Zandru's Forge (71 page)

“There is no trace of my father,” Alderic said. In his voice, in the weariness of his spirit, Carolin saw that he had searched the battlefield from one end to the other, with his mind as well as his eyes, and had encompassed more death than most soldiers saw in a lifetime.

“We have looked everywhere for him,” Jandria said. “He is gone ... and so is Romilly.”

“Romilly, missing?” Carolin echoed. His heart clenched.

“Neither of them is among the slain,” Ruyven said, and Carolin remembered that he was Romilly’s own brother. If he and Alderic, who had Tower training, could not find her, then she must have run far away.

“At first, we thought she might have sought comfort in the Sisterhood, as she had before,” Jandria said. “None have seen her since the battle. We feared the worst, but have not found her body.”

“I would know if she were dead,” Ruyven said, shaking his head.

Romilly was like a wild creature in her innocent trust, the generosity of her love. She had felt the loss of the sentry birds as if they were her own children. How much keener and more devastating must the death of Sunstar, trained with her own hands and heart, have been for her?

It was too much for her to bear.
He himself had asked ever more of her in the name of saving human lives. Had he been selfish to demand so much for his own cause?

Maura met his eyes with that direct, unflinching gaze. “We will not abandon her. She may be too wounded in spirit, too sick at heart to hear us, but we will not stop until we have found her.”

Carolin nodded. As for Orain, there was nothing more to be done, except wait for news.

“My father is not on the battlefield,” Alderic said again. “We think he and his men must still be on the road to Hali, following Rakhal and Lyondri.”

Carolin pressed his lips together. Yes, Rakhal would go running back to Hali, even in defeat. He was not the sort to forsake the luxury of Hastur Castle for the wilds beyond the Kadarin. Let him think himself safe in the city he had once ruled with a brutal hand. If he managed to reach it before Orain caught him, it would buy him only a short reprieve.

“Go now to the rest you so richly deserve,” he said to his
leronyn.
“We will do what is needful here and as soon as may be, we will ride for Hali also. If Aldones smiles upon us, we will find Orain there with Rakhal in his custody, or else encamped at the gates, waiting for us.”

Jandria and the men withdrew, but Maura remained behind. He held out his hands and she came to him. Her hair did not smell of the usual intermingled sunshine and sweet herbs, but of smoke and the faint, acrid tang of
clingfire.

Carolin seated her in one of the folding camp chairs and lowered himself in the other. He offered her a goblet of the wine he had not been able to touch earlier. “Now tell me,
preciosa
—”

Just then, he heard a commotion outside the tent, men’s voices, a horse’s hoofbeats and labored breathing, a sharp cry of command. The tent flap lifted and the guard stuck his head in.

“Vai dom,
it is one of the men who rode with Lord Orain.”

Carolin leaped to attention. “Send him in.”

He recognized the man, a boy barely the age he’d been when he went to Arilinn, but one of the fastest riders in his company. From the way he handled horses, Carolin had wondered if he might not have a touch of the MacAran gift.

The boy wavered on his feet, gasping for breath. What was left of cloak and tunic were black with sweat and mud, blood as well. He took a step into the tent, raised one hand, and fell forward on to his knees.

“We—we had almost caught them—they set an ambush—Lyondri’s men—came at us—” His voice cracked, on the edge of a sob. “We fought—Aldones knows how we fought—”

Carolin felt Maura stir beside him, but she said nothing.

“Lord Orain?” he said, dreading the answer.

The boy fell back, so that he sat upon his heels, body curved forward, hands braced on either side of his knees. His shoulders heaved with the effort to draw breath. “He lives—at least, when I left him—but—” He looked up, tears streaking the grime on his cheeks. “But,
vai dom,
the last I saw of him, he was the prisoner of Lord Lyondri. Those of us who could, continued the chase. I took the fastest horse and came back. Would that I had died with the others, rather than carry this news!”

“Be at ease, lad,” Carolin said, and saw the responsive lightening of the boy’s spirit. He felt a wave of compassion for anyone who bore such a burden, let alone one so young. In a moment, his own fury and grief would set in, but he had time enough to send the boy away with a morsel of comfort and to direct a guard to see him given food and a dry bed. He turned to Maura as the dam burst.

“Hush, love,” she whispered, laying a finger across his lips. “You cannot know what you will find at Hali. The only thing certain is that you will cripple your ability to think and act if you go on in this manner. For now, there is nothing you can do for Orain, nothing except rest and prepare yourself for the journey tomorrow,”

No soldier could have said it more clearly. He sighed, wishing he could so easily put aside the anguish raging in his heart.

“I will try to rest, since it is wise,” he said, hearing weariness roughen his voice, “though I do not think I have ever felt less able to sleep.”

“Leave that to me.”

Maura awoke in the middle of the night, sitting bolt upright. Carolin, rousing at her side, could not tell if she had cried out aloud or only in her mind. He reached for her, felt her trembling.

“What is it? What has happened?”

She was breathing fast and hard, as if she had been running. “I Saw—a terrible battle.” From her tone, this was no ordinary dream, but a result of the Sight.

Sitting, he took her into his arms. “You are safe here. My armies guard us. Nothing can harm you.”

She shook her head, creating ripples of movement in her unbound hair. “Not here—far away. Hali—the circle there—ordered to attack Hestral Tower.”

“They cast a spell of unmaking upon Hestral’s very foundations, enough to bring the Tower down in ruin. Oh, Carlo, it is a terrible thing when one Tower makes war upon another. Many of us have kin in other Towers, or have trained together. Almost every night, we speak mind-to-mind across the relays.”

“In the name of all the gods, why would Hali do such a thing?”

“They would not make
clingfire
for Rakhal.” She shuddered, wrapping her arms around her body. “This was his doing. His, alone! But all is not lost. Hali broke off the attack before the destruction was complete. Varzil stood against them, bathed in silver light like Aldones himself. He—he showed them the horror of what they were doing and convinced them they must not fight one another.” She drew a deep breath. “Now Hali swears they will never do so again, nor will they make any laran weaponry for Rakhal or any other king.”

Carolin shook his head in amazement. Hali, of all Towers beholden to Rakhal, had in essence agreed to their pact. If any man could bring such a conflict to a halt, and in such a way that the Towers vowed neutrality, it was Varzil.

Varzil the Stubborn, Varzil the Resourceful,
he thought. Varzil who faced down a pride of catmen to save his brother, who had foiled more than one assassination attempt, who shared his dream of a peace with honor for all Darkover.
Varzil the Good.

M
aura and Ruyven continued their
laran
search for Romilly as Carolin moved his forces through the outlying Venza Hills to the gates of Hali. He took with him all those men yet able to fight, leaving behind only sufficient numbers to care for the wounded. Fortunately, the lords and smallholders in that area were sympathetic, having suffered much under Rakhal’s rule, so that food for men and beasts would not be a pressing problem.

As Maura had said, Carolin did not know what conditions he might find at Hali, although it was unlikely that Rakhal would be able to amass another army. Yet Carolin must move swiftly, before Rakhal could set another trap or dig in his position so deep, they would have to fight from one room of the castle to the next.

Every passing hour tore at Carolin’s heart. Sometimes, as he gazed into the fires of his encampment along the road, it seemed that every one who had loved or trusted him met some terrible fate. All the men and horses slain in his cause, even poor Alianora dead in bearing his child, Romilly driven to madness, Orain ... he dared not think of what Orain might be suffering.

A whisper brushed his mind,
I am here,
bredu, and he sensed in Varzil’s presence an inexpressible comfort.
Do not lose heart, for the men who followed you, and the women, too, did so freely. Already our dream is taking hold. Towers are turning away from the folly of destruction, and everywhere men look to you in hope.

Then, Carolin promised silently, he must not give way to despair. He roused himself to walk the camp, so that all would see him, hear his voice, feel his care for them, both his own men and the Swordswomen who had chosen to go with him. Along the road, the ranks had swelled with the shattered fragments of Rakhal’s army. Some of the men, having made their submission to Carolin, asked to be released on parole and return to their farms, but others offered their swords to the true Hastur King.

At last, they came to Hali itself, the long dimness of the lake, the Tower like a pale slender finger of light rising on the far shore, and the city hunched and gray under a lowering sky. A length of wall, much of it still bearing the
laran
imprint of its hasty construction, encircled the city. Before long, Rakhal sent out a messenger. Orain was his hostage, and if Carolin or any of his men entered the city in an attempt at rescue, he would kill Orain at once. Clearly, Rakhal intended to use Orain to parley.

Carolin sent back an offer of safe conduct for both Rakhal and Lyondri to beyond the Kadarin or wherever they wished to go, provided Orain was released unharmed. Lyondri’s son might return safely to Nevarsin, or be reared according to his rank at Hali along urith Carolin’s own sons. It was perhaps too generous an offer, but he wanted to give Rakhal a solid reason to compromise. As long as his cousin saw no hope, his rising desperation would prompt him to more and more reckless actions.

Silence answered him. Hours passed, and then a day. The search for Romilly continued. Alderic pleaded with Carolin to offer himself in exchange for his father, along with a small treasure of copper and gold.

“I do not think Rakhal will listen,” Carolin said, “but you may try.” He hoped that Orain lived through this ordeal, if only to know what a fine and loyal son he had fathered.

Rakhal flatly rejected Alderic’s proposal. Maura made the same offer, that she would give herself up to Rakhal, even going into exile with him, if that was what he wished. Rakhal did not even answer her.

Just before sunset, a horn sounded from the city and another messenger rode out. Carolin recognized him as a minor lord whose fortunes had fared badly after some reversals in the cortes, and who clearly had prospered under Rakhal’s favor, by the rich cloth of his cloak and the silver ornaments on his horse’s saddle. After an elaborate bow, he handed Carolin’s officer a small wooden box, saying he had been bidden to deliver it into Carolin’s own hands before speaking his message. Carolin took it into his tent where, surrounded by Maura, Ruyven, and Alderic, he opened it. The slender package of yellow silk was sticky with blood. His hands shook as he lifted it out and unfolded the wrapping.

Inside lay a severed finger, callused and caked with blood. It still bore a little copper ring set with a blue stone called a sky-tear. Carolin had last seen it on Orain’s hand.

This very finger had clasped a sword hilt in Carolin’s defense, wrapped rags around Carolin’s half-frozen feet that first terrible winter beyond the Kadarin, nursed a handful of twigs into a fire. It had also raised a goblet of wine in celebration, stitched broken harness with precise skill, caressed a lover. Now it was no more than a rotting piece of flesh and the hand which bore it—

Carolin’s vision went gray and then red. He felt Maura’s touch as she took the hideous packet from him. She said nothing, offering only her silent presence. Alderic’s anger rippled through the tent, and then he wept.

It was many long minutes before Carolin was ready to hear the rest of the message. Ruyven signaled to the guards that the messenger might enter.