Fortress in the Eye of Time (87 page)

“One of ours,” Idrys said. “Pelanny's horse.”

Of the rider, one of their Guelen scouts, there was no sign.

“Dead or taken,” Uwen said quietly. The horse, its master fallen, had run for its pastures, but running out its first fear, had stopped, and would wander home, Tristen thought, perhaps over days. One of their outriders, light-armed, rode over and caught the horse, freed it of the reins that might entangle it, and sent it on to their rear.

Past the next ridge, the wind picked up out of the west, into the horses' faces. The woods came into view, lying across that small series of hills that he so well remembered. That was the woods where he had met Auld Syes. The woods of the fountain. And the Shadow was there, plain to his eyes.

“That,” Tristen said with a chill. “That place. That's where.”

“A place fit for ambush,” Idrys said. “I'd thought of it. If we don't go overland, we're bound to go through it. That's what they plan. And overland is a maze, forest and hills. I rode through it.”

There was discussion back and forth. Umanon and Cevulirn moved their horses closer. No one wanted to venture that green shadow without sending scouts. Some argued to go
overland, toward Emwy, but Idrys said no, it was too rugged and made for ambush by lesser forces.

“Of which they may have several,” Cefwyn said. “Earl Aséyneddin is well served by the Sâendel.”

“Bandits,” Umanon said. “Bandits and thieves.”

“Well-armed ones,” Idrys said.

But, Tristen thought, fighting Dys' attempt to move forward—but there was no sense in debate. There was no question, none, that it was hostile. It was fatal, if they sent a man into that. It was a risk to venture that gray place, but look he did, and it was eerie to know it vacant, very, very vacant. They had now to go forward. The lords debated other ways, but they had no choice but fight or go back to Althalen, where they were far safer for a camp under attack.

And something masked itself in that gray vacancy—as it masked something else in that distant woods. Something in the gray place was both shadow—and gray like mist, moving about where it would. Mauryl had not stopped it. Emuin had not. It was insubstance. It manifested as the wind.

That which waited in the woods—was substance, and thick beneath the leaves.

“Tristen?” he heard Cefwyn ask. But it was not a voice in the gray place, it was here, and Cefwyn's voice held concern. “Tristen, do you hear me?”

Something shadowy leapt at him in his distraction. Not a small something. Something that wanted to hold him, seize him, weaponless, and carry him off to Ynefel. He jumped back from it, heart pounding against his ribs, and in the world of substance, Dys kicked and pulled to be free.

All trespass into illusion had peril now. The Shadow had advanced this close, and that said to him that they would find their enemies in this world closer, too: Aséyneddin was there.

“It's another of his fits,” said Uwen.

“No,” Tristen said, trying to shut out what was still trying to take him, holding to this place, the solid mass of horse under him. He kept his eyes open, burning the light of the world's sky and the shadow-shapes of hills and woods into
his vision. Cefwyn and Uwen and Idrys were close at hand. They willed no harm to him.

The other thing would unmake him—if it could not use him against those he least wanted to harm. Against all Mauryl's work in the world. It wanted that undone, the barriers to its will all removed.

“Tristen.”

“No, my lord, forgive me.” It was hard to speak against the weight that crushed him, and he must hold Dys, for the horse felt the tension trembling in his legs and in his hands, and was fighting him continuously to move. Do not leave us, Cefwyn had begged him. Do not leave us. And he tried not to. He did try to keep his wits about him in this world.

“Aséyneddin is there, m'lord King. In the woods. I have no doubt.”

A shiver came over him then. He slipped into that risky place, and felt thunder in the air, like storm.

He twitched as he escaped there to
here
in a shock that rang through the world, but the two lords by him had never felt it: they talked on of strategy and ambush while he felt ambush in the very roots of the hills. He felt the Shadows all stir beneath the leaves of Marna Wood, but the lords talked of whether his warning meant mortal enemies, and whether they could draw attack out to them and not risk the woods.

“If they stay in that woods,” Idrys said, “they risk having it fired around them. Your grandfather would not have stuck at it.”

“These are my lady's people,” Cefwyn said, rejecting that. “Not all of them may even be here by choice. We carry her banner with our own, master crow. No fire.”

“They are rebels,” Idrys said.

“No fire, master crow. I'll not make war after that fashion.”

“Against wizardry, m'lord? What will our enemy stick at? We'll not venture in there. We'll have them out, if they are there.”

“They are there,” Cefwyn said.

“Tristen is here,” Idrys said. “That indeed is our certainty, m'lord King. And I do believe his warnings. It's the advice I doubt. This haste to go blind into that.”

“He is not blind,” Cefwyn said.

Came a rush of air just above their heads. A shadow swooped over them. The horses snorted and threw their heads in startlement. But Tristen knew it with a leap of his heart.

“Owl!” he called to the wide sky. “Owl,
where are you?
”

“Gods!” Uwen gasped, and men about them swore.

“Devils,” some said.

But Tristen lifted his hand to the sky and Owl settled on his fist, bated his great blunt wings a moment and flew again, a Shadow indeed, by broad daylight.

“Gods save us,” Cefwyn said, and Idrys muttered in his hearing. “Gods save us indeed, my lord King, but—this
is
our ally.”

“Well he were our ally,” Cefwyn said. “It harmed you none at all. Did it?
Did
it, master crow? Did it, any of us?”

“Follow Owl!” Tristen said, for Owl's path was clear to him, as Owl's warning was clear as a blaze across the sky: as, discovered in its ambush, a darkness of men and horses began to stream out of that line of woods ahead of them. It spread out, moving first to fill the road, and then to spread out wings beyond it, like some vast creature taking to flight.

“Aséyneddin has sprung his trap!” Umanon shouted out. “Attend the flanks, Your Majesty! He'll want the hills!”

Likewise they needed room to spread wide—needed the flat and the hills on either side in front of that stretch of woods, and they did not yet, by reason of the trees, know how many that army was.

Kanwy struggled to be loosed. Dys pulled at the bit. All about, there was a shifting in their own ranks as a wind out of the west ripped at the standards. The standard-bearers, Cefwyn's, his, Ninévrisë's, all three in the center, and Umanon and Cevulirn on either hand, were advancing; but the hills had taken on an unnatural quality in the pearl-skyed noon,
distinct in their edges, seeming cut from velvet, the trees still breathing with secrets.

“My lord!” Tristen said, reining Dys back with difficulty. “They are already in the hills, my lord—they're there, left and right of us, where we must pass!”

Cefwyn did not question. “Cevulirn!” he said, and waved the lord of the Ivanim and his light horse toward the hills on their left. “Umanon!” Him he sent to the right flank; and dispatched a messenger to the Amefin lords at their backs. “Follow my banner,” his word to the Amefin was; and to messengers dispatched on the heels of Umanon and Cevulirn: “Sweep them east, away from the woods! We shall break their center! Do not let them close behind us!”

Dys was pulling at the rein, breathing noisily and chafing at the bit, and given rein—but of a sudden Elwynim light horse were pouring off the hills toward them and sweeping in to try to envelop them, downhill against Umanon and Cevulirn on either hand. The heavy center, still coming out of the woods, lay beyond those two rapid-moving wings that attempted to fold in on them.

They were in danger of the same swift envelopment they had broken around Cefwyn's father. Dys was working at the bit, shaking his neck so the barding rattled, traveling sideways, nudging Cass, who likewise worked to be free.

“Lances!” Cefwyn called out, and the trumpets blew. “Lances!”

They were going. None of it he had ever done, save only with Uwen, in the practice field by Henas'amef—but like a Word, it had been with him then and it had always been with him. He ducked his head to brush his visor down, settled his reins in his shield-hand and looked up within the narrow frame of that visor as he reached out for his lance. It arrived in his hand, Lusin coming up at his side, horse bumping horse and falling back again. He took a solid grip, tucked the length of ash-wood high for a hard ride as he brought the shield up. Dys was pulling at the reins, a warfare occupying all his attention else.

Cevulirn's men and then Umanon's engaged with the Elwynim wings, two almost simultaneous hammer blows. “Ride for their heart!” Cefwyn was saying to the standard-bearers and the riders that would pass the word. “Let them see the standards! Break their line and go around them again! Unit standards—keep spread, in the gods' name! Pass through them, behind, and around!
In the good gods' name!
”

Cefwyn loosed Kanwy. Tristen let the reins fall, settling all his grip on the shield and all his mastery of Dys on his knees—

Dys broke into his run—like chasing rabbits through the meadow, like chasing the leaves and the wind down the road, with Uwen by him, likewise shielded, likewise helmed, likewise with lance braced. A thunder was growing in the earth, the strike of hundreds of plate-sized hooves, whuffs of breath entering a vast unison, like a blacksmith's bellows. There was nothing in the world but that moving vision of shielded line and forest that the visor-slit held.

—
Sihhë prince
, said the Wind, above that rolling thunder.
Remember the Galasieni. How many of these foolish Men will you kill? Turn back now. Your friends will be alive. You can win them that. You can save them all. Didn't you learn, the last time? I know the outcome of this. But you don't,—do you?

The Shadow grew above the woods, above the opposing line, that was a forest of lances. Something throbbed in the air, faint and far in the dark West, like the beat of a great heart to his ears. Or perhaps it was still the horses gathering speed. On either hand came a clash of metal, as if a cartload of pots were being shaken, on the hillsides. But the thunder throbbed and beat like his heart in his ears.

Owl flew past his vision and flew on past the banners, that were dimming in the shadow.

Let them see the banners, Cefwyn had said. And Men could not see them in the dark—Men would lose their way on the field, and grow confused.

Tristen pulled white light out of that gray place and sent it around himself, around Uwen and Cefwyn and Idrys. It
spread to the standard-bearers, and snaked up the poles and spread about the edges of the standards and across their surface, white and red and gold blazing bright against the dimmed world.

—
Ah
, the Wind said.
The Dragon with the Sihhë Star—there was once a sight, when the Marhanen and the Sihhë king went to war. And here we are again
. The voice filled his ears. Dust, coming past the visor, stung his eyes to tears, and he could not reach them to clear them. He could only blink.
Where is vengeance for Elfwyn, Sihhë prince? Mauryl never called you to save the Marhanen. Mauryl never called you, my prince, to kiss the hand of traitors. They should tremble at the sight of you!

Closer and closer. He saw the shields of opposing riders—saw, through the gloom, the forest of lances lower, and lowered his own against them.

—
Sihhë king
, the Wind wailed,
you are of the west. I shall serve you, as Mauryl should have served you. Stay, do you want them? I shall make these creatures of yours lords of the earth. I shall make each of them a king, and they will live a thousand years. I can do that for you. Only keep riding. Keep doing as you are! You are doing my bidding, in all you do and have ever done. You're mine, now. Mauryl's lost you. Keep coming!—Keep coming…

The light had dimmed so they scarcely showed the shields ahead of them—but the banners were still there, still shining.

“Tristen!” he heard Cefwyn shout at him, and he caught breath into a body grown stiff in a cold instant, sense into wits gone wandering in the wail of the wind.

“Its name is Hasufin!” he shouted, stripping it of all mystery. “It is a liar, Cefwyn! It is still telling me lies!”

“The banner of the King of Elwynor!” Cefwyn exclaimed suddenly, and indeed there was the glimmer of a shadowy white Star on a black field waving against the center of the lines. “
That
banner does not belong to them!” Cefwyn cried. “There is Aséyneddin! Let us go and take it from him!”

—
Aséyneddin
, the Wind said,
would welcome his true
King, the Sihhë king he and his fathers before him have awaited. This man would fall on his knees at your feet. I can assure that will happen. Be that King. You can stop this. No one need die
.

Then do so! he thought of saying; but he recalled the lord Regent's warning never to begin to listen, and never to begin to answer
.

—
I do not want to fight you
, the Wind said,
I do not, my mistaught lord of the Sihhë. So I shall not. Come to me when you're done with him.—I'll wait
.

Aséyneddin's banner too blazed with a pale, unnatural glimmering in the dark, Illusion of light, no more, no less than he could do: that was Hasufin's working in the world.