It was Blaise of the Borderguard who asked the question one evening, pausing in the process of skinning a rabbit the archer Fianna had shot for the supper-pot. She was some distance away, motionless in the uncultivated field, bow drawn, tracking some unseen movement. Malthus had vanished; communing with Haomane, perhaps. Hobard was gathering firewood, while Peldras knelt in serene concentration, stacking kindling in an intricate structure. Nothing burned hotter and cleaner than an Ellylon-laid campfire, constructed in tiers which collapsed in on themselves with a delicate shower of sparks, laying a bed of immaculate embers. At his side, Dani squatted and watched in fascination, while his fat uncle Thulu went in search of running water.
On alert, Carfax regarded the Borderguardsman in wary silence.
“You smile.” Blaise’s hands resumed their movement, parting the rabbit’s skin from its flesh. His gaze remained fixed on Carfax. In the deepening twilight he looked much akin to General Tanaros, with the same unthinking competence. “Watching the knights pass. I’ve seen it. Why?”
A thrill of fear shot through him. Had he smiled? Yes, probably. It was the one bitter pleasure left to him, watching Haomane’s Allies dance unwitting to a tune of Lord Satoris’ piping, marshaling their forces eastward.
“You’re afraid,” Blaise said softly, plying his knife.
To speak or not to speak? There was no safety in silence, if his face betrayed him. Carfax met the Borderguardsman’s gaze. “Afraid, aye.” His voice was rusty with disuse. “You want me dead.”
“Aye.” A brusque nod, brows rising a fraction to hear him speak. “You’re a liability, I reckon. You’d do the same if it was your command. But I swore to obey the Counselor’s wisdom, and he wants you alive. So why do you smile?”
“Why does Malthus hide from Haomane’s Allies?” Carfax asked instead of answering. “Why have we turned south, when the war lies north? What does the boy Dani carry in that flask about his neck?”
“You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that much.” The Borderguardsman set aside the skinned carcass with a speculative look in his eye. “What’s your name, Staccian?”
Carfax shook his head.
Blaise wiped his skinning-knife on a tuft of grass. “You know mine.”
“Yes.” He swallowed.
“Do you serve under his command?” Dark eyes, steady and calm. “You know of whom I speak. He who caused my family name to live in infamy.”
Carfax looked away. “General Tanaros Blacksword.”
“The Kingslayer.” Blaise’s voice was flat. “You do, don’t you?” He waited, but Carfax kept his silence. “He strangled his wife, Staccian. He put his hands around her neck and he throttled her dead. He walked up to his sovereign lord, a man who was nearly a brother to him, and plunged his sword into his guts. And then he rode to Darkhaven and pledged his life to the Sunderer in exchange for immortality. Are you proud to serve under his command?”
“Who should I serve, then?” He dared a glance. “You?”
“You could do worse.”
Carfax laughed in despair.
“What manner of man do you wish to be?” The Borderguardsman watched him keenly. “You have a choice, Staccian. I’ve heard it said your folk made allegiance with Satoris Banewreaker to preserve peace and prosperity in your country. No one in Urulat would condemn you for deciding the cost was too high.”
Peace and prosperity, Carfax thought. Yes. Those were not small things to a people who dwelled in a stony land, to a people whose nation bordered on the territory of the Fjel, who made for ungentle neighbors were there enmity between them. Whatever was said of him, Lord Satoris kept his bargains. And whatever General Tanaros had done a thousand years ago, he treated his Men with honor. Carfax had sworn an oath of loyalty, and they had given him no cause to break it.
Without honor, a Man might as well be dead. Indeed, it was better to die with honor than to live without it. But he hadn’t expected it to come so soon.
Across the field, the Arduan archer Fianna stood like a statue in the lowering twilight, longbow drawn in a strained arch, holding the taut string close to her ear. Her figure had an unearthly beauty in the gloaming. Carfax stared at her, thinking of girls he had known, of one he had hoped to wed, long ago. Of how she had laughed and wrinkled her freckled nose when he brushed it with the tip of a goldenrod in full bloom, dusting her skin with pollen. What would he have done, had he known he had so little time? The Archer released her string and her bow hummed. Somewhere unseen, a rabbit squealed, the sound cut short.
Blaise repeated the question, still watching him. “Why do you smile, Staccian?”
“To make a friend of death,” Carfax answered.
FIFTEEN
“THEY’RE COMING.”
Lilias frowned at her Ward Commander. “How soon?”
“Thirty days.” He paused. “Less, if the winds blow fair from Port Eurus”
The weight of the Soumanië made her head ache. Strange, how something so light could weigh so heavy! And yet, how not, when she had had been shifting a mountain with it. Lilias grimaced, pressing her fingertips to her temples. The Beshtanagi sunlight seemed cursedly bright. “And the Pelmarans?”
“Assembling at Kranac, to await the Allies’ arrival.” Gergon cleared his throat. “Regent Heurich has agreed to send a force.”
“How long can we hold them?”
“It depends upon their numbers, among other things.” He nodded at the southernmost passage, where workers piled boulders on either side of the opening. “How fast can you seal that breach, my lady?”
Lilias considered the gap in the high granite wall that enfolded the base of Beshtanag Mountain. Beyond lay the forest, spreading its dense apron of dark green. It was through those trees that her enemies would come, in greater numbers than she had reckoned. “Can we not seal it now and be done with it?”
“No.” Gergon looked regretful. “We’ve too many men to feed and water, and too few resources on the mountain. Our stores would not last. After ten days’ time, we would begin to starve. If the …” He cleared his throat again. “ … if the Were give ample warning, you will have a day’s notice.”
“They will,” Lilias said, pacing a length of the Soumanië erected wall, her fingertips trailing along its smooth surface. “And I will. What the Were do not tell me, Calandor will. We are prepared, Ward Commander. If the raw materials are there, the breaches will be sealed, the gaps closed. In the space of a day, no less. So how long, Gergon, will this wall hold off Haomane’s Allies?”
He squinted at the fortress, perched atop the mountain. “Three days.”
“Three days?” She stared at him.
“My lady.” Gergon shrugged, spreading his hands. “You have always demanded truth. So my father said, and his father’s father before him. We are speaking of the concerted might of over half of Pelmar, augmented by Vedasian knights, the Host of the Ellylon and Midlander troops under the command of the last scion of Altorus. If we cannot hold the forest—and we cannot, without the Were—they will come against the wall. And they will ransack the forest and build ladders and siege engines, and they will breach the wall.”
“No.” Lilias set her jaw, ignoring the ache in her head. “They will not breach it, Ward Commander. I have Shaped this wall myself from the raw stone of Beshtanag, and it will hold against their siege engines. I shall will it so.”
Gergon sighed. “Then they’ll come over the top, my lady. They’ve no shortage of men, nor of wood for ladders and towers, unless you can close the very forest itself to them.”
“No.” She shook her head, gazing at the dark carpet of pines. “Not for so many. It is harder to shift forest than stone, and we must leave an avenue open for Lord Satoris’ troops. Order more stone brought, and I will raise the wall higher. A foot or more.”
“As you wish.” He bowed, his eyes wary. “It will delay them, by a few hours. Our enemies will still have ample resources if it comes to it.”
“All right. Three days,” she
repeated, gesturing at the grey expanse of loose scree at the mountain’s base. “Let us say it is so, Gergon. And then, if it came to it, we would engage them here?”
“Will it come to it, my lady?”
She met his honest gaze. “No. But we must plan as if it would. So what happens, if we engage them here?”
“It’s poor footing.” Gergon sucked his teeth, considering. “Knights a-horse would be at a disadvantage, here. They’ll come in with infantry. I’d place archers there,” he said, pointing to overhangs, “there and there, to cover our retreat.”
“Retreat?” Lilias raised her brows.
“Aye.” Her Ward Commander nodded his grizzled head. “Once the wall is surmounted, my lady, we’ve nothing to fall back upon but Beshtanag itself.”
“They will come, Gergon.” Lilias held his gaze. “It won’t come to it.”
“As you say, my lady.” He glanced at the Soumanië on her brow, and some of the tension left his stocky frame. He nodded again, smiling. “As you say! I’ll have the lads in the quarry work overtime. You’ll have as much stone as you need, and more.”
“I will hold the wall, Gergon.”
“You will.” He nodded at her brow, smiled. “Yes, you will, my lady.”
Lilias sighed as he left on his errand, her skin itching beneath her clothes in the heat. Where was Pietre with the cool sponge to soothe her temples? He should have been here by now. There he was, hurrying down the pathway from the fortress and lugging a bucket of well-water, Sarika behind him struggling with a half-opened parasol. The collars of their servitude glinted in the Beshtanagi sunlight, evoking an echoing throb from the Soumanië. Her mouth curved in a tender smile. So sweet, her pretty ones!
She wondered if they understood what was at stake.
She wondered if she did.
Calandor?
Yes, Lilias?
Satoris will keep his word, won’t he?
There was a silence, then, a longer pause than she cared to endure.
Yes, Lilias, the dragon said, and there was sorrow in it. He will.
Why sorrow? She did not know, and her blood ran cold at it. Teams of grunting men moved boulders into place. Granite, the grey granite of Beshtanag, mica-flecked and solid. The raw bones of the mountain; her home for so many long years, the bulwark that sheltered her people. Now that events had been set irrevocably in motion, the thought of risking Beshtanag made her want to weep for the folly of it.
Beshtanag was her haven, and she was responsible for preserving it, and for the safety of her people. All she could do was pledge everything to its defense. Lilias closed her eyes, entered the raw stone and Shaped it, feeling granite flow like water. Upward, upward it flowed, melding with its kinstone. A handspan of wall—two handspans, five—rose another foot, settled into smoothness.
Doubling over, Lilias panted. Despite the patting sponge, the Soumanië was like a boulder on her brow, and there was so much, so much to be done!
And where were Lord Satoris’ messengers?
THE TRACKER WAS RIGHT, TURIN discovered when he relented. The mud did help. It itched as it dried, though, forming a crackling veneer on his face and arms. Best to keep it wet, easily enough done as they slogged through water ankle-deep at the best of times, and waist-deep more often than not. Easiest to strip to the skin to do it, and more comfortable in the Delta’s heat. Turin kept his short-breeches for modesty’s sake. Little else, save the pack on his back and his waterlogged boots. At night, whether they perched in mangrove branches or found a dry hummock of land, he had to peel the soft, slick leather from his calves and feet, fearful of what rot festered inside.
It stank, of mud and sweat and rotting vegetation.
And the worst of it … the worst of it was the desire.
It made no sense, no sense at all. Why here, amid the muck and squalor? And yet, there it was. Desire, fecund and insistent. It beat in his pulse like a drum, it swelled and hardened his flesh, it made the hair at the back of his neck tingle.
“This is his birthing-place.” Hunric turned back to him and grinned, his teeth very white in the mud-smeared mask of his face. He spread his arms wide. “Do you feel it, Turin? His Gift lingers, here!”
“You’ve swamp-fever, man.” Turin shoved his hair back from his brow, streaking it with muck. “Lord Satoris’ Gift was lost when Oronin Last-Born plunged Godslayer into his thigh.”
“Was it?” The tracker turned slowly, arms outspread. “This was the place, Turin. It all began here! Look.” His voice dropped to a whisper and he reached for his crude spear with the tip hardened by fire. “A slow-lizard.”
Turin watched, fighting despair and desire as Hunric the tracker stalked and killed one of the meaty, slow-moving denizens of the Delta. They were good eating, the slow-lizards. Mantuas, whooping and shouting in the chase, had been the first to suggest it, roasting the white meat over a fire that had taken ages to kindle. It was all different, now.
“What?” Hunric, gnawing at his prey, stared at him.
“Beshtanag,” Turin whispered. “Hunric, we have to get to Beshtanag!”
“Do we?” For a moment, the tracker looked confused. “Oh, right!” The febrile light in his eyes cleared and he lowered the slow-lizard’s carcass, blinking. “Beshtanag. It lies east, northward and east. We’re on the route, Turin.”
“Good.” Turin nodded. “We have a message to deliver. Remember, Hunric?”
“A message, right.” Hunric grinned, showing bloodstained teeth. “We won, didn’t we? Got the princess, the Lady of the Ellylon. Did you see her, Turin? You’re a poor substitute! Limbs like alabaster, throat like a swan. I could swallow her whole!”
“Don’t say that.” Turin shook himself. “The other message, Hunric! About Malthus’ Company?”
“Malthus.” It settled the tracker, and he pointed. “We need to go that way.”
“Good.” Turin sloshed alongside him. “Hunric,” he said, grasping the tracker’s forearm. “It’s important. We need to deliver this news to the Sorceress of the East. You do remember, don’t you?”
“Of course.” The tracker blinked. “It’s that way.”
He hoped so. He fervently hoped so. Because it was obvious, now, that no one had entered the Delta after them. No doubt lingered. They’d been here too long for it.
They’d been here altogether too long.
Turin was no tracker, to hold a place in his mind and chart a path through it unerring, but he’d seen a map of the Delta in Lord Satoris’ Warchamber. It wasn’t that large. Even on foot, even at this pace, they should have reached the far edge. Following Hunric, he counted on his fingers. How many days had it been? At least eight since Mantuas had died.
That was too many.
Had they been walking in circles? It was hard to tell, here. One had to follow the waterways, winding around mangroves. It was impossible to keep in a fixed location relative to the sun’s course, and there were no landmarks by which to chart one’s progress, only endless swamp. Hunric was the best, of course. But Hunric … Hunric was changed, and Turin was afraid. Reaching behind him, he groped at his pack, feeling for the pouch containing Lord Vorax’s gold coins. Still there, solid and real. It was enough to buy them lodging in Pelmar, enough to purchase a pair of swift horses, enough to bribe their way to Beshtanag if need be.
All they had to do was make their way out of this cursed swamp.
A bright-green snake looped along a branch lifted its head to stare at him with lidless eyes. Turin fought down a rush of fear, splashing doggedly past it. By all the Shapers, it stank here! Ahead of him, Hunric hummed, deep and tuneless. The sound worked on his nerves. There was a leech clinging to his thigh and his sodden short-breeches chafed. Why this desire? If he’d had a woman, any woman, he would have coupled in the muck with her. Even the thought of it filled his mouth with a salty rush of taste. Any woman. One of Vorax’s handmaids or the withered flesh of the Dreamspinner’s oldest madling, it didn’t matter.
Or his own sis
ter, Turin thought, remembering how he had seen her last, yellow braids pinned in a coronet, bidding him farewell. Or—oh, Haomane help him!—the Lady of the Ellylon. Ah, Shapers! Slung over the General’s pommel, her pale hair trailing. Sprawled on the greensward, helpless and unaware, her white limbs stirring as the General removed her cloak. He had worn that cloak himself, still warm and scented by her body.
Unable to suppress himself, Turin groaned aloud.
“You feel it.” Hunric glanced over his shoulder, eyes shining. “We’re near the heart of it, Turin. The heart of the Delta! I told you Lord Satoris’ Gift lived in this place.”
“No.” He swallowed with an effort. His tongue felt thick. “This isn’t right. It’s tainted. It shouldn’t be like this.”
The tracker shrugged. “Oh, there’s death in it, all right. What do you expect? Godslayer struck him to the quick. Nothing could be the same. But it’s still here.”
“Hunric.” Turin, itching and aching and scared, tightened his throat at the sudden sting of tears. “I don’t care, do you understand? If there were power in this place that Lord Satoris could use, he would be here, not in Darkhaven. I’m tired, sodden and miserable. All I want to do is find a dry place to make camp, and press on to Pelmar.”
All around them, the lowering sun washed the Delta with ruddy gold, glimmering on the standing water. Hunric watched it with awe, fingering his handmade spear. Where was his sword? “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked softly.
“Hunric!” It was all he could do not to cry.
“All right.” The tracker smiled at him. “But you’re wrong, you know. There is power here. Rebirth, generation. It’s all here, Turin. Here, at the beginning. Lord Satoris thinks too much on his brother Haomane, and not enough on his own origin. The Souma is not the only power on Urulat, you know.”
Shadows lengthened, cast eastward across the swamp. Turin let out his breath in a final plea. “Hunric …”
“There.” The tracker turned, pointing north. Through the dense mangroves, something was visible in the distance; a vast hummock rising above the stagnant waters under the spreading shelter of a tall palodus tree. “Do you see it? Dry land, Turin, here at the heart of the Delta. We’ll camp there tonight, and make for the border in the morning. Does that please you?”