Snudge nodded. “Inside the lighted palace gatehouse, she’ll cast a shadow. It may take some time for a single person to disable the portcullis machinery, open the gates, and contrive to keep them open—even using sorcery. I’ll know if she’s at work because of the commotion amongst the guards and palace engineers trying to repair the damage. And I’ll also know if she comes to grief…”
“Bespeak tidings of your progress and that of Ullanoth to Stergos when you can. He’ll keep you notified of the army’s position. We hope to arrive at the riverside about an hour after midnight. The palace is only a league or so from the river. Coordinate your effort with that of the princess if you are able.”
“Your Grace, what if she should prove after all to be too frail to accomplish her mission?”
Conrig took a deep breath. “Then we’ll contrive another way to take the palace. But above all, you and your mates must open Mallmouth Bridge to our army. Unless that’s done, the invasion is doomed to fail. Come now. I’ll speak a few words to your companions.”
Together, they returned to Redfern’s gatehouse. Gavlok was gone. Belamil and Saundar already sat their horses. Mero climbed into his saddle, smiling in triumph, carrying the lance with Redfern’s device.
Snudge said to the thane in charge of the guard detail, “Open the gates and lower the drawbridge. We’re sallying forth.” He mounted his own horse and wheeled it about to face the prince.
“Young men,” Conrig said, “much is depending upon your bravery and daring. Follow Deveron’s lead and carry out your mission. Tonight, shortly after midnight, the army of Cathra will be poised to invade Mallburn Town. God grant success!”
“God grant success!” the boys chorused. Then Snudge led them through the gatehouse and over the drawbridge into the fog—where a cluster of several dozen fuzzy yellow sparks waited.
==========
It was a cold, clear dawn in Royal Fenguard. There had been a layer of frost on the balcony outside the closed tall windows of the Conjure-King’s suite, and Beynor decided to perform his windsearch indoors, even though it would decrease the keenness of his scrying. He deactivated both Fortress sigils, not caring whether Ullanoth or anyone else watched him, then overviewed Great Pass and Holt Mallburn and discovered that both remained heavily fogbound.
He was no longer surprised. Yesterday, after doing much research, Lady Zimroth had told him that the Small Lights were fully capable of performing such magic. The young king had received the news with a sudden bitter comprehension: Years ago, his sister had responded to his own childhood cultivation of the Darkling Sands Salka by becoming friendly with the abhorrent spunkies.
Beynor decided it would be politically disadvantageous to pass this information on to the Didionites. Instead, he bespoke Honigalus’s wizard and confidently announced that he was about to generate the promised gale to speed the war fleet more swiftly southward.
The Crown Prince is deeply grateful for your efforts, Fring replied. He also requests that the Conjure-King create a storm to delay the Tarnian mercenaries… unless, of course, such magic is beyond Your Majesty’s powers.
The insolent weevil! But Beynor could hardly admit that yesterday’s sudden favorable wind had been entirely fortuitous and none of his doing, and that he was nearly paralyzed by dread at the thought of what the Lights might do to him following today’s use of Weathermaker.
“Of course it’s not beyond my powers to delay the Tarnians. As a matter of fact, I’d already thought of doing so myself! Tell the Crown Prince to trust me and get on with his war. And stop bothering me with superfluous requests!”
Beynor cut the windthread before the imperious bastard could begin arguing. Muttering, he restored the spells of the two Fortress sigils, went to a velvet couch in his sitting room, and flung himself onto it.
Curse the Didionites! He was endangering his life for them and still they treated him like a hireling hedge-witch, never offering him the deference that was his due. It was all the fault of the coronation disaster, of course. All the fault of Ulla!
Who had also invaded his private chambers and stolen his two remaining Great Stones. He had not dared confess to Arowann the Salka that he’d lost them.
If only he’d had the courage to empower Destroyer! If only he’d sent the bitch to the Hell of Ice where she belonged!
He groaned, knowing in his heart that recriminations were futile. He must get on with his work, conjure Weathermaker twice, endure its pain, pray that the Lights wouldn’t penalize him too drastically, then get on with trying to find a way to outwit Ullanoth. She had to be hiding in Holt Mallburn. Perhaps he should go there secretly and try to hunt her down before Conrig of Cathra started his war. Perhaps—
I’m dithering because I don’t want to be tortured. Because I’m afraid I might suffer my mother’s unspeakable fate and never even understand what I’d done to offend the damned touchy Beaconfolk…
Craven!
He lifted the ring-sigil and began to pronounce the spells that would create gale winds on opposite sides of the island.
But even as he did so, before the anticipated hammerblow of agony rendered him senseless, the startling realization came to him: Ullanoth could not have taken his Great Stones away. A Sending could carry nothing new back to its point of origin. Either she had destroyed the two sigils while inside his rooms, or else she’d hidden them, hoping to come back for them some day.
Hidden them?
Crushing pain and blackness were claiming him. Blackness… he remembered it on the soles of his feet the morning after he’d discovered that the Great Stones were gone. At the time, he’d been too distraught to understand why there should have been soot on the floor of royal chambers kept immaculately clean by his slaves.
But now he knew what his foolish sister must have done, and falling into the abyss, he smiled.
==========
When she woke in mid-morning, Ullanoth gave grateful thanks to the Moon Mother. Her body was fast recovering. She suffered no ache in her head or belly and she was very hungry, an excellent portent. She made a pottage of barley, bacon, and chopped hard cheese and put it on the fire to cook. Sipping watered mint-angelica liqueur from the clerks’ cache to soothe her nerves, she dressed and painted her face, then greased her hair into straggles with the bacon rind. The reflection of Witch Walanoth grinned back at her from the water bucket.
She took up the minor sigil named Beastbidder. Its pain would be minimal, and if it was able to assist her, the journey to Holt Mallburn would be less arduous and she’d have more strength to devote to her task. She conjured a spell, then restored the small animal-shaped stone to her pouch. Time would tell if the sigil’s magic had been successful.
By the time she had packed everything she intended to take away from the warehouse, her food was ready. She ate slowly, feeling better every minute, a glow of hope and expectancy lifting her soul. Conrig was coming with his army. By tomorrow at this time—please, Mother!—they would be together, victorious.
It was time to depart. Cautiously, she eased open the side door of the clerks’ office, peered out into the fog…
Could not resist giggling with delight. Beastbidder had done its work.
A scrawny dapple-grey mare wearing a battered saddle stood there, reins trailing, lathered with sweat and blowing clouds of vapor. The princess knew that somewhere in Mallburn Town its owner must be lying in a gutter, cursing the silly nag that had abruptly thrown him and run off.
“I’ll call you Mist,” she said, patting the animal. After retrieving her fardel and lashing it to the saddle, she adjusted the stirrups and mounted. Her cloak hid details of the mare’s tack in case the Town Watch were looking out for her, so there was no need to go invisible as yet.
She called out on the wind. “Shanakin! Are numbers of you ready to follow me? I’ll require special service of you very soon.”
We’re here, lady, as you commanded. More of us arrive in the city with every passing moment, now that we need no longer create the widespread fog beyond the mountains. We’re very hungry.
She laughed aloud. “Soon. Tonight! Even the most cautious townsfolk will flee their homes and fall helpless into your power. But even better will be the well-fed prey at the palace! It will be the greatest feast you’ve ever known. But you must not harm the Cathrans. Never—if you hope to keep my friendship.”
We understand.
She rode off into the grey fog at a slow walk, ascending the winding maze of streets that led from the waterfront to Holt Mallburn. Now and then tiny points of golden luminosity were perceptible in the darker byways of the city, but none of them were visible near the old crone who rode along as confidently as a queen.
twenty-seven
With unaccustomed forbearance Mero remained silent, riding in the rear while the spunkies created the now familiar fog-free tunnel and guided the four armigers down the sharp switchbacks toward the great valley of the River Malle.
As the falcon flew (if one had dared the murky sky), the distance from Redfern to the capital was less than thirty leagues along this shortcut trail. But the terrain was so steep, descending a perilous escarpment, that most who traveled between the castle and Mallburn Town used a second road that followed the gorge to Rockport and then joined the Coast Highway, even though the distance was nearly doubled thereby.
After seven hours the boys finally arrived in the lowlands, having met only a goatherd with a single goat, some gaunt-faced children gathering fagots, and a pair of old women carrying a basket of some wild edibles they’d gathered off the mountainside. All of these persons plunged away from the trail with squeals of terror, thinking they had encountered phantoms, when the troop loomed up behind them in the fog, eerily lighted on its way by the spunkies.
A thin drizzle had begun by the time the narrow track turned into a semblance of a road and the armigers entered the first Didionite village. It might have been a fairly prosperous place once, but the famine had reduced it to a squalid ruin. Most of the roadside cottages had been sacked and burnt. If folk still lived thereabouts, they were silent and secretive for fear of raiders. The village inn, built sturdily of local stone, still had its roof, although the door and the shutters for the upstairs windows were gone.
Snudge dismounted, handed his reins to Belamil, and went to the inn entrance to inspect the interior with his windsight. “Nobody there,” he announced. “It’s dry, there are scraps of wood about from broken-down walls and such, and the hearth seems undamaged.”
“How can you tell?” Mero inquired innocently. “It’s almost pitch black inside.”
“I’ve got eyes like a cat! We could do worse than stop here to rest and eat. If the chimney’s not clogged, we could even chance a fire. No reason why the horses can’t come in, too, out of the wet.”
“But not the willy-wisps!” said Saundar with a shudder.
Mero was the only one who laughed, but he clamped his jaws almost at once, remembering the rumor about Sir Ruabon—and the cries of the sacrificed livestock outside Castle Redfern.
“I’ll tell the Small Lights to remain without,” Snudge reassured the others.
“How do you talk to them?” Mero asked. “They don’t speak our language. All they do is squeak and chitter.”
“When I whisper, they understand,” Snudge lied. “But I suggest you don’t start giving them orders. They only answer to me because their leader Shanakin commanded them to obey.” And warned them not to drain our blood on the way to Mallburn Town…
Snudge produced a tarnstick, which miraculously lit in spite of the pervasive damp, with only a small assist from his talent. Tinder and twigs blazed and smoke went properly up the inn’s chimney. Snudge and Saundar broke up wood for fuel, while Belamil used a bunch of dead weedstalks to sweep the area in front of the fireplace. Mero meekly filled the horses’ nosebags and gave them water from a leather bucket.
They roasted fat sausages, spread toasted chunks of bread with soft cheese, and finished off with honeycakes made of oats, raisins, and filberts. A skin of ale, passed from hand to hand throughout the meal, almost made them forget how cold and clammy they felt. The horses munched their grain, stamped and whiffled, and filled the derelict tavern with the pungent scent of their droppings. It was all rather cozy until Snudge took out the map parchment and spread it on the hearthstone, preparing to describe the next phase of the mission. The others gathered close.
“I think we’re right here, in a hamlet called Brayshaw. From now on, we travel as fast as possible so as to reach the River Malle by eventide. About ten leagues from here there’ll be another village, Hoolton, that’s larger and very likely inhabited—but most of the people will probably be locked safely inside their houses because of the fog. We’ll gallop right on through, and if anyone peeks out and spies us, they’ll be too frightened by the ghost riders to do anything about it.”
The others chuckled.
“We keep going to this T-junction with the highway, where there’s a sizable place called Bardsea, and turn left. Fortunately for us, most of the town lies off the main road, down by the shore where there’s a harbor. The Coast Highway goes directly to Mallburn Town, and once we’re on it we have to change tactics, since we’re bound to encounter sophisticated travelers or even Didionite patrols.
Belamil drawled, “No more spectres enveloped in glowing vapors, scaring the wits out of the simple peasantry?”
“No,” Snudge agreed, with a thin smile. “I’ll command the Small Lights to stop creating the uncanny tunnel and just carry on leading us through the fog, glowing dimly and floating an ell or so in front of each courser, down close to the surface of the road.”
Mero was incredulous. “The horses will never follow spunkies!”
“Yes they will. Prince Conrig told me it would work, after being reassured of it by Princess Ullanoth. I tried it out successfully on my trip down the mountain to Castle Redfern, riding a mule. Of course, mules are often smarter than horses, but just keep spurring your beast on, and after a while he’ll get the idea and trot after the guiding Lights like a sheep.”