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merlinscribe_libraryCHAPTER TWO: Fire Moon to Harvest Moon:
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--Name of Author, Title of Book
The sun would rise in a candlemark, and when it did, the Elves must be ready to run for their lives. The sunlight would be a poor shield against the Endarkened—the creatures did not like the sun, but they had attacked during daylight when it suited their purposes—but it was enough to give the High King's army a slender thread of hope.
That they—that any of them—would survive this day to reach the shelter at its end.
They had been settled in Saganath Flower Forest since Thunder Moon, and it was now Harvest, but the encampment that had sheltered them was now nothing more than empty platforms in the forks of great trees. The clearing—the central space of the Flower Forest, where the trees were fewest—was crowded beyond capacity, even though it held only a tenth of the High King's people. The Elves clustered in family groups talking of what was to come, the sound of their voices no louder than that of the wind ruffling the summer leaves. Some drew their families together for the task ahead. Others bid farewell to partners or children, knowing that this was probably the last time they would see those beloved faces. Healers—both Lightborn and Lightless—moved among them, doling out small vials of poison. No one knew what happened to the captives the Endarkened took, but all agreed it was better not to know.
Beyond the waiting Elves the horselines stretched, each two or three with a groom to soothe and calm them. The previous sennight had been spent gathering the precious livestock from the far reaches of the forest, and each one, whether it would carry a rider or not, was laden with the Elves' possessions. Some carried an even a greater treasure: Elven children. The youngest went as cargo, disguised as supplies, the older ones clung to a network of straps cinched to their mount's neck and back. The straps gave them some small hope of survival if their mount was killed, but each young rider knew that to fall was to die.
On that first departure from Tildorangelor there had been oxen, and carts, and sumpter mules to carry vital supplies and precious tokens. All those animals had died the moment they exited the Fireheart Pass, too slow to have even a hope of escaping the Endarkened. Now the Elves bred horses for speed and stamina, hoping the living cargo they must entrust to them would reach safe haven.
Vieliessar stood with her Council around her, watching the preparations to leave, for the blessing of the High King must be given to those who might ride with the Starry Hunt by sunset. The other enclaves had known the sunturn and the candlemark for sennights, for communication with the other groups was difficult and dangerous. Any time the Lightborn used their power, it drew the Endarkened to them as irresistibly as flies clustered around a honey pot. And to send a Lightless messenger would be to consign them to death, for what had once been Jaeglenhend held more terrors than just the Endarkened.
"Mama!"
Vieliessar knelt quickly at the sound of her adopted (though no one knew that, praise to the Light and its powers of trickery) daughter's voice. Adeliariel, eldest born child, flung herself into Vieliessar's arms, followed quickly by her brother Calanor. Calan was less than a Wheelturn younger than his sister, but nonetheless, acknowledged heir to the High Kingship.
If he lived.
Vieliessar hugged them both fiercely. "My young Generals—are you ready to conquer?" she asked.
Both royal children were already expert with sling, with darts, and in hunting and hiding. In the world the Endarkened had made, children must be trained for battle as soon as they could walk. Adeliariel had nine summers—old enough to fly her kite next Flower Moon. (If she lives, a cold voice whispered in the back of Vieliessar's mind.) Next Midwinter (if Vieliessar lived, if the children lived, if anyone survived), Vieliessar would Call the Light in Liri for the first time. She did not know whether she hoped or feared to find it.
Her father has it in full measure, yet never were we taught at the Sanctuary that the Light should follow this bloodline or that...
"I don't want to have to hide, Mama!" Calan said, pouting. "I'm not a child any more! I have seen eight summers! I can fight!"
Vieliessar ruffled her son's hair as she rose to her feet. "But you must follow Lord Rithdeliel's orders as he gives them, my heart, or you will not learn all you must learn to grow up to be King."
"Calan will be High King and I will be his Chief Warlord," Liri said instantly. "And our army will be the largest there ever was!"
"But not yet," Helecanth said, stepping from behind Vieliessar and swooping Calan up in her arms. "Today is a day for riding very fast," she said, taking Liri's hand. "Come. Let us find horses as swift and daring as each of you, so you may bring each other honor."
Helecanth walked away, Liri skipping along beside her and Calan looking over her shoulder to wave.
"The Endarkened—if they come—will seek other targets first," Thurion said quietly, coming to stand beside Vieliessar.
"Do you seek to comfort me, when I know so many will grieve for their lost children before the sun rises again?" Vieliessar asked, trying desperately to keep the bitterness out of her voice. When you—when Helecanth—may grieve for a son, a daughter, whom you can never claim?
"To give you hope," Thurion said. "Your plan is a good one—even Nadalforo First Sword said so. And she always finds fault."
"Only so she can goad my lord Rithdeliel into lecturing her on knowing her place," Vieliessar said grudgingly.
"And to be so lectured is her greatest joy," Thurion answered. "She would not deprive herself unless she must."
"It will work," Vieliessar said, under her breath. "It must," she added. But always before we took moonturns to move to new places of safety. Small groups, creeping from haven to haven, while elsewhere we lured the Endarkened to us so they would not see...
"It must, so it will," Thurion said, turning both her words and their meaning inside-out. "They will not expect such audacity from us."
"If only I could know what They expect," she answered, and now she could not keep the anguish from her voice. "Or what they want—other than our deaths. They hunt us as if we were Beastlings—but where are Their cities? Their homes? Why do They scour us from a land They do not even choose to claim?"
"These things I do not know," Thurion told her gently. "But one thing I do: you shall prevail." It was not empty flattery—she had never received that from Thurion and she never would—but rather an acknowledgement of what they both knew: as Child of the Prophecy, the whole weight of Amretheon's Prophecy cloaked her in its imperative to be fulfilled. The Child of the Prophecy would stand against the Darkness, unite the people, and...
And what then? Thurion knows as well as I that the Song of Amretheon tells not of an ending to this war, only its beginning.
There remained to her one faint spark of hope, known only to her, Thurion, and Helecanth: Somewhere westward of the Mystrals, Runacarendalur Caerthalien yet lived. And if he did, that meant there was some promise of safety there. Of shelter.
If only her people could reach it.
"Come," Thurion said. "The Silver Swords prepare to ride."
The Silver Swords of Penenjil numbered eight tailles and four captains, never more nor less. Once it had been truly said that they had never been defeated in war or battle—now it could only be said that they were not all dead yet. In this new world of darkness and blood, that survival was the greater miracle, for the Silver Swords were always in the vanguard of any rade. No longer did they ride the legendary grey stallions of Penenjil's breeding, but their new mounts were just as fine, and painted—as were all the Elven horses—in a pattern of light and shadow that would confuse the eye at any distance. Their weapons were two longswords, wielded one in each hand, and each of the Silver Swords was an expert in that unique—and lethal—style of combat.
Now, as Vieliessar stepped forward, each rider stood at the side of their painted destrier, awaiting the command to mount. "Master Dandamir, how goes the day?" Vieliessar asked.
Dandamir, Chief of the Silver Swords, bowed his head in salute before he spoke. "A day when we may ride to battle is a glorious day indeed, my King. And sweet the victory at its end, even at the cost of life, for to die is to ride forever."
"May the Hunt welcome our dead," Vieliessar answered quietly. Last night she had made the sacrifices and said the prayers, but she did not know any longer if she believed in her heart. She had begged the Starry Hunt for its aid so many times, and it had never come.
Dandamir saluted her once more, then gave the order to mount. Moving as one, the Silver Swords vanished silently into the shadowy forest. They would be the first to break forth into the open, flourishing their swords and chanting war cries. Hard on their heels the rest of her people would ride forth from Saganath at a hundred different places, riding upright and armed in the midst of riderless horses. So many of them—or so Vieliessar hoped—that surely the Endarkened could not kill them all.
Until we reach the road to the Pass itself. And then we will all be on one road, bunched together. Easy prey. Unless my plan works.
In their wake, the rest of the Elves moved to mount, taking charge of the riderless horses as they did. In fives and eights and twelves they drifted away from the clearing, moving toward their designated posts at the Flower Forest's edge.
Today's tactics were based upon one scrap of hard-won knowledge: the Endarkened had never followed an attack in force with another immediate attack. Sennights or even moonturns might pass between major assaults, and there had never been a siege, an endless impatient battering at their defenses. If there ever had been, the alfaljodthi would all have died Wheelturns ago.
The Elves were komen, warriors, the greatest fighters Jer-a-kalaliel had ever seen—matchless in tactics, long-sighted in strategy, aided by the sharpest swords, the most impenetrable of armor, their beloved destriers another extension of themselves. And for all their skill, for all their sometimes overwhelming numbers against one or two of the foe, over the past decade of Wheelturns the Elves had ended the lives of perhaps a score of the Endarkened. Each victory had been a costly one, the foe's death bought at the cost of dozens of Elven lives. Vieliessar did not need Arilcarion's cold mathematics to tell her that such a series of exchanges could only end in victory for the foe. To win, they must discover a way to kill the Endarkened not only faster, but at a lower cost to themselves.
After Nomaitemil, after Vondaimieriel, the Sanctuary of the Star. The secret to destroying the Endarkened must lay within the Great Library in the Sanctuary of the Star. It must!
But first they must reach Arevethmonion in the West, and the only way was to pass through The Dragon's Gate. To do so meant crossing a vast distance over open ground where they would be helpless against the Endarkened. And so, for the last several sunturns, all across the Tamabeth Hills of Jaeglenhend-as-was, the Elves had been deliberately luring the Endarkened into attacking in numbers. Last night they had finally succeeded in goading them, and their losses had been heavy. But that meant today was their best chance of gaining Ceoprentrei alive. The Endarkened would come, of a certainty—but not quickly.
So they hoped.
Helecanth returned to Vieliessar's side alone. "I have seen them made ready," she said. "They ride separately. One goes soon, the other nearly last."
"That is well done of you," Vieliessar said steadily. She would not give voice to what all of them were thinking: perhaps one of them will survive.
I must have a living heir of the body. I must! My people will not follow me if only one life stands between them and another civil war. They deserve as much certainty as I can give them. Even though it is built upon a lie.
"My lord King," Helecanth began. "One last time, I—"
"No," Vieliessar said, raising a hand to Helecanth's lips. "This is what must be. I was Lightborn before I was King. Today, for all our sakes, I must be Lightborn once more."
"Then the Silver Hooves defend you, and grant that this night I may ride beside you once more, whether it is over the stones or among the stars," Helecanth said. She raised Vieliessar's hand to her lips and kissed it, then turned and strode away.
"Come," Thurion said gently. "All the people know that we are to guard you this sunturn. Do not let them wonder why you are standing here in the midst of a stampede."
"Cloudwit," she answered with gentle affection. "As if anyone could have eyes for me at such a time." But she followed Thurion when he led her away from the clearing.
The Otherfolk were in Caerthalien—or what once had been Caerthalien—and their line of march (so called, Runacar always mentally amended) now followed the Northern Pass Road. Even a decade of abandonment had not been enough to destroy it, and Runacar's army had by now received enough practice that it was nearly efficient at the business of marching (though in practice the Wulvers raced ahead, slept until the column reached them, and did it again, and the Palugh probably slept in the baggage wagons for the entire day, since no one saw them except when the army was camped) and reliably managed ten to twelve leagues a day.
Ivrithir lay beyond Caerthalien, and once they crossed Ivrithir they would be in Vondaimieriel, which occupied the foothills of the Mystrals. A day or two more and they would be at the top of the Pass. And then...
He didn't know.
Sennights ago Runacar had given up trying to convince either the Gryphons or the Hippogriffs to overfly the Mystrals and to tell him what was there in Jaeglenhend. Drotha was happy to do it, but either gave no reports, or reports Runacar couldn't understand. The other Aesalion were even less trustworthy than Drotha, if that was possible. As little as Runacar liked heading blindly toward an unknown battlefield, he liked even less the thought of letting the High King know there was an enemy army marching toward her.
At least his information was good as far as the beginning of the road to the Pass.
Meanwhile, Runacar's days were long. They did not end at sunset, nor begin at dawn. There were a thousand things an army must do to be prepared to march, and this army must do them on the march. Runacar set as many of the veterans of the Eastern Shore as he could to the work of evening and morning battle drills, teaching the newcomers the basics of how to fight a large group when you were also a member of a large group.
The evening and morning drills were complicated things, as often as not ending in disaster, but Runacar persevered. The problems lay partly in the fact that more of the Woodwose rode on horseback now than he'd ever seen before, and of course none of their mounts were destriers. Runacar's own mount was a skittish palfrey mare that he wished to the Cold Hell of the Foresworn at least twice a day (he'd named her Varuthir) and he'd sworn—frequently and loudly—that he had no intention of riding her into battle, even if that meant he had to go on foot.
But the Centaurs (Sword and Star knew how) had managed to scavenge a few trained destriers from somewhere. They'd probably been young warhorses who had gotten lost in battle, but the last battle in the West had been many years before, and the beasts were much past their prime. Runacar worked them gently during the morning drills, conditioning them and getting them to know and trust him. Whichever one he chose to ride into battle would probably fail after the first charge, and it would take so many years to teach any of the Woodwose how to use the others that there was simply no point in beginning. He would adapt his tactics to what he had, and if it was a cavalry mounted on palfreys and using dart pipes, so be it.
Runacar set those thoughts aside and concentrated on what he could fix with a recitation of The Way of the Sword and a few candlemarks of combat practice stolen from the day's march each day. The Centaurs, the Minotaurs, and the Woodwose he could drill in tactics—but those tactics had been defined and refined for use by people who were shaped like he was, and they wouldn't work for those who were not.
So those others—the Fauns, the Brownies, the Wulvers, the Palugh, and more—Runacar lectured. He taught anyone who would listen the principles of warfare. Objectives, strategy, tactics—what you wanted and what you were willing to give up to get it. What you had to have to fight before you even started. How to tell when your side was losing and what to do about it.
At first, only Andhel and Tanet of the Woodwose came to listen with the others, but soon all the Woodwose came, and with them Centaurs, Minotaurs, Gryphons. After a few sennights, Radafa could recite the text of Arilcarion's Of The Way Of The Sword Road flawlessly from beginning to end, and occasionally Runacar heard the Gryphons arguing among themselves about the meanings of some of the verses. It made his head hurt if he listened, so he tried not to.
He pushed his army hard. No matter how many leagues they covered in a day, he wanted them to move faster. No matter how hard the going each day, at the end of it he demanded they train. Over and over, he told them the same thing: the Elves begin training for war the moment they can walk. They make war all their lives: it is their sport, their worship, their reason for being. Vieliessar's army was skilled enough to destroy the combined armies of the Hundred Houses, and she has had ten Turns of the Wheel to make them even better.
He could only hope his Otherfolk believed him. The Otherfolk had clashed with the Elves all their lives—for centuries—but they'd clashed with Elven hunting parties, not Elven armies. Even the Battle for the Western Shore had not involved the tactics Runacar expected to see from the High King; Amrolion and Daroldan were unique in their enemies and their strategies.
Or they had been, until Runacar had destroyed them.
He did not think he could expect such luck a second time.
You won't know how the battle will go until it's over, he told himself. For this battle, no prediction can hold true. There's no point in trying to write the praise-songs yet.
Or the laments.
Runacar was nearly too busy—and certainly too worried about the upcoming battle—to take real notice of Melisha's absence, for there were other far more immediate matters to concern him. The army had crossed into Vondaimieriel, and before they were half a day's march across its border, Runacar began to suspect that if Vondaimieriel was a ghostlands—and he knew it was—it was one of an entirely different type than he had seen before. The grass grew, the trees were in leaf, the summer fruits hung lushly on bush and branch. Butterflies flitted over the top of the tall grass and crickets sang in the warm night air.
"Not a single beast with fur and feathers from here to the Dragon's Gate!" Andhel flung down her bundle of javelins in exasperation. "How can I hunt what isn't there?"
"You can't," Runacar said reasonably.
The Woodwose did most of the hunting for the army—or those parts of it that ate meat, anyway—ranging far from the line of march each day to do so. They rode their horses to likely hunting grounds a few leagues away and then hunted on foot. (Runacar wished they hunted from horseback, so he could take those skills and shape them for war, but it was unlikely the Woodwose would spontaneously become cavalry in a handful of sunturns.) Whatever they took down made a welcome addition to the provisions the supply wagons carried: of course the Gryphons, Aesalions, and Hippogriffs hunted for themselves, but the closer they got to the Dragon's Gate, the worse the hunting had been. And by the time they reached Vondaimieriel, there were no animals at all.
"We're going to starve," Andhel said with gloomy relish.
"Not if you sweet-talk the Gryphons into bringing us back some deer," Runacar said lightly. And to think I thought making such an early camp would be restful. They'd stopped a candlemark before sunset rather than a candlemark after it: he could train troops in the dark, but he couldn't train troops in the dark on a hillside.
Andhel glared. It was the second sunturn that the Woodwose had come back empty handed, and she took it personally, but Runacar did not want to let her know how worried he was. (He certainly didn't want to suggest that the Darkness had anything to do with matters—and Melisha wasn't around to ask.) This wasn't natural. Game had been abundant in the west ever since he'd returned to it, flourishing in the absence of hunters and foresters.
"At least they're having good hunting," Andhel grumbled.
"Fine," Runacar said briskly. "They'll hunt. You practice."
Andhel made a face, and stooped to pick up her weapons. He wasn't sure what they were made of—the wood was unfamiliar—but despite their lack of metal points, the javelins were deadly sharp.
"Runacar," she asked hesitantly. "Will we win?"
He tried not to sigh, though he'd been expecting this question. "I don't know. I don't know what she's bringing with her. But I do know this: if the day goes against us—and if you can't tell when that happens, you haven't been listening—I need you and the rest of the Woodwose to do one thing."
"What's that?" Andhel asked suspiciously.
He hadn't wanted to bring this up until the eve of battle, but he needed something to distract her from the lack of game. "Run. Run behind their lines. Strip their dead, dress yourselves, try to blend in."
"But—" Andhel said, clearly outraged.
"Do it," Runacar said firmly. "As many of you that can. Then find the High King—if she lives, which, if we lose, I have no doubt she does—and kill her."
Andhel stared at him for a long moment, eyes wide. "You'll die too," she said in a small voice.
"I will," Runacar said evenly. "And I promise you with all I am, Andhel—her generals will turn on one another the moment her pyre is lit. Anyone who survives the civil war will be easy prey for your people, if you remember what I taught you."
"And we'll win," she said dubiously.
"The purpose of war is to win," Runacar answered.
Each day's march ended the same way, with three candlemarks of drilling his foot soldiers (he could never decide whether the Centaurs should count as cavalry or not), a meal of odd unfamiliar food, and another lecture on strategy and tactics, all accompanied by more politeness, tact, and actual fawning than a High House would use to woo a bride for its Prince-Heir. (He wasn't sure whether or not he missed the days when he had given orders, not explanations, but there was no use wishing for them; they were gone forever.) Runacar's "students" had progressed to the point that he was setting them puzzles to solve and then (gently, gently) explaining why the answers they gave were wrong. More and more often now his students were close to right, and he felt an odd pride in that, even though he was certain most of them would be dead sometime in the next moonturn. Each night Runacar stumbled into his "pavilion" (a tiny thing; he vaguely remembered the Lightborn had used such tents as personal quarters, which must be where this one had come from), and fell into bed almost before he removed his boots, to sleep a few short candlemarks before the army must pack up and move again.
But though a proper Warlord's pavilion would have been in the center of the encampment, each night Runacar made sure his was set at the very edge, as far from the others as was safe (there were no Elven raiding parties to attack them, but beasts that had not been seen in the West since his greatsire's time prowled the lowlands now—tiger and lion and leopard and great packs of wolves).
He did it so that Melisha could come to him—if she was willing to (he tried not to think about Vieliessar at all). If he hadn't seen the Unicorn in the distance a few times while they were still in Cirendiron, he might have given up hope of seeing her again. But he knew she was following them—or leading them—for some purpose of her own.
And one night his hope—and his patience—was rewarded.
Vieliessar followed Thurion quickly through Saganath, taking what enjoyment she could from its eternal springtide. She had never been able to take the comfort the other Lightborn could in the fact that the Flower Forests would exist when the Elves were gone. It seemed so much more likely to her that the Endarkened would simply burn them all down. Perhaps they had done so elsewhere. Without being able to send forth scouts—or safely use a spell of Far-Seeing, she was utterly ignorant of what went on in her king-domain even a few leagues distant.
The two of them passed through the horselines, the tailles of bespelled palfreys calmly awaiting their riders. Beyond them her other army waited.
Gathered together in one place, the last of the Lightborn seemed like a great array, though there were barely twelve great-tailles of them now. Among their numbers were some who had never seen the Sanctuary of the Star—those in whom the Light had been Called in the Midwinter before Vieliessar had become High King, or in those Midwinters soon after. They had performed their vigils and pledged their oaths in other Shrines than Arevethmonion, and were as much Lightborn as those who had worn the Green Robe for tailles and grand-tailles of Wheelturns.
But today there were more than Lightborn here. Children as young as the youngest of the Arming Pages had once stood with their parents—if they were lucky enough still to have them—or with those who had taken them in when their parents had gone to ride with the Starry Hunt. These had been babes in arms, or yet unborn, when the battle on Ifjalasairaet was fought. But the Light had been Called in them, and the Light had answered, and in this war, no one could stand aside from battle. Everyone who could must fight.
And so I make war using children, and I had sworn I would never do such. There are so many vows I have sworn only to break them; what matters it one more?
For a brief fearful moment Vieliessar thought of Ivrulion Banespell, Ivrulion Oathbreaker, who had broken the Covenant. She forced the thought ruthlessly from her mind. She would not do as he had done, she vowed, even if it was the only road to victory.
But in her heart she feared that very little separated her from the Oathsworn.
She took the time to move among her people, greeting and encouraging them. Many were old friends. Some she had trained with during her Sanctuary days. Some she had taught. All of them were the closest kin she had left, for the Light running in their blood linked them as closely as any shared parentage.
"It is time," Thurion said quietly.
Talk ceased, and the Lightborn quickly lined themselves hand to hand in a long spiraling coil, so that they could combine their ability and all could see what one saw. The shock of power when the last hands closed on each other was a palpable thing, emphatic as a blow. Vieliessar felt it the moment the chain was complete. Thurion held her right hand. No one held her left, for she was the outermost last in the chain.
Now to see if the favor of the Silver Hooves will keep us safe this day, or if we must fight—and when.
Carefully, so carefully, sheltered by the obscuring magic of the Flower Forest, Vieliessar cast a spell of Overshadow as a fisherman would cast a net. She caught a mind, and forced her will upon it, and suddenly she could see the landscape from the vantage-point of a hawk on the wing.
The Tamabeth Hills lay below her, still lost in morning shadow and fog. The rising sun kindled the sharp snow-capped peaks that framed the Dragon's Gate, touching them with gold and fire. The road to reach them was steep, the path of ascent something that would normally take a sunturn or two. They must reach Ceoprentrei and its Flower Forest in one sunturn's ride, even if they killed their mounts with trying.
Vieliessar swept through the sky on the wings of a hawk, seeing all. By tailles and scores, horses and riders appeared from uncounted hidels among the hills. Behind them, among them, ran riderless horses, swifter without a rider's weight. From all across the Tamabeths, horses emerged, ridden and riderless mixed together, the pattern of their flight nearly random. They spread out among the goat-tracks and deer paths, each taking a different path toward their goal, until the animals moved in a long irregular line heading endlessly west by a thousand tangents.
The soaring hawk watched as the long shadows shortened, then, suddenly, dawn light struck sparks from naked steel as the Silver Swords clashed and brandished their weapons.
It would not be enough to fool the Endarkened.
If they came.
One candlemark. Two. Flocks and herds, bespelled to follow the horses—who themselves were bespelled to run until they reached safety if their riders did not command otherwise—blurred the tracks of the running horses.
Three candlemarks. Five. The Silver Swords had reached the road to the Dragon's Gate and begun their ascent. Five leagues to reach the Eastern Gate. Seven to reach Nomaitemil.
Safety. Shelter. Victory.
Perhaps They will not come at all. Perhaps no one need die this day.
Even as she thought those hopeful words, they were proven wrong. Nauseating cold swept through Vieliessar's body, wrenching her loose from the hawk's senses. The world dwindled to the trees of Saganath, dappled with morning light, their promised safety nothing but another lie. Her body ached with the stiffness of long stillness, but the first thing a Postulant learned in the Sanctuary of the Star was to ignore the body's demands.
"They come," she gasped. "Send forth the Company of the Hare."
In answer, she heard the sound of a warhorn, the call answered distantly. The Company of the Hare rode forth.
When the Endarkened attacked, the only hope of surviving was—somehow—to not engage. They must be lured and distracted, to waste their energy on inconsequential targets while neglecting those assets the Elves could not afford to lose. Feint and counter-feint, a rhythm that had etched itself into the bones of the Elves during all the long moonturns they had been hunted. Over the Wheelturns, those who chose themselves for this great task—called The Company of the Hare in honor of the small wily creature whose tactics they adopted—knew that their lives were to be short, but their glory a thing that would live forever. One could leave its ranks—alive—at any time just as simply as they had joined. Some did. Most did not.
Vieliessar reached out again, searching for a mind with which to see the fate of her brave companions. This time there was no need for subtlety—the Endarkened were on the wing. They would fly neither faster nor slower for the taste of magic on the wind.
This time she had more luck than she had hoped for. A Silver Eagle was hunting above the Pass itself. Before her reign, the great birds had been sacrosanct, unlawful to hunt or to tame. Now it was merely a tool to her need. From its vantage point she saw—all the Lightborn saw—the Endarkened fall upon the diversionary force. They had left the forest at the eastern side, galloping after the other riders as if they hoped to catch and turn them. No Elven commander—even one new-made—would have fallen for such a transparent ruse. And the Endarkened could fly—they could see the battlefield as well as she could, and see the horses and riders on the road to the pass. It made no sense for them to attack the smaller force when the larger was plainly visible.
And yet they did.
The outcome of that battle was never in doubt, though it was a thing of feints and tricks and traps on one side—poisons, nets, catapults; every weapon and diversion her people could devise; none of which was sanctioned by the rules of war the Hundred Houses had followed as zealously as they had venerated their ancestors—and nothing more than brute strength and the power of flight on the other. The Endarkened were creatures of magic, true. But They saw little need to use Their spells against so helpless a foe.
This is not war to them, but sport.
Vieliessar would have wept at the slaughter she saw if all her tears had not been shed long since.
"Now," Vieliessar whispered, as the last of the Company fell.
As with one will and intent, the circle of Lightborn gathered up all the remaining power of Saganath short of that which would kill the Flower Forest outright. They shaped it even as an artificial autumn came to Saganath's groves and trees. They shaped it as flowers fell from the trees and leaves browned and withered. Changed it as the yellow cast of autumn fell upon the mosses of the forest floor. Sculpted it into the one force they had found that could halt the Endarkened, even temporarily.
In the blink of an eye, the chill morning sunlight became the blazing beacon of summer noon a thousand times enlarged; a fire no creature between Leaf and Star could stand against for even a moment. Iardalaith had named it Sunstroke; it was light and heat and the force of the Lightborn's conjoined wills, and these things had only one target:
The Endarkened.
In an instant their great wings were crisped to ash, their skin charred and cracked and oozing. The air was filled with the discordant music of their jagged screaming, and they fell from the sky.
Yet they did not die. Despite the raw power of Sunstroke the Endarkened yet lived. Watching through her borrowed eyes, Vieliessar saw the fallen foe turn on one another savagely, killing those of their fellows who were not quick enough to escape them.
They are using death-magic to Heal Themselves. Vieliessar shuddered at the thought.
The slaughter was brief. The slain Endarkened were already dissolving, their bodies killing the grass beneath them, until the bodies—five, only five out of twelve dead—lay in the center of widening circles of dead grass and flowers.
The Silver Eagle banked and turned, keeping a wary eye upon Vieliessar's enemy. The strongest were still able to fly. The weaker ran on foot. Not one of them stopped to help another—no Endarkened had ever shown one whit more of compassion for Their own kind than They had for Their victims.
And most of all—the thing that had allowed Vieliessar's people their survival; the keystone of her strategy—the enemy were cowards. Hurt them, surprise them, or even manage to field superior numbers, and they turned and fled.
And even then Sunstroke does not kill them. Nor can we afford its cost. How are we to survive without Lightborn?
But they always returned. Even today, Vieliessar knew that Those the Lightborn had burned nearly to death would return to fight again. They would heal. They would come back.
It was not true of the Lightborn. Two tailles of her brethren had given their all to Sunstroke, making it their Final Spell, the one that burned away both Light and life, its casting a last desperate act.
These thoughts were not new ones. They churned through the back of her thoughts even as she loosed the Silver Eagle's mind, as her body ran toward her waiting destrier and leaped to its back. Around her, the rest of the Lightborn fled to their own mounts, scattering the moment they were in the saddle. They had wounded Saganath too deeply for her to shelter them now, and all knew that the presence of even one Lightborn drew the Endarkened as honey drew the wasp.
They would stay separate from each other and from the rest of the Elves until a new sanctuary was reached...
...Or until they had no other choice.
Shurzul admired her reflection in the mirror. It gave an odd sort of reflection, wholly unlike those mirrors crafted for the Endarkened by their servants, imperfect and garishly bright—not truly beautiful, but exotic. She had ordered it brought from one of the Elfling places she and her sisters had destroyed. There were several such items scattered about her chambers—after all, she did so want dear little Hazaniel to feel at home here.
The Elfling child sat quietly in the corner, playing some elaborate game with scraps of fabric and some adornments Shurzul had grown tired of. On either side of him a lantern burned with clear yellow flame, for his eyes could not adapt to the World Without Sun.
It had been several Risings since Shurzul had plucked him from the slave-pits on an impulse she herself did not fully understand. If the novelty had not outweighed the inconvenience of the Brightworld brat, she would have slaughtered him long since; much of the food he was offered made him sick, and he collapsed into unconsciousness several times each Cycle. But her other slaves had learned how to tend him, and he trusted her now, wholly and completely, as only the innocent could trust.
I must make something of him—something unique enough to retain Virulan's favor. The King of the Endarkened had not yet tired of her, and the rewards of such favor were sweet. Yet Virulan's interest could wane as quickly as it had waxed, and he saw conspiracies everywhere. Even when no conspiracy exists, he suspects one. And his word is law. It was amusing to contemplate the fact that King Virulan had killed far more of the Endarkened than the Elflings had. Only somehow Shurzul did not think Virulan would share the joke, and she was certain the Elflings would not.
She glanced over at Hazaniel, still enwrapped in his game, and shuddered. Imagine speaking to one of them as an equal! It is bad enough that they exist at all... She must discover a use for the Elfling soon—one that would gain her power and status, of course. She closed her eyes and began to turn possibilities over in her mind...
"Mama!" Shatub flung open the door to her retiring chamber, vaulted over the Lesser Endarkened who tried to bar his way, and flung himself at her feet. "Terrible news!"
Shurzul shrieked at the sudden interruption and struck Shatub across the face, the heavy rings on her hand cutting several gouges in his skin. He did not recoil, simply clutched harder at her legs and tried to bury her face in his lap.
"What is it? What is it?" Hazaniel's voice was high and frightened.
Shurzul kicked Shatub away from her with a warning hiss, and went to kneel before the child. "Why, nothing is wrong, my darling. It is merely a child of my own, come to pay his respects to his mama."
"Would he like to play with me?" Hazaniel looked hopeful.
Yes. Very much. "Perhaps soon, but not today," she said, forcing her voice to the sugar-sweet purr she used when talking to the Elfling child. "Now come. Let your servants take you away. You may come back in a while."
The Lesser Endarkened Shurzul had tasked with Hazaniel's safety shuffled forward. It was the one the child itself had chosen, for he liked its dense fur and did not seem to be bothered by its mandibles and clusters of eyes.
"Mistress says come," it said, in its croaking voice, and Hazaniel pulled himself to his feet, his hand clutching its fur, and shuffled off obediently, looking back over his shoulder at Shurzul.
When the door to the inner chamber had closed, she turned back to Shatub. "Speak!" she demanded.
"We went only to look—I swear this to you! Only to look!"
This did not sound good at all. "What did you do?" Shurzul demanded.
And Shatub told her everything.
This can still be salvaged, Shurzul told herself once again. The others who had gone on that unlucky expedition might have to die—not Zicalyx, she was too useful, but the others. Fortunately, Gholak was dead. All of this could be blamed on her. He will always expect treachery from any of the Twelve-Who-Were.
And the thing that mattered most was being the first to bring Virulan the news.
None of the others will dare approach him as he walks in the Garden of Tears. But I dare!
She paused on the threshold, steeled herself, and stepped inside.
If she had not been one of the Created-and-Changed, if this errand was not as much about saving her own life as about saving her playing pieces, Shurzul would certainly have been overwhelmed by the raw potential swirling through the Garden's air. Not magic, of course, but the fuel for magic, so thick and rich it seemed as if she could bathe in it, or drink it down like a fine wine. She inhaled deeply, her nostrils flaring at the scents of rot and blood and piss. Faint moans and sobs—the sound of broken minds deep in madness and despair—rose and fell like gusts of wind.
"My lord?" she whispered. "It is I, Shurzul." She made herself small and humble, furling her wings and tail tightly against her body, and bowing her head.
A moment later she heard an anguished shriek from one of the living artifacts, and then Virulan stood before her. Shurzul risked a quick peek upward; Virulan's expression was dark and brooding. But not angry—not yet. "Are you so anxious for my company, my firebrand?" he asked. "Or have you come to tell me my realm is fallen?"
The second guess was too close for comfort, but Shurzul would not still be alive if she could not lie with face and body and voice as well as tongue. "I bring you news, great King. News that no other will bring you, for they fear you—as I fear you, Lord Virulan, but my love for you and my loyalty is stronger." She bowed her head further, and waited.
"Then rise, my love, and tell me this news." Virulan set a talon beneath her chin and raised her head until Shurzul was forced to stare directly at him. He searched her gaze with his own, and she could feel his mind pressing at her mental shields, even while the rich suffering of the Garden of Tears intoxicated her so deeply she could barely remember why she was here.
When he released her, she began to speak, quick and soft.
"As my lord knows, the Elflings lie in the Flower Forest near the foot of the Dragon's Bones, and we await your word to hunt them again. One called Narghail frequently watched them, hoping to be the first to bring you news of their movement, and one called Zicalyx watched over him, for Narghail is young and prone to error." She went on speaking, telling a version of the story that no one could dispute: that others had wished to see what Narghail saw, that a party led by Gholak had gone, that when Gholak saw Elflings out in the open, away from the shelter of the Flower Forest, she had attacked them, even knowing that it was against the King's own express command. "And the Elflings are possessed of some new weapon, a weapon without magic, an oil that burns through the skin and cannot be stopped. Five were slain, my lord. Five of the glorious children of He Who Is. And Gholak was among them. She is dead."
"Dead?" Virulan repeated the word as if he'd never heard it before. "Gholak dead? Endarkened slain?"
"Yes," Shurzul hung her head and did her best to look miserable. "But more escaped. Shatub, child of my body and your creation, brought this news to me, for as all do, he fears your wrath."
"They don't fear it enough if they do things like this," Virulan muttered, so low that Shurzul was certain she was not meant to hear it. Then he gazed deeply into her eyes once more. "Well done, Thirdmost among the Endarkened."
Thirdmost! After Virulan and Uralesse, of course, but...thirdmost! The prize she had long sought, but a dangerous prize, for her sisters and their spawn would seek to topple her from that pinnacle. "This is an honor I dared not even imagine," Shurzul murmured tremblingly, showing Virulan an expression of awe and adoration leavened with a touch of disbelief.
"Are we not superior to the Brightworlders in every possible way?" Virulan asked. "If they shall have their High King, shall I not have a High Queen? But come. Walk with me as I ponder these matters."
They wandered through the Garden of Tears. Shurzul did her best not to gawk, for while she had known of this place, as all the Endarkened did, she had never before been invited to enter it.
"What of your Brightworld pet? The Elfling?" Virulan asked as the two of them paused to admire a particularly beautiful display. The Dryad had been captured with her tree, and when captive, her tree had been infested with wood-eating parasites. As the insects ate the wood, so they ate at her body. She was skeletal and starved, her long bony fingers clawing fruitlessly at the ever-dripping taps sunk into her tree. Virulan picked up the bowl of nectar that was lying beneath one of the taps and offered it to Shurzul. When the two of them had emptied it, Shurzul replaced the bowl. The soft plink of the dryad's heart blood echoed through the chamber as the bowl began to fill again, drop by drop.
"Hazaniel? Oh, very promising indeed," she said. "I have not entirely decided what I shall do with him; for the moment I am content to convince him that I am good, and kind, and that I love him." She laughed, an icy silvery sound. "Every moment of his delusion makes his eventual discovery of the truth even more delightful."
"My Shurzul," Virulan said huskily. "Your cruelty puts even Khambaug's to shame."
"I think, truly, that I could never exceed her mastery of the body, but perhaps one day I shall be able to equal her mastery of the mind," Shurzul said humbly. It would not do for word to get back to Khambaug that Shurzul placed herself above her—not in the area of Khambaug's great expertise. "But tell me—if it is your will, my lord—how will you repay the Elflings for their impertinence?"
"They will come into the open again. They always have," Virulan said.
"But must we await that?" Shurzul asked eagerly. "We can drive them from their sanctuary with fire, so quickly they will know they must never dare to use their burning oil weapon against us again. Oh, what glory it will be for me to see you first in battle, your magnificence striking down as many as your fangs and talons do! Say I may accompany you, my lord! Say all of us who were created by He Who Is may fly with you on this great mission!"
It was not particularly difficult to feign intoxication and delight at the mental image she had conjured, for the atmosphere of the Garden of Tears was heady enough to trick any of her kind into unwary speech. Like all Virulan's acts, his permission for her to walk here was both punishment and prize.
"Delay in pleasure makes it all the sweeter," Virulan said archly, running his fingers through her hair.
"No pleasure is sweeter than that of seeing our great King and Lord foremost in butchery," Shurzul insisted. "To see him kill is sweeter than any kill by mine own hand." She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. "Oh, my precious glory, I beg you, deny yourself these pleasures no longer! The burden of kingship is heavy; surely you are entitled to its sweets as well?"
"Would it truly please you to watch?" Virulan said at last.
"To watch you," Shurzul answered, greatly daring. "That is the greatest pleasure I can imagine." She stroked his wings gently, and he raised them higher to furl them about them both.
"Then you shall have what you wish, for I will deny you nothing. Come. I will summon the people to give them this word."
"And afterward... there will be sweets for us both," Shurzul purred, her eyes glowing with promise.
Only seven of them left! Only seven!
Zicalyx huddled in the smallest fissure she could squeeze her body into. It was high in the World Without Sun, only a little below the surface of the Bright World, but that was good. No one would stumble upon her here. And there was no one looking for her. She'd done nothing wrong (not that this mattered if one's enemy were powerful enough), but she still felt the need to hide. To keep apart from everyone until she could process the events of the day.
Bashahk, Dhasgah, Arzhugdu, Nagreloth, Orbushnu—all dead. Only seven remain of those He Who Is has made!
King Virulan's stroke of vengeance had been planned for after sunrise. It was a time the meat would not expect attack, as the Endarkened much preferred the hours of night for their Brightword activities. He had meant the Flower Forest to burn to the ground—Lesser Endarkened had followed, though more slowly, to make sure that happened. He had summoned all of the Created-and-Changed to come with him. Even Uralesse had come. And more. He had picked a double twelve of Born to join them; chose them himself by his own hand. (And if any of those chosen thought—as Zicalyx did—that those he chose he would be happy to lose, they said nothing about it.)
The sky turned red with wings as they flew from Ugolthma, soaring through the cloudless sky. They soon reached their target, and at first it had seemed that all would go according to plan. The meat fought back—as it always did—and died (as it always did). Then....
Sun beyond sun! So bright we were scorched by it as the goblins are by the dawn!
She'd seen Narghail on the ground far below, dark smears of Elven blood already coating his body.
And then: brightness.
Intolerable brightness.
Heat greater than glowing coals.
And pain. So much pain.
Zicalyx had barely escaped. Some instinct, some paranoid premonition, told her to rise high above the other marauders just before it happened. The Endarkened fled. Most upon the wing, some, their wings gone, simply ran, desperate to be away from the danger. (Narghail did not run. Narghail was beyond running now.) Virulan was already speaking of a counterstrike, one that would eliminate the accursed Elfling Mages once and for all.
And that was why Zicalyx hid. Because the one spark of joy to be found in all of this was that so many of the Created had died there, burned to ash that not even Endarkened magic could resurrect. When they are all gone, He Who Is cannot love them best. He will love us, because we will be all that is left.
She dared not let Virulan—or anyone—see that joy in her heart.
Not yet.
This morning Vieliessar had needed to be Vieliessar Lightsister, but now she must be Vieliessar High King, and the High King knew her people needed more than leadership to survive. She bared her teeth in a savage grin of hatred at leaving the other Lightborn behind. Once she would have demanded the right to ride with them, to fight beside them, to save any she could. Now, grim truth made her pragmatic: just as Thurion said, if she died, her death would slay her folk with her. They needed hope, and hope was what her existence, her survival, gave them. Vieliessar Farcarinon—Prince of Oronviel—Lightborn—Child of the Prophecy—High King. Each of her titles was a song, a legend, a miraculous deed that held the same implicit promise: survival. Miraculous survival.
The only miracle is that they have not risen up and slain me for the hurts I have done them!
Their mounts ran—desperately, all out—along a road that had seen neither repair nor Elven passage for ten long Wheelturns. Thurion had remained beside Vieliessar when the other Lightborn scattered to take other paths through the hills, and there had been neither time nor breath to rebuke him.
For the moment, there were no Endarkened, and the land behind her seemed untenanted. Ahead she could see the Dragon's Gate, framed by the unruly beauty of the towering Mystrals. On the upward path toward the Eastern Pass, she could see clusters of horses heading toward what safety Ceoprentrei could give. She was too far distant to see which had riders and which did not, but it did not matter. Any of those lives lost—equine or Elven—was a blow to her peoples' ability to survive.
Their horses reached the Sanctuary Road that snaked among the Tamabeth Hills, and at last Vieliessar reined her mount in from a gallop to a trot. A compulsion spell could force it to run full-out until it died, but it was still a creature of flesh and bone. Just as well to husband its strength. Soon she would let it slow to a walk and lead it for a while.
"How long do you think they'll stay away?" she asked Thurion, her words made breathless and a little disjointed by her mount's gait.
"Forever?" Thurion asked, his mouth twisted in a wry smile, and Vieliessar laughed without mirth. Their day—and their battle—had only begun.
The Silver Swords reached the top of the Pass. Beyond it was a vast open meadow framed by soaring snowcapped mountains, and strong chill winds blew through the Dragon's Gate, their susurrant moaning making quiet speech impossible. Immediately on their heels came the first wave of riderless horses. The Silver Swords moved among the milling animals, separating those with blue handprints on neck and rump and relieving them of their Elven burdens as quickly as they could. By the time that was done, the second wave of riders had reached the top of the pass. In a halfmark, Ceoprentrei became a bustling confusion of wranglers afoot and on horseback, wailing infants, barking herding-dogs, and grunting complaining of horses. They would follow the Herd Bride willingly enough, but left to their own devices, they would see no reason not to stop and graze. The newest arrivals immediately began turning and herding them in the direction of Alpine Nomaitemil.
In such a confusion, to seek out one individual was nearly impossible, and Dandamir, Master of the Silver Swords, did not try. Instead he looked westward. As soon as she arrived the High King would want a report of how the Western Lands lay.
The hills of Vondaimieriel were the color of autumn, the gold of ripeness not yet turned to winter's dun. He could see the scattered roofs of manor houses, and in the far distance, the walls of Vondaimieriel's Great Keep. He did not know what he had expected to see, but there was no sign of the presence of the Endarkened. Nor of the beasts of the field turned out to graze, nor the walls and furrows of cropland. I do not smell even a wisp of smoke on the wind.
This might mean anything or nothing. We will not know truly until we go, he told himself soberly.
"The Heir! The Heir!" Githachi rode toward Master Dandamir, Calanor sitting before her on her saddle.
"The Hunt be praised," Dandamir said quietly. "Are you well, my prince?"
"I am, my lord," Calanor answered stoutly. "My mother? My sister?"
"Still to come," Dandamir said, hoping he spoke truth. "Now get you gone to safety." He locked eyes with Githachi. "See him safe to Nomaitemil," he said.
"I obey," she answered. "Come, little lord. We shall race the herd and make it run."
The boy yelped with innocent delight as she spurred her destrier onward.
Dandamir rode around the edge of the herd, collecting the rest of the Silver Hooves and speaking with the Elves that had just arrived. More were coming—horses, Elves, livestock—in a constant flow. He scanned the eastern sky. There was no sign of the winged monsters return.
Perhaps they will leave us until it is too late to attack. A sennight, even a sunturn, would be enough. I pray to our brothers of the Hunt for this grace.
His company had still been on the road to the top of the Pass when the Lightborn had struck their blow against the Endarkened. It would be after nightfall before all the refugees reached the top of the pass, and the Lightborn—and the High King—would be among the last to reach it. But the pass itself was not safety. Only Nomaitemil could promise that. There was hope of caves and fissures along the way, but what little anyone knew of the lay of the land here was from before the Lightborn had reshaped the pass.
Dandamir put that thought from his mind. Since the fall of Celephrandullias-Tildorangelor ten thousand Wheelturns ago, the Silver Swords had been tasked with one commission, and one only: Protect the High King. Through all the long years that spanned that day until a decade past, they had trained, and watched, and waited for the appearance of the one who was their charge. Dying, Master Kemmiaret had passed to Dandamir the great secret that only the Master of the Silver Swords could know, and Dandamir husbanded it now against the day and hour of his own death: the Silver Swords would always protect the High King, no matter the cost.
"Come!" he shouted to his companions. "We return to the High King's side!"
A cheer went up, not only from the Silver Swords, but all within hearing. Dandamir wheeled his great destrier eastward, he and his troop riding downward alongside the upward-moving refugees, down the road so wide and level that two tailles could pass along it riding abreast, each rider holding a cup of wine, and have the wine never spill.
It was a night like any other; drills and lectures and refereeing spats between groups of Otherfolk who had never found a reason to be in each other's company before and did not like it now. Only after the work of keeping the peace was done could Runacar stagger off to his cold and distant tent to catch a few candlemarks of sleep.
Tonight, when he arrived, Melisha was there.
The Unicorn was lying on his bedroll, and the light from the lantern he held seemed to make her glow. He closed it, and she still glowed, her horn radiating a chill silvery radiance like moonlight.
"Hello," Runacar said, sitting down on his campaign chest to pull off his boots. He'd composed a hundred speeches in his head for when he saw her again, and forgot every one of them the moment he saw her.
"Is that all the welcome I get?" Melisha teased, getting to her feet.
"It's as much as you deserve," Runacar said, trying and failing to be cross with her. "Where have you been? I've missed you."
"Here and there," Melisha answered vaguely. "Congratulations on your work, by the way. It won't even slow the Darkness down, but it's good work nonetheless."
"It only has to stop the High King," Runacar answered, after a long moment to process what she'd said. (Discouraging news, but at least it was honest. Assuming she knew what she was talking about and—oh, yes—not flat-out lying.)
"And then she tamely retreats and leaves you the Western Reach," Melisha suggested.
"No," Runacar said. "And then I slaughter every last person in her king-domain above the age of eight, and Leutric delivers his mysterious Darkness-killing weapon to the Woodwose."
For a long moment Melisha looked as if she couldn't decide whether to weep or laugh. She lowered her head, turning half away from him. "At least you're planning to spare the children," she said quietly.
"Tanet and Andhel said the Woodwose would care for them, and Bralros has pledged that the Centaurs will as well," he answered. "They won't be held accountable for anything their elders have done." He wanted to be defensive, but he only felt tired. "These are your rules and Leutric's, not mine. He won't give up his Darkness-killing weapon until he knows it won't be used against the Otherfolk. The High King is mad, so she might agree. But the army she leads won't."
"But you led such an army once, did you not?" Melisha asked softly. "And you agreed."
"I'm the Banebringer's brother. What did I have to lose?" Runacar said. "And... I've lived with your people for a very long time. I was helpless, and they didn't kill me. They fed me, clothed me... You were kind. All of you. Kinder than any alfaljodthi would ever think of being. I know your people now, at least a little. Thousands of armed knights and foot-knights won't..." He broke off, seeing the scene too vividly. "You saw what happened on the Shore. They'd rather kill us and die themselves than leave us alive while they run for their lives."
"That's a problem," Melisha agreed neutrally. "But come. You were on your way to bed. I'll tell you a bedtime story."
Runacar laughed sharply. "Am I still in the nursery, to hear wondertales? You are a wondertale all by yourself."
"A compliment," she answered, coiling her tail over her back. "We should call you Runacar Honeytongue for your sweet words."
"Truth," he countered. "So tell your tale."
"You aren't in bed," she pointed out.
He snorted in amusement as he undressed, laying boots and sword near to hand and settling himself in his bedroll. The pallet beneath him was hard and thin, but the ground beneath it was blessedly free of small sharp rocks. Brownie magic, he supposed.
"Now I am," he said.
"So you are," Melisha answered. She settled herself beside him, her forelegs stretched out in front of her like a cat's. This close, Runacar could smell her scent, like cinnamon and flowers. And sunshine—if sunshine had a smell.
"It is a long tale," she said. "But we shall have time to finish it, I think, before you are called to battle. And now I begin: Once and once and once, long ago, in lands beyond Greythunder Glairyrill, and the Peaks of Leunechemar, and even beyond the Sea of Storms, which is the Great Sea Ocean of the East, there lived a race—your own race, my darling—whose hearts were forged for war. In endless battle, they vied against their own, until at last all their people were united under one King, one Master, one General."
"That's not long ago," Runacar objected mildly. "And it's here. You're talking about Vieliessar."
"Hush," Melisha said. "I am not. Do you think the world tells each tale only once?"
"But—"
"Don't interrupt. As I was saying, the Elven Kingdoms were all united, and then their ruler turned his eyes to the kingdoms surrounding his. In that day, long ago, all the Nine Races ruled over vast kingdoms of their own, and over great armies as well."
"I should like to see a Palugh Warlord," Runacar said sleepily. It had been a long and wearying day, and Melisha radiated heat and comfort that was irresistibly lulling. Apparently this was to be a bedtime story after all.
"Brazen boy," she said fondly, leaning down to rub her cheek against his. "I cannot tell you the tale of all those battles, and their victories and their losses, for they happened in a time and in a way beyond even a Unicorn's memories. But they were wars not of a season, or of a Wheelturn, but of century upon century. Endless. And they set such a wound upon the land as is even now not repaired."
She sounded sad, and Runacar wanted to comfort her, to say it was a long time ago and all those folk were long dead. But before he could find the right words, she went on.
"As you would expect, the Elven King gained many early victories against the Nine Kingdoms, and it took long and long for the others to set aside their ancient quarrels and unify against them. But at last they did, and against that enemy the Elves could not prevail."
"And then they all died, and we aren't here at all," Runacar said muzzily.
"No," Melisha said, and her voice came from far away. "And then the Elves, knowing what their fate would surely be at the hands of those they had so long oppressed, retreated to their own kingdom, and built a thousand thousand ships, and filled them with all they possessed, and set sail into the unknown west..."
If there was more to her tale, Runacar did not hear it.
Not that night.
Candlemark followed candlemark without a second Endarkened attack, and Vieliessar hoped their luck would hold, even though this very morning the Endarkened had done what they had never done before, attacking with a large party twice in two sunturns. The upper switchbacks of the road to the Dragon's Gate were filled with horses and riders, and Vieliessar knew the Silver Swords must have already reached Ceoprentrei and turned south. Every moment the Endarkened stayed away was a gift, and it was impossible to know whether—or when—that gift might be withdrawn.
Soon all of her folk—save the Lightborn, who lagged half a dozen candlemarks behind the rest—had reached the road that led up to the Dragon's Gate. The stragglers of the first group were at least [a mile] ahead; the rest of the Lightborn were still scattered among the thousand shepherd's tracks of the Tamabeth Hills. Vieliessar, with Thurion beside her, rode alone between the two groups, belonging to neither.
To all outward semblance, it was a pleasant ride through green hills on a sunny day in Harvest Moon. But knowing that at any moment they might be under attack set Vieliessar's nerves, already stretched tight, to jangling. Again and again she drew breath to speak to Thurion, only to close her mouth against words meant only to hurt. They toy with us, as the kitchen cat does with its mouse, Vieliessar thought bitterly. And why not? They broke my great army in the pride of its strength, and it is only by the mercy of the Light that any of us yet survive.
When Thurion spoke at last, she flinched as from an unexpected blow.
"You might as well say aloud what you are thinking," he said mildly. "Or have you forgotten what my Keystone Gift is?"
"True Speech," she said. "And yet I know my shields are proof against it."
"If we did not know one another so well, and were we not alone, yes, they would be," Thurion answered gently. "You think it was your taking up of arms that brought us to this day. You fear that you have doomed us all—or that your acts are meaningless, and we are all doomed anyway."
The accuracy with which he spoke her thoughts surprised her into jagged laughter. "Perhaps I shall prevail by such methods as will make the Banebringer but a harbinger," she said bitterly. "And... Perhaps it would have been kinder to all to let everyone go on as they had been," she added softly.
"And die?" Thurion said. "You cannot say you summoned the Endarkened, and we know the fate of those Houses that stood alone against them. Bethros...Haldil...of the twenty houses of the Grand Windsward, the six of the Arzhana, how many yet live? You know the answer as well as I. And if we are to join them..." he paused for a moment, gazing silently at the road ahead. "If we are to join them in death, whatever that death may be, then you have freed all your people to meet it standing each beside the other as equals. If the Landbond were free only a handful of Wheelturns, if the Farmholders and hedge-knights had only that length of time to go without fear of their overlords, then you have done a thing that will be honored forever."
"You speak as if there will be anyone left to make such songs—or sing them," Vieliessar snapped, refusing to give in to the surging tide of grief and despair she felt. She had not done this for the Landbonds, or the hedge-knights, but for the survival of all the people of Jer-a-kalaliel. And from the moment she declared her claim to the Unicorn Throne, all she had done was watch them die.
"There must be—as you have so often said," Thurion answered. "Why else Amretheon's Prophecy, if not to warn us of a thing we could survive?" Thurion answered promptly.
"Our ancestors were mad," Vieliessar answered promptly, and Thurion chuckled.
"Well may you accuse them of madness, when you see them again," he answered, and fell silent.
But Thurion had started her thinking, as he so often did, and about something other than all the ways this day could go wrong. What were the Endarkened? Why did they persecute her people? Nothing that they did made any sense. Not by the Code of War. Not by a mercenary's pragmatism. They might stay away for moonturns, or attack daily for a sennight. They might come in force, or by ones and twos. They could not enter the Flower Forests, and perhaps they could not even see what the Flower Forests sheltered—but the Flower Forests, for all their magic, were not invulnerable. Set alight, they would burn like any other forest, and once expelled from their sanctuary, the Elvenkind would be easy prey. Yet the Endarkened had never yet done that, even though it would have meant an early, easy, and decisive win.
It could not be that the Endarkened held the Flower Forests sacred, for their very nature—so all the Lightborn could attest—ran utterly counter to anything of the Light. And so there was no explanation for their behavior. And without understanding the enemy, there was no way to win.
Yet Amretheon had thought it worthwhile to send his warning down the generations. To write out his Prophecy, and to invade her dreams. Why do such a thing if he also foresaw their extinction? Wheelturn upon Wheelturn Vieliessar had asked herself that question, had sacrificed at the Shrines for her answers, had begged the Silver Hooves to send her true dreams...and had received nothing.
The Sanctuary of the Star was her last hope. If she could reach it.
"Perhaps they cannot cross the mountains," Thurion said when they stopped to water their horses.
It was late afternoon, and the Endarkened had still not returned. The several waves of horses and riders filled the road to the pass; with a full morning's head start, many must already be headed south toward Nomaitemil. But reaching it would take a half a sunturn, and on horses that had already done a full day's work
"You know as well as I that Lord Runacarendalur lives," Thurion went on, when she said nothing. "I cannot imagine him hiding in the depths of a Flower Forest, can you?"
"I cannot imagine him knowing it would work," Vieliessar said instantly. "I would think him at Amrolion, or Daroldan, but he would not go, nor would they have him. Perhaps he shelters at the Sanctuary of the Star."
"Perhaps," Thurion agreed. "But that is not why you wish to go there."
She swung around to stare at him, knowing shock and betrayal was written on her face.
"I need no Keystone Gift to guess your plan," Thurion said gently. "Nothing else we have tried has worked. Not truly. Even the ikhlad-fire, and Sunstroke, are weapons that take more from us than they give. And what else is left? Where else could you hope to find a weapon against our foes? You know as well as I that your Council will rightly forbid any such rash action, but will you not trust me to go in your place? From Nomaitemil I can reach Arevethmonion and the Sanctuary, and there I will either find what you seek, or..."
"Or be imprisoned by Hamphuliadiel, should he still reign there," Vieliessar said bleakly.
"But if he does, is that not one more proof the West is safe from the Endarkened? Besides," Thurion added impishly. "Hamphuliadiel likes me. He will not enchain me."
"Undoubtedly he will decide to make you Astromancer in his stead," Vieliessar muttered.
"But promise me you will—" Thurion began, and stopped.
They could both hear a clatter of hooves. Riders were approaching them from the direction of the pass.
