Stormed Fortress (64 page)

One last night, they would have, to indulge their rare love, held secure by the stones of the citadel. His arms closed. Linked to his enchantress with all his fierce strength, he swept her up and bore her, cherished as song, to the bed. There she could not do aught but succour his need, and savour the joy only found in his matchless presence.

* * *

Attack visited the deserted outer fortress again before dawn. Repeated light strikes unleashed by Lysaer rattled the casements and shuddered the guest keep
'
s foundations. The black sky rinsed red. Fire silhouetted the drum-towers flanking the Mathiell Gate. Across the tide-race, vacant buildings exploded, masonry unravelled to rubble. Tossed wreckage flew air-borne. The crenels that once hung the Wyntok Gate melted to slag and collapsed into the flooding channel. Steam clogged the cold air, while the scent of brimstone wafted across Alestron
'
s secure inner battlements.

Although Lysaer
'
s display claimed no lives, and ruined no more than the blasted ground of the outlying town, the virulent power of his inborn gift sowed fresh fear. However Duke Bransian encouraged his troops, he could not stem shaken morale. The refugee families packed in the baileys turned on a breath from hungry, to desperate.

Seasoned sentries quailed at their posts. Livid, they watched the bulwarks that had sheltered their homes since their birth become cratered to wreckage. Today, from the warded walls of the heights, they were made aware that the Paravian protections safeguarded no more than their breathing flesh.

The purposeful life they had promised their loved ones had lost direction. Day upon day, they could only sustain their meaningless, sorry existence.

Lysaer
'
s cursed might possessed no moral bounds, and no conscience. Man, or woman, or innocent child who set foot outside the citadel would become just as wantonly reduced to ash. The duke
'
s people were helpless as cornered rats. They had risked everything, holding their ground for no more than the gleam on a principle.

Tomorrow changed nothing. They would starve without rescue, their children
'
s well-being at risk for a bankrupted future. Hope died, and laughter, along with every wistful, sweet fancy that offered them warmth and happiness.

Despair struck, of a depth to darken the dawn. If Arithon might have acted before, the staging-point for his effort now suffered a cruel reverse. From difficult, he faced a feat beyond hardship.

His farewell to Elaira had already been said- Arisen by the stripped thread of his courage, and wearing yesterday
'
s garments, he seemed insubstantial in forest leathers, dyed black, and the mantle stitched with silver embroidery, gifted by the whim of a Sorcerer. What lay beyond words had been conveyed by his tenderest care, and the intimate congress exchanged through the night. He bent his head, touched his cheek to Elaira
'
s raised palm. Then he took up the sword, forged at Isaer from star-fallen metal by the artistry of three ancient races.

When Sidir arrived, Rathain
'
s prince knelt, the traditional acknowledgement of crown obligation bonded under sworn service.
'
Liegeman,
'
he stated, formally brief,
'
enact my royal charge for the sake of your kingdom. The task I lay on you, before life and death: safeguard Jeynsa. Return home with all speed to your people, and Feithan, and defend the free wilds of Halwythwood.
'
Arithon straightened. The grave parting that could not find a care-free smile became a firm clasp of wrists.
'
Ath
'
s grace, and bright guidance guard all your days.
'

Sidir was near weeping, as Rathain
'
s heir stepped out. Last of Torbrand
'
s lineage, he did not go alone: at his back on this critical hour went Shand
'
s honour-gift of Kyrialt, once Teir
'
s
'
Taleyn. Overmatched by his muscular escort, Arithon did not look back, but crossed the narrow foot-bridge, under the rose light of dawn. Cat-slender, he did not seem any force to stand down the cursed rage that now creased the air with crackling, white bolts.

While stone rumbled and shook, slagged to gouts of red magma, Arithon made his way through the twisting narrows of the citadel
'
s streets. By the stairs laid by centaur masons, his rapid step took him upwards, towards Watch Keep. He did not go unremarked. Some, stiffly solemn, saw him pass with resentment. Where once they had followed, expectant with hope, a fortnight of his isolate silences had poisoned goodwill to rebuff. Some jeered. More, whose craft shops were being razed by the violence of a cursed half-brother, called out insults, blaming their bitter misfortunes on Duke Bransian
'
s ill-starred alliance.

'
Why should
s
'
Ilessid
attack, but for you, Teir
'
s
'
Ffalenn?
'
And once, with venom,
'
Why else, bastard-born!
'

A red-faced wife hurled a bucket of slop hard on the heels of the prince.
'
Perhaps we suffer for the low fact that your blood-line was saved by a harlot!
'

The hatred that burdened the morning was palpable, while the ground shook to Lysaer
'
s assault. The ugly crowd by the wayside kept shouting, their mood
almost
pitched to throw stones. None dared raise a hand. Kyrialt
'
s presence denoted the living witness of Shand, and the crown scion they reviled still remained Fellowship-sanctioned. His person might not be touched, although outraged voices decried that his fickle character shamed his royal station.

If Arithon heard, his indifference appeared unassailable. A wraith in dark clothes, he stepped through the wreathed smoke and mist, that the sun
'
s early rays pierced above the steep eaves of the roof-tops. He made his way beyond the last, guttered drain, where the paving lapsed into mud footpaths. The frost-brown grass of the commons no longer grazed cattle or goats. He walked on, shocked by the recoil that slammed through the headland at each strike from his half-brother
'
s hand.

Here, the glaring charge of shed light made his features seem spun from white glass. Arithon did not look aside. As day brightened, Kyrialt saw what Alestron
'
s goodwives could not: that contact with the earth seemed to flinch through drawn flesh. His Grace would not speak, now. Each breath deliberate, he forged ahead up the steep, switched-back trail.

The tower at the crest of the promontory stayed under vigilant patrol. Two sentries challenged, surprised by the invasion of their staked turf.

'
Give way!
'
stated Arithon, past heed for propriety.
'
On peril of your lives, do not stop me.
'

'
Watchword, first!
'
came the bristled response. The guards were large men, chapped red from exposure. Entrusted for courage, they were also afraid, with the light raging on in actinic bursts and the rolling thunder of concussive report.

Arithon had no statement to give. His fixated stare never wavered. While he showed no aggression, and his sword remained sheathed, point down in the folds of his mantle, the fact he came armed riled the sentries.

'
Hold your weapons!
'
Kyrialt snapped.
'
His Grace is in mage-trance!
'
Shown dubious scorn, he said with crisp authority,
'
Yes! I do know the signs. I watched him raise the centaur wardings on Selkwood, and again, when he faced the mysteries that hallow the King
'
s Grove in Alland.
'

While the bearded soldiers glared in suspicion, they still must acknowledge the prince
'
s sworn man.

'
Let my liege pass!
'
Kyrialt appealed.
'
By the name of my family, I will swear surety for his harmless intentions.
'

Which stark declaration could not be ignored: the s
'
Taleyn sire
'
s belligerent honesty was held in widespread renown. If Kyrialt stood false on Lord Erlien
'
s reputation, the Kingdom of Shand would owe the s
'
Brydion no less than a crown reparation.

Prince Arithon pronounced with a quiet but ominous edge,
'
I have not come to abet my half-brother
'
s destruction, or to inflame the grip of Desh-thiere
'
s curse.
'

Since no man alive might guess his intent, the sentries must strike or stand down. They moved, not for Kyrialt
'
s word in the end, or for royalty
'
s forthright insistence.

'
Our duke
'
s gone up ahead of you,
'
warned the taller guardsman.
'
Try him at your own risk.
'

Arithon entered the squat tower that commanded the view surrounding the citadel and the spread of the signal turrets overlooking the harbour. Inside, past the ground-level ward-room, a spiral stair led to a second chamber, where a ladder accessed the wind-swept catwalk above. Through the flurry of men startled up from their posts, Arithon mounted the rungs.

Kyrialt
'
s worried agility followed, while Bransian
'
s truculent bellow filtered down through the open hatch.
'
Bedamned if I like this unnerving assault! Surely such force serves some evil design beyond an accursed fit of madness.
'

'
Lysaer has a purpose.
'
Black hair wind tousled, green eyes wide in trance, Arithon emerged through the trap. Sword in hand, his mantle on fire with silver embroidery, he stood up on the gust-raked battlement, with its fire-pan and signal mirrors sheltered by a peaked roof, ringed around by a catwalk for archers. The sun
'
s red disk, risen, threw Bransian
'
s shadow, and cast the slighter man into eclipse.

The duke
'
s narrowed eyes showed contempt as he turned.
'
Upstart sorcerer. Can you know?
'

Wind flapped the mantle, and scattered blood high-lights across the rich threadwork.
'
I have seen on the tides of s
'
Ahelas far-sight.
'
With an ominous calm, Arithon added,
'
Pound enough force through the headland, and even firm bed-rock will shear.
'

'
Lysaer seeks to tumble the
cliff
into the estuary?
'
Bransian
'
s scowl darkened. "That excessive display won
'
t breach our walls!
'

'
Not at once.
'
Arithon
'
s manner stayed queerly remote. They will send sappers. Mine the scarp under your warded walls, as your crews at the trebuchets falter.
'

The duke spat.
'
Not while I live to prevent them!
'

'
You won
'
t,
'
stated Arithon, and on that shocked note, side-stepped, and moved to the rim of the battlement.

'
I could kill, for your insolence!
'
Duke Bransian howled, while Kyrialt cleared the trap-door at speed and placed his own person between.

The duke goaded, furious,
'
What are you worth, prince? A few paltry visions, delivered too late?
'

But Arithon seemed beyond provocation. Immersed as a dancer who followed a melody nobody else could perceive, he turned back his mantle and drew Alithiel. He touched the flat of the upright blade against his forehead for a suspended instant. Then, as though reverent, he lifted the sword. Mortal man, and the first of his kind who
ever
attempted to wield the black steel
'
s primal purpose, he apologized first for presumption.

Then, the duke
'
s rage a gathering storm at his back, and Lysaer
'
s cursed fury destroying a hill-side before him, he bowed his head. Softly as a whisper, he started to sing.

The melody emerged with the beat of a dirge, cadenced in measured Paravian. His spare a cappella delivered each note with the ringing purity struck off tempered steel. At the crux, no one present could do aught but listen as Athera
'
s Masterbard engaged his art.