Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy) (64 page)

“Obviously they must be returned to the lands they came from,” Lord Clacheu of Denegathaiel said.

“There speaks the weasel in the buttery!” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel cried with deadly sarcasm. “Next you will say that Denegathaiel has suffered the greatest losses and should receive the greatest portion!”

“And why not?” Lord Clacheu demanded. “Or are we next to hear that since Caerthalien now holds all of Brabamant’s lands, she should receive Brabamant’s chattels as well? Perhaps you would like to add Ivrithir and Oronviel to that tally? Laeldor? Araphant? Perhaps all we have taken rightfully belongs to Caerthalien?”

It was as if someone had dropped a torch in a pan of hot oil, Runacarendalur thought uncharitably. In the space of an indrawn breath, everyone in the pavilion was shouting, demanding the spoils of war be distributed immediately—and in their favor.

Fools. They believe that a single victory gives them the whole of the war.
Heartsick and furious, Runacarendalur rose to his feet and walked out into the camp.

“I see your moderate words and wise counsel did not have the effect you hoped,” Ivrulion said, stepping from the door of his own pavilion as Runacar began to pass it by.

Runacarendalur paused and regarded his brother in something like despair.
Gimragiel dead in Ullilion, Thorogalas dead on the Meadows of Aralhathumindrion, Domcariel dead in Mangiralas, and I will not survive Vieliessar’s execution. Is Caerthalien to be held by Ciliphirilir after Lord Bolecthindial’s death? She would surrender it for a box of sweetmeats and a new jeweled comb! If only
’
Rulion were not Lightborn.…

But if Ivrulion had not been Called, Runacarendalur would never have been born.

“What did you expect?” he demanded savagely. “We have barely held this alliance together as it is! It’s a sad day when it is victory that destroys us and not defeat!”

His brother merely shook his head. “It is but a few candlemarks until the next storm strikes. They have no food, shelter, or supplies—what can they do but die?”

“She will find something!” Runacarendalur snarled. “I know not what, but she always does! She—”

“Come,” Ivrulion said, “take a cup of wine with me.” He took Runacarendalur’s arm and compelled him into his pavilion.

The interior was dim, lit only by the afternoon sun shining through the green silk. Runcarendalur followed his brother through the second curtain and into an inner chamber, then dropped gratefully into a chair, holding out his hand for the cup of warmed and sweetened wine Ivrulion’s servant brought to him.

“You always did have a terrible temper when you weren’t winning,” Ivrulion commented, accepting his own cup and seating himself close by. “Go and kill some of the prisoners if it will make you feel better. We’ve won. You know we have. We won the moment you took her supply train. Once Vieliessar is dead, we will declare her followers wolfsheads and leave the Less Houses here to hunt them at their leisure.”

“You make it sound simple,” Runacarendalur muttered.

“I don’t know why you insist on it being difficult,” Ivrulion answered. “Your tactics worked. She’s finished.”

“I couldn’t have done it without your Wardings,” Runacarendalur said, his mood slowly beginning to lighten.

“And for that we have our enemy to thank,” Ivrulion answered. “If she had not taken her Lightborn onto the battlefield, I doubt I could have persuaded the War Princes to permit me to give orders to their Lightborn.”

Runacarendalur tossed back the rest of his wine and held out his cup for more. He frowned. “In just a handful of moonturns she’s turned the West into ghostlands. Do you suppose, ’Rulion, that she’s been what this so-called Prophecy was warning us about all along?”

Ivrulion chuckled softly. “We shall make a scholar of you yet, Rune. If it is not true, we shall certainly say it is.” He paused for a moment in thought. “Almost I could wish to take her alive. To know how she—”

“You cannot go in there!” From beyond the outer curtain, Runacarendalur heard the voice of Mardioruin Lightbrother, his brother’s personal Lightborn.

“I can and I will—if Prince Runacarendalur is there! My lord prince! Are you here?” Helecanth shouted.

Runacarendalur flung his cup to the carpet and sprang to his feet just as Helecanth pushed through the curtain. Her face was bruised from the recent fighting; her eyes sparkled with urgency. Behind her was Lengiathion Warlord.

Runacarendalur had left Lengiathion in charge of the Caerthalien knights on the field.

“What—” he said, but Lengiathion didn’t wait for him to ask.

“Lord Vieliessar has quarreled with her army. She flees south with a few hundred Lightborn and mercenaries. Her army—”

But Runacarendalur was no longer listening. “My armor!” he shouted. “Get me my armor!”

*   *   *

The chill soft wind whipped across Vieliessar’s face as Firthorn galloped, as fresh as if he had come scant moments before from the horselines. Behind her thundered her tiny army. Were they tempting enough to lure the hawk from the falconer’s glove? She must hope. If they were— If Rithdeliel could flee unopposed— If he could take Jaeglenhend Great Keep—

“Ah, here they come!” Nadalforo cried, raising her voice so Vieliessar could hear.

Vieliessar risked a look back. Caerthalien’s knights galloped in pursuit. They outnumbered Vieliessar’s meisne as much as ten to one, but her people had several miles head start. There was little chance they’d be overtaken. Jaeglenhend’s border was a half-day’s ride from where they’d been fighting, but they would probably reach it before sunset.

The day darkened as the afternoon storm clouds swept over the Mystrals. And for once in recent days, something went as she hoped. She heard the distant clarion of warhorns as more knights rode from the Alliance encampment to join the chase—not because more of them were needed to capture her, but because none of the War Princes wished her to fall prisoner to any other.
If I were willing to give up my life to do it, I could destroy the entire Alliance army right here,
she thought gaily.

But she must survive. And so she must find another way.

*   *   *

Mile after mile fell away beneath the destriers’ tireless hooves. Their pursuers turned back, for the storm their Lightborn had conjured to finish destroying Vieliessar’s army had fallen upon them instead. Vieliessar and her escort simply outran it. Her body ached with the battering of sitting to the gallop for so long; she knew the others must be weary as well. Her mouth was dry and her throat ached with thirst; it had been two days—more—since she’d eaten anything or drunk more than a little melted snow.

Dusk deepened and the horses ran on, exhausted yet tireless.

“There!”

Nadalforo’s shout drew Vieliessar’s attention. So far eastward its shape was hidden in the tree line stood one of the border towers. She nodded, signifying she had heard, and the whole column began to turn in that direction. With luck, the tower stood deserted.

But Vieliessar’s luck seemed to have fled with the day. Nilkaran might have drawn heavily from the border keeps but he hadn’t stripped them entirely. They were within a mile of the tower when its main gate opened and six tailles of knights rode toward her, each carrying a torch. Vieliessar’s meisne outnumbered them, but Nilkaran’s people and their mounts were fresh.

Vieliessar drew her sword and shouted her battle cry. Then there was no more time for thought. The enemy flung their torches to the ground, making a circle of fire in which to fight, and battle was joined.

In its first moments, Vieliessar lost nearly a dozen people. Their bespelled destriers might have been able to run for another candlemark, even two, but they were unable to follow the complex orders that turned a destrier from a method of transport into a companion in battle. Some tried and fell helpless to the ground, their limbs thrashing spasmodically. Some refused, leaving their riders vulnerable to attack. Some simply swung wide of the Jaeglenhend knights and kept running. She herself might have been dead in the first seconds of the battle had she not seized control of Firthorn’s mind. She could feel his pain and terror, his utter exhaustion, and it broke her heart to do what she must, but the stakes were too high. Ruthlessly, she crushed the spark of his will beneath her Magery. She felt him dying by heartbeats as she forced him into battle against the commander of the opposing knights. Firthorn wheeled and spun, snapped and kicked, and at last she drove her blade into her enemy’s body.

In the same moment she kicked her feet free of Firthorn’s stirrups and seized the pommel of her enemy’s saddle, thrusting him from his seat as she flung herself from the back of the dying animal to the back of the living one. Around her, others were doing the same.

The field of battle brightened as the Warhunt conjured globes of Silverlight to illuminate it. In the brief instant’s respite before she closed with another foe, Vieliessar saw that most of the Warhunt were on foot, having abandoned their palfreys. She knew they were as exhausted as she—and as cold and starved—and far less used to the rigors of battle. But Iardalaith had chosen his Warhunt Mages well: after a few moments to gather their resources, the Warhunt turned its attention to the enemy. Their destriers froze in place or fled the battlefield to buck their riders from their backs and trample them to death. The enemy knights shouted with spell-fed terror, or flung their swords from them as if they’d become venomous serpents, or simply flung themselves out of their saddles.

The rest of the battle was brief.

Vieliessar ran her hand down her new mount’s sweating trembling neck. Vital as her victory had been, it left the taste of ashes in her mouth. There was nothing of fairness or even kindness to it. She’d never been indoctrinated in the Way of the Sword, but to win as she had just done seemed very wrong, as if she’d stolen from someone who trusted her.

And that made no sense: these
komen
did not trust her, and no War Prince would surrender an advantage that would give their House victory over another.
The High King must do more,
she thought with weary exasperation.

“Give them the chance to surrender!” she shouted, as she saw one of the former mercenaries stand upon the chest of an enemy, preparing to put a sword-blade through the eye-slits of the fallen foe’s helm. “If you do not, you will answer to me!”

“What ransom will you set, my lord?” Nadalforo rode toward her, her stolen destrier dancing fretfully beneath an unfamiliar rider. Her mouth was set in a hard line of disapproval.

“Fealty. As always,” Vieliessar answered steadily.

“We still have to take the tower,” Nadalforo reminded her.

“You may kill all who will not swear,” Vieliessar said, turning away.

The Warhunt moved across the battlefield, finishing the dying destriers and helping the wounded fighters. At Nadalforo’s command, the enemy knights who surrendered were disarmed and gathered together, to be guarded by her warriors until Vieliessar could take their fealty oaths. The rest were being executed without ceremony.

Vieliessar glanced toward the tower. The upper windows were lit. Servants still inside. Probably the tower’s commander. They were out of bowshot here unless someone in there had a forester’s bow. She sighed with weariness. If the tower’s defenders would not surrender willingly, the Warhunt could force them out. And any of the tower’s defenders would know its second entrance. Even if that were barred, they could destroy the door and it would be easy enough to repair.

But moments later, when she called upon him to surrender, Lord Karamedheliel gave up Oakstone Tower without further battle.

*   *   *

To become a Warlord—as he had not once, but twice—one studied every aspect of war. A war was a living thing, like a beast, a tree, a child. In Farcarinon, Rithdeliel had owned a library of scrolls that spoke of war—not just the reality of it, but the theory, for the battles the War Princes fought were mere squabbles, as if a child went from babe to toddler over and over, and never became adult. To see the full scope of war, one must turn to
xaique
. A pretense of war, fought because there were no true wars to study.

As the middle game of
xaique
involved defeat and loss, so did the middle game of war.

To retreat across the Mystrals with her army and all the folk who looked to her had been an audacious move, for it cut Vieliessar’s enemy off from its supply lines. Rithdeliel would have welcomed a continuance of the string of victories with which her campaign began, but he knew, as Vieliessar did, that many of those triumphs had been built upon the stones of Vieliessar’s boldness and the High Houses’ inability to see her as a threat. Now they saw, and that advantage was gone. She had frightened her enemy badly enough that its alliance of War Princes was desperate enough to take counsel from one not yet of their rank. One as audacious as Vieliessar, and as brilliant.

That had cost her, and dearly, but one defeat was not the end of the war. Their supply train was captured, but it was intact, and what was stolen once might be stolen twice. Their army was scattered and suffering, but it, too, might well be intact. And if it was not …

Lord Serenthon had fought the High Houses nearly to a stand against odds of a hundred to one. The daughter surpassed the father as the ice-tiger in her glory surpassed the kitten on the hearth. So long as Vieliessar High King lived there was a chance of victory.

It was Rithdeliel’s duty to save her army so she could claim it.

It was day when they began their northward march. It was dusk when they reached the first of the manor farms. The destriers grazed their way through the last of the standing grain, reducing the snow-covered fields to stubble and muck. Both horses and riders were agonizingly thirsty, but the riders kept their mounts from taking more than a few mouthfuls of water at the stream. If the beasts foundered, it was as much a loss as if they died. There were miles yet to go.

To all the Jaeglenhend commonfolk who approached the army and begged to be allowed to travel with and serve the High King and her army, Rithdeliel made certain the same word was given: the army rode to take Jaeglenhend Great Keep, and all who wished to serve the High King were welcome.