Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy) (45 page)

As they rode across the battlefield, flocks of carrion birds startled up from the tangled bodies; in the grey mist of morning she saw the low, slinking shapes of other predators ghost away until they could feed undisturbed once more. Her people would not return to the Great Keep until Oronviel’s dead had been removed from the field, but those belonging to Caerthalien would lie here until they rotted.

It was almost impossible to say where the battlefield ended and Caerthalien’s camp began. The only difference between the two was that in the camp, the wreckage of bodies was replaced by the wreckage of things: everything a princely army carried to war, shattered and spoiled.

By the time they’d passed both battlefield and camp, the day was bright and the ground was even. Vieliessar’s company moved to the trot. They had only gone a few miles when they encountered the first of the Caerthaliens. Their plain dull clothing marked them as lesser servants, those who performed menial work: setting the tents, fetching and carrying. They leaped to their feet at the sound of horses and clustered so closely around Vieliessar’s force that the knights were forced to rein their destriers to a halt.

“Vieliessar High King! Vieliessar High King!” First one, then another, spoke the words, until all of them cried her name together as they crowded forward, reaching out to touch her. “Vieliessar High King!”

The destriers began to fret and dance, unhappy at being crowded. Moved—and more than a little frightened by the power of what she had unleashed—she reached out to touch the hands of those who reached out for her.
They look to me for protection now,
she realized.
Not because I am their War Prince but because I will be their King.

“Let us pass,” Bethaerian demanded, her voice tight with tension. “Our supply wagons follow us—you will be fed!”

“Let me pass,” Vieliessar said to those nearest to her. “I am not yet High King.”

Slowly the crowd moved away, opening a pathway through which the company could ride.

“There is a stream only a little way to the south,” Bethaerian said as they rode on. “Do they not hear it?”

“Castel servants,” another
komen
answered dismissively. “They have no more wits than sheep.”

“Say rather that they are in a strange place, and those lords they looked to for protection have left them,” Vieliessar corrected sharply. Gaellas ducked his head, acknowledging the rebuke, but it would take far more than a few small corrections to change the way the
komentai’a
thought.

This was the first group of stragglers they encountered, but not the last. Some sat unmoving at the side of the road, some fled at their approach, some continued walking, but many, seeing her banner, hailed Vieliessar as High King. Whether they wore leather and rough homespun or the silken livery of household servants, the expression on every face was the same.

Hope.

Seeing them and realizing that her promise had been heard and taken to heart even in the stronghold of her enemy, Vieliessar suddenly knew victory was possible. To all who begged for aid, Bethaerian made the same reply as before: their supplies followed.

“They will only steal all they can lay hands on and flee,” Bethaerian grumbled as they rode on.

“Back to masters who have abandoned them?” Vieliessar asked. “No. They are my people now.”

At midmorning, a cloud of dust hanging above the road before them signaled the passage of Caerthalien’s army. “Sound the call to battle.”

The enemy forces seemed to scatter in all directions at the first notes of the warhorn, but Vieliessar knew that was merely those afoot moving out of the way of the knights. When they were yet a mile distant, Vieliessar ordered Bethaerian to sound the charge, and they moved from trot, to canter, to gallop. The Caerthalien knights turned in column to face them, and Vieliessar could see Prince Runacarendalur’s standard in the first rank.

But he is not here. I can tell it.
She could not say how she knew, for it was not possible to see anything clearly in the moment the point of her formation struck their ranks. But she was as certain of it as she was of the count of her own fingers and toes. There was an instant for relief that she did not need to fear for her hated enemy’s safety—and anger, for he had abandoned his army and fled, perhaps beyond her reach—and then she was embattled.

She had not let herself think about what had happened on yesterday’s battlefield. The storysingers made of Soulbonding a thing that overshadowed both will and common sense, and in the instant she had seen him, she had known both were true, for from the moment the Bond had been formed, she had thought of nothing but killing him. Death would be kinder than a lifetime linked to one who embodied everything she had come to despise—princely arrogance and royal ambition. She remembered Prince Runacarendalur from her childhood: a shining, distant figure who was the embodiment of all she wished to become.

I will not be his consort. I cannot take him as mine—I cannot say to Rithdeliel and Gunedwaen and Thoromarth and all who may come to fight for me: spare Runacarendalur of Caerthalien, for if he should die, I die as well.…

She led her company to the left of Caerthalien’s center. Gunedwaen had often said a Swordmaster took the greatest hurts from his most unskilled students, simply because they did that which no training could predict. Exhaustion and desperation in the Caerthalien knights lent their attacks the same unpredictability: the blow against which one defended might go high, or low, or strike the knight beside one instead. Worse yet was the moment the back of the Caerthalien column—inspired by some masterful leader—began to swing to
deosil
, for if the column could turn, it might manage to bring forward a large enough force to block her line of retreat and encircle her force.

But the battleground was hemmed in by those who were not lawful targets under the Code of Battle, and knights and destriers collided disastrously with servants and pages who had thought themselves safely on the sidelines of the field. The obvious thing for Caerthalien to do was retreat up the road—the knights might not care about the lives of their servants, but the confusion left them vulnerable to enemy attack. But Vieliessar heard no Caerthalien signal to retreat and regroup, and suddenly she realized that Caerthalien
could not withdraw.
She’d seen no Green Robes in the crowds at the edges of the column and that meant that if any Lightborn had been part of the retreat, they had been leading it, and were now behind the army. Even Lightborn could not outrun blood-maddened warhorses. If the Caerthalien knights broke and fled—if the rearward ranks retreated—the Lightborn would be trampled to death.

She could not afford to care. Could not retreat, hoping Caerthalien would follow, and thus ensure the safety of those who might have been her friends, her comrades, her students.
The purpose of war is to win,
she told herself bleakly, and banished thoughts of the Lightborn from her mind.

Then, as if Caerthalien was a river and a dam had burst, the knights facing Oronviel’s swords simply fell away. Vieliessar struck the foe before her hard enough to topple him from the saddle. His destrier reared up, menacing her with its forehooves, but her mount sprang backward with ease, for there was suddenly space through which to maneuver.

She raised her bloodied sword, brandishing it in the direction of the enemy, and spurred Grillet in pursuit. The bay stallion danced along the road, springing into the air to vault fallen bodies, dodging around injured horses. Behind her, Vieliessar heard the call for the chase:
follow, follow, follow
. It was not a battle call, but a hunting call: there was never any need to chase a force of enemy knights on the field. She could hear the thunder of hooves; slowly the front rank of her knights drew level with her. Before them, Caerthalien fled as if it ran with the Starry Hunt Itself. They could not keep to such a bruising pace for long, but it would not matter. Vieliessar galloped her company after them until she judged they had covered several miles, then began to rein Grillet in. It was difficult to do, for he wanted to run, but she managed it at last, sending him onward at a slow trot until the company had reformed behind her.

“We could have run them until their horses were blown!” one of her
komen
objected when they were moving at a slow walk.

“Yes,” Vieliessar agreed. “But—did you see? They held their place during the battle for fear of overrunning those behind them: their Lightborn, it must be. And then they ran. So let us go back and find those Lightborn. Once they are in my care, we may harass Caerthalien as we wish.”

“That is a good thought, Lord Vieliessar,” Bethaerian said, plainly relieved at her reason for abandoning the chase. “Let us seek them out.”

When they retraced their steps, they reached a place where the dead had been moved aside, servant and knight piled together, and the road had been filled with the injured. The Lightborn moved among the wounded, offering Healing. Vieliessar counted no more than a dozen of them. A force the size of Caerthalien’s would have traveled with fifty Lightborn, perhaps more.

“Who is senior among you?” Vieliessar called, reining in.

By their reaction, the Lightborn had expected her to pass without stopping. There was a quick murmured colloquy between three of them, then one walked forward. “I am Pantaradet Lightsister,” she said.

“You are not all the Lightborn that traveled with Runacarendalur’s army,” Vieliessar said.

Pantaradet shook her head. “We are all who returned to aid the injured,” she said simply. “Lord Vieliessar, you were once one of us. Please. We must have food, shelter, a place where these injured may rest. They have done you no harm.”

“Summon to you all the Lightborn who rode with Caerthalien,” Vieliessar answered. “Give yourselves into my care, and I will care for those you have Healed as well. All may come to me who were in Caerthalien’s service.”

A look almost of awe broke over Pantaradet’s features. “It is true,” she said, as if the words were torn from her all unwilling. “I had heard— I did not believe—”

“I shall be High King, Pantaradet Lightsister,” Vieliessar said. “And you will be my people. I would have you safe while I make war on those who would make war upon me.”

Pantaradet nodded, and for a moment it seemed she might speak further. Whatever she thought of saying, she decided against it. She nodded again instead. “I will summon them, Lord Vieliessar. We are sixty in number.”

It was a reasonable count of Lightborn Healers to accompany three thousand knights—especially if one did not intend to have any enemy wounded to Heal. Vieliessar sent Orannet and Janondiel back to her supply wagons to bring supplies for the Healers, then sent two hundred of her
komen
to follow the Caerthalien knights and keep them moving. She waited until the wagons had arrived and the wounded were loaded. Then, at last, she pursued Caerthalien once more.

If only she had been able to take Runacarendalur of Caerthalien prisoner this morning, the day would have held nothing but joy.

*   *   *

After eight interminable days spent fleeing Oronviel, Runacarendalur was filthy and tired, and he
ached
. The four of them had been met at the border by a demi-taille of
komen
—Father’s personal guard—and a dozen Lightborn. With fresh mounts, they reached Alqualanya Flower Forest a few candlemarks later, and then Carangil and those Lightborn with Door to Call moved them between Alqualanya and Rimroheth in a heartbeat. It had all been accomplished with such speed that no messenger could have sent word before them, but as Runacarendalur and Ladyholder Glorthiachiel walked from the center of Rimroheth, they found a familiar figure waiting for them.

“’Rulion,” Runacarendalur said in surprise. “Am I to be laid in irons? Or do you come to rejoice at our dear mother’s return? And mine, of course.”

“You look like a Landbond,” his brother said flatly. “But I came to warn you, because Light knows your servants won’t.”

“Warn us?” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel demanded. “Of what?”

“Father … entertains,” Ivrulion said with heavy irony. “What news Runacarendalur sent of the battle disturbed him. And so we host Cirandeiron, and Aramenthiali, and Telthorelandor.”

“What?” Runacarendalur and Ladyholder Glorthiachiel spoke almost in chorus. Runacarendalur could not have been more stunned if his brother had told him Vieliessar had conquered Caerthalien and was awaiting him here.

“Their armies, or…?”

Ladyholder Glorthiachiel glared at him murderously, and Runacarendalur fell silent.

“Their War Princes,” Ivrulion said. “And you should be grateful for that, Rune, for the army—what you left of it—is still a fortnight from the border. It is the absence of their provisions, their servants, and our Lightborn that slows them, I suppose, though really, when you consider the matter, a smaller—”

It took a moment for the sense of his brother’s words to penetrate. “But the servants— Our Lightborn—” Runacarendalur said, in shock.

“Some of the servants—a few hundred—accompany them. None of our Lightborn.”

“Oh, never mind that now! If Cirandeiron, Telthorelandor, and Aramenthiali are within our walls, why are we standing here talking?” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel demanded. “And we will enter by the siege gate, Ivrulion, for I will not permit our adventure in Oronviel to seem as if it were a disaster.”

*   *   *

For one War Prince to come to another’s domain meant either absolute trust between them—which was impossible—or a common goal so important that a temporary amnesty existed until that goal was met. Runacarendalur did not have to ask why Cirandeiron, Aramenthiali, and Telthorelandor had been sent for: the timing was too exact.

Any thought he’d had—admittedly negligible—of telling anyone that he had discovered himself to be the destined Bondmate of Vieliessar of whatever-domain-she-claimed vanished. He suspected that revealing this would dramatically shorten his life, but loyalty to Caerthalien had made him at least consider it. But that had been when it would be a thing known only to Caerthalien. If Father was conspiring with other War Princes once more …