City of Jade (4 page)

Authors: Dennis McKiernan

BOOK: City of Jade

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Bair and Aravan had returned to Adonar to make certain all was ready and to set in motion the final stage of Bair’s plan. They had found the Elven host assembled and eager, and so the order was given to march to the in-between. And now the two fared ahead of the army to ensure that their even more powerful allies had assembled as well.

In moments Aravan had dressed out the rabbit and had set it to roast above a small fire.

“Kelan,” asked Bair, “how far to the in-between, do you reck?”

“Thirty leagues, I deem,” answered Aravan.

“Then nigh the mark of noon on the morrow, neh?”

“Aye, elar. Wouldst thou could run as fast as I can fly; then ’twould be midmorn.”

“Ah, you’re just anxious to get to Aylis, I ween,” said Bair, grinning.

Aravan laughed. “There is that.”

They sat without speaking for long moments, watching the coney sizzle above the flames. Bair’s mind recalled the last time he had seen Aylis, and the stratagem she proposed. Alamar had quickly accepted it, but he wanted another Seer to accomplish the deed. Yet Aylis would have none of that, saying it was her plan and she would be the one to carry it out. Finally, Bair said, “I am both sad and glad that she has decided to join in the battle.”

“As am I,” replied Aravan. Then he sighed and added, “Not that either of us could have prevented it; she’s quite reckless at times, you know. ’Tis one of the things I love about her, and one of the things I most dread.”

As fat sizzled and dripped, Bair slowly turned the spit. He glanced across at Aravan and said, “She surprised me with her plan.”

“Aye,” said Aravan. “Still, it will let us know what we are up against and perhaps tell us the best time to attack.”

Bair nodded and turned the spit. “Before Aylis made her proposal, I had thought a Seer would give the best aid by peering into the past and noting when guards change and when the sentries are most likely to be lax, or by looking into the future and telling us the moment to launch.”

Aravan nodded and said, “I am told looking ahead is quite difficult, with many forks to winnow among.”

“Forks?”

“Points of decision,” said Aravan. “Where deciding one way causes
this
, and deciding a different way causes
that
. And with each person involved, the possibilities grow. In the venture before us, with hundreds upon hundreds involved, the possibilities are beyond reckoning, or so I would think.”

“Ah, I see,” said Bair.

It was just after the mark of noon and snowing in Adonar when Bair crossed the in-between, with Valké on his shoulder, Aravan’s falcon shape. Bair bore the Elf in this form to ease his way to Neddra, for the best time to cross
into
that world was at the mark of midnight, just as the best time to leave that Plane was in the strokes of noon. And so, for Aravan to make that crossing at a different time would have been difficult for him; but the stone ring on a chain about Bair’s neck seemed somehow to ease the lad’s way through, no matter the mark of day or night. And so, Aravan had shifted to falcon shape, sealing most of his own in the crystal he wore; and captured in Bair’s own aura, the lad had borne the falcon and the token of power across with ease, from the High Plane to the Low.

With Neddra’s bloodred sun shedding precious little light down through an umber overcast, snow fell in this world as well, the white flakes bearing a faint yellow-brown hue as they drifted from the dismal, sulfur-tinged sky.

Bair cast Valké into the acrid air and shifted in darkness to Hunter, his Silver Wolf form. Then Draega and falcon raced in a wide arc to the north and east, heading for the crossing to the Mage world of Vadaria.

Out of view of the black fortress they sped, that bastion a league and a mile up the vale from the western crossing. And flying high above the running ’Wolf, Valké remained silent, for no pursuing Spawn did he spy—no Vulgs, no Ghûls on Hèlsteeds, no Rûcks, Hlôks, or Trolls giving chase—hence no warning did he cry.

As to the fortress itself, it sat atop a high-rising hill in a long vale, a basin surrounded by crags. Roughly square it was, the bastion, an outer wall running ’round, some twenty feet high and three hundred feet to a side and fifteen feet thick at the top, wider at the base, with bartizan after bartizan along its length full about, some fifty feet in between any given pair. To the south a barbican sat atop a gate midmost along that outer wall, a smaller barbican at the north, with a road running up in a series of switchbacks to the main gate of the central stronghold, and a like road ran down from the postern gate opposite. Between the bulwark ringing ’round and the inner fortress itself, there lay an open space, a killing ground for any who had won their way up the hill and had breached the outer wall.

Centered within, the black bastion stood: some sixty feet high it was and also built in a square, two hundred feet to a side with a great courtyard in the middle, towers and turrets and a massive wall hemming the quadrangle in.

Within the courtyard was a broad stable, wherein scaled Hèlsteeds shifted about, indicating the presence of Ghûlka in the mainstay below.

Two outer and two inner towers sat in a small, close-set square and warded the passageway into the dark fortress, with great outer and inner gates and portcullises barring the way. At the northern wall of the bastion, likewise another tight cluster of four turrets warded the rear entry as well.

With a tower at each corner of the main fortress and towers midmost along each of its walls, defenders could bring great power to bear against any and all assailants who sought to claim the stronghold as their own.

And the walls warding the central fortress were well patrolled—Hlôks and Rûcks at each corner with a small rout slowly walking the rounds.

All this did Valké see as he soared above Hunter loping below.

Four leagues and a mile did the Draega run, circling wide of the dark stronghold and into the steeps in the north. Up he ran and up, the falcon sailing above. And then the ’Wolf came to a sharp rise, and up this he sped, and he topped the slant to trot onto a circular flat, and ahead and curving three-quarters ’round to the sides towered the hard face of a sheer stone bluff, trapping the small plateau in its looming embrace. To the midpoint fared Hunter, Valké spiraling down from above. And darkness enveloped the Draega, from which Bair emerged.

The lad stretched out his arm, and Valké landed on the padded leather sleeve.

Bair glanced to the south, where a league and a mile away stood the black fortress, central to the four in-between crossings—central to the nexus—for equidistant to north and west and south and east respectively lay the way to Vadaria, to Adonar, to Mithgar, and to a land unknown.

Bair shifted Valké to the pad on his shoulder. Then, gripping the ring in his left hand, Bair began chanting, canting, pacing, turning, pausing, singing, gliding, while Valké on his shoulder glared down at the distant dark bastion, rage in the black raptor’s eye. . . .

. . . And then they were gone from Neddra, their disappearance witnessed only by the yellow-brown snow drifting down from the umber-clad sky.

Vadaria

NEXUS
LATE AUTUMN TO EARLY WINTER, 5E1010
[THE FINAL YEAR OF THE FIFTH ERA]

Yet stepping and chanting the rite of the crossing, Bair and Valké emerged onto a nearly identical stone plateau to the one they had left on Neddra; but, unlike the brown-tinged air of that world, here the chill atmosphere was pellucid and bore the faint aroma of the clean-smelling pine forest drifting up from the vale below. Snow lay upon the crests all ’round and along the slants ’neath, the white winging scintillant glitter to the eye in the light of the bright sun above.

Valké sprang up toward the cerulean sky, while darkness enveloped Bair, from which Hunter sprang forth to run. Down the slope and across the vale he sped and toward a distant knoll, snow cascading in his wake, Valké above following, watching, warding. They were heading for a mountain cabin in which a Seer dwelled—Aravan’s beloved, Aylis.

And in and about that cottage an assembly had gathered, Magekind all, and they waited for a falcon and a Draega to appear. Some rested before their tents, while others ranged the slopes, and a foursome sat at an oak-wood table out beside the steep-roofed cottage. But all watched the skies for the appearance of a black raptor.

And as they did so, bearing a tray of steaming mugs, Aylis stepped out from the cabin. Reed slender she was, and dressed in brown leathers. Her light brown hair was cropped at the shoulders and seemed shot through with auburn glints in the bright sunlight warming the day. Her complexion was fair and clear, but for a meager sprinkle of freckles high on her cheeks, and her eyes were green and flecked with gold. She was tall for one of Magekind, the top of her head but a hand or so less than six feet. She bore the tray to the table.

Sitting at the board were Alamar and Dalor and Branwen, all of whom had been at the in-between crossing when Bair and Aravan had first come on Winterday a full year past, with Valké terribly wounded nigh unto death. Dalor the Healer had managed to keep the bird from dying, and Branwen the Animist had discovered how to change the unconscious falcon back into an Elf, after which Dalor had saved Aravan.

As Aylis began handing out the steaming mugs, “A Silver Wolf, a Draega, you say?” asked the fourth one sitting at the table—a somber-faced Mage. “The boy a shapeshifter?”

“Aravan, too, Sorcerer Cadir,” said Aylis, “though he does not come by it naturally, as does Bair.”

“ for one and a token of power for the other,” said Dalor, the short and portly Mage accepting a cup from Aylis.

“I don’t know why we have to wait for them,” said dark-haired Alamar, an irritated glint in his green eyes. “I mean, we are assembled and ready to strike, and so should just get on with it ourselves.”

“Father,” said Aylis, “Bair’s plan is well thought out.”

“She’s right,” said Branwen, stirring a dab of honey into the tea.

“Pah!” snapped Alamar. “Why, I alone can destroy that fort.” He gestured toward the Mages downslope. “Any one of a dozen of us could.”

“Ah, but what if it is teeming with Black Mages?” asked Dalor. “Then who would take on the Foul Folk while we do battle with our kind?”

“Black Mages are
not
our kind,” growled Alamar. “Besides, if it came to it, as I said before, we could simply destroy the fort.”

Aylis sighed and said, “Father, the mission is not to destroy the fort but to capture it intact.”

“I know that, daughter,” snapped Alamar. “I am merely saying we
could
. Nay, but even so, I think we need no Elven aid to capture that stronghold undamaged.” Then he grinned. “After all, I am to be commander when it’s in our hands.”

“Co-commander,” said Cadir, “or am I wrong about this captain of the Elves? Um . . . what is his name again?”

“Captain Arandor, I believe,” said Branwen.

“Yes,” said Aylis. “Arandor has agreed to be co-commander of the Black Fortress.”

“Captain of the guard, you mean,” said Alamar.

“And co-commander, Father,” replied Aylis.

“Yes, yes, but you see—”

“Falcon!” came a cry, and both Dalor and Branwyn turned to see. High above and spiraling down the dark bird glided.