What he did to wizards? He would glory in them! He would give them land and wealth and power, honour here and in Barbadior. Riches beyond their starved, pinched dreams. They would see!
No matter that they did not open to him! It truly mattered not. So long as they stayed, and lent their powers to his defence there was no need to merge. Together they were a match for Brandin. And all they had to do was be a match: Alberico knew he still had more than twice the army in the field that the other had.
But even as hope was pouring back into his soul with these thoughts, he felt the weight beginning to return. Unbelievably, the Ygrathen’s power growing again. Frantically he checked: the wizards on their ridge were still with him. Yet Brandin was still pushing forward. He was so strong! So accursedly, unimaginably strong. Even against all of them he was exerting his might, tapping deeper into his wellspring of sorcery. How deep could he go? How much more did he have?
Alberico realized, the knowledge like ice amid the inferno of war, the savage heat of the day, that he had no idea. None at all. Which left him only the one course. The only one he’d ever had from the moment the battle had begun.
He closed his eyes again, the better to focus and concentrate, and he set himself, with all the power in him, to resist again. To resist, to hold, to keep the wall intact.
‘By the seven sisters of the god!’ Rhamanus swore passionately. ‘They are regaining the ground they lost!’
‘Something has happened,’ Brandin rasped in the same moment. They had erected a canopy above him for shade and had brought a chair for him to sit upon. He was standing though—one hand on the back of the chair for support at times—the better to look down on the course of battle below.
Dianora was standing close to him, in case he needed her, for water or comfort, for anything at all that she could give, but she was trying not to look down. She didn’t want to see any more men die. About the screaming in the valley she could do nothing though, and every cry below seemed to fly upward and sheath itself in her like a knife made of sound and human agony.
Had it been like this by the Deisa when her father died? Had he screamed so with his own mortal wound, seeing his life’s blood leave him, not to be held back, staining the river red? Had he died in this kind of pain under the vengeful blades of Brandin’s men?
It was her own fault, this sickness rising. She should not be here. She should have known what images war would unleash in her. She felt physically ill: from the heat, the sounds, she could actually smell the carnage below.
‘Something has happened,’ Brandin said again, and with his voice a clarity came back into the maelstrom of the world. She was here and he was the reason why, and if the others could not, Dianora who knew him so well could hear a new note in his voice, a marginal clue to the strain he was enduring. She walked quickly away and then back, a beaker of water in her hand and a cloth to wet his brow.
He took the water, seeming almost oblivious to her presence, to the touch of the cloth. He closed his eyes. and then slowly turned his head from side to side, as if blindly seeking something.
Then he opened his eyes again and pointed. ‘Over there, Rhamanus.’ Dianora followed his gaze. On a ridge of land south of them, across the uneven, tummocky ground, a number of figures could be discerned.
‘There are wizards there,’ Brandin said flatly. ‘Rhamanus, you’ll have to take the Guard after them. They are working with Alberico against me. I don’t know why. One of them looks like a Khardhu, but he isn’t; I would recognize Khardhun magic. There is something extremely odd about this.’
His eyes were a dark, clouded grey.
‘Can you match them, my lord?’ It was d’Eymon, his tone deliberately neutral, masking any hint of concern.
‘I am about to try,’ Brandin said. ‘But I am getting near to the limit of the power I can safely tap. And I can’t turn my magic on them alone, they are working with Alberico. Rhamanus, you’ll have to get those wizards for me yourself. Take everyone here.’
Rhamanus’s ruddy face was grim. ‘I will stop them or die, my lord. I swear it.’
Dianora watched him step out from under the canopy and summon the men of the King’s Guard. In pairs they fell into step behind him and started quickly down the goat-track leading west and south. Rhun took a couple of steps after them, and then stopped, looking confused and uncertain.
She felt a touch and turned from the Fool as Brandin took her hand. ‘Trust me, love,’ he murmured. ‘And trust Rhamanus.’ After a second he added, with what was almost a smile: ‘He brought you to me.’
Then he let her go and turned his attention back to the plain below. And now he did sit down in the chair. Watching, she could literally see him gather himself to renew his assault.
She looked over at d’Eymon, then followed the Chancellor’s narrowed, speculative gaze south again, across to the cluster of people on that slope half a mile away. They were near enough that she could see the dark-skinned figure Brandin said wasn’t really a Khardhu. She thought she could make out a red-haired woman as well.
She had no idea who they were. But suddenly, for the first time, looking around at their own thinned-out numbers on the hill, she felt afraid.
‘Here they come,’ Baerd said, looking north, a hand up to screen his eyes.
They had been waiting for this, and watching for it from the moment the wizards linked, but anticipation was not reality and, at the sight of the picked men of Brandin’s Guard moving swiftly down their hill and beginning to cross the ground between, Devin’s heart began thumping hard. There had been war all morning in the valley below; now it was coming to them.
‘How many?’ Rovigo asked, and Devin was grateful to hear the tension in the merchant’s voice: it meant he was not alone in what he was feeling now.
‘Forty-nine, if he sent them all, and Alessan thought he would,’ Baerd replied, not turning around. ‘That is always the number of the King’s Guard in Ygrath. It is sacred for them.’
Rovigo said nothing. Devin glanced to his right and saw the three wizards standing closely together. Erlein and Sertino had their eyes closed, but Sandre was staring fixedly downwards to where Alberico of Barbadior was at the back of his army. Alessan had been with the wizards but now he came quickly over to join the thirty or so men spread out behind Baerd on the ridge.
‘Ducas?’ he asked quietly.
‘I can’t see any of them,’ Baerd said, with a quick glance at the Prince. The last of the Ygrathen Guard had now descended their hill. The vanguard were already moving rapidly over the uneven ground between. ‘I still don’t believe it.’
‘Let me take my men to meet them below,’ Ducas had urged Alessan, the moment the wizards had linked. ‘We know he will be coming after us.’
‘Of course we do,’ Alessan had said, ‘but we are poorly armed and trained. We need the advantage of height up here.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Ducas di Tregea had growled.
‘There isn’t any cover down there. Where could you hide?’
‘You are telling me whether there is cover?’ Ducas replied, feigning anger. His mouth widened in his wolfish grin. ‘Alessan, go teach your fingers to know your fingernails! I was fighting running battles and ambushes in this kind of terrain while you were still numbering oak trees or some such thing in Quileia. Leave this to me.’
Alessan had not laughed. After a moment though, he nodded his head. Not waiting for more, red-bearded Ducas and his twenty-five men had immediately melted away down the slopes of their ridge. By the time the Ygrathens sent the Guard, the outlaws were down below, hidden among the gorse and heather, the high grass and the scattered olive and fig trees in the ground between the hills.
Squinting, Devin thought he could see one of them, but he wasn’t sure.
‘In Morian’s name!’ Erlein di Senzio suddenly cried from the east end of the ridge. ‘He is pushing us back again!’
‘Then hold!’ Sandre snarled. ‘Fight him! Go deeper!’
‘I
haven’t got any deeper to go!’ Sertino gasped.
Baerd leaped from his crouch staring at the three of them. He hesitated, visibly racked by doubt for a moment, then he strode swiftly over to the wizards.
‘Sandre, Erlein? Can you hear me?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Sandre’s darkened face was streaming with perspiration. He was still staring east, but his gaze was unfocused now, inward.
‘Then do it! Do what we talked about. If he’s pushing all of you back we have to try or there is no point to any of this!’
‘Baerd, they could be …’ Erlein’s words came out one by one as if forced from his lips.
‘No, he’s right!’ Sertino gasped, cutting in. ‘Have to try. The man’s … too strong. I’ll follow you two … know where to reach. Do it!’
‘Stay with me then,’ Erlein said, in a voice leeched of all strength. ‘Stay with me, both of you.’
There were sudden shouts and then screaming below them. Not from the battlefield. From the ground to the north. All of them but the wizards wheeled around to see.
Ducas had sprung his trap. Firing from ambush his outlaws unleashed a score of arrows at the Ygrathens, and then swiftly let fly as many more. Half a dozen, eight, ten of their attackers fell, but the King’s Guard of Ygrath were armoured against arrows even in the blazing heat, and most of them pushed on, reacting with frightening agility despite the weight they carried, moving towards Ducas’s spread-out men.
Devin saw three of the downed men get up again. One pulled an arrow from his own arm and stumbled resolutely on, pressing towards their ridge.
‘Some of them will have bows. We have to cover the wizards,’ Alessan snapped. ‘Any man with any kind of shield, over here!’
Half a dozen of the men remaining on the hill rushed over. Five had makeshift shields of wood or leather; the sixth, a man of some fifty years, limped behind them on a twisted foot, carrying nothing but an ancient, battered sword.
‘My lord Prince,’ he said, ‘my body is shield enough for them. Your father would not let me go north to the Deisa. Do not deny me now. Not again. I can stand between them and any arrows, in Tigana’s name.’
Devin saw the suddenly blank, frightened look on many of the faces near them: a name had been spoken that they could not hear.
‘Ricaso,’ Alessan began, looking around. ‘Ricaso, you need not … You shouldn’t have even come here. There were other ways to …’ The Prince stopped. For a moment it looked as if he would refuse the man as his father had, but he said nothing more, only nodded his head once and strode away. The lame man and the other five immediately placed themselves in a protective circle around the wizards.
‘Spread out!’ Alessan ordered the others. ‘Cover the north and the west sides of the ridge. Catriana, Alais—keep your eyes on the south in case some of them make it around behind us. Shout if you see anything move!’
Sword in hand, Devin raced for the northwest edge of their hill. There were men fanning out all around him. He looked over as he ran, and caught his breath in dismay. Ducas’s men were in pitched battle on the uneven ground with the Ygrathens, and though they were holding their own, taking a man, it seemed, for every one of them that fell, that meant that they were falling. The Ygrathens were quick and superbly trained and ferociously determined. Devin saw their leader, a big man no longer young, hurl himself against one of the outlaws and hammer the man flat to the ground with a blow of his shield.
‘Naddo! Look out!’
A scream, not a shout. Baerd’s voice. Wheeling, Devin saw why. Halfway to the other hill, Naddo had just beaten back an Ygrathen, and was continuing a fighting withdrawal towards a clump of bushes where Arkin and two others were. What he didn’t see was the man who had flanked wide to the east and was now rushing towards him from behind.
What the running Ygrathen didn’t see was the arrow that hit him, fired from the summit of the ridge by Baerd di Tigana with all the strength of his arm and the skill of a lifelong discipline. Far away, unbelievably far, the Ygrathen grunted and fell, an arrow in his thigh. Naddo whirled at the sound, saw the man, and dispatched him with a quick sword.
He looked up at the ridge, saw Baerd, and quickly waved his thanks. He was still waving, hand aloft in salute to the friend he had left as a boy, when an Ygrathen arrow took him in the chest.
‘No!’ Devin cried out, a fist of grief clenching about his throat. He looked towards Baerd, whose eyes had gone wide with shock. Just as Devin took a step towards him he heard a quick scrabbling sound and a grunt, and behind him Alais screamed, ‘Look out!’
He turned back just in time to see the first of half a dozen Ygrathens surging up the slope. He had no idea how they’d got here so fast. He howled a second warning for the others and rushed forward to engage the first man before he gained the summit of the ridge.
He didn’t make it. The Ygrathen was up and balanced, with a shield in his left hand. Charging at him, trying to drive the man backwards down the slope, Devin swung his sword as hard as he could. It clanged on the metal shield sending shock waves all along his arm. The Ygrathen thrust straight ahead with his own blade. Devin saw it coming and twisted desperately to one side. He felt a sudden tearing pain as the sword ripped him above the waist.
He let himself drop, ignoring the wound, and as he fell forward he chopped viciously for the unprotected back of the Ygrathen’s knee. He felt his sword bite deep into flesh. The man cried out and pitched helplessly forward, trying, even as he tumbled, to bring his own blade down on Devin again. Devin rolled frantically away, dizzy with pain. He clawed to his feet, clutching his ripped side.
In time to see the prone Ygrathen killed by Alais bren Rovigo with a clean swordthrust in the back of his neck.
It seemed to Devin that he knew a moment of almost hallucinatory stillness then in the midst of carnage. He looked at Alais, at her clear, mild, blue eyes. He tried to speak. His throat was dry. Their gazes locked for a second. It was hard for Devin to absorb, to understand this image of her with a reddened sword in her hand.
He looked past her, and instantly the stillness was gone, shattered. Fifteen, perhaps twenty of the Ygrathens were up on the summit. More were coming. And some of them did have bows. He saw an arrow fly, to be embedded in one of the shields around the wizards. There was a sound of quick footsteps ascending the slope to his left. No time to speak, even if he could have. They were here to die if they had to, it had always been possible. There was a reason why they had come. There was a dream, a prayer, a tune his father had taught him as a child. He held his left hand tightly to his wound and turned from Alais, stumbling forward, gripping his sword, to meet the next man scrambling up the ridge.
A mild day, the sun in and out of the clouds pushed swiftly along by the breeze. In the morning they had walked in the meadows north of the castle gathering flowers, armfuls of them. Irises, anemones, bluebells. The sejoia trees were just coming into flower now this far south; they left the white blossoms for later in the season.
They were back in Castle Borso drinking mahgoti tea just past midday when Elena abruptly made a small, frightened sound. She stood up rigidly straight, her hands clutching at her head. Her tea spilled unregarded, staining the Quileian carpet.
Alienor quickly laid her own cup down. ‘It has come?’ she said. ‘The summons? Elena, what can I do?’
Elena shook her head. She could scarcely hear the other woman’s words. There was a clearer, harder, more compelling voice in her head. Something that had never happened before, not even on the Ember Nights. But Baerd had been right, her stranger who had come to them out of darkness and changed the shape of the Ember wars.
He had returned to the village late in the day that followed, after his friends had come down from the pass and ridden west. He had spoken to Donar and Mattio and to Carenna and Elena and said that what the Night Walkers shared had to be a kind of magic, if not the same as wizardry. Their bodies changed in the Ember Nights, they walked under a green moon through lands that were n
ot there by the light of day, they wielded swords of growing corn that altered under their hands. They were wedded in their own fashion, he had said, to the magic of the Palm.
And Donar had agreed that this was so. So Baerd had told them, carefully, what his purpose was, and that of his friends, and he’d asked Elena to come to Castle Borso until summer’s end. In case, he’d said, in case it was possible for their power to be tapped in this cause.
Would they do this? There would be danger. He had asked it diffidently, but there had been no hesitation in Elena as she looked into his eyes and answered that she would. Nor in the others when they agreed. He had come to them in their own need. They owed him at least this much, and more. And they too were living through tyranny in their own land. His cause in the daylight was their own.
Elena di Certando? Are you there? Are you in the castle?
She didn’t know this mind-voice, but within its clarity she could sense a desperation; there seemed to be chaos all around him.
Yes. Yes, I am. I’m here. What … what must I do?
I don’t believe it! A second voice joined them, deeper, as imperative. Erlein, you have reached her!
Is Baerd there? she asked, a little desperately herself. The sudden link was dizzying, and the sense of tumult all around; she swayed, almost fell. She reached out and put both her hands on the high back of a chair. The room in Castle Borso was beginning to fade for her. Had Alienor spoken now she would not have even heard.
He is, the first man said quickly. He is here with us and we have terrible need of help. We are at war! Can you link to your friends? To the others? We will help you. Please! Reach for them!
She had never tried such a thing, not by daylight nor even under the green moon of the Ember Nights. She had never known anything like this wizards’ link, but she felt their power resting in her, and she knew where Mattio would be, and Donar; and Carenna would be at home with her newest child. She closed her eyes and reached out for the three of them, straining to focus her mind on the forge, the mill, Carenna’s house in the village. To focus, and then to call. To summon.