Stormed Fortress (67 page)

* * *

Elaira hung back, a snatched pause intended to seize the precaution of scrying. Since their landing ashore, an aberrant pulse in the lane tide had flicked at her trained sensitivity. Her foreboding stayed silent: that the earth
'
s natural flux wore the tingling stamp of a sigil-based conjury, sure mark of the Prime Circle
'
s meddling. Too much lay at stake to dismiss the order
'
s on-going agenda. Afraid to stay ignorant, Elaira slipped off. While Sidir
'
s escort saw Jeynsa and Mearn
'
s forlorn household away, she ducked into a thicket and crouched out of sight, where the brush broke the brunt of the wind. A cup of water poured from her hip-flask now lay tucked between her wrapped hands. She closed her eyes, settled into trance, and gently engaged her deep faculties.

A moment passed, two. Already forewarned of the spell
'
s driving imprint, the enchantress eased towards listening focus. Breath caught, and flesh shuddered, as the horror of what she encountered snapped her probe into harrowing clarity. The Prime
'
s bid for ruin ignited the spark on a tinder-box primed for disaster.

While the storm closed, and the song of Alithiel spun the effortful grace for two warfaring forces to suspend their hostilities, Parrien s
'
Brydion and his ragtag fleet of galleys rampaged into the estuary. Vision unveiled the raw savagery of the crews, galvanized to exact vengeance. Whipped on by Selidie
'
s vile design, their passion had also been warded, denied the unilateral mitigation unleashed by the Paravian sword
'
s active influence.

Like mad wolves, they would venture ashore before dawn. With no alert sentry to cry the alarm, their angry steel would carve a lethal course through the unaware ranks of their enemies.

Revulsion snapped Elaira
'
s tight concentration. Wrenched back to herself, shivering under the frigid gusts that rattled the bare twigs around her, she wept for the brutal assault on Arithon
'
s painstaking integrity.

Past question, if Selidie
'
s conjury held, and this ugly counterstroke happened unchecked,
every
humane effort to spare pointless bloodshed would go up in flames, and for naught.

Worse still, if Mearn discovered the unconscionable spellcraft laid against his older brother, nothing would stop him from turning around in attempt to salvage the threat to his kinsman.

Chilled and alone, Elaira claimed that task. For Arithon, and not least for Fianzia
'
s child, who should not bear the sorrow of growing up fatherless, she measured her dearth of options. Though her reckless choice risked the fate of a Koriani oath breaker, she shoved through the trackless wilds and made her way towards the north road. Buffeted by the hard force of the storm that whirled spindrift off the thrashed harbour, she clutched her billowing mantle about her. The boat on the strand was a useless wish. She lacked the main strength to launch the small craft, or row its deadweight through the whitecaps. She must fare by land, and grasp any means to speed her way back to the citadel.

Elaira paced herself at a determined jog, crashing through the scrub, till she reached the iced ruts of the trade-road. Under snowfall, she avoided the light spilled from the first wayside inn. The gabled structure now served as an outpost for armies. Noise spilled from a tap-room well-stocked with beer. Despite the tempting aromas of fresh bread and stew, leaked from the bustling kitchen, Elaira ignored hunger. The worsening blizzard helped blindside the sentries. A shadow half-glimpsed, she masked her woman
'
s form in a shameless glamour and purloined a mount from the stables. The mare was fresh and willing, with a courier
'
s Sunwheel seal on her saddle-cloth. Urged to reckless speed, parting the marching columns of men who forsook the Light
'
s service to make their way home, the creature bore Elaira unchallenged into the burning, cold dark.

Early Winter 5671

Decision

The water-drop fell through the closed vault of stone, built under the Mathorn Mountains. The splash upon impact exploded through colours: in darkness, light bloomed on black water. The spark birthed a ring-ripple, spreading an image across the spring that welled over the intricate spirals of ciphers carved into the rim.

The poised Sorcerer surveyed the vision displayed in the seclusion of his sealed haven. Davien
'
s chiselled features showed no expression. His dark eyes stayed fixed as stamped rivets. The gleam of the living scene under reflection flickered high lights across his stilled face, as event moved apace at the seat of s
'
Brydion rule, and across the snowed vales at the verge of the estuary . . .

Breaking dawn wrapped the headland in howling storm. Scudded snow stewed the shallows to a salt rime of slush, where the fleet of lean galleys raked in and dropped anchor off the grey shore-line. Grim men launched tenders. They packed the oar benches, and jammed, crouched in mail, on the bilge-boards, armed and seething for war. Few spoke, as the bows ploughed the spume and bucked over the breaking combers. Unseen and unheard, they leaped the thwarts and rammed through the surf. Snow silenced their landfall; muffled their concerted charge as they fell on the Light
'
s outer lines and attacked all that moved without warning.

The thud of whetted steel and the cries of the slaughtered blended into the scream of the gale. Blood splashed stainless snow, as clotted blades reaped unwary targets one after the next. Berserk with revenge, Parrien drove his ship
'
s companies to attack, unaware of the spell-wrought tangle of sigils that lashed his grief to a spree of blind massacre.

'
They
'
re not fighting!
'
cried Vhandon, shocked by the sight of a Sunwheel sentry cut down, with no move made to unsheathe his weapon. Another man crumpled without a shocked outcry, that might have forewarned his hapless fellows.
'
Something
'
s not canny.
'
Sickened, the steadfast field-captain reached out. His fist locked on Parrien
'
s gore-soaked wrist and checked his swinging blade in midstroke.

'
I swear,
'
Vhandon shouted,
'
for decency
'
s sake, we ought to take pause and fall back. Something terrible is amiss, here!
'

Parrien spat past his bared teeth and snarled,
'
Who grieved for the reaping when Keldmar was burned with the best of our field-troop?
'
The bereaved brother wrenched his arm free and surged onward, protesting over his shoulder.
'
Lysaer razed our folk to dead ash in a moment. We aren
'
t here killing farmers. Or cutting down helpless young girls and small children, tying up straw shocks at harvest!
'

That festering outrage remained too raw. Alestron
'
s sea-wolves would brook no restraint, now. After balked months off the blockaded coast, hungry and helplessly hobbled, the ship
'
s crews seized upon Parrien
'
s passion. Amid the blanketing blast of the gale, they chewed their relentless course through the outlying Alliance entrenchments; except for Vhandon, who stopped, shivering.

He stayed, soaked and forlorn, while the tumult swept past. Masked in white-out snowfall, cut by cruel north wind, he listened as the screams of the dying dwindled into the howling elements.

Cold of heart, he longed for release: for the clean ferocity of a winter storm, roaring wild off the deeps of the Cildein. In childhood, he recalled the whiskered patterns of frost, stitched like a crazed seamstress
'
s lacework across the glass of his mother
'
s windows. Without knowing why, Vhandon wept. Something tugged at his core: an unseen note whispered of warm, secure days, and the forgotten sweetness of family happiness; of the languid summers, spent teaching the burly s
'
Brydion brothers to skip stones in the brook, while the boisterous rule of Bransian
'
s father had guarded the tiered walls of the citadel. Then, no man who honed his war skills had ever imagined a future where Alestron
'
s proud heritage could fall into jeopardy.

Through an uprush of wistful sorrow and tears, Vhandon heard the chord that healed all killing rage, also thrumming through the howling air. Veteran campaigner, he scrubbed his wet cheeks. Lowered his ice-crusted bracer and listened, while ice-crystals pinged off his helm and snagged in his stubble of beard. He strained to discern through the hiss of whipped snow that drifted around his stained boots. The presence of such an uncanny singing had uplifted him once, before this. Recollection stayed vivid, of the moment Alithiel
'
s raised cry had spared the
Evenstar
'
s
crew from a fiend plague sent by Koriathain.

Vhandon shuddered, afraid. He wondered if today
'
s murderous madness might also dance to an outside influence. Epiphany followed that thought like a thunder-clap, that
Selidie Prime would never give up her effort to bring Arithon down!
Parrien
'
s men could be her ready tools, to offset Alithiel
'
s grace.

A witch
'
s sigil might as readily blind vengeance-bent men, as inflame a wave of wild
iyats.
Vhandon gasped, horrified. The slack troops who guarded the Alliance lines might be bound under Alithiel
'
s peace, while the Prime
'
s twisted plot to smash Arithon
'
s credibility turned them into hapless targets. Parrien
'
s advance would not pause for mercy. Thousands would die without voicing an outcry, or acquitting themselves in a fair fight.

Snow fell, and swirled. The savage wind battered the terrified man who kicked his mired boots free and sprinted.
'
Dharkaron
'
s bloody vengeance!
'
Vhandon despaired.

If Parrien fell afoul of a Koriani plot, he still hacked his way forward, unaware that his grief was the Prime
'
s eager wedge to betray the citadel
'
s chance for salvation . . .

* * *

Davien hissed an oath through his teeth, a fist bunched in his flame-coloured mantle. His stance seemed a statement of fury, contained, while the next droplet fell, and shattered the imprinted vista of slaughter that mowed down the dazed ranks of the Alliance
'
s most faithful. . .

* * *

An image re-formed, this view showing a weary courier
'
s mount labouring through knee-high drifts. The slight, muffled rider slouched with exhaustion, still on her hell-bent course after a harrowing night in the saddle. She had slipped past the s
'
Brydion guard at the keeps that defended the harbour chain. Masked by small spellcraft and snowfall, she drew rein at last under the loom of the watch turret across from the quay. Her gloved hands were trembling. Rumpled by storm, she dismounted. The low shore-line here did not cut the wind. Gusts screamed, dimming the high, tower beacon that overlooked Alestron
'
s closed harbour. Across the chopped narrows, the ramparts flanking the wharf at the Sea Gate nestled under the shadow of the upper citadel, had the view not been obscured. The foaming hiss of the breakers flung off rime spray, knife-edged and bitter with salt.

Undaunted, Elaira shoved back her hood. Tangled hair lashed her cheek as she shouted, thin as a bird
'
s call through rampaging weather.

She was initiate Koriathain, also versed in the mysteries of Ath
'
s adepts. Her determined voice reached the alert sentries above. The man they sent down heard her desperate appeal, and agreed urgent word must be sent to the citadel.

The enchantress had risked outright wrath from her order to bear the horrific news: an assault spear-headed by Parrien
'
s men ignited a certain disaster. The sentry
'
s man urged Elaira to shelter inside, shocked distress threaded through his apology.
'
Lady, we cannot take action at once!
'
The gale raged too fierce to launch an oared boat. Clogging snowfall defeated a mirror signal.
'
The outside watch posts are silenced and blinded, until this rough weather abates.
'
No message in code might cross the harbour to warn Bransian
'
s inside garrison.

'
I am sorry, my lady,
'
the keep
'
s officer confirmed. He dared not waste a valiant man
'
s life, with the channel pitched to white froth.
'
No more can be done until the tide
'
s changed, and the worst of the storm has blown past us . . .
'