“For now, yes.”
*
“He destroyed it? Are you sure?”
The thin, yellow-eyed changeling nodded emphatically. “Yes, lord. I saw it done.”
Kalarr cu Ruruc was still drained and exhausted by his great spell three days before, but now fierce delight replaced his weariness. He walked to a window and stared down at where Duergar worked necromancy on the wreckage of Endwar Santon’s legion. Then he chuckled.
“Losing the spellstone is unfortunate. Yet not so great a loss to me as the wristband is to you, Drusalan.” He fixed the spy with a baleful glare. “Duergar Vathach must not hear of this.” An ominous note in his voice made the changeling quake, knowing all too well the easiest way of ensuring silence. “I see you understand me. Remember it. Now get out!”
The spy needed no second bidding and scurried away as cu Ruruc settled back in his chair, already planning how to deal with King Rynert’s host when it came within reach. There would be no help from the Empire. With the old Emperor dead and the succession in doubt, Grand Warlord Etzel was too busy jockeying for real power to concern himself with long-delayed notions of foreign conquest. He was even too busy to punish the agent whose indecision caused that delay.
It was just as well, because Kalarr needed Duergar’s necromantic skill to maintain the traugarin which made up most of his own army, and another spell like the one which had slaughtered Santon’s legion was impossible at present. It would be more than a month before he could bear the physical pressures of High Magic without risking hideous deformity.
Besides, military victory had a value of its own. Thanks to Baiart Talvalin he knew of certain ambitious lesser clan-lords who would never smirch their honour by aiding a wizard, but would eagerly follow a successful field commander. Kalarr sneered. He cared nothing for what they thought, but the proprieties had to be observed.
He opened Lord Santon’s battle orders and began to read.
*
The great army roads crisscrossing Alba, and the legions which used them, had been created by Rynert’s great-grandfather in the early days of the Imperial threat. Neither had yet been used for their original purpose, but they had seen service against border raiders and an occasional lord who fancied a return to the independent days of the Clan Wars. For years the six legions had been no more than a watch-force with a kingdom as their beat. That was changing with every mile farther north.
They had passed villages along the highways, with inns and lodging-houses for travellers and merchants and marketplaces where they could buy and sell their goods. Now Aldric looked around the marketplace of one such village, home to three hundred people. It was a jumble of tumbled stones and shattered timbers, stained by greasy smoke and heavy with the cloying stink of houses that had burned with people still inside. Even the little gardens were just a morass of hoof-prints, flowers and vegetables alike trodden to pulp.
More than Clan Talvalin had suffered loss at the hands of his enemies, but those losses were anonymous and distant. There was nothing anonymous about this, and he realised why the Albans of the Old Time sometimes answered it with the savagery he had read of in the Books of Years. War was for warriors, and any man who visited its horrors on the helpless deserved whatever ingenuities the dark and secret places of the mind could conceive.
He heard hoofbeats and looked up. King Rynert and Dewan ar Korentin were picking their way through the devastation and both, Aldric could see, felt the same way as he did. When they drew closer he asked simply, “Why?”
Dewan had seen such things before and knew the reasoning behind them. “To discourage us,” he said. “A Drusalan tactic, done at Duergar Vathach’s prompting. To take the heart from an advancing army.”
“In the Empire, maybe.” Aldric’s voice was flinty. “This is Alba.”
“Go away from here, Aldric-eir,” said Rynert. “Brooding will do no good.”
“As you wish, Lord King.” Aldric saluted, then rode Lyard towards the road, towards the army, towards anywhere that was away from the dead village. Rynert watched him go, then looked across at Dewan.
“There goes a young man who lives his life most intensely,” he said. “And he misses the Valhollan woman, despite your report. What we just saw is a part of it.”
“All I reported was the word ‘infatuation’, Lord King. I didn’t choose it, she did. Perhaps we were both wrong.”
“What’s your opinion of him?”
“The kourgath cat makes a good crest, Lord King. He’s lazy, lecherous, fond of food and comfort, and capable of doing remarkable damage when pressed. He’s intelligent, well-educated in a most interesting variety of subjects, and foul-tempered when the mood’s on him. Talvalin could be a dangerous enemy. Ruthless and pitiless.”
“Not all the time, Dewan. I saw pity in his eyes just now.”
“I saw it too.”
“Would you trust him?”
“With my life.”
“With your wife?” The king was teasing, as he sometimes did with his small, select group of friends, and Dewan felt able to laugh even here where laughter was so out of place.
“I’m not a jealous husband, Lord King!” It was an old joke that Lyseun was jealous enough for both. “Anyway, she doesn’t like him. She never likes people who take me away from her. But yes, I’d trust Aldric with her. He’s an honourable gentleman.” Dewan’s smile faded. “It’s part of what makes him dangerous.”
“I’ll bear it in mind. Now, as for Baiart, if he’s taken alive he’s to stay alive. I want a treason trial and an execution.”
Dewan glanced back to make sure Aldric was out of earshot. “Then the Talvalin lands will fall forfeit to…” His confusion cleared. “Ah. I understand.”
“Quite. That young man needs to learn that he has other obligations than his own honour. When I return his lands – which I’m not required to do – it should prompt some gratitude.”
“You might prompt something else.” Ar Korentin straightened in his saddle. “I admire your cleverness, Lord King. I also make formal objection to this scheme. If he ever finds out, Talvalin may resent such an underhanded trick. Be warned, Rynert. And be careful.”
“I will.” The king let Dewan’s use of his name go by without comment. “But it’ll remind him he can’t gain everything by his own efforts. I want my high-clan lords under obligation to me.”
“As you wish. I still—”
Ar Korentin broke off as three horsemen with the orange plumes of couriers came clattering towards them. The foremost was off his skidding steed before the beast halted, and down on one knee before the others dismounted at all.
“Lord King,” he said, “we’ve found Lord Santon!”
*
Endwar Santon told his tale to a ring of grim-faced, silent men, and if they looked like mourners at a funeral, he looked like the corpse. He had wandered for more than a week, eating what little he could scavenge though with Duergar’s raiders out and busy there was little enough of that, while making his unsteady way south to the road where friends might pass. And there he waited in hiding, through days darkened by his memories and nights bright with the flames of burning cottages.
Rynert’s army was less than three days hard march from Dunrath, but its strength of fourteen thousand was no longer enough to obliterate cu Ruruc’s forces in open battle after their reinforcement with the six thousand traugarin who had been Lord Santon’s legion. Only Gemmel gained grim satisfaction from what Kalarr had done, because there was no longer risk of some awesome spell devastating the entire host while he was unable to protect it. Step by step, Duergar and Kalarr were moving up to lay their heads on the block, and neither of them knew it.
“He said I couldn’t die until I spoke to you, Lord King,” Santon said. “I thought he just mocked me, but I couldn’t draw my tsepan. My own hands wouldn’t obey me. I couldn’t even fall on my sword.” He croaked a low, ugly laugh. “So I threw it away. Kalarr said I had to tell you everything myself. I had to make
my shame complete. All right, I’ve done it.” Santon set down his cup of wine. “And now I want to join my men.”
Rynert had been expecting that request since the couriers arrived, and trying to invent a reason to refuse it. But there was really only one response, and it was to give consent.
Preparations were brief and simple, just the privacy of screens made from the great clan war-banners where Lord Santon could be alone with a priest. Aldric and several of the other younger lords stood around in horrified fascination, none of them aware he had been within a tsepan’s length of the same situation, and when Rynert beckoned to him he felt his mouth go dry.
“Endwar was your father’s closest friend, Aldric-eir,” the king said in a low, private voice, “so it would be appropriate if you would…” Aldric shook his head. While Duergar lived he remained eijo, and giving his name its noble form didn’t meant Rynert could compel him to anything. “Very well. Dewan ar Korentin will act for him instead. May he use your sword?”
Aldric unhooked the sheathed taiken from her slings and gave it to ar Korentin. He accepted with a deep, courteous bow, backed away three paces, and bowed again before walking behind the makeshift screens. Rynert watched him go. “Will you at least be a witness?” he said.
Aldric hesitated, refusal no more than an indrawn breath away, then drew himself up very straight. “As you say, Lord King, Endwar Santon was my father’s friend. He was a hearth-companion of clan Talvalin, and the absence of the clan-lord—” he watched for reaction and saw none, “—would dishonour him and us. Yes, I will be a witness.”
*
After it was over everything went still for a moment, then the witnesses bowed in unison and departed without a backward glance. All except Aldric. He waited through the various rituals until Dewan was able to hand back Widowmaker and strapped the taiken in place, grateful she hadn’t been needed. Like much else in his life, Lord Santon required no one’s help to leave it.
“What will they do with him?” the Vreijek asked. “There’s not enough wood for a proper funeral.”
Aldric stared at the huddled form under its scarlet cloth. “There is. We’re carrying fuel for the cookfires, and I’ll eat cold food if I have to. His courage deserves more than a hole in the ground.”
Dewan shivered inside his armour as if a chilly breeze had stroked his neck. He wasn’t Alban, he hadn’t been raised with a tsepan as an acceptable end to life, and the unquestioning approval of Santon’s act disturbed him. With the risk of battle mere days away, squandering all those accumulated years of wisdom and military skill to satisfy something as intangible as honour was pure stupidity.
“I wonder will Baiart be as brave?”
Dewan drew breath to answer, realised just in time that Aldric was thinking aloud rather than asking a question, and closed his teeth on what might have been a perilously wrong answer.
“He’s a Talvalin,” he said, and walked away.
CHAPTER TEN
“Lord King, I’ve been trying to speak to you for the past three days!” Gemmel didn’t hide the impatience in his voice.
“I’ve been somewhat busy, Master Gemmel. An army to command, a kingdom to rule at second hand – small things, but time-consuming.” The enchanter glared, trying to keep his temper in check, until Rynert decided enough was enough and turned business-like. “Well, what do you want?”
“It concerns your battle-plans, Lord King:”
Rynert frowned as he hadn’t done at Gemmel’s irritation; some things were unwarranted interference by outsiders, and this was one. “So you’re a military commander on top of all else? Imperial service, no doubt.”
“I’m merely an enchanter, Lord King.” His tone suggested there was nothing ‘mere’ about it.
“Then how does my strategy become any business of yours?”
“What you’ll be fighting makes it my business. Let me remind you once again, these aren’t Imperial soldiers. They’re traugarin raised by a necromancer from Lord Santon’s destroyed legion. The numbers may be equal on both sides, Lord King, but your troops can be killed. They can’t.”
“The Drusalan necromancer’s spell will fail once he is killed, yes?”
“Yes. An honourable fulfilment of Aldric’s oath, and an end to his time as eijo.” The twitch of expression that crossed Rynert’s face was so small and brief that Gemmel almost missed it, but confirmed what he had begun to suspect. Aldric would find inheriting Clan Talvalin’s lands and title, perhaps even his own return to kailin rank, far less certain than he believed.
“Until then, what about my army?” The king gestured at maps and troop-dispositions. “You told the council you would protect it.”
“And I will. I can turn most—”
“Most?”
“Most. You needn’t fear High Magic like the invocation cu Ruruc sent against Lord Santon. That took time to prepare, maybe an entire night and day, and Kalarr isn’t strong enough to weave another yet without tearing himself apart.”
“I know.” Rynert wasn’t bluffing to save face. He had read about the merciless rules of high sorcery, the warping pressures they put on mind and body, and why powerful sorcerers weren’t the bearded ancients of stories but sturdy men who could pass for warriors.
“Besides, he won’t want to defeat you with magic. Not if he wants allies.” If this king meant to keep or break his promises as expedience dictated, he needed reminded of how many others thought the same way. “From my reading of Alban history, only a battlefield victory will be accepted by… Call them supporters who can’t decide which horse to back, and avoid the course until the race is won.”
“I’ll call them what they are, traitors who lack the courage to declare for either side. They’re the lesser lords who sent no troops, only reasons why not. Many are associates of Baiart Talvalin. And treason is treason.”
Rynert’s flash of severity caught Gemmel off-balance. “Aldric said you were the one who suggested Baiart might be under spellbond. Doesn’t that count in his favour?”
“No. And your fosterling wasn’t convinced either.” Gemmel had heard the king address Aldric correctly to his face, yet now wouldn’t even use his name. Whatever was going on in that subtle mind needed no encouragement, so he said nothing and let Rynert talk on. “It angered him so much he cracked a wall-panel with his fist. Compulsion by sorcery or duress is no defence, Master Gemmel, because I saw Baiart many times at court and he always wore the means to escape.” Rynert touched the tsepan dirk at his belt. “If he chose not to use it, he must have made a different choice.”
“But Lord Santon—”
“Lord Santon had a message to deliver. Once his duty was complete, you saw what happened. Baiart Talvalin is long past such excuses.”
“Then what choice have you made for my – for Aldric?”
“None to concern you. I have my reasons, so let be. Stop meddling in affairs of state!”
“I beg pardon.”
Rynert had never heard a less heartfelt apology. “All right, meddle in the affairs of war. What will I do, Lord General Gemmel?” It was part sneer, part sincere. “Advance? Stand fast? Run away? We’re less than a day from Dunrath and the commanders need their orders.”
“Not run, at least. However, you— “ Gemmel paused as cavalry clattered past the pavilion, drowning his words, and Rynert twitched the door-flap aside to watch them.
“Dawn patrol,” he said. “Riding point for the column. We’ll be moving soon.” Rather than summon servants he started putting on his armour by himself. The fewer eyes and ears to witness him discussing tactics with a wizard, the better. “Well? You were lecturing me. Continue.”
“Don’t run. And don’t meet cu Ruruc head-on either. Skirmish. Duck and weave and sidestep. Any set-piece battle is out of the question, you know that now, so break your troops into small formations of two hundred at most, and disperse them. Their purpose is to keep Kalarr occupied. The busier you keep him, the better chance Aldric and I will have of slipping unnotice
d into Dunrath.”
Rynert grunted; it might have been an opinion, or just the effort of tightening a strap. “What’s to stop cu Ruruc overwhelming several of these small units at once?”
“Two things. First, I’ll destroy the spies watching us, and second, I’ll lay a Concealment over the army before they can be replaced. Kalarr’s troops have to find your men before they fight them, and there’s no point massing troops against an invisible opponent. One to one or outnumbered, you risk losing only two hundred men each time they engage.”
“It’s brutal, and I don’t like it. It’s also good sense, and I like that. What about the spies? When will you deal with them?”
“Now.” Gemmel shifted the Dragonwand into both hands, a spear-fighter’s stance. “Your host is breaking camp, so they’ll be watching.”
Rynert followed the enchanter outside, adjusting buckles as he went and unsure whether he worked at his armour to make it comfortable or to cover the eagerness of seeing magic in action. Gemmel muttered under his breath and Rynert moved a little closer, drawing breath to reply, Then he realised with a little shiver that Gemmel was speaking to the spellstave.
“Abath arhan, Ykraith,” the enchanter said. “Acchuad eiya ilearath dua’hr.” There was a deep, melodious thrumming like the bass drones of a gurdy, and a translucent shimmer enveloped the crystal in the carved firedrake’s mouth. Rynert sensed its gathering power just as he would have felt a stove being opened, and a great stillness settled over the camp. The only things moving were crows, spiralling lazily high above. Gemmel gave them the brief glance of a man taking aim and when he raised the Dragonwand above his head, Rynert almost ducked.
“You’ve nothing to worry about,” said Gemmel. If it was meant to reassure, it didn’t. Then he spoke a single phrase and needles of white heat burst from the Dragonwand’s crystal flame in a great expanding hemisphere, flashing out across the camp to pierce each changeling-crow through the body. They trailed smoke as they tumbled from the cold blue sky, and left it cleaner than before.
The Horse Lord (The Book of Years Series 1) Page 27