The Fall of Waterstone, page 36
Dorael.
We were so close, and yet upon those plains the sight of a destination is deceptive. And even long-limbed, silk-maned mounts bred by the Elder, given strength by the presence of their owners, could not run forever.
See the Curse
She was there from the beginning, the Cloak-Weaver, and she is not of our kind. Some say she was set to guard a treasure from the moment of world’s making, and others whisper that she knew of her husband long before his arrival, and loved him in advance. By her will is the fence about Dorael set, long it will endure, lo! even unto the coming of doom.
—Anonymous, The Song of Nightingales
Just after dawn another ravine sheltered us for a short trembling while. Arn held a small flask of blue glass—Yedras’s, and thrust upon her with haste—to my lips. The now-familiar heat of sitheviel filled my numb mouth, along with the incongruous taste of midsummer flowers.
“Drink,” she said harshly, as if she thought I might refuse.
I was vaguely surprised to find I still had teeth, let alone fingers and feet. Idra’s voice—whether hers in truth or merely my own wisdom speaking in a tone it knew I would not gainsay—was right, such a weirding was dangerous not only to those it had killed but its wielder as well. A diaphanous amazement that I was still alive after using something so far beyond my strength or skill lay over strengthening dawnlight like finespun linen, turning everything indistinct until the liquid reached my chest and heat spread in concentric rings, nailing me once more into my physical self.
“Easy, fourfoot cousin,” Yedras crooned to a head-hanging mare, stroking her wet lathered neck. “All is well. All will be well, let me help you.”
“He was not left alone.” Elak’s paleness made the snow seem blushing. His eyes were live coals; his hands squeezed into fists, relaxed, and repeated their clenching. Of all the wolves of Naras he was the quietest, but now his baritone held an axe’s edge. “I recognized some. Haralt, and Tyony’s son Aesimir, and Bjornhalt of Vestalt… he tore their guts out.”
Eol gazed at the northern end of the bailkah. The leather over his swordhilt was scorched, the gem peering free, and his dark hair rumpled wildly in every direction. Even the Elder were snow-spattered and gaunt. Our mounts’ ribs stood out—a single ride like that will melt flesh from man and horse both no matter their might.
How were we still alive? I could not tell, and still do not know.
Daerith sang softly to Aeredh’s mount. The beast shuddered, great twitches passing in waves through his body.
“I saw them too.” Soren swallowed convulsively. “But I could not… could not recognize…”
A second swallow of sitheviel followed the first, and I choked as a coppery tang pervaded it. Fortunately I did not spray the precious cordial over my shieldmaid; Aeredh held me upright and his left hand stroked the shadowmantle’s shoulder, as if I were a maddened animal needing calming as well.
“Sol?” Arn lowered the flask, peering anxiously at me. Her spear’s blunt end was driven deep into snow beside her; the weapon listed slightly, a few fingerwidths off true. “You… are you hurt?”
My face felt odd. I lifted a hand, staring dreamily; it seemed strange to have such an appendage. I had felt this way before, just after my first blooding when the weirding began to accelerate within me, but never so strongly.
Seidhr may well eat its bearer whole, if an act well beyond one’s ken is attempted.
When I touched my upper lip, something crackled under my fingertips. I scrubbed a little harder, and realized it was dried blood.
“He is at peace now.” Eol’s tone was harsh, too loud in snowbound stillness. The Taurain’s breath soughed over the ravine’s lips, a hollow fluting noise full of menace underlaid with soft stealthy trickling. He took a deep breath; when he spoke next, ’twas in southron. “And we are not safe in Dorael yet.”
When I rubbed my fingers together, bloodcrust flaked free. But it was wrong—some of the fluid was still tacky-wet, and bore an odd tinge. I thought it a trick of the light at first.
“Sol?” Arn persisted. “Where are you hurt?”
I am not, I wanted to say, only weary. But the strange sensation was all over my face. The blood had trickled from my eyes and nose; the sides of my neck held thread-thin drying rivulets escaped from my ears. Arn used a corner of her mantle and a bit of snow to wipe, as if tending a food-eager child. Though she sought to be gentle, my skin still stung under her ministrations. Aeredh held me upright, and continued stroking my shoulder.
My shieldmaid offered the blue glass flask once more; I shook my head. Ribbon and horsetail clouds, already shrinking as the eastron horizon lightened, presaged a clear day. It was no longer so cold. In fact, a prickle touched the curve of my lower back, though no sweat rose.
“Blood,” I whispered, and Arneior nodded, capping the flask with a savage twist.
“Idra would scold you.” A tendril of coppery hair fell in her face. Even her freckles were pale at the moment. “But perhaps that Elder thing is useful after all.”
How could I explain? “It was not the Jewel.” My tongue would not seat itself quite properly. The pain in my chest eased somewhat, though the burning did not fully abate; perhaps it was the sitheviel. Fresh strength and sense crept into my limbs, aided by a deep, soft jolt of vital force from Aeredh’s grasp. I did not know how he had so much strength left, to share such a measure. “Ah.” I found my mother-language again. “It was… was not the… Something is happening to me, Arn.”
“Gelad, Efain.” Each name held the snap of command; Eol straightened, and perhaps it was fatigue, but he looked at least ten years older than he had yestereve. There were new lines graven upon his face, spreading from the corners of his eyes and bracketing his mouth. “Take our backtrail for a distance, see what you can smell. The rest of you, aid our Elder friends with the horses, and keep hand to hilt.” He turned upon his bootheel, and his gaze lighted upon me.
I felt it like a blow. All my inner senses were cringe-sensitive.
But when he halted next to Arn, it was Aeredh he addressed. “How fares our lady?” As if he had forgotten I spoke the Old Tongue, or as if he could not bear to address me directly.
“Somewhat stunned, I think.” Aeredh’s hand halted its steady motion as I sought to straighten, to use my own legs. “She was not touched, the bleeding is… otherwise. Eol—”
“I shall scout ahead.” With that, the heir to Naras would have stalked away, but Arneior coughed, a harsh, ratcheting sound.
“Son of Tharos.” She all but spat the words. “We must speak of summat.”
“Must we?” He had already turned his back to my shieldmaid, and his profile was severe as his father’s. “I am concerned with our survival at the moment, and little else.”
“Eol.” The word was a husk of itself, and I suppressed the harsh tickle in my throat. “Your father. He—”
“Now you see the curse.” Clipped and cold, Eol pronounced each syllable very clearly indeed. “But have no fear, Solveig. Should I or any of my companions fall to it, the others will dispatch him as required.”
He set off, and the shaggy inkmass of the change swallowed him before he had gone two steps. The wolf—lean and dark, its fur damp and its ears flattened—bounded up the side of the bailkah, vanishing over the top.
“Sheepshit,” Arn muttered, and I heartily agreed.
“’Tis merely his grief,” Aeredh said, softly. “Take what rest you may. We have a few moments—most of the surviving orukhar now fear us, but that will not slow them forever.”
As if to underscore the point, a faint chill howl rose to the north. It was not a hunting-horn of the Enemy’s troops, for all it bore a hateful edge. No metallic instrument could loose such a cry; there was a tinge of agonized flesh to it, long-dead but still suffering. I tasted rancid ash and the copper of powdered blood, the sitheviel’s heat upon my tongue pushed aside by chill grave-dirt.
“Lich,” I whispered, dryly. One of the horses sidled uneasily, too exhausted to rear, shy, or otherwise protest.
“Nathlàs.” Aeredh’s arm tightened about my shoulders, and sudden tension turned him into one of Laeliquaende’s pale stone statues. “At least one of the Seven, quite probably more. We should not linger, for even in daylight they ride swift indeed.”
Only Mortal
For a long while the grief was staved off, for he loved his land and his wife. Yet bit by bit it mounted, in the way of such things; the Elder know not the Secondborn’s loosening of regret. And the Greycloak had never seen the West—yet if he had, perhaps the mourning might have consumed him more swiftly. Who can say? Not even the very wise…
—Daerith the Younger
Whatever seidhr kept the horses from sinking was failing, or perhaps it could not work with rottenmelt drifts. The poor beasts spent much effort to lift their feet, though a firmer layer of freeze remained a handspan or so below the surface. Blinding sunlight bounced from slump-glistening waves, and the wolves were dark shapes leap-sliding upon slick, treacherous white billows, still traveling in a loose ring about us.
I knew which one was Eol. All that day he and Karas forged ahead then dropped into our wake, checking the ground, finding a chain of more-solid footing with unerring instinct, and gauging how far behind our pursuers raced.
I gathered the liches would be weighed down somewhat by the bright golden eye of day, though not nearly so much as orukhar. And the dark line at the southron horizon would not draw closer no matter how we struggled, the horses slowing.
There was a skyborne pall to the north. It hung motionless until nooning, but as the sun began to fall the wind rose, pushing at our backs.
Aeredh would not suffer me to ride alone, and Arn did not quibble. I no longer had to balance sideways, though, and our mounts gained some little strength as the day wore on, even while the breeze turned knifelike and sunlight took on a yellowgreen cast. The living heat of an Elder against my back blocked the wind’s edge, and his hands rested easily upon the reins before me.
I could not help turning, attempting to look behind. He shifted slightly—not to deny me the chance, I thought, but merely as a consequence of close quarters.
It was no use. I could see nothing but the approach of inimical, unnatural weather. Had anything like this borne down upon Dun Rithell every seidhr would have gathered upon the Stone set in our vast green, both to divine the source and to attempt mitigation.
Sky and seasons were best left to themselves, as Idra oft repeated. But part of weirding is restoring a tipped balance, too, and turning aside evil is a volva’s duty.
“A storm.” His breath touched my temple. “Sometimes they happen upon the Taurain in spring, and yet…”
“How far?” I sounded ragged and breathless, even to myself. “To Dorael?”
“Not far.” He sought to hearten me—and whoever else heard, as always. “If we can reach the trees…”
I could not hold back a small, disbelieving sound. It could have been mistaken for a laugh. “My eyes are only mortal, and yet they can tell we are nowhere near enough. Especially with the sun falling.”
“Only mortal?” The Crownless sounded tightly, bitterly amused as well. His breath brushed my hair. “Take heart, my lady. We will not falter now.”
I wish I were even a fraction as sure as you sound. “Aeredh…” What could I say?
“If all else fails, we shall slow them while you and your shieldmaid flee.” He freed one hand from the reins, and I flinched as it rose.
I could not help it.
But he merely raked stiff fingers through his own hair, shaking his head slightly. The movement echoed in my own tired, aching flesh.
“And when Dorael falls?” I stared at the dark smear of our goal in the distance. “What then, son of Aerith?”
His arm tightened, his hand dropped back to the reins. Our mount’s ears flattened, but the Elder horse did not raise his head. He merely plodded, obedient to the end.
Was that my fate? Driven onward, ridden by some mad Elder purpose until I foundered? The Jewel twinged inside my chest. Its burning branched through my veins, and though I had only borne it a short while I could not remember a time without the sensation. And there was also the tinge to the dried blood on my face; Arneior had not remarked upon it, but she was not blind.
Nor were any of our companions. It was not so marked as when Elder flesh is violated, but the thin, lingering golden traceries were unmistakable. Faevril’s masterwork was performing some seidhr upon my very body, and I was helpless to stop it.
More terrifying yet—even more horrific than the things pursuing us, or the violation of my own physical being—was the fact that the Jewel had not pulled pillars of solid, streaking moonlight from the sky to strike down the orukhar. It was utterly innocent of such affairs.
In fact, Aeredh was far more correct than he knew. The sodding thing could never be used as a weapon; ’twas not in its nature. I had brought down the Moon’s own fire. Somehow, I had accessed a weirding far more powerful than I should have been able to, perhaps because the thing nestled inside my ribs was tainting me with Elder witchery.
Changing me.
A long, lonely wolf howl rose behind us. I did not need seidhr to hear Eol’s voice in the cry, or to understand its import.
The day was failing, and the storm gaining upon us.
Upon the vast rolling Taurain one may watch a weather-wall approach for a long while, dreading yet entranced. At first the wind helped, pushing us along, but as it mounted tiny flickers of melt were snap-frozen and flung, collecting upon every surface like the gravel-ice of the Glass during deepcrack freeze. Our footing became ever more slickly treacherous, the plain turned to iceglass.
Had we some few pairs of sharpened bone-curves, we could have strapped them to our feet and flown like sleds over smooth ice. At home Astrid was grace itself upon such things, swooping and turning on the mirrorlike face of ponds locked in winter’s embrace. I did not cherish skating, having fallen a few too many times for my pride or comfort, but both my sister and shieldmaid liked it well enough—though neither of them were so skilled as Albeig our housekeeper, who had to be fair pushed out the door by Mother before she would consent to take some manner of holiday.
Once upon the ice, though, she was a swift bright bird, finally set free.
The storm-edge was still far away as the sun’s strengthless red coin touched horizon. Arneior hunched in the saddle, two of the Northerners’ tattered black mantles wrapped about her—they were wearing their fur now, but probably just as miserable. Yedras and Daerith were indistinct shadows atop their mounts, save for the blur-shifting bluish gleam about them, their subtle selves burning freely. The horses moved with what speed they could, seeming to understand our only hope was reaching whatever shelter lay ahead.
I huddled in Aeredh’s lee, my hands tucked into the shadowmantle’s sleeves. The red coral in my sadly abused braids had long since frozen solid, and stray strings of dark hair lifted like spiderweb-strands, worked free by flight and the wind’s fingers, filigreed with frost. The breath of the North reached across league upon league; amid the whirling frozen droplets I saw reddish flickers—hideous sparks, each one a gleam in some unfathomable eye.
Worse than the scream of moving air, worse than the tiny pelting granules was the choking darkness. Light faded as the storm’s tattered wings settled fully over us, and its claws could not be far behind.
The wolves of Naras pressed closer. I could not see them, but the horses knew and their natural unease at the presence of predators was only outweighed by what they scented behind us.
And by exhaustion. One of the horses nearly fell, splayleg staggering, and the Jewel flashed inside my chest. The pang was terrible, my gasp lost in whirling white.
No. Please, no.
I might have tried some manner of helpful seidhr, but our pursuers gave me no chance. A high wavering scream pierced my skull without bothering to ride the air about me or pass through my ears. It scraped like an iron carpenter’s comb shredding softwood—I had endured this manner of assault once before upon the Glass.
Curiaen the Subtle and Taeron had both tried a variety of it. One I had gainsaid, the other I had eventually allowed; Tharos of Naras’s attempt had not been wholly his own. But this bore little relation to any of them; ’twas a nathlàs’s violation, and I forgot the cold as I cowered before Aeredh, clutching at my ears, too breathless to cry out.
Provoked past exhaustion into one final heart-wringing effort, the horses bolted. But it was no use; the liches had found us, and Dorael was still beyond our reach.
Name in Battle
Before the dark wind they galloped:
The spearman who led the charge at Dag Aethas,
The songcrafter of Aerith, bearing Kaesgrithil,
The uncrown’d one, hope-winner, faithful beyond measure.
Unveiled they rode, and so too the nathlàs
Their wills contended. Then the battle was joined.
—Taeglin of Dorael, The Saga of Six
There are only two songs of these events, and I do not like either. They do not speak of how the first riderless Elder horse dropped, galloping heart-strain and treacherous footing finally claiming one life, then another. I felt both like bolts to my own shrinking flesh, seidhr flaming inside the ache-quivering mass my head had become, and the Jewel burned desperately.
Daerith dropped his reins, rising in the stirrups to nock; Arneior’s spear was out of the saddle-bucket and she snapped a glance at me, the leather-wrapped ends of her braids afloat upon the storm of our wild career. On our other side Yedras’s spearblade gleamed ferocious blue, and wolf-cries rose both right and left.
The liches—great and small—had almost ringed us. I felt them without needing to see, a furious chill hating all that lives, the stain of their presence spreading as the westron horizon worked to swallow a huge, terribly exhausted crimson disc.
