Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy) (81 page)

“I did not mark them, beyond calling them fools, for any cloudwit could see the Alliance was preparing to take the field. Then the bane-storm came, turning day to night, and Dinias fell. I think many—all the Lightborn—were struck down in that moment. I rode to him and slung him over Penstan’s saddle…”

And one of the dead lying nearby rose to its feet to strike at him.

“The horses went mad,” Atholfol said grimly. “Dead were rising up everywhere. I grabbed Penstan’s stirrup. He dragged me from the field. I ordered retreat. I do not know if anyone heard me.”

“I came to myself in the pass,” Dinias said, taking up the telling of what had happened. “I stopped Lord Atholfol’s bleeding. Dargariel Dorankalaliel was filled with retreating
komen
. We had no choice but to go all the way to Celenthodiel. After the first wave, they started bringing in the Warhunt. Those they could reach. Everyone wasn’t affected equally. It seemed like the stronger you were in the mind magics, the worse it was. But I went back as soon as I could.” He shuddered, and swallowed hard. “My Keystone Gift is Transmutation. Some Lightborn talk to horses. I talk to rocks. Even so … it was bad. One step past the border stones and you feel
that
all over again. No one’s made it even ten paces past the border stones before being overcome. I tried. Isilla too. I can’t even sense Janglanipaikharain anymore. Tildorangelor is still safe—for now,” he said, wiping his eyes dry with his fingers. “We are helpless.”

“
Mazhnune
,” Vieliessar said. The misplaced dead. It was something from a nursery tale: Heir-Princess Berendriel of House Notariel fell in battle, and when the Starry Hunt came for her, she refused to go with them. And so Berendriel of Notariel became
mazhnune
, unable to live again or to truly die.

“A counterspell—there must be something—” Vieliessar said.

“It doesn’t matter what we try—Dispell, Rot, Storm, Thunderbolt, Overshadowing, Fire—nothing happens. They walk through Shield as if it is not there. Whatever the spell is that has raised the
mazhnune
, it devours all magic. Isilla said we were only feeding it on Tildorangelor’s power.…”

And without Magery to stop them, only her army lay between the
mazhnune
and the pass. If they broke through that cordon, they would carry the spell of their raising with them, and so destroy the protection of the boundary stones. They would consume Tildorangelor as they’d devoured Janglanipaikharain.

“How far can you retreat from the entrance to the pass?” Vieliessar asked.

“We have not yet had time to map the vale,” Aradreleg said. “Many miles.”

“That much is good,” Vieliessar said. She forced herself to stand, to walk to the door of the tent. The sky above was dark, black clouds glowing green with sullen flares of lightning.

“Bring my armor,” she said. “And a horse.”

The destrier they brought for her was a stallion whose coat was the pale silver of a swordblade. The ostler who brought him said his name was Winter. She swung herself into his saddle and looked around.

Her people had set up the encampment about a mile from the entrance to the pass. A cloud of Silverlight hung over it, bringing its tents and people into sharp focus. The once open space at the mouth of the pass was clogged with
komen
and destriers—even at this distance, she could see that most of them wore the livery of Alliance Houses.

“Dinias, seek your bed; you have done well this night. Lord Atholfol, if you are the most senior of my commanders, I must ask more service of you this night. Aradreleg, find me those whom I may use to carry messages through the camp.”

She set Winter off at a slow walk, wondering if she presided over her own defeat or if victory was still possible. From the moment she’d realized what path was laid out for her by
The Song of Amrethion
, she’d told herself this war was the only way, even while she’d wondered if there was another. Each death suffered in her name made her more determined to avert the next: having begun by believing the war yet to come must be fought by all the Hundred Houses together, she’d still desperately yearned to fight as a lone champion so no others must die. It was a deadly flaw in a General of Armies, a worse one in a High King. If she did not apportion both responsibility and danger to all her subjects, she would leave them unable to act save at her order. Helpless.

And so, even though every fiber of her being urged her to spur him through the pass, to take the field, she knew she must show her people she yet lived. They gathered around her, making Winter fret and sidle, reaching out to touch her, to reassure themselves.

“Vielle!” Thurion pushed through the mob of people. “You live!”

“As do you,” she said on a wave of relief. “Walk with me.”

With Thurion at her stirrup, it seemed the people did not press as close. She ordered the flocks and herds moved south, away from the encampment, the palfreys and destriers unsaddled and turned loose, the mounts of the enemy
komen
who had given their parole unsaddled and freed as well. The baggage train she had sent through the pass this morning—still intact—would go south until a messenger reached it to tell it to halt.

None of those she asked after—Gunedwaen, Thoromarth, Rithdeliel—could be found. Save for Atholfol, her War Princes were all on the field—or dead. The encampment was a scattered thing of households and families with no clear master. In desperation, she placed Lord Atholfol in charge of it, and gave him orders to move everything he safely could southward, away from the entrance to the pass.

“And you, my lord? Where will you be?” Atholfol asked.

“Where I must be,” Vieliessar said.

She turned Winter’s head toward Dargariel Dorankalaliel. It was empty now; she did not know whether that was a good sign, or bad.

Thurion caught up with her soon after she had entered it, seated on some destrier he had snatched from its master. They rode in silence. There was nothing to say.

She did not summon Silverlight to guide her through the darkness, for it would mark the entrance for the enemy. Silversight showed her the carven walls as sharp as if by day. But beyond the entrance of the Dargariel Dorankalaliel, everything on the plain was darkness and shadows. She could see her army forming a barrier between the entrance to the pass and what lay beyond it. Those she could see were only the last line of defense; from the sounds, the fighting in the front ranks was heavy.

Vieliessar dismounted, walked forward until she stood just inside the boundary stones. The field was dark, lit only by the eldritch glow of the clouds and the flare of lightning. The clouds above shone with the black-green of a long-dead corpse. They swirled around a disk of unclouded sky, and within it the stars burned blood-red. Jagged violet lightning sketched across the clouds and swirled around the window to the stars. Lightning struck the ground all around the figure who stood in the center of a circle of lifeless dust that swirled as the clouds above swirled, a desert that grew larger with every moment, and though the wind raged across the plain, it did not touch him.

“How in the name of Sword and Star did we come to this day?” she said softly.

“There stands Ivrulion of Caerthalien,” Thurion said, pointing toward the distant column of dust and lightnings. “Ask him.”

Vieliessar drew a shaky breath. She’d feared the Light, hated the Light, and loved the Light, but no matter how she had changed, the Light had been as constant as sunlight and stars. Thurion had once called it the heartbeat of the world, and told her sensing the Light was like hearing the heartbeat of a loved one. She’d accepted his words, but she only understood Thurion’s truth in the moment it became a lie.

This is how it all began,
Vieliessar thought, dazed.
Mosirinde’s Covenant teaches that blood magic leads to madness and destruction. Celelioniel wanted to know how Mosirinde knew—and unriddled
The Song of Amrethion
instead. I am the Child of the Prophecy, and because of that we are all gathered on this battlefield to reap the terrible harvest of forbidden magic.

Thurion laughed shakily. “And so we end as we began, on a battlefield from which spellcraft is barred.”

“This is not the end, my friend,” she said.
I swear to you it is not.
“What I began, I shall end.” She swung down from Winter’s saddle, tossing his rein to Thurion.

“I beg you, do not go,” he said. “The spell still runs.”

Vieliessar nodded curtly. “I could ask no one to face such foulness again,” she said. “Do not reproach yourself for not doing a thing no one could do.”

But I must try.

*   *   *

He saw her fall.

It did not matter that it was dark, that the air was fouled with smoke and fog, that her surcoat was in rags and her armor besmirched with mud and blood. He would have known her anywhere.

His lord. His liege. His life.

She had lifted him out of disgrace and exile with a tale he did not credit for a cause he did not believe in. But she was Farcarinon, and Gunedwaen Swordmaster would have followed her to the Vale of Celenthodiel if she had asked.

He barked out a shout of hoarse laughter. She had asked. And now they would all die here, her cause unwon.

No.

I failed the father. I shall not fail the daughter.

He handed his mare’s reins to the
komen
beside him and swung down from the saddle. He flicked his cervelière from his head, dropped swords and daggers, stripped his armor from his body. “Tell Harwing he is my heir,” he said, and began to walk across the broken ground.

All his life he’d known the Green Robes spoke of their Magery as Light, but this light was not the cool radiance of the moon. It the unforgiving blaze of sun, of fire.

He passed the place where Vieliessar lay, still fighting to rise, to go on. He thought he heard her cry out at the sight of him, but he did not stop. To stop would only be to draw attention to her; her safety lay in misdirection, and misdirection was a Swordmaster’s greatest skill. He raised his hand to close it about the amulet at his throat. A silver nail within a drop of amber, Mage-crafted, bespelled. Harwing had given it to him, last night as they lay together.
For luck,
he said.
For protection.
He had not asked then what spells it held, and now it was too late.

He would not see Harwing again.

One step, then another. And another. Forward. His heart thundered in his chest as if it were a war drum. Each beat was a stabbing agony behind his eyes. Gunedwaen felt a rush of wetness upon his face as blood burst from his nostrils, rilling steadily over his face with every painful heartbeat.

Only a little farther.

Let the
mazhnune
give their attention to the army instead of a lone man afoot and moving slowly. Let none of the new-risen dead stand between him and his goal. He’d thought for some time it was possible to move across the field unopposed. All it required was skill and nerve.

He had both. He had thought them lost, once. She had restored him.

He had pledged himself her sworn vassal.

All he had was hers.

Every step was agony. His vision fogged, his chest burned as if he starved for air. The pain was the pain of beating, freezing, burning. Blood-tinged tears burst from his eyes. There was a brief, lancing agony as his eardrums burst and blood trickled down his neck.

Pain was an old friend. Year by year, Caerthalien had taught him its true meaning. Hunger and cold and the lonely anguish of survival. The pain of maimed limbs that could do nothing. Death was a small thing, for he only went to keep an appointment far too long delayed. Dust filled his eyes, his nose, his mouth, blinding and fine. He staggered against the storm, forcing his eyes to slits.

Not far now.

He could smell burning, as some forgotten bit of metal heated forge-hot, but where it burned him, he did not know, for his whole body thrilled with agony. His mouth filled with the metal taste of blood. His progress slowed to a spasming shamble, as if his body had become a
mazhnune
’s dead flesh. He raised clawed and shaking hands to wipe his eyes, to see what lay ahead.

From the center of a widening circle of desolation, Ivrulion gazed upon him with eyes that were black and sightless with blood. His mouth drooled dark ichor in the green-violet light, blood gushed from his nose, dripped from his ears, sketched dark tear-tracks over his face. The wind whipped the blood away; where it struck Gunedwaen, it smoked and burned. Gunedwaen staggered into the whirlwind across scorched and smoking dust. His body shook and trembled, each beat of his heart so violent his chest felt bruised from within. What was this pain in comparison to all he had suffered through the years until Serenthon’s daughter recalled him to life?

It does not matter
if
I die. It matters
where
I die.

Not far now.

He could no longer see. Over the howling of the maelstrom he heard the wild silver bells of the Hunt riding across the sky.

I come, Huntsman. I come.

A body beneath his hands. A throat. The touch of Ivrulion’s flesh seared his skin as if he grasped forge-hot iron, but he did not feel the fire. He was far away, on a battlefield in autumn, where Farcarinon’s silver wolves howled against the sky.

Then there was nothingness.

*   *   *

There was a bright flash, as if a kindled pyre suddenly fed upon oil. There was a great trembling as all the
mazhnune
fell in the same moment, and suddenly, across the whole expanse of Ifjalasairaet, there was utter silence and stillness. For a heartbeat there was darkness, but as Rithdeliel gazed toward the sky, the clouds began to scud away.

The spell was broken.

With a weary exhalation, he leaned on his swordhilt. Only the silhouettes of horses and riders standing motionless upon the plain let Rithdeliel know he was not the last living thing in all the land. He did not know how long he stood watching the sky above lighten into blue before he heard the first warhorn sound. It was no call he knew, merely a single note, sustained for as long as the knight-herald had breath. But its meaning was plain.