Well of Sorrows (71 page)

“I remember this,” Stephan said, louder. He turned toward Colin. “What have you done? Is it real?”

“It’s real,” Colin murmured. “I’ve brought you back to the battlefield, so you can witness what really happened.”

“Then I have to stop it,” Stephan growled. He began moving toward the fighting, the battle playing out before them both, the dwarren Riders shoving hard against the Legion, pushing them back, the Alvritshai doing the same, the three races eddying back and forth, the tension Colin had felt on the air broken, shattered, replaced now by desperation. The tension had encompassed the entire field; the desperation was focused on individual battles, the clash of swords and weapons between men. “I have to warn my father!”

“You can’t,” Colin said, and when Stephan ignored him, continued toward the battle, plowing stubbornly through the grass, he dug in his heels and jerked Stephan back. “You can’t!”

Stephan turned on him, fist clenched so hard Colin could feel the muscles in his arm contract. He raised his sword threateningly, but Colin met his gaze steadily, saw the raw pain there.

He sighed, let his own pain over Karen’s death at the hands of the Shadows and his inability to go back and warn her bleed into his voice. “It doesn’t work that way, Stephan. I can bring you here, I can show you, but neither of us can change anything. It’s already happened. It can’t be altered.” He swallowed but heard the roughness creep into his voice nonetheless. “Trust me, I’ve tried.”

Stephan shoulders tensed . . . then drooped.

He lowered the sword, his entire body sagging. “So what do we do?” he asked, bitterness edging the resignation.

“We watch.”

He closed his eyes, then drew in a deep breath and let it out in a slow, emotion-riddled sigh.

And they watched. The battle ebbed and flowed, fluid and violent. Colin found himself thinking back to the storyteller at the inn in Portstown, to when he’d first heard of the battle at the Escarpment. But that had been a story, told after the fact, tweaked and twisted to manipulate the teller’s audience, colored by the emotions and half-memories of those who were here.

The battle itself was different. It wasn’t as smooth, as concise or coordinated. It wasn’t as honorable. Men were torn from their horses and crushed underfoot. Gaezels skewered others with their lethal horns. Groups were separated from the lines as dwarren broke through, were surrounded, then slaughtered. And when the battle shifted, it left behind the dead and wounded, men and Alvritshai and dwarren crawling on elbows to escape, or dragging themselves with one arm as their life’s blood soaked into the grasses beneath them.

It was vicious, and cruel, and merciless.

And as the sun shifted overhead, the tide turned. The dwarren Riders had held the Legion and the Phalanx off, had fought fiercely, but they’d been unprepared for the combined forces, for the alliance between the humans and the Alvritshai. As morning bled into afternoon, the dwarren forces grew weary. Their responses slowed, reinforcements called to block breaks in the line didn’t arrive on time, and men and Alvritshai spilled through the holes in the defenses.

An hour after midday, the tenor of the dwarren drums changed, and the dwarren began to retreat.

Colin recalled what the storyteller said happened next and looked toward Stephan. He’d cleaned and sheathed his sword as they watched, had relaxed, his eyes intent on the field, analyzing, shaking his head occasionally as something significant happened.

Now, though, he took an involuntary step forward.

On the flat below, signals were passed, flags flashing in the sunlight. A large force broke away from the rear of the human ranks, led by a single man on horseback.

Led by Stephan.

Colin could hear the young Stephan’s battle cry as he charged toward the dwarren flanks. Men broke away from the army in answer to his cry, until a hundred men trailed him.

He struck the retreating dwarren’s flank first, at least ten strides ahead of those that followed him. He drove into the ranks, sword flying, was almost absorbed by the dwarren’s reaction before the rest of his contingent arrived.

On the ridge where they stood watching, Stephan shook his head. “Stupid. Stupid and foolish.”

Colin said nothing.

On the flat, the Alvritshai surged around the dwarren’s other flank, joining forces with Stephan and the Legion, so that the dwarren were encircled. They pushed hard, the dwarren shoving back, but there were too many against them. They were hemmed in on all sides, with no escape.

Except the one the Legion and Phalanx offered them. To the west, the two lines parted, as if crumbling beneath the dwarren onslaught. And the dwarren seized the opening, surging through the break—

Only to find themselves at the edge of the Escarpment.

They turned back, Alvritshai blocking them to the north, the Legion to the south, the combined forces—led by Stephan— pressing them from the east.

The dwarren closest to the edge milled about, dashed to the north, to the south, their own line pushing them from the east. Their motions became frantic as the space between the Riders and the cliff decreased, as the realization of what was to come spread through their ranks. But the humans and Alvritshai didn’t slow, didn’t waver. They continued to advance, inexorably, dead falling in the hundreds as the dwarren became more and more frenzied, more and more desperate.

When the first few dwarren, still astride their gaezels, tumbled over the edge of the cliff, Colin stirred. Sickened, he turned away, unable to watch as the human and Alvritshai ranks closed, the knot of dwarren dwindling. But he couldn’t block out the screams of the dwarren, the inhuman shrieks of the gaezels.

He paused at the look of horror on Stephan’s face. He’d expected to see triumph, or vindication.

He met Colin’s gaze. “I don’t remember the screams,” he said. “All I remember is a blood-rush of noise, filling my head. All I remember is heat and sweat and a trembling, as if my entire body were vibrating. And exhaustion. I remember feeling exhausted.”

“We need to move,” Colin said. “If you want to know the truth, we need to move to the cliff ’s edge.”

He nodded, lips pressing tight together.

They walked through the grass, to the edge of the dry and dusty flat, to the edge of the battle. They moved among the dead and dying, scattered at first, the bodies piled thicker as they passed the central part of the battlefield. The stench was overpowering, the death ghastly. Colin stared at the faces as he passed—Alvritshai, dwarren, and human—saw heads crushed in, faces shattered, throats slit and limbs severed. He saw bodies cut from shoulder to shoulder, throat to groin. He saw horses impaled on spears, gaezels riddled with arrows.

And then the death became too much. He fixed his eyes on the armies milling around the edge of the cliff, Alvritshai and Legion mixed together as the last of the dwarren died. They moved among them, weaving in and out through the crush of bodies, through the reek of a day’s worth of drenching sweat and spilled blood.

They were halfway to the Escarpment when a ragged cheer broke out.

Stephan pushed forward faster, and Colin followed, keeping up. Stephan knew when the Alvritshai had turned on his father; he’d been here.

They broke through the combined army into an open area, King Maarten and his escort on the left, staring across the expanse at Tamaell Fedorem and the Lords of the Evant on the right. Stephan—the boy, not yet eighteen—stood back, behind the Governors of the Provinces who were present, behind their escorts, everyone in the Legion cheering, clapping each other on the back. Someone ruffled the young Stephan’s hair, and he grinned uncontrollably, ducking out of the way.

Maarten was grinning as well, shaking hands with a few of his Governors. One of them leaned forward and shouted something over the noise, and Maarten burst out in laughter, the sound rolling over the general noise.

And then the King turned toward the Alvritshai, toward where Tamaell Fedorem waited, his lords arrayed behind him.

The Alvritshai were more subdued. They did not shout or cheer, although most of those behind the Tamaell, behind the Evant, were exultant, grinning in weariness and exhaustion. Those mixed in with the Legion endured the slaps of their allies with tight smiles.

But the Lords of the Evant and the Tamaell himself stood formally. Khalaek stood to the Tamaell’s left, a few paces away, another between them. He had not yet risen high enough in the Evant to stand beside the Tamaell. Colin did not see Aeren, but then he realized that Aeren had not been part of the Evant yet, that his brother had ruled the House at the time of the battle . . . and that his brother had died here, on these fields.

And one of the Lords of the Evant was missing. Aeren must have been away when this had happened. He must have been with his brother.

Seeing the Alvritshai waiting, King Maarten quieted, the silence spreading outward in a wave, not quite dying on the outskirts of the army.

But here, at its center, at the edge of the Escarpment, the celebration stilled.

Maarten and Fedorem regarded each other over that stillness. Maarten sheathed his sword, Fedorem doing the same, and they both stepped forward.

“It is done,” Tamaell Fedorem said in Andovan. Maarten chuckled. “It is done.”

Maarten extended his hand. Fedorem smiled, reached forward to shake it.

The moment trembled. Colin felt it, its weight bearing down upon him. All of the fighting, all of the conflict between the two races, between them and the dwarren—all of it would end here. An accord had been reached, an alliance struck. Everything would change.

Except that at that moment, Khalaek, Peloroun, and a lord Colin did not recognize but who wore the colors of House Baene, leaped forward, knives gleaming.

Maarten had enough time to lurch back before Khalaek’s blade buried itself in his neck, above his armor. The Lord of House Baene sank his own blade in Maarten’s side, even as Khalaek jerked his free and struck again and again. Lord Peloroun grabbed Fedorem’s shoulders, the Tamaell clearly stunned, and hauled him back. The rest of the Lords of the Evant looked as stunned as Fedorem, eyes wide in shock, Lord Barak appearing confused.

They weren’t given time to recover. Someone in the Legion— one of the Governors, or perhaps one of the men who made up Maarten’s personal guard—shouted, “Betrayal! They’ve murdered the King!”

Shock transformed to horror and rage in the space of a breath. The Legion, its Governors at the forefront, surged forward. Khalaek roared something in Alvritshai, something Colin didn’t recognize, and suddenly the air was filled with hundreds of arrows, launched from the rear of the Alvritshai army. The Alvritshai at the front took a moment longer to recover, as if they couldn’t quite believe what had happened, what
was
happening, even as the arrows cut into the Legion itself, dozens dying in an instant.

Then the human army overwhelmed them.

In its midst, Colin saw the lord he didn’t recognize cut down, even as he drew his knife from Maarten’s body. Khalaek drew his cattan, pierced the first enraged Legionnaire to make it to him, then thrust the body into those behind as he retreated. Through the chaos, he saw the young Stephan screaming, his voice lost among the crash of weapons, the roaring outcry. He tried to press forward, but the Legionnaires around the young heir were dragging him back, the rest of the Legion surging around him, protecting him, all of their faces locked in rage.

The elder Stephan watched in silence, even as the battle began anew around them. He watched as he was pulled away, drawn to safety, watched as the Legion surrounded his fallen father’s body, watched as the two armies fell upon each other, the moment of accord shredding before his eyes.

“Stop it,” he said, his voice dull. When Colin didn’t react fast enough, he spun, eyes blazing, and shouted, “Stop it! I don’t want to see any more!”

Reaching out, Colin seized the moment and halted it.

He waited, giving Stephan time to think, time to adjust to what he’d seen. He hadn’t been certain what he would find here. Aeren hadn’t been able to tell him, because he hadn’t witnessed it himself. He’d only known what Aeren suspected, what Aeren had learned from those lords who had been here and were willing to speak to him.

But what had happened seemed clear. Stephan finally stirred.

Without turning, he said softly, “Take me back.” And Colin did.

“To me!” Eraeth roared at Aeren’s side. “House Rhyssal to its lord!”

To either side, the remains of Aeren’s Phalanx pulled back desperately toward Eraeth’s voice as he continued to shout. Aeren didn’t have time to count how many still survived, too intent on keeping the Legion from overrunning his position completely.

Lotaern and the Order of the Flames’ flaming swords and the churning earth might have worked if the Legion hadn’t had fresh reinforcements waiting.

Now, the Alvritshai lines had shattered completely, pockets of Alvritshai fighting desperately all across the field, all of them trying to retreat toward the Tamaell Presumptive’s center, his horns blaring the retreat, issuing no other orders except to fall back, the direction of the retreat changing every moment as Thaedoren withdrew as well. They’d already been driven beyond where the acolytes had called forth Aielan’s Light from the earth. They were approaching the ridge overlooking the flat, beyond which stood the Alvritshai camp.