There was the muffled chink of a moneybag and then the
taulath
was gone as if he had never been—like a shadow banished by sunlight. Aldric breathed a little more easily, but his heart did not begin to slow down until Dewan and the king had also left the hall. When they did his mouth stretched into something which did not really succeed in being even the wryest of smiles, and he became uncomfortably aware of the light film of sweat which covered his skin.
Today was a day for shocks, it seemed. Lord Santon studied Dunrath from his position on the ridge. For an hour now the uppermost part of the donjon had been veiled by a strange azure mist. There was a dull, sonorous humming in the air, like the sound made by a swarm of bees but deeper, as much felt through the ground a heard in the air. Santon did not like it. Trying to push the mystery from his mind until he was more able to give an answer to it, he opened a chart and tried to concentrate on the lists of figures set out neatly beneath each diagram.
He had barely begun to read when someone shouted.
Endwar-arluth Santon wasted no time in idle questions— he knew instinctively where to look. Dunrath’s citadel was now wholly shrouded in a globe of coiling blue vapour lit from within by a pale glow. Now and then streaks of brilliant white light spat like shooting-stars from the cloud, dragging long bright tails through the air behind them as they curved down to splash in frosty extinction on the ground before the fortress. The dull hum became more intense, a harsh drone which set the teeth on edge and ground into men’s skulls like a rusty drill-bit. It became steadily colder.
Santon stared at his own breath drifting smokily in front of him and then at the perimeter wall of Dunrath’s outermost defensive ring. The reddish stone was inches deep in sparkling white crystals, as if snow had fallen and mingled with powdered diamonds as it fell. He swore in disbelief and stooped to lift his helmet, then yelped, swore again more viciously and sucked at fingertips which had left their skin on the icy metal. There were four little blots of tissue on the helmet’s neck-guard and even as Endwar looked at them they became hard and bluish-white, like the flesh of a man with, frostbite.
The entire fortress was lost now in a blinding, frigid light, and long filaments of bitterly cold energy came whispering through the ranks of his army. “Sound the retreat!” snarled Santon, trying to smother the fear in his voice with an overlay of anger. The nearest trumpeter set his instrument to his lips, then released his breath not in the ordered signal but in a cry of pain as the bronze mouthpiece froze against him. Blood trickled from both lips after he finally wrenched the thing away, ran down his chin but, instead of dripping there, it congealed in crackling cherry-red icicles.
The orderly regimental blocks bulged, heaved and broke as the men in those formations began to run, screaming as they flung away shields, helmets and weapons which had become too painfully cold to touch. Their cries mingled with the wind which rose from a sullen moan through a howl to a shrieking gale, tearing flags from their poles in long shreds of fabric; pavilions and bivouac tents in tatters from the ground and breath from the lungs of men too stabbed by the gelid spears of a blast from between the stars to fight against it.
When he looked down at his armour to find it cased in white rime, and at the faces of his generals made old by frost lying thick on beards and brows, Endwar Clan-Lord Santon knew himself to have been defeated without a blow being struck. Then, with shocking suddenness, the gale died in mid-howl. As one man the officers on the ridge looked towards Dunrath. Some swore. Others prayed. At least one that Santon could see fumbled his
tsepan
from his belt with his hand leaving much of its skin on the weapon’s scabbard, and in a fit of despair or impotent rage stabbed himself through the great vessels of the throat. Though his blood spurted steaming from the wound, it had frozen before it could splash on the ground and fell instead as crystals, like rubies crushed in a mortar.
Santon sympathised with the man: at least his death had been an honourable one and not of some wizard’s choosing. He was only surprised that the sight of the fortress had not broken other men’s minds or driven them to suicide.
Shimmering patterns of force crawled over the massive structure, making it seem imbued with some ghastly form of life. Crystalline rings of energy pulsed heavily above the donjon, stacked like a child’s quoits, their shifting, brilliant colours impossible to watch but impossible to ignore, the thick droning pouring from them in waves of raw atonal noise. They hung there, brooding, vast, ominously waiting.
For what… ?
Aldric paused briefly outside the council chamber to get his breath back while the two guards flanking the double door watched him with tolerant sympathy. “Not to worry,
arluthan
,” said one, trying to combine respect with friendliness, “
mathern-eir
Rynert had not really called the conference to order before he was called away. Nobody will notice you being just a little late.”
“Is it war, sir, do you think?” asked the other cautiously. Aldric grinned crookedly at the soldier, who stiffened to attention at being directly noticed.
“If I hadn’t been late,” he observed drily, “I would probably know myself.”
The first sentry smiled at his companion’s discomfiture, then saluted and opened the door for Aldric. The chamber inside was laid out like most Alban meeting-halls: a row of low chairs along the farthest wall for any high-clan
kailinin-eir
who might be present, a more imposing seat set at right-angles for the king—something always done whether or not the monarch was there— and lesser stools—little more than elevated cushions— set in lines for everyone else. As an
eijo
, Aldric expected to sit on one of these and had in fact taken his place when a retainer in the king’s colours ushered him to one of the high-clan chairs. His surprise was made complete when everyone, most of the military and political figureheads in Alba, gave him a low, formal obeisance as they would to any other high-clan
arluth
.
To hide his slight embarrassment, Aldric took exaggerated care over setting Isileth Widowmaker on her stand to the left of his seat, once a retainer had brought one appropriate to the formal, near-vertical mounting of ceremonial
taikenin
, also a small padded mat for the young man’s helmet. He was not made any more comfortable by the realisation that he was the only person present not carrying a
taipan
, and that with his short hair and Widowmaker rearing like a striking snake near his shoulder he was the object of scrutiny by everyone in the room.
Then the doors were flung wide open and King Rynert came in, flanked by soldiers and preceded by ar Koren-tin with his scabbarded sword held free of his belt in one hand, ready for instant defence of his lord. The Vreijek took up position at the right of Rynert’s high seat and grounded his blade with a single precise clank. As if at this signal, the room was filled with a metallic susurration as every man present made First Obeisance. Rynert bowed from the waist in acknowledgment and sat down, waited for the warriors to resume their places and then deliberately smiled to signal an end to extreme formality.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “I have just received two communications of great interest to us all. First—” he held out one hand and Dewan set a slip of paper in it, “—news from abroad. Two days ago, in the Pleasure Palace at Kalitzim. Emperor Droek joined his far from illustrious ancestors.”
Nobody actually, cheered—that would have been gravely impolite—but a distinct ripple of shock, relief and pleasure ran through the chamber. Everyone knew what Droek’s death meant even before Rynert went on to explain.
“Though I have no confirmation here,” the king continued when his audience had settled themselves, “I feel it is safe to assume that we no longer need concern ourselves with possible Imperial interference in the current crisis. Warlord Etzel, General Goth and Prince Ioen have enough problems of their own, I very much hope.” There was a little burst of laughter at that. “It seems he was found dead in bed—whose bed, is not made clear.” More laughter, the mirth of men suddenly freed from the threat of full-scale war. One man, however, did not laugh.
Aldric was remembering a black-clad
taulath
neither long ago nor far away, and the sound of money changing hands. Something twisted inside him like a knife and he found it very hard to keep contempt from his face when he looked at Rynert the King.
“My second communication is more local,” Rynert went on. “Lord Santon has taken six thousand men north and this”—another fragile strip was put into his outstretched hand—”carried by a pigeon which arrived less than an hour ago, confirms that the fortress of Dun-rath is now invested and under siege. I intend to—”
Rynert’s intention went unheard, for at that moment a tall, lean figure rose from the rearmost row of the low-clan seats and strode forward. Several warriors sprang to their feet, snatching up shortswords to defend the king, and Dewan’s long, heavy sword came out of its scabbard with a long, sinister hiss. Aldric too was on his feet, Widowmaker loose in her sheath just in case, but there was no real need.
Gemmel had the sense to stop well out of danger. He regarded the king with cold emerald eyes and then sketched a bow which was the merest token of respect and verged very close on the insolent. Rynert glared at him, ignoring the old man’s lack of manners out of consideration for his age but not through any fear of his powers. Rynert of Alba was not the strongest of men in body, but he was afraid of nothing he had yet met in his life.
“You had best intend, king,” said Gemmel quietly, “to have a funeral service said for those six thousand men. They will be dead before the sun sets tonight.”
In the absolute silence which followed his words, the click as Aldric sheathed his
taiken
was deafeningly loud. It was a measure of the enchanter’s imposing presence that not one eye turned from him to look towards the source of the sound.
“What do you mean,
Gemmel-an
Errekren?” Rynert demanded.
“I mean, king, that Lord Santon has gone up against an enemy from whom he has no protection.” Gemmel slapped the Dragonwand angrily. “I would not have put Aldric-ain Talvalin to the trouble and risk of fetching me this talisman if it hadn’t been of vital importance. Kalarr cu Ruruc, king, is more powerful than you can possibly imagine—and he has a grudge against you, against every man here, against the whole of Alba, which is five hundred years old. Never think that during that time he has learnt mercy or forgiveness.”
“What, then, should we do,
pestreyr-an
?” asked old Lord Dacurre.
“March north at once. This time I—and Ykraith the Dragonwand—will be with you, to turn aside any spells the sorcerers in Dunrath might hurl.”
“Can you do nothing for Endwar Santon? He is the husband of my second daughter…”
“Lord Dacurre, spells are limited by distance, just like everything else. With my power channelled through it, Ykraith can form a shielding dome perhaps a mile across, but that will decrease as I tire—and I will. Before then I hope your soldiers will have done something useful. But as for Lord Santon—I very much fear that he and all his men are beyond my or indeed any aid.”
The sky above Dunrath was alive with swirling patterns of power which formed and broke endlessly like visions from a drug-dream given shape and substance. There was no wind and the collective breaths of men and horses formed a fog above and around them, muting outlines but not the eldritch colours of Kalarr cu Ru-ruc’s sorcery.
Then the waiting ended.
The rings of energy held in check for half an hour above the citadel contracted once and then exploded outwards, fragmenting into needles of blazing white light which slashed through battle armour as if the metal scales were so much sodden paper, punching men to the ground with the shock of their impact or striking them dead on their feet. One such bolt sighed over Santon’s shoulder and struck his trumpeter full in the chest, burst into a flare of splinters with a brittle cracking noise and enveloped the young man in a cloud of misty pale-blue radiance. The warrior gasped, spun half round on sagging knees and fell on to his face.
Santon leaned down to turn over the already rigid body and gasped in horror as three of the fingers snapped off in his hand. The boy’s once-handsome face was now that of a corpse six weeks dead: leathery skin the colour of lead was stretched tightly over his bones, leaving his nose shrivelled into suppurating pits. His lips were drawn back clear of gums where the teeth, cased in frozen saliva, gaped in a rictus of terminal agony, and though his eyes had shrunk into their sockets they still held an expression of utter disbelief.
Death had been quick—but it had obviously been neither clean nor painless.
As if in a snowstorm, the air was full of streaks of white as the darts of sorcerous power went scything through Lord Santon’s host, reaping men like ripe corn. Some errant thought in the
arluth’s
mind insisted that all this was wrong, that the slaughter of a legion should be noisier, more indicative of effort and not this near-silent erasure as if a scholar were cancelling out rough diagrams on a slate. But there was only the thin, protracted hissing as the bright streaks of energy slid through the air and the intermittent crackle as they struck home.
Quite suddenly it was over.
Dunrath was once more blue-grey stone, without any trace of alien lights or colours and only the flapping scarlet banners to indicate that the Talvalins were not in possession of their ancestral hold. The drifts of hoarfrost had vanished from its walls and a gentle breeze had scoured away the skeins of mist.
Endwar Santon’s army had likewise ceased to exist. Instead there were twisted, discoloured corpses scattered over the ground as far as the eye could see. There, in a pair of dense wedges, lay the two thousand regular troops who had died in their places to a man. Straggled further away were men who had broken near the end, and almost out of sight lay the levied vassals who had been the first to run. There were perhaps a hundred men left alive out of the six thousand—and one of them was Santon.