The Cycle of Arawn: The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Do you?"

  "I haven't taken a census, but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that 100% of the norren slaves would prefer to be not-slaves."

  "The issue," Dante said, "is whether they would prefer to be living slaves or dead not-slaves. And whether it's any of our business to intervene."

  "Well, we did. Oops."

  Dante laughed through his nose. Then it overtook him, rib-hitching laughter that had him shaking his head at the river. "Oops!"

  "We should probably put that on our tombstones."

  "That or 'It seemed like a good idea at the time.'"

  Blays grinned. "I'm going to put an arrow on mine pointing to yours, and then make mine say 'All his fault.'"

  "Oops."

  They laughed until silence took them, the hush of night, the whisper of waves.

  "Anyway," Blays said at last. "If I only have one more night of sleep ahead of me, I'd like it to be a good one."

  "See you on the frontlines," Dante said.

  Dante waited just a little longer before going back to the house. One last look at the moon. The stars. The silvery heavens and their cycle of perfection. He should have looked sooner, looked longer. There was no more time left.

  He slept. He meant to see the sunrise, too, but he woke to the full light of early morning and the blare of war-horns. It was time.

  24

  Blays burst through the door before the horns faded. "Well, come on! You wouldn't want to miss the big war, would you?"

  Part of his mind leapt to awareness, as if it had been waiting all night for this moment. His body was still clumsy with sleep; as he tugged on his pants, he toppled back into his mattress. He had little armor to don. Iron bracelets for both wrists, with a slightly larger pair clasped above each elbow. A leather vest composed of boiled patches sewn into supple deerskin, keeping him flexible across the hips and abdomen, along with a collar of similar construction. That was it. The rest was sheer decoration, the armor of the psyche: his black cloak, silver-trimmed. The brooch of Barden clasping it together. And his doublet, velvety black, the thick silver ring of Arawn's millstone sewn into the center of the chest.

  He was ready.

  The morning was already warm, thick with the moisture of the river and the forest. The barricades around the main plaza were manned by a skeletal defense. The footprints of thousands of norren soldiers led north to the ramparts. Dante jogged west to the shore where hundreds of clan warriors and Dollendun citizens sorted through arrows, wiped down swords, and stretched their limbs, working up a light sweat. Hot tea awaited Dante on the docks. One of the perks of rank.

  "They started loading up around dawn." Blays nodded across the river. On the far bank, the galleys waited beside the deepwater docks.

  Dante sipped his tea. "And how's our fleet doing, Admiral?"

  "See for yourself!" Blays swept his hand upstream. There, some twenty rowboats bobbed beside the pier, occupied by two-man teams of norren. Three little candles burned in the bow of each boat. As he watched, the first boat cast off its line and pushed into the river.

  "Excellent."

  Wint appeared beside him. The young Council priest's dark brows were pinched in a skeptical line. "Do you really expect this to work?"

  "Define 'work,'" Dante said.

  "Provide any positive impact whatsoever on our chances of success. Are you hoping their captains will laugh themselves over the railings?"

  Beside Blays, Lira stared Wint down. "These two have made a living out of appearing so foolish that no one takes them seriously until it's too late."

  Wint shrugged, his expression taking a humorous edge. "Forgive me for being concerned about my fate when that fate rests on the outcome of a smattering of rowboats versus a fleet of fully-staffed war galleys."

  "Yes, well, you're forgetting something," Blays said.

  "Enlighten me."

  "Those aren't rowboats. They're little wooden dragons."

  Wint's head jerked once, as if he were in pain. Or suppressing a shake of his head. Dante poured himself more tea, not that his nerves needed it.

  Brassy horns trumpeted from the woods to the north, jolting him, spilling steamy tea over his hand. Distant figures moved through the trees. Swarms of them. Masses. A living, breathing army. Pierced by sunlight, the river gleamed richly blue. The rowboats were a quarter of the way across it when the galleys shoved off and hoved toward the eastern banks.

  The galleys' oars centipeded through the water. Dante watched, along with hundreds of warriors, as the rowboats closed on the galleys in the middle of the river. From a tight formation, the rowboats split apart, a pair moving to intercept each enemy vessel. Sporadic arrows flew from the topdeck of two of the galleys, stopping one of the rowboats cold. The rest were ignored.

  Unchecked, they slipped alongside the surging galleys like the pilot fish sailors see in the slipstreams of cruising sharks. One rowboat drew too close. The galley's prow rammed it head-on. The smaller craft disappeared beneath the blue. Across the rest of the rowboats, one norren in each stayed seated and paddling while his or her partner stood and latched fast to the galleys with spikes and ropes. With their boats secured to their huge hosts, the standing norren produced small packages and affixed them a couple feet above the waterline of the galleys' curved hulls.

  The norren reached for their candles. Not that Dante could see the flames across half a mile of glinting waves and sunlight. But he had watched the norren practicing the day before. Those whose candles had gone out went for flint and steel. Sparks sprayed from the shadows of the galleys, which plowed on across the river, foam curling from their fronts. A cry went up from one of the vessels. Too late, men appeared on the railings to fire in earnest on the norren below. The norren cut their ropes and rowed furiously away from the warships.

  One rowboat lagged behind, its two-man crew struggling with the package they'd attached to the galley hull. Dante's breath caught. The norren and the rowboat they stood in disappeared in a flash of white.

  The bang of the explosion rolled across the shore just as the second one flashed further down the line of ships. Wood and water splintered through the air. A string of flashes lit up the galleys. Shattered wood tumbled in smoldering arcs. Great booms thundered over the water, followed by panicked screams and hasty orders. Atop the bows, shaken archers regained their footing and pelted the paddling norren.

  Not all of Willers' bomb-bags went off. Not all opened more than a perfunctory hole in the galleys' sides. But half the boats trailed smoke from lethal holes punched through their sides, cold blue river water gushing into the void, quelling the fires with clouds of white smoke. Up and down the shore, norren cheered. The galleys redoubled their strokes to reach land before sinking.

  "Shoot," Willers said from Dante's elbow, startling him. "That didn't work at all."

  "What are you talking about?" Dante said. "Those two on the left are going to be housing fish within minutes. Five or six more will have to push in straight to shore if they don't want to sink. We'll slaughter them the second they land."

  "Yeah, but they all should be doing that. I used everything I had in those bags."

  Blays waved a hand around. "You're expecting too much out of life, kid. If you can sometimes blow up just half the things you want blown up, consider that a screaming success."

  "Pitiless Arawn," Wint said, flipping his black councilman's cloak off one shoulder to expose his narrow sword. "This may yet work."

  The undamaged vessels slowed to match the wallowing ships that were taking on water. The two doomed galleys launched longboats and filled them with men. A few redshirts plunged straight over the railings in panicky confusion. To the north, a monstrous group cry echoed through the streets.

  The battle had begun in earnest.

  Strange, then, to be on its less exciting flank. As clanging metal and the screams of the dying filtered from the main scrum a couple miles away, the scene by the river was quiet, punctuated by the sough of oars and the o
ccasional order barked from the ships' captains. Orders which played out exactly as Dante hoped. Forced to rush their landing, the galleys could no longer sail up or downriver to form a beachhead away from the norren defenders. Instead, the fleet rushed straight in, carried just a few hundred yards downriver by the currents. Two foundered well before bow range. As the remaining ten slogged on, the norren jogged down the shore, set up wooden planks above their heads to act as shields, and readied their bows.

  The exchange of arrows was thin at first, both sides probing range. As the galleys closed, thick swarms flew back and forth, thunking into the wood of the shields and hulls alike. Dante hung back out of range. He wasn't much with bows. Besides, he had better plans for the day than dying of an arrow through the throat.

  Men and norren fell and screamed. Dante helped establish a triage center, attending to the wounded warriors with the perfectly mundane methods of bandages, stitches, and liquor. The norren archers forced the redshirts belowdecks until the galleys ground into the shore. As rope ladders tumbled over the boats' sides, the archers reemerged, covering debarking soldiers with a punishing hail of arrows.

  Norren arrows slaughtered the first wave of redshirts, leaving corpses bobbing in the shallows. Scores of living soldiers leapt into the water and splashed for dry land. Norren warriors rose, bellowed from the depths of their lungs, and charged. Blays flashed Dante a tense grin and ran to join them.

  Dante followed, reaching for his sword with one hand and the nether with the other. The two sides collided in a burst of blood and steel. Blades slashed through the sunlight. Blays ducked an arrow, swearing. Norren swords hammered the human soldiers into the waves. The redshirts' advance halted just below the waterline. As a norren fell, gut-stabbed, Blays darted in to stab the attacker's neck while his sword was still engaged. Lira flowed into the gap created by the falling man, flicking her sword into the ribs of another who hadn't yet responded to the sudden collapse of his flank.

  Dante splashed in to support Blays' left. His heart beat like an ancient dance. He was all right with a sword. Skilled enough to hold his own. He didn't want to burn through all his nether just yet, though, which left him playing a risky game: hesitate with it, and he could wind up wounded or worse; spend too freely, and he might have nothing left when the battle needed it most.

  A redshirted soldier stumbled through the knee-deep water. Dante thrust out his sword, piercing the man's chest. An arrow whisked past his ear. He flinched, putting him in range of a probing spear. He bashed down its point, flung out his hand, and sent a needle of nether winging through the spearman's eye.

  Red flowed through the foam. Coppery blood and sour guts mingled with the scent of mud and freshwater. Dante stabbed at a turned back. A black bolt of nether sped past his shoulder, slamming an incoming soldier into the water.

  Dante whirled to find the source of the shadows. Wint splashed up beside him with a smirk and a wink.

  "Morning," the other councilman said. "I won't pretend it's a good one."

  Ahead, the norren pushed the redshirts back to the sides of the boat and cut them down. To Dante's right, Blays crossed his swords against a thrust, rolled his right arm to flick the trapped sword away, then jabbed his lefthand sword through the opening in the man's defenses.

  The remaining redshirts surrendered within minutes. Not that there were many left. Many had died in the initial explosions. A few had drowned with their ships. Hundreds had died on the shore, feathered by arrows and hacked by swords, bobbing between the motionless boats. Far fewer of the giants floated down the river. Dante doubted the norren had lost a hundred men.

  He left the warriors to round up the prisoners and haul them off the boats. He pulsed Mourn through his loon and got no response. Neither Blays nor Lira had taken more than scratches and bruises during the lopsided battle. Wint looked no worse for wear, either.

  "We should do that more often." Blays slicked blood and water from his blades. "Why use these when we can let explosions do the fighting for us?"

  "Yes, it's all peaches and cream over here. Now let's just go take care of the remaining ten thousand men and we'll call it a day."

  "Give me a minute to catch my breath. Anyway, maybe we should wait to venture toward those ten thousand men until our troops here are ready to go with us."

  The wait was torture. Clamor sifted through the deserted streets, a background of blurry chaos interrupted by dagger-sharp screams. Dante pulsed Mourn again, got nothing. He wasn't too worried; Mourn's arm was likely too busy hacking at the king's soldiers to fiddle with his loon. Along the shore, warriors caught their breath, sat down to drink tea and beer and water. Some gnawed on flatbread and dried venison. The wounded washed up and waited for others to bind their cuts. After ten minutes of resting, with Dante preparing to rush off by himself, Mourn looned him back.

  "Come northeast up Farron Street with all you've got," Mourn said. "We're going to need it."

  "How's it going?" Dante said.

  "Bloody. Deathy. Very bad on both sides. They're attacking like there's no tomorrow, which I suppose is true for many of us, but I think we can hold on. Hurry."

  Mourn dropped the connection. Dante grabbed Blays by the elbow. "Lace up your boots. We've got to go."

  He spread word to the chieftains, who moved to rally their clans. Within a minute, five hundred men and women jogged behind Dante up Farron Street. A major boulevard, it was one of the few they'd left unobstructed. Dante's gaze darted between rooftops and doorways with every flutter of pigeons and rats and crows. For a better part of a mile the street was completely empty of people. The roar of battle grew by increments. It was a paralyzing sound, a terror-laced blend of clangs and screams and thumps, enough to root Dante's feet in place. Instead, he ran toward it.

  "Where are you?" Mourn looned him a minute later.

  "A ways up Farron," he said. "That church with the two-pointed spire is just up ahead."

  "Keep going," Mourn said. "There's an incoming cavalry charge. Slow them down or find us first, or we'll be trapped between the enemy and a canal."

  "Got it," Dante said. He turned around and jogged backwards to face the division of norren following him. They filled the street for two blocks. "Cavalry incoming! We've got to link up with our flank and help them withdraw before—"

  Down the street, a crackling bang slammed into his ears. Several of the warriors flinched. Others gaped, eyes as bright and round as the full moon. Dante whirled. Not a block away, the sky-scraping spires of the church tumbled into the street with an earth-shattering thunder.

  The clamor of the collapse hit them first, followed by a rushing cloud of dust. Dante knelt and shielded his face.

  "Did you feel that?" he shouted to Wint.

  Wint coughed, dust clinging to his black brows. "Ether. A vast spike of it. Immediately preceding the collapse."

  Dante nodded. He felt like vomiting. The road ahead was blocked by dust-choked rubble as high as a man's head. As he watched, the front of the stone church sloughed right off, piling into the debris with another smothering gray cloud.

  "What the fuck is happening?" Blays said.

  "They've blocked us off," Dante said. He batted at the dust, squinting at a stone tower on the other side of the church. "Enemy sorcerer. It's Cassinder."

  "Forget that idiot! We have to get to Mourn!"

  More thunder rumbled down the street. Dante braced himself, but this wasn't the avalanche-like clatter of a collapse. It was rhythmic. Drumming. His stomach squeezed into a fist. "It's too late."

  "Like hell!" Blays said. "We just passed that big old street a minute ago. We'll take it instead, loop around—"

  "That's them," Dante pointed. "The cavalry."

  "Then that's a pretty convincing argument to stop standing around!"

  He'd felt the spike of ether that prompted the second collapse, too. Seen it winging from that stone tower. And sensed in his bones who had done it. "Lead the norren around to Mourn. I'm going after Cassinder."
>
  "I'm coming with you," Lira said.

  "No you're not!" Dante burst. "Do you have any idea how dangerous he is? Did you somehow miss that gods damn church he just knocked down? Do you think your spine is stronger than that spire?"

  "No. I do think you can keep me safe from Cassinder while I keep you safe from everyone else."

  Behind them, the norren flowed back down the street, seeking an alternate route. The trample of cavalry faded beyond the blockage of rubble. Frustrated anger surged through Dante's veins.

  "I don't have time for this. You want to get blasted into caseless sausage, go right ahead."

  Down the way, the norren flowed into a cramped side street, hoping to cut northwest around the blockage. Dante backtracked at a dead run. Blays, Lira, and Wint followed, boots slapping cobbles. The high rowhouses on the left side of the street formed a solid block, but an alley opened between them a short ways down, overhung with wash lines and dangling vines. Inside, it jogged right, then left; Dante fought to keep oriented. He dashed into the narrow street beyond, taking a left to parallel Farron Street. The tower loomed ahead, fifty feet high and capped with a high cone roof.

  "What kind of a power can he command if he's capable of knocking down a church?" Wint said, his constant smirk long since disappeared.

  "I've fought him before," Dante said. "He's not that strong. He's either exhausted himself or he had help."

  "How are you so sure it's him? The king commands any number of ethermancers."

  "He has a signature. He wields ether the same way you'd stab someone with an icicle."

  With the tower nearing, Dante slowed, moving close to the safety of the rowhouses. The noise of the maneuvering horsemen and norren had grown distant, their feet a faraway rumble. Dante found himself in a pocket of silence. It had been a couple minutes since the collapse of the church. More than enough time for the culprit to dash down the tower steps and disappear into the streets. Dante felt suddenly foolish, a puppet of his own anger. He shouldn't be chasing phantoms through the streets. He should be with the norren, fighting off the charge designed to smash them.