by J. L. Doty
“And what of you when I return to her?”
She smiled, and was truly Erithnae at that moment. “I am new to the Kingdom of Dreams, and yet I have lived here and died here a thousand times, and will do so again. I will always be here when you return, and I think your Rhianne will be here inside me.”
“And how do I return to her?”
“You must acknowledge your true name.”
“I need to find it first.”
She smiled, and looked at him like a young maiden intent on some mischief. Then she pulled him tightly against her and kissed him, one of those kisses that made him forget everything.
When they separated, she said, “I think you already have, AethonSword.”
He shook his head. “You and Metadan think the label for that symbol is my name, but I know you’re wrong.”
“Then if you cannot acknowledge your name, you must acknowledge what you are. For that is something you have always denied.”
••••
Morgin slipped carefully from one shadow to the next, following the jackal sergeant as he checked with each sentry. Concealed by a shadowwraith, one or more of his men had moved into position behind each of the nearby sentries, and they were all waiting for Rafaellen to give the signal. With his greater experience and affinity for shadows, Morgin had taken on the more difficult task of staying with the moving jackal sergeant as he made his rounds. Magwa’s generals were clearly aware of his abilities with shadows, but he hoped they hadn’t anticipated what he might do with the aid of the shadowwraiths.
Morgin and his shadowmen—as they had taken to calling themselves—had carefully scouted the encampment of the jackal army. Magwa’s hordes had set up a temporary camp in the forest, a staging area from which to launch an assault on Sabian. When they marched south, which would be soon, Morgin had no doubt they’d devastate the forest.
It had taken an enormous amount of power to physically move twelve thousand jackal warriors and a thousand horses and their equipment off the Mortal Plane and into the Kingdom of Dreams. Morgin recalled the seemingly unlimited power he’d sensed in Valso, and he assumed the Decouix king had tapped it to accomplish the task. That frightened him, for he could not summon such power, and yet soon he must find a way to defeat Valso and his master.
Morgin spotted the next sentry about 15 paces ahead. But as the sergeant approached him, the cry of a jaymakaw echoed through the forest. No jaymakaw had ever flown through the branches of the Living Forest.
In response to the jaymakaw a shadow arose behind the sentry, an arm reached out from the shadow and slit the dog’s throat. As the sentry gurgled out its last moments of life, the sergeant Morgin followed tensed and took a deep breath to raise the alarm. But Morgin stepped out of his shadow and buried his sword in the jackal’s back. Quite a number of the jackal sentries suffered a similar fate.
Even at their quietest, on foot leading their horses by their reins, six twelves of armsmen produced a soft roar: the creak of saddle leather, the clop of hooves, a grunt here, a groan there. Rafaellen, leading his own mount and Mortiss, emerged with Morgin’s company from the forest, moving hastily, for they all knew they had little time.
Morgin had just climbed into the saddle when somewhere nearby a jackal howled out a warning. Something had alerted them, so Morgin spurred Mortiss into a charge and shouted, “With me, charge.”
The jackals did not have time to mount a proper defense, and Morgin and his men hit them unprepared. As they charged into the camp, Morgin slashed downward right and left with his sword. He cut down one jackal, wounded another, then reined in Mortiss. It would be suicide for his small company to charge deep into the middle of an enemy twelve thousand strong, so he kept his men near the perimeter of the jackal army. In the distance he heard chaos and pandemonium erupting at several places along the perimeter, and knew his other companies had likewise engaged the enemy.
A mounted Kull loomed out of the chaos and charged at him with a steel blade. The Kull lunged, driving the point of his sword toward Morgin’s heart. Morgin ordered the steel to deflect upward and to one side, and to continue the lunge past him. The blade jerked in the Kull’s grip and sliced just past Morgin’s ear, pulling the halfman toward him. Morgin lunged and buried his sword in the Kull’s chest. The Kull fell from his horse, and riderless, the horse trotted away.
Salula sat astride his horse not five paces distant, holding the obsidian blade casually by his side. It pulled at Morgin’s heart to face his old friend this way, to see the swordsman’s playful smile turned into the demon’s snarling grimace. Where France’s eyes had always glinted with mischief, Salula had corrupted them into sharp anger and hatred. And the joy the swordsman had found in every facet of life had been extinguished, snuffed out until not a hint of it remained.
“ShadowLord,” the halfman shouted. He raised his obsidian sword and swung. Morgin met the blow squarely with his blade, and as steel and obsidian clashed in blow after blow, they lit up the forest about them in a continuous shower of sparks. With each stroke Morgin reminded himself he faced the demon captain of all Kulls, and not his old friend. But striking out at that face sapped his strength and resolve. If he won this contest he would only kill his dear friend France, and not the demon that haunted his soul. So Morgin changed tactics; he spurred Mortiss hard as he brought his sword down. Their blades met just as Mortiss rammed Salula’s horse; the halfman’s mount stumbled and went down.
“Retreat,” Morgin shouted, and with his men following they charged out of the encampment and into shadows of the forest.
It had been a successful raid. They’d killed a few dozen jackals and destroyed some supplies. But when Morgin considered the odds arrayed against them, it had really been nothing more than a minor nuisance to Magwa’s army.
••••
JohnEngine found DaNoel in the castle yard practicing sword skills with one of the armsmen. He was so furious he didn’t ask them to stop, but barged between them, elbowing the armsman aside. He turned to DaNoel and shouted, “You said nothing happened.”
At the sound of a nobleman shouting at the top of his lungs, the armsman decided he had business elsewhere.
DaNoel lowered his sword and said. “Nothing of import did happen.”
JohnEngine wanted to hit him, to curl up his fist and bloody the idiot’s nose. “Nothing of import! I hear rumors among the armsmen of a skirmish on the border, and when I investigate I learn you ambushed the Penda patrol.”
DaNoel rolled his eyes. “Lewendis killed my horse, so we killed a few of theirs.”
“The men report Penda armsmen were downed by your arrows.”
DaNoel shrugged. “An accident.”
“And you didn’t report this accident before allowing Brandon to replace you on the border? Lewendis is a hothead, and Brandon has no idea what he’s walking into.”
DaNoel slid his sword into its sheath. “Lewendis is a peasant. He’s not stupid enough actually harm a member of House Elhiyne.”
“I’m not sure who is more stupid,” JohnEngine shouted. “You or him.”
He turned his back on DaNoel and headed toward the main building. He’d have to report this to Olivia, then send out a rider to warn Brandon. He prayed it wouldn’t be too late.
19
Dream Under Siege
BlakeDown huddled within his cloak as he and his companions let their horses meander up the trail. Even in late summer a cold wind whistled through the peaks surrounding Tharsk. The sun had risen that morning in a diamond clear sky and should have warmed them nicely. But the icy wind found any gap in his clothing, or gusted up the back of his cloak, and every other twist in the trail led them into the chill of a shadow cast by a large boulder, or the slope of the hill above them.
Once again, after trading several messages with Valso, he and a small group had ridden up into the pass at Methula, supposedly to hunt the bighorn sheep near Tharsk. And once again he’d chosen his companions carefully. They spent three days tr
uly hunting, then today he and a select group made the trek to Tharsk.
He paused and looked up at the fortress, silently cursed the monolith of black granite. He wanted to get this over with. During the colder seasons it was a place of black rock, white snow and cold winds. He hadn’t realized that during warmer weather, without snow covering almost everything, it was simply a place of black rock and cold winds, with no real vegetation to break the monotony of the landscape.
This time no one called out from above, and they didn’t have to identify themselves with fake names. As they approached the dark tunnel the portcullises simply rose with a clanking rattle of chains dragging across stone.
None of his companions spoke as they entered the tunnel. They found the massive stone portal at its center already open. They rode through it into the circular courtyard open to the sky, surrounded on all sides by high walls cut from the same black rock. Valso stood there huddled in a heavy cloak.
“Lord BlakeDown,” he said. “I hope when this is done we’ll meet under more pleasant circumstances.”
“Aye,” BlakeDown said, as he swung a leg over his horse’s rump and climbed out of the saddle. He could almost hear his joints creaking in the chill.
BlakeDown approached Valso and dropped to one knee, lowering his eyes. “Your Majesty.”
“No, no,” Valso said. “Rise. Stand up and face me.”
Surprised, BlakeDown stood. Valso gripped his hand, shook it and leaned in close, whispering, “When this is done you’ll not bend the knee to me like some common nobleman. You’ll bow to me as equals.”
A rush of pride swept through BlakeDown, and he held his chin high, ignoring the wind that sliced past his throat.
“Come,” Valso said, spinning about. “I have a warm hearth and a warm meal waiting for us, and mulled wine.”
The king proved to be a man of his word. Once again the two of them dined alone, and as the good food and warm wine settled into his stomach, BlakeDown relaxed. He and this Decouix king were getting to know one another quite well.
When they’d finished the meal, BlakeDown stood to leave. As he donned his cloak, Valso also stood and said, “One more thing Lord BlakeDown.”
BlakeDown paused and said, “What would that be, Your Majesty?”
Valso’s eyes darkened, and he looked at BlakeDown as if evaluating the temper of a steel blade. “If you find the opportunity to rid us of the Elhiyne thorn, I would be most grateful. The sooner you remove that old witch from the playing board, the sooner you will gain your throne.”
BlakeDown couldn’t hide a smile as he crossed the room, bent the knee to Valso, and kissed the ring of the King of the Greater Clans.
••••
With Lewendis on border patrol, Theandrin felt no need to hurry as she stepped into his room. She closed the door and turned to look the place over.
A small window in the far wall looked out onto the fields south of the castle. To her right the blankets on a single bed had been carefully arranged, were smooth and without wrinkles, a feather pillow against the headboard. Next to the bed, a pitcher and goblet rested on a night stand. To her left a small writing table contained two quill pens and a clay pot of ink, all carefully arranged with considerable attention to detail. She hadn’t really noticed that about Lewendis before, but as she considered his room, she recalled he was always quite scrupulous about his appearance. He was not a fancy dresser, but she’d never seen him wear a blouse with a missing button, or a wrinkled collar. She’d have to be careful to leave everything as it was, to return anything she moved to its original position.
She crossed the room to a chest at the foot of his bed. It had a simple, mechanical lock which she defeated easily with a charm she’d prepared in advance. In the chest she found mostly clothing and a few other possessions. She carefully lifted out three blouses and two sets of small clothes, all meticulously folded. She arranged them on the bed in the order in which she’d removed them.
From a pocket hidden in the folds of her dress, she retrieved a folded linen handkerchief. She placed it on the bed and opened it, revealing five small charms she’d prepared in advance, using bits of her own hair and blood. She placed one charm on the shoulder of a blouse, then licked her finger to get a bit of saliva. When she touched the saliva to the charm, it flared brilliantly for a moment, then faded away and disappeared. When Lewendis wore that blouse, he’d have no idea he was carrying one of her charms.
When planning the preparation of these charms her thoughts had kept returning to the Vodah connection revealed by the first modification of her wards. She’d looked carefully into Lewendis’ background; no Vodah there. It could be that he was communicating with a Vodah reporting to Valso. She’d settled on a Vodah trigger. If Lewendis wore any of this clothing and spoke with a Vodah, she’d know.
She repeated the process on two more blouses and the two sets of small clothes. Then she placed them in the chest, careful to return them to their original positions. She closed the chest, relocked it, and left the room.
••••
Brandon looked down at the ravine that marked the border between Penda and Elhiyne. On both sides the rocky, boulder-strewn ground sloped down to the bottom of a dry wash. The gully flooded regularly during the spring rains, frequently turned into a raging torrent. But now, in the warmer months of summer, it had run dry. The slope was a bit steep, but still easily navigable on horseback.
The Penda lieutenant arrayed his armsmen along the top of the opposite slope, and Brandon did the same on the Elhiyne side. He thought the fellow might be Lewendis, but he couldn’t be certain at that distance. The terrain forced them to set up their positions within easy bowshot of one another, and that worried him. But while there’d been a little tension on the border of late, there’d been no real incidents for several years, so he put his worries aside, and started down the slope.
He didn’t hurry his horse, let it pick its own way because of the rocky ground, guiding it only in the smallest ways. On slopped, rough terrain like this, a stumble could result in a bad fall. He focused on the ground, on the difficult footing, was carefully nudging his horse around a large boulder when an arrow thudded into the horse’s neck. The animal screamed and reared just as another sliced into Brandon’s upper arm with a fiery hot flash of pain. Arrows thudded into the dirt around them, another into the horse’s chest, and he knew the animal would go down.
He had one chance to escape being crushed by its weight. He thought it was collapsing onto its left side so he threw his weight to the right, made a reasonably good leap from the saddle, but landed badly and twisted his ankle. He heard snapping limbs as the horse tumbled down the slope, and he thought he was about to follow it, but he slammed into a boulder and heard something in his chest crack. Blistering pain sent him to the edge of consciousness.
As arrows rained down around him and men shouted on both sides of the ravine, he tried to curl up into the smallest shape possible in the lee of the boulder. He heard steel arrowheads ping off the boulder and thump into the ground nearby. He prayed the boulder’s size concealed him from the arrows, and since no more punched holes in him, it appeared to be working.
The pain in his chest was enough to tell him he’d done some damage there, and the blood he coughed up told him he should be concerned. The arrow in his arm had punched through the muscle, a length of shaft protruding from either side. His ankle throbbed badly.
The shouting had stopped, and so had the rain of arrows. Brandon wasn’t stupid enough to peek over the boulder; he wouldn’t see anything with an arrow in his eye.
“Lord Brandon.”
He recognized his sergeant’s voice. He stayed huddled against the boulder, took a deep breath to shout back, but a sharp, stabbing pain in his chest told him that wasn’t going to happen. He lifted his left hand, didn’t have to lift it high enough to expose it to the archers on the other side. One halfhearted wave, two, then he let it collapse against his side.
“We’ll get h
elp to you. Just stay where you are.”
He drifted off for a while, had no idea how much time passed, but when he opened his eyes the sun had moved to a decidedly different part of the sky. His mouth had gone dry, his tongue sticking to the back of his teeth. He wanted water, became obsessed with the idea of a drink, would have traded his soul for . . .
“Cousin!”
Brandon struggled back to consciousness. Night had come.
“The Penda’s have withdrawn . . . I hope. Sorry we had to wait for nightfall.”
JohnEngine! Whispering.
“The men are bringing a stretcher down. We’re going to get you out of here, get you to my mother for some healing. I rode hard to get here, and she’s not far behind.”
“Wathjer.” It didn’t come out well. Maybe he should try again.
“You’ve got a lung wound. Mother taught me a man with such a wound should drink nothing until we get him to a healer. But I’ll wet your lips.”
JohnEngine’s fingers brushed across his lips with blessed drops of water clinging to them. Brandon sucked at them. JohnEngine repeated that twice, then said, “That’s enough.”
Brandon heard the armsmen scuffling in the scree of the hillside. “My lord,” one of them said. “You’re mother’s here. She’s waiting at the top of the hill.”
“We’re going to get you home, cousin. Alive and well.”
••••
For two days Morgin and his 12 companies of armsmen raided the jackal horde. They hit them individually and in unison, striking at random during any hour of the day or night. And they were quite successful in that they suffered few losses, while whittling away at Magwa’s army. But they were so badly outnumbered he knew these small victories would make no difference in the long run.
Apparently, Sabian had never been under siege. No enemy had ever reached the castle to lay siege to it, for the forest and the wraiths stopped them long before they got there. But now, with the forest and wraiths blind to this enemy, Magwa’s army advanced steadily. Little by little the jackal horde drove them south toward the castle, and late in the evening of the second day the 12 companies retreated behind its walls. Morgin asked the forest to create a no-man’s-land for three hundred paces from the castle walls, and the growth there simply ungrew. When the sun rose the following morning they were surrounded by a sea of jackal warriors.