The Ships of Merior (12 page)

Their mounts were a matched set of bays in gold-beaded bridles; silken manes and tails, and caparisons of loomed wool fluttered and tugged in the wind. Annoyed to see his advance guard had lapsed in their duty to detain so small a party until the prince’s retinue cleared
the narrows, Lord Diegan flicked his boot with his crop and began to swear.

His imprecations trailed tamely into silence as he noticed the leader of the trio was mounted sidesaddle. A woman; a boy in his late teens and an elderly man her sole escort, she carried straight shoulders impertinently mantled in a tabard bearing Tysan’s royal blazon. The habit underneath was of flowing black silk, her grey hair, close-cropped as any campaign-bound mercenary’s. Slung at a practised angle beneath her belt lay a baldric and a gleaming sword.

‘Fiends plague us all,’ Diegan said crossly. ‘Who in Sithaer is she?’

Lysaer raised a hand to halt his column in the roadway. ‘The lady is Maenalle s’Gannley, chieftain of the clans of Camris, and if her records can be trusted for accuracy, empowered Steward of Tysan.’ Then, his lips curved in welcome, he spurred his gelding forward to greet her. ‘To judge by the hang of her blade, I’d hazard a guess it’s the living hides of Isaer’s merchants she hunts to furnish her wardrobe. I’ve been expecting her most of the morning.’

‘You know her? You’ve met her before this?’ Belatedly pressed to neaten his wind-crumpled mantle, Lord Diegan expelled a breathless laugh. ‘You do have a plan!’ Lost to confounded delight, he urged his horse into step.

Fifteen paces beyond his honour guard, Lysaer drew rein. Uncrowned beyond the majesty of his sunlit gold hair, he seized royal prerogative and spoke first. ‘Lady Maenalle, well met.’ His nod acknowledged the elder, whom he recalled as her seniormost peer, Lord Tashan; his friendly smile was for the youngster, now grown, who had attended him as pageboy through his past brief visit, before he had joined his gift of light with an enemy’s shadows to banish Desh-thiere’s mists from the sky. In brisk invitation, Lysaer addressed the lady chieftain
who had impressed him with her iron-willed fairness. ‘I go to raise Avenor out of ruin and hope you take joy in my tidings. Will you come, and bring your clans out of hiding to join in rebuilding the sovereign city of old Tysan?’

‘Alliance!’ Shocked to white-faced incredulity, Lord Diegan rounded upon the prince. ‘Are you mad? The realm’s mayors will never condone this!’

In the clan chief’s party, the grizzled aristocrat looked incensed. The young man seemed torn by a longing that drove his gaze sidewards and away; while the lady resplendent in Tysan’s state colours held her emotions so savagely in check that the sun-caught gold in her tabard flashed only once and fell still.

Lysaer inclined his head toward his outraged commander at arms. ‘Why waste the resource to retrain our new garrison to fight and manoeuvre like headhunters?’ He added in compelling reason, ‘The clansmen these delegates represent are masters at wilderness tactics already.’

Maenalle’s mount recoiled as her hand snapped taut on the rein. Amber-pale eyes centred in black like a hawk’s never left the features of the prince. Unlike the young grandson who wore his heart in plain view, and despite an unsettled royal bodyguard forestalled by the interposed body of their own liege from stringing short bows to take her down, she showed neither nerves nor defiance. ‘There has been no oath of fealty sworn here, nor any sanction for crown sovereignty given by the Fellowship of Seven.’ The fine-grained lines on her face stayed unsoftened. ‘How dare you speak of annexing my clans as a fighting force? We have no cause to support your wars.’

‘Do you not?’ The significance of her dress, with the colours of kingdom authority overlying the
caithdein’s
plain black, had not escaped Lysaer’s notice. Diminished a little by sadness, he crossed his hands on his saddle
pommel and sighed. ‘Let me pray, then, that you haven’t been beguiled into giving your loyalty elsewhere. That would grieve me. The clans of northern Rathain were all but wiped out for abetting the Master of Shadow.’

They defended their sanctioned prince,’ Maenalle corrected.

‘With children sent out to stab men in the back who were down and wounded,’ Lysaer shot back in bitter truth. ‘With sorceries and traps that slaughtered seven thousand souls in a day. The scion of Rathain is a trickster without morals, a sorcerer who preys on the innocent.’

‘That’s not how the Fellowship phrased it.’ Unflinching as swordsteel, Maenalle never glanced at her grandson, white-faced and stiff at her side. ‘Nor Jieret s’Valerient, Steiven’s heir, whose parents and sisters all died because of Etarra’s invasion.’

‘Who were these people but deluded allies?’ Lysaer’s attentiveness shifted to the boy. ‘If you doubt me, my Lady, look to your own, who is of the right age to be influenced.’

The young man raised his chin. Silent, near to weeping from betrayal, he touched his mount with his heels. Hooves cracked like a shout against silence as his horse obediently turned, presenting the straight back of its rider to the man who once promised just sovereignty.

‘Oh, but Maien was influenced,’ Maenalle said, as drawn now as the grandson at her side, who held his station, trembling and flushed. ‘But not by Arithon of Rathain. The boy’s loyalty was yours, and his love, until Desh-thiere’s curse wrecked the peace. Let us not confuse our issues and deny the sad facts of this feud. You seek to kill a man who is your half-brother, who has these last six years made no effort to outfit a war host against you. My clansmen cannot support your towns against him. Nor may we acknowledge false claim to Avenor. Our allegiance is to be held in reserve for the
one of your heirs that the Fellowship endorses to be crowned.’

A cat’s paw of breeze fluttered the sigil on Maenalle’s tabard. Fresh with ice-scent and evergreen, the air seemed too sharp to breathe. Locked separate by nothing beyond glacial cold and state etiquette, Lysaer and the lady steward regarded each other through a charged and measuring silence.

‘We’re to be enemies then?’ the prince said finally. ‘I’m sorry. That outcome isn’t what I’d have chosen. Let me be clear, for your clans’ sake: you are free at any time to change your mind.’ Magnanimously regal, Lysaer finished, ‘If that happens, send me word. And until then, may Ath show you mercy.’

Maenalle’s bold laugh sheared in flat echoes off the rocks. ‘The Creator need not concern himself. As a guest who swore oath at my table, you will be allowed to leave this place without being stripped of your horse and arms. The same can’t be said for your escort.’

‘That’s insolence.’ Prepared to add more, Lord Diegan lost the chance as the wizened old clansman snapped off a hand signal.

The rock abutments by the roadside sprouted movement, followed by a hissed thrum of sound. The draught team harnessed to the lead wagon abruptly slacked backward in their traces and collapsed with a whistling, surprised grunt of air. The drover at their lines took a moment to start shouting; then every man within earshot shared his anger, that each fallen horse lay spiked through its crest with the feathered shaft of a barbarian broadhead. Creased by flawless marksmanship, the animals died in quivering spasms that sent small pebbles clattering off the brink.

Erect and exposed in his saddle, provoked to lordly affront, Lysaer raised his hands.

He would engage his given gift of light, Diegan saw, dazzled by the lightning flare of power summoned at his
prince’s fingertips. One blanketing discharge, and the crannies that sheltered clan archers could be scorched by immolating fires. Prepared to seize the initiative, Lord Diegan drew his blade in a scream of steel. He called swift commands to his mercenaries. Prompt action could see Lady Maenalle and her party taken hostage; Erdane’s mayor would pay a rich bounty for their trial and execution.

But before the Prince of the West unleashed his annihilating burst, a second flight of arrows sang down. The barbarian volley chipped stone in splintering explosion under the belly of his mount. The powerful horse shied back on bunched haunches. Forced to nurse the reins and jab in spurs to curb a rear which threatened to toss him over the ledge, his royal rider lost concentration. The light-bolts he shaped dispersed in flat sheets that threw off a harmless burn of heat.

Above the scrambling hatter of hooves, Lady Maenalle voiced her ultimatum. Don’t think to try killing with your powers, Lysaer s’Ilessid. Tell your men who draw steel to stand down. Or a next round will fly and take every life in your company.’

‘Isn’t that what you planned?’ Diegan shouted, his rage torn through strangling mortification. Fighting the horse that shied under him, he snatched a glimpse down the switch-back. The trailing wagon in the column had wrenched crooked, its ox-team folded at the knees, as cleanly arrow-shot as the horses. The prince’s brash cavalcade was hemmed in from both ends and trapped at the mercy of barbarians. In a cry that rebounded through the winds above the valleys, Diegan cried, ‘What are you, woman, but the pawn of the Shadow Master, after all?’

‘I am sworn only to Tysan,’ Maenalle said, her calm like snap-frozen ice. ‘As appointed steward of the realm, my duty upholds the crown’s justice until such day as the Fellowship sorcerers declare a lawful successor.’

Lord Diegan whipped his horse straight. ‘Where’s the equity in robbery and murder?’

‘Don’t resist and no lives will be taken.’ Maenalle tipped her chin at the elder, who dismounted and passed his reins to the boy. Still vigorous despite his weathered looks, he took charge, while scouts in dust-grazed leathers deployed in fierce order to plunder. Their lady commander ended in brevity that rang like a sentence after trial: ‘Only weapons will be confiscated, and those goods offered as bribes by town mayors. Be assured, any gold that might be used to outfit an army for persecution of clan settlements will be turned to a worthier cause.’

Blade clenched in hand, Diegan dug in his spurs. His horse belted sidewards in a crab-step, frustrated and dragged offstride by a rough-looking girl with scarred hands who had managed to dart in and snatch its bridle. She jerked her head for him to dismount, while someone else with painful force laid hands on his person to disarm him.

Try a dagger in my ribs, you’ll die with me,’ Diegan gasped, struggling.

Don’t be a fool, Lord Commander,’ the prince said in glass-edged urgency. ‘I need you alive!’

The commander at arms cast a smoking glare at Maenalle. Unable to speak as the muscles in his jaw spasmed taut, barely able to breathe for the blow to his pride, he swung from his saddle. The last, grinding irony hurt the most, that the horses and the mules could not be manoeuvred past either one of the disabled wagons. Even had he wished to risk engagement, his men at arms could not bolt over sheer cliffs to find cover. While scouts poured like rats from the ridge top and divested him of jewels and purse, he hurled back insults in sweating, savage bursts. They ripped off his cloak and took the beautiful, chased belt knife bought to match his confiscated sword. Down-trail, the venomous oaths of the mercenaries marked the loss of weapons well proven in
battle. The more seasoned officers curbed combative tempers before excuse could be found for barbarian arrows to make bloody end to dissent.

Maenalle’s scouts were thorough, immune as wild goats to steep rocks and bad footing. At masterful speed, Lysaer’s disabled caravan and fighting company found itself weaponless and wagonless, then abandoned afoot in the rim walled gorges that led through the ford of the river Valendale. Bitterness replaced their purloined baggage. Although no man suffered harm, and Maenalle’s matchless discipline had prevented anything worse than wisecracks and whistles to befall Lady Talith, no one inclined toward forgiveness.

The wainloads of goods that had been cursed every league across Atainia now became cause for mortal affront.

Pacing at Lord Diegan’s side, his affianced lady astride the one mount that guest oath had held sacrosanct, Lysaer stayed withdrawn. In boots not fashioned for hiking, he blistered his feet with the rest on the wretched, frost-cracked stone. That he carried the only sword among two hundred seasoned fighting men seemed not to concern him unduly. While the shadows swallowed the cliff walls and the day eased to cobalt twilight, Diegan chafed at the silence. His worried glance at his prince was met and matched by a sidelong flicker of mirth.

In no mood for jokes, he spun with such force that a fir branch switched him in the cheek. ‘Fiends and Sithaer’s fury, your Grace, whatever are you thinking?’

‘You’ve got evergreen needles in your velvets,’ Lysaer observed. He broke into a shocking, sunny smile. ‘Do you miss your horse all that much?’

Avenor’s weaponless commander at arms stared, stupefied. His spurs jangled as he kicked at a moss-coated rock, then recouped sufficient dignity to glare at the prince to whom Etarra’s lord mayor had so high-handedly
awarded his service. When Lysaer absorbed his pique in brazen merriment, he frowned. ‘Ath! I’ve seen you blast trees to charcoal at the merest flick of a thought.’

Lysaer said nothing.

Jabbed to suspicion, Diegan added, ‘You pulled your strike against those archers on the slope! You planned this
whole thing
, didn’t you?’

A dying thread of sunlight bloodied sparkles in gold hair as Lysaer gave back the barest shrug. ‘Not precisely.’ His levity vanished and his eyes went suddenly hooded. ‘You might say I expected things might happen as they have. If I tried for a happier outcome, the end result isn’t setback. No one can say, now, that Tysan’s clans weren’t fairly offered their chance to lay due claim to s’Ilessid loyalty.’

But the issue went deeper than that, Lord Diegan saw in awed respect. As the impoverished victim of a clan raid, Lysaer s’Ilessid had bought footing for condolence. Bound on to Erdane as a charity case, not even the city’s irascible mayor might question his need to raise troops. Far from feeling threatened by the muster, his guilds would be moved to endorse it: the prince’s cause would win aid out of congenial commiseration and sympathy. Etarran enough to appreciate a master turn of statecraft, Lord Diegan laughed in the teeth of the wind.