Bloodsongs (35 page)

She reached out and touched his face again, asking herself another question. How could she not love him now? They had confronted so much together these past days, ridden and fought and suffered side by side.

It was just that way that love had come to Kimon and her. Danger and trial had knitted their hearts. Why shouldn't it happen again?

Because she couldn't look at him without seeing her husband. In his eyes she would forever see only Kimon.

“Oh, gods,” she said softly, slowly, as a new realization stole upon her. Her hands folded into tight fists. “Kel is your nephew.”

Telric only nodded.

Frost rose, numbed, and climbed back to the top of the wall. She looked out over the field and into the woods. Something inside her began to cry, but no tear misted her vision. Nor did she know whom it cried for, or why. For her? For Telric? She stood until her legs began to tremble, then she sat down and put her head in her hands.

A cool wind blew upon her neck. A cloud passed over the sun, casting a tenuous gray shadow. She craned her head upward and cursed herself with dull enthusiasm. It took no effort to still the song within her that had called the cloud, but it sobered her and reminded her to keep a tighter rein on her emotions and her witchcraft.

The cloud drifted away. The sun returned with its unrelenting heat. She shielded her eyes.

“It was only one little cloud,” Telric called, using his sleeve to wipe sweat from his face. “Couldn't you have left it awhile?”

A sheepish look curled the corners of her mouth upward. “How did you know?”

“Half the time I've spent with you I've been soaked to the skin by one storm or another.” He raised his arms toward the sky and made a mocking attempt at magic gesticulation that mostly amounted to finger wiggling. “You think I'd blame nature now?”

“If there's any magic at all in your hands,” she said, pointing to the east, “then you'd better direct it there.”

The first line of Kel's force broke through the trees and stopped. Kel rode to the fore and jerked back on his reins. Neither he nor his men wore their skull masks; they hadn't expected battle on their own home ground. Her son raised his hand, motioned, and led the way across the field. Straight for the ruined tower he rode. His black cloak fluttered behind him, giving him the appearance of a great, winged bird in flight.

Frost could feel Kel's gaze upon her. His anger preceded him like a palpable wave.

Telric picked up his sword and smacked the blade against his palm in anticipation.
Well
, she thought,
it was magic of a sort, anyway
.

 

When Kel and his men were halfway to the ruins, Riothamus acted. The Keled army emerged from the woods in a large semicircle and swiftly closed around the outlaw force in a pincer movement. With their smaller numbers, it was a suicide maneuver.

Kel's army came to a halt, kicking clouds of dust into the air. The rebels wheeled their mounts, momentarily confused, uncertain. Weapons glittered in their fists as they drew steel. They stared toward the Keleds and toward their leader, waiting for his command.

Frost had to act quickly.

She seized the broken spear haft from where she had laid it atop the wall and raised it over her head. Already the song at the core of her soul was building; the power surged, stronger than ever, engulfing her. The eldritch music in her ears drowned all other sound.

The power erupted from her, up through her outstretched arm and into the spear haft. The air crackled around her fist and the hard, polished wood. The haft began to glow with an azure radiance that only she could see. From either end twin shafts of energy lanced downward and struck the innermost of her circles. The symbols ignited with blue fire that spread to the middle circle and the outer until all three rings and all three rune sets blazed with arcane fury.

The flames reached the final parts of her pattern—the spokes. Fire shot along the scratchings, but they did not stop when the device was fully aflame. They continued outward over the field until they licked the very leaves at the border of the woods.

No soldier or horse gave any notice at all. No one beyond the circle saw. The flames gave off no heat, no smoke. They could not be felt by flesh. There was nothing for the mortal eye to see. The fire was only a construct of her imagination, a visualization of her power as it spread over the field. She opened the deepest parts of herself, secret, forgotten places long unexplored, and her magic flowed forth.

The field blazed with her energy, and the air sang with her music!

“Gods and gods!” Telric cried. He stumbled from the lowest stone, where he had stood watching, and twisted hard to avoid stepping on one of the burning symbols. Within the circles, he, too, could see the flames, and he cringed away. “Woman, what are you doing? You'll burn them all!” He clambered back upon his stone, staring outward, and again he cried, “Gods!”

She smiled grimly, and the music began to diminish. “Only an illusion, old friend,” she told him. She lowered the spear haft and leaned upon it. “No one will burn. Watch.”

Riothamus's soldiers gave a tumultuous shout and charged, closing inward on Kel's army. As they rushed deeper into the blue fire, which only she and Telric could see, each red-cloaked figure seemed to split and divide into three men. The volume of their battle paean and the thunder of hooves seemed loud enough to shake the earth itself. Sunlight gleamed on a veritable ocean of steel. Like a mighty hammer, they smashed into Kel's startled forces.

The clash and clang of weapons and the screams of the slain were the only music now. Swords and axes rose and fell with manic precision. Lances plunged, scored, withdrew incarnadined. Warriors toppled from saddles and were trampled; crushed and broken bodies bled into the uncaring earth.

To Frost's eye it was murder. Utterly confused, Kel's mercenaries fell like chaff before the Keled scythe. She looked down from her high place. Dust hung in a great, choking cloud over the battle, but it couldn't obscure the horror.

She bit her lip. There was a sickness in her stomach.

A handful of rebels broke from the fighting and ran full tilt for the woods. A band of red cloaks rode them down, hacked the bandits into bloody pieces, and turned to rejoin the conflict. She recognized Sarius at their head. There was none of the youthful enthusiasm in his face that had been there before. He wore a grim mask of hatred and determination.

She searched for her son amid the confusion. The field had become a chaotic swirl of men and horses. She couldn't find Kel, and there was a measure of relief in that. Perhaps he had fallen already. Or if he had not, maybe she would be spared the spectacle of his end.

“They strike at ghosts,” Telric said gloomily. He ran one hand slowly up the flat of his blade as he gazed over the battle. “They can't tell the real Keleds from the false images.”

He spoke truly. It was almost comic how the rebels swung and lunged at foes that weren't there. Imaginary swords couldn't kill, but imaginary enemies didn't die, either. Terror drove the mercenaries to a howling, disorganized frenzy. They distrusted their eyes; they began to chop at anything close that held a weapon—sometimes their own fellows.

“Do you pity them?”

The Rholarothan stood stiffly as if punishing himself with the sight before him. Then, “It doesn't seem fair or honorable.”

An unreasoning anger suddenly boiled from her. She flung the spear haft, hitting him across his broad shoulders. He whirled, startled, eyes clouding with an anger of his own. Frost stalked down the steps, shaking her fist.

“Honor is a damned rare commodity!” she shouted furiously. “Too precious to waste on garbage. Was there honor in what Kel did to Soushane or those other towns? Do you think fairness ever entered his mind before he murdered all those people?” She raised her fists over her head, shivering with the strength of her emotions. How she wanted to knock that fatuous expression from his face. “Don't you dare speak to me of honor!”

“Those are men!” he shouted back. “This isn't battle—it's butchery!”

What a fool he was! Whatever had made her think she needed him? “It's just what they would have done to Riothamus if I hadn't used my spell. Then where would the killing have ended? How many more innocents like Kirigi and Kimon would die before Kel was stopped?
 
How would this country be under his rule?
 
How red would its rivers run?”

Telric took a step back, nearly falling off the stones again. He looked at her, aghast. “Woman, he's your son! It was one thing to
talk
about this battle. But this is real. He's your son!”

As abruptly as it rose, the anger drained from her. She straightened and wiped at the corner of her eye; it was only a drop of sweat, she told herself, and nothing more that made her blink. An eerie calm settled upon her, but she couldn't bring herself to watch the fighting.

“He's insane, Telric,” she said at last. “Poisoned by the power he's tasted.
 
Yes, he's my son, and he's your nephew, also. But you know what he is, and you know why we must do this.” His hand clenched spasmodically around his sword's hilt. She felt sadly sorry for him, and she wondered if Telric had followed Kel from Soushane to avenge her as he had claimed or for the chance to know his brother's son. “It still hurts, though, I know,” she gently added.

Telric said nothing; he turned his back to her.

The battle was drifting closer. She spied Riothamus. The king showed no lack of courage as he rode through the thick of the combat. He rammed his steed into another man's mount, sending horse and rebel tumbling, screaming. As the mercenary scrambled to his feet, Riothamus leaned from his saddle and drew the edge of his sword across the man's unprotected throat. A vengeful shout of triumph warped his features. He wheeled his horse about to hack at another foe.

The blue fire faded away; the last strains of music stilled within her. She surveyed the field from her high vantage and felt sickened by the carnage. Mercenary bodies littered the ground. Few red cloaks seemed to have fallen. There was no need to maintain her illusion any longer.

Suddenly her knees weakened, and she sagged prone upon the wall. A barely audible moan escaped her lips.

Telric raced to her side and bent over her. He cradled her head in his hand and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “What's wrong?” he shouted. “What happened?”

She moistened her lips to speak. “It'll pass,” she managed with an effort. “I told you, it's much harder to touch a man's mind with magic, and there were so many men. . . .” She swallowed and struggled to sit up. “I didn't expect it to take such a toll.” She gripped his shoulder and rose unsteadily to her feet. When she had ended her spell, all her strength had faded with it. She had expected to feel a weakness, but she hadn't anticipated it would hit with such force. She squeezed Telric's arm, using him to maintain her balance.

“Can you fight?” the Rholarothan questioned worriedly. “They're coming closer.”

The tide of battle was definitely turning their way. In answer, she drew her sword. The sunlight rippled along its length. “Then let's go down to meet it,” she suggested.

She let go of his arm and he led the way down the step stones. At the bottom he carefully avoided the glyphs as he set his foot on the ground. “Those are useless now,” Frost told him. She rubbed the toe of her boot through the nearest one.

There was no order to the fighting. The red cloaks had begun as a disciplined unit, but the killing had eaten too far into their brains. Much of the combat was now on foot as horses had been lost or slain. Again, she searched for some sign of her son, praying to her gods that Kel was already dead.

Three rebels ran across the field to attack her, war cries ringing. Incredibly swift, Telric lunged in front of her, raising his sword high over his head to intercept the first descending blow. Then, in one smooth motion he raked his weapon over the mercenary's unarmored gut, cutting deep. Without pausing to draw breath, he met the second man. Rholarothan steel described a glittering arc and chopped through the rebel's sword hand. Telric's backswing drew a scarlet line under a chin.

The third rebel bore down upon her. Frost brought her sword up in both hands, and her gaze narrowed.

But before she could act, a black shadow rushed from the corner of her vision. There was a sickening
thud
, the ripping of flesh, a groan of utter surprise and despair. The rebel's eyes snapped wide with death fear.

With a shrug of his massive neck, Ashur lifted the man high into the air and tossed him away. The huge spike on the unicorn's brow glistened wetly. He trotted to her side, and she ran a hand gratefully through his thick, stygian mane. In the excitement she had nearly forgotten him. She sprang onto his back.

“There's nothing in this ruin to guard,” she called to Telric. “Look after yourself!”

His hand caught a piece of her cloak, and he jerked hard. She tumbled backward over Ashur's rump and landed in the crook of her comrade's left arm. He waved his sword near her nose. “Don't be a fool,” he hissed. Genuine rage showed on his features as he set her on her feet. “You're weak, and it's nearly over.”

“It passes quickly,” she snapped. “I'm all right.”

Two more rebels charged them. Frost sidestepped, brought her weapon around to intersect the haft of a whistling battle-axe. Her foe grinned as she backed up a pace, and he followed her. The axe wove a dazzling butterfly pattern as he advanced. She waited a heartbeat, judged his timing, and then brought her edge slicing over his bare biceps.

The axe pitched from fingers abruptly gone numb. The rebel stared at her in pain. He said nothing, but his expression begged for mercy.

With all her might, Frost lunged, pushing her blade through his chest until it protruded obscenely between his shoulders. With an equal effort she tugged it free.