The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

  He was right to think that way. The next day, Cally contacted him to pass along the latest rumor. An army had departed from the borders not thirty miles to the west, hundreds strong. Dante told him to tell the other chiefs. Minutes later, Cally spoke to Hopp instead: the chieftains had requested another meet.

  "Think they're ready now?" Hopp grinned.

  Dante shook his head. "The more I learn about norren, the less I know. At this point it wouldn't surprise me if they suggested leaving the hills to the king and building a ladder to the moon."

  Hopp sent a quarter of the clan as pickets to the west. At the hill crowned by the seats of stones, the faces of the chiefs were hard and sober. Hopp didn't say a word. He planted himself on one of the long stones, smiling like a fox with a gosling hanging from its mouth.

  "So as far as I can tell," Stann said in a clear voice that quickly silenced the pockets of conversation, "we're seeing their strategy emerge. It goes something like this. Capture the strongest point in the region. Which they've done. Move in a force strong enough to hold it against any nearby clans, which they're doing right now. Once that's established, they hole up in their fortress to prevent counterattack while remaining able to deploy hundreds of troops at once to smash any clans in sight, pinning down the region and whittling our disorganized little bands into splinters. This lets them control a big old chunk of the border and keep their own lands safe until their real armies take the field."

  "Smart," Wult said, weathered face crinkling in annoyance. "Why can't Moddegan be dumb about it instead? Would make our job a hell of a lot easier."

  Orlen stood and gazed straight up at the clouds that had mounted over the last few hours. "If we don't want them to do this, we should stop them from doing so. If we don't stop them from doing so, we admit we want them to do this."

  Kella scowled. "It's not as as simple as that."

  "I think it is." Stann didn't so much as glance around the circle. None of the other chieftains moved, either, but Dante could feel their assent nonetheless—the norren had reached one of their mysterious unspoken agreements. Stann turned to Dante. "How close do you have to be to bring down the doors? Within bowshot?"

  "Thereabouts," Dante said. "It's subtler work than just smashing them down. Call it two hundred yards."

  "I assume you work best when you are not being punctured with arrows."

  "Unless I'm specifically working at bleeding, yes."

  "Then we attack under cover of night. And under the cover of a big wooden shield." Stann took a look around the circle. "We must move today. Prepare as we march. If this new army reaches Borrull before we do, we'll lose the whole region."

  Several chiefs stood immediately and jogged away from the hilltop. Hopp grinned and smacked Dante's back hard enough to stumble him.

  "You're sure you can do this?"

  "Fortunately for our chances, hinges don't fight back." Dante tugged the hem of his doublet to straighten it after his near-fall. "If you can give me a minute, I'll give you the fort."

  Hopp smiled proudly, glancing at the other chieftains on his way down the hill. The norren was proud of him, Dante realized, as well as being proud of his own canniness—taking three humans into his clan must have been a terrible risk on some level, a gamble of whatever prestige he held with all the other clans. Blays had fulfilled Hopp's "test" by managing to only half-drown himself in the stream, yes, but there was no higher law holding Hopp to his end of the bargain. Taim, Josun Joh, Arawn, none of them had formed in the clouds to scowl down at the chieftain until he relented and took the three humans into his tribe. Hopp was a man for whom pragmatism came before honor. He'd break his word without hesitation if he thought it would make for a better tomorrow. He'd seen something in the humans, then. Some use or potential that convinced him to roll the dice. Not only was that gamble about to pay off, it was about to do so in front of fifteen other clans.

  The Broken Herons moved east, covering half the distance to Borrull before nightfall. Dante gazed at the stars from under his blankets. He'd been in enough fights, scrapes, skirmishes, and battles to forget more than one, but he'd never been part of a siege of this size, let alone served as its cornerstone. As terrifying as that thought was, it was thrilling, too. A breath of cool air. The wind between an albatross' feathers. The night-dewed grass beneath a tiger's paws. Feared and fearless.

  Away through the brush, Lira moaned. Dante struck out with the nether, neatly slicing a twig from the tree above his bed.

  He woke sluggish and thickheaded. He wished for tea. The Broken Herons tramped east. They halted regularly to forage, rest, and wait for word from the scouts, but moved fast enough to encamp by mid-afternoon in a stream-fed valley some two miles southwest of Borrull. Several clans and some three hundred warriors were already there, mending shields, sharpening blades, fishing, wrestling in a foreign, upright style where victory was achieved by flinging the opponent to the ground. After each throw, sweep, or trip, the downed warrior bounced to his feet, laughing or wryly determined. More than once, he asked his partner to walk him through the technique that had just introduced him to the ground. If any old rivalries lurked among the divergent clans, Dante didn't see them that day.

  Stann summoned Dante over at dusk to inspect the shield they'd rigged for him. It was more of a mobile wall than a shield: seven feet tall and ten feet wide, gently convex, with three horizontal slits at his eye-level. Leather handles had been nailed behind either flank, allowing for two warriors to carry it while Dante hid behind it. It smelled of fresh-cut wood, but had clearly been built by a craftsman whose nulla was woodwork—the planks sanded smooth and splinter-free, the viewing slits straight and perfectly parallel. Dante's doubts about the plan backed swiftly away.

  Scouts came and went as night settled on the hills. The last of the clans arrived under starlight, swelling their numbers past seven hundred, outnumbering the men behind the wall three-to-one. In a straightforward siege, the odds would be far from overwhelming. In one where the front door would be knocked to the ground within two minutes of first contact—one where the attacking size was larger not only in numbers, but in the tree-trunk-like mass of their individual warriors, too—it would not be an easy night for the redshirts.

  A ripple spread through the camp. It was time to march.

  Seven hundred pairs of feet flattened the grass of the hill. Scattered clouds dimmed the moonlight. Spears swayed over the high heads of the norren. Nether danced between pebbles and twigs. They reached the rim and spilled into the waiting valley. The butte of Borrull rose from the darkness. The clans carried no banners. They sounded no horns. Hunching along in loose formation through the breeze-ruffled grass, the warriors were nearly halfway up to the fort before the first trumpets sounded from above.

  Torches pricked up along the wall. Shouts tumbled down the slope. Blays grinned. "Think they've seen us?"

  "Either that or they've spotted an alarmingly large rat in the kitchen," Dante said.

  "Let's see how they feel about the one that's about to chew through their doors."

  "If it turns out I can't, and they shoot me, don't tell Cally I was trying to plink off a hinge. Tell him I was trying to lift the whole wall over my head."

  "You think that will make you sound smarter?"

  Flaming arrows launched from along the wall, falling through a long arc before burying themselves in the ground. Their shafts burnt on, denoting range. The norren halted a few yards from the nearest. Atop the wall, arrowheads glittered in the torchlight. Silhouettes moved between the rounded merlons.

  "Turn back or be slain!" a commander bellowed from up the hill.

  Orlen strode up to the nearest arrow, yanked it from the ground, and broke it in his massive hands. "Within an hour, every redshirt behind that wall will be dead. To avoid that fate, I advise leaping from the cliffs, and taking your chances with the ground."

  Norren hollered from up and down the lines. The twang of twenty bows hummed through the night. Orlen turned his back
and walked away. Seconds later, a forest of shafts planted itself in the ground where he'd stood.

  Hopp loomed beside Dante. "Ready for the big surprise?"

  "I hope you've picked some strong men to hold that shield."

  "I can vouch for Coe," said the chief. "We'll see how I do."

  He beckoned Dante along the ranks to the giant wooden shield-wall. A gigantic norren waited at one of the handles. He nodded at Dante. Hopp grabbed hold of the other side and counted down. The pair hoisted it inches off the ground and shuffled forward.

  Dante's heart pulsed. He walked with them, his breath echoing from the close wooden wall. Through the three slits, his vision swayed with the pace of the two norren. Despite the claustrophobia of it all, at least he could still run if it came down to it. In a siege of the eastern kingdoms several hundred years ago, a sorcerer named Federick had had the brilliant idea of enclosing himself inside a wheeled platform of pure iron to protect him as he set to the time-intensive work of blasting a large hole through the massive enemy walls. Once he got into position, an ethermancer among the enemy forces had let Federick work for long enough to drill through four feet of stone, and then, with Federick's strength depleted and his attention diverted, the ethermancer knocked off one of Federick's wheels, trapping him in place, and then turned the ether to the heating of the iron enclosure. Within moments, Federick halted his attack. Within minutes, the entire battlefield smelled like sweet pork.

  Dante could at least be certain he wouldn't be cooked. Still, when the first flaming arrow rapped into the wall, he jerked back with a snarl.

  "Did you think they wouldn't shoot?" Hopp chuckled.

  "Shut up and carry."

  "Are those the last words you'd speak to your chief?" Hopp said, mock-aghast.

  Another arrow smacked into the wall, several more right behind it. Dante cut his arm. Nether swirled from the grass as if hungry for the tide of blood that would soon sweep from the wall. "This should be close enough."

  The two warriors set down the shield with an earthy thump. Dante leaned close to the slits. The doors stood within two hundred yards. Closer yet would have been even better—the nether got clumsier the further away you sent it, and required proportionally more energy to manipulate—but he didn't want to open himself to sidelong fire from the turrets at either end of the wall.

  Arrows whacked into the shield and whumped into the earth. Dante shaped the nether between his hands and winged it towards the far-off doors. The gates were inward-swinging, hinges hidden behind the doors themselves, unreachable. Unreachable to anything except a paper-thin blade of nether. It sluiced through the crack between door and wall and cleaved through the thick iron. From his investigation with the mouse, he knew each door had four hinges; four doors in all. One hinge down, fifteen to go. Dante smiled.

  Something slammed into his back, pitching him into the shield. His left lower back felt hot and numb. He swore dully.

  "Where did that come from?" Hopp shouted at Coe. Coe shook his head quickly, moving to put Dante between himself and the shield.

  "Where are you going?" Dante said. He turned. Wood clacked into the wood of the shield, jarring him. He craned his neck. When he saw it, his knees sagged, his vision swarming over with foamy white spots.

  An arrow stuck from just below his lower ribs. While he faced the fortress, he'd been shot in the back.

  20

  He fell to his knees, head hot and fuzzy. A huge hand clamped his forearm, stopping him before he hit the ground. Hopp shouted something Dante couldn't make out. As if he were rising from a pool of warm water, the fuzziness fell away, draining the spots from his eyes as it went. Downhill, two slim figures burst from the ranks of norren. Lira and Blays. They sprinted to their left, headed for the edge of the cliffs.

  Hopp leaned into the straps, lifting the shield a couple inches from the ground. He began to move it backwards.

  "What the hell are you doing?" Dante said.

  "Getting you out of here!"

  "Set down that shield. I have a job to do."

  Hopp leaned down to meet him eye to eye, as if examining him for signs of sudden insanity. "You've been shot."

  Dante gestured toward the edge of the butte. "And my best friend just ran off to slice the one who did it into little red ribbons. Right now I fear more for the shooter's safety than for my own. Now are you going to break off this shaft, or am I going to knock down these gates with an arrow wobbling from my back?"

  Hopp shook his head in disbelief. "Is your brain in your back, too? What are you thinking?"

  Hopp grabbed hold of the arrow and broke it effortlessly. The pain finally hit, returning the swam of white spots to Dante's sight. He half-collapsed again. Nether surged to the blood dappling the damp grass. He brought a thread of shadows to his wound, just enough to tamp down the pain. He couldn't risk healing himself wholly. Not before he had the gates down.

  He willed himself to his feet. The spots faded. Hopp kept the shield upright while Coe maneuvered tight behind Dante to serve as a norren shield. The pain was a dull burn in his back. It seemed to fuel the nether as potently as his blood. He slung another paper-thin blade through the hinges of the door. A third. A fourth. He leaned against the slits. The door held firm. Had he missed a hinge? Left one half-severed? He wasn't thinking straight. His mind was clouded by the denial of the wounded. As he'd sent the blades through the hinges, he could feel the shadows biting cleanly through the iron, but seconds later, he couldn't be certain. He summoned another handful of shadows.

  At the front of the wall, the door tilted, exposing torchlight behind it, and fell to the ground with a bang.

  Heartened by the rumbling cheers of seven hundred norren, Dante struck at the next door. Not the one next to the one he'd cut down. That doorway was already open. He could faint at any minute. He might not have time for all four doors.

  Instead, he hurled the next blade at the door directly behind the first. He felt it shear through the iron like a knife through stiff paper. A single scream echoed from the hallway between the gates.

  He cut the next hinges in a haze of pain and exhaustion. He threw the final knife of nether, guiding it to the last hinge, and found the door had already fallen.

  Norren roared. Warriors surged up the slope, shields held above their heads. Arrows conked into the wood and slashed into flesh. Dante sagged. Hopp grabbed him with one hand and held onto the giant shield with the other. Warriors poured around them. By the time Hopp set Dante down in the trampled grass back out of arrow range, the entire army of clansmen had run past. Uphill, metal clanged on metal. Men screamed and swore and laughed awful laughs. Dante's ears buzzed. He twisted around for a look at the arrow.

  "What do you think?" Hopp said. His fists were wet with blood.

  "That it's very dark." Somehow, Dante found the torchstone in his pouch and blew it into life. He raised it to Coe, who watched in silence, accepting the gleaming stone. In the white light, the blood slipping around Dante's wound was as bright as coral. The snapped shaft jutted a hand's-width from his back. Fighting off the urge to faint, he met Hopp's eyes. "Well, what are you waiting for? Pull it out."

  "Of your back?"

  "Why? Do I have another one in my ass?"

  "You will bleed. You might bleed until you've bled to death."

  "I'm my own best shot. If I pass out now, I might not wake up. Now get this out of me and we'll see which one of us is the fool."

  Hopp smiled tightly. "How long do you think you can keep giving your chieftain orders?"

  "I won't know that until you make me stop."

  Hopp yanked. Dante screamed and doubled over, writhing. The white spots turned gray, then black. Hopp was slapping him, shouting, his branded face so comically alarmed Dante chuckled, wincing at the lance of pain that followed. Were the shadows in his vision the waiting nether, or an oncoming and lasting sleep? He groped for them and they shivered like wind-struck leaves. Nether, cool and fluid, mocking and distant and hungry and in
different. He brought it to his wound, but it was like shaping dry sand.

  Hopp wiped the blood with a wet cloth. This fresh pain was icy, not fuzzy, and it jolted Dante halfway from his fog, centering him. He sat in the grass down the hill from a panic of screams and clangs. He smelled smoke, dry and spicy. A great white column rose from behind the wall.

  His hand was warm. It was pressed to his wound, which was bleeding quite a lot. His other hand was cold.

  Clumsily, ploddingly, he balmed the nether to his wound. The heartbeat of pain eased to a stinging itch. Two figures ran in from the cliffs to his left. Dante tried to stand and fell to his knees. Hopp drew his sword with a whisper of leather.

  "Is he all right?" Blays' voice was strained. "You're sitting up!"

  "More like falling sat," Dante said.

  Lira glanced upslope at the sound of a horn. "We found the shooter."

  "You did? What did he say?"

  "Well, if I remember right," Blays said, "it was something like 'Aaaahhh!'"

  Lira jerked her chin toward the cliffs. "He leapt off."

  "He leapt?" Dante said. "Did he make it down?"

  "Bits of him sure did!" Blays knelt down across from Dante. He glanced across the trampled fields, as if enemy legions might be hidden in the bent grass. "You know what this means, don't you?"

  "Blays, I was just shot." He twisted to see his wound in the darkness. Blood glimmered, but the flow had ceased. "I'm not sure I'm not still passed out and dreaming."

  "It means you were betrayed."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "Set up. Sold out. Hung out to dry. Betreasoned. Turned-coat-against." Blays pointed to the left and downslope. "How else would they know to deploy a lone sniper? To specifically target you? We found his little camp over there, hidden in the grass."