The Shadow Isle

by Katharine Kerr

  Gerran kept his darker thoughts to himself. They were assuming that the messengers would reach Cengarn safely. What if they’d been ambushed on the road somehow? It wasn’t likely, since they’d headed south and the fleeing Horsekin north, but it was possible if another squad of raiders were prowling the roads. It’s in the laps of the gods, he reminded himself. And we’ll know soon enough.

  Once everyone had set up camp inside the temple walls, and the carters had pulled the supply carts across the broken gates, Gerran had the leisure to attend to his injury. With Clae’s help, he removed his mail and pulled off his sweat-soaked shirt and the padding underneath.

  “There’s ever so much blood on them, my lord,” Clae said.

  “Hold them up, and let me see.”

  A fresh bloodstain the size of a soup bowl soaked the padding. The blood had oozed through onto his shirt, as well, to make a smaller stain.

  “Is the wound still bleeding?” Gerran said.

  “It’s not,” Clae said. “It looks like a peach or suchlike when it’s really ripe and the skin splits.”

  “Not a deep cut, you mean.”

  “Just that. But you’ve got a bruise the size of my hands put together. ”

  “What color is it?”

  “Red, mostly, and purple.”

  Gerran raised his left arm over his head. The shoulder throbbed and a line of fire ran down his back, but the pain was bearable. “I must be in one piece still,” Gerran said. “Well and good, then. Hand me my shirt.”

  “Here it is, my lord. Shouldn’t you see a chirurgeon?”

  “The prince didn’t bring one along. Everyone thought we were just delivering a summons.”

  Once he’d dressed, Gerran went looking for Mirryn. He found the Red Wolf men back by the stables where the priests had kept their riding horses—stolen by the Horsekin, along with the temple’s herd of white cows and every other scrap of food in the complex. The men of the warband were tending their own horses while Mirryn stood and watched. This time no one slacked off; every man jumped to when his captain spoke to him; now and then someone glanced Mirryn’s way with admiring eyes. When Gerran joined him, Mirryn turned to him with a grin.

  “What was that you were telling me before the scrap?” Mirryn said. “About not getting separated from my men?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t let that slip by,” Gerran said.

  “Of course not. But still, I’m cursed glad we got there in time.”

  “Not half as glad as I am.” Gerran considered congratulating Mirryn on his first battle, then decided that if he did, he’d be reminding everyone that it had been the first. “Here, Caenvyr’s going to set a night watch. Don’t let him take my silver dagger for it, will you? Nicedd did the morning’s scouting. That’s enough extra duty.”

  “Done, then. He can have his night’s sleep.” Mirryn looked away. “If any of us can sleep well, that is. Think the Horsekin will try a night attack?”

  “I don’t. But why take chances?”

  Just as the sun was setting, Gerran and Vantalaber climbed up the rickety catwalks to the top of the walls. Since the compound had once been a lord’s dun, merlons topped the walls, good cover for archers, as Van remarked.

  “How many arrows do your men have?” Gerran said.

  “A quiver each of unused ones. We retrieved as many as we could from the field, as well. The shafts are mostly broken, but the points are sound, and we carry feathers with us for the fletching. That hacked-up statue inside the temple itself? How will you Deverry men take it if we whittle some of the bits down for shafts?”

  “We won’t care one way or the other.” Gerran started to shrug, regretted it, and winced with a choice couple of oaths for the pain in his shoulder. “I doubt if Bel will, either. They say he’s a warrior himself.”

  “Splendid! It’s good oak. I hate to waste it. Those shit-sucking Meradan cut the statue up pretty thoroughly. Kind of them to spare us the hard work.”

  They shared a laugh.

  “Now, when night falls,” Van continued, “tell whoever’s setting the watch to make sure that there’s a couple of Westfolk on guard at all times. We see a fair bit better at night than your folk do.”

  “True spoken. I’ll make sure the prince’s captain knows it.”

  “Too bad we don’t have one of the Wise Ones with us.”

  Gerran himself had been wishing that Salamander had come with them. Had he been there, he could have perhaps used his mysterious craft to see what the Horsekin were up to.

  “I’m beginning to understand,” Gerran said, “why the Westfolk honor their Wise Ones so much.”

  “They’re going to make all the difference out on the grass. The Horsekin won’t be surprising us, not with them on watch.”

  With a cheerful wave Vantalaber climbed back down to rejoin his squad. Gerran lingered, staring off to the west, where the last spread of sunset flamed in the darkening sky. He was tired, he realized, with his shoulder aching like fire in the bone, and his mind wandering, but he couldn’t shake the odd feeling that once before he’d been in a situation like this, penned up by an unexpected enemy, waiting for help that might or might not arrive in time. Yet he couldn’t remember such an incident, no matter how carefully he searched his memories of war.

  “My lord?” It was Clae’s voice, calling from below. “My lord, I’ve brought a lantern.”

  Gerran turned around and saw the lad standing at the foot of the ladder in a little pool of candlelight. “I’ll come down,” Gerran called back. “Sure enough, it’s getting dark.”

  Yet before he climbed down, he paused to look off to the south, where Voran’s messengers were riding hard for Cengarn. May they get there safely! He could only hope that Great Bel had heard his thought.

  Gerran’s shoulder hurt so badly that he slept little that night. Without the weight of his mail pressing upon it, the bruised flesh had swelled and turned sensitive to every movement. He woke before dawn, squirmed in his blankets in a futile attempt to get comfortable, then admitted defeat and got up. He pulled on his boots—he’d slept in his clothes—then picked his way through the sleeping warbands and climbed up to the catwalks at the top of the outer wall. He made his way round to the area just beside the broken gates and found Prince Voran there ahead of him. In the east a pale arc of silver announced the rising sun.

  “Ye gods, Lord Gerran,” Voran said, smiling, “don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Oh, now and then, Your Highness. Did somewhat wake you?”

  “Just my thoughts.” With a sigh Voran turned and leaned back against a merlon. “You know, Gerran, you strike me as a man who doesn’t repeat what other men tell him.”

  “I do my best not to, Your Highness.”

  “Do you know why I was appointed justiciar?”

  “Most likely because you were the best man for the honor.”

  “My thanks, not that I’d call it an honor. I suppose the king knew that I could do whatever the post demands. But in truth, it’s a sort of exile, not that anyone ever mentioned that word.”

  “What?” Gerran was startled enough to forget the courtesies of rank. “I can’t imagine you doing some shameful thing.”

  “My thanks again. I certainly did naught that shames me in my own eyes. Perhaps the opposite.” Voran rubbed his chin with one hand while he considered the problem. “I apparently made a great many enemies at court, and here I didn’t even realize it, just by refusing to ignore certain things and by speaking openly of other things. Every granary has its rats, as the old saying has it. The granaries in Dun Deverry are huge, and rats abound.”

  “Rats of the same kind as Lord Oth?”

  “Indeed, though they’d scorn a prize as small as a handful of coins from a woman’s dowry. There are mice as well, the kind that wait under the table in the hopes of falling scraps. They don’t have the guts to leap up and steal. They just flatter and beg instead.”

  “Ye gods!” Gerran struggled to find words. “He sent you away to
please a pack of courtiers? That’s vile.”

  “I had a few thoughts that way myself. The kingdom’s changing. In my better moments it gladdens my heart that I’m out of Dun Deverry.” Voran glanced up at the sky. “Dawn’s here. I’d best go down.”

  With a nod the prince began making his careful way along the catwalks. Gerran watched him as he climbed down the ladder to the ward. Sent away by the high king! Gerran thought, I’m cursed glad now I swore to Prince Dar. In the rising light Voran strode around the side of the temple, calling to his men to wake. Gerran lingered till the sun had come clear of the horizon, then went down to join his own squad.

  Even with the priests buried, the smell of their evil deaths seemed to hang in the air inside the walls. As the morning wore on, the men spoke but little. Vantalaber and his archers, joined by Deverry men, kept a constant watch from the top of the walls. Near noon they finally spotted a cloud of dust coming down the road toward the temple.

  “Coming from the south,” Vantalaber reported. “It’s too soon for anyone to reach us from Cengarn, Your Highness, so the cursed Horsekin must have circled round for some reason.”

  “Unless it’s a second group of raiders entirely,” Voran said. “Gerran, have your men and Mirryn’s arm and man the walls. I doubt if these bastards have scaling ladders, but you never know, and we’d best be ready to push them back if they do. Caenvyr, put ten of our best right behind those wagons to guard the gates. Ridvar’s men should wait mounted just behind them.”

  Gerran followed orders and for good measure told Mirryn to have his men saddle and ready their horses, just in case of a sally. He rejoined the Westfolk archers on the walls. In the hot sun the men stood between the merlons to catch what shade there was. Gerran arranged his small force with the archers closest to the gates. All the while, the plume of dust grew closer and closer. Vantalaber suddenly broke out laughing, and in a few moments the other archers joined him.

  “The rose, the rose!” Van called out. “It’s Prince Dar’s banner, and I see Cengarn’s sun right behind ours.”

  “It might be a trick,” Gerran snapped.

  “Don’t be a dolt,” Van said, grinning. “I can tell Westfolk from Horsekin.”

  As the dust resolved itself into men and horses, Gerran’s human sight confirmed what the elven eyes had seen: Prince Daralanteriel himself, riding with Ridvar and Calonderiel. When the news spread through the compound, the men cheered in a long wave of sound that lapped at the walls and rose above them to greet the relieving force.

  As the reinforcements rode up the hill, Voran, with his mounted escort behind him, rode down to meet them. Gerran mounted up and followed until he saw Salamander turning his horse out of line. Gerran waited until the gerthddyn rode up to him.

  “How by all the hells did you get here so quickly?” Gerran said. “The messengers can’t have reached Cengarn till sunset.”

  “We left yesterday and met them on the road, that’s how,” Salamander said. “Thanks to the ghastly tedium of sitting around and watching over a fractious Neb, I scried for you at regular intervals. Thus I saw the battle.”

  “I’m cursed glad you did. Do you know where the Horsekin are now?”

  “I do, and it’s not good news. They’re north of here, besieging Honelg’s dun.” Salamander cocked his head to one side and looked away with curiously unfocused eyes. “Aha!” he said eventually. “Allow me to amend that. Only half of them are besieging the dun. The others are on their way here. Let me just go tell Dar. I suspect that you’d best get your men ready to ride.”

  “They already are. And a blasted good thing, too.”

  As soon as Salamander told the princes and the gwerbret what he’d seen, they gave their men orders to arm and draw up in battle order at the foot of the temple hill. Salamander left the military matters to those who understood them and rode into the temple compound. As he dismounted, Clae came running to meet him.

  “Will you stable my horse for me?” Salamander said.

  “Gladly,” Clae said. “But I need your help. Lord Gerran’s hurt, but he’s going to try to fight anyway. He can barely lift his shield ’cause he got hit on the shoulder yesterday. Can you make him keep away from the battle?”

  “I can’t, not being one of the gods, but fortunately, we’ve got someone who’s almost as good as a god. Here, I’ll take care of my own horse. You run and find Prince Dar. Tell him that I sent you, then tattle upon our noble lord. I’ll take whatever blame may be. You’ve got time before the Horsekin get here.”

  Clae grinned and bowed to him, then ran off through the gates and out. Salamander led his horse free of the confusion and tied him in the shade near the stables. In his scrying of the day before, he’d picked up traces of what had happened to the priests. With a sigh of deep reluctance, he went inside the desecrated temple.

  He could tell by the etheric feel of the place that he was too late to help the murdered men find rest. The temple was so curiously free of the etheric traces of so many horrible deaths that he could hope that they’d already found it on their own. Perhaps their belief in their god had led them to the white river, or perhaps they’d chanced upon it as their souls fled from the scene of their bodies’ deaths. A glance at the bloodstained altar, where black ants still crawled, made him shudder. He hurried outside, grateful for the sunlight.

  Armed men and horses filled the ward around the temple walls, men shouting, running back and forth, horses neighing and rearing, servants yelling at each other as they packed up the supply wagons. He could never have scried in such chaos. He climbed the ladder up to the catwalks, then walked around the top of the wall to a spot opposite the gates. He sat down, cross-legged for balance, with his back against a merlon, and let himself slip into trance.

  His body of light, an enveloping silver flame, appeared at his call. He transferred his consciousness over to it and let himself drift upward in the silvery-blue etheric light. All around the temple compound the mist-streaked light quivered and shimmered with the growing force of the spring. The new grass, the leafing trees, the clover and wildflowers: all glistened red with their surging vegetable auras. Seeing clearly through so much bristling life proved difficult, but from his high vantage point he could discern a distant plume of dust—dead black against the blue etheric glow—coming down the road from the north.

  Salamander glanced behind him and made sure that the silver cord that fastened his body of light to his physical body appeared thick and strong, pulsing with each slow beat of his heart. He thought himself toward the plume of dust and drifted away from the temple.

  When he passed over a field of sprouting winter wheat, the reddish-brown auras of the burgeoning plant life swirled and seemed to bubble. Ahead lay a red mass of another sort, the color of blood, surging and leaping above Alshandra’s army. From the etheric, he could plainly see individuals through the bloodshot glow of their auras—a man who seemed to be a commander, riding at their head, the ranks of soldiers, falcatas in hand, and the heavy horses, their horizontal equine auras shot through with the greenish-gray of fear.

  Behind them rode someone so surprising that Salamander instinctively flew up higher to avoid her gaze—a priestess, her aura a pure pale blue, riding a white mule led by a child on a pony. She had her head tipped back and her arms raised high. Working dweomer? he thought. Couldn’t be! Still, she was staring so intently upward that at first he assumed she was seeing his body of light. Then he thought to look behind him.

  Towering above him in the light-shot etheric sky floated the image of Alshandra that he’d created to ease Rocca’s death. He recognized it by the details—the elven longbow he’d given her, the braiding of the long blonde hair, the sigil upon her quiver. Salamander realized that while he’d sent the image toward the white river to lead Rocca there, he’d never seen it actually cross, which would have destroyed it. Down below, the priestess smiled and stretched her arms out farther. Her mouth moved as she began to chant. The army riding before her roared in answe
r, their howl strangely distorted and echoing in his etheric consciousness but still recognizable:

  “Hai! Hai! Hai!”

  Oh, you really botched it, Ebañy, old lad! Whether or not the warriors could see the Alshandra image, their priestess could, and they believed what she told them. The image floated to a position high enough above the marching ranks of cavalry to remain stable despite the magnetic effluent of their massed steel weaponry. Yet it stayed close enough to feed off their auras. Salamander saw slender tendrils of raw energy rising like lines of smoke to wrap themselves around the image’s booted feet. Alshandra’s simulacrum fattened, strengthened, until to his etheric consciousness it looked solid, clear in every detail. The priestess chanted again, and once again came the cry, “Hai! Hai! Hai!”

  Salamander turned his attention back in the direction of the temple and saw the confused mass of auras in front that marked the presence of the Deverry army. Calculating the precise distance between the two forces lay beyond his state of consciousness, but a good stretch of ground remained between them. He waited, hovering above in the road, as the Horsekin rode closer and closer, and the priestess chanted, waving her arms, invoking the image that she believed to be divine. At last the Horsekin force rounded a bend in the road and saw the waiting warbands. Different kinds of cries rose—shock, sudden fear, confusion. Salamander realized that they’d been expecting to find a much smaller warband ranged against them.

  Let’s make it worse! Salamander called upon the Light and saw raw power like silver sheets of lightning appear around him. From within his silver flame he invoked the pentagram, that sigil of all things natural and true, by drawing it with sweeps of his right arm. Each motion left a solid-seeming trail of blue light behind it. Silver light flowed in to strengthen it until it hovered, as huge and bright as a second sun in the sky.

  At each point and in the center Salamander drew and placed the sigils of the Elements. He called upon the Light once more, then gathered his will. As the light flowed into his etheric form, he felt it throb with power. He rose to a position right behind the pentagram and laid etheric hands, shaped like flames, upon it. With a last call to the Light, he thrust it forward straight onto the image of Alshandra.