of one of Renarre’s lancers.

  As for the wizard, he only stared across at Rel Aevmiir, his counterpart in the Mneyr pavilion, leaning on his staff. From this distance, Duke Curisinian’s vizier looked all but identical to Agrylon but for the vermillion and silver hue of her robes. She caught an expression flickering across their features, and wondered what thought might have crossed their minds, or between them, when she felt it, too.

  The rush of iiyir was the most powerful yet, but she buffeted the surge with little reaction. It would have sent her to the floor but a day gone. She had at least become inured to the effects of the phenomena.

  Brohan rubbed his forehead. “This is giving me an awful headache,” he muttered.

  Aeolil dabbed at the sweat beading on her own brow with a silk kerchief. “How long will it be like this?”

  “Not much longer. It’s but the crash of strong surf as the new tide comes in. Waves break, and the surf roars – we are but caught in the spray for a time. When the storm lessens and the flow steadies, it will settle to the ordinary routine, if a bit backward by our experience.”

  “Brohan,” Aeolil whispered, bringing hand to lips to shield her words. “How did this enemy turn the tides in the first place, without anyone noticing? Agrylon pretends it of no consequence, but….” She bit at her upper lip.

  “Those that watch for such things did not watch carefully enough, milady.”

  “That’s not much better an answer than Agrylon’s. Was it he that missed the signs?”

  “Yes,” Brohan agreed in a tired sigh. “Him, too.”

  Trumpets interrupted their quiet exchange, and there was one last roar of expectation from the crowd. The knights saluted the honored pavilions in turn and took their places, awaiting the drop of the marshal’s white flag.

  “Perhaps lost in the glare of grand designs,” reflected the bard, “but I suspect something else was at work. Some great magic was worked to shield the greater magic.”

  Artygalle tapped Windthane’s flanks, and the horse launched down the list. Light sparkled in the mail of the charging knights, and Aeolil blinked, trying to clear her field of vision as motes of red, orange and yellow glittered in the very air before her eyes. She shook her head to clear the sudden dizziness as green and blue swirled into the color storm.

  “Gods!” hissed Brohan, launching to his feet.

  It’s so wonderful, she thought, fascinated. Indigo and violet now joined the increasingly vivid tempest of lights.

  A low humming buzzed inside her head. Her insides lurched. Magic, she realized. She reached out, trying to touch the shimmering sparks, even as a distant voice insisted not to look. A memory of sweet sap sparkled on her tongue, turned bitter, and she blinked.

  Faerie glamour, she concluded as her thoughts cleared. She averted her eyes. And something more. Something much more.

  There was no impact of lance on shield. A blinding light swallowed the list, and a roar like a thousand waterfalls exploded through the air. Aeolil brought her hands up, fingers interlaced in a ward, but the spell was interrupted when Brohan grabbed her by the bodice of her dress and lifted her from her seat.

  Aeolil cried out in surprise.

  Bleys drew his broad sword and ran toward her from his post, but the bard was quicker. Brohan was at the edge of the balcony in the space of a hummingbird’s heartbeat, his eyes wide and wild, his lips drawn back and jaw clenched. His bright eyes seemed but shadows beneath his dark brow.

  And without another word, he hefted her over the railing and threw her from the pavilion.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  NOW, INTO THE FIRE

  CALLAGH peered from the shadowed arch of the door, watching the rear guard that blocked the way across the flying bridge. Having discarded most of its armor, the hrumm crouched in unencumbered ease out in the middle of the narrow span. Its topknot whipped around its head, snapping in the wind. Its eyes were feral and alert.

  “Just one?” Seth’s whisper was so soft that it was almost inaudible above the howl of the temperamental gale. “That’s good, right?”

  “None would be better,” she answered, and held out her bow. “Hold this. Follow quickly. If it doesn’t rip me throat out.”

  Seth put his hands up to decline the weapon. “But why not…?”

  “In that bloody wind?”

  “Oh.” Seth sighed the word, deflated, and licked his lips.

  Callagh drew the long sword Inulf h
ad given her. She wasn’t much for sword work, certainly not with a long blade such as this, but she’d need the reach of the weapon out on the bridge.

  “Shouldn’t we wait for Inulf and Faeldor?” pleaded Seth.

  Callagh shook her head. She still wasn’t sure she should trust Inulf, let alone wait for him. “No. But I’ll be quick about it,” she said, and then smiled at Seth with a wink. “One way or the other.”

  The hrumm watched her emerge into the light with a disturbing lack of surprise.

  “At least take a shield!” Seth yelled.

  Callagh waved him off. The sword would be enough to manage. A heavy shield would throw off her balance, and there was little room for a misstep on the precarious finger of stone spanning the keeps.

  A shadow soared past her shoulder with a thick croak, gliding on the powerful wind in a wide circle over the sentry. Aye, thanks for the bloody help, she thought sourly. I can find me own way from here.

  The hrumm tapped the end of its sword on the bridge, as if beckoning her to come, and then raised it in challenge. Callagh resisted the urge to rush in. It had size and strength and the reach of her. One misstep and it would rip her head off or toss her from the bridge. She was a hunter, not a warrior, and in this case she had no doubt that between the two of them she was the prey.

  The hrumm growled and bared its teeth, echoing her thought.

  Callagh stepped forward, swinging to the edge of her reach to test its defenses. The hrumm surprised her with a full counterattack. It sprang forward, deflecting her tentative blade and launching a backstroke at her exposed face. It was all she could do to dance away without losing her balance, parrying awkwardly. She backpedalled, tripped over her feet and fell on her side. She swung her legs out over empty air, just avoiding the hrumm’s sword as it chipped the stone less than an inch from her boot.

  Callagh made an underpowered and desperate thrust at its exposed groin but the hrumm pivoted away and slashed down at her. She deflected the stroke, but the impact shook her from wrist to shoulder, and the clash of steel carried a discordant undertone as her blade broke off at the cross guard.