Winds of Fury

by Mercedes Lackey

  “Your famous cousin Warrl stole that particular proverb from the Shin’a’in he ran with,” Kero countered. “It happens to be about five hundred years older than your ‘famous cousin Warrl.’ And believe me, I fought so-called ‘fate’ plenty. I don’t believe in fate.” She shook her head again. “All right, kyree—what is your name?”

  :Rris,: he said proudly. :Tale-spinner, History-keeper, and Lesson-teacher of the Hyrrrull Pack.:

  “All right, Rris, I’ll tell you everything you’d like to know, but—” she interjected, holding up a hand to stave off the eager creature, “—not now. We have a lot to do, and I have the depressing feeling we have a very short time to do it in. It’s only a matter of time before Ancar hits us, and right now we can only pray he follows his old patterns, and makes several feints and tests before he decides to truly come after us. Now, unless I miss my guess, what you lot want is intelligence, right?” She looked around at the others. “Not only what dear Ancar has been up to, but all the things that have happened since Elspeth left.”

  Firesong nodded for all of them. “And let me get the last two of our group,” he said. “Skif and his lady, the current bearer of your mage-sword. I think you will be surprised at what has become of the blade. It has changed, warrior, greatly changed. We wish this kept reasonably secret—but not from you. You, I think, need to know what kind of an ally Need has become.”

  He turned before anyone could stop him and went off at a brisk walk, robes flowing behind him. He returned quickly with Skif and Nyara. Skif also wore the hertasi-designed Whites—Whites with a number of surprises built into them—and Nyara wore a hertasi-made surcoat and light armor—though it would have been very difficult for anyone who was not aware that it was armor to recognize it as such. As always, Nyara carried Need sheathed at her side, but before anyone could say anything to either of them, the sword spoke up, and Need’s mind-voice was sharp with shock.

  :I know you!:

  Kero jumped this time, she was so startled. She stared at the blade, and then swore, fervently and creatively, using several languages that Elspeth didn’t even recognize and describing several acts that Elspeth thought were anatomically impossible.

  “—bloody hell!” she finished with a wail, throwing up her hands in despair, as if in petition to the unseen gods. “Isn’t it bad enough that I get a lover who takes over my dreams, a talking horse, and a uniform like a target? Isn’t it enough that I go from being an honest mercenary to some kind of do-gooder? Does everything in my life have to come back to haunt me and talk in my head?”

  It took all morning to fill Kero in on everything that had happened to Elspeth, Need, and Skif since they left, but the Herald-Captain refused to impart so much as a rumor before she heard Elspeth’s story. Occasionally, Kero fixed the sheathed blade with a sharp glance, and Elspeth suspected that Need was gifting her former bearer with choice comments of her own. They were, in many ways, two of a kind. Evidently Kero began to figure that out for herself, for after a while those pointed glances took on a hint of amusement.

  Elspeth was just grateful that she wasn’t “blessed” with the sword’s presence anymore. And she had the feeling that Kero felt the same.

  Finally, after a break for a noontime meal, Kero made good on her bargain.

  Elspeth had pillows brought in so that they could all sit comfortably, while the gryphons lounged with their forequarters draped over the side of their nest. They sat in a ragged circle, with Kero at one end and the gryphons anchoring the other.

  “First of all,” she said, playing with the end of her braid as she looked at Elspeth, “I want you all to know that not only do I approve of the way Elspeth handled herself yesterday, but the entire Council still approves of the abdication. It’s going to confuse Ancar so much he won’t know what to make of it. He’ll have to wait to see what his spies have to say about it all before he even begins to plan. He’s going to be certain that the abdication was a ruse, until he gets reports that Elspeth really did give up all of her power. He’s going to be hearing all kinds of rumors, and it’s going to drive him crazy. He couldn’t imagine anyone ever giving up a high position.”

  “I thought as much,” Elspeth said with satisfaction.

  “Now I’ve got a little advice for you and your handsome friend,” Kero continued, looking directly and only at Elspeth. “I know you’re not the Heir anymore, and who you couple with makes no difference. But there are people who are watching you. Don’t make any announcements about pairing up for at least a couple of months; that way no one will think to accuse you of being a soft-headed female who lets her heart overrule her head, all right?”

  Elspeth raised one eyebrow. “Does it matter if people think I’m a soft-headed female? As you just said, who I pair with has no real meaning anymore.”

  Kero gave her the look, a scornful expression that had withered sterner hearts than Elspeth’s. “It might not to you, but you’re an example for others, whether or not you realize it. It might seem very romantic to give up throne and duty for the one you love. I’m sure the younger Bards would be thrilled with such a rich topic for balladeering. No one is going to pay any attention to the fact that you’re taking on more responsibility as the first Herald-Mage in an age. You fell in love, and told your duty to take a long walk, that’s how starry-eyed young fluffheads are going to think of it. And while you’re at it, think about the hundreds of young people out there who will use that as an excuse to abandon responsibilities of their own because they think they are lifebonded! Some chowderheaded young fool who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘duty’ is encouraging them to run off to a life of endless love, that’s how it would look. Right now, that’s the last thing we need.”

  Elspeth gnawed her lip for a moment, then nodded, slowly. “I can see your point. I’m still someone that people my age look to for an example, and that’s not going to change any time soon, if at all. Well, I’m not going to avoid Darkwind, but we can keep from being blatant about things. . . .”

  After all, no one knows what the feather and ring mean but the two of us and the folk that came with us. We can make it public knowledge some time later.

  “That’s all I ask. Think before you do something. Always. You may not be the Heir, but you’re going to be just as much in the public eye and mind as before, if not more so. You thought being the Heir was bad, I don’t think you’ve thought about how people are going to react to the first Herald-Mage since Vanyel.” Kero smirked with satisfaction. “Well, now to the business of catching up. We have agents in Hardorn, Ancar has agents here, but I’m pretty sure I know who most of his are, and I’m equally sure he hasn’t caught most of ours. so we’re able to feed him inaccurate and incomplete information without getting caught in the same trap. His pattern hasn’t changed; whenever he thinks he’s found a weak spot in our defenses, he generally pokes at it for a while before he actually mounts an attack. He’s given up on assassins for a while, or they’ve given up on him. Hard to hire people who know the last half-dozen wound up very dead.” She smiled grimly.

  “That’s good,” Elspeth said fervently. “That’s very good! What kind of troop strength has he got?”

  Kero grimaced. “That’s the bad news. It’s formidable, and he outnumbers us about three to two. He has a lot of regular troops as well as a lot of mages. You managed to relay that the barrier at the Border was coming down, so we’ve been acting as if it wasn’t there for about a week or so, though he hasn’t tried anything yet. I take it that it is down?”

  “Probably,” Firesong said, tossing his hair back over his shoulder. “Since one of the signs of that barrier was an inability to work unhindered magic, and both Elspeth and I have been able to do so almost from the moment we arrived, I think we can assume Van—the old spells have been banished.”

  Kero licked her lips thoughtfully. “Right. Well, those mages run test attacks against our Border outposts on a fairly regular basis, so if he doesn’t know the barrier is gone now, he will soo
n. I think we can probably take it as read that he knows now. He’s learned more caution after getting thrown back twice; he won’t rush into an attack right away, I don’t think, even after his usual feints and pokes. The abdication and the appearance of Elspeth as a mage, as well as tales that she brought more mages with her, might give him a little more pause. Every day we make him hesitate, is one more day we have to prepare for his next try at us, and if there’s one thing I know will happen, it’s that he’s going to make a try for us.”

  All of them nodded as Kero finished. “So whatever we can do to confuse him at the moment is going to be of use,” Darkwind replied. “Are we waiting for something, ourselves?”

  “We are,” Kero told him. “When you said you were coming home, I assumed you were going to find some way to get rid of whatever it was that drove Quenten and my other mages off when the Skybolts came north. So I sent some urgent messages asking him to send me as many mages as he could. There are Heralds down in Rethwellan right now, bringing up as many of his White Winds Journeymen and teachers as care to come.”

  “White Winds is a good, solid school,” Firesong spoke up. “It was founded by a hertasi mage. We can work with White Winds mages, and I am relieved to learn we will not be the only teachers of Mage-Gifted Heralds.”

  “Not by a long shot,” Kero assured him. “Quenten’s White Winds mages will be right up in the front lines, too. They know we’re going to have a fight on our hands, and we won’t take anyone who isn’t willing to work combat-magic. I’ve got more mages coming, though—and these, I am afraid, are not going to be as easy to work with. Alberich isn’t here because he’s down south, too. He’s bringing back a load of mage-trained Sun-priestesses from Karse.”

  “He’s what?” Elspeth gasped. She stared at Kero, wondering for a single wild moment if her teacher had snapped under the strain and had gone quite mad. She had heard about the alliance, of course, but she had assumed all that meant was that Karse was going to present a united front against Hardorn. She had never dreamed that Karse would provide more than that!

  “He’s bringing back a group of mage-trained Priestesses of Vkandis from Karse,” Kero repeated patiently. “I know it sounds crazy, but in case you didn’t get all of it from Rolan, this is what happened. There’s been a kind of religious upheaval down there, and the Son of the Sun is now a woman, Solaris. Hellfires, that’s been going on since before I became the Skybolts’ Captain, but it seems that just after you left, this lady organized every priestess and a lot of the Sunsguard, and made her revolt stick. She has been watching the situation between us and Hardorn for some time, ever since she was a junior priestess. By my reckoning, that would have been about the time that Ancar usurped the throne. Evidently Solaris decided that Ancar’s a snake, old feuds are not worth dying over, and that if the two female rulers of the lands facing his don’t drop their differences and decide we’re all girls together, Ancar is eventually going to have both for lunch.” Kero shrugged. “Sounds like the kind of lady I can get along with. So, that’s contingent one and two, both on the way. Contingent three is just now getting organized; Daren got in touch with his brother, and the King of Rethwellan is deciding how many of his court mages he can spare, and how many can be trusted to be of real help. He asked us if we wanted him to recruit, but Daren turned that idea down, since there’d be too good a chance a lot of them would be plants from Ancar.”

  “That’s all very good news,” Darkwind observed.

  But Elspeth frowned. “It is good news, so why are you worried?” she asked Kero.

  The Herald-Captain sighed. “Because even with all that help, we’re still outnumbered head-to-head, both in mages and in troops, and that’s just the troops we know about.”

  Elspeth thought back to the last conflict, and the mage-controlled troops Valdemar had faced.

  “He can take the peasants right out of the fields and throw them into the front lines,” she said slowly, her heart sinking.

  Kerowyn nodded grimly. “That’s right. Ancar doesn’t care if his country falls to pieces, so he can conscript as many men to fight as he wants to. He doesn’t care if they’re decent fighters or not; they’re fodder, and he can keep throwing them at our lines until they wear us down.”

  “You are sssaying that he will rissk ssstarrving hissss own people that he may win hisss warrr?” Hydona said, astonished.

  All Elspeth and Kero could do was nod.

  But Kero wasn’t finished with the bad news. “Last of all, he’s got some new mage with him; this one just turned up at Ancar’s Court fairly recently, and this one worries me.” She bit her lip, and looked from the Tayledras to the gryphons and back. “The fellow is so odd that I’m wondering if you lot can’t tell me what we can expect out of him. He looks more than half cat, from what my agents tell me, and he keeps pretty much to himself. Only one of them has seen him, and just for a moment. We don’t even know his name for certain—just a guess, Falcon’s Breath, Falcon’s Death, or something like that.”

  Falcon’s—oh, gods. No.

  Elspeth felt as if she had taken a blow to the stomach, and Nyara looked stricken. Firesong bit off an exclamation, and Darkwind a curse. The gryphons both jerked bolt upright. Skif looked quite ready to kill something.

  Kero looked around at all of them and raised her eyebrows. “I take it you know this person?”

  Darkwind was the first to recover. “You could say that,” he replied dryly. “Will we never be rid of the Beast? ”

  The last was half-snarled, and Skif’s nostrils flared as he nodded in agreement. Firesong shut his gaping mouth with a snap.

  “That sincerely annoys me. I can only ask myself what dark demon holds the Beast in high esteem, that he keeps returning,” the Healing Adept said after everyone turned to look at him. He bestowed a look full of irony on Kerowyn. “Twice already he has escaped from situations that should have finished him,” Firesong continued, “and the next time I shall not believe he is dead until I burn the body, and sow the ashes with salt!”

  “I may assume, then, that this is not good news?” Kero asked mildly.

  It was Treyvan who answered that question.

  “No, warrriorrrr,” he growled, crest and hackles up. His voice was so full of venom that Elspeth hardly recognized it. “Thisss isss not good newssss.”

  By nightfall, they had a basic plan. Firesong would first find the place where the new Heartstone lay and fully activate it. Then he would roam the Palace with Jeri, looking for the old magic workrooms and any artifacts or books that might still be in existence and stored somewhere other than the Archives. Once the rooms were identified and the artifacts found, he would help Jeri get them properly cleaned and restored to their original functions. He did not expect that to take very long. As soon as the workrooms were ready, Firesong would begin training the strongest of the new mages.

  The gryphons would identify any Heralds here at the Collegium that had obvious Mage-Gift and begin their basic training if they were not of such potential that they needed Firesong’s attention. If there were any doubts whether or not a Herald had Mage-Gift, Darkwind or Elspeth could pass judgment. Need could as well—but the blade opined that it would be better to keep the fact of her existence as an intelligent personality very quiet. A sentient sword would be certain to attract attention, and all of it the wrong kind.

  “This group is strange enough without adding a talking sword,” Kero agreed. “Good gods, I don’t know how I’m going to explain some of you!”

  Meanwhile, until the mages from outKingdom arrived, Darkwind and Elspeth would work with Firesong and the new Heartstone, and search the Archives for “lost” books on magic. She was certain that there were books they needed hidden in there, and that only the prohibition on magic had kept her from finding them in her earlier searches. Now that the prohibition was gone, she should be able to locate them. While books would not replace a real teacher, they could augment what teachers could do. And they might offer spells none of the Tay
ledras knew, and clues to what Ancar might muster.

  Good plans, all of them. Now they would have to see just how long those plans lasted. The worst of their nightmares was now real. Ancar and Mornelithe Falconsbane appeared to be allies. Add in Hulda, and however many mages Ancar had recruited—and Valdemar was racing against time and the most furious of mage winds.

  Only Mornelithe and Ancar knew what they were going to do next. Despite what others said about true mages not guarding against mind-magic, Ancar had long ago learned many of the limits of Heraldic abilities. ForeSight or FarSight, neither worked well against him; all they could do was try to outthink him.

  :What have you learned for us?: Dawnfire asked An’desha, as Falconsbane dozed in his chair beside the fire. :Is there anything new?:

  She had appeared in the flames of the fireplace itself; if Falconsbane happened to wake, it would be very easy for her to hide herself and her power away. The Avatars often appeared to him in the fireplace now; with Ancar so on edge, he could and did burst into Falconsbane’s rooms at any time, waking the Adept, and An’desha did not dare to be away from the body if that happened. An’desha had learned to manipulate Falconsbane’s mind and body to make him more aware of his fatigue. The Adept slept most of the time he spent in his rooms, but he was not aware that he was spending a truly inordinate amount of time in slumber. An’desha saw to it that he ate and drank and cared for himself; the rest of that time An’desha spent in rummaging through Falconsbane’s memories.

  :I have more of Falconsbane’s memories,: he replied, and then, with pardonable pride, added, :and I have been convincing Falconsbane that the defects and faults in his thinking that I cause by accident are truly caused by Ancar, deliberately, to hamper him. It makes him very angry, and less inclined to aid Ancar willingly.: