“Good.” Lilias bit her lip and swallowed hard. The lie, spoken, seemed to lodge in her throat. And yet what else was there to do? Haomane’s Allies might grant merciful terms if she surrendered, but they would take no pity on her. Beshtanag would be dismantled, the Soumanië stripped from her. And Calandor … they would slay him if they could. She wanted to weep; for herself, for Gergon, for all of Beshtanag. But it would not do to let Gergon see her weak. Gathering her skirts, Lilias brushed past him. “Carry on, commander.”
In her quarters, Sarika startled to her feet, but she shook her head at the girl. Let her get some rest. All her people were hollow-eyed for lack of sleep and hunger. Haomane’s Allies had come early; the siege had already endured longer than anticipated. Unattended, Lilias made her way through the fortress, the lie churning in her belly. It would give them hope, for a little while. How long, she could not say.
Her feet trod a familiar path along the stone hallways of Beshtanag, taking her to the tiny egress hidden at the rear of the fortress. For once, it was unguarded; every man who could be spared was on the siege-lines. This too did not matter. No one went this way save her except under duress. Lilias slipped through the door and started up the winding path, heedful of sharp rocks beneath her slippers. After the claustrophobic atmosphere of the fortress, it was good to be outdoors.
The mountain stretched down below her, ringed around with the great wall she had raised. She allowed herself a moment to contemplate it with satisfaction. Even viewed from above, it was a formidable obstacle and, for all their numbers, Haomane’s Allies had not breached it yet.
They were trying, though. There, on the eastern side, a group of Altorus’ Borderguardsmen had built a roaring fire, seeking to weaken the bindings that held the granite together. Lilias paused, frowning down at them. Tiny figures clustered around a mighty log, a battering ram with its prow sheathed in bronze. Closing her eyes, she probed the section of wall they assailed.
There … yes, there. A breach-point, where the smooth stone, annealed by fire, threatened to crack, remembering the composite rocks from which it had been rendered. Faint lines showed on its surface. Drawing on the Soumanië, she Shaped it, restoring it to a seamless whole.
The effort left her weak.
It didn’t matter. At the top of the mountain, Calandor was waiting. Gorse bushes caught at her skirts, dragging her back. Lilias tore free, forcing her way upward. Step by weary step, she made her way to the crest of Beshtanag Mountain. When she reached the mouth of the cavern, she was breathless.
He was there, waiting.
“You knew,” she panted, the tears coming unbidden. “You knew!”
For a long time, the dragon was silent; then he moved, one clawed foot scraping the cavern floor as his mighty head lowered until one green-gold eye was level with hers. “No, Liliasss.” A deep voice, laden with sorrow and sulfur fumes. “Only what mussst be. Not when, nor how.”
“Why?” Her voice cracked. “Why?”
He let her strike him then, her soft fists thudding against his bronze-plated cheeks and jaw. His sinuous neck bent to gather her in a protective coil. “All things musst be as they mussst, little sssisster,” Calandor murmured, his voice rumbling in his furnace-chest beneath her ear. “All things.”
Defeated, she slumped against him. “Must it be now?”
The dragon moved, his vanes stirring. “Is it your wish that I carry you, Liliasss? Far away? To Sstaccia, with itss ice and sssnow?”
Uncertain, she drew back. “Is there such a place, where no one could find us?”
“Yesss.” The dragon’s eyes glowed with regret. “And no. For a time, Liliasss. Only that. In the end, they will always find usss. Is it your wish?”
Walking away, she stood with her back to him, gazing down the mountain. There were dozens of campfires burning at its base. The evening breeze carried the faint strains of revelry and shouting. Inside the wall, Gergon’s warders paced the perimeter, or hunkered around braziers and gnawed half-rations, keeping a watchful eye out for assaults. How many, she wondered, would live to see the end of this? They were her people. For generation upon generation, Lilias had bound them to her service. Her actions had brought this fate upon them. It was too late to undo what was done, and yet, if she could do nothing else, at least she would not abandon them.
She would stand or fall with Beshtanag.
It was not much, but it was all she had to offer.
“No,” she said. “I will stay.”
EVEN FOR THE GULNAGEL, IT was difficult.
Throughout the day, Speros watched them with wide-eyed astonishment. Fjel were meant to delve, not to climb.
Still, they managed it. They worked in shifts, shucking the straps of leather armor that held their weapons. One would crouch low beside the pool, bending his back to make a broad surface, boosting up his fellow. And up the other would go, plunging his yellowed talons into the smooth surface of the rocky cistern, forging hand- and footholds by dint of brute strength, stone giving way beneath their blows.
None of them could last more than a few minutes, that was the problem. Their own body weight was too great, threatening to crack their talons the longer they hung suspended. It was Speros who got them to form the base of a pyramid around the pool, arms outstretched to catch their fellows as they made the precarious descent. And they did it. Working without complaint, hour upon hour, they scaled the cistern.
Foot by torturous foot, the Gulnagel forged a ladder.
“Oof!” The last volunteer descended, helped onto solid ground amid the jests of his companions. He rested his hands on his bulging thighs, fighting to catch his breath. “Reckon that’s about done it, boss,” he said cheerfully, regaining his voice. “Few feet from the lip, any mind. You want to go on up?”
Grabbing a handy shoulder, Speros leaned over the deadly pool and craned his neck, gazing upward. Faint stars twinkled in the distant circle of sky, emerging on a background of twilight. “What’s up top?”
Exchanging glances, the Gulnagel shrugged.
“Hot,” one said helpfully. “Gets hotter the higher you go.”
“Nothing living, don’t think,” another added. “Quiet, if it is.”
“All right.” Speros gnawed at thumbnail, thinking. The Gulnagel waited patiently and watched him. In General Tanaros’ absence, he was their commander; he was one of Arahila’s Children, endowed with Haomane’s Gift. A piece of irony, that. He’d been raised on tales of Fjel horrors. In Haimhault, parents threatened to feed misbehaving children to the Fjeltroll; at least his own Ma had done, often enough. Now here he was, with four Fjel patiently awaiting his orders. Well, he’d cast his lot, and he had to live with it. Still, it wasn’t so bad, was it? Few mortal men could say they’d had Fjeltroll jump at their command. “Yes, let’s try it. Better by night than by day, when we’d be sitting targets emerging. Odrald, will you take the lead?”
“Aye, boss!” The smallest of the Fjel saluted him.
“Good.” Speros flexed his muscles, anticipating the climb. “You, give me a boost. The rest of you, follow me.”
HE DID NOT SPEAK AFTER he summoned her, not for a long time.
Cerelinde sat in the chair he provided, staring with a fixed gaze at the throbbing image of Godslayer. How could something immersed in the marrow-fire itself retain such a crimson glow? It seemed impossible.
He stalked the outskirts of the chamber.
He was angry; no, he was furious. She felt it on her skin, tasted it in her mouth. A prickling like needles, like an impending storm. A taste of copper, only sweet.
“You know what has happened.” His voice was a husk, but resonant.
“No.” She shook her head, willing her denial to be true. It was true, for the most part. A plan had been made; a plan had failed. That much she knew, and no more. The Fjeltroll had returned. And when she spoke of Tanaros, her maidservant Meara had wailed and fled the room. “I know nothing, Lord Satoris.”
“Malthus was waiting!”
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br /> Unseen rafters rattled at the Shaper’s raised voice. Cerelinde winced, and laced her hands together. The light of the marrow-fire cast her raised knuckles in sharp shadow. “Does his Lordship hold me to blame?”
There was a sigh then.
It came from every corner of the room, and it came from him; him. And he was before her, then, stooping as a thundercloud might stoop, humbling himself in front of her. The swell of his shoulders blotted out the marrow-fire. His eyes, crimson as Godslayer’s beating heart. “No, Cerelinde. I do not blame the blameless. That is my Elder Brother’s job.”
She shrank back as far as the chair would allow. At close range, the odor was overwhelming; a sweet charnel reek, burned flesh and an undertone of rotting vegetation. It stirred terror in her; mindless terror, and something else, a dark and awful quickening. Trapped and fearful, she lashed out with words. “Your jealousy speaks, Sunderer! What do you want of me?”
The Shaper laughed.
It was a hollow sound, filled with bitterness and despair. He bent his head, mighty hands lifting to cover his face. A Shaper’s hands, immaculately articulated, for all they were burned black as pitch by Haomane’s Wrath. His fingertips dug into the flesh of his brow, pitting the blackened skin.
Somehow, that was the most terrible thing of all.
“Want?” His head snapped upright, crimson eyes glaring between his fingers. “Oh, I want, Haomane’s Child! I want my innocence back, and the happy, happy ignorance that has served your race for so long! I want my Gift back! I want to see my sister Arahila’s smile! I want to see my brother Haomane grovel, and his Wise Counselor’s head on a pike!”
“I didn’t—” she breathed.
“Who are you to ask me what I want?”
The Shaper’s words ricocheted and echoed in the cavern. The marrow-fire surged in answer, a fierce blue-white light, casting shadows knife-edged and blinding. Cerelinde held herself taut, frozen with terror, fighting the awful tendrils of pity that probed at her heart. “Forgive me,” she said softly. “My Lord Satoris.”
He rose and turned away from her.
The marrow-fire dwindled. The Shaper’s massive shoulders twitched; or was it a trick of the flickering shadows? “You did not know.” His voice was rough-edged, pitched to an ordinary tone. “Cerelinde.”
She fought back another wave of pity. “I have not lied to you, my Lord.”
“No.” Again he sighed, filling the chamber, and turned to face her. “Do not take too much hope from this, little Ellyl. What has happened, has happened. If my plans have gone awry, no less have my brother’s. And if Tanaros Blacksword is trapped in the Marasoumië, so is the Wise Counselor.”
“Tanaros?” The word escaped her unwittingly.
Something that might have been a smile shifted the Shaper’s ebony features. “My Commander General is resourceful, Cerelinde. Let us hope together, you and I, for his safe return.”
She gripped the arms of her chair and steeled her thoughts, willing them to fix where they belonged. Blue eyes, at once demanding and questioning, met hers in memory. A promise given, a promise made. It lent a sting to her words. “The Kingslayer has wrought his own fate, my Lord. What of Aracus Altorus? What of my betrothed?”
“Your betrothed.” The Shaper turned away from her, resuming his pacing, his shoulders slumping as if beneath a heavy burden. “Ah, Cerelinde! He may fail, you know. Even in Beshtanag, he may yet fail.”
Her chin rose. “And if he does not?”
From a far corner of the chamber, he regarded her with crimson eyes. “He will destroy something precious,” he said softly. “And the fault will be mine.”
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
Satoris Third-Born laughed his awful, hollow laugh. “Ah, Cerelinde! You want me to say he will pursue you in all haste; that he will come here, seeking you. That Aracus Altorus will lay siege to Darkhaven itself. Shall I say it? It is true, after all.”
Hope and fear warred in her breast. “Add what will become of me, if he does?”
“Do you care so little for what he will destroy?” The Shaper’s voice was wistful. “Will you not even ask what it is?”
“My Lord—!”
“Never mind.” He turned away from her again, a dark shape in a dark corner. One hand moved, dismissing her. “Begone from me, daughter of Erilonde. Your presence does not ease my grief this night.”
She took her leave, then, rising and gathering her skirts. Beyond her the stairwell beckoned, the three-fold door at the top opening onto the shadowy, twisted passages that led back to her chambers, to the hidden door behind the tapestry. Hesitating on the first step, she glanced over her shoulder. He stood yet, motionless, a column of darkness, hands laced behind his back. “My Lord Satoris …”
“Go!”
His voice echoed like thunder.
Cerelinde fled. Behind her, the three-fold door closed with a mighty crash. On the far side, she found herself shaking.
In the thousands of years she had lived, she had never doubted the nature of truth. Now, uncertainty assailed her; doubt and insidious pity. A thing she had never before grasped had grown clear: the Sunderer believed his own lies. And in the irregular glimmer of the marrow-fire, a worm of doubt whispered a thought.
What if they were not lies?
“No.” Cerelinde said aloud. “It is madness that speaks, not truth.”
The words brought a measure of comfort; but only a measure. She made her way slowly through the walls of her prison, the sound of Satoris Banewreaker’s terrible, despairing laughter still echoing in her ears.
THREE RAVENS CIRCLED OVERHEAD.
Ushahin watched them, shading his eyes with one hand. The skies above the plains of Rukhar were a merciless blue and the sun’s bright light drove a spike of pain through his left eye. It didn’t matter. He was used to such pain, and his awareness rode upon it as if borne upward on a warm draught, rising skyward.
Come, little brothers, he thought. What have you seen?
A flurry of images filled his mind in reply; stone, grey and barren. Straggling weeds, bitter ants crawling. There was a paucity of life on the plains, and the ravens did not want to land.
His mouth twisted in a wry smile. For that, he did not blame them.
With Tanaros and Malthus both trapped within them and struggling for mastery, the Ways of the Marasoumië were too dangerous to enter. He had walked out of Jakar; walked a day and a night across the plains, sifting through the dreams of Men as he went, until his ill-knit bones protested at every step. That didn’t matter to him either. The only pain that mattered was the one that circumscribed his heart; Godslayer’s branding beckoning him home, to the only home left to him. But without the Ways, his path was uncertain. To the west lay the Unknown Desert, its blazing sands forbidding. To the north lay the encampments of the Rukhari tribesmen and their scorn. To the east … ah, to the east lay Pelmar, where once the Grey Dam had called him her son, and there he did not dare go.
So he had gone south.
You need not land, Ushahin told the ravens. Only tell me what you have seen.
The ravens dipped lower, sunlight glinting violet and green on the edges of their wings as they circled in a narrowing gyre. Flickering images flitted from mind to mind; of the tops of pines like a dark green ocean; of columns of Men and Ellylon winding through the dense forest, amassing at the base of a mountain; of a fortress hunkered on the mountain’s swell; of a seamless wall of granite. Of the explosion of sunlight refracting on bronze scales and a sinuous neck lifting a vast-jawed head, amusement in one slitted green eye.
Yes, little brothers, he thought; I know. What of the south?
Their vision skirted the edges of Arduan, where men and women gathered in the marketplaces and exchanged news, waiting; waiting, with longbows close at hand. There the ravens dared not go, remembering the arrows that had felled their brethren. But beyond, the marshes of the Delta unfurled like a rich, grey-green carpet, fecund and plentiful. There, they la
nded and fed. The shiny carapaces of beetles loomed large in memory, crunching with satisfaction under beaks; small snails, sweet and tasty.
At that, Ushahin smiled.
And further … one had flown, only one, following the sluggish path of the Verdine River as it emerged from the marshes. There, where the sharp-toothed sedge grass grew in abundance, three horses grazed. They were tall and strong and clean of limb, with dark, glossy hides and ill-kept manes and tails, tangled from the remnants of a long-abandoned disguise. Whatever had become of the Staccians who had entered the Delta, they had left their mounts behind and no one had succeeded in laying possessive hands on the horses of Darkhaven. One tossed its head as the raven swooped low, nostrils flaring and sharp teeth bared, a preternatural gleam of intelligence in its eyes.
Yes.
Ushahin Dreamspinner laughed. “So, my Lord Satoris,” he said aloud. “It seems my path lies through the place of your birth.”
Free of his mind’s hold, the ravens broke from their tight spiral and soared, winging higher, rising to become specks in the blue sky.
Go, he sent a final thought after them. Go, little brothers, and I will meet you anon!
TWENTY-FOUR
EVEN IN SUMMER, IT WAS cold in the mountains.
It had not seemed so bad when they emerged, though he reckoned that was due to the relief at finding themselves alive. Frightened, yes. He was frightened. One moment, they had been in the Ways of the Marasoumië, under Malthus’ protection. He hadn’t been afraid, then, after they escaped the Were. Not for himself, only for those they left behind. The Ways were fearful and strange, but Malthus was there.
And then they had encountered the others, with a jolt he still felt in his bones. Thousands and thousands of them, huge and hulking, like creatures from a nightmare. The red light of the Marasoumië illuminated their jutting tusks, their massive talons, the heavy armor that encased their hide-covered bodies. A column of Fjeltroll, an army of Fjeltroll, winding back into the Ways as far as the eye could see.
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