The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (59 page)

Ropes were brought forward to bind Torin’s wrists. He said nothing, only stared up at his friend with open regret.

“Any man lays a finger on her will be counting by nines hereafter,” he heard Crag snarl.

“Your bold tongue does them no favor,” Allion called down.

“And I’m thinking your iron skull might make for a fine whetstone. So why don’t we resolve this with a mite more speed and courtesy, eh? The lass is
my
ward.”

Allion grimaced, but nodded again to the ground commander. The procession started forward—Torin flanked by soldiers, and followed by Crag, Annleia, and their pack of dwarves.

“I’m pleased to find you safe,” Torin shouted up at Allion, when the hunter finally relaxed his bow.

His friend fixed him with a chilling stare. “Welcome home.”

S
UNLIGHT DAPPLED THE INNER COURTYARD,
seeking purchase amid the plants and fountains and statues. A ceaseless struggle, for clouds hung across the midday sky like cobwebs over a neglected world, while the shadows of windblown trees shifted as if to smother the light where it lay.

The garden seemed well tended, filled with flowers and vines and the fresh scents of spring. And the sea, of course. Even here, deep within the governor’s manse, Torin could hear its restless groan and smell its briny breath. A sheltered place, all in all, quiet and peaceful, untouched by the chaos that so marred the world outside. A small piece of paradise, he thought, in a dying realm.

He turned at the sound of steps upon the gravel path. A herald approached, flanked by a pair of sentries. The same trio had left them moments earlier at the edge of these grounds, bearing the Sword ahead. They did not carry it now.

“His Majesty will see them,” the herald announced.

The commander of their unit gestured. Torin, his wrists still bound behind his back, was seized by the arm and dragged forward. Crag and Annleia were to his right. The company of dwarves had been refused entry at an earlier checkpoint. If Crag insisted on accompanying the girl into the king’s sanctum, he’d been told, he would do so alone. He had even agreed to surrender his axe, though Torin would be surprised if the Tuthari did not carry some other, hidden weapon.

Hopefully, he would not have to find out.

Their ring of captors was twenty strong—the king’s own—all bearing naked halberds in addition to the swords at their waists. As they marched,
boots crunching on the walkway of crushed limestone, Torin saw archers appear along the corniced eaves overhead, arrows nocked and ready.

Even paradise had its thorns.

He resisted the urge to turn and acknowledge the one at his back. Throughout their trek, Allion had refused to let him out of sight, keeping his own arrow ready. Torin thought his friend would have found that to be unnecessary by now, but Allion would not be coaxed into relaxing his stance—not by the unit’s commander, and certainly not by Torin himself. He had refused even to communicate, ignoring Torin’s kinder entreaties and scowling murderously at a pair of attempted japes. Truth be told, the hunter’s aggressive vigilance was beginning to wear thin.

They turned a corner past a flowered hedgerow taller than their heads. Here, the path widened, but ended quickly at a natural alcove formed by the wraparound hedge wall. A sculpted fountain burbled in backdrop, with a pair of curving stone benches set before its basin. Upon one of these benches sat a woman Torin did not recognize. Her long, dark hair was streaked with silver, and hung like a veil over her face—turned down to regard the Sword, which lay across her lap.

Thelin stood beside her. The Souari king looked up to receive them. The woman did not.

Their company came to a halt. The forward guardsmen took three more strides, then turned crisply, parting to either side of their king.

“This is…unexpected,” Thelin said.

From the other’s stony mask, Torin could read little of the king’s feelings. He did not see pleasure among them.

“You were killed at Krynwall, or so they say. I have later, eyewitness accounts of you leading the assault that devastated Atharvan. Yet my own eyes have you standing before me, thrice-examined and deemed living—truly living. So tell me, which of these tales is false?”

“All are true, Your Highness.”

Thelin’s eyes darkened. His face appeared much thinner than Torin remembered, his cheeks high and hollow. It lent him a grave, shadowy look.

“How can this be?” he demanded. “Have you found a cure, then, against the Illychar madness? A way to restore the corrupted dead to life?”

For a moment, the woman’s head rose. Her eyes lifted to meet Torin’s, blue eyes tinged with hope.

Torin did not have time to explain the unique circumstances of his resurrection—not even what little of it he believed he understood. “The witch who saw my life restored gave hers in the process,” he said. “It is too much to suggest we might duplicate her efforts.”

Behind him, Allion scoffed. “Bloody fortunate, eh? And why should
you
be so favored?”

A bristle crept along the back of Torin’s neck, but he kept his tongue caged. The woman’s gaze lowered.

“And your friend?” Thelin asked. “Who is she in all of this?” Apparently, he, too, deemed Allion’s remark little more than an angry taunt. Or perhaps the king was simply perceptive enough to realize that Annleia’s was the true importance.

“She is the one I was sent to find,” Torin said, peeking over at her. Annleia gave a slight nod. Crag glared. “She is the only one who can save us from the Illysp.”

“
Sent
,” Allion echoed, “by Darinor, you mean.” He circled around from Torin’s back and into view, arrow still nocked. “The same Darinor who orchestrated almost the whole of this calamity.”

Torin spared his friend a sour glance before refocusing on Thelin. “Darinor feared the very knowledge she carries, the slim chance she represents. Were he here, he would seek her death, else have you detain her until it was too late.”

“Neither of which is gonna happen,” Crag growled.

Thelin’s brow curdled. “Your quest was in search of elves, as I was told, living Finlorians. She hardly bears the look of one.”

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Torin said, a bit too curtly.

“Hence the reason you are still bound,” Thelin countered.

A rising frustration drummed within Torin’s chest. “I allowed myself to be bound, Your Highness.”

“As I have
allowed
you to live,” the king snapped, “when it might have been safer to riddle you on sight as others here suggested.”

Torin looked again toward Allion, who still seethed with a barely bridled hostility. Then the woman rose from her bench, Sword in hand. She placed a calming hand upon Thelin’s rigid arm as she stepped forward. The king’s wife, Torin decided, Loisse. He couldn’t know for sure, for in the time he’d spent at Souaris—even after their victory against the dragonspawn—the queen had chosen to remain secluded, in mourning over the death of her children. But who else could this be?

“What would you have of us?” she asked.

“My lady?”

“Your purpose. You mean to thwart our enemy, but the enemy does not yet plague us here—not those we can see, anyway.”

The face of the fountain standing in backdrop was sculpted with twining eels, water spouting from their jagged mouths. Torin thought of Ravar, and wondered how much to say.

“Our journey carries us to the very heart of this scourge,” Annleia answered for him, “to the wellspring from which it was spawned. We seek those who might help to show us the path.”

“And why should they be found here,” Thelin grumbled, “among those of us who know only what little you tell us?”

A fair gripe, Torin had to admit. “We have only recently learned the truth ourselves,” he said, placating. “You are the first we’ve come to share it with.”

“And what is that?” the queen asked.

When Torin looked into her eyes, he realized he had fenced as long as he could. He took a breath. “Annleia must be allowed to restore the seal that I destroyed. All else is feint and posturing.”

Allion snarled. “Men braver than you are dying, likely as we speak. You call that
posturing
?”

Thelin raised an arm. One of his guardsmen stepped forward to place a restraining hand upon the agitated hunter’s shoulder. When the king spoke, however, his own jaw was clenched.

“I have dispatched sloops north to those fleeing Alson, west to Yawacor, south in pursuit of Wingport’s runaway citizens…begging help from any quarter. Nearly a million souls labor now to build the fleet I’ve vowed shall deliver them from this forsaken land. Is it all in vain? Am I to tell this people there is no hope?”

Torin had heard whispers of the western exodus, led by Baron Nevik. None seemed to know how the baron and those with him fared. Torin wondered how long either populace could hold on—especially if rumor of the truth were to spread.

“What Your Highness tells his subjects,” Torin replied carefully, “is not for me to determine. Let their labors persist, if it serves their spirits. Only, be warned that the Illysp have just cause to fear the sea, and so do we. It is my companion’s quest that will make the difference. Help us, if you can, else let us be on our way.”

Allion laughed derisively. “Like that, you say. Your Highness, the Gaperon is closed by now. They would never make it to the Skullmars from here. Nor should we risk losing the Sword, now that it has been returned to us.”

“The Sword is the key to the seal,” Torin argued hastily. His friend’s words had triggered an alarming memory of his detention by Emperor Derreg at Morethil, before dragonspawn had overrun the city. They could not afford to be similarly waylaid here.

“Then send it with another,” Allion said. “Your Highness, Your Grace, we cannot trust it in
his
hands.”

Annleia spoke up at once. “It must be Torin who accompanies me—he who drew the talisman from its vault to begin with.”

Thelin shared a long look with his wife. It was widely held that the Souari king trusted his queen’s counsel more than any other’s. Witnessing it now provided a truer appreciation for the depth of the king’s commitment.

“Marvelous though it is, I see not what great good the weapon does us here,” Loisse admitted. “If drawing it loosed this ill, and replacing it may bottle it up once more, I see scant reason to forestall the attempt.”

“Your Grace,” Allion tried again, “we know nothing about this waif who claims to be an elf. And Torin has failed us too many times to—”

“Faith can be perilous,” Loisse countered crisply. “But there is also a danger in seeking to control matters one does not understand.” She studied Torin closely, as if hunting for some hidden flaw. “Give the man his blade,”
she said, handing the Sword to her husband. “Let them carry it to the front. Perhaps, if nothing else, it will lend our armies courage as it once did.”

Torin, somewhat relieved, looked to Allion, awaiting the next protest. It came at once.

“Your Grace, you cannot truly believe—”

“What I may or may not believe bears little relevance,” the queen insisted.

“We will build our ships and set sail. Either this maiden will succeed, or she won’t. We will learn the truth then—and hope to be long gone should your fears prove out.”

Thelin considered. “What would
you
have us do,” he asked Torin, “while we await the outcome of this dubious expedition?”

“Her Grace has already outlined a most practical course,” Torin said, bowing slightly. He wasn’t sure which had swayed her: logic or inspiration. Either way, she seemed to be his only friend in this. “There is little enough those here can do but wait,” he continued, “and it would serve no purpose for them to turn idle.”

“Yet idle they will be, according to you,” Allion groused. “Laboring pointlessly, blind to the knowledge that you and you alone command their fate.”

“Not alone,” Thelin mused. “We will prepare a company, I think, to escort you—at least as far as the Gaperon. Perhaps you, Master Allion, would care to join that party.”

The hunter looked as though he would sooner spit than share the road with him, but Torin could also see what both men were thinking. A company to escort him, yes, but also to make sure he did not stray or revert to his Illychar ways.

“I go, too,” Crag interjected, eyeing Allion distastefully.

“Captain Wynn will see to the arrangements,” Thelin said. “Captain.”

The commander of the guard unit saluted. “Sir.”

“Release him.”

Wynn signaled. A pair of hands worked roughly at the knot binding Torin’s wrists, pulling it free.

“Your weapon,” Thelin said.

Torin stepped forward, resisting the urge to rub his burning wrists, or to cast wary glances toward the guardsmen and archers marking his every twitch. When he was within a pace of the king and queen, Thelin extended the Sword, locking gazes as he did so. The proud city of Souaris had weathered centuries, and her latest king looked as if he had weathered each of them with her. As mistrustful as all had been, Torin thought, there was much they hadn’t compelled him to explain: the source of Annleia’s knowledge, the means by which she would rebuild this seal, what would become of the Illysp and Illychar already set loose. Either they didn’t believe a word of what he’d shared, or he could take it as another sign of their utter desperation.

With one hand on the hilt and the other on that gleaming, fire-filled blade, Torin bowed in unspoken promise, and stepped back.

“Captain,” the king said, as if Torin were already forgotten, “a word, please.”

Torin’s gaze shifted to Allion. The hunter was glowering. A thumb brushed the fletching on his arrow, betraying his continued anxiety.

“They say the greatest deeds are those hailed as impossible,” Loisse said, drawing Torin’s attention. Her tone was soft with resignation. “I suppose we shall soon find out.”

C
ORATHEL WRENCHED HIS BLADE FROM
the reaver’s chest, a spray of blood painting his forearm. With a feral grunt, he shoved the soulless creature aside and shifted to meet the next. A troll, its lower jaw missing, thundered down upon him, brandishing a bloodstained cudgel. It launched the weapon at Corathel’s face, a heavy, gusting swing under which the seasoned general ducked easily. Upon an armored knee, Corathel thrust his own sword upward and into the roof of the troll’s damaged mouth. The beast convulsed as the blade minced its brain and shattered the top of its skull, ruptured vessels spilling in rivulets down the length of sharpened steel.

Shielded by the creature’s dying bulk, Corathel took a moment to catch his breath. When the full weight of its corpse began to slide forward, the general stood and twisted, dumping the fresh carcass to the blood-smeared earth. Hefting his weapon with burning shoulders, he spun to the ready.

His men were still behind him—those who still stood—grappling with opponents of their own. Ahead, a wall of elven Illychar had formed at the rear of the trench, trapping those who had been the last to flee. Corathel ripped into them with a growl, hacking one elf across the midsection and removing the head of a second as it turned to face him. Their comrades closed on either side with a collective hiss, but his own fellow soldiers barged in at his heels, lunging to intercept, allowing the chief general to press onward.

Near the base of the trench’s rear slope, he spied Bannon at last. The lieutenant general had battled to the end for his wing of the northernmost line, lingering so that others might escape. When seeing from afar that the reavers were cutting his regiment off from behind, Corathel had raced in to relieve them.

He was too late. Even as he watched, Bannon was laid flat upon the blood-soaked mud. The fallen commander glanced reflexively to the right, but his severed sword arm had fallen just out of reach. When a troll’s foot pinned him at the chest, his gaze swiveled back in time to catch the full, bludgeoning force of a descending cudgel.

Corathel howled—in fury, frustration, and to lend fresh hope to the slain Bannon’s faltering troops. He skidded down the slope with reckless abandon, parrying what blows he could and trusting his armor to deflect the rest. He felt old wounds opening, and new ones overlapping those, but he didn’t have time just now to acknowledge them.

He planted himself before Bannon’s body, driving back a pair seeking to haul it off by the ankles. The troll who had struck the final blow was nowhere
to be seen. Corathel took a moment to glance at his friend’s face—now a mashed ruin within its crumpled half helm.

He glanced up as an elf slipped past his trailing guard. The reaver’s twin blades clamped and twisted, wrenching the sword from Corathel’s grasp. He let it go, reaching for his dagger instead. Ducking a scissor strike, he ripped a wide seam in the elf’s gut. As the reaver peered down in surprise, one of its own shoved it aside. Corathel met this next opponent with a forearm to the face, heavy bracer crushing its rotted nose and blinding it with unbidden tears. He whirled then, in time to puncture an artery in a third elf’s thigh. While it snarled at the resulting fountain, a Parthan blade erupted through its chest, driven through from behind.

The chief general let that one slump to its knees, turning back to the blinded one, which snorted and clawed at its broken face in irritation. Reddened, tear-filled eyes managed to focus as Corathel’s dagger flayed its throat.

It, too, was then shouldered aside, by the same elf it had shoved past—the one that had first disarmed him. One of its blades was now missing. Its entrails hung from their cavity, black and withered and foul. Still it came forward, hefting its lone weapon, its face a promise of pain.

Corathel brandished his dagger, fueling the reaver’s focus, drawing it on. It never saw the Mookla’ayans that closed on either side. One took its arm at the shoulder. The other sent its head rolling across a pile of bodies upon the trench floor.

“Your sword, sir.”

Corathel sheathed his bloody dagger and accepted the blade, offered to him by one of his soldiers. He swiped at the mud clinging to its hilt, before looking up again.

“Down!” he yelled, seeing the form barreling in at the other’s back.

Again he was too late. The troll’s cudgel met the right side of the youth’s face, crushing it like a harvest melon. Corathel lunged as the soldier dropped, his full weight behind the point of his sword. With unnatural agility, however, the troll sidestepped the blow, and all his weapon did was draw a thin line across the reaver’s hardened side. By the time he caught himself and turned, the troll’s weapon was raised, while his own dragged heavily upon the ground.

A thrown spear punctured the beast’s arm, in advance of an approaching thunder. Corathel and his adversary turned as one. A hard-charging soldier slammed into the troll’s side. The beast withstood the blow and threw an elbow to fend off the next, sending both men reeling. But a stampede followed. Not Parthan, but Kuurian. Following the route Corathel had carved, its members continued to pour in, clearing the trench of enemies, sweeping the troll and its kind underfoot.

Corathel stood aside, ringed by his own, chest heaving. A week’s reprieve from combat and travel had bolstered his recovery from earlier injuries. In the days between their elimination of the first army of Illychar and the arrival of this one, he’d regained much of his fighting strength. His endurance, however, was but a shadow of what he was accustomed to. He was going to have to
ease his pace, else find some hidden reserve, if he hoped to still be standing come battle’s end.

Then again, at the rate the reavers were advancing, he needn’t expect the battle to last all that long.

“Time to move out, General,” said Troy, ridden up on a lathered courser.

Corathel nodded, too worn and winded to argue. He signaled to his troops to begin the withdrawal. He did not yet know how many were left, as opposed to the number who would never escape this trench. Already, Troy’s fire crews were setting the ground alight, touching off barrels of pitch set in place for that purpose. The Kuurians who had cleared the area were falling back beneath the renewed Illychar press.

He would make his counts later.

As he scrambled back up the slope, he checked the heavens in measure of their progress. They battled beneath a sky of fire and ash, the sun smoldering in pockets of toasted gray clouds. If not mistaken about the orb’s position, the fighting was not yet a day old. He shook his head. Too soon to have surrendered their forwardmost barricade. The bulk of the enemy force had yet to even reach them, according to General Rogun and his team of advance scouts. Most were still wrangling with the Hrothgari siege rovers, said to be grinding their way south through the pass. After all he’d heard from Hreidmar and others about these unique war engines, Corathel was anxious to see them in action. But he never would if their coalition continued to give ground as they had here.

He wondered if Bannon had been thinking the same. Perhaps that was why the Sixth General had waited so long, rather than signaling the retreat when there was still time. A foolish mistake, in hindsight. All knew that stronger entrenchments lay farther south, due to the positioning of armaments and the broken nature of the land itself. Even with the Hrothgari among them and a week to prepare, they could do only so much to shape the terrain. The lieutenant general should have trusted in their fallback positions rather than fight so stubbornly to maintain this one.

Too late now
, he thought. His phrase of the day, it seemed. Perhaps he needed to push himself a bit harder, rather than allow himself to slow down.

A pair of Hrothgari went running past, back toward the trench, bearing more fuel for the fires. The loads upon their backs looked to be larger than the dwarves themselves. Corathel wished now that they’d kept a few more of their kind. In exchange for the five thousand sent south as shipbuilders with the one called Craggenbrun, King Thelin had dispatched nearly eight thousand of his own men north, more than doubling Troy’s surviving count. Yet from all Corathel had seen, he’d sooner pit five thousand dwarves than eight thousand men against this savage swarm, and consider himself fortunate.

He could only hope that Craggenbrun’s crews, along with the families of Hrothgari sent south before, would make as much difference to the southern effort as they might have made here.

The number of corpses littering the earth began to diminish as the dis
tance between himself and the lost trench widened. The carnage was horrific, though he’d seen worse—and likely would again. He wondered how many they had lost in just this short time. All told, their coalition numbered in the realm of forty thousand. With more and more reavers filtering southward, he could soon expect to be outnumbered. When that happened, only the narrow terrain and the strength of their determination could save them.

Within, the general’s emotions blazed. But he kept the fires in check, refusing to let them cloud his judgment. A soldier did not long survive without passion and instinct, yet did well to keep them reined. His own ability to balance rage and rationality, as war required, was perhaps the best way to explain his continued survival.

That, and blind, cursed luck.

He had nearly reached the funneled opening in the next barricade when a shouted alarm spun him about. Owl—U’uyen—was the first to turn with him, and to point out the team of giants careening down from a western ridge.

Descending directly into the flank of Troy’s trailing contingent.

“Mother’s mercy,” Corathel muttered, then called to his regiment, “Form up!”

In the next breath, they were sprinting back the other way. Bad enough that he would have to find a commander to replace Bannon. He was not going to let Troy fall, as well.

Too late
, his fears taunted, as the swift-striding giants hewed into the Kuurian column. He growled the thought away and used that anger to quicken his pace. Horses and riders shrieked and squealed. The giant Illychar carried axes and hammers and greatswords taller in some instances than the men they were wielded against. How their pack had slipped up and around without warning from the lookouts was not plainly apparent, but the gnawing question would have to lie set for now.

Blood filled the air in beaded ropes and sudden sprays. Troy himself was on the ground, amid severed chunks of horse and man. He seemed not to notice the club-wielding giant standing over him. The creature barked with savage laughter, reveling in the slaughter. When a wounded soldier stumbled toward it, the giant sent the man sailing with a single, meaty crunch. Troy turned at the sound, but could do no more than raise an arm as the brute took overhead aim against him.

Corathel spurred himself forward, refusing—like the coalition forces dug in behind him—to accept the inevitable.

D
ARKENING CLOUDS ROILED AGAINST THE
gray slate of the sky. The Falcon’s Hour, Torin estimated, barely midafternoon. Yet, with that thundering cover, it seemed closer to dusk. The brewing storm hailed from the south, blown up from the coast upon their company’s heels. When it finally broke, things were going to get wet in a hurry.

The wagon bed in which he rode creaked and jostled beneath him. Uncovered, he noted again. But then, it hadn’t been provided for their comfort.
Crag didn’t ride horses. Annleia’s only experience doing so had been a short jaunt from Neak-Thur—and she would not be separated from her Tuthari companion in any case. And as for himself…he wasn’t to be trusted with a horse. More than two hundred Kuurian soldiers surrounded them—for their protection, the company commander had suggested, but the whole thing felt to Torin more like a prisoner detachment than a guard detail.

Their departure from Wingport had been a hasty one, made promptly after their audience with Souaris’s king and queen, just hours ago. With all that lay at stake, they hadn’t the luxury of prolonged debate. Nor would a day or two have made any difference, Torin suspected, when it came to convincing Thelin, Loisse, Allion, or anyone else of the truthfulness of Annleia’s purpose. Torin was still wrestling with the unlikelihood himself. He couldn’t well expect the others to pin their hopes on it.

All they cared to understand was that letting him take the Sword north—and into battle—might help to embolden the soldiers at the front and relieve some of the pressure bearing down upon them. Though this was not his primary goal, Torin certainly meant to find out.

He looked to his left as Allion, riding ahead of them, peered back with a sour glance. Since setting forth, the hunter had spent most of his time trailing their wagon, where Torin could feel the man’s suspicious gaze boring into him. Now and again, however, his friend would push forward to whisper with the company commander, positioned at the heart of the column. Even then, he refused to let Torin out of his sight for long.

“Perhaps you should go and speak with him,” Annleia said.

He turned abruptly, her voice catching him off guard. She sat on the wagon bed’s right-side bench, Crag at her shoulder. He sat alone across from them. Fodder and stores lay heaped upon the floor. It wasn’t much. Between theirs and the other carts, they carried just enough provisions for their unit, and only for a couple of days.

“Who?” he asked, feigning distraction.

Heavier wagons were set to follow, to help provide longer for this company and the extra divisions Thelin had promised to send in pursuit. Before parting, Torin had urged the king to send reinforcements northward to further fortify the Gaperon. The shipbuilding effort—even if successful—would take weeks, if not months. Based on a more detailed report by Crag, such time would not be won by the few already set in place to guard their backs.

Annleia gave him a disapproving frown. “Your friend. There should not be this gulf between you.”

Nor would he have imagined it. Not from Allion. “The man is entitled to his feelings.”

“As you are to yours. Ill will festers in such silence.”