Springwar (35 page)

“She’s my twin,” Avall snapped. “There’s no way in the world she’d—”

“Probably not by choice,” Eellon agreed. “But there are more important things to learn now.” He exchanged glances with the King, as though conceding the floor to him.

Gynn—almost—glared at him. “First things first then, Krynneth. When did this occur?”

“Seven nights ago,” Krynneth replied. “I’ve been in the saddle ever since. I … I think they destroyed the hold, or it destroyed itself. But I know it was Barrax. It had been warm. He attacked us at night, when we weren’t looking, from a direction we didn’t expect.”

Tryffon of War was about to gnaw his lips off. He glanced around the room furiously, then spotted Myx. “Go find everyone from War you can, from subchief rank on up, and have them meet me here. Anyone from Lorvinn’s sept as well, if you can; they’ll want to know. By your leave, Majesty,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

The King snared a chair and sat down beside the weary
warrior. “And now? Know you anything since then? Surely we would’ve had word?”

“There may be word in my wake,” Krynneth retorted. “But I’ve done nothing but ride, through rain, snow—everything. I’ve killed three horses, two of which I stole.”

“And maybe yourself,” a healer grumbled, already fussing with potions by the window.

“It doesn’t matter. Not with everyone I cared about … gone.”

The King glanced at Tryffon. “Seven days. Men march more slowly than that, and the terrain’s rough down there. Still, he’d have reached Half Gorge in five, faster than that, if he forced his men. Tell me, Krynneth, those you fought: Did they look fresh or weary?”

Krynneth shook his head. “Most wore helms, Sire. I saw eyes, but that was all. They fought well, though; and their armor was polished, their clothes clean.”

“But Half Gorge—” Tyrill put in. “If they could reach there in five days, it—”

“May well have already fallen,” Gynn finished, rising. “But we should’ve had word! By signals, if nothing else.”

“He’s following spring north,” Krynneth offered. “With War-Hold fallen, they wouldn’t have expected attack. They’ve always been small and weak.”

The King looked at Tryffon again. “If you were Barrax, what would be your goals, and what would you do if you had just taken your enemy’s main line of defense?”

“My goal would be Tir-Eron, because that’s where political and administrative power is concentrated. What I would do? I’d march there as fast as I could, with enough forces at my back to subdue any resistance I met along the way. In the case of Half Gorge, I’d send a portion of my troops around it in secret, and rely on the rest to attack—from the south, as expected. If they won, I’d leave as many as necessary to occupy the place and order the rest onward—in effect two armies half a day apart, to confound my enemy’s expectations.”

“And if they couldn’t quell Half Gorge?”

“They would, eventually. The northern force could
simply double back, and take it by stealth. Half Gorge has many approaches, unlike this. Or South.”

Gynn had started pacing. “And so … would they have reached South Gorge by now?”

Tryffon’s face clouded. “Not yet—I’d say seven days, minimum, depending on how long they stayed in Half Gorge. Small as they are, they’d be bound to put up a fight, and they’d be a natural place to resupply.”

“And it would take us how long to get any useful force there?”

Tryffon’s eyes were cold as stone. “Seven days, at a guess.”

The King slapped the wall with both hands. “Then we’ve no time at all.”

He raised a brow at the lone Priest in attendance. “What can you tell me about the weather?”

The Priest regarded him calmly. “The snow melts, and the air warms. The Ri that feeds South Gorge always floods the plain above it in the spring, while half the country still freezes. That should keep Barrax at bay for days, unless he’s fool enough to dare the mountains. But for you to muster an army …”

“And a third of your forces may already be taken or under attack,” Tryffon noted. “We can send word to the northern gorges to meet us, but it would take an eighth to get them here, never mind to South Gorge.”

“Which means that Eron Gorge will have to hold them,” Eellon concluded. He looked at Tryffon.
“Can
we hold them? Until help arrives?”

Tryffon scowled thoughtfully. “In this place? If we’re lucky, it won’t come to that. If you mean our forces, there are several likely places between here and South Gorge—”

Avall had been listening quietly, still stunned from the triple shock of sharing Strynn’s labor, gaining word of his sister’s possible defection, and now a war none of them had expected. Which reminded him of yet another problem.

“Eddyn,” he observed flatly, “has the gem.”

Tyrill rounded on him. “What of it?”

“He’s not here. Tyrill, believe me when I tell you that
thing is very powerful indeed. It is
not
something you want in the hands of enemies.”

“Enough!” the King snapped. “This is the wrong place for such discussions. We will meet in half a hand in the lesser council chamber: all Clan-and Craft-Chiefs, and the sub-chiefs of War, and anyone who knows anything about this gem. Avall, I know you’re worn-out, but you come, too. We have to have your knowledge.”

“Why?” Tyrill demanded.

“Because,” Avall told her tersely, “there are at least two more of those gems—if they can be delivered in time.”

“If,” Gynn echoed grimly. And marched out, with no trace of a limp in sight.

E
lv studied the red-hot horseshoe she’d been shaping steadily for the last half hand—under Eddyn’s practiced and fartoo-critical eye. Sweat gleamed on her forehead, plastering her hair to her skull where it escaped the rag she’d tied around it. Stripped to a sleeveless undertunic in the crisp Near-Spring air, her arms showed muscles that had barely existed when they’d met. Eddyn grinned at her as she plunged the glowing iron into a bucket of snowmelt to one side of the small forge that had survived the fire.

“Will I ever make a smith, do you think?” she inquired, with a grin of her own.

Eddyn levered himself up with easy grace from where he’d been lolling against a second anvil, moving to stand close enough to feel the warmth of her body—a warmth that had nothing to do with the fire and a great deal to do with her being an attractive woman, with spring coming on. As he passed the door, he glimpsed Toz in the courtyard putting his horse through its paces. Ole was in the main hold, prowling through what was left of the Lore hall, which had come to be an obsession.

Nor was the shoeing a mere exercise in craft. It was a necessary adjunct to the plans they’d been making all winter: to continue north to Tir-Eron. All save Eddyn. He still hadn’t revealed his true name, and still suspected he didn’t have the
right form of theirs. But sometimes it was better not to know about people, given that the ones who’d given him most grief in past years had been ones he’d known all his life.

All except Rrath, who was a special case entirely.

He wondered how the little Priest fared. He’d survived abandonment in the snow, so Gynn had said. But who’d found him first? Gynn’s minions, which was to say Eellon’s, or Priest-Clan’s? More than once he regretted that he’d chosen not to tell the High King what he knew about the ghost priests. Had he availed himself of those sketchy opportunities, perhaps he’d be back in Tir-Eron, putting the final polish on the royal shield.

But would that life be better than this?

Elv tested her workmanship with a finger, then snared the prototype from beside the forge and compared the two. “Close enough,” Eddyn chuckled, reaching casually around her.

She tensed, though they’d been playing Lovers’ Tease for over an eighth now—far too long, by Eddyn’s reckoning. But every time he got … eager, she warned him of the greater potency of Eronese men and the greater fertility of Ixtian women. “I have no clan,” she told him. “And as I understand it, you couldn’t claim any child unless you wed me—and since you’re unclanned, that would do you no good. Assuming,” she added archly, “that you really
are
unclanned.”

Eddyn flinched, which he knew at once was the wrong thing to have done. “I thought we’d settled that.”

Elv rounded on him, abruptly all warrior. “Two eighths is long enough to live with lies.”

“I haven’t lied,” he retorted. “I simply haven’t told all the truth. There’s a major difference—as I’m sure
you and
your siblings know.”

“I know that I find it nearly impossible to believe that you would willfully destroy a masterwork—which is what you claim got you exiled. But that doesn’t fit with what Ole’s read about Eronese law in your own Lore hall. According to her, you have to be very High Clan indeed, to have been unclanned at all. Even so, it would require action of the King
and Council of Chiefs, who only consider unclannings twice a year—at Sundeath and Sunbirth. You therefore couldn’t have been freshly unclanned when we met—it was almost two eighths since the last appropriate Council met. And don’t tell me it was a special session, either. You’re not important enough to warrant that.”

“I’m the best smith of my generation,” Eddyn huffed.

“That’s interesting, since word at War-Hold was that the best was a fellow from your same clan named, what was it? Avall?”

“Not my sept,” Eddyn spat recklessly. “That makes an enormous difference.”

A brow went up. “You knew him?”

“I’ve … met him.”

“Was he as good as they say?”

“By most standards.”

“And by yours?”

“He was a goldsmith. I was a weaponwright. Is a bowman better than a swordsman?”

“The books say you’re required to be competent at all branches of your crafts.”

Eddyn fished in the scrap pile for another bar of iron. “Your sister reads too much.”

Silence. Eddyn saw Elv go tense and wary. “I don’t trust this,” she murmured.

“What?”

She gestured around the forge. “Everything. The fact that we’ve no one around but ourselves. And the woods. And the snow and the sky and the silence. This is the longest I’ve gone without seeing other people. It’s not how people are meant to live.”

“It’s not how you’ll live, when you get to Tir-Eron. Once you find your clan—”

“If they’ll have us. From what you’ve said, we’re more likely to find welcome at War-Hold or Lore.”

“Maybe,” Eddyn agreed. “But that’s for your kin—your real kin—to arrange.”

Elv put down her hammer and wiped her hands. “That’s not all I distrust.”

Eddyn didn’t reply. Something about her expression indicated that it was for her to make the next comment. She took a deep breath, suddenly shy. “I …” She bit her lip. “I seem to have … I think maybe I’ve … fallen in love with you.”

“There are worse things you could tell me,” Eddyn replied carefully.

Elv scowled helplessly. “But I don’t trust my feelings. I don’t know if it’s you, or the fact that you’re different and exotic—I saw that happen back at War-Hold. Or if it’s what you represent.”

“And what would that be? Not security, I expect.”

She shook her head. “Wildness, maybe. A lack of respect for rules—the same as Ole, Toz, and I have. We’re all outsiders, in a sense.”

Eddyn nodded, wondering in which of many directions this was leading.

She gnawed her lip. “But I … I’ve reached a point where I can’t decide what I want to do about it, and can’t make any decision until I have more information. And for that … we need to dispense with these secrets. I need to know more about you than the fact that you have no father, and have managed to destroy a masterwork. I know some of the whats, but I need to know the whys.”

“You wouldn’t like me.”

“I’d prefer to have the choice.”

“What do the others think about me?”

“You’re trying to change the subject!”

“I’d still like to know.”

Another deep breath. “Toz likes you well enough because he can learn things from you and because you help balance things—he’s always had at least one male friend around, and he misses them. He doesn’t like the secrets, either, but he understands the rationale.”

“And Ole?”

“You’re a means to an end. She’s neither encouraged nor discouraged my … interest in you. But I will say this. No matter what happens between the two of us, you had better never hurt her—or my brother. I—”

She paused, glanced around, abruptly all nerves and
alertness. Eddyn stood as quickly. They exchanged troubled looks as they dashed to the door. Toz had heard it, too—the sound of hoofbeats on the road below the hold.

Coming from the south.

“A trek?” Elv ventured.

Eddyn shook his head. “Unlikely. They move slowly, and we’re off the main road from War-Hold.”

Elv reached for the sword she always kept close at hand: a nice Eronese blade from a cache in the hold’s armory, further refined and balanced by Eddyn’s expert crafting. Her siblings had matching weapons. They’d be the envy of the Ixtian army—if they ever saw the Ixtian army again.