Blade of Empire Read online

  Thurion made a sour face, but he knew Helecanth was right. Without a consort, without an heir, Vieliessar’s king-domain rested upon one fragile life: hers. She was the last of Farcarinon; there was no lineage, no matter how long and torturous, that led to another heir.

  Save one. Nataranweiya’s line was Caerthalien. All their Line Direct and Lines Collateral are extinguished except for Runacarendalur Caerthalien and the child of the Banebringer. Rondaniel can’t marry Vieliessar and nobody knows where Prince Runacarendalur is. Or to be precise, everyone thinks he’s dead. But if he were, Vieliessar would be dead, too.

  Thurion’s Keystone Gift was True Speech: there were few secrets he did not know or could not discover. But it had taken no Magery to discover that Runacarendalur Caerthalien was Vieliessar Farcarinon’s destined Bondmate: Vieliessar had told him, despairing.

  “And no one will believe it isn’t a lie, a trick, a bone thrown to quiet the whining of Caerthalien dogs! I won’t be his consort. I can’t take him as mine—”

  True then, and true now. And Helecanth knew it as well as Thurion did: Runacarendalur had told her before he fled. They had never spoken of this aloud. There’d been no need.

  “She must wed,” Thurion said helplessly. “There must be an heir. An heir of the body; the War Princes will never stand for anything else.”

  “They won’t stand for that, either, if she dies leaving a child behind her,” Helecanth said. “I could not hold the Throne intact for a regency. Could Rithdeliel? Could you?”

  “I don’t think Pelashia Herself could,” Thurion said. “Or Amretheon returned from the sky. Or the Lord of the Starry Hunt. And then it will all have been for nothing.”

  “Then we had better hope for an enemy,” Helecanth said. “Or a consort. Or a miracle.”

  “If he came back…” Thurion said, very softly.

  Helecanth fixed him with a blazing glare. “I am the High King’s sworn vassal,” she said stonily. “Caerthalien is erased. If any of its line came back from the dead, I must name that one coward, and oathbreaker, and slay them for my liege’s honor. He will never come back,” she added in a softer tone. “It is only by the mercy of the Silver Hooves that I may look upon the king each day and know that he yet lives.”

  There was nothing Thurion could offer in answer to that. Helecanth loved Lord Runacarendalur as steadfastly and hopelessly as Thurion loved Vieliessar. And for all their sakes, he must hope they never met again.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  RAIN MOON TO SWORD MOON: TO GAIN SANCTUARY

  Every war begins with its own hero tale, as if it were a great lord who had lived a long life and now has a story-song crafted to be sung over its funeral pyre. And any prince who clings to that story-song after a campaign begins will drink to drowning of the cup of defeat and loss, for a war is not a warrior, and no mortal prince can force the world to follow their whim as if they wear the cloak of the Starry Huntsman.

  —Arilcarion War-Maker, Of the Sword Road

  In Ice Moon, the Battle of the Shieldwall Plain was fought. In Storm Moon, word reached the new High King that the Western Shore was embattled, and had already sought help from the Sanctuary of the Star in vain. In Rain Moon, two grand-tailles of Lightborn went west on an arrow-straight track toward the Southern Pass. Rondithiel, oldest among them, was their leader, and there were few of them to whom he had not given their first lessons in Magery at the Sanctuary of the Star, for Rondithiel taught Mosirinde’s Covenant, without which there was no lawful Magery. He had sought Vieliessar out early in her campaigns; he had been there when Luthilion Araphant was slain at Laeldor and Magery was used in battle for the first time. Vieliessar had sworn that she meant to uphold the Covenant, and that her act did not violate it, but if Rondithiel had not been there to agree with her, she might have been defeated in the midst of her earliest victories. But Rondithiel knew better than anyone else in the land that Mosirinde had never forbade the Lightborn to fight. The Covenant only circumscribed the sources from which they might draw their power. To draw power from death—even the death of a tree, or an insect—was the forbidden thing.

  When Vieliessar had made the Lightborn into the Warhunt, Rondithiel had been among the first to join. And no one else could lead this party of the Warhunt into the west, for what Lightborn remained there would trust no one else.

  Their road led them through the Ghostwood.

  * * *

  In life, it had been a larger Flower Forest than any of them had ever seen. In death, it was a wasteland that led the three hundred to travel with their faces shrouded against the dust. A simple spell might have blown their path clear of the powdery filth, but there was no Light here to draw upon. Ivrulion had taken it all.

  “Beastlings lived here,” Bramandrin Lightsister said, nodding toward the skeleton of a Dryad. “I wonder where they went?”

  “Anywhere else,” Harwing Lightbrother answered. “If any survived, I hope they kept running. There isn’t Light enough in this place to raise Shield, and Innate spells won’t do us much good.”

  A Lightborn’s innate Light was enough for the smallest and simplest of spells, such as Fire or Silverlight. Anything greater required a Flower Forest to draw upon. Even with the boundary stones down throughout most of the Uradabhur, there was no available Light: the Lightborn had drained those reservoirs nearly dry.

  “Even a Beastling wouldn’t stay here,” Bramandrin said, looking around at the dead forest. She knew as well as the rest of them that without Magery they had little hope of defending themselves if they were attacked.

  “Once we reach the Mystrals, the western Flower Forests will be open to us,” Rondithiel Lightbrother said encouragingly. “The fighting there was not as hard as it was here. We will have Light to speed us on our way.”

  But though his words were encouraging, his thoughts were not. We fought for survival, and for the High King’s victory, Rondithiel mused as they rode through the desolation. I do not think any of us imagined what might follow it. I only pray there are still Lightborn between the Mystrals and the Angarussa, for if there are not, the West is in trouble beyond the High King’s power to ease it.

  * * *

  “This is our last night on the Southern Pass Road,” Rondithiel said.

  It had been with a sense of relief that Rondithiel’s party entered the Mystrals. Here in the mountains it was possible to forget the things they had seen and done since the war began. As Lightborn, they had seen the aftermath of many battles, and many of them had wished the War Princes and their courts to be gone forever. But now all of them knew from bitter experience what a land stripped of its governing nobles became.

  They were camped in the high hills above Sierdalant. The horses and pack mules wandered freely, browsing on the new grass, for there was enough Light to draw upon here to Call them back in the morning. The tents and simple shelters they’d brought with them from Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor formed windbreaks around a dozen cookfires, but after the evening meal was done, Rondithiel had called the three hundred together, for there were things he knew he must say. He hoped, by presenting information, they would draw the conclusion he wished without him having to speak it aloud. Rondithiel had been a teacher for far too long to easily abandon old habits.

  It was a great many folk to address quietly, but the night was still and the Lightborn knew how to listen.

  “One can see a great distance from the top of the pass,” Rondithiel said gently. “And from here, we can see all the way to Sierdalant’s western border. You know as well as I what we have not seen.”

  “Light,” Dinias Lightbrother—who sat close beside him—said. “Not, oh, you know as well as I do I don’t mean Light-light. But—”

  “Cookfires, campfires, lanterns, torches, even a lighted window,” Isilla Lightsister said. “It’s dark.”

  “It is only to be expected, one supposes,” Rondithiel Lightbrother said, still gently. “The Alliance would have gathered their armies at the foot of the Mystrals
before heading through the Dragon’s Gate. It is true that Vondaimieriel lies north of here, but the Alliance armies drew heavily upon all the domains at the foot of the Mystrals.”

  “And Farmfolk aren’t stupid,” Isilla said. “They knew they’d been abandoned by the time the weather turned.”

  She gestured westward. Before the sun had set, one of Sierdalant’s Border Keeps had been visible in the westward hills. No light shone from it now.

  “Everyone’s gone,” Bramandrin said. “But where did they go?”

  Rondithiel allowed silence to build behind her question. The answer was clear, though it was not the final conclusion he needed them to draw.

  “Gunedwaen— We knew the Alliance Houses were riding in their normal battle array when they followed us. That meant komen, Lightborn, and servants. The Landbond, the Farmfolk, and most of the Craftworkers would have been left behind. They didn’t follow the Alliance, and anyway, the weather turned within a fortnight; they couldn’t have if they’d wanted to. And they aren’t here,” Harwing Lightbrother said sharply. “So they went west and south. I would. It’s warmer there.”

  “They just … left?” Bramandrin said, shocked. “But their homes were here.”

  “And if we find a single farm on Sierdalant’s manorial lands intact, I’ll eat my mule,” Harwing said. “It’s going to be the Uradabhur all over again. Outlaws and refugees.”

  “And there’s nothing we can do about it, is there?” Peryn Lightsister said slowly.

  “No,” Isilla said. “Not and reach the Western Shore quickly enough to do Amrolion and Daroldan any good. And they’re why we’ve come.”

  “But—” Dinias said, then fell silent.

  “We must cross the West to reach the Shore,” Rondithiel said gently, for it was a hard truth he was leading them to. “We know the Sanctuary of the Star remains—”

  “Or at least no Lightborn has Farspoken any of us to say it does not,” Harwing said. “And that is the other reason the High King sent us.” He looked around at his companions, a bitter smile on his face. “Oh, don’t tell me you think we’re here because Iardalaith asked her to honor her treaties with Amrolion and Daroldan? We’re here because Iardalaith knows his cousin Ciadorre went as envoy to the Sanctuary as soon as the roads were passable, and Ulvearth Lightsister went with her, and he has had no word of either of them since.”

  “The Sanctuary does not answer any of us,” Dinias pointed out. “And it isn’t because we’ve all suddenly forgotten how to Farspeak.”

  Every Lightborn here—every Lightborn trained since Celelioniel was Astromancer—had been trained in Farspeech by Momioniarch Lightsister. Any of them could Farspeak her, and many of them had done so all along—until Ice Moon, when the Sanctuary had ceased to answer.

  “If the High King wants to find out what’s happening at the Sanctuary of the Star,” Isilla said, directing her words toward Harwing most of all, “then so do I. So do all of us. It’s the only place in the West that can be, well, a sanctuary for everyone left there. We all know Hamphuliadiel is mad. But if he wants to be a War Prince, then let him care for the people as a War Prince should. And if he isn’t—or can’t—or won’t—”

  “Or he’s dead,” Dinias said helpfully.

  “—then we will Farspeak Aradreleg Lightsister, and tell her so,” Isilla finished.

  “And ride on,” Harwing said with quiet savagery. “That is what Rondithiel Lightbrother means. Isn’t it, Rondithiel? When we go riding westward, and the people come flocking to us for help, we can’t do anything for them.”

  There was a stunned murmur of voices at Harwing’s words, some angry, some disbelieving, some merely sad. Though they had all, even Rondithiel, worn simple sturdy homespun on their journey, each one of the Lightborn had carried their robes of Lightborn green with them, and had expected to don them when they crossed into Sierdalant, for even now, a Lightborn’s robes carried with it the promise of immunity from attack or enslavement by princes and komen of the Hundred Houses.

  Or it should.

  “Iardalaith would be here if he could.” It was Pennynorn Lightbrother, born in Daroldan, who spoke. “And I would rather these words came from him. But I think he and I may be the only ones of all of you who come from the Shore. Iardalaith is the son of a prince, but I … my parents were fisherfolk. We Lightborn are all the children of Farmfolk, Landbonds, Craftworkers, and none of us—even Iardalaith, I promise—would weep if all the nobles and the Lords Komen fell dead between one breath and the next.”

  Quiet laughter and sounds of agreement greeted his words.

  “I would rather help the Landbonds of Daroldan’s greatest enemy than any prince,” Pennynorn went on. “But if we do not reach the Western Shore quickly, it will not be princes who die. It will be all the folk—folk like us—in Amrolion and Daroldan both. And when they are dead, the Beastlings will come east. And there will be no one to stop them.”

  “So you will turn your back on those who ask us to help them?” Harwing asked quietly.

  “Your House was Oronviel,” Pennynorn answered. “Tell me you have no experience in choosing between ‘bad’ and ‘worse.’”

  Harwing’s only answer was silence.

  “We will cross the West as quickly as we can,” Rondithiel said. “We will use the Light to hide ourselves from discovery as much as we can. If the High King’s folk seek us out, we must send them away. We cannot delay to aid them.”

  “But what do we say to them?” Bramandrin said plaintively into the silence that followed Rondithiel’s words. “Don’t they have as much right as anyone to claim aid from Vieliessar High King?”

  “Not this time,” Harwing said bitterly.

  * * *

  At first they had kept to the Flower Forests as much as they could to keep from being seen, but those places that had once welcomed them seemed now to bear the Lightborn a special hostility. Small items went missing, brambles went out of their way to trip them, and everyone’s sleep was troubled with strange whispers. When they began to lose horses and pack-mules as well, Rondithiel chose to risk taking them across the land instead, but the suppliants they all expected to meet did not come.

  Sierdalant, Vondaimieriel, Aramenthiali, Oronviel, Ivrithir, Caerthalien were all deserted. If the folk who had been left behind were foregathered in the Great Keeps, the Lightborn did not know of it, for Rondithiel made certain to keep far away from them.

  It took the Lightborn nearly six sennights to reach the vicinity of the Sanctuary of the Star.

  * * *

  “This doesn’t look good,” Dinias said in a low voice.

  It was late afternoon. He, Harwing, and Isilla stood just inside the shelter of Arevethmonion, gazing out at the landscape beyond. Arevethmonion was one of the few Flower Forests in the West where the Light hadn’t been drained to dangerously low levels—Lady Arevethmonion had her own boundary stones, to reserve her Light for the exclusive use of the Sanctuary of the Star.

  They’d entered the Flower Forest near its easternmost edge, moving warily along narrow deer-tracks and constantly alert against discovery. They’d seen the changes that had been made to the Sanctuary itself on their approach: outbuildings gone, walls heightened. As if someone feared attack to the Sanctuary. But walls keep people in as well as out, Harwing thought to himself. Prisoners, or just Lightborn who want to go home? Not that any of our homes are still intact. The fact that no one inside the Sanctuary was willing to Farspeak anyone outside it was the thing that worried Harwing most. It implied that once you went in …

  A geasa is a simple thing to set. If I were Hamphuliadiel, I’d Bind the Lightborn from using Farspeech at all. It would have some drawbacks, but the main use for it is speech over distance, and he clearly doesn’t want that. I wonder how many people are in there? Oronviel didn’t send Candidates last year, and nobody sent any this year, but by the same token, I’m pretty sure nobody who was here—or who came here—like Ulvearth Lightsister—left.

  “Yes an
d no,” Harwing answered absently. “At least someone’s building something.”

  “Hamphuliadiel is building something,” Isilla said. “A War City, like the one Lord Vieliessar built in Oronviel.”

  The village was clearly new, and yet it was already being expanded. Harwing wondered how many people Hamphuliadiel meant to cram into his War City—or were the current structures something other than cottages or dormitories? The three of them had seen how much land was now under cultivation here—there’d be need of barns and silos to hold the harvest,

  “And it looks like it holds as many people as a Great Keep—or a War City,” Dinias said. “There used to be a regular forest behind Rosemoss Farm, and now there’s nothing but fields.”

  But it didn’t matter how many fields Hamphuliadiel put under tillage if he meant to gather so many people in one place. The Great Keeps hadn’t survived on their attached farms alone: the entire domain had sent tithes to their storehouses. They’d had to. The castels had held thousands of people …

  Most of whom are on the other side of the Mystrals now. Hamphuliadiel can’t think to make himself a War Prince in truth. Can he?

  If he did, Vieliessar would smash him as completely as she had every domain that had not immediately declared for her.

  When she comes back. If she comes back. If the Shore doesn’t fall.

  If.

  “Fields as far as the eye can see,” Harwing agreed. “Just as well Rondithiel didn’t follow his first impulse and come himself.”

  Rondithiel had suggested it, of course. They were a war party bound for the relief of the Western Shore, but the first duty of the Lightborn had always been as envoys between the War Princes. It was only right and proper for them to bring the formal notification of Vieliessar’s victory to the Sanctuary and the Astromancer. It had been Harwing who pointed out that if the Sanctuary Lightborn weren’t willing to Farspeak their kindred, they might not be following the Codes of War, either.