A Man Rides Through (89 page)

"Or we are." Geraden looked at her, grinning with his teeth. "The worse things get, the more we know we're doing what King Joyse wants. At the moment when Eremis looks most unbeatable, that's when he's most vulnerable."

Now it was her turn to snort. "Aren't you the one who accused
me
of having a morbid imagination?"

Geraden laughed, but he didn't sound especially amused.

Shortly after noon, the armies of Orison and Alend began to meet blood on the ground.

Old bloodstains: weatherworn, gone black; some across broad swaths of hard dirt; some in sheltered crannies; some clinging like lichen to rough rocks. They mottled stones and soil like the marks of a disease—infrequent at first; but soon more common, showing in open ravines or accessible hillsides all over the complex terrain, in pieces of earth where men could have fought for their lives.

"The Perdon," Prince Kragen pronounced grimly. "His men fought alone here against High King Festten. They were trapped here, hunted down in this"—he swallowed an obscenity—"this maze, and massacred.

"They could have saved themselves. They could have fled to Orison. If we understand the High King rightly, he never intended to bring his force anywhere but here. But the Perdon did not know that. He knew only that he must fight for Mordant—and that he could not trust his King. So he led Cadwal here, where High King Festten most wished to go.

"He was a valiant man," the Prince rasped, "badly betrayed. I hope that he did not learn the truth before he died. It would have been unutterably bitter."

But there were no bodies.

No remnants of weapons and gear.

No bones.

The entire region had been cleaned.

Carrion eaters might have emptied the mail, picked the iron clean; some of them might have dragged bones away to gnaw. Nevertheless the dead should have left more behind than just their blood.

Scouts brought back no word of Cadwal. Everywhere the men rode, they met old blood. In gullies protected from wind or rain, they found the marks of boots and hooves, running in all directions, trampled everywhere. But none of them encountered any evidence of High King Festten's army anywhere.

The Tor voiced the opinion that this was impossible. Castellan Norge and Prince Kragen sent out more scouts, doubled and tripled the number of men scouring the hillsides, the dry waterbeds, the stands of stubborn thicket. Yet the scouts discovered nothing, learned nothing.

And an hour or two before evening the vanguard of Orison's army and Alend's arrived in sight of Esmerel.

Master Eremis' "ancestral seat" sat at the head of a wedge-shaped valley, almost directly against the sheer defile which brought a brook running into the valley. A bowman on the roof of the manor could have hit the valleysides in three directions. From the defile, however, the valley spread wide until it was more than broad enough to accommodate the armies approaching it. Its brook, and the expanse of its floor, gave the impression that it must be one of the most pleasant places in the Care of Tor.

Its walls, on the other hand, were high and rugged; impassable more than not. Blunt outcroppings of rock supported them like ramparts. And they didn't decline as the wedge spread wider. Instead, they reared their black stones against the sky until they ended abruptly, hooking inward before they stopped as if to constrict the wide foot of the valley.

There was no blood here. Nearly a mile outside the valley, all evidence of the Perdon's life and death disappeared.

The valley itself was empty.

Esmerel was a low building, for reasons which were obvious to the eye: even in this dull, cloud-locked light, the manor's flat-roofed, rambling profile suited its surroundings, providing enough contrast to be distinctive, enough self-effacement to be harmonious. Terisa had heard from Geraden that much of the house was belowground, anchored in the rock of the valley. Instinctively, she believed that— although she couldn't forget the sealed window and the faint light in the room where Eremis had chained her. Maybe Nyle's cell was on the aboveground level. Certainly the window was. It shouldn't be hard to locate.

With Prince Kragen and his captains, the Tor and Castellan Norge, Geraden and Master Barsonage, she studied Esmerel's front up the length of the valley. From this distance, she couldn't make out what gave the walls their texture; but she could see the portico clearly, supported over the main entrance by sturdy pillars.

The door was closed. All the windows were shuttered and dark. No one moved around the building, or in the neat horseyard on one side of the house, or along the brook. Under the dark clouds, the whole place had an air of desertion, as if it had been forgotten a long time ago.

The ground, however, still held the scars of hundreds of horses, hundreds of men.

After a while, Prince Kragen asked, "What do you think, my lord Tor?"

"I think," the Tor muttered as if his confidence were ebbing, "we must look inside."

"It's a trap, my lord," commented Norge.

"Of course," the Tor sighed. "Is that not why we have come, Geraden, my lady Terisa?" He glanced at them morosely. "To place our heads in the trap?"

For some reason, Geraden's mount distrusted the valley and tried to shy away. Reining his horse uncomfortably, he said, "The only way we can find out what we're up against is to go look at it, my lord."

Terisa couldn't take her eyes off Esmerel. It held her as Master Eremis himself did, full of promises and destruction. She had been a prisoner there. Had met Vagel; seen Nyle. Eremis had almost had his way with her—

"Let's go," she said without meaning to speak aloud. "Let's go look at it."

Castellan Norge shrugged. The Tor blew his nose on the hem of his cloak.

Prince Kragen gave Terisa a bow which suggested either mockery or respect.

As if no one had actually given any commands, orders began to sift back to the main body of the armies. While the vanguard advanced on Esmerel, the Alend soldiers and the guard followed until they were well within the relative shelter of the valley, nearly halfway to the defile; then, with a company of five hundred horsemen, the vanguard pulled ahead, and the two armies—Alend on one side of the brook, Orison on the other—began to ready themselves for camp or battle. The men closest to the foot of the valley started throwing up a precautionary earthen breastwork from wall to wall.

In silence, the vanguard approached Esmerel.

"Do you know?" Master Barsonage said to no one in particular, talking simply to steady himself, "I had never seen this manor until Geraden made an Image of it in Adept Havelock's glass. I am astonished now to observe how accurately he was able to envision it."

No one in particular listened to the mediator.

The riders continued to advance. Now Terisa could tell that the pillars of the portico were redwood; that the sides of the manor were built of waxed boards supported by stone ribs and columns. A beautiful design—but the place was still vacant. Esmerel's air of abandonment grew deeper as the riders moved farther into the gloom of the valley walls.

All the horses became restive: prancing; stamping; sawing against their reins.

Prince Kragen's standard-bearer winded a call on his battle-horn, a fierce run of notes which nevertheless sounded forlorn and maybe doomed as it echoed back from the ramparts. Nothing shifted in Esmerel. None of the windows winked or opened. Under its portico, the door looked heavy enough to withstand anybody.

Abruptly, Geraden winced; Prince Kragen spat a curse; and all at once Terisa could smell what was disturbing the horses.

The sweet, rank, nauseating reek of blood and old rot, neglected death, flesh gone to carrion.

"What's
in
there?" one of the captains asked as if he had forgotten that everyone could hear him.

"Lucky you," Ribuld muttered in response. "Lucky us. We're going to find out."

As soon as she recognized the stench, however, Terisa lost her fear. She had been expecting something like this. A spiritual attack as much as physical. Adrenaline pumped through her; energy filled her muscles. This was Master Eremis' domain: he was in his element here. Everything that happened now would happen because he intended it.

First she said, "It wasn't like this four days ago. I couldn't smell any of this." Then she said, "This is where I saw Nyle. Inside."

His face twisting, Geraden surged toward the door.

"Geraden!"

The Tor's shout snapped like a whip, jerked Geraden back. Fierce and pale, he wheeled to face the old lord.

"Come on," he whispered. "We've got to find him."

The Tor didn't drop Geraden's gaze. "Castellan Norge," he coughed, "open that door. Secure the rooms inside. We will enter when you signal for us."

Norge saluted. At least three hundred guards rode away to form a protective perimeter around the manor and the vanguard. Some men dismounted to tend the horses. The rest followed Castellan Norge on foot.

In combat formation, swords ready, they approached the door.

It wasn't bolted. When Norge lifted the latch, the door swung inward, opening on darkness.

He and his men entered the house.

Terisa scanned the harsh rims of the valley. For no clear reason, she expected to see men there: Cadwals clutching their weapons; an army moving to surround the forces of Orison and Alend. Esmerel was a trap. But that didn't make any sense. She had been a prisoner here just a few days ago. Master Eremis had his own laborium here, his furnaces and glassworks. He had spoken to High King Festten here. It was inconceivable that he would surrender the Seat of his power to his enemies.

Sure. Of course. So where
was
he?

Where had she gone wrong?

Abruptly, the Castellan reappeared.

The gloom—and the fact that he was a few dozen yards away— confused Terisa's sight. She had the distinct impression that he had gone white. He held his arms stiffly at his sides; he moved as if he carried something breakable in his chest.

"My lord Tor—" His voice caught.

Peering at the portico and the door and Norge, the Tor asked, "Is it safe?"

Norge shook his head, nodded. His throat worked. "You need to see this. They're all here."

No, Terisa thought blindly, don't go in there, don't go, it's too dangerous. But Geraden had already flung himself off his mount, was already running—

The Castellan stopped him, made him wait.

The Tor glanced wearily up at the sky. "The truth is," he rumbled, "that three days in the saddle have done little to heal my belly." The stubborn resolution which had brought him here appeared to be eroding. "I fear that once I dismount I will never get up onto my horse again."

Prince Kragen's gaze shone darkly. "I will go, my lord Tor."

The Tor passed a hand over his face. The skin of his cheeks seemed to pull away from the bones, giving him a skeletal aspect for a moment despite his fat.

"We will all go, my lord Prince," he sighed.

No, Terisa thought as if she were panicking, it's a trap, Eremis is in there, he's already killed all Norge's men. Yet what she felt wasn't panic. Instead of crying out against Norge's pallor, Norge's distress, she swung off her nag and went after Geraden.

"Nyle," he muttered urgently when she joined him—the only explanation she needed.

Heaving against his mortal weight, the Tor got his leg over the saddle, stumbled to the ground. For a moment, he sagged there as if his capacity to support himself were crumbling. But then he called up his fading strength and lumbered into motion.

With Prince Kragen, half a dozen Alend soldiers, Master Barsonage, and Ribuld, the Tor approached Esmerel on foot.

Terisa was right about Norge: his face had turned the color of old ash. He didn't say anything, didn't try to account for himself. When the Tor and Prince Kragen neared him, he pivoted harshly and stalked back into the manor.