The Fall of Waterstone, page 35
Another shattering growl turned into a coughing trill midway, spiraling up. Pinpricks of vile jaundiced light flared in the thing’s eyes, and it bolted for my small one with such speed colorless sparks struck from its amber claws.
Do something. I could not sing. My right hand snapped out, the first two fingers stiff, and seidhr filled me.
Empty air parted, a streak of brilliance lingering after my fingertips. I had no breath, but I did not need it to scratch a rune, did I? A single slashing line, the shape meaning a particular vowel-sound in both our language and the Old Tongue—but its edges were crisp and hard, the symbol itself named for ice in our written language, a sudden snap-freeze descending the moment winter ceases its stalking and springs upon its prey.
My left hand flicked palm-out, a brushing motion; the rune flashed as it was flung. Perhaps my shieldmaid felt the wind of its passing, yet she made no sign—most likely she simply ignored the sensation, trusting me to do my part.
I could not see its landing, for the rune vanished as it approached the abomination. Yet the varulv staggered before lunging at her again.
Arneior skipped aside, and I knew her spearblade was too high. It gathered moonlight, a star shining from its honed tip for a brief bare moment, and another shapeless, hopeless yell bottled itself in my aching, half-stoppered throat.
But my small one was not deceived, nor was she outplayed. Her hands flashed and she leapt as well, the maneuver perfectly timed, using all her considerable strength. Her lips skinned back in a snarl close to a wolf’s itself, very much like one of the men of Naras when facing battle, and the blunt end of her spear smashed into the slavering, snarling face.
Crunch. Foam flew, the thing’s howl turned into a mangled screech, but she was not done yet. No, my shieldmaid landed, knees bending deep, and uncoiled again with devastating force. Her high glassy cry of effort swallowed both her opponent’s noise and another piercing horn-howl, and such was her might in that moment that the lord of Naras—or what had been him a short while ago—was driven to the very edge of the crumbling floor, arms wheeling wildly like a child attempting to regain balance atop a slippery boulder.
My right hand leapt again; this time the lines were firmer, and burned silvergold for a bare moment as I sketched in empty air. Two runes melded together, force bleeding from my fingertips—the horse-and-rider symbol, meaning a partnership, and the lightning-swift angles of a strength-rune, not the torch of day but a quick serpentine cloudflash. My left palm stung when I slapped this new weirding free, as if batting away a flung pebble.
Black veins danced at the edges of my vision. The Jewel halted its torture for a bare moment, perhaps realizing its host was upon the verge of suffocation, and I sucked in a deep, cold, endless breath.
Arn whirled, and so did her spear. A complicated flurry ended with the blade slashing across the creature’s front, not biting deep but adding to its difficulty balancing. Stone groaned sharply, dust puffed, and a splash of blackened blood flew—life-fluid looks darker than usual at night, but this appeared inklike, almost as wrong as the exhausted ichor from orukhar.
Then her spearpoint rose, the haft sliding through her hands loose as a lover’s casual touch. A thundercrack—she drove the blunt end against the floor and leapt with the haft’s aid, her boots smashing into the beast’s middle.
The blow was one too many, and the Tharos-thing—still swelling, still growling, still champing its strong white teeth amid a billow of rabid froth—was flung into the night.
I half expected her to go sailing through the hole too, but my shieldmaid dropped straight down, landing heavily as more stone crumbled.
“Arneior!” I shrieked, and staggered in her direction.
My small one almost followed the lord of Naras that night, for the floor was giving way. She pushed herself backward, gripping her spear whiteknuckle now, and collided with me. The back of my skull hit wood, and I did not mind the pain. Even now I am not certain I did not perform another lunging, impossible seidhr, drawing her from the brink.
Skull ringing and lungs heaving I slumped, pinned between her and the heavy, age-blackened door. “Arn,” I whispered. “Arn. Arneior.”
She gasped, breathing deep now that the battle was done. I held her belt, fingers squeezed tight, heavy leather yielding as warm butter in my grasp.
From below rose shouts—my name, and hers. A hot, distinct tang of smoke rode the whistling breeze. But for that moment I closed my eyes, simply glad I had not lost her as well.
A Second Shadow
Orukhar may be eluded, if one is swift and canny enough; others among the Enemy’s thralls may be baffled or outraced. Even the wights, those weakest of liches, may be turned aside or granted true death. Those of Kaer Morgulis may veer aimlessly if their prey passes beyond a barrier of some might, and return empty-handed despite the punishment.
But those from the third tower of Agramar do not cease pursuit, save at the will of the Enemy himself.
—Farail son of Batura, Rede of the Dead
Arn’s recovery was swift; mine was otherwise but I could be dragged. We careened down the stairs, my feet scarce touching every second step, and her arm about my waist was tight and sure. Landing with a jolt at the bottom, she set off through the passageways, and in short order we rushed past the room we had been given for sleep—a burst of warmth leaking from its now half-open door, low reddish firelight making a distorted shape upon stone flags—and from there it was a mere twinkling before the high, shadowy great hall swallowed us.
There was no evidence of the others, though we heard voices calling our names; no doubt they had found us missing shortly after the first hunting-cry shook them from rest. There was no time to wonder, and Arn took the steps at the far end of the hall in a single leap.
We burst through the tower’s door and almost collided with Efain outside, the Northerner only saving himself with an astonishing sideways lunge, landing braced and ready, his blade held down and away but alive with reflected snowlight. His eyes widened, but he asked no questions. “Here!” he shouted in the Old Tongue, and an edge of wolf-cry rode the edge of the words. A stronger hint of burning swirled past us on cold wind. “They are here!”
Several paces away upon stone pavers a blackened, broken shape moved in painful, uncoordinated spasms. The stable-doors were thrown open, and movement within turned into hurriedly saddled Elder horses, their eyes white-ringed and their ears laid back, barely heeding Yedras and Daerith’s coaxing.
Efain threw his head back; a ribbon of sound lifted from his throat. I flinched, for there was something close to seidhr in it, and Arn began to haul me for the stable with alacrity.
Yet there was a second shadow near the writhing body at the tower’s foot. Eol of Naras unfolded from a crouch, the swordhilt over his shoulder giving a single icy flash though the gem was well-wrapped. Perhaps only I saw it, since the weapon seemed almost-alive in the way of named things; I had not heard its title yet, but was certain it bore one.
My brother had killed his, now my shieldmaid had slain his father. My throat was dry as road-dust in late summer; I found my right hand, fingers cramping, flattened against my chest and pressing hard as if to keep the Jewel—or my gristle-thumping heart next to it, a high hard pulse brushing sharp edges—from flying free. My lips shaped Eol’s name, and perhaps the heir of Naras read what had happened upon my face.
A thin, lacy veil of smoke drifted past the tower. Something was aflame, but I did not have time to wonder. Nor did I have time to be reminded of Laeliquaende’s burning.
Aeredh burst from the shadows between two smaller structures on the west side, Gelad and Elak from the east. They came together like raindrops running down a scraped-horn window, all the wolves of Naras appearing, bright-eyed despite being shaken from much-needed slumber.
“Get to the horses,” Aeredh called. His expression changed as he sighted us and he repeated the order in southron, but Arn needed no translation. Nothing could halt her, in any case; she was bearing me along like flotsam upon a river during those damp spring seasons when melt mixes with heavy storms, ripping giant chunks from weakened banks and carrying entire trees past in a twinkling.
But I could not look away from Eol. I am sorry, I wanted to say. The weight in my throat would not budge, and neither would the pain.
The heir of Naras drew, his hand flickering to hilt and his blade almost burn-bright as an Elder’s. The brazen hunting-horns sounded again, and this time they were so close the sound sent awl-tips through both my ears, thin invisible blades riving my skull. I cried out and saw Karas snarl, his face echoing a wolf’s for a bare moment.
Even so, it bore no relation to the agonizing, congested hatred upon the varulv.
Yedras and Daerith were fully occupied with the horses. Aeredh reached them first, near vaulting into the saddle, and his mount wheeled, its hooves dancing with fear. He urged the snowy beast forward, and ’twas not until it loomed before us that I realized what he intended. He leaned down, shouting something almost lost in another high glassy glaring cry, and the sensation was familiar—seidhr thick and foul, spreading like ordure in fast-flowing water.
A lich. Or more than one, because the air grew still, knifelike cold thickening as if no spring threatened to turn the drifts of the Taurain to sucking mud.
Arn might have sensed it too, for her grip upon me changed. I was lifted, tossed like a sack of wet laundry, caught by an arm strong as an iron bar, and before I knew it Aeredh’s horse had wheeled and the rattlethump of a gallop jarred my bones.
Some things that night I did not see, only hearing of them later—the corpses Soren and Elak found in a cellar, frozen stiff and with deep clawmarks showing how they had died, the fires as orukhar ravaged wooden buildings though they could not do much to the tower itself, a lich rising from a pool of shadow across the paving and Daerith putting an arrow freighted with cold blue Elder brilliance into the space where its face should have been, the suddenly appearing knot of mounted orukhar who almost pulled Gelad and Karas from their saddles before Yedras and Efain arrived, the Elder’s spear flickering and the scarred Northerner’s battle-cry lifting high and clear to overpower the dread horns for a brief moment.
But as the Elder horse fled, Aeredh’s arms around me and Arn gaining her own charger’s saddle with a leap I would sing of could I but find the words to do it justice, I caught a glimpse of a swordblade, descending so rapidly it was a solid bar of silver, as Eol of Naras put an end to the shattered thing that had been his father.
Aeredh’s mount whinny-screamed and the Crownless replied with a single smoking word in the Old Tongue, clipped and harsh. The force of it thundered through all my internal halls; we shot away, shod hooves striking sparks until the ground became snow over packed earth, and there was a thunder behind us as well as beside. Arneior’s charger followed, needing no encouragement, and the rest kept pace as best they could.
Barael-am-Narain was burning, a ruddy glow, and we burst from a gap in the southron palisade onto the moon-silvered plain.
Flow and Flame
A volva must know her own strength down to the last featherweight. Only then may she surpass it at need—but beware, for the price is high.
—Idra the Farsighted of Dun Rithell
Jolted, shatter-shaken, the Jewel in my chest flaming like abandoned buildings or a well-prepared funeral ship, I could do nothing but huddle against Aeredh and hope I did not slip from the saddle. I was not even properly in it, sitting sideways, though thankfully I was not thrown over like a captive or a carcass upon a dray’s back. It was uncomfortable in the extreme, yet I did not care—for the awful metallic horn-howls all but ringed us, great spatters of snow flung in every direction as pale Elder horses packed into a tight herd, racing under the swiftly clouding sky.
Perhaps the Crownless knew I was not a strong enough rider to stay atop a horse at such pace, or perhaps he and his companions were well used to such flights. In any case, he held me with bruising force, so close we were almost one being atop a wildly plunging, fear-maddened animal.
As the hills receded and the Taurain swallowed our small group, the wolves of Naras dropped from the saddle at full gallop, shaggy inkblots exploding as they changed midair, landing in their other forms. They veered away, ringing us loosely; Yedras crowded upon Aeredh’s left and Daerith to Arn’s right with his bow unlimbered.
Thus we fled, the wolves providing a screen and a fear-maddened horse-herd galloping in the only direction allowed.
A medley of brass-throated cries followed, along with a tide of snarls. The orukhar rode great slumpshouldered quadrupeds, furred and vaguely canine instead of reptilian, and that night was my first glimpse of the dire vargen bred by the Enemy for his cavalry. Hulking and graceless, they were nevertheless capable of great speed and endurance, and their riders were not the small among orukhar either. The vargen were not quite as misshapen as the scaled things aiding in the wreck of Laeliquaende, but they were monstrous enough and called up sickening echoes of Tharos’s hunch-snarling, skittering speed.
Had there been any time or breath to spare, I might have been nauseated. But there was another danger looming; the night was cold, yes, but not cold enough.
The Taurain’s drifts were giving way.
A hard, high stringsnap was Daerith’s bow speaking, not upon a river’s heaving back but a sea of dingy white; past the bright spot of Yedras’s head was a flash of teeth and a thunderous impact as a wolf—I thought ’twas perhaps Soren, for no reason other than seidhr ringing inside my skull whispering his name—leapt to crash into a mounted orukhar, tumbling his iron-armored opponent from the saddle. The vargen snarled and veered away, suddenly free of spur or bridle-pressure, and bile-hot fear clawed at my dry, aching throat.
Our pursuers did not use their own bows—afterward, Arneior hazarded their reticence was not lack of willingness but orders to capture the prize as undamaged as possible. At the moment all I knew was the Jewel’s burning, and the fact that I was near-worthless during yet another battle.
And I hated it. Behind the sawing edges buried in my ribcage a spark guttered, waxed. By all the gods, I was so tired of fear, of being chased, of freezing and mounting dread and men shoving me about. I was also tired of Aeredh’s chin striking the back of my head as the horse nearly foundered, its hooves sinking slightly in sodden snow instead of landing light upon thin ice-crust.
Amid the terror and the ire, another emotion rose. The whole affair was ridiculous. Dragged from my home, pushed from place to place, hounded from the wreckage of two Elder cities, every scrap of freedom I could win or bargain turning to ashes in my palms, and the horrid, burning alien thing inside me, tormenting my flesh as it burrowed deeper—all of it, from first to last, finally reached boiling.
No. Not boiling. There was no flow in what I felt, only flame.
Be careful, my teacher Idra’s voice whispered amid the great stillness descending upon me. This is not a weirding to use lightly, daughter of Gwendelint.
Oh, my physical body was borne along at a furious pace, caged in an Elder’s arms and shivering with fearful rage. Yet all the rest of me turned inward, subtle selves slipping from their mooring with the ease of long practice. The world vanished under a silvergold glare, pitiless light flooding my inner vision, and if I burned in its killing glow, well, in that moment ’twas a price I was willing to pay.
My back arched, and Aeredh near lost his grip. Which is no insult to his strength—balancing upon the back of a maddened horse, holding it to a pace more-than-mortal while the Enemy’s creatures chased, and attempting to keep a volva before him in the saddle? The wonder was that we had not both been thrown within a few steps, and every hoof-fall afterward a miracle.
Especially when I bent as if stretched spinecracked upon a barrel-hoop, my arms rising stiffly to cloud-smeared sky. Moonlight brightened, streaming upon softening snow, yet also took on a strange aureate cast as if summer or harvest had ripened the silver fruit of night.
I whisper-screamed, fingers cramping as inked runes and bands blazed upon my wrists. The cry attempted to form words, but I had not the breath. Instead, the Old Tongue tolled in my brain like a vast bell, bursting free in every direction.
Before, I could only ask, negotiate, persuade. Now I wrenched a flood of seidhr from a place alien unto me, bending it to my will with sheer fury.
And the sky… answered.
The waning Moon above us swelled, a spreading hood-haze swallowing nearby stars. Columns of glittering light jabbed earthward, not fork-branching as lightning usually does but straight as a good heavy Northern sword driven into soft turf. Where the falling light-spears touched the snow was flung away, flash-hissing into steam, and stinking rags of orukhar flesh burst in strange patterns from the lips of holes scorch-carven into the Taurain’s skin, punching through wintersleeping grass and stabbing deep.
Very like the pillars, Daerith said afterward, in Nithraen’s forest-gallery.
Arneior would only say there was a great flash near to blinding her. One shard of falling light avoided Karas by a hairsbreadth, and he said it was neither warm nor cold though the shock sent him tumbling through melting drifts, his head ringing, before he gained his feet once more and kept running.
My hands fell, wounded birds. I almost slithered bonelessly from the saddle, but Aeredh cried out again in the Old Tongue; for all the immensity of that scream of effort, it went unheard after the flashes. Almost blinded, amid a storm of galloping, he still did not let me fall.
And well it was that he did not, for though the seidhr had struck down plenty of orukhar upon their furred, snarling mounts, it did not touch the liches. Fortunately the spike-helmed horrors were mired in the sudden softening of the Taurain’s winter floor, and their own mounts could not match the speed of white Elder horses, galloping mad with terror toward a dark line upon the horizon.
