The Bitterbynde Trilogy (186 page)

The onlookers had pulled well back from the site of the duel, giving the combatants a wide berth, careful not to step within range. Such virulent sparks could burn a tiny hole right through flesh and bone, through bone and sinew, through the very essence of being, drilling through body and spirit a keyhole or porthole to look out upon the long, grey desert of annihilation.

In a wide circle the mounted knights of Eagle's Howe and Raven's Howe viewed the struggle, intent, their Faêran vision missing nothing. The survivors of both Attriods watched also, despite the agony of their wounds, and so did many men-at-arms of the Legions who had ascended the cliffs of the Plain. Dainnan warriors and Stormriders were there, and wights both malign and benign, including scrawls of spriggans, sprawls of hobyahs and the mad goblin Red Cap with a dead, red rooster swinging from his belt.

Yallery Brown was close by, and Withiue and Tully, holding the mane of Tighnacomaire. The goblin Snafu was there, and the enchanted brothers Maghrain, and Young Vallentyne with his brother ganconers Romeus and Childe Launcelyn, and other wights too numerous to mention.

The eyes of all the Faêran were dark with pain.

‘Has it come to this?' muttered Lord Iltarien. ‘That the best among us, the jewels of the Realm should take up arms against each other? Cursed was the day I followed the Fithiach, yet I could not do otherwise, for I hold him dearer than a brother and my loyalty cannot swerve.'

‘Thus we continue to support him,' murmured Lord Ergaiorn, ‘out of fierce comradeship, and honour, and perversity, and beloved folly.'

As they watched, it became apparent that Angavar and Morragan were well matched, for neither was gaining the upper hand. But Tamlain Conmor cried out, ‘Angavar King is already weary from battle. Morragan is fresh from the fortress. There is no justice in the Prince's advantage!'

At his words, roars of agreement and disagreement broke out on both sides, but no one could gainsay him, and Ashalind, standing untouched but helpless at Iltarien's side, felt the chill of fear. The blue sword flashed so swift, so keen, every stroke a masterstroke.

Abruptly, all argument ceased, for the two masters of land and sky and sea and fire had drawn apart. Throwing off their armour by means of gramarye, they stood challenge now in shirtsleeves and full-length breeches. For a time they stood, gasping, flinging back their long hair which was wet with the sweet sweat of their exertion yet fragrant as pine. It was a respite from their mighty striving, mutually admitted. Appraisingly they regarded one another, readiness to retaliate against sudden attack written in the tense lines of their stance. Morragan spoke fleeringly to Angavar in the language of the Strangers. Angavar replied in kind.

Apparently by chance, Angavar had positioned himself facing Ashalind, to whom Morragan must necessarily turn his back in order to keep up his guard. In full view of Angavar, Ashalind's hands gestured silently.

Catching her eye, he nodded, almost invisibly.

Many of those who looked on realised that some communication had passed between the two, but what it had conveyed they could not fathom.

‘False bitch!' squalled Yallery Brown springing at Ashalind, but Lord Iltarien repulsed the wight. Before Morragan could glance back over his shoulder Angavar had lunged at him, uttering a wordless cry from deep in his throat, and with an answering roar from Morragan, the duel began anew.

‘What hast thou done,
erithbunden?'
Iltarien cried, but Ashalind, her tongue paralysed by the gramarye of Morragan, could only shake her head.

Then, penetrating the profound rumblings of thunder by virtue of contrast, there came a tintinnabulation as of sequins falling gently upon bells of glass. It had been approaching for some while before the playful breeze started up, darting between the storm gusts generated by the Faêran combat to snatch at cloaks and hems, to snip at hair, to stir the manes and tails of horses.

The High Plain darkened further, and broke out in sudden, pricking lights.

Pincushion stars glowed incandescent, fanned by the bellows of the unexpected shang wind, and Riachadh na Catha, the ancient Battlefield of Kings, awoke.

Pale monarchs stood up once more to fight, their antique crowns and armour alive with a preternatural sheen. Once before, in recent time, the shang wind had swept its random tides across the High Plain. Then, Ashalind had walked out from Annath Gothallamor steeped in grief and taltryless, etching her image wherever she went—a ghost among ghostly warriors, a spectre to keep faith for her in unvarying repetition should the shang rise again.

And risen it had, just now, at Angavar's command.

Sure enough, at this moment Ashalind now looked upon that ghost, the image of herself-who-was, walking away across the plain, lifting her skirts to step lightly over the stones. The simulacrum halted and looked back. Ashalind saw herself as others saw her, and was amazed. Her hair, shining like moonlight on bronze, swept past her waist. Ropes of pearl and sapphire were loosely braided through those tresses. Edged with miniver, her layered gown of lavender samite was richly netted in gold braid and seed pearls, the full sarcenet sleeves foaming with delicate white lace. And the face—an oval of flawless symmetry, of darling enchantment. A mask to hide sorrow.

At that moment, Angavar glanced towards this evocation and cried out. Stunned by the passion of that cry, Ashalind felt three heartbeats pass before she comprehended he had called her name.

Morragan, however, had responded instantly. He turned his head, looked straight at the shang image and faltered. It was only a blink of distraction, before he realised the vision was a sham—a hesitation so brief it took less time than a moth's wing incinerating in a candle flame, yet it was enough. So evenly matched were these adversaries that one of them needed merely the slightest opportunity to slip past the other's guard and drive the advantage home.

A tongue for telling lies had not, after all, been necessary.

Sianadh's tale of Callanan, the hero who tricked the warrior woman Ceileinh with a similar ruse, had remained with Ashalind; had inspired her.

<> she had signed to Angavar in the silent language she had once taught him in the forest of Tiriendor. <>

A momentary suspension of commonsense had been sufficient to distract Morragan. Beginning to tire, concentrating solely on the tactics of swordplay, it had taken him the space of a fleeting thought to comprehend the truth of what passed before his eyes.

Prince Morragan regained his judgement too late—by then Angavar's blade had pierced his side. Blood trickled from the wound—not black in the moonlight like the blood of Men, but crimson, tinged with Royal blue. He staggered, yet did not fall. Angavar drew back, lowering his weapon.

The Lord Iltarien uttered a shout. Seizing her chance, Ashalind fled from him, but scarcely had she darted forward when Yallery Brown had leaped up to drive his rat's teeth and venomous talons into the flesh of her shoulder, biting to the bone, clinging to her like a steel trap. In agony she screamed, once, then Morragan was at her side. He threw off the wight, who rolled over the stones of the Plain. With an assured, cruel movement and supreme effort, Morragan brought his sword down and fulfilled his oath to Yallery Brown.

A blackness fizzed and dissipated on the stones. A leprous cockroach crawled under one of them and Morragan set his boot-heel on it.

With his right arm, Angavar gathered Ashalind to him. His touch went through her like a javelin, healing her instantly and obliterating all physical pain.

But Morragan's effort had cost him dearly. The violence of his exertion had torn apart the wound in his side. The blow of Angavar's sword alone had not been ruinous, but the effort expended in smiting Yallery Brown severely exacerbated the injury. The blood that had been a trickle now gushed, and a look of wonderment crossed the Prince's face; he, the immune made vulnerable, the immortal glimpsing the void at last, as fate came to meet him.

He fell to one knee. His fingers opened and the sword Durandel clattered to the ground.

‘Farewell,
lhiannan,'
he said to Ashalind, with the slightest and most haunting of smiles, which did not reach his grey eyes.

The numbness lifted from her tongue.

‘Nay sir, pray do not leave us …' she blurted. Words petered out in futility and hot tears.

‘Weep,' he whispered, swaying, ‘for me.'

The sword Arcturus stood up, shivering, where Angavar had cast it aside. Its point was stuck fast into the rock of the Plain. The Lords Iltarien and Ergaiorn, the Prince's cup-bearer and all the chivalry of Raven's Howe gathered around the Prince on their knees, their heads bent, silent. They had taken off their helms. The Eagle knights and the Royal Attriod dismounted also, and all the kindreds of beings upon that Plain bowed down. The upper sleeve of the Faêran King was slit open—a long red-purple scratch showed through the fine linen. Now he knelt by his brother. Morragan sank down further, until he lay stretched upon the ground with his head and shoulders cradled in the arms of Angavar.

Softly, compassionately, the Faêran King spoke to the Raven Prince.

‘I cannot heal this wound,' he said, ‘or any wound begat by my own hand. The blow was not lethal, yet by thy subsequent actions thou hast made it so. O,
ionmhuinn brathair, mi cairdean, mi fithiach de cumhachd, laidir a briagha
—dost thou recall the Fields of Lys? We fought and sported there, but never was the sport so hard as this. Alas, how pride has cheated us. Do not depart, I pray thee. Not before thou hast walked again with me upon the sward of home—' His beautiful voice cracked. He bowed his head and spoke no more.

The Plain glimmered like a galaxy. Slowly the warrior kings of the unstorm faded.

Murmuring, Morragan spoke in the Faêran language and Angavar replied. Then the Crown Prince made to say something more, but before he could do so, his head fell back. In stark contrast against the coal-black satin of his hair, his beautiful face seemed chiselled of fine-grained marble, pale as paper. Still and silent he lay, with all of Erith still and silent about him.

Once, long ago in the Realm of Faêrie, a chorused cry had ascended when the Gates were Closing, exiling Angavar and Morragan. The second time Ashalind had heard such a cry was when the Awakened Knights of Eagle's Howe had appeared to do battle on the High Plain.

Now a third cry issued from myriad throats, and it was hardest of all to bear, and this time not all of the voices were Faêran. It seemed to come from near and far, from high above and deep below, and in it was an anguish, a sense of loss past compare.

From Angavar's arms a huge raven flew up on wings of shadow.

Empty-handed, Angavar rose to his feet and watched it fly away. The tranced stars went out in the shape of a cross and blinked once more alight.

Metallic, frosty, gigantic shone the stars. It was as though the sky were a pane of black glass against which unnumbered comets had flung themselves, smashing pinholes from which glistening lines of fracture radiated like the spokes of wheels.

Morragan was gone.

A shouted order rang out from the lowlands, followed by the twang and purr of arrows in the air: a salute from the warriors of Erith. Ten thousand arrows shot straight up against the sky, hung poised at the top of their arc and rained down harmlessly, rattling upon the encampment. Then Ergaiom put a golden horn to his mouth and blew the ‘
Ceol na Slán
'—the ‘Song of Farewell'. At that music, even hardened warriors wept.

Those serried ranks of fair and noble knights who knelt on the Plain remained on their knees. They paid homage now to the victor, the High King of the Fair Realm. All wights of eldritch also made obeisance to him, save for the remnants of the Unseelie Attriod, who were nowhere to be seen, for they had fled far away.

Around the standing sword, where the blood of the Raven Prince had spilled upon the stones, there sprang now a garden of strange poppies with translucent petals like flames of white samite.

‘These flowers will multiply,' said Angavar in a voice that rang across the landscape, ‘until they cover this stone table. All of Riachadh na Catha will become a garden. But I will banish the
siangha
from Erith. Never more shall they wander pathless, the winds of gramarye.'

He took Ashalind's hand, making a sea-storm of her senses.

‘Let us go from here, Goldhair
eudail,'
he said. ‘Now thou must needs teach me how mortals grieve.'

Farewell, black bird. Under the stars

On silent wings, begin your flight.

It seems a sudden shadow flees

Across the night.

Fly swift, black bird, on faithful winds,

With rhythm strong, soar straight and free.

Yet something wonderful and rare

Shall leave with thee.

Fly on, black bird, do not look back

At those from whom thou must needs part.

Thy wings thresh airy currents like

A beating heart.

Fly high, black bird—do not look down.

Thy destiny is in no doubt,

But somewhere in the world below

A light goes out.

And didst thou wist so many hearts

Would go with thee?

E
RGAIORN
'
S
L
AMENT

(Translated from the Faêran)

11

THE BITTERBYNDE

Part I

Faêrie, have my bones. Forever may I live,

But of deathless years I vow that I would give

All, to walk once more beneath thy singing trees,

Else to glimpse again the jewels of thy seas,

Or to breathe once more the wind that scours thy sky.

Faêrie, have my bones, and peaceful shall I lie.

A S
ONG OF THE
E
XILES