Forging the Runes (35 page)

But it had worked. They'd been desperate enough, he and Cadwal both, about seeing this affair safely ended that they'd roused a fair amount of Power. And the Power of the long-dead magician whose bones lay under the Wessex circle had pulled them (though of course he'd never know it, the prince mused) back to his land. Here Ardagh and Cadwal stood, panting and disheveled, on the very spot where they'd disappeared from Saxon sight—however many days ago it had been.

Stood for a moment, at any rate. In the next, Ardagh's trembling legs gave out from under him and he fell, digging his fingers into the earth in a desperate attempt to draw some of its Power into his depleted self. And Cadwal—ae, Cadwal promptly rushed off to be, judging from the greenish shade of his face as he'd run, thoroughly ill.

After a time, Ardagh managed to sit up, somewhat restored, to see the mercenary returning, looking shaken but vastly relieved. "I will never," Cadwal said, "
never
get used to travelling like that."

"Believe me," the prince murmured, "you aren't the only one." Ardagh snatched out the rune Algiz, clutching it to him.
You're supposed to be so powerful against magical backlash—all right, then, do your job!

There, now. It did work, or his will did, or the sheer passage of time did, but slowly Ardagh felt strength flowing back throughout his being.

But he also felt, just for the briefest of instants, that same odd, alarming sense of Something watching, Something of the Darkness—

No. It, whatever it had been, was gone.

Assuming this isn't a figment of my admittedly overworked imagination, it has to be the use of the runes that's attracting . . . Whatever it is.
He remembered the demonic Arridu far too well to be casual about that.
But I can't
not
use the runes if I'm to stop Osmod.

Wonderful. Yet another complication.

One with which he'd just have to deal whenever the situation arose. With a shrug of Sidhe pragmatism, Ardagh slipped the rune back into its pouch with the others and struggled to his feet, looking about.

Not a soul in sight, fortunately. But there in the field, watching him with great curiosity, were two good, stocky farm ponies, far larger than their scruffy wild cousins, large enough, in fact, Ardagh thought, to be ridden.

"This won't be elegant," he said to Cadwal, "but I think that the next stage of our 'wondrous transport' has arrived."

Later, they were able to replace the farm horses with a merchant's two-horse wagon (leaving the bemused man standing holding the farm horses' makeshift reins and not at all sure what had happened), and the wagon with two good, swift riding horses (leaving the two courtiers standing by a wagon, not at all sure what had happened to
them).

"Going to have the whole land after us," Cadwal muttered, head half buried over his horse's flapping mane. "Be lucky if we aren't hung as thieves."

"Never mind, never mind. Look."

"Uintacaester."

"Exactly! Ride, Cadwal. We are almost there—" Ardagh cut himself off, staring ahead in sudden alarm. "And," he added sharply, "we must hurry!"

The Return
Chapter 35

Although it was still full day out there, the central fires and wall torches were blazing away here in the Great Hall, casting off light and smoke in equal doses. Add to that the body heat of this agitated mass of Witan members, Egbert thought, and it made for a thick fog of smelly warmth, dulling the senses if not the nose.

Not, unfortunately, dulling the noise, either. The Witan had been at it since morning, arguing back and forth: Yes, we should go to war, no, we can't be hasty, yes, we must strike now, while Mercia's weak, no, we're not yet strong enough, yes, we are. Eadwig held the floor now by sheer volume, orating at full force.

Shut up, Eadwig
Egbert thought wearily, but said nothing.

Why had he allowed this nonsense to go so far? Why had he allowed it at all? He could have—should have—said, no, we shall not discuss war with Mercia, and cowed them into obedience by sheer force of will.

Except that lately he hadn't felt very forceful. Those cursed dreams with their taint of darkness. And now this cursed fog of warm, stale air drugging his mind.

If only it was drugging everyone else as well.

No. The king must show no weakness, for all that his head was beginning to pound from the closeness and he could have screamed from sheer boredom.
Don't they see? We are
not
ready to attack anyone yet, let alone to declare war on another kingdom.

There it was in all its inelegant truth. Convenient an excuse as the just-might-be-an-assassin prince of Cathay made (and of course that vagueness of "just might" could always be ignored), the collective minds of the Witan were glossing right over the plain, mundane details of supply and funding.

Not heroic enough for them,
Egbert thought darkly,
such considerations of merchants and the like.

Ah yes, the merchants. They supported him, yes, Egbert had no doubt of that, but they didn't know their new king well enough to trust him.

"Oh, do sit down, Eadwig," he said suddenly, forcing out the words through what felt like air turned tangible. "Let another speak."

Eadwig sat, looking as startled as a boy who's unexpectedly received a parental reprimand.
Good,
Egbert thought.

Ha, but now it was Cuthred analyzing point by point, so quietly and pedantically that it would be just a matter of time before he was shouted down. Egbert drew a deep breath, meaning to put an end to this nonsense, then nearly strangled himself trying not to cough on the lungful of heated, smoky air he'd inhaled. It was too cursed difficult to speak in this cursed fog. Easier, far easier, to let the others have their say till, God willing, they finally ran out of words.

The merchants, now . . .

The merchants wouldn't voluntarily hand over their gold to a new king with some glorious project that didn't really concern them. Of course, Egbert mused, it would be easy enough to force them into obedience; all he had to do was raise a few pertinent taxes.

Now? With the city and land so prosperous? Oh, good thinking. Hurt the merchants, hurt the economy, and you hurt your people's trust in you. Hurt, that trust and you're just asking for treason to spring up at home while you're off in the field.

God. Here they went again. Two other ealdormen had started arguing as hotly as two small boys. Egbert recognized them after a moment: Cerdric and Aethelred. Members of rival families, families that had been at each others' throats for far longer than either ealdorman had been alive.

Fortunate that I don't allow weapons in here. Though it might stop this farce if one of them took the other's head off.

Aethelred was shouting something about King Cenwulf of Mercia, and Cerdric was shouting right back: He's weak! He's strong! He's not as strong as Offa! He's invaded Kent!

And why, they're both saying without words, haven't I done anything about that last? Kent is, if you reinterpret the law just a convenient bit, part of my territory.

Bah, didn't they see? The invasion of Kent had pretty much decimated Cenwulf's forces, and the man's less than successful forays into stubborn, savage Cymru in imitation of the late Offa weren't helping. The more the Mercian king fought, the more he weakened himself and his land.

And the more time he gives us to prepare.

That was what he should be saying. He should be silencing these idiots. Making himself perfectly, regally clear. Egbert rubbed a hand across a sweaty forehead. If only it wasn't so cursedly warm in here, so warm and—and vague. He could think the words clearly enough, but he just couldn't say them . . . the words just wouldn't leave his mind. . . .

All he could do, Egbert realized, was wait and wait and wait for this seemingly endless ordeal to be done.

He should have expected this, Osmod thought in the few brief moments when he dared take his concentration from the king, from the Witan. Here was the meeting that would finally push his plans forward into action—

Ha, yes. If only. If only. The Witan was hardly one united organism with one mind to be controlled. Osmod watched, half amused, half wildly frustrated, as the debate there in the Great Hall grew more and more frenzied without any result. Too many different folk, too many personal grudges and ambitions, curse them all. They'd been going at it all day now under the lash of his will with barely a break yet, with not a thing resolved. Bah, listen to that storm of eager, angry voices, look at all those fierce, florid faces.

Like a gang of squabbling small boys, the lot of them.

And when oh when was it going to dawn on the idiots, despite his careful proddings, that they were arguing over petty details?

That they were all basically on the same side?

The side of war.

It had dawned on their king some time ago. He was sitting slouched, fingers steepled and a sardonic glint in his eyes, evidently rather enjoying watching the others make fools of themselves. For the moment. Egbert was a patient man—in the way, Osmod mused, that a predator is patient—but there was a limit to even regal forbearance. A fortunate thing, then, that Egbert had not the faintest hint that his will was not
quite
his own.

As long as I don't push too hard, make myself too obvious. After all, he does, deep within, want this war-as-excuse-for-expansion as much as any other.
Of course, such "
this is mine just because I want it
"
inner desires rarely reached the surface; civilized men rarely yielded to those primitive, deeply rooted impulses.
But with my . . . help, Egbert has no choice, now, does he? Primitive desire for conquest and sophisticated wish for glory—we may be here all night, but by all the powers of Darkness, we'll leave here with an attack on Mercia all planned and ready.

All night.

No, he mustn't let his thoughts wander like this! Osmod fought to keep the properly concerned, ever-so-worried expression on his face, fought as well to hide his real emotions—

The primary one of which was rapidly growing into full-blown worry. He had depleted so much of his Power in getting this far, in swaying so many minds, and what was left was definitely starting to slide away, bit by tormenting bit. Well and good to interject soothing or sarcastic comments where he thought they'd be most effective, but without the reinforcement of magic behind them, they would quickly become nothing more than suggestions. He must, Osmod knew, take another victim, and soon.

And
yes,
the Darkness burned that in his mind as clearly as a shout,
blood and Power, yes,
giving him a sudden jarring awareness of
Prince Ardagh,
of
Prince Ardagh here, at the gate, Prince Ardagh—

Osmod nearly snarled.
Just what do You want me to do about it? I can't take my attention from here— You
want
the war, don't You? I can't deal with this and the prince both!

Ach, but he'd already taken his attention from Egbert for an instant too long—or, Osmod thought bitterly, had it torn away—and now the king was surging to his feet, on his face the look of a truly desperate man. "I'm all right," Egbert snapped in response to the sudden storm of worried voices. "Go on. Work this out among you. When you reach a conclusion, then, and only then, let me know."

Damnation.

But there was nothing Osmod could do but bow with the others and watch his king leave the hall. One did
not
find fault with the Lords of Darkness. And at least there was still the Witan on which to work.

For as long as he could. For as long as his Power held out.

Leofrun, royal mistress—though that title meant little to her (except that it meant she could cuddle with Egbert, yes, yes, be nice and warm and play those games that sent funny little fires racing all inside her), Leofrun stood before the Great Hall, stood stubborn as a wooden image to the dismay of her ladies. They were always trying to get her to do what they wanted. None of them knew what mattered, what really, really mattered.

Leofrun whimpered, looking about at the fading day.
This
was what mattered. Soon the sun would be gone. "Night," she whispered. "Night."

"Yes, dear," one of the women agreed. "That's right. Night follows day, you know that. And day follows night."

Leofrun glared at her. They didn't understand; they never understood. Leofrun knew that she wasn't very clever, but at least
she
knew what the night meant:

Dark things. Dark, dark, dark. She wasn't sure exactly what kind of things there were. The priests tried to tell her about devils. They told her that if she didn't act the right way, the devils would carry her off to . . . Leofrun frowned, trying to remember what they always said . . . to "eternal damnation." She wasn't sure what that meant, except that it wouldn't be happy at all. She wasn't sure exactly what acting the right way meant, but Leofrun practiced looking over her shoulder now just to be sure no devils were sneaking up on her.

The devils that were going to carry off Osmod. They were, they were! They would carry him off and—and—

Unless Osmod was a devil, too? Leofrun stared at the Great Hall in sudden new horror. Maybe he
was
a devil! Yes, oh yes, maybe he was! He was just as bad as the ones with horns even though he didn't have any horns, no, or—or cloven hoofs, either! Osmod was a devil, and no one knew, no one but she, and no one would listen to her. Leofrun shivered, and one of the women "tsked" and draped a cloak about her shoulders and pinned it fast.

"Won't you come inside, dear? It's growing late."

Leofrun glared at her just as she had at the others. "No!"

Didn't they understand
anything?
She had to watch. Osmod was in that hall. She had to watch when he came out, because when he came out, he'd want to kill someone. No one else was going to help her because no one else believed her. They all thought she was stupid. Well, maybe she wasn't as smart as some, but that didn't mean she was
that
stupid! The women all thought themselves so smart, but she could get away from them any time she wanted.

She stiffened with a wordless little cry. Egbert! Egbert was rushing out of the Great Hall, trailed by his guards. And he looked so very unhappy! Before the ladies could stop her, Leofrun raced to his side, trying to throw her arms around him. "Egbert!"

He glanced sharply down at her as though startled to see her there. "Leofrun. You shouldn't—" He stopped, changed that to a glare at the ladies and an angry, "You shouldn't let her—"

"No," Leofrun whimpered. "Not anger. Don't be angry."

For a moment, his arm went about her, hugging her to him, for a moment Leofrun was happy and safe and warm. But then Egbert released her with a sigh. "I'm not angry at you. I'm just . . . tired, Leofrun. Just tired, that's all."

Leofrun stared past him at the Great Hall, the hall that was still blazing with light and noise. "Osmod," she whispered. That was who had made Egbert tired. Osmod had hurt Egbert. "Osmod."

This time Egbert's sigh did sound angry. "Don't start that nonsense again, Leofrun." His hand closed on her shoulder, not quite gently.

But Leofrun squirmed free, still staring at the hall. Osmod had hurt Egbert. The devil had hurt Egbert. "No," she murmured, "no."

Egbert must have thought she was agreeing with him. "Good," he said, absently ruffling her hair, and walked on.

But Leofrun stood where she was, "No," she repeated softly. It would not happen again. The priests were full of stories about people who had done brave things, even died, for the sake of goodness. And she—no matter what she had to do, Leofrun knew that she was not going to let the devil Osmod hurt anyone ever again.

Ardagh straightened in the saddle of this latest in the succession of "borrowed" horses. Over him towered Uintacaester's ancient walls. In the deepening twilight, they were an ominous grey, like some great crouching beast waiting for its prey.

Ae, what poetic nonsense!
Far more important than foolish fancies was the very real psychic fog he sensed swirling about the city. And Ardagh felt a chill settle over him.
I wasn't imagining it, was I? I wasn't imagining that Darkness was watching every time I tried the runes. Foolish me. Here I thought I'd merely be fighting Osmod.