Fortress in the Eye of Time (58 page)

“There is no choice, m'lady! Ride! Ride!”

The lords, the lady, and two of the men rode for safety, and Tristen turned Petelly's head and rode with them, to the south of the enclosure, where a doorway in the ruined hall provided them a way out. A number of the men overtook them, but not all: at least half the soldiers had stayed.

They had no hope, Tristen thought. It was impossible against what was coming. He might help them—but he had no weapon, they feared him as much as they feared their enemy, and the lady, Cefwyn's lady, had to be safe.
He
knew where the road was—
he
could see the lines glowing in the dark, marking obstacles for the horses, and Tasien could not. He abandoned care for the men behind and sent Petelly forward as fast as Petelly could run, shouldering horses around him until he reached the fore.

“I can see the path!” he called out and, Tasien willing or not, he took the lead and stayed there, leading them by a twisting path along old walls, through ruined doors, and sharply around an old cistern that gaped in their path. The wind was blasting into their faces. Rain spattered him, stung his eyes. He heard—in one realm or the other—the clash of weapons, horses running over stone—shouts and outcries of men fighting for their lives behind them while the earthly wind shrieked like a multitude of voices. He felt all his senses assaulted at once, and Petelly shied under him, trying to bolt, just when a wall loomed up ahead.

He did not know himself how he made the jump. They lost two men. The horses came past him riderless. But the rest were with him, and Petelly threw his head, fighting to see in the gusts that flared in their faces.

He rode continually south. He encouraged Petelly with his hands and his knees as he saw masons' lines ahead of them and turned instead down a brushy slope where there was only darkness—south again, as the wind wailed with voices in his ears, and Shadows streamed about them.

“Where is he?” he heard someone call out in fear.

“This way!” he called out, heard a man swear, and waited at the bottom of the slope, with Petelly trembling and panting for breath.

Tasien and the lady came down. Lightning flickers showed others coming down behind them as quickly as they could. He knew he had to do better. He had to keep their company together, not let them fall behind and not let the Shadows take them. He was certain that, of all who might pursue them, those in the gray world were the deadliest and the ones hardest to outrun.

Then came the sound of horsemen passing above the bank, and all of theirs were here. That was, he thought, pursuit narrowly missing them or their own riders trying to rejoin them. His companions reined in, their horses wild, panting for breath, and all of them alike looked up in fear, trying to find the source of that sound, but the brush and the storm hid whatever riders were up there, heading for the blind end he had led his company away from.

“Follow me!” he said to them. And they did.

 

Emuin had gone off to bed, in the numbness of the air that had followed such dread confidences. Limping, hurting this evening to the point of outrageous temper, Cefwyn paced the length of the room and back again, goading himself to an outburst he had no moral courage to make otherwise, and Idrys must sense it, since Idrys did not remind him he had warned him.

“So?” he challenged Idrys. “Tell me I was wrong.”

“Lord Tristen saved your life,” Idrys said. “I do not forget it, nor shall.”

Twice over Idrys eluded him. And cheated him now of a fit he wanted to loose on someone able to defend himself.

“Emuin fears him,” Idrys said, “perhaps too much. You, not enough.”

“And you have it right, do you?”

“I make no such claim. I think Emuin was right and I was wrong, how to deal with him—at the first. Not now.”

Three times eluded him. “Then what? What are you saying? Damn it, Idrys, I am unsubtle tonight. The wound aches like very hell. Be clear.”

“I am saying, m'lord King, that I know precious little of wizardry, but if Emuin speaks half the truth, whether this Shaping lodged in Elwynor or in Ylesuin, he would have his own way. Am I mishearing? Your Majesty did study with Emuin.”

“Emuin is full of contradictions. I am half of a mind to send him back to the monks. He's been too little with practical men. What in hell am I to do? Did you hear practical advice tonight? I did not. Nothing workable. Nothing that brings peace to this border. What Emuin promises seems rather other than that, did it seem so to you?”

“It has always been other than that, m'lord King. And I will not advise we sit idle, but—” Idrys had walked to the window and stared outward, a shadow against the glistening black glass. The window was spattered with rain. Lightning lit edges for a moment and thunder muttered to the west. “I do not trust the lord of Ynefel. But I trust Emuin's judgment far less.”

“Do you think Emuin is deceiving himself?”

“Not that we have all the truth out of Emuin, nor shall ever have.” Idrys' shoulders lifted, as if he had caught a chill, and he looked back. “I told Emuin before he left that he served you ill. He denied it. And I said to m'lord Tristen that if he harmed you I would be his enemy. He knows that. But I foresaw nothing of this bolt toward Althalen, I confess, and I find fault with myself for that—at least for not instructing the guards, who saw only his favor with you.”

“I would I had seen it too. But maybe natural cautions had
nothing to do with it. Wizards. Seeing clear to Althalen.—Emuin
never
told me he could do such things. I never read that they could do such things.
Tristen
told us the truth. He was feckless toward wizard-secrets, too—and were it not for him I swear I would not believe Emuin now. I'd swear his warnings came of some other source.—And damn him, he ignored my messages.”

“We believe now the dead do walk. Should we stick at this? I greatly fear for our men up by Emwy, m'lord. None of our evening's messengers have arrived, from any direction. It may simply be the rain. But master Emuin did not want to discuss Althalen. That doubly worries me.”

Men would have gone in search of those missing reports by now, up the road, to find the messengers if the causes were the weather, or a horse gone lame. If they did not meet them they would ride all the way to the borders to find out the conditions and come back again, while a third set of messengers took to the roads outbound. It was a new arrangement he had ordered, precisely to have nightly reports on that uneasy border, and it was already in disarray. He hoped it was initial confusion, some misunderstanding in the orders, possibly the weather, indeed, bridges out, torrents between—such common things, and nothing worse.

“Damn him,” he said again. And meant Emuin.

“Master grayfrock is very worried,” Idrys said. “And will not discuss Tristen's actions.
Or
Althalen. He drank more than I have ever seen him drink. He did not want to return here. He sees a danger, and he may have named it very honestly tonight.”

“This Hasufin? This dead wizard at Althalen?”

“Lord King, he said it in this chamber tonight, and you didn't hear him. When he rebuked me with his fears—they regarded Tristen.”

 

The way ahead was a maze of trees and overgrown walls, forgotten foundations hidden in the dark and the rain, and Tristen dared not set the company to running here. To his
eyes, perhaps to the lady's, the walls and the traces of foundations of this arm of the ruins showed still wanly glowing, the masons' long-ago defenses yet holding, however weakly, as he led along the old courses of the ruins.

He might have gone faster. It risked losing the men, especially the soldiers, who with their armor weighing on the horses were riding slower and slower, and who could not take another jump. It had become a curious kind of chase, keeping the horses to the fastest pace they could—for despite the misdirection at the height, they could not for an instant trust that their pursuers, Men or otherwise, were not following on guidance better than his and more familiar with these ruins. Hasufin could do such things, and the gray space seethed with Shadows.

Now, nightmare smell, came the faint stench of smoke, and then, between two blinks of rain-blinded eyes, the apparition of fire touching the brush, setting the shadows to leaping. “They've fired the brush!” a man said, and the lords drew rein in confusion, refusing to ride further, gathering their men about them.

Whether it was burning in the real world or not, it seemed to Tristen that the tops of real walls did reflect red, that the sky had lightened to gray beneath the spitting clouds, and that firelit stakes lifted figures above the tops of the walls, a ring like a dreadful forest, at which he did not wish to look twice.

With the lady and her men gathered about him—some swearing they smelled smoke and others denying they saw any fire—Lord Haurydd demanded of him in a frightened voice to know the way out, while Tasien called him a liar. “Find the path, sir,” the lady demanded in a thin, high voice, cutting through their confusion. “These are haunts, specters. The place is known for them. Keep going.”

He urged Petelly away, then, trusting they would follow. Petelly snorted, breathing hard, and of two ways clear he chose the right-hand way, at random in the first choice and then with a clear conviction that it was the
right
way, the way he had to lead them. A spatter of rain rode the wind into their faces. He
blinked water from his eyes, feeling Petelly struggling for footing on wet leaves. A horse slid as they went downhill, and took down another, downed riders and horses struggling to untangle themselves from among the trees and get up. He delayed an instant for their sakes—saw the first horse and rider afoot and then rode, sensing safety so near them.

Uwen, he became sure: Uwen was out there. He didn't know how far ahead that was, but he tried to press more speed out of Petelly and the riders behind him, fearing they were bringing enemies to Uwen, and were out of strength themselves. Petelly was laboring as they cleared the edge of the ruins, and he flung a glance over his shoulder at the others still following as best they could.

“Hold there!” someone shouted from ahead of them.

He reined in, reaching fearfully into the dark and the gray to know who hailed them as the other riders came in around him.

“Who goes?” Tasien shouted.

“King's business!” a voice called out. “Who goes?”

His heart leapt. He knew that voice. “Uwen, don't harm them!” he called out on what breath he could gather, and on a second, shouted out loud and clear: “Beware men behind us, Uwen!”

“Hold, hold, hold there!” Uwen's voice called out. “All of ye, hold! Let 'em pass! This is m'lord Tristen. I don't know who them with 'im is—just brace up. We got others comin' we don't want!”

Tristen could scarcely see the riders on the hillside for the misting rain—the horses were blowing and panting around him, as he let Petelly move forward. The rain-laden gale blasted along the dell, blew up under the bellies of the horses and startled them, exhausted as they were.

Then a wayward breeze blew soft and warm all about Petelly, at Tristen's back, at his side, under Petelly's chin and around again.

The bad men
, he heard wafting on the wind.
The bad men is coming, the wicked, wicked men. Run, run, run! Mama, run!

It was a child's voice. Seddiwy's voice.
Child!
he cried after her
.

But the shadow-shape of a child ran implike back through the company, waving her arms, startling the horses one after another
.

After that, what came was dark and angry. The sapling at his right went
crack!
and broke. Others did, white wounds in the dark thicket.

From the hill and the ruin behind them also came the cracking of brush, then the screams of men overcome by fear. The Elwynim with him looked about them in alarm—but no more trees broke in their vicinity. The presence—a great many presences—had followed the child, back along their trail. Tristen tried to see them, but they were all darkness in the gray, darkness that walled off all Althalen.

In a moment more there was only the ordinary wind, and the rumble of thunder.

Then a rider was coming down the slope, braving all that was unnatural, and Tristen knew that manner and that posture even in the dark.

“Uwen!”

“M'lord, what is it back there?” Uwen was plainly ready to fight whatever threatened them; and the Elwynim had turned about to face that crashing of brush and the gusting of wind behind them, drawing swords and setting the lady to their backs.

But the enemy who should have overtaken them by now—was up on that hill, where now there was nothing to see but the night and the rain.

“We come chasin' all about this damn ruin,” Uwen was saying, at his left, breathless, sword in hand as he looked uphill. “Sometimes we was on a path and then again we weren't, and then, damn! m'lord, but we was smellin' fire and being rained on at the same time—your pardon.”

Ninévrisë and Tasien had drawn back close to them, Tasien with sword in hand.

“These are your men?” Tasien asked.

“Uwen is mine,” Tristen said. “Who are they, Uwen?”

“Ivanim, m'lord,” Uwen said, “looking for you. Blesset a long chase you run us. I'd draw back, m'lord. It don't feel good up there.”

It seemed good advice. Even the Elwynim accepted it, and drew away with them up the hill, toward the waiting men.

“M'lord of Ynefel!” a voice came out of that dark, from among shadowy horsemen. “Who is that with you?”

“The lord Regent's daughter, sir, his heir, three of her lords and—” He looked back, unsure of numbers; there were only a handful of soldiers, no threat to anyone. And the valiant packhorse, that one man led, that had somehow stayed with them. “The lady Regent, her men, half a score of her guard. To see King Cefwyn, sir!”