Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy) (60 page)

She would take the Uradabhur as well.

The false parley had bought her the time to move the whole of her force east through the Dragon’s Gate. They mustered now in Ceoprentrei, the northernmost of three linked mountain valleys bordered on both sides by the peaks of the Mystrals. The mountain valley was the last place of true shelter and true safety her army would know, for when they reached the land beyond, they must fight.

Come spring, the Alliance of the High Houses would follow her over the Mystrals, baying for blood. The armies would slaughter each other without mercy or quarter, for the false parley had been a double-edged blade: it had bought her the time to move her army eastward … and it had bound the Houses of the Grand Alliance to one another with blood and vengeance.

The Trueborn Houses number twenty in the Grand Windsward, six in the Arzhana, thirty in the Uradabhur, forty-two from the Mystrals to Great Sea Ocean. Seventy-eight War Princes must yet decide I should be High King. If I gain the Uradabhur as I hope, that leaves forty-eight.

The meisne the Twelve could bring to the field was as great as all she might hope to bring to face them, for she knew she could not count on the Houses of the Windsward to ride to her aid, whether they supported her or not. The distance was too great. They would starve before they crossed the Arzhana, and even if they did not, High House Nantirworiel held the only pass which led into the Uradabhur, and it would never let an enemy army pass.

The Twelve would never declare for her without being defeated. And if she meant to defeat them, she must find something greater than swords and
komen
.

Magery is the answer. But I am already using Magery. Perhaps if I hadn’t, the War Princes would not have formed their Alliance.

The maps beneath her hands were covered with marks drawn from the whisperings of ghosts. In the past moonturn she’d combed her borrowed memories for landmarks and events of the distant past, hoping they would form some pattern she could understand. Here Lady Indinathiel lost a third of her army. There Lord Githonel set fire to the enemy’s croplands. She’d marked the forest in which Lady Parmanaya was lost, the plain on which Lord Tengolin lost the battle because of his feud with Nelpanar, the encampment where Lord Noremallin’s army mutinied. The marks all led across the Feinolons, the Bazrahils, the Mystrals. Her ancestors had ridden west, fleeing the fall of Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor. Amrethion High King had died. Pelashia Great Queen had died. And Amrethion’s lords had hunted their children, and their children’s children, and they had fled west.…

“I have had speech of Isilla,” Aradreleg said. “Will you hear, my lord?”

“In a moment,” Vieliessar said, staring at the map. She finally looked up to see Aradreleg standing before the map-table, looking both worried and impatient. “I plan our victory, and it preoccupies me,” Vieliessar said, forcing herself to sound cheerful and conciliating. “If you would rather I did not…”

Aradreleg did not answer her smile. “My lord, there is that which you must know. Isilla Farspoke me to say the scouts Lord Thoromarth sent have returned to him.”

Vieliessar glanced toward the doorway of the pavilion. It was dark outside now, and the pavilion was lit by balls of Silverlight she must have conjured up herself. On the edge of the map-table stood a platter of food, untouched. She wondered who had brought it. Rithdeliel, she suspected.

“If it is ill news, it is best given at once,” she said gently, though Aradreleg’s thoughts already gave her a sense of it. The words that followed were Thoromarth’s, and in the sharp brief sentences, Vieliessar heard despair.

Though it was already Harvest Moon, the Alliance was not retreating to winter quarters. They followed hot on the heels of Nadalforo and Thoromarth’s force. A sennight behind them at best.

I had thought to have more time!
Vieliessar thought in anguish. With the Alliance following her now instead of next spring, the Houses of the Uradabhur might be terrified into adhering to their traditional loyalties. If she must conquer Less House Jaeglenhend by force of arms before she turned to face the Alliance, she would have only scant days to do so—but she must have Jaeglenhend’s loyalty before she could turn against the Alliance, for no army had ever gained victory while fighting enemies both before and behind.

And I do not wish to face them in battle at all!

“How long until Lord Thoromarth’s force reaches Ceoprentrei?” Vieliessar asked, her voice even.

“Two days, perhaps three,” Rithdeliel said. His voice was sharp with worry. “My lord, what orders?”

“Why, what orders do you imagine?” Vieliessar answered, making her voice light. “We prepare the army to march—and fight.”

*   *   *

As was customary at the start of a campaign, tonight Vieliessar would hold a feast for her senior commanders that would begin with a sacrifice to the Silver Hooves. She gathered from the herds of Mangiralas a dozen flawless colts and the feasting began with their sacrifice.

She was obscurely glad that Gatriadde Mangiralas was not there to see.

The company was by now too large to gather within any single pavilion, for her army numbered in the tens of thousands. She cleared the meadow her skirmishers had used for drilling and her Lightborn restored the turf. Then over all she caused to be set an enormous canopy, its fabrics joined and doubled by Magery until a veil of green and silver stood between the gathered company and the unwavering stars. From her seat at the High Table Vieliessar looked out over the assembly and knew that if she died tomorrow, she would still have accomplished enough to make her name a legend. War Princes of Houses that had fought one another since the Fall of Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor sat in amity—
true
amity—beside sellswords, beside Landbonds raised up to be Captains of Archers, beside Lightborn who took the field wearing chain shirts beneath their Green Robes. In this moment, the High King’s pledge was redeemed in an instant out of time, for here there was neither High House nor Low, Lord nor Landbond. There were only her people.

Tomorrow they would march down through the Dragon’s Gate into the Uradabhur, and there they would fight, though she did not yet presume to say whom their enemy might be. And they would fight on until her cause was claimed by victory or by defeat, and upon the anvil of that forging they would craft either the sword with which to face the Darkness when it came …

… or the pyre of their utter destruction.

*   *   *

“What do I need to do to become High King?” Vieliessar asked. The banquet was over and it was yet a few candlemarks until dawn. Over the course of the feast she had turned aside the questions Thoromarth, among others, had asked; they naturally wanted to know her plans, in case those plans were something they might want to argue her out of. But Gunedwaen had asked no questions, and on impulse she had invited him to accompany her on the walk back to her pavilion.

“To win is usually considered a good first step to becoming Commander, War Prince, or High King,” Gunedwaen answered as they reached Vieliessar’s pavilion. Gunedwaen stepped forward and lifted the tent flap for Vieliessar to enter, bowing as he did so, though not without a generous measure of irony. Vieliessar stepped forward and Gunedwaen followed her inside.

There was no one else of whom Vieliessar would have asked a question such as this, especially on the eve of battle, but Vieliessar trusted Gunedwaen. Not as someone whose fealty she held—for the oath had been in some sense extorted, and oaths had been broken before—and not as a useful ally whose self-interest would keep him from rebellion, for Farcarinon’s Swordmaster was uncompromisingly loyal.

No. Though he would reject the very concept, she trusted him as her equal.

Those who held Vieliessar’s respect were few. She loved sparingly and despairingly and valued many fearlessly. She could see too clearly why the men and women who fought for her did so. For vengeance. For self-interest, and she did not despise that, for clear-eyed self-interest was precious to her. Uncounted more followed her for the simple fact that their lives with her were better than the lives they’d left, and that saddened her even while she esteemed it as the precious gift it was, for many who had joined her would die before her final victory was achieved.

But Gunedwaen followed her for love. He did not value the future she meant to summon, nor did he believe in the Prophecy she steered by. Yet he would follow her until the day Aradhwain Bride of Battles placed her cold kiss upon his lips and sent him to ride forever with the Starry Hunt.

The pavilion was empty; no doubt her servants had gone to one of the many celebrations being held tonight. But the stove had been kindled and a kettle of water stood steaming gently atop it; spell-lanterns radiated dim light. Vieliessar conjured enough Silverlight to brighten the outer room and saw a tea service arranged on a tray waiting on a table. She shook loose tea into the pot and filled it from the kettle.

Gunedwaen raised her eyebrows. “Despite all our teachings, you still have the habits of a Sanctuary Mage,” he said.

“Am I to wait for you to serve me? You have served me well enough in these past moonturns, I think.” The tea had finished steeping so she poured for both of them. Steam curled from the delicate cups. “So you say, I must win. And how will I know when I’ve won?”

Gunedwaen cocked his head, studying her. “People might stop trying to kill you,” he offered. “Or not. But the simple answer to your question is one you already know: have all the War Princes proclaim you High King.”

“A more difficult task than it sounds. I had hoped,” she said, offering up the word with unaccustomed diffidence for she well knew Gunedwaen believed that if one must hope, one had lost, “to gain the Uradabhur before facing the Alliance.”

“Whereupon they would concede and anoint you High King,” Gunedwaen said. “But that is not your road to victory. It never has been.”

Vieliessar gazed at him in puzzlement and after a pause Gunedwaen continued. “I have been a Swordmaster since before your father’s birth. Wondertales are my stock-in-trade. Truth matters little. It is what people believe that ends battles or begins them.

“At least half the people out there follow you because you’re the Child of the Prophecy, Amrethion Aradruiniel’s chosen successor.” He waved his hand in the direction of the rest of the camp. “They expect your life and your war to be a wondertale. They want you to be as amazing and unknowable as Great Queen Pelashia Celenthodiel. If you give them what they want of you, they will love you and they will follow you. As will your foes—if you can convince them.”

“I am not a—” Vieliessar began hotly.

“Spirit? Great Power? Ancient hero reborn?” Gunedwaen asked. “Do you really think it matters? They want a good story. Give them that, and even the Twelve will bow their necks.”

Vieliessar bit back the angry words she longed to say. From the moment she’d begun to realize the sheer scope of the power surrounding her—and influencing her—she’d been uneasy with it. Even if she wasn’t manipulating people’s minds deliberately, she knew it was happening. The fact that Gunedwaen dismissed it so lightly made it worse. When did what she did to save her people become more terrible than what she was trying to save them from?

She shook her head stubbornly. There were no clear-cut choices.

“You mean to destroy the life we’ve all led for thousands of years, cast down the War Princes, change everything anyone has ever known, bring ‘justice’ to the commons, and turn every soul of the Fortunate Lands into a great army to fight an enemy so terrible Amrethion Aradruiniel refused to name it. You cannot do that as a mere War Prince, or even as High King. You must become more than that.”

Gunedwaen gazed into the distance. “Serenthon tried. His enemies feared him, and that fear was the greatest weapon in his arsenal. You don’t want to be feared, and you’re right. Fear is a good weapon on a battlefield, a bad one in a Great Hall. But you must become a legend. A dream all can dream together. A dream they can share and follow. If you do not, your army will lose all hope and be destroyed with its first great defeat. Now it’s late, and I’ve said far too much. With your permission, my lord, I will withdraw.”

“Of course,” she answered.

Gunedwaen got to his feet and walked to the door of the pavilion. His expression was thoughtful, but she would not gaze into his thoughts. “Rest you well, Vieliessar High King,” he said, turning back to regard her.

“And you,” Vieliessar said.
As if I could, after that.

Amrethion High King, what
hradan
have you set upon me?

Her untouched tea had gone cold by the time she rose from the table and sought her bed.

*   *   *

Long before dawn, the army began to move. First to depart were the scouts and foragers, not just the commonfolk on shaggy ponies whose sole task was to warn of the presence of enemy forces in the Mystrals, who had been on patrol since the army had arrived in Ceoprentrei, but
komen
ready to fight.

Once the scouts were away, the army followed. It was odd to see so many in the same colors. The infantry and former mercenaries wore tabards, the
komen
wore surcoats, and all were green with a rearing silver Unicorn upon them. Her device. Her colors. The mark of the armies of the High King.

Once all had been set in motion, Vieliessar took her personal guard and rode up to the top of the pass. It was chill and dark, still a full candlemark before dawn. The Dragon’s Gate had been worked and shaped long ago by Lightborn: the pass was broad and open, and she could see down into the hills on the western side below, where the army of the Alliance gathered.

The earth was a mirror of the sky, dotted with thousands of points of light. The large ones were cookfires and watchfires. The small ones were the torches set at the boundaries of the Alliance’s camp and in front of many of the tents. Here and there she could see balls of Silverlight glowing with a moon-blue radiance. She wondered if Prince Runacarendalur was down there somewhere.