He turned, glimpsed the great oak by his pavilion. The trunk of the great oak snapped...and half of the tree crashed through the roof of his Dedicates' wagon.
In that moment, Raj Ahten felt a dozen small deaths, the dizzying breathlessness that accompanied the loss of virtue.
The world slowed terrifyingly. For long years, Raj Ahten had brought his wagon with him. In it he bore Dervin Feyl, a man who had bequeathed Raj Ahten an endowment of metabolism many years back, had become a vector.
Dervin had just died, along with the Dedicate who vectored glamour to Raj Ahten, and several other minor men.
Raj Ahten marveled at his sudden sluggishness. Did my Voice smite the tree, or does Earth seek to punish me? he wondered.
Did the earth strike at me? He had no way to answer the question. Yet it mattered a great deal. The wizard Binnesman had cursed him, seemingly with no effect. Had the wizard's curse weakened that tree?
Or had his own Voice been his downfall?
Such a small blow. Yet so profoundly effective.
Raj Ahten wondered, but at that moment, it no longer mattered. Raj Ahten, despite his victory at Longmont, stood defeated. Though he had the wit and grace and brawn of thousands, without his speed he'd become a "warrior of unfortunate proportion." Even a common soldier, some boy without endowments, might be able to slaughter him.
If Gaborn came against him with the speed of even five men and endowments of stamina from another five, Raj Ahten could not prevail against him.
Raj Ahten cast his eyes about in desperation. His flameweavers had burned themselves out. His forcibles were gone. The salamanders had returned to the netherworld, and would not be summoned easily for a long while. His arcane explosive powders were all used up.
I came to destroy Orden and Sylvarresta, he thought, and that much I've accomplished. But in doing this, I've created a greater enemy.
It was time to flee Longmont, flee Heredon and all the Kingdoms of Rofehavan while he reconsidered his tactics. At this moment, despite whatever other victories his men might win here in the North, he could feel the Kingdoms of Rofehavan all slipping from his grasp.
Raj Ahten had his endowments, thousands upon thousands of them. But his mines were petering out, and his forcibles were in the hands of his enemy. Whatever gifts he had now, the young king might soon match.
Raj Ahten felt utterly dismayed.
The snow was blowing. The first snow Raj Ahten would see this winter. In a few weeks, the passes in the mountains would be blocked.
He could continue this contest later, he reasoned. Shocked. He dreaded the thought of waiting until spring.
He shouted orders for his men to begin the retreat, leaving no time to loot the castle.
He stood for several long minutes as his soldiers scrambled to obey, pulling down pavilions, harnessing the horses, loading wagons.
The Frowth giants emerged from the castle, bearing corpses of defenders in their paws to eat on the way home. Along the western hills, wolves howled mournfully, as if in loss at the sight of Longmont in ruins.
Raj Ahten's counselor, Feykaald, shouted in a high voice, "Move, you sluggards! Leave the dead! You, there--help load those wagons!"
The snow thickened. In moments it piled two inches deep at Raj Ahten's feet. He only stood, gazing at Castle Longmont. He wondered how he had failed here, considered how Jureem had betrayed him to King Orden.
When he finished musing, Castle Longmont lay dead. No fires burned in it, no men cried out in pain.
Cedrick Tempest wandered before the gates, the lone soldier holding his bleeding ear, cursing and muttering under his breath. Perhaps his mind had gone.
Raj Ahten took a horse, considered again how the wizard Binnesman had stolen his, and rode over the hills.
By the time Gaborn reached Longmont, the land lay empty of troops, the ruins of the castle covered beneath a layer of new-fallen snow.
Most of Gaborn's army was still far behind. Only some fifty knights rode mounts swift enough to keep up. In the woods to the west, wolves howled forlornly, their voices rising and falling in eerie cadences.
Binnesman had ridden ahead, rummaged near the ruins of the Dedicates' Keep, searching among the rubble.
Everywhere lay carnage and destruction--walls and towers of Longmont in ruin, the soldiers of Orden crumpled under stone. Only a dozen or so of Raj Ahten's troops lay dead outside the castle, riddled with arrows.
Raj Ahten had carried off a great victory here, a mind-numbing victory, almost unparalleled in any chronicle Gaborn had ever read. For the past hour, Gaborn had tried to deny his feelings, his suspicion that his father had died. Now he feared the worst.
Only one warrior stood alive on the battleground, a captain who wore the colors of Longmont.
Gaborn rode up to him. The soldier's face was pale, his eyes full of horror. Blood dribbled under his helmet from his right ear and had crusted in the dark hair of his sideburns.
"Captain Tempest," Gaborn asked, recalling the man's name from earlier in the day, "where is my father, King Orden?"
"Dead, mi-milord," the captain said, then sat down in the snow, his head hanging. "They're all dead."
Gaborn had expected it. Yet the news punched him. He put one hand over his belly, found himself breathing hard. I was no help, he thought. Everything I've done has been in vain.
He surveyed the damage, his shock and horror growing more profound. He'd never seen a castle so destroyed--not in a matter of hours.
"How is it that you survived?" Gaborn asked weakly.
The captain shook his head, as if searching for an answer. "Raj Ahten took some of us prisoners. He--killed the others. He left me alive, to bear witness."
"To what?" Gaborn asked.
Tempest pointed numbly at the towers. "His flameweavers struck first. They summoned creatures from the netherworld and hit the castle with spells that burned iron--and a fireball that burst in the air above the gates, tossing men about like sticks.
"But that was not the worst of it, for then Raj Ahten himself came and shattered the castle's foundations with the cry of his Voice. He killed hundreds more of us!
"I...my helm has thick leather pads, but I can't hear from my right ear, and my left is still ringing."
Gaborn stared at the castle, numb.
He'd imagined that Raj Ahten had brought some terrible engines to bear on those walls, or had his flameweavers conjure some unspeakable spell.
He'd seen that great mushroom of fire rise in the air. But he'd never imagined that the walls could crumble from a mere shout.
The soldiers behind him had spread out, were slowly riding over the battleground, to seek for signs of life among the ruins.
"Where is--where can I find my father?"
Tempest pointed up a trail. "He ran that way, toward Tor Loman, chasing Raj Ahten, just before the battle commenced."
Gaborn turned his horse, but Captain Tempest rushed forward, dropped to his knees. "Forgive me!" he cried.
"For what, surviving?" Gaborn asked. Gaborn himself felt the guilt of those who live, unaccountably, while all around them die. It was heavy on him now. "I not only forgive you, I commend you."
He let his horse trot over the snowfield to the sound of Tempest's sobbing and the howls of wolves.
The rings in his mail rang as the horse broke into a gallop, and Gaborn rode up a muddy trail. At first he could not be certain he headed in the right direction. Snow covered the trail, and he could discern no tracks.
But after half a mile, as the trail moved under the aspens, he saw signs in the mud and fallen leaves--the huge strides of men with enormous metabolism racing through the woods. Tracks ten steps across.
After that the trail was easy to follow. The path to Tor Loman had been well maintained, the brush cut away. It made for an easy, almost pleasant ride.
Along the path, Gaborn watched for sign of his father, but found none.
At last he reached the bare peak of Tor Loman, found the meadow with the Duke's old observatory at its top. The snow had fallen heavy here, stood three inches deep, and Gaborn found Raj Ahten's fine helm lying at the base of the observatory.
The helm itself was deeply embossed, with intricate silver designs like braided ropes or the braided fires a flameweaver pulled from heaven. These ran down the noseguard and over the eye slots. A single huge diamond fit between the eyes. Gaborn took it as a prize of war, tied its broken strap to his saddle, careful not to crush the white owl's wings on the helm.
As he tied it, he sniffed the cold air. The snow had cleansed the sky, carried away most of the scent, yet Gaborn could still discern the odor of his father's heavy samite cape, the oil he used to protect his armor. His father had been here. Might be nearby--alive and wounded, perhaps.
Gaborn climbed the observatory, gazed off into the distance. The snow had stopped falling ten minutes ago, so he could see fairly well, though with but two endowments of sight, he could not be called a far-seer. To the east, Iome and her people pushed across the heath, ten miles back. They had neared the Durkin Hills Road.
In the distance to the southwest, at Gaborn's limit of vision, Raj Ahten's troops retreated over the hills, the red and gold of their colors muted by distance.
He saw men stopping on their horses, gazing back toward him. Gaborn imagined that some far-seers watched him, wondering who now stood on the Eyes of Tor Loman. Perhaps even Raj Ahten himself watched.
Gaborn whispered, "I reject you, Raj Ahten. I will destroy you." Gaborn raised a fist in the sign of challenge. But if the men on the far hill made any gestures of their own, he could not see. They merely turned their mounts and galloped over the crest of the hill.
Even with an army, Gaborn realized, I couldn't catch Raj Ahten now.
Yet in his heart, Gaborn felt some relief. He loved this land, as his father had. They had wanted nothing more than to drive Raj Ahten from it, keep it beautiful and free. For a time, perhaps, they had succeeded.
But at what price?
Gaborn glanced down at his feet. The snow had fallen after Raj Ahten's descent. Yet the scent of both Gaborn's father and the Wolf Lord lingered here. The metallic tang of blood.
So, Gaborn surmised, Raj Ahten had come here, had seen the clouds of Gaborn's passage, the distant herds of cattle and soldiers mingled together, had fallen for the ruse.
That gave Gaborn some comfort. Raj Ahten could be fooled, could be beaten.
Gaborn circled the tower, tried to see down into the woods. He imagined his father and Raj Ahten struggling on the tower, until at last, perhaps, his father was thrown over.
He looked down, saw what he dreaded: at the base of the observatory, among the rocks, a hand thrust up, dead fingers clutching a palm full of snow.
Gaborn raced down the winding stairs, found his father, and pulled at the corpse, shaking it to clear the snow off.
What he saw broke his heart. For on his father's frozen face was a broad smile. Perhaps in death, some fleeting memory had made him smile. Or perhaps it was but a grimace of pain. Yet Gaborn imagined that his father smiled at him, as if to congratulate him for his victory.
Gaborn had already ridden ahead when Iome's glamour returned. Iome had no idea how Raj Ahten's vector had died, felt little relief at the woman's passing. Like Iome, the woman had been a mere tool in Raj Ahten's hand, one that was poorly used.
Yet Iome's beauty returned. She felt it as an easing of her heart, a return of her confidence. Like a flower blossoming.
Yet it was not the unnatural beauty she'd had since birth, not the borrowed glamour. The skin on her hands softened and lost their wrinkles. The blush of youth returned to her cheeks. For once in her life, for the first time, Iome was simply herself, without benefit of endowments.
It was enough. She wished that Gaborn could have been here to see, but he had ridden ahead.
Though messengers from Longmont had told Iome what to expect when she reached the castle, had said that Raj Ahten had destroyed it with a shout, nothing they said could have prepared her for the ruin.
She rode at the head of ten thousand people from out of Groverman and the villages round about. Many of the women had already turned back, heading for their own hearths, their own homes. Their work here was done.
But others followed Iome, particularly people who'd lived in Longmont, who had come to see what was left of their homes.
As they neared the ruined castle, saw the empty fields with wolves slinking about the hedgerows, many women and children began crying for what they'd lost.
They'd deserted their homes three days ago, but a few days of huddling under ragged shelters at Groverman had shown them just how difficult it would be to make do once the snows fell.
Certainly, most of them hoped to come home, to rebuild. But in hard times, with war approaching, Iome's people could not rebuild without some nearby fortification.
The castle was nearly ruined. Huge blocks of stone that had lain in place for twelve centuries now lay cracked and shattered.
Almost subconsciously, Iome began calculating what it would take to repair the fortress: five hundred stonemasons out of Eyremoth, for they were the best. Carters to drag the stones, Frowth giants hired out of Lonnock to place them. Men to dig moats. Lumberjacks to cut trees. Cooks and ironsmiths, with mortar, chisels, saws, awls, axes, and...the list went on and on.
But to what purpose? If Raj Ahten could simply shatter the castle with a shout?
She looked up on the hill, saw Gaborn kneeling in a patch of snow, in the field. Gaborn had laid his father's body out on the hill above the castle, beneath a great oak tree. A huge limb lay near them.
Gaborn had collected dozens of spears, and he ringed these about his father's corpse, creating a fence of sorts, to keep out the wolves.
In the tree above his father's corpse, he had hung his father's golden shield. He took his father's helm, laid it in the snow at his father's feet--a sign that his father had fallen in battle.