Lady Warhawk (38 page)

"She will carry your sword and lead the remnants of Quenlaque, when Lygroes is but a
shadow of its former self and all the world is changed. She will give Braenlicach back into your
hands and teach you of the world that has been torn into two, and you will rule Quenlaque in the
time of battle and sundering and restoration." Mrillis felt his knees sag, as if the bones had turned
to tallow.

"Don't do this to me now," Athrar growled, his teeth bared in a fierce grimace. He slung
Mrillis' arm around his shoulders to hold him upright. "I don't need to hear this."

"Do you think I like speaking it? No man ever wants to be the mouthpiece for prophecy,
to hear the Estall send words through his mind and flesh." He caught his breath and got his feet
under himself again, and didn't resist when Athrar led him to the stairs to go down again.

Mrillis didn't need to see the gathering enemy. He let the walls of the stairwell surround
him and wipe out the sight. But it couldn't wipe out the image that clung to his mind, of Lygroes
decimated, leagues of land crumpled and torn by earthquakes and lost to the surging sea.
Whether the Noveni madmen who wanted to burn the land with star-metal would succeed, or the
self-destructive powers and actions of the Nameless One would prevail, Mrillis didn't know.

It would happen, whether he fought it or helped it. He only knew he would be no part of
that destruction. Where would the Encindi live when their stolen territory was gone? Would they
move further up into Lygroes? Instead of being the barrier wall, would the Wayhauk Mountains
be the southern border of Lygroes?

Please, Blessed Estall, if it is only for as long as it takes for Athrar's daughter to
grow old enough to carry Braenlicach in his stead... We will endure. Give us the strength to
endure. We are your servants, and we are in your hands.

* * * *

A moon of posturing and shouting threats and demands, of sallies out from Quenlaque's
walls and enemy soldiers trying to scale the walls, of driving the Nameless One's forces back one
league at a time, finally led to the battle Megassa's sons had shouted for from the beginning. Ten
leagues south of Quenlaque, a days' ride from the coast, on a rolling plain that had turned to
wasteland after the Nameless One's forces passed over it, the four princes met in battle, with the
opposing armies framing the churned ground, under a brooding sky.

The two older princes were wrapped in the black haze of the Nameless One's forces,
while their younger brothers gleamed in all the power of star-metal and the Threads Mrillis had
wrapped around them. The magic enfolding their bodies battled more powerfully than their flesh
and weapons. The clang of their weapons and thud of their bodies and their voices harsh with
curses rang across the plain for hours. When they separated, it was to take a few hours of rest,
while brooding, sullen silence hung over the landscape.

Athrar didn't trust the appearance of all the enemy's forces being gathered in this place.
He sent Lycen north and Mrillis east, leading elite troops to spy and to sense through the Threads
and keep the enemy from coming around them from behind. Quenlaque was the prize in a
massive, bloody game of Castles. Mrillis had woven the capital city's defenses through his own
flesh, binding it with the Zygradon's power so it would not fall--but the enemy could enclose the
city so tightly that no one could reach it. And what good was the ultimate fortress if the
defenders of the land couldn't get inside?

Mrillis left knots of Valors and Rey'kil enchanters in vales along the way, creating a
wall across the territory that had not yet been polluted by the enemy's shadowed magic. He
watched the battle through Athrar's eyes as it stretched on into a second day, then a third, then a
fourth.

He felt the entire continent shake on the fifth day when the four sons of Megassa rode to
meet each other with the sunrise, and kept riding, instead of their usual habit of leaping down
from their horses with ten paces between them. He watched, sharing Athrar's sense of impending
doom, as Mykil and Lok drew their swords and aimed them at their brothers' chests. Arkin and
Garyn laughed, glowing with the renewed energy Athrar had spilled into them from Braenlicach.
They swung their swords wide, blazing with power, aiming for their brothers' necks.

The four met in a collision that shook the ground even days of travel away. A black
pillar of power erupted from the impact and Mrillis shuddered, feeling the enemy's magic burst
upon the scene, and the stench of rotting flesh overcame his senses. Stunned with horror, he
realized Lok and Mykil had been dead long before, and death magic kept their bodies animated,
so the Nameless One could battle through them.

Megassa's shriek, equal parts fury, madness, and a mother's wrenching sobs, echoed
from the sky-web and made the ground tremble again. Mrillis understood then that all four
princes were dead. He kept to himself the fact that the older two had been dead already--it was
enough to let the historians record that the four brothers had died together on the battlefield.

The battle shattered into knots of hundreds, hacking and struggling until the ground was
poisoned and torn. The few survivors staggered away to regroup and join another knot of
survivors and continue the battle elsewhere. Lycen supervised the constant loading of ships to
take refugees, Rey'kil, Noveni, and peaceful Encindi, to Moerta. As the war dragged on, Mrillis
found some amusement in learning that the minor kings who had broken away from the alliance
with the Warhawk had been labeled traitors and infidels by the other kings. They and their
supporters were forcibly gathered up and shoved into the same ships that brought refugees to
Moerta, and sent back across the sea to join the battle. Anyone with any
imbrose
,
anyone who reacted to star-metal in the lightest way, came to Lygroes to join the battle against
the Nameless One. Anyone without
imbrose
took up arms to guard the shores of
Moerta.

Mrillis and Meghianna felt the change in the essential balance of magical power at the
same time, when the last fragment of star-metal left the shores of Moerta. The interweaving of
the Threads crisscrossing the World shifted, bending back in around themselves. The ships with
bits of star-metal either in their cargo or embedded in their hulls created frayed edges, but they
were being drawn closer to Lygroes with every hour that passed.

It's coming to us,
Meghianna said. She showed Mrillis how the star-metal that
had either fallen into the sea through long ago star-showers, or had been dumped into the sea by
foolish Noveni, was slowly being dragged toward the shores of Lygroes. The magnetic attraction
that had let them pull new star-showers down to Lygroes now brought all loose star-metal in the
world to their land.

The shield Athrar spoke of--do you remember it?
he said, a few days later, after
they had watched the progress of the star-metal's migration, interrupted by more skirmishes.
I propose using it, creating a bubble around Quenlaque and then moving it
outward.

You will push our allies as well as our enemies into the sea,
Meghianna
said.
And if you open the weave of the shield, the bubble, to let our allies in, you might let in
enemies as well.

I taught you too well.
Mrillis laughed, for the first time in what felt like
years.

You also taught me that every poison has its antidote, every lock has its key. We
must do this, so we will do it.
Meghianna sighed.
And we will find a way to keep our
people safe and keep our enemies out.

It had only been a few moons, however, since the war began. Mrillis was reminded
forcibly of the passage of time when Meghianna called him just a few days later with the news
that Ynfara was about to give birth.

Pirkin and Ynessa had managed to find their way to the Stronghold, bringing a small
army of women and children to take shelter inside. Mrillis snatched Athrar away from his
commanders in the middle of the night, telling only Ector what had happened, depending on the
aging soldier to keep the news of Athrar's departure hidden as long as possible. He bent time and
space to get them to the tunnel to the Stronghold in a matter of hours instead of days. They were
both exhausted when they reached the Stronghold. Athrar was only able to go as far as the
healing hall where he had set up his quarters that winter solstice so long ago.

Those inside the Stronghold had thought ahead, and Ynfara's birthing chamber had been
set up in the healing hall. Mrillis and Pirkin took over, divesting Athrar of his armor and filthy
clothes, dousing him and scrubbing him and bringing him, dripping and wearing nothing but
trousers, to kneel by Ynfara's bedside and hold her hands as she struggled through increasing
birthing pains.

Ynfara laughed and wept in Athrar's arms while Meghianna and Ynessa cut the cord and
washed and swaddled the loudly protesting, pale-haired infant. Glyssani tended to her
granddaughter while the new mother was washed and dressed and moved to a clean bed.

"Let this be a new world, where a maiden Warhawk holds Braenlicach and need never
unsheathe the blade in war," Glyssani whispered, as she brought the sleeping princess and put
her back in her mother's arms.

"Lady Warhawk," Athrar said, his voice an exhausted, happy rumble. He nodded and
wrapped his arms around wife and daughter. "She is my heir. The only one I have, the only one I
will ever have." He pressed a kiss into Ynfara's hair and sighed, silencing her when she started to
protest. "I've dreamed it a dozen times, love. I know you would like to give me a son, but... I
only see our little girl, dressed in strange clothes, riding with Mrillis, with Braenlicach in her
hand. She's the only child we will ever have. And if that means peace will come to our world at
last, I will be happy in that, not sad."

"Then we should give her a name of power," Ynfara said. She sighed, and looked away
from her sleeping daughter, at the family gathered around the bed, and met Mrillis' gaze first.
"Grandfather... Do you mind if we name her Emrillian?"

Mrillis staggered, hearing Trevissa's voice whispering to him the prophecy of his
Emrillian being reborn, returned to him again. Meghianna's arm hooked through his kept his
knees from hitting the stone floor.

* * * *

Encindi enchanters tried to harness raw star-metal to their bidding, and their attempts
shook the land. The large concentrations of poisoned power cracked the very foundations of
Lygroes. When the autumn and spring storms hurtled against the shores of Lygroes, large
portions of Encindi-held territory crumbled into the sea. Mrillis watched his dark visions come
true as one year, then two years went by, and Lygroes eroded like badly made pottery caught in a
flood.

Meghianna took his proposed star-metal shield and erected it around the Stronghold, and
slowly pushed outward, as more refined star-metal was drawn to the Stronghold's stores. That
also strained the foundations of Lygroes, so large chunks of the northeastern reaches of the
continent were destroyed, ravaged by storms and tidal waves and hurricanes. By Emrillian's
second birthday, nearly one-quarter of Lygroes had been lost to the sea.

Two-thirds of all the known population of the world lived on Moerta. As the deaths
through battle increased daily, that ratio grew larger. Mrillis wove his proposed shield around
Quenlaque. The women and children and healers and scholars from the surrounding countryside,
five days of travel in any direction, were brought inside the growing city walls for
safekeeping.

Ally forces were warned of what he planned and retreated to safety. Enemies were left
in the dark to be shoved out of the way, sometimes scorched by the power of the shield,
sometimes incinerated as the shield expanded, a few steps with every hour, drawing on all the
power of the gathered star-metal that had been infused into the foundations of Quenlaque Castle.
Livestock was brought within the city until the shield had expanded enough to let them out into
the safe fields again. The crops in the fields were left untouched, but any living person in the
way, who refused to move, was destroyed.

We have two safe places now, but at what cost?
Mrillis said, when the
operation had been completed and a cleared area around Quenlaque had been established, an
hour of sailing out from the harbor, and five hours riding out from the city in all other directions.
The drain on star-metal will grow as the shield is expanded. Lycen says inside the shield,
only those who were strongest in magic still retain it. Only those with the strongest
imbrose
can communicate with each other. The healers have some talent, but few
besides them.

The Noveni will finally have what they have always wanted--no one with
imbrose
at all,
she offered.
Mrillis, this war must end before the only one with any magic in the
world is the Nameless One.

No, my dear. You and I, those few with the blood of the forgers of the Zygradon and
Braenlicach, and the Warhawk's bloodline--we will still have imbrose. As long as we remain,
there will be someone with magic and enough imbrose to fight him.

It will come down to that, won't it?
She laughed suddenly.
Here, little one.
Mrillis, Emmi can hear us talking. She wants to give a kiss to her grandpapa.

For a few heartbeats, Mrillis saw Emrillian through Meghianna's eyes, her hair a mass of
silken curls, red and gold and white, her eyes silvery blue, with round, healthy red cheeks. She
wore little trousers and a tunic like a boy, because she insisted on trailing everywhere in young
Garad's shadow.

She will be a warrior, but in a war that I fear our world cannot imagine,
he
thought.

* * * *

Plagues erupted across the land that winter, engendered by magic. Thousands died in
ships that rotted beneath them when they put out to sea amid killer storms, trying to reach
Moerta. Those few with any true
imbrose
gathered their strength and tried to force open
the protective shield around the Vale of Bo'Lantier, to take the tunnel under the sea to
Moerta.