Cobweb Forest (Cobweb Bride Trilogy) (8 page)

His Majesty, Augustus Ixion, the young King of Styx, recently orphaned and recently crowned, was here at dawn, to observe and take stock of his city’s defenses. At his right stood a tall, vigorous man with a handsome face and artfully styled dark hair, bare of helm and heedless of the cold dawn, with filaments of his hair flying in the morning breeze. He was Andre Eldon, the Duke of Plaimes, from the Kingdom of Morphaea. Together with his King, Orphe Geroard, and the ragged remainder of the Morphaea army, the Duke had arrived here in Charonne only two days ago, under the cover of night and in inclement weather, to join forces with Styx against their common enemy. It has been a miracle they managed to enter the city from the eastern side without being intercepted and destroyed by the Solemnis forces. But so far, Solemnis showed no interest in crossing the river. And besides, the Morphaea men were so few in number that their arrival was easily overlooked and their reinforcements were mostly a boost to morale.

“I wonder what it is that makes them wait now . . .” mused the Duke of Plaimes, as he raised a long spyglass to stare at the roiling vista below, across the silvery waters of the River Styx. “Especially since the Sovereign and the Trovadii are well on their way deep into Lethe by now. One would expect Solemnis to be done here quickly then hurry to rendezvous with the Trovadii, coming together from the west and east at some point, but where?”

“Likely, Letheburg, where Hoarfrost sits,” replied Bruno Melograno, one of the garrison officers in their company.

“Yes, but why? Why Letheburg? It is incomprehensible to me. Why drive past the most attractive prize of the Realm that happens to be the Imperial Seat at Silver Court and cast away the opportunity to take the Emperor, and instead enter the northern wilderness?”

“Maybe the Sovereign wants to surround the Realm along its outer perimeter and cut us off from all our foreign borders?” Bruno Melograno pointed at the line of the camped enemy army across the river. “Even now, see how they choose to stay on the other side of Styx? There is no solid tactical advantage to it, since the added distance of the river makes artillery close to useless, except for the heaviest cannons. Their catapults will likely have the required reach to hit the walls and beyond, but other projectiles will fall short, miss all targets and likely drown in the river itself. If I were their commanding officer, I would cross Styx and camp on the eastern shore, closer to our walls. This way they still have plenty of safe distance between our artillery and their men, but at least they will have better chances of breaching us.”

“Agreed,” said Duke Andre Eldon. “So what is their reasoning? What are they waiting for? An invitation?”

King Augustus Ixion took a deep steadying breath and his boyish voice revealed only a slight tremor. “If they think to frighten me and my city simply by their extended presence, they will not succeed.”

“No, Your Majesty, indeed they will not. But generally speaking, it is a good thing to be
somewhat
frightened—just a tad, just enough to be on alert. . . . Nothing wrong with a healthy dose of awareness of reality, and the resulting caution,” the Duke replied in a steady matter-of-fact voice, as he continued to observe through the eyepiece of the slender brass telescope tube. “As long as fear is then transformed into useful actions.”

“Do you think,” the youth said, “that they will attack today?”

“Anything is possible. Your garrison is as ready as it can be, and My Liege and I are both at your service. I will personally stand at your side when it happens.”

Augustus turned his pale blotchy face with its acne-blemished skin and bright blue eyes at the older man. Then he glanced at the other officers surrounding him. “I thank you, Your Grace, and all of you who are here. I am ready for them,” he said bravely.

In that moment as the young King spoke, something unusual was taking place beyond the city walls of Charonne.

The nature of the sky itself seemed to change. But it was not the normal gradual brightening from blackness to pallor and a consequent fadeout of the stars.
 . . . Instead, the twilight seemed to pause momentarily, suspended for a few long moments in a perfect in-between state—while the stars hung fixed in the rich navy velvet of the heavenly zenith, almost black in the highest spot. And then the light at their back—coming from the east, from the direction of the city interior and beyond it, began to fade again—as though something had
reversed
the dawn itself.

As they looked out over the parapet walls at the western countryside and at the expanse of the faintly glittering river, at the same time, directly behind them, coming from the opposite direction, night was
returning
. . . .

No, it was not possible. It could not be.

The reversal happened quickly—far swifter than had been the normal blooming of dawn. In about ten breaths, there was an in-rushing of darkness, as first the heavens directly overhead became the same rich black they had been half an hour ago, and then the edges closer to the eastern horizon followed, darkening.

Meanwhile, the river and the army across it in the west were now in full darkness, their many beacons of campfires scattered like golden dots to mark the land.

“The sky! What in the world?” an officer exclaimed. “What is happening?”

“Lord protect us!” another man spoke, making the holy sign of God.

The soldiers manning the walls all trained their attention to the impossibility before them in the heavens. Marksmen were looking up, looking around and behind them, standing up and away from their firing posts in confusion.

But the Duke of Plaimes kept the spyglass raised, sweeping the horizon in all directions and was now once again aiming it in the direction of the river.

There, the lights of the enemy army were winking out, one by one. . . . In their place, a dark whirling mist arose, to obscure them entirely—and indeed to obscure most of the western half of the River Styx, so that nothing could be seen beyond its halfway point, much less its remote western shore.

At the same time, as they continued to observe all around them—with their only source of light being their own torches that were now cleanly burning in absolute night darkness—the men standing up on the battlements of Charonne looked up at the black sky and watched the stars go out overhead, as quickly as did the distant campfires.

It made even less sense. If it was night again, where were the stars?

The dome of the sky in its entirety was now a strange, uniform, homogeneous thing of darkness, a veil of mist, black as pitch.

Indeed, if one were to look out and around the city walls at the overwhelming mist-darkness surrounding them from all directions, Charonne no longer seemed to be situated in any place recognizable as being a part of the mortal world. . . .

M
eanwhile, from the vantage point of the invading Solemnis across the River Styx, the soldiers of the Domain witnessed the same impossible phenomenon that seemed at first glance to be a reversal of dawn. The sky in the east faded, and a sudden black mist gathered over the middle of the river, blocking all view of the city beyond the other shore.

The mist stood up like a tangible wall of darkness, rising higher and higher into the expanse of heaven, while the air shimmered like a winter mirage.

For a quarter of an hour it stood thus. And then, as though touched by the capricious breath of the gods, the curtain of mist dissipated, and with it the eastern sky was revealed to be full of ordinary morning light.

However, the soldiers continued to stare in unrelieved wonder. Before them the wide and rapid River Styx had been diminished into a narrow stream, its girth reduced by half, and its eastern shore was now just a hundred feet away.

And beyond it, the land was a flat and snow-filled wilderness of brush and sparse trees, with nothing else for infinite leagues in the distance.

There was no trace of Charonne, the ancient city.

V
lau Fiomarre awoke with a start, from yet another dream in which he saw
her
alive. She lay next to him, warm and glowing, her heart beating solidly in her chest, her blood coursing through her veins, a healthy rose flush on her delicate skin. Her great smoky eyes, open wide, were looking at him with soft receptiveness. . . .

Claere
.

He found himself, as always, in her chambers, fully dressed, having fallen back against the cushions on the sofa, where he had nodded off yet again—for he was almost never sleeping any more, not properly in a bed. He existed in a chronic state of exhaustion, something within himself always preventing him from attaining the true moment of peaceful release necessary to accept sleep. Thus, sleep came upon him in stealth, taking him by force when he least expected it—such as now, here, in her presence.

While she—she stood silently near the window, as always looking out at the world outside, the distant rooftops of Letheburg, the street lanterns coming to life like golden fireflies among the early heliotrope dusk.

Vlau inhaled deeply and rubbed his eyes, then sat up, groggy from the lucid dream.

There had been a knock on the door. The sound had pulled him out of the stupor, while Claere slowly turned her head, casting a single glance at him where he sat, and then said softly, “Come in.”

The door opened and two liveried Palace guards entered, followed by the King of Lethe.

Claere Liguon turned, full body, away from the window and stood watching the newcomers. Her expression was the same nebulous mixture of infinite patience and resignation.

Vlau Fiomarre stood up, with a short bow before the King.

“I trust Your Imperial Highness is as well as can be,” King Roland Osenni said in a tired voice, coming to the point, as was his usual manner. “I regret that it has come to this but I am left with no choice but to request your services.”

“Your Majesty,” the Infanta acknowledged him with a slow inclination of her head. “What
 . . . services?”

The King motioned with a weary hand at the window. “Out there,” he said. “Up on the parapets. I want you to go out there and talk to Hoarfrost. Attempt to talk some sense into him, for it might make a difference coming from one such as yourself. From one—uhm—
deceased
royal to another deceased vassal.”

“But—what am I to say?” Claere’s expression did not falter, but Vlau’s eyes—oh, they were fierce with reproach and intensity as he stared at the King.

“Say whatever you like. Think of something—anything, to get him to reconsider this siege. You, my dear, are Liguon. And if there is any shred of reason and loyalty left in Hoarfrost’s rotting brains—no offense—he might heed your words. He certainly did not bother to heed mine—not that I was able to stand up there for any length of time necessary to have a sentient conversation with that boar. At least you are in little danger of coming to—any further
harm
.”

There was a brief pause as Claere considered this. And then, “Yes,” she said. “Yes, of course. Take me there and I will do what I can.”

In that moment, the Marquis Fiomarre opened his mouth, and without looking at the Infanta, dared to address the King directly. “Begging pardon of Your Majesty, but this is madness. Even if Her Imperial Highness believes she has the means of ending the siege, surely she does not seem to realize that as soon as she shows herself up on the city walls she will be subject to enemy artillery fire, as much as any man, dead or living. Her fragile body will be torn asunder, and she will be shot at—”

King Roland Osenni turned a frustrated face at Fiomarre and glared at him. “Enough! How dare you, Marquis!” he said. “You forget yourself. Your presence here is tolerated only as a favor to Her Imperial Highness. Your opinion is neither heeded nor wanted.”

Vlau bowed his dark head curtly before the King, then straightened and looked him directly in the eyes with an indomitable gaze. “I will not speak again. And yet—Her Imperial Highness cannot go out there alone. Indeed, she will not last up there long enough to say a single word!”

“Well, in that case I suggest you do something to make sure that she does!”

“I will stand at her side and shield her . . .” Fiomarre replied.

“Excellent! And now, be silent!” The King went furiously silent himself and then looked from one to the other, the young man and the dead young woman. His dark frown eased when he noted the tragic sunken eyes of the Infanta and the fragile look in them. “My dear child,” he said. “Again, I deeply regret the necessity of this, but we have run out of options. And so far we have not heard from either His Imperial Majesty, your illustrious Father, or anyone else whom we contacted for aid against the enemy.”

Claere nodded slightly, moving her delicate neck like clockwork. “There is no need to explain, I understand what is required of me.”

The King nodded. “Good, good.
 . . . I am glad you see the necessity behind this. For obvious reasons, Your Imperial Highness being as you are, there is hardly any chance of additional harm coming to you, and we will take all necessary precautions to keep you guarded, naturally. . . .”

“Yes, I thank Your Majesty.” Her voice was steady and gentle, with no indication of reproach.

And yet, the King felt a momentary crawling sense of cold draining his cheeks followed by a flush of chagrin, and he again considered her, this tiny slip of a girl-child, this pitiful
thing
, nothing more than a dead upright corpse—

“A carriage awaits downstairs,” was all he could mutter. “If you would take a few minutes to get ready, of course—”

“No,” she said. “I am ready now.”

And the Infanta threw a single empty glance at the Marquis Fiomarre, nodding to him. She then walked out of her chamber, following the King of Lethe and his guards.

His pulse racing wildly, Vlau Fiomarre came after her.

T
he ride through the city was brief and uneventful. The well-appointed royal closed carriage took Claere and her silent companion Vlau Fiomarre down the long driveway of the Winter Palace into Lethe Square and then along Royal Way lined with rows of filigreed brass street lanterns, and eventually through the winding lesser streets of Letheburg. There was little traffic other than the military convoys and formations of infantrymen moving to and from the city walls. There were also the endless carts carrying the wounded. . . .

Claere watched through the carriage window the nature of the fading daylight, a deepening blue of the sky as early evening came into being. Soon, the scalding golden glow and noise of flames from somewhere ahead, signaled the proximity of the city walls. When they arrived at the walls and the carriage stopped, she paused only to allow Vlau to take her gently by the arm and help her down onto the snow-swept ground of the pomoerium, the wide empty space just before the great walls began.

Overhead, the battlements were silhouetted black against a blazing red-gold inferno that was burning just outside of the city—it was their main line of defense.

The Infanta stood with her fabric shoes in the snow, her dead flesh knowing no sensation of cold, wearing only a light velvet cloak given her by the King to cover her thin plain dress. And she looked up at the crenellated tops of the parapets, the flickering torches, the shadows of running soldiers
 . . . all eerie wild movement, a constant roiling overhead.

Vlau Fiomarre stood at her side. His hand continued to hold her arm, to steady her, since as always her brittle dead body had a hard time keeping balance.

There were several guards accompanying them, and a pair of trumpeters. They came forward, with one captain ahead of them. The captain bowed before the Infanta, and in the thickening dusk she barely saw the liquid glitter of his eyes, the vapor curling on his breath, and his wary cool expression—for he was not particularly trustful of the dead, even the friendly ones, and yet it was perfectly understandable.

“This way, Your Imperial Highness.” The captain pointed at a narrow stairway that was carved directly into the wall, rising parallel to it all the way up. He started walking up the stairs, and the Infanta followed, with Vlau directly behind her. He had released her arm, but was close enough to be her shadow, and to catch her if she lost her fragile balance and started to fall.

It occurred to Claere that if she fell down those stairs, tumbling down many feet from any point along the rising stairway that had neither rails nor handgrips, she could simply lie there in the snow, feeling no pain, knowing only a possibility of broken limbs.

No
, she told herself,
I will not fall.

And Claere Liguon slowly and gingerly took each step up the slippery iced-over stones, until she had reached the upper landing.

Vlau, a few of the guards, and the royal trumpeters, came after her.

Up on the battlements, the blazing golden-orange inferno was terrifying. The crackle of the flames, the black stifling smoke, the stench of gunpowder and coppery tang of blood, all of it filled the senses.

Good thing she was
dead
and could sense any of it only through the distance of a thick veil of cotton. . . .

“This way.” The captain’s voice was gruff. He was moving along the walkway in front of her, stepping over and around seated wounded soldiers and fallen weaponry, past embrasures at which tired marksmen sat, holding longbows and dipping arrows into tar and pitch, setting them ablaze and then letting the arrows fly into the distance. Every few feet there were skirmishes as ladders were upturned and grotesque silhouettes of dead men tossed back over the walls.

They came to a wider area of the battlements just before a large bulwark.

Here the trumpeters moved forward, past a mess of overturned supply wheelbarrows and stacked kegs of gunpowder next to a stockpile of large round iron cannonballs.

“Wait here, Your Imperial Highness,” the captain said loudly, over the din around them. “But not too close to those barrels of black powder, they are flammable. Indeed, let us have you move in this direction, right here, yes—”

Claere obeyed, taking a few paces in the direction shown.

In the same instant there was a blast of trumpets directly behind her.

The two trumpeters of the King of Lethe lifted their regimental instruments and played a bright parade fanfare of extended major notes that was somehow more terrifying than the sound of the artillery fire or the crackle of the inferno below the walls. And then in the resulting momentary pause of silence, they raised well-trained heraldic voices to call out into the airy expanse:

“Ahoy there! Heed this now, Duke Ian Chidair, known as Hoarfrost! Cease fire and come forth to parlay with the Imperial Grand Princess of the Realm!”

Their voices rang with echoes and a well-practiced long range.

They repeated the parlay call three times at least, before a deep rude voice was heard in reply, coming from somewhere below, off in the distance of at least fifty feet. It seemed to be powered by bellows.

“So, the King of Lethe sends out a little girl to do his dirty work? Ahoy there, little girl!”

If Claere had a living heart, it would have been beating wildly right now. Instead, she made the effort to pull in the freezing air into her own lesser bellows of lungs, and then she stepped forward to look over the parapet wall at the chaos below.

Vlau Fiomarre immediately lunged forward to stand before her, blocking the outside, shielding her with his living body from view of the enemy.

But she put her hand up and placed it on his chest, and pushed him backwards slightly, away from the edge of the parapet. “No, Marquis . . .” she mouthed the words without remembering to use the held breath within her lungs to make her speech audible.

Vlau frowned but allowed himself to be directed backwards, and his handsome face, infernal in the firelight, was a study in repressed agony on her behalf.

Claere saw his look, but did not acknowledge it. Instead she turned her back on him with a strange proud movement that was both mechanical and somehow reminiscent of grace.

And she looked out past the parapet at the scene below.

At first glance there was almost nothing distinguishable, nothing to see past the raging wall of orange flames of at least twenty feet in height, and beyond it, the pitch black moving shapes of dead men—an infinity of them, crawling like ants before the walls.

And then she saw him. Unlike the others around him, he stood motionless, a giant, thick as a stump, with a barrel chest and a wild tangle of hair and beard, all of him frosted with ice and cast into demonic shadows by the flames.

“Duke Hoarfrost!” she uttered, and her voice creaked and broke at first, then became louder, stronger. “I am Claere Liguon, Grand Princess of the Realm and I am here to speak with you. Will you speak with me honorably?”

“What shall we speak of, little girl? Tea and biscuits? Terms of your surrender?”

“First, I would know what it is you want with this city.”

In response came a bark of mechanical laughter.