Crown of Vengeance

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A PARLIAMENT OF GHOSTS

The first was Prince Cirandeiron, who rode a white horse and had armor of gleaming silver. His destrier’s armor was silver, too, and there were diamonds set in his shoes. The second was Queen Telthorelandor, who rode a golden horse and had armor of brightest gold. Her destrier’s armor was golden, too, and he was shod in cairngorms and purest gold. The third was Aramenthiali, with a grey horse and jade armor, and every stitch of his harness was studded with emeralds and green stones. Each was more beautiful than the next, but Queen Pelashia was the most beautiful of all, and her horse was shod with diamonds, and her armor was of crystal, and the sword she bore was brighter than the moon and the sun …

—The Courtship of Amrethion and Pelashia

Candlemarks had passed since Runacarendalur and the other Caerthalien knights had led their exhausted destriers back across Aralhathumindrion and placed them in the care of Horsemaster Filioniel. Today should have been a day of triumph, even though Runacarendalur wouldn’t have been here to see it: Vieliessar dead, the Alliance preparing to march on Mangiralas and smash her army, every encampment bright with torches and lanterns, fragrant with the scent of victory feasts and joyous with songs of celebration.

Instead, the long summer twilight saw a gathering of the lords and high nobles of the High Houses. Such an assemblage was too large for any single pavilion to host it, even if the War Princes could have agreed on who that host should be. Instead, they, their consorts, and their heirs met beneath an enormous canopy in the meadow, set, ironically, where the parley carpet had been laid that morning. Komen stood guard at the edges of the meadow so that the lords’ speech could not be overheard or interrupted.

“What happened?” Lord Bolecthindial demanded.

“Magery,” Ivrulion Light-Prince answered superfluously. “I believe it is possible to Ward our destriers so what happened today cannot happen again, but that will take time. And it will take more time if you want every beast in the army Warded as well.”

“Do you think they’ll do it again?” Gimragiel asked.

“Since it worked so well the first time, yes.” Ivrulion didn’t have to add the obvious: that Vieliessar’s Lightborn not only had more incentive to use Magery on the field, they’d almost certainly had more practice.

“Has anyone seen little Prince Gatriadde lately?” Lord Girelrian asked archly, gazing ostentatiously about herself. “Didn’t he ride with you, my dear Prince Runacarendalur?”

“Dead, I suppose,” Runacarendalur said, shrugging. “The carts we sent to retrieve our fallen and wounded should be back soon.” If there are any wounded, he added mentally. The mercenaries had fought like cornered weasels and neither side had offered quarter.

“I only ask,” Lord Girelrian continued, “because I could not fail to notice Camaibien Lightbrother is also missing. Unless you believe he, too, was killed in the fighting?”

“You believe this was a trap from the very beginning,” Lord Ivaloriel said calmly.

“Well of course it was a trap—only we were supposed to be the ones who set it!” Ladyholder Dormorothon snapped. “Prince Gatriadde told us the truth. I heard his thoughts myself. And so did you, Prince Ivrulion.”

Ivrulion bowed, acknowledging the truth of her words. “Prince Gatriadde wished vengeance. The information he provided was in accordance with the thoughts of his heart. The maps Camaibien Lightbrother drew were accurate.”

“But you never set a spell of Heart-Seeing on either of them,” Consort-Prince Irindandirion said. “So you don’t actually know.”

“No one set a spell of Heart-Seeing on Gatriadde Mangiralas,” Runacarendalur said, locking his gaze with Irindandirion’s. “Everyone agreed that True Speech was sufficient. If Gatriadde was not who he seemed, none of us is more to blame than any other.”

Runacarendalur held Irindandirion’s eyes in blatant challenge. Lord Girelrian was the War Prince of Cirandeiron; Irindandirion was only her Consort-Prince. It did not make Runacarendalur’s tacit challenge any less a violation of protocol, and it meant Consort-Prince Irindandirion was more likely to accept: if Runacarendalur won, he gained nothing but Irindandirion’s personal possessions, not Cirandeiron itself.

“An important point we would all do well to remember,” Ladyholder Edheleorn said, her light voice breaking the tension of the moment. “Prince Runacarendalur is to be commended for bringing it to our attention.”

“I still find it hard to understand what the upstart gains,” War Prince Clacheu Denegathaiel said. “She approached us asking to surrender. Why these sennights of games if she never meant to negotiate in good faith?”

“It bought her time,” War Prince Ferorthaniel Sarmiorion said. Sarmiorion was one of two High Houses east of the Mystrals. “She took Mangiralas. The Less Houses of the West went mad. We heard rumors of treaties with the Houses of the Western Shore, though we could not confirm that. Then … nothing. Until Gatriadde arrives, offering to give us her army. And suddenly she begs to parley.”

“But what has she done with this time?” Lady Girelrian asked. “She cannot expect us to leave her in peace to winter in Mangiralas.”

“I’m not finished,” Ferorthaniel said. “Her treaty with Ivrithir required them to assign their claim to the Unicorn Throne to her, as did her treaty with Laeldor. We can assume her treaties with Amrolion and Daroldan are similar. She’s counting on us not attacking the Western Shore, and she’s right, for it would be madness to weaken our only defenders against the Beastlings. Araphant she holds absolutely, as she does Oronviel. Ullilion has declared for her, and as for the rest of the Western Less Houses …

“Either they have declared for her or are simply in rebellion. We do not know, and if we do not, she does not. But their rebellion caused us to form this unprecedented alliance, and once she got word of our alliance, she knew she couldn’t risk being attacked by our conjoined force. That’s why she offered a surrender.”

“Which was a ruse. But what does a moonturn or two of delay gain her?” Lord Clacheu said. “It isn’t as if we’ll forget about her.”

Ferorthaniel smiled. “No. But you’ve forgotten one thing Sarmiorion never can. In three moonturns, the passes over the Mystrals become difficult. In two more, impassable. I’ll wager anything you like she’s taken her army east, whether you’ve seen it move or not. She’ll winter in the Uradabhur, and I don’t think she’ll sit quiet when the end of War Season comes. I think she’ll fight through the winter. By spring, she’ll probably hold the thirty Houses of the Uradabhur in vassalage.

“If you can’t keep your client domains loyal when you’re camped on their doorstep, what success will you have when she is there and you’re on the other side of the mountains, waiting for spring thaw?”

“How kind of you to warn us in advance you’re planning to betray us,” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel snapped.

“If you think that, you are truly mad,” Ferorthaniel said. “Do you think I came west for my health? Even a lion cannot stand against a pack of wolves. Sarmiorion is the only High House in the Uradabhur, and the Uradabhur will fall by spring. Mark me when I say it.”

“So do we all surrender now?” Runacarendalur asked angrily. “Bend the knee and bow the neck to a madwoman of an erased House who thinks she’s the fulfillment of a prophecy that no one’s ever been able to make sense of? And what happens to us—to everything—when we crown her High King?”

“It is not my intention to permit Serenthon’s daughter to claim the prize we denied to Serenthon,” Lord Bolecthindial growled.

“Then choose,” Ferorthaniel said inexorably. “Follow her across the Mystrals now, knowing you must fight through the winter—and know you will have the west to reconquer next springtide—or let her take the Uradabhur while you make sure of the west, and know she will meet you next War Season with an unstoppable army at her back.”

“Aramenthiali rides east at once,” Lord Manderechiel said, getting to his feet.

“As does Caerthalien,” Lord Bolecthindial said, answering the unspoken challenge. He too rose to his feet.

“—Vondaimieriel—”

“—Cirandeiron—”

“—Telthorelandor—”

“—Denegathaiel—”

“—Lalmilgethior—”

“—Rolumienion—”

In moments all the High Houses present had pledged themselves to war.

From the moment she had conceived the plan, she had known it was more dangerous than any of her commanders could imagine. Caerthalien would be there. Caerthalien’s Heir-Prince would be there. Runacarendalur might be slain, and his death would mean hers as well. Caerthalien’s Heir-Prince knew of the Bond as surely as she did, and could slay her with a blade to his own throat. The Caerthalien lords were cold and proud, and their hatred for Farcarinon endured a century after its erasure. Did they hold such a weapon as the life of her Bondmate in their hands, they would not abstain from its wielding.

And yet he had. It was the greatest, strangest gift she had ever taken from the hands of a sworn foe. How long could she count upon such forbearance? What was its source?

She did not know.

Nor could she know, until the day she held Heir-Prince Runacarendalur of Caerthalien in bondage. If that day came.

If it does not …

Then she would have failed. And Darkness would take them all.

But today, I fight.

In another few sennights it would be a full Wheel of the Year since she had challenged Thoromarth for possession of Oronviel and taken her first step upon the road to the High Kingship. It was nearly two years since the Rain Moon when she had walked from the Sanctuary of the Star for the last time. In all those moonturns she had imagined both defeat and victory. But her imagined path to victory had been nothing like this.

She had meant to gather up a handful of Less Houses—as she had done. She had meant to call mercenary and outlaw to her banner—as she had done. She had meant to lift the heavy yoke of custom from the necks of Farmhold and Landbond and teach them the ways of war—as she had done. She had meant to shatter custom and bring Pelashia’s Children to the battlefield—and now the Warhunt rode with her. But never in hope or in madness had she thought that War Princes unconquered would rally to her banner, freely pledging to support her as High King.

Yet beneath her hand she held twenty-five of the Houses of the West in vassalage: their princes, their komen, their folk. It was as if her vow to make herself High King had been spark to tinder that had waited long for the kiss of flame. As if Amrethion’s Prophecy did not shape only her to its needs, but the folk of all the land.

She would take the Uradabhur as well.

The false parley had bought her the time to move the whole of her force east through the Dragon’s Gate. They mustered now in Ceoprentrei, the northernmost of three linked mountain valleys bordered on both sides by the peaks of the Mystrals. The mountain valley was the last place of true shelter and true safety her army would know, for when they reached the land beyond, they must fight.

Come spring, the Alliance of the High Houses would follow her over the Mystrals, baying for blood. The armies would slaughter each other without mercy or quarter, for the false parley had been a double-edged blade: it had bought her the time to move her army eastward … and it had bound the Houses of the Grand Alliance to one another with blood and vengeance.

The Trueborn Houses number twenty in the Grand Windsward, six in the Arzhana, thirty in the Uradabhur, forty-two from the Mystrals to Great Sea Ocean. Seventy-eight War Princes must yet decide I should be High King. If I gain the Uradabhur as I hope, that leaves forty-eight.

The meisne the Twelve could bring to the field was as great as all she might hope to bring to face them, for she knew she could not count on the Houses of the Windsward to ride to her aid, whether they supported her or not. The distance was too great. They would starve before they crossed the Arzhana, and even if they did not, High House Nantirworiel held the only pass which led into the Uradabhur, and it would never let an enemy army pass.

The Twelve would never declare for her without being defeated. And if she meant to defeat them, she must find something greater than swords and komen.

Magery is the answer. But I am already using Magery. Perhaps if I hadn’t, the War Princes would not have formed their Alliance.

The maps beneath her hands were covered with marks drawn from the whisperings of ghosts. In the past moonturn she’d combed her borrowed memories for landmarks and events of the distant past, hoping they would form some pattern she could understand. Here Lady Indinathiel lost a third of her army. There Lord Githonel set fire to the enemy’s croplands. She’d marked the forest in which Lady Parmanaya was lost, the plain on which Lord Tengolin lost the battle because of his feud with Nelpanar, the encampment where Lord Noremallin’s army mutinied. The marks all led across the Feinolons, the Bazrahils, the Mystrals. Her ancestors had ridden west, fleeing the fall of Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor. Amrethion High King had died. Pelashia Great Queen had died. And Amrethion’s lords had hunted their children, and their children’s children, and they had fled west.…

“I have had speech of Isilla,” Aradreleg said. “Will you hear, my lord?”

“In a moment,” Vieliessar said, staring at the map. She finally looked up to see Aradreleg standing before the map-table, looking both worried and impatient. “I plan our victory, and it preoccupies me,” Vieliessar said, forcing herself to sound cheerful and conciliating. “If you would rather I did not…”

Aradreleg did not answer her smile. “My lord, there is that which you must know. Isilla Farspoke me to say the scouts Lord Thoromarth sent have returned to him.”

Vieliessar glanced toward the doorway of the pavilion. It was dark outside now, and the pavilion was lit by balls of Silverlight she must have conjured up herself. On the edge of the map-table stood a platter of food, untouched. She wondered who had brought it. Rithdeliel, she suspected.

“If it is ill news, it is best given at once,” she said gently, though Aradreleg’s thoughts already gave her a sense of it. The words that followed were Thoromarth’s, and in the sharp brief sentences, Vieliessar heard despair.

Though it was already Harvest Moon, the Alliance was not retreating to winter quarters. They followed hot on the heels of Nadalforo and Thoromarth’s force. A sennight behind them at best.

I had thought to have more time! Vieliessar thought in anguish. With the Alliance following her now instead of next spring, the Houses of the Uradabhur might be terrified into adhering to their traditional loyalties. If she must conquer Less House Jaeglenhend by force of arms before she turned to face the Alliance, she would have only scant days to do so—but she must have Jaeglenhend’s loyalty before she could turn against the Alliance, for no army had ever gained victory while fighting enemies both before and behind.

And I do not wish to face them in battle at all!

“How long until Lord Thoromarth’s force reaches Ceoprentrei?” Vieliessar asked, her voice even.

“Two days, perhaps three,” Rithdeliel said. His voice was sharp with worry. “My lord, what orders?”

“Why, what orders do you imagine?” Vieliessar answered, making her voice light. “We prepare the army to march—and fight.”

As was customary at the start of a campaign, tonight Vieliessar would hold a feast for her senior commanders that would begin with a sacrifice to the Silver Hooves. She gathered from the herds of Mangiralas a dozen flawless colts and the feasting began with their sacrifice.

She was obscurely glad that Gatriadde Mangiralas was not there to see.

The company was by now too large to gather within any single pavilion, for her army numbered in the tens of thousands. She cleared the meadow her skirmishers had used for drilling and her Lightborn restored the turf. Then over all she caused to be set an enormous canopy, its fabrics joined and doubled by Magery until a veil of green and silver stood between the gathered company and the unwavering stars. From her seat at the High Table Vieliessar looked out over the assembly and knew that if she died tomorrow, she would still have accomplished enough to make her name a legend. War Princes of Houses that had fought one another since the Fall of Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor sat in amity—true amity—beside sellswords, beside Landbonds raised up to be Captains of Archers, beside Lightborn who took the field wearing chain shirts beneath their Green Robes. In this moment, the High King’s pledge was redeemed in an instant out of time, for here there was neither High House nor Low, Lord nor Landbond. There were only her people.

Tomorrow they would march down through the Dragon’s Gate into the Uradabhur, and there they would fight, though she did not yet presume to say whom their enemy might be. And they would fight on until her cause was claimed by victory or by defeat, and upon the anvil of that forging they would craft either the sword with which to face the Darkness when it came …

… or the pyre of their utter destruction.

“What do I need to do to become High King?” Vieliessar asked. The banquet was over and it was yet a few candlemarks until dawn. Over the course of the feast she had turned aside the questions Thoromarth, among others, had asked; they naturally wanted to know her plans, in case those plans were something they might want to argue her out of. But Gunedwaen had asked no questions, and on impulse she had invited him to accompany her on the walk back to her pavilion.

“To win is usually considered a good first step to becoming Commander, War Prince, or High King,” Gunedwaen answered as they reached Vieliessar’s pavilion. Gunedwaen stepped forward and lifted the tent flap for Vieliessar to enter, bowing as he did so, though not without a generous measure of irony. Vieliessar stepped forward and Gunedwaen followed her inside.

There was no one else of whom Vieliessar would have asked a question such as this, especially on the eve of battle, but Vieliessar trusted Gunedwaen. Not as someone whose fealty she held—for the oath had been in some sense extorted, and oaths had been broken before—and not as a useful ally whose self-interest would keep him from rebellion, for Farcarinon’s Swordmaster was uncompromisingly loyal.

No. Though he would reject the very concept, she trusted him as her equal.

Those who held Vieliessar’s respect were few. She loved sparingly and despairingly and valued many fearlessly. She could see too clearly why the men and women who fought for her did so. For vengeance. For self-interest, and she did not despise that, for clear-eyed self-interest was precious to her. Uncounted more followed her for the simple fact that their lives with her were better than the lives they’d left, and that saddened her even while she esteemed it as the precious gift it was, for many who had joined her would die before her final victory was achieved.

But Gunedwaen followed her for love. He did not value the future she meant to summon, nor did he believe in the Prophecy she steered by. Yet he would follow her until the day Aradhwain Bride of Battles placed her cold kiss upon his lips and sent him to ride forever with the Starry Hunt.

The pavilion was empty; no doubt her servants had gone to one of the many celebrations being held tonight. But the stove had been kindled and a kettle of water stood steaming gently atop it; spell-lanterns radiated dim light. Vieliessar conjured enough Silverlight to brighten the outer room and saw a tea service arranged on a tray waiting on a table. She shook loose tea into the pot and filled it from the kettle.

Gunedwaen raised her eyebrows. “Despite all our teachings, you still have the habits of a Sanctuary Mage,” he said.

“Am I to wait for you to serve me? You have served me well enough in these past moonturns, I think.” The tea had finished steeping so she poured for both of them. Steam curled from the delicate cups. “So you say, I must win. And how will I know when I’ve won?”

Gunedwaen cocked his head, studying her. “People might stop trying to kill you,” he offered. “Or not. But the simple answer to your question is one you already know: have all the War Princes proclaim you High King.”

“A more difficult task than it sounds. I had hoped,” she said, offering up the word with unaccustomed diffidence for she well knew Gunedwaen believed that if one must hope, one had lost, “to gain the Uradabhur before facing the Alliance.”

“Whereupon they would concede and anoint you High King,” Gunedwaen said. “But that is not your road to victory. It never has been.”

Vieliessar gazed at him in puzzlement and after a pause Gunedwaen continued. “I have been a Swordmaster since before your father’s birth. Wondertales are my stock-in-trade. Truth matters little. It is what people believe that ends battles or begins them.

“At least half the people out there follow you because you’re the Child of the Prophecy, Amrethion Aradruiniel’s chosen successor.” He waved his hand in the direction of the rest of the camp. “They expect your life and your war to be a wondertale. They want you to be as amazing and unknowable as Great Queen Pelashia Celenthodiel. If you give them what they want of you, they will love you and they will follow you. As will your foes—if you can convince them.”

“I am not a—” Vieliessar began hotly.

“Spirit? Great Power? Ancient hero reborn?” Gunedwaen asked. “Do you really think it matters? They want a good story. Give them that, and even the Twelve will bow their necks.”

Vieliessar bit back the angry words she longed to say. From the moment she’d begun to realize the sheer scope of the power surrounding her—and influencing her—she’d been uneasy with it. Even if she wasn’t manipulating people’s minds deliberately, she knew it was happening. The fact that Gunedwaen dismissed it so lightly made it worse. When did what she did to save her people become more terrible than what she was trying to save them from?

She shook her head stubbornly. There were no clear-cut choices.

“You mean to destroy the life we’ve all led for thousands of years, cast down the War Princes, change everything anyone has ever known, bring ‘justice’ to the commons, and turn every soul of the Fortunate Lands into a great army to fight an enemy so terrible Amrethion Aradruiniel refused to name it. You cannot do that as a mere War Prince, or even as High King. You must become more than that.”

Gunedwaen gazed into the distance. “Serenthon tried. His enemies feared him, and that fear was the greatest weapon in his arsenal. You don’t want to be feared, and you’re right. Fear is a good weapon on a battlefield, a bad one in a Great Hall. But you must become a legend. A dream all can dream together. A dream they can share and follow. If you do not, your army will lose all hope and be destroyed with its first great defeat. Now it’s late, and I’ve said far too much. With your permission, my lord, I will withdraw.”

“Of course,” she answered.

Gunedwaen got to his feet and walked to the door of the pavilion. His expression was thoughtful, but she would not gaze into his thoughts. “Rest you well, Vieliessar High King,” he said, turning back to regard her.

“And you,” Vieliessar said. As if I could, after that.

Amrethion High King, what hradan have you set upon me?

Her untouched tea had gone cold by the time she rose from the table and sought her bed.

Long before dawn, the army began to move. First to depart were the scouts and foragers, not just the commonfolk on shaggy ponies whose sole task was to warn of the presence of enemy forces in the Mystrals, who had been on patrol since the army had arrived in Ceoprentrei, but komen ready to fight.

Once the scouts were away, the army followed. It was odd to see so many in the same colors. The infantry and former mercenaries wore tabards, the komen wore surcoats, and all were green with a rearing silver Unicorn upon them. Her device. Her colors. The mark of the armies of the High King.

Once all had been set in motion, Vieliessar took her personal guard and rode up to the top of the pass. It was chill and dark, still a full candlemark before dawn. The Dragon’s Gate had been worked and shaped long ago by Lightborn: the pass was broad and open, and she could see down into the hills on the western side below, where the army of the Alliance gathered.

The earth was a mirror of the sky, dotted with thousands of points of light. The large ones were cookfires and watchfires. The small ones were the torches set at the boundaries of the Alliance’s camp and in front of many of the tents. Here and there she could see balls of Silverlight glowing with a moon-blue radiance. She wondered if Prince Runacarendalur was down there somewhere.

Of course he would be. He was Caerthalien’s most able General.

Realizing where her mind had strayed, she shoved the thought aside irritably. She wouldn’t think about him at all save for the Magery that had made him a knife at her throat. If we were not Soulbonded, I would slay him with a light heart. He is all that is corrupt and shameful in the Hundred Houses.

“There are a lot of them,” Komen Mathoriel said quietly.

“Yes,” Vieliessar answered. Her personal guard had suffered heavy losses in Mangiralas, and because of that Komen Orannet—a hedge knight of Oronviel—had become its head, but protocol demanded Vieliessar have a komen of higher rank to head her guard, and she valued Komen Mathoriel’s steadiness. She’d taken care to fill the rest of the places with komen of other Houses than Oronviel, for she was no longer War Prince of Oronviel, but High King.

“We will prevail,” Mathoriel said firmly.

Vieliessar wasn’t certain whether it was tact or optimism that prompted Mathoriel’s remark, but it made good hearing.

“What do I need to do to become High King?” Her words returned to haunt her through the long days of descent through the Mystrals. She stood upon the threshold of a battle she might well lose. Yet it was a battle that must be fought whether she wished to or not, for she had begun her quest to become High King not for power or ambition, but in fear and dread. The Song of Amrethion prophesied a terrible Darkness that would ride across the land during the years of her life, and if the Hundred Houses were not united against it, the alfaljodthi would be erased from the world. All she had done, all she would do, was meant to prepare her folk and her kin against that day. It was that battle to come she must think of, and not the battles she must fight to reach it. Lose them, and she lost all. But win them …

Every war began, so Arilcarion War-Maker had written in Of the Sword Road, with its own hero tale, as if it were a great lord who had lived a long life and now had a storysong crafted to be sung over its funeral pyre. And any prince who clung to that storysong after a campaign began would drink to drowning of the cup of defeat and loss, for no mortal prince could force the world to follow their whim as if they wore the cloak of the Starry Huntsman.

She would not have the Hundred Houses’ strength to call on if she obliterated it. To imagine a victory that did not begin with the destruction of all the War Princes and their meisnes was madness, but madness or not, it was the only road to victory—true victory.

Gunedwaen says I must become a legend, a dream. I do not think I can. We are no longer a people of dreams or trust. Bolecthindial, Girelain, Manderecheriel will never accept my bare word. Oh, if only I could show the War Princes of the Alliance what I have seen in my visions! Surely then they would understand.…

Could she?

Not her vision of the city, but the city itself?

Find Celephriandullias-Tidorangelor. Take Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor. Fill its lands with the thousands upon thousands who had followed her out of the West …

And the War Princes would rail in vain against a victory already accomplished, for she would have the Unicorn Throne.

Oh, it would be only the object and not the vast empire it symbolized, but that would not matter. If she held it, the envoys of the War Princes would come to her there, to seek treaties or negotiate wars. Amrethion’s city would become her greatest weapon. The commons of every domain would seek out Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor to become her subjects. Without the farmers and farmworkers, the craftworkers, the servants, those who worked, the War Princes’ vast armies would collapse. They would be forced to surrender or starve.

There were a thousand reasons not to do it.

To reach Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor—to find Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor—she would have to lead her army through the lands of War Princes who owed fealty to War Princes of the Alliance. The lessons she had learned during War Season were clear: fear would cause them to support their ancient masters. She might hope for more, but the best she could expect was that they would merely ride to join her enemy instead of marshaling their forces immediately against her.

Or she might win.

But first she must find her destination.

When Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor fell, the Uradabhur was a primeval wilderness. The maps she had were the best available, but they were limited. Nothing beyond the borders of the domains was shown. Why should it be? Who could possibly need to know about it? All she had to aid her were the ghost-whispers of ancient memories. Amrethion’s lords hunted Pelashia’s children, and their children’s children, and they had fled west …

If she chose that course, it meant gambling her army on a chance out of legend and prophecy, instead of waging a conventional war she might actually win. And winning, lose—for all of them.

She had as little choice as she ever had.

Only let the day come when the magic of the Prophecy has done all Amrethion set it to do, when I can say I do nothing but by my own wish—and say, too, on that day: it is well.

“We will be received by a committee of welcome,” Rithdeliel said, gesturing toward the valley ahead.

The day was warm and bright, and a candlemark or two would see them out of the pass and within Jaeglenhend’s true borders. Nilkaran Jaeglenhend had come with all his army to meet them. His encampment was set upon a hilltop and his pavilion—striped in Jaeglenhend azure and white—was easily visible even from here. Her scouts had been reporting back for days that Nilkaran had gathered what was probably the whole of his army to meet her.

“Welcome does not disturb me,” Vieliessar commented dryly.

“They’re a few miles off, and Kenyman Scout saw no evidence they mean to attack. Today, at least,” Rithdeliel answered.

“Just as well.” Her whole force outnumbered Nilkaran’s at least ten to one—but her whole force would not be down the mountain for some days yet. “So let us make camp.”

“And give him a ’mark or two to brood before you do what you always do,” Rithdeliel said.

“‘What I always do’?” Vieliessar asked, turning to gaze at him. “And that would be…?”

Rithdeliel smiled. “Why, send an envoy to ask, most politely, that he surrender his armies and his lands and pledge fealty to you, of course.”

His comment startled her into laughter, for it was true. But she sobered quickly. Though it had worked often enough to gain her an army, there was an army following her that would not be so easily subdued.

There was a valley located only a few miles from the trailhead; Rithdeliel’s forces were soon joined there by Thoromarth and his warriors and then by Iardalaith and the Warhunt Mages. Vieliessar’s camp expanded slowly and inexorably. Lord Nilkaran’s scouts were obviously keeping as close a watch on it as she was on his. But he managed to do one thing to surprise her: he sent an emissary to her before she sent one to him.

Moraigre Lightbrother looked too young to be wearing the Green Robe, but he was obviously used to this work, for he displayed no sign of nervousness at being intercepted by pickets and conducted to Vieliessar’s pavilion. It had been the first structure set: orders must be given, decisions must be made, and her scarlet pavilion made a logical focal point for the engineers who must lay out the roads of the camp. Many campaigns ago she had resigned herself to going inside and staying there, no matter her inclinations: it was a waste of everyone’s time and energy to constantly have to seek her out. At least my commanders have the luxury of going where they wish and doing what needs doing, she thought rebelliously. Moraigre Lightbrother’s arrival was a welcome distraction.

“To Lord Vieliessar, War Prince of Oronviel, Lord Nilkaran, War Prince of Jaeglenhend, sends greetings,” Moraigre began, when the first formalities were over and he was ready to deliver his message.

“Lord Vieliessar is not Prince of Oronviel,” Aradreleg corrected calmly. “Lord Vieliessar is High King of all the land.”

“I, well, I have the message as it was given to me,” Moraigre said, smiling engagingly. “If its form does not please, I shall inform my lord.”

Vieliessar smiled in return. “Let us proceed to the message itself, if you would. What does Lord Nilkaran want?”

There was a pause as Moraigre skipped mentally over several long speeches of flattery, though Vieliessar’s True Speech let her hear them as a low mutter in his mind. She had long since given up feeling shame over her near-constant use of it to eavesdrop on all around her.

“He greets you, and wishes you well, and is prepared to offer your army safe conduct to the eastern border of his domain. Escorted by his army, of course,” the young Lightborn finished.

Aradreleg was too well schooled to laugh, and Komen Mathoriel was too well bred to. Vieliessar sat quietly, her face as smooth as new cream, delaying only to give Moraigre the impression she was considering his master’s words. The proposal Nilkaran made was both audacious and clever, for it did not force him to declare for her, nor did it shut the door to such a declaration in future. But if she accepted it, she would be left with an enemy at her back, and her enemies would receive haven.

“Your lord’s desire to avoid unnecessary battle does him credit,” she began simply. “And he knows as well as I that a great army pursues me closely, and when we meet, we must fight.”

She felt Moraigre relax, thinking she was going to accept Nilkaran’s offer.

“Yet this is an offer I must decline,” she continued. “I must and will have Jaeglenhend. I require Lord Nilkaran to swear fealty to me, to place all of Jaeglenhend beneath my rule, to deliver to me for my use all those of his meisne, and to provide me with such provisions and other materials as I may require.”

“I…” Moraigre was too experienced to show the full extent of his dismay, but he was obviously at a loss for words. Foremost in his mind was concern—not outright fear, but not far from it—at Nilkaran’s reaction when he delivered her message.

“It is only to be understood that Nilkaran Jaeglenhend will find my answer disappointing. And he will have many questions. I shall send a messenger of my own with you upon your return, so that he may have answers to all the questions he may wish to ask,” she said. At least those I intend to answer. She turned to the nearest servant. “Go and bring to me Iardalaith Lightbrother, if you please. I must send him to speak with Lord Nilkaran, and I have much to say to him before he goes.”

She sent four Lightborn back with Moraigre: Iardalaith, Rondithiel, whose gravitas should be enough to reassure the Lightborn of Jaeglenhend that she kept the Covenant, Harwing, who was an expert spy, and Isilla, whose Keystone Gift was Overshadowing. All were members of the Warhunt, able and willing to fight if they must.

They did not return to Vieliessar’s camp until late that night. Iardalaith said they had been forced to sneak from the Jaeglenhend camp under Cloakspell and steal their own horses back. Lord Nilkaran had not mistreated them in any fashion, but he had asked them to remain until he had an answer to send back with them.

“Had we done so, we would have grown old in his company,” Harwing Lightbrother said mockingly.

“He means to fight. I am almost certain of it,” Isilla said, and Rondithiel nodded in agreement.

Vieliessar glanced around the pavilion. Much of her army was still in the mountains, so not all her Senior Commanders were present, but Thoromarth, Rithdeliel, Atholfol Ivrithir, and Diorthiel of Araphant had been summoned to hear the report of the Lightborn.

“It will be tomorrow, then,” Rithdeliel said. “You’re here, and most of your army isn’t. Tomorrow his knights will still outnumber yours.”

Thoromarth nodded in agreement. “Nilkaran knows how close behind us our enemy is,” he said. “Expect him to attack you tomorrow, Lord Vieliessar, but don’t expect him to stand and fight. He’ll want to delay you until the Alliance can deal with you.”

“Set his camp afire tonight and he’ll surrender at dawn,” Atholfol said cheerfully.

“I need to take his army, not kill it,” Vieliessar said. “And under other circumstances, I might hold back the use of Magery on the field because I know it will make Nilkaran and his komen fight as if they’re rats about to be drowned. But we do not have such a luxury. We must win quickly, and that means Magery.”

“The Warhunt stands ready,” Iardalaith said.

“If we do not carry the day we may at least have the joy of watching Nilkaran try to decide whether he will throw Jaeglenhend’s storehouses open to the Alliance when it comes,” Diorthiel said with a faint smile. “I do not think he has realized he must declare for you or for them.”

“He’s that much of an idiot,” Isilla said bluntly. “And a monster as well. He sends knights to patrol the countryside for those commons who wish to join you. When his knights catch anyone, they strike off their hands and feet and leave them to bleed to death.”

“I wish him joy of finding Farmfolk to reap his harvests instead of leaving them to spoil in the field,” Harwing Lightbrother said with an edged smile. Vieliessar did not miss the startled glance that passed between Thoromarth and Atholfol. Her lords had been as shocked as her enemies to discover the depth of contempt their commonborn subjects felt for them.

“I will be glad to offer them my protection,” Vieliessar said. “And enrich my army at the expense of Nilkaran’s domain.”

“He’ll realize that he’s caught between wolf and lion soon, though perhaps not soon enough,” Iardalaith said. “Though I have some ideas on how the Warhunt may hasten his reflections.”

“I will hear them in a moment. But … can you Overshadow Nilkaran, Isilla?” Vieliessar asked. It was a blunter question than she really wanted to ask; Atholfol and the others disliked reminders of the power some of the Lightborn could wield. But Lord Nilkaran was the sort of prince who guarded his power jealously and ruled by rank and fear. He would not have a strong council of advisors around him, nor would he surround himself with Lords Komen strong enough to challenge any decree he made. Remove him and no one else would truly be prepared to take and hold power.

“No,” Isilla answered instantly. “I could arrange to get close enough to him to try, but he stinks of Warding.” She rubbed her arms through the fabric of her tunic, as if her skin itched. “No spell of control or illusion will touch him, I suspect.”

“Of course, there’s still lightning,” Harwing said cheerfully. “Not that striking him dead would be especially useful,” he added hastily.

“Better, perhaps, to convince him by persuasive argument that Lord Vieliessar’s cause is just and worthy of support,” Rithdeliel said silkily.

“Yes,” Iardalaith agreed. “And while you are doing that, I shall take my Warhunt to his castel. We can strip the Wardings from its stones—and the spell’s effects will be visible at once, even to the Lightless.”

Vieliessar concealed her pleasure; it would not do for her Lords Komen to become jealous of the Warhunt Mages and their leader. But Iardalaith’s instincts for what would most efficiently destroy an enemy’s will to fight were sound: the Wards that rendered a castel invulnerable were the casting of years, even decades, the work of hundreds of Lightborn. If the Warhunt Dispelled the Wards of Lord Nilkaran’s Great Keep, Nilkaran’s Lightborn could not recast them. This would not be the same spell she had cast at Laeldor—Rot had turned every scrap of metal and wood to dust almost instantly. But now she wanted to display her power, not terrify her enemies into fighting without the hope of victory.

“Let it be done, and I thank you, Iardalaith, for that was well thought of,” Vieliessar said, leaning back in her chair to stretch her tired muscles. This would be a night of planning and no sleep. “Now. Have we decent maps of Jaeglenhend? Someone get them, and we will decide where the rest of us are to make this persuasive argument.”

She had been War Prince for fourteen moonturns.

Having consulted both the maps and the scouts, she chose a rolling expanse of land a mile to the west of Nilkaran’s camp for the battle. The army was impossible to move undetected. There was the jingle of bit and spur and mail, the rattle of plate, the creaking of carts—and the bright glow of the Silverlight the Lightborn cast to light the army’s way. Incredibly, despite all of that, they’d encountered no Jaeglenhender scouts or guards. War Prince Nilkaran was either supremely confident or supremely stupid. At last they reached the place Vieliessar had chosen, and her force settled itself in loose array and prepared to wait for dawn.

“What are they doing over there?” Vieliessar demanded irritably, glaring at Nilkaran’s camp in the distance.

“Sleeping,” Thoromarth said simply. “Why not? Nilkaran doesn’t expect to find you waiting in his courtyard when he awakes. He expects to send an envoy with the declaration of his intentions while his army drinks its morning ale. Then he’ll march, expecting you to fling yourself onto the field without studying the lay of it, so he can cut your force to thread and string with half his meisne while he smashes your camp with the other half.”

“I grieve at the thought of how disappointing he must find me,” Vieliessar answered sardonically.

“I could go to Lord Nilkaran’s camp to tell him we demand he meet us in battle,” Ambrant Lightbrother said.

His mother snorted. “I don’t have so many children that I wish to lose one. Give it another half-mark,” she said, regarding the sky with a measuring look. “Then we can let him know we’re here.”

“Perhaps he’ll invite us to breakfast,” Thoromarth said dourly.

“If I’d ever waited to be invited over your borders, you old bandit, Oronviel would’ve smothered under its herds of sheep long before Lord Vieliessar came,” Atholfol said.

“If the two of you want to shout a little louder, we won’t need warhorns to let Nilkaran know we’re here,” Vieliessar said tartly, and both princes laughed.

Autumn was a season of dawn-mist and frost. Even as the sky lightened, the world remained colorless. The destriers were saddled and brought onto the line. The stamp of their hooves and clink of their bridles was muffled by the mist. When the sky had brightened enough that sparks of fire could be seen beneath the lacquered surfaces of armor, Vieliessar signaled the knights-herald. As one, their raised their warhorns, and the mellow handful of rising notes that were the summons and challenge to the enemy rang out. Come and fight—Come and fight—Come and fight—

As the echoing sound died away, Vieliessar urged her destrier forward at a slow walk. “Come,” she said. “I do not mean to give Nilkaran a spacious battlefield to work with.”

At the end of the day’s fighting, Vieliessar could claim no victory. Nilkaran had put just enough knights into the field to keep her occupied, while keeping back the majority of his force to defend his camp. Somewhat to her surprise, he did not send a meisne against her camp, but it was frustrating that when she called for a fighting retreat at midday, she wasn’t even able to entice the enemy to follow her, despite retreating encumbered by carts filled with her wounded. By mid-afternoon she’d retreated far enough that Nilkaran’s komen had given up all pretense of offering battle and had ridden back to his retreating supply train. She called a halt and sent a messenger to her camp, with orders to move as far east as they could before sunset.

“Is that wise?” Rithdeliel asked quietly.

“Dendinirchiel’s element should have reached the camp this morning,” Vieliessar answered. “And Kalides Brabamant and Brethrod Cirdeval were right behind her. We can’t let the Alliance catch us in these foothills.”

“I would have said otherwise,” Rithdeliel commented. “It’s good terrain for an ambush.”

“It’s good terrain to isolate portions of your enemy’s force and hold them while you bring up enough horse to slaughter them,” Vieliessar countered. “I think that must be what they intend. The nobles who follow me are inconvenient; their lands have undoubtedly been promised away. Slaughter the komen and the princes and the Alliance will believe it can reclaim the commons.”

Rithdeliel sighed, wordlessly acknowledging the truth of her argument. “Onward, then,” he said.

The next day she discovered Nilkaran had fled, leaving his army in the care of Warlord Handeloriel while he rode south-east with a handful of grand-tailles. Vieliessar knew Nilkaran didn’t trust Handeloriel any more than Nilkaran trusted anyone, but he must have given him very explicit orders, for Warlord Handeloriel circled constantly through the eastern Tamabeth Hills. No matter what she did, Vieliessar couldn’t force him to a stand. When she attempted to break off, to see if laying siege to Nilkaran’s vulnerable Great Keep would gain her the battle she sought, Handeloriel immediately moved to harry her vulnerable baggage train.

And then she ran out of time.

Three days after her first battle with Nilkaran, the armies of the Alliance invaded Jaeglenhend in force. Only the fact that her army had continued moving east saved it from being destroyed immediately. A little thought led Vieliessar to the realization that it was likely that the Alliance had asked its Lightborn to widen the path through the Mystrals so that their army and its baggage train had room to maneuver.

Even the most conservative Lightborn could be pressured into doing that much. And I know whose mind crafted such a clever plan.

Vieliessar called for retreat, knowing two War Princes could not agree with each other, let alone twelve, and knowing that the longer she kept the Alliance in the field, the greater the possibility they would begin to fight among themselves. As she fell back, she expected the Alliance’s komen to charge and engage, using their traditional tactics: gallop madly into the enemy for the joy of the charge, then fight a series of single combats governed by antique rules of honor.

But the Alliance komen did not charge in force. The Alliance commander held back a portion of his troops and, under the cover of the charge, used it to cut Vieliessar off from her vulnerable baggage-train. When he’d done that, he continued to allow her superiority on the field as he drove her wagons and herds back toward the Alliance lines.

At the same time, the Alliance Lightborn struck.

The bright day dimmed rapidly as clouds boiled up over the crown of the Mystrals. The air was chokingly thick with Magery as Vieliessar’s Warhunt Mages vied with the Alliance Lightborn—a battle of Magery waged side by side with one of flesh and steel. She had to admit it was an elegant tactical compromise. Most of the Lightborn with the Alliance would refuse to use Magery on the battlefield. But they would see working the weather as only a small compromise with Mosirinde’s Covenant.

In time her Lightborn might have prevailed, but most of the Warhunt was still on its way back from Jaeglenhend Great Keep and the storm had a momentum of its own. It was all her remaining Lightborn could do to keep the Lightning drawn from its clouds from hitting Vieliessar’s army.

Soon the rising wind was filled with snow. The battlefield became shrouded in white as the out-of-season blizzard strengthened. The sound of the warhorns and signal whistles was muted and garbled by the snow and the wind, making it impossible to pass orders reliably. Visibility was so poor that no one could see the banners carried by the knights-herald.

The storm stripped away every advantage Vieliessar possessed. The snow distempered the archer’s bowstrings so they could not loose their arrows; her infantry slipped and skidded on the icy ground. Vieliessar was forced to abandon pursuit of her baggage train and deploy her knights to guard her infantry’s retreat, for the enemy, identifying her weakest point, eschewed combat with their fellow komen to attack the infantry instead.

The infantry’s horses had been lost with the baggage train. The Warhunt could not Call them back, for the whole of the Alliance army stood between the beasts and their summoners. The injured died where they fell, or clung grimly to their saddlebows and rode after the fleeing infantry.

Even then, Vieliessar might have stolen the meat of victory from defeat’s cookfire. But Lord Nilkaran had rejoined his army and led it against her defenseless wounded and fleeing foot soldiers. All she could do was retreat, retreat, retreat as she tried to keep her army intact.

She’d never been so grateful for sunset and an end to the day’s fighting. She spent the night trying to find the scattered elements of her army. Near dawn, Vieliessar made the only choice she could. South of Jaeglenhend, the Uradabhur became league upon league of primal wilderness. Nilkaran would still have a declared border, for a border was necessary for the setting of Wards, but he would either have stripped the border towers of their defenders entirely, or left them with so few that the members of the Warhunt still with the army could easily overpower them. The order went to all warriors she could reach, by Lightborn or by Lightless messenger: retreat on a south-southeast salient. Do not regroup. Do not engage the enemy.

The border keeps would provide food, shelter, and defense. The forest beyond would return the advantage to Vieliessar, for the Alliance komen could not use cavalry in forests so dense a rider could barely pass through them.

If they could reach it.

But if the first day of the battle had been bad, the next was worse. The Alliance had brought its pavilions and supplies up to its battle lines and were able to attack again as soon as there was light enough to see.

Her komen’s destriers were cold and hungry, making them irritable and difficult to control. Her army was dazed and groggy from a night without shelter. The blizzard had been raging for nearly a full day and the snowdrifts were deep. Today the horses of both armies floundered ponderously through the drifts, and it was as if the komen fought in slow motion through the still-falling snow.

But they fought.

Vieliessar had long-since abandoned the idea of fighting to a victory; all she hoped for now was to retreat with her army. Iardalaith’s force had rejoined her during the night, but every spell they tried—she tried—against the attacking knights or their mounts simply didn’t work. Their Lightborn must have been Warding everything that breathed for sennight upon sennight to have Warded so many thousand komen and horses. The only spell that was of any effect was Shield, and to ask her Lightborn to hold it along the entire line of skirmish, for candlemarks, was to ask them to doom the land.

“You have to use Dispell!” she shouted to Iardalaith over the clamor of the battle.

She’d ridden back through her lines to give Firthorn a brief respite from the fighting. Most of the Warhunt was gathered at the rear; being willing to fight was not the same as being able to defend oneself on a battlefield.

“Do you think I haven’t thought of that?” Iardalaith snapped. “Even if we could, we’d be helpless afterward!”

“Which do you like better—helpless or dead?” Vieliessar demanded. The only thing saving them so far was that the Alliance komen couldn’t charge their lines at speed. Vieliessar had only been able to find about a third of her army before the day’s fighting had begun; the force she commanded was outnumbered two to one.

“You can be both if you have to retreat and we’re too drained to protect you!”

“Think of something.” She wasn’t certain he could hear her. Just as well. She spurred Firthorn away before she was tempted to repeat herself more loudly.

A candlemark later, near midday, the storm finally broke and the clouds rolled back, but Vieliessar could feel the Weather Magery in the air like a dull ache behind her eyes; there would be another storm by sunset. As the temperature rose, the surface of the snow became veiled in mist. Pools of water lay in the hollows of the drifts, flaring like burning silver in the sunlight. When the temperature dropped again, the water-sodden snow would freeze into solid ice. In winter, palfreys and mules wore studded shoes to keep them from slipping on frozen ground. The destriers would have no such protection. There had already been several casualties on both sides as warhorses had slipped in the churned mud of the battlefield and gone down hard enough to break a leg.

The Alliance had remounts available—some of them Vieliessar’s, taken as spoils of war.

In the distance, she could see the pavilions of the enemy. For a moment she dared to hope: what Lightborn could see, they could affect, and Fire was the first spell every Postulant learned. But even Tangisen Lightbrother, who swore he could kindle a stone into flame, could not set the enemy’s tents alight.

She could feel failure and defeat prowling around the edges of the battle like wolves starved by winter’s cold. She didn’t think she’d done anything to tempt the Silver Hooves to punish her pride, but They could see into her heart, and oh, there had been a bottomless wellspring of hubris there. Child of the Prophecy. Amrethion’s Chosen. Uncrowned High King. She was being punished for every arrogant thought she’d ever had. Her meisne could not hold the enemy off until dark—each candlemark saw their losses multiply as exhausted warriors made fatal mistakes. They might survive another night in the open, but they would not be able to fight at the end of it. The Alliance could defeat her without even needing to engage: her komen would freeze to death.

Then—inexplicably—she caught the scent of smoke upon the air and heard the distant clamor of horns—retreat, retreat. The Alliance began to disengage.

She turned and looked: their camp was burning.