The Fall of Neskaya (47 page)

Damian sat back in his chair, staring, jaw set, waiting. Some dark emotion, one Belisar could not put a name to, flickered across his face. Belisar lifted his arms, then let them drop. His father had not, as he had imagined over the harried miles, been worried half to death about his fate. Instead, he was apparently carrying on as if nothing had happened. And he, Prince and heir, was expected to make his report, just as if he’d been an ordinary officer.

Belisar set his own jaw in unconscious imitation of his father. He squared his shoulders. His muscles trembled from the exertion of so many long hours at a gallop. Two horses had died under him and the third was near done in.

“Sire.” He gave the word both honorific and familial inflection. “I wish to report that although I was unable to fulfill my mission of seizing control of the lands beyond the Drycreek border, it has been secured against Hastur aggression.”

At that, the King’s eyebrows lifted. His expression lightened. He listened with evident and growing interest as Belisar told his story, finishing with his departure from the border. Curious, how less frightening it seemed in the telling. His own deeds seemed bolder, the colors of the day brighter. Horns rang out brassy challenge behind his words. He could almost see the pennants shimmer in the sunlight. His legs grew steadier beneath him with each phrase.

It was a pity, he thought as he came to the end of his tale, that he had not stayed to see the bonewater dust sifting down from the sky. From everything he had been told, that would have been a sight indeed. He could only imagine its deadly beauty.

When he finished, Damian sat silent, brows drawn slightly together.

“Are—are you displeased with my command?” For the first time since his escape, Belisar felt unsure. “I assure you, there was no possible better outcome, not after the Hastur treachery—”

“Where is the army I entrusted you with? Where is The Yellow Wolf? And where is Rumail, my brother?”

“Oh, they are following. The orders to retreat had already been given. I could not, of course, allow myself to be captured once the second ruse was discovered, and so their slower pace afforded me some protection.” The Hasturs would have had to push their way through the entire Ambervale army to get at him. It had all worked out rather nicely.

“Protection.”
A pause, the flicker of eyes gone suddenly cold. “And what protection did
you
afford
them?
”

“I don’t understand.” Belisar shifted from one foot to the other. “Against what? They already had safe passage home.”

“Against the bonewater dust.”

“Well, Rumail wasn’t going to unleash the stuff over
them.
It’s not as if the men were in any danger.”

“But you did not stay to see to it yourself. To make sure there were no other . . . surprises.”

Now Belisar’s spine prickled with irritation. “I told you, the Hasturs had demanded my surrender. Should I have risked my freedom—
my
freedom, as the heir to Greater Ambervale? I don’t understand your point. If you think I should have acted otherwise, stop dancing around and tell me.”

“Yes, it is clear you don’t understand.” Belisar caught the growl of resignation in his father’s voice. With a barely-disguised sigh, Damian heaved himself out of his seat. He crossed the distance between them with two strides. For an instant, Belisar was afraid Damian was going to strike him, or walk right by him, which would have been worse.

Damian grabbed him in a rough hug and pounded his back several times. “Ah, well,” he said, half under his breath. “You cannot help it, I suppose. But you are still my son and heir. There is much good in you. I will have to teach you better.”

For days, soldiers poured into Acosta, weary in body from battle and flight, wearier still in spirit. They offered a patchwork tale of entrapment, surrender, and an orderly retreat turned into a rout. None of them knew exactly what had happened, only that they had bolted for their lives at the command of their officers.

The next men to arrive were already dying, their guts turning to water even as their hair fell in patches. In his presence chamber, Damian interviewed those who could still talk. He forced Belisar to listen, to face the human wreckage from his aborted command. To cover his escape, Rumail had indeed released the bonewater dust over the Hastur army. But something had gone wrong, so that the Ambervale forces had also been exposed.

A pang shot through Damian as he glanced at Belisar’s uncomprehending expression. Perhaps the shortcomings of the son were the fault of the father. He had not spent much time with Belisar as a child, for that was during the long, difficult conquest of Linn. That was before the vision had come upon him. Then he had assumed Belisar would tread in his footsteps, be molded by that same vision. He thought of Belisar as a young man, hair like a cap of gold, Belisar out on the practice field, mastering a fiery horse, Belisar grinning at him across a banquet table with torchlight burnishing his skin, Belisar wooing that Hastur vixen, Belisar so tall and proud as he led out the army. . . .

It was probably Damian’s own fault. The boy was young, untried, idealistic. He had been fed on visions of victory and glory. He knew nothing about honor in defeat.

Damian dismissed the last of the soldiers and downed a goblet of wine, an exquisitely rich vintage even though well-watered, and set it down on the little inlaid table. The wine sloshed onto the polished surface.

This much sitting around waiting would drive Aldones himself mad. What he needed was action. The border skirmish was a minor setback, that was all. He still held Acosta and the mountain kingdoms, as well as his home territories of Ambervale and Linn. The better part of his army was intact.

Voices reached him from the outer room. Though the words were muffled, he recognized the baritone of his personal guard. A prickle swept up his spine as he heard the subtle rise in pitch of the guard’s voice. He gestured to the page standing at the door to admit whoever it was.

The man had ridden long and hard, Damian saw at a glance. Travel grime darkened his leather-plate armor, the worn straps which once held sword and dagger. Sweat and dried blood etched the seamed scars on his face. What struck Damian as the man fell to his knees, trembling, was the mixture of horror and despair in the whitened eyes. So should a man look, who had seen defeat turned into disaster, and his own fellows die from bonewater dust. Yet the man before him was no raw recruit, but a battle-hardened veteran.

“It’s all right,” he said, gently gruff. “I already know.”

The man’s mouth opened and closed. A sound came from his throat, half gasp, half moan. He shook his head, and Damian saw the tears.

“Vai dom
—Lord—!” The man passed one hand across his face, visibly struggling not to fall on his face. A moment later, he had control of himself, although he did not meet Damian’s eyes. When he spoke, his voice sounded hollow, like an echo of the grave:

“The Yellow Wolf is dead.”

For a long moment, Damian sat, uncomprehending. He was beginning to suspect, from all the reports, but the words carried a dreadful finality.

“The general, dead?” His voice seemed to belong to someone else, someone immune to grief.

“By the Lord of Light himself, I wish it were not true! He stayed behind to make sure we got safe away.” Now the man’s words came in a rush. “At first, I would not leave him, but he commanded me. I went with the others.”

Now Damian recognized the man, one of The Yellow Wolf’s most trusted captains. Battle and desperation had transformed his rugged features. His name was Ranald Vyandal and though his family was poor, his lineage was honorable. Strange that Damian should think of that now.

“We got well clear of the dust, then I waited for him while the others went on. And then those who came had blistered faces. Some could not run more than a few paces without puking out their guts.” Ranald gulped, memory paling his face to the color of bleached bone. Damian saw death in his eyes, but whether his own or only a reflection of all he had seen, he could not tell.

Ranald went on as if desperate to tell his whole story while he could. “Still I waited. Toward the very end, when I could see only a few still on their feet in the distance—four of them carried him. They could barely stand, and yet they would not leave him—” his voice broke, but only for a moment.

“He was still breathing when they laid him at my feet. His face was horribly burned, his lips blackened. He looked at me and did not know me. He—oh, Dark Lady Avarra! Have mercy on us!”

Ranald buried his face in his hands, choking down sobs. “He was a father to me. I should have—”

Damian, unexpectedly moved, reached out to lay a hand on the man’s shoulder. His fingers moved over leather stiff with filth, to feel the deep racking sobs.

I have lost my general, and maybe my brother,
Damian thought.
My son is a fool who can command but not lead.

“I will hear no more of this. Dying is the easy part!” Damian said. “You have done your duty, a far more difficult task. You have brought this news to me, your King.”

“That’s—that’s what The Yellow Wolf said. That I must live, and tell you he did his best. He spoke those words with his last breath.”

“And what of the
laranzu
, Rumail?”

Ranald knew nothing of his fate. He had not seen or heard of any gray-robed wizards.

Damian called for servants to see to Ranald’s needs, and a physician to assess his exposure to bonewater dust. As for The Yellow Wolf, there would be time enough to mourn, once the battle was won and Hastur ground into dust.

Damian sat for a long time in his war chamber, with his hatred for Rafael Hastur growing like a cancer in his heart.

With The Yellow Wolf’s death, Damian had lost a friend as well as a brilliant war leader. Yet to give himself over to grieving now would mean throwing away whatever The Wolf had died for. He, Damian, was still king. He might have failed to gain the border territory, he might well have erred in giving Belisar so much responsibility or in underestimating that snake, Rafael, and his witch niece, but by all the gods he knew and any others who would listen, he was not finished yet.

Rumail’s first waking awareness was warmth and a deep sense of well-being, then movement. He drifted in and out of true consciousness with the swaying of his body. The wound in his side had faded to a tightness, like the drawing of a stiff, old scar. At first, he thought some soft thick blanket swathed his body, then he realized it was not a physical fabric but an encompassing field of
laran
. When he tried to open his eyes, he saw only a blurred swathe of blue and golden green. His energies were depleted, but he was moving, perhaps on a cart or sledge. Through the muffling shield, he felt neither jolt nor bumping.

Voices reached him distantly, the harsh tones of the poorer sort of foot soldier. From time to time, the swaying halted and then went on with hesitation. He continued moving by fits and starts away from the heart of the contamination. That much his
laran
senses told him.

In his desperation, he had reached out for help, and had been answered. It was best to keep quiet and let events take their course. With any luck, he would be out of the danger zone before the Hastur fools realized who they’d helped.

When he came to full consciousness, the protective, smothering blanket of
laran
had lifted. Rumail found he could lift his head. He was lying in the back of a cart, the sort used to transport provisions to the battlefield, and the cart had tipped half on its side. In place of a pair of mules, a single animal stood in harness, lazily shaking flies from its long ears.