The Gates of Winter (33 page)

“Queen Ivalaine,” Aryn said, fighting to get the words out between gasps for breath, “did she come here?”

“Yes, my ladies, just a minute ago.”

Lirith gripped his arm. “Did you let her in? Did you let the queen into the prince's chamber?”

Petryen frowned. “Of course I let her in. The prince was fostered at her court. Why would we deny her entrance?”

They were too late. Aryn couldn't stop shaking. “Is there anyone else in there with him?”

“The Mournish man Sareth came to pay a visit to His Highness,” Petryen said. “His company seems to cheer the prince, so we allowed him in. Why do you ask?”

Lirith stared at the door. “By the gods—Sareth!”

A muffled crash sounded from behind the door. The duke gave the women a shocked look, then turned and pushed open the door. Aryn and Lirith rushed into the chamber on his heels. The scene within froze Aryn's blood.

Ivalaine had fallen against the sideboard, upsetting a pitcher of wine. Teravian lay on the floor, his face white with fear. Sareth bent over him, clutching the prince's tunic.

“By Vathris, get your hands off of him, you dog!” Petryen shouted.

Before Sareth could react, Petryen grappled him, pulling him away from Teravian. Sareth tried to break free, but then the man-at-arms was there, and both men held Sareth, knocking his wooden leg out from under him, wrestling him onto the bed.

“Murderer,” Petryen said through clenched teeth. “I should have known it was someone the prince trusted, someone who could get close to him. Now you're trying to finish the deed.”

Lirith flung herself at the men. “Leave him alone! You're hurting him!”

The two men ignored her cries, and Ivalaine was already moving. She lurched toward Teravian, who still lay stunned on the floor. Something glinted in her hand: a needle, its tip covered with a green substance. She poised the needle above the prince's throat as he looked up with wide eyes.

“I failed once to protect you from them,” she said. “I will not fail you again.”

Aryn had less than the time between two heartbeats. She reached out and gripped the threads of the Weirding, and as the power of life flowed into her all fear was forgotten. With a single, swift thought, she wove the shining threads into a shimmering new pattern.

Ivalaine cried out. Her feet left the ground, and her body flew backward, as if she had been dealt a blow by an invisible hand. She struck the wall, and the needle flew from her hand. The queen moaned—a sound of fear and rage and pain—and she writhed, but her hands and feet were held fast against the wall, as if bound by ropes no eye could see.

No eyes save Aryn's, for she could see the shining strands of magic that held the queen in place, just as she could sense the way Ivalaine fought against them. However, the queen's power was no match for Aryn's own. Aryn gazed at her hands—the left that was whole, perfect, the right that was twisted and withered. Neither trembled.

“By the Blood of the Bull,” Petryen swore. He let go of Sareth and indicated for the man-at-arms to do the same.

Sareth sat up on the bed. He touched his chin gingerly. A bruise was already forming along his jaw. Lirith ran to him, and he held her tight.

“It was the queen,” Petryen said, disbelief written across his face. “It was she who tried to murder the prince.”

“Twice.” Aryn bent down and picked up the needle, taking care to avoid the tip. “This poison would have stopped his heart in an instant.”

“But why would she do such a thing?” Petryen said.

Teravian had regained his feet. He gazed at Ivalaine, a hand to his throat, the expression in his eyes unreadable. “Maybe you should ask her.”

Aryn knew there was no use in that. Ivalaine had stopped struggling, and she sagged in the invisible bonds. Her eyes were rolled back, her lips wet with spittle. She seemed to be speaking something, only she made no sound.

“Inform the king what has happened,” Petryen said to the guard. “And bring more men to carry her to the dungeon.”

The dungeon? By Sia, it wasn't right—she was a queen. However, the guard nodded, then turned on a heel and left the room.

Aryn moved closer, laying a hand on Ivalaine's cheek. She shut her eyes, probing with the Touch, but Ivalaine's thread was dull gray, and when Aryn grasped it she could sense no light, no spark of consciousness.

Aryn turned around, tears streaming down her cheeks. “She's gone.”

Lirith let out a sob, pressing her face against Sareth's chest. He wrapped his arms around her. Petryen shook his head, his expression one of disgust. Of them all, only Teravian seemed without emotion. His eyes were dark as he gazed at the queen. What was he thinking?

I was thinking about what she said to me.

The prince's lips didn't move, but Aryn heard his voice clearly. She stared at him, astonished by the means of his speech as much as by what he said.

What was it?
she managed at last.
What did she say to you?

Teravian turned his back and walked from the chamber. Then, just as he vanished from sight, Aryn heard his voice in her mind once again.

She said she loved me.

36.

They reached Gravenfist Keep on a cold, brilliant afternoon late in the month of Durdath, just when Grace was sure none of them could possibly walk another step north. As the army entered the mouth of a narrow valley, three eagles flew overhead, their feathers gleaming gold in the light of the westering sun, their cries echoing off the cliffs. Was it a welcome they called out, Grace wondered? Or a warning?

“Well,” she said to Durge. “We're here.”

“I never doubted for a moment we'd make it, Your Majesty,” Durge said through ice-crusted mustaches.

Grace gave him the knight a weary smile. “Funny you should say that. Because I sure did.”

They had crossed the frozen waters of the River Fellgrim three days ago, and Grace had not been sorry to put Embarr behind them. It was not just the bleakness of the Dominion that had affected her; it was seeing that desolation reflected in Durge's eyes, and in the eyes of all the Embarran knights. Embarr was the place where they were born, where they had lived their lives. Only by King Sorrin's order it had become a Dominion of ghosts.

It seemed every few leagues the army came upon another abandoned village. All of them were the same. The doors of the hovels stood open to wind and snow; no smoke rose from the chimneys. The only living things were dogs that slunk snarling away between the buildings, tails tucked, ribs showing. And they would not be alive much longer.

The army passed manor houses as well, and stone keeps on hills, all empty like the villages. Once they came upon an entire walled town devoid of people. They had gone in, looking for any items they could salvage, but they had not stayed long. Walking through the town's silent streets had given them all an eerie feeling. Was this what the world would be like if Mohg ruled it? Not a place of shadow, filled with cries of suffering, but rather cold and empty, without sound, without life?

Eventually Grace began to imagine that the entire Dominion was empty, that even if they went to Barrsunder they would find it as sterile as the rest of this land. Then, two days after Sir Vedarr and his knights joined with the army, the Spiders finally reported seeing signs of human life. However, this was not cause for joy, for what the spies had glimpsed was a company of fifty Onyx Knights patrolling to the west.

Aldeth said he hadn't been able to determine the knights' purpose, but Grace knew what it was. They were searching for her. The runelord Kelephon still wanted Fellring, and he still wanted her blood, so he could wield the sword and claim the throne of Malachor Reborn.

However, the Onyx Knights never came nearer to the army than two leagues, Grace didn't know if she had luck to thank for that or Tira. Either way, she amused herself thinking how Kelephon would be drooling with fury if he knew his own knights had come within a few miles of her and Fellring. When Tarus asked her what she was grinning about, she only laughed and hugged Tira. The knight gave her an odd look and rode off, muttering something about the madness of queens and witches.

The next day they crossed the Fellgrim, with only one minor mishap when a horse fell through the ice and was quickly pulled back out. Both beast and rider were cold, wet, and scraped, but not seriously injured.

Once across the river, they found themselves traveling through a forest. It reminded Grace of the forests of Colorado: light and open, with plenty of space to move between the trees, the ground covered with a carpet of soft needles. Here and there a small evergreen plant grew in clumps, covered with tiny orange-red berries and looking for all the world like kinnikinnick.

However, this wasn't Colorado. The silvery, leafless trees were
valsindar
, not aspen, and the needles of the
sintaren
trees were a feathery purple-green. All the same, they looked so much like ponderosa pine that, as they made camp that evening, Grace couldn't resist walking up to one, pressing her nose to its sun-warmed bark, and inhaling deeply.

“Ice cream,” she said in answer to the curious look Paladus gave her. “Where I come from, some pine trees smell like vanilla ice cream.”

The Tarrasian commander wore a skeptical look. “And does that one smell like this
vah'nilla
?”

She shook her head. “More like butterscotch.”

Tira touched her nose to the tree and laughed.

Paladus hesitated, then followed suit, moving close and sniffing the tree's bark. He turned around, eyes wide. “It smells delicious.”

Grace laughed. “So it does.”

As the evening wore on, Grace noticed more than one man moving from
sintaren
tree to
sintaren
tree, stopping to smell each one. Despite what lay ahead of them she felt her spirits lifting. While this forest was empty of people, it did not give her the same sense of desolation as Embarr. It was sad, yes, but there was a contentedness to it as well. This land had learned to live alone.

Just like you, Grace.

The next day, as they set out, Durge told her this forest was called the Winter Wood. It stretched across the entire north of Falengarth, and once everything within its borders had been part of the kingdom of Malachor. Maybe that was why she felt less afraid here; maybe she had come home.

Then they came upon the pylon, and the feeling of peace vanished.

It was damaged; otherwise, they would surely have felt its insidious effects as they had before. As it was, a gloom seemed to descend over the forest, though the sky above the leafless branches of the
valsindar
was clear as a sapphire.

It was Senrael who sensed it first. The crone warned Grace, who instructed the Spiders to scout things out—carefully. Aldeth returned minutes later; he had spotted the pylon in a clearing not far ahead. Tarus gave the commands, and the army veered to the east to give the relic a wide berth. Luckily, the bulk of the force was marching a quarter league back, and so never came near enough for concern.

“I'm not sure what happened to the pylon,” Aldeth said. “I didn't want to get too close to it, but it looked to me as if the stone was cracked.”

Durge stroked his mustaches. “From years of cold and ice and wind, perhaps.”

“Or more likely from this,” Samatha said as she approached, holding up a sword. The blade was broken off a few inches above the hilt, but it was enough to see that the sword had been forged of jet-black steel.

Grace took the broken sword in a trembling hand. “Onyx Knights. They were the ones who broke the pylon.”

Paladus looked at her. “Why?”

The metal was cold against her bare skin, but she didn't let go. “Kelephon means to betray the Pale King. He wants to gain the Imsari for himself.”

“He must have spoken powerful runes to have allowed his knights to approach the pylon,” Master Graedin said. He shivered inside his gray robes. “I suppose they broke it to keep the Pale King from spying on their comings and goings.”

“Which means Kelephon has unwittingly done us a favor,” Durge said. “For the Pale King will not see us either.”

Either Durge's theory was right, or luck and Tira's magic continued to protect them, for over the next two days they encountered nothing more menacing than the silver-furred squirrels who made their home in the duskneedle trees, and who scolded them as they marched by.

Then, as suddenly as if a curtain had been drawn aside, the trees of the Winter Wood gave way to a windswept plain at the foot of a range of rugged mountains. A pair of standing stones stood at the entrance to a high-walled valley. They rode between the stones, following a faint road up the defile. Then, as the eagles soared overhead, Grace at last laid eyes on their destination.

“It doesn't look like much,” she said.

Seated on his mule, All-master Oragien smiled at her. “Gravenfist Keep is nearly a thousand years old, Your Majesty. We should be glad it's standing at all.”

While the main force of the army snaked its way slowly up the valley, Grace rode ahead with the ones who had become her most trusted companions: Durge and Tarus, Aldeth and Samatha, Commander Paladus, Master Graedin and All-master Oragien, and the witches Senrael and Lursa. With them beside her, Grace felt she could face anything.

Well, almost anything.

“We are so incredibly doomed,” she murmured as they brought their horses to a halt, then winced, glancing at the others. “Sorry. I meant to just think that.”

“Don't apologize, Your Majesty,” Tarus said, a pained look on his face. “I think you may be right.”

They dismounted and picked their way across the stony ground toward the keep. Tira ran alongside them, flitting from rock to rock on bare feet.

Gravenfist sat at the highest point of the valley, where the cliff walls drew down until they were little more than a hundred paces apart. Grace was no military genius, but she could see this was a highly defensible spot. The cliffs were sheer and unscalable, and the narrow valley would squeeze an attacking force like a stony hand; no doubt that was how the keep had gotten its name. Even a small force such as her own could hold this fortress indefinitely if it was in good repair.

It wasn't. Given the looks of it, the curtain wall that stretched between the two cliffs had once been about thirty feet high. Now in most places it was no more than ten. The wall was cracked and rusty with lichen, heaps of fallen stones piled at its base.

The main keep, which stood behind the wall, was in little better shape. There was a large, square tower from which low barracks reached out to either side, then angled back around to form a courtyard. The barracks looked large enough to house a thousand soldiers, but they were largely roofless, and their doors and shutters had long ago rotted to splinters. The tower, which stood five stories high, appeared solid enough, though its parapets were crumbling like the wall, and no doubt it was as roofless as the barracks.

Grace gazed at the keep, but the tower's narrow windows only stared back at her like bleary eyes. This place had been slumbering for seven hundred years. How could she hope to wake it to war?

“Don't worry, Your Majesty,” Durge said. “It's nothing a little elbow grease won't fix.”

Grace didn't think there were that many elbows in the world. Besides, even if they could prevent the fortress from falling down, there certainly wasn't time to build the wall back up to its full height. A thirty-foot barrier might be defended. But one that stood ten feet? The Pale King's minions would scale it in seconds. Grace started to tell the others it was hopeless, that they might as well turn around and march back to Calavere.

“Your Majesty!” Master Graedin called out. “I believe you should come look at this.” The young runespeaker had scrambled up a pile of stones and now stood atop one of the lowest points along the wall.

The rest of them hurried to the wall, and Aldeth and Samatha nimbly ascended it. There was plenty of room for them to stand alongside Graedin; the wall was a good ten feet thick.

“Oh,” Aldeth said.

Samatha laughed, her gray eyes shining. “Well this changes everything.”

“I told you so,” Graedin said.

All of this suspense was quickly making Grace cross. “Durge, since no one sees fit to tell me what they're seeing, I'll have to look for myself. Help me up there.”

Durge knelt and made a stirrup of his hands, boosting Grace up. Aldeth and Samatha caught her, pulling her to the top of the wall. She swayed as the wind struck her.

“Careful, Your Majesty,” Master Graedin said, steadying her. “You don't wish to fall that way.”

“No,” Grace said softly. “I don't suppose I do.”

She had imagined the valley sloped away from the keep on the other side, just as it did on this side. It didn't. Instead, the keep stood at the top of a nearly vertical escarpment. While from the way they had come the wall looked to be no more than ten feet high, on this side it plunged down a hundred feet to the valley floor below, sloping out slightly as it went.

It looked as if the wall had at one time been perfectly smooth, but in many places the facing stones had cracked and crumbled. There were enough handholds that a skilled climber—or a nimble creature, like one of the
feydrim
—would be able to scale the wall, but it would be slow going, and an archer could easily shoot anything that tried to climb up. Nor would ladders do much good. Such a tall ladder could be pushed away from the wall before even the fastest climber might ascend it.

“What do you see up there, Your Majesty?” Durge called out to her.

“Hope,” she called back. “I see hope.”

The restoration of Gravenfist Keep began that day. The first order of business was to clear away hundreds of years of debris from the keep's courtyard and to make a place to set up a temporary camp. As Commander Paladus and Sir Vedarr gave the orders, Grace toured the keep with Durge, Tarus, and Oragien so that they could come up with a plan. There was no way to know how much time they had until the Rune Gate opened; they had to be sure they completed the most important repairs first.

All agreed the wall would be their first priority. There was no need to build it back any higher, but they had to remove the loose stones, square off the top, and add crenellations so that archers could safely stand atop the wall and take aim at any who tried to scale it. Durge also suggested adding a few machicolations, so that fiery naphtha—of which they had many barrels—could be rained down upon the enemy.

The next task would be to clear out the barracks and repair the roofs. On closer inspection, it was not going to be as terrible a task as Grace had feared. The roof beams had rotted away, but there were plenty of trees close at hand to fashion more. Most of the original slate shingles lay scattered on the ground, and more could easily be mined from the walls of the valley, which were made up of the stuff.

The main keep was also in better shape than Grace would have thought possible. Its roof remained, though with countless holes, as did each of the five floors within, a fact that astounded both Grace and Durge, since they were made of wood. Then All-master Oragien pointed out the symbols that had been etched into the thick beams hewn of
sintaren
trees.