“Or have we already lost the chance listening to Brother Cadrach’s tale of treachery?” Miriamele took a breath. “There were a handful of Norns before—how long before there is an army?”
Binabik looked at Cadrach, but the monk had lowered his face into his hands.
“We must make an attempt at escaping. If only one of us can survive to bear the tale, then still it will be a victory.”
“And even if all is lost,” Miriamele said, “there will be some Norns who will not be around to see it. I would settle for even a victory like that.” She meant it, she realized—and with that realization, a part of her seemed to turn cold and lifeless.
27
Hammer of Pain
“Prince Jiriki. At last we meet.” Josua bowed, then extended his left hand; the manacle he wore as a remembrance of imprisonment was a shadow on his wrist. The Sitha made a strangely-jointed bow of his own, then reached out his hand to clasp Josua’s. Isgrimnur could not help marveling at such a strange scene.
“Prince Josua.” The new-risen sun turned both Jiriki’s white hair and the snow faintly golden. “Young Seoman told me much about you. Is he here?”
Josua frowned. “He is not, to my regret. There is much to say—much to tell you, and much we hope you can tell us.” He looked up at the looming walls of the Hayholt, falsely welcoming in the dawn light. “I am not sure which of us should say to the other: ‘Welcome home.’ ”
The Sitha smiled coldly. “This is not our home any more, Prince Josua.”
“And I am not sure it is mine, either. But come, it is foolish to stand in the snow. Will you come and break your fast with us?”
Jiriki shook his head. “Thanks to you for your courtesy, but I think not yet.” He looked back at the milling Sithi, who had fanned out across the hillside and were rapidly setting up camp, the first colorful tents blooming like snowflowers. “My mother Likimeya, I think, speaks with my sister; I, too, would like to spend a short time with Aditu. If you would be kind enough to come to my mother’s tent by the time the sun is above the treeline, bringing those of your household you deem necessary, we will begin to talk. There is, as you said, much to tell.”
The Sitha gave a sort of graceful salute, bowed again, then turned and moved away across the snow.
“That’s cheek,” Isgrimnur muttered. “Making you come to them.”
“It was their castle first.” Josua laughed quietly. “Even if they do not wish to reclaim it.”
Isgrimnur grunted. “As long as they help us put the bastards out, I suppose we can go to their house for a visit.” He squinted. “Now who’s that?”
A solitary rider had crested the hilltop behind the Sithi encampment. He was taller and more solidly-built than the immortals, but he slumped wearily in the saddle.
“God be praised!” Isgrimnur breathed, then shouted for joy. “Isorn! Hah, Isorn!” He waved his arms. The rider looked up, then spurred his horse down the hill.
“Ah, Father,” he said after he had dismounted and received a backbreaking embrace from the duke, “I cannot tell you how good it is to see you. This brave Hernystiri mount,” he patted his gray horse, “kept up with the Sithi almost all the way from Naglimund. They ride so fast! But we fell behind at the end.”
“No matter, no matter,” Isgrimnur chortled. “I only wish your mother was not behind in Nabban. Bless you, son, it makes my heart glad to see you.”
“Indeed,” said Josua. “You are a happy sight. What of Eolair? What of Hernystir? Jiriki said but little.”
Isorn made a weary bow. “Everything I can tell you I will, Josua. Is there something to eat here? And somewhat to drink, too?”
“Come.” Isgrimnur put his arm about his tall son. “Let your old father lean on you for just a few minutes—I was smashed beneath my horse in Nabban, did you know? But I am not finished yet! We will all break fast together. Aedon has blessed us this morning.”
The afternoon had turned dark and the wind had risen, clawing at the walls of the tent. Silent Sithi had put out shining globes of light which were now warming into full brightness like small suns.
Duke Isgrimnur was beginning to feel restless. His back was giving him no peace, and he had been sitting propped on cushions—and how did a war party of Sithi manage to carry cushions, he could not help wondering—so long that he did not think he could rise to his feet without help. Even the presence of Isorn sitting nearby was not enough to keep his thoughts from turning sour.
The Sithi had destroyed Skali and his men—that was the first news Isorn had given him. The immortals had brought the Thane of Kaldskryke’s head back to Hemysadharc in a sack. Isgrimnur knew he should rejoice that the man who had stolen his dukedom and brought so much unhappiness to Rimmersgard and Hernystir was dead, but he felt mostly his own age and infirmity, as well as a certain angry shame. The revenge he had sworn so loudly at Naglimund had been taken by someone else. If he regained Elvritshalla, it would be because the Sithi had earned it for him. That did not sit well. The unhappy duke was having trouble paying attention to the things that seemed to fascinate Josua and the immortals.
“All this talk of Houses and Stars is very well,” he said crossly, “but what exactly are we going to do?” He folded his arms across his broad chest. Someone had to hasten things along. These Sithi were like an army of golden-eyed Josuas, seemingly content to talk and ponder until The Day of Weighing-Out—but the reality of the Hayholt would not go away. “We have siege engines, if you know what those are. We can knock the gates down eventually, or maybe even burrow under the walls. But the Hayholt was built stronger than anything in Osten Ard, and it won’t happen fast. In the meantime, your Conqueror Star is right overhead.”
Likimeya, who Isgrimnur supposed was the queen of the Sithi, though no one seemed to call her by that title, turned her faintly serpentine gaze on him. It was all the Rimmersman could do to meet her stare.
This one chills my blood. And I thought Aditu was strange.
“You are correct, mortal. If our understanding, and the lore of your Scrollbearers is true, we have very little time.” She turned to Josua. “We brought down Naglimund’s walls in days—but that did not stop the Hikeda‘ya from doing what they wished, or at least we do not think it did. We cannot afford to make that mistake here.”
Prince Josua lowered his head, thinking. “But what else can we do? As Isgrimnur pointed out to me last night, we cannot fly over the walls.”
“There are other ways into the castle you call the Hayholt,” said Likimeya. The tall, black-haired Sitha beside her nodded. “We could not send an army in through those passages, nor would we wish to, but we can, and should, send a sufficient force. Ineluki has a hand in all this; he or your mortal enemies have doubtless made sure that these ways are guarded. But if we keep our foes’ attention on what happens out here before the walls, we might succeed in getting a small troop inside.”
“What ‘other ways’ do you mean?” Josua asked, frowning.
“Tunnels,” said Camaris suddenly. “Ways in and out. John knew them. There is one on the cliffside below the Sea Gate.” The old man had a slightly wild look, as though any moment he might begin raving again.
Likimeya nodded. The strings of polished stones braided into her hair clinked. “Just so—although I think we can choose a better entrance than the caves along the cliff. Do not forget, Prince Josua: Asu‘a was ours once, and many of us were alive when it was still the great house of the Zida’ya. We know its hidden paths.”
“The sword.” Camaris rubbed his hand back and forth across Thorn’s pommel. “It wants to go inside. It has been ...” He broke off and fell silent. He had been strangely subdued through the entire day, but Isgrimnur could not help noticing that he seemed less daunted by the Sithi than any of the other mortals assembled in Likimeya’s tent. Even Tiamak and Strangyeard, students of old lore, sat wide-eyed and silent except when forced into stammering speech.
Outside, the wind grew louder.
“That is an
other, and perhaps the most important, mystery,” said Jiriki. “Your brother has one Great Sword, Prince Josua. This mortal knight, Sir Camaris, has another. Where is the third?”
Josua shook his head. “As I told you, it is gone from my father’s barrow.”
“And how will they serve us if we bring them all together?” Jiriki finished. “Still, it seems that Camaris must be one of those we send beneath the walls. We cannot afford the chance that we would gain the other two swords and have this black blade left outside.” He steepled his long fingers. “I regret more than ever the fact that Eolair and I could not find the Tinukeda‘ya of Mezutu’a—those you call dwarrows. They know more of sword-lore and forging than anyone, and they certainly made Minneyar. There is doubtless much they could have told us.”
“Send in Camaris? Through some underground caverns?” Josua seemed more than dubious—there was an edge almost of despair to his words. “We face perhaps the greatest battle that Osten Ard has seen—certainly, it seems, one of the most important—and you say that we should send away our greatest warrior?” As Josua looked over to the old knight, Isgrimnur saw again the discomfort he had sensed earlier. What had Camaris told him?
“But surely you can see the sense of what my brother says, Prince Josua.” Aditu had been almost deferentially silent through the afternoon. “If all the signs, if all the dreams and rumors and whispered lore are true, then it is the Great Swords that will thwart Ineluki’s plan, not men—or even immortals—battling before the gates of the castle. That has been the wisdom by which you have planned everything.”
“So because Thorn belongs to Camaris, he and he alone can take it inside? And not through the gate or over the walls with the army behind him, but like a sneak thief?”
“Thorn does not belong to me.” Camaris seemed to be struggling just to speak slowly and rationally. “Methinks it is the other way around. Merciful Aedon, let me go, Josua. I doubt I can wait much longer before this thing drives me mad.”
Josua looked at the old knight for a long time; something unspoken passed between them. “Perhaps there is sense in what you all say,” the prince admitted at last. “But it will be a hard thing to lose Camaris....” He paused. “To lose him for the coming battle. It will be hard on the men. They feel invincible when they follow him.”
“Perhaps they should not know that he is gone,” Aditu said.
Josua turned, startled. “What? How would we hide such a thing?”
“I think my sister has spoken wisely,” said Jiriki. “If we hope to have a chance to send Sir Camaris into your brother’s castle—and he will not be alone, Josua; there will be Zida‘ya with him who know those places—but we do not wish to blow a trumpet and announce that we have done that, we must make it seem that Camaris is still here, even once the full siege has begun.”
“The siege? But if our only hope is the swords and our true stroke is this company that we send in through your secret ways, what point is there in throwing away the lives of others?” the prince demanded angrily. “Are you saying we should sacrifice men in a bloody siege that we already know is starting too late to achieve success?”
Likimeya leaned forward. “We must sacrifice men and Zida‘ya both.” Isgrimnur caught a flicker in her amber stare that seemed almost like regret, or pain, but he dismissed it. He could not believe one so stern, so alien, felt anything but cool necessity. “Otherwise, we announce to our enemies that we have other hopes. We shout to them that we are waiting for some other stratagem to take effect.”
“Why?” Isgrimnur could see that Josua was truly agonized. “Any sensible war-leader knows it is better practice to starve out a foe than to waste men’s lives on thick stone walls.”
“You are camped beside the Zida‘ya. Those who are even now watching from behind those stone walls have made compact with Ineluki. Some may even be our kin, the Hikeda’ya. They will know that the Dawn Children see the red star in the sky overhead. The Conqueror Star, as you call it, tells us that we have only a few days at most, that whatever your mortal sorcerer plans to do on Ineluki’s behalf must happen soon. If we appear to ignore that fact, we will fool no one. We must launch the siege immediately, and your people and ours must fight as though we have no other hope. And who knows? Perhaps we do not. Not all tales end happily, Prince Josua. We Gardenbom know that all too well.”
Josua turned to Isgrimnur as if for support. “So we send our finest warrior, who is also our greatest inspiration, down into the earth. And we throw away the lives of our fighting men on a siege that we know cannot succeed. Duke Isgrimnur, have I gone mad? Is this all that is left to us?”
The Rimmersman shrugged helplessly. It was dreadful to watch Josua’s honest torment. “What the Sithi-folk say makes sense. I’m sorry, Josua. It galls me, too.”
The prince lifted his hand in a gesture of resignation. “Then I will do as you all say. Since my brother took the throne, I have been faced with horror after horror. It seems, as one of my teachers once told me, that God shapes us with a hammer of pain on an anvil of duty. I cannot imagine what shape we will be when He is finished.” He sat back, waving to the others to continue. “Make certain only that Camaris is well-defended. He carries the one thing we have that we did not already possess when my brother and the Storm King broke Naglimund—and we have lost much else since then.”
Isgrimnur looked at the old knight. Camaris was lost in thought, his eyes fixed on nothing visible, his lips moving.
The king was lurking in the passageway above the entrance to the forge. The soldiers, already nervous, startled when they saw the cloaked shape lurch forward out of the shadows. One of them even went so far as to draw his sword before Pryrates barked at him to put up; Elias, though, seemed oblivious to what would normally be a fatal error for a young guardsman.
“Pryrates,” the king rasped. “I have been searching and searching. Where is my cupbearer? My throat is so dry....”
“I will help you, Majesty.” The priest turned his coal-black stare on the gawking soldiers, who quickly shifted their eyes sideways or down to their own chests. “The captain will take these men back to the walls. We are finished here.” He waved them away with a flapping red sleeve.
When the noise of their footfalls grew faint in the corridor, Pryrates gently took the king’s arm so that Elias could lean on him. The king’s staring face was parchment-white, and he licked at his lips constantly.
“Did you say you had seen my cupbearer?”
“I will take care of you, Majesty. I think we will not see Hengfisk again.”
“Has he ... has he run away to ... them?” Elias cocked his head as though treachery might have a sound. “They are all around the walls. You must know. I can feel them. My brother, and those bright-eyed creatures ...” He pawed at his mouth. “You said they would be destroyed, Pryrates. You said all that resisted me would be destroyed.”
“And so they will be, my king.” The priest induced Elias to walk down the hallway, heading him through the maze of corridors toward the residences. They passed an open window where snow blew in and melted into puddles on the floor: outside, Green Angel Tower loomed against the swirling storm clouds. “You yourself will destroy them and usher in the Golden Age.”
“And then the pain will go away,” Elias wheezed. “I would not hate Josua so if he had not brought me such pain. If he had not stolen my daughter, too. He is my brother, after all ...” the king clenched his teeth as though something had stabbed him, “... because family is blood....”
“And blood is powerful magic,” Pryrates said, half to himself. “I know, my king. But they turned against you. That is why I found you new friends—powerful friends.”
“But you cannot replace a family,” said Elias, a little sadly. He winced. “Ah, God, Pryrates, I am burning up. Where is that cupbearer?”
“A little farther, Majesty. Just a little farther.”
“I can feel it, you know,” Elias panted. He lay back on his mattress, which had rotted through in
so many places that the horsehair stuck up all around him. A stained goblet, now empty, was clutched in his hand.
Pryrates paused in the doorway. “Feel what, Majesty?”
“The star, the red star.” Elias pointed at the cobwebbed ceiling. “It is hanging overhead, staring at me like an eye. I hear the singing all the time.”
“Singing?”
“The song it sings—or that the sword sings to the star. I cannot tell which.” His hand fell and crawled like a white spider onto the long sheath. “It sings in my head. ‘It is time, it is time,’ the voices say, over and over.” He laughed, a cracked, jagged sound. “Sometimes I awaken to find myself walking through the castle and I cannot remember how I came there. But I hear the song, and I feel the star burning into me whether it is day or night. It has a fiery tail, like a dragon....” He paused. “I will go out to them.”
“What!?” Pryrates returned to the king’s bedside.
“I will go out to them—Josua and the others. Perhaps that is the time the sword means. Time to show them that I am different than they know. That their resistance is foolish.” He brought his hands to his face. “They are ... they are my blood, Pryrates.”
“Your Highness, I ...” The priest seemed momentarily unsure. “They are your enemies, Elias. They wish you only harm.”