The Gambler's Fortune

In this Mountain tale of how the world was made, we find both familiar and strange ideas. Only the gods know the truth and perhaps they have shared it among the peoples, so that we may only learn by sharing our knowledge.

Teyvasoke, 18th of Aft-Summer

Just walk slowly, keep your hood up and avoid catching anyone’s eye,” ’Gren murmured out of the side of his mouth. He spoke slowly to ensure I understood. Neither brother had talked anything but the Mountain tongue since we had left Apak’s camp, which had done wonders for my understanding of the language. It had been worse for my temper; some days I’d been so frustrated I’d have cheerfully punched them both on the nose. My accent was reasonably convincing by now—having a good ear for a tune helps there—but there were still too many things I just didn’t know the words for.

I ran a hand over my hair, damp with sweat in the noon heat. The short crop still felt strange, the hair strawlike after Harile’s foul-smelling concoction had leached out most of the color. Sorgrad was confident passing eyes would slide incuriously over a light-eyed, sandy blond in the company of two undeniably pure-blooded Mountain Men. Still, I was taking no chances, concealing myself in a sacklike garment ’Gren had acquired. Some woodcutter had learned the hard way not to leave his linen drying on the broom bushes fringing his little steading.

“So where have this lot been?” wondered ’Gren aloud. We’d waited and watched and finally come in on the tail end of a straggle of returning troops.

“Raiding the lowlands,” Sorgrad nodded at the dust kicked up by protesting flocks of abducted sheep in the grassy expanses farther down the valley.

I looked around at the new arrivals competing for cramped space to spread their blankets and set up cook pots. “No one’s going to be surprised to see faces they don’t know hereabouts, are they?”

We walked slowly up the broad floor of the wide valley, which was crowded with tents and rough shelters. On either side ramparts of rock marched down from the heights to enfold the soke with their protection, pierced with the dark entrances of mines. Ahead the land rose in a shallow sweep, past broken ground pocked with workings up to a gentle rise still dotted with a few remaining trees, then it changed abruptly, folded into deep, forested gullies. The twin mountains, light and dark, reared up beyond, clouds streaming like banners from their summits.

I brought my wits back from that distant beauty to considerations closer at hand. They might be a motley crowd but this was more than the ragtag collection of raiding parties that Lescari dukes dignify with the title of army. In the time it had taken us to reach here, a sizable host had gathered. I only hoped they’d disperse as rapidly if we could get rid of the Ice Islander’s enchantments. I looked sideways from beneath my hood at a gang of youths sitting around an unlit fire pit. One with dark eyes startling below corn-silk yellow hair was brushing his mail-shirt free of specks of rust, another with the rounder features of mixed blood was using a whetstone on a sword with a notch in the metal jagged as a freshly broken tooth. A third bent over a dusty boot that looked to have covered more leagues than my own. The ring of hammer and metal punctuated conversation on all sides.

“If we’d bleached what was left of his hair, Sandy could have passed among these mongrels,” ’Gren said cheerfully.

“I think he’s better off where he is. That limp and those crutches are just too noticeable.” We’d left the exhausted wizard with a handful of determined Forest hunters in a disregarded hollow beyond the knife-edged ridge on the sunrise side. He was under strict instructions not to use any magic lest he draw attention of the Sheltya or the Elietimm. Usara might be confident Hadrumal’s tricks would hide him from an enchanter’s notice, but we weren’t prepared to let the mage risk it. Not until we had our quarry. I hoped he’d stay unscathed. I’d left my precious song book with him, for one thing—a mage being the nearest I could find to safekeeping for the present.

But once we had the bastard, I’d welcome Forest arrows or spears of lightning or anything else to cover our flight. Sudden shouts behind me froze the hot trickles of sweat between my shoulder blades, cold fingers of fear running down my spine.

“Wrestling,” Sorgrad grinned, seeing my expression.

I wished I knew a Mountain equivalent of that finger flick Caladhrians use to convey rebuke.

“Everyone’s bored.” ’Gren’s expression grew animated. “Same as when snow keeps you all to camp or stormy weather makes the mines too wet to work.”

“You’re not to get involved, you hear me?” Sorgrad’s face was serious. “Get overexcited and kill someone again and ten men will be dragging you up before Sheltya who’ll empty your head to your bottom teeth.”

“I thought the whole point was to get ourselves Sheltya? Oh, all right, I’m only yanking your hood,” ’Gren grumbled.

“We’d best steer clear,” I said noncommittally. “We don’t want to be noticed and you flattening all comers would start talk.”

The path took us up beyond a jagged spike of rock and away from the ranks of tents where tense men eyed each other like hounds chained too close in a kennel yard. We stopped to take our bearings.

This ridge of rock marked a deliberate division. There were women up here, some in voluminous drapes like the ones hampering my knees, others in long skirts dusty around the hems and blouses loose-necked in the heat. I looked back down the valley; there were no females of any age in the tents below the little waterfall valiantly making the most of its meager reserves as it tumbled glittering over the rock. A handful of women were lingering by the side of the stream, water pots in hand, idly chatting. One lass was paddling her naked feet in the frothing water.

“She’s trouble going begging for business,” remarked ’Gren with a certain relish. A burly man stripped to the waist as he laundered his linen was on the other side of the stream, watching with interest. He tossed a stone into the water, splashing the young woman’s skirts. She shook her head at whatever it was he said to her but her smile and the flirt of her skirts gave the lie to any denial. A second man, not over-tall but with shoulders massive from years of breaking rocks, came up behind her. Catching the incautious wench unawares, he shook her hard enough to snap her head backward. The other women scattered back to the dubious sanctuary of their tents.

“Our pal had better get this lot fighting some enemy or he’ll have them fighting each other,” observed Sorgrad thoughtfully.

“They’ll just knock the rough corners off.” ’Gren was unconcerned. “Remember early season in a trapping camp or at a new digging.”

“There aren’t any women to fight over after a wasted day at the trap lines,” countered Sorgrad.

“Would it be worth our while setting a spark to the tinder?” I wondered.

“I’m game,” volunteered ’Gren.

“Perhaps if we need a diversion on the way out.” Sorgrad turned to look at me. “You’d pass for a man better if you were wearing a hauberk.”

“In this heat, I’d pass out,” I retorted. “No one’s going to tell me buck from doe as long as I’m wearing this sack.”

Both ’Gren and Sorgrad were in sleeveless chainmail, burnished so bright by the sun it was painful to the eye. They bore the strength-sapping weight uncomplaining and with little enough sign of discomfort, but I hate wearing armor and wasn’t about to slow myself down with it in this heat. I eased the clinging linen of my shapeless overtunic as it clung to my sweaty neck. The sun beat down relentlessly and I envied these people the stuffy shade of their tents. “Has anyone got any water?”

Sorgrad passed me his bottle and nodded to the thirsty arrivals jostling for water below the little waterfall. “We’ll go higher upstream and get a refill.”

A man with a massive hammer sloped over one solid shoulder went past with a self-important air, a lad behind him struggling with a hampering bag of tools clutched to his narrow chest. I drained the last tepid mouthfuls of leather-tainted water, musty but still preferable to the cloying sourness of my mouth. We strolled across the flat stones separating the scored turf from the summer-shrunken river bouncing and sparkling down its rocky bed.

“Let’s take a seat over there for a while.” Sorgrad pointed to a scatter of angular gray boulders, the sun striking rainbow fragments from faint white lines of crystal. We’d see any interest turning to us before it could arrive and by splashing through the shallow river we could lose ourselves in the throng on the far bank.

“So where next?” demanded ’Gren. “We came here to get ourselves an enchanter.”

“So we need to know where he is.” Sorgrad’s eyes fixed on the gate to the fess. The broad sweep of the wall was enclosing a larger area than Hachalfess and the rekin within was both broader and taller. For all that, the whole still managed to look insignificant against the great heaps of broken stone on either side. The pitted face of the cliff behind was scarred with rock-cut stairs. Smeared across the yellow-streaked face of the gray mountain, inky stains glistened damply despite the heat as green-tainted water oozed from the pierced heart of the darkness.

But there was no sign of clean water channeled in beneath the walls of the fess from the stream or of foul drainage coming out to any kind of channel, so we wouldn’t be going in that way. I looked at the main gate. The massive lattice of beams was faced with jointed planks and studded through with iron bolts, proof against determined assault once closed. But it was standing heedlessly ajar, people going in and out, sentry sitting idly on a stool, sword at his waist and armor discarded in the baking heat.

Sorgrad’s gaze followed mine. “They’re not expecting trouble in the heart of the soke.”

My spirits rose. “He’ll be in there, surely?”

“I think we can spare the time to be certain,” Sorgrad said judiciously.

We sat and waited, idly kicking our legs, doing nothing that might attract notice, all our attention fixed on the fess. The sun slid slowly down from its scorching zenith and I waited in vain for the day to cool a little. In the meantime I studied the roof of the rekin, counting silently as the sentry made his regular circuit, trying to assess if I’d have time to climb from the top-most rank of windowsill’s to the parapet while he was still behind the massive bulk of the chimneystack. As long as this little adventure went according to plan, there was no reason why I should have to, but it never hurts to keep every alternative in mind.

“They definitely have Sheltya in there, look.” ’Gren pointed to a gray-clad figure walking briskly out of the gate.

The anonymous hooded figure went to an organized group of tents, two equal ranks drawn up in precise parallel. Men were watching a lad wedging a pole in the dusty turf with shards of broken stone. A man at his elbow swung a goat’s head idly by one curved horn. The rest of the beast was jointed and spitted some way beyond, a scarlet-faced woman sweating over a fire colorless in the bright sunlight.

“You said the Sheltya were healers?” I nodded toward the figure, now revealed as a woman with silvering hair and a thin, parched face, her hood pushed back as she bent to a young girl proffering a hand swathed in bloodstained rags.

“They are staying true to some part of their vows then.” Sorgrad’s eyes were cold in the heat of the day.

The men began throwing knives at the goat’s head, cheers and groans raised for every strike or overthrow. Newcomers drifted over to take their place in an ever lengthening line. A particularly inept throw sparked rowdy joking, but the voices soon turned sour and two men had to be pulled apart by their respective friends. ’Gren watched with interest.

“Is it worth waiting to see if our man comes out?” murmured Sorgrad, leaning forward, elbows on thighs.

“I can’t see him patching up a sliced finger, can you?” I shifted my seat on the unyielding rock, rough gray surface hot beneath my palms. “In any case, snatching him in plain view of half an army would be a fool’s notion. We have to get him on his own.” I resolutely ignored the fluttering of unease in the pit of my belly. We’d be three to one and we knew what we were going up against. If we played this right, he wouldn’t know what had hit him.

“So when do we go in?” demanded ’Gren.

“Once the sun’s going down?” Sorgrad squinted up, the heat and glare still merciless.

I nodded my agreement. “Before they eat or change the guard, so we catch that sentry tired and not paying attention.”

“My arse is going numb.” ’Gren was surveying the bustling campground. “Let’s get a feel for what’s going on down here.”

Sorgrad and I exchanged a look; best to keep ’Gren amused. We began a leisurely circuit of the crowded valley. I kept behind the brothers, head down and shambling along.

“This is no time to play the village idiot,” Sorgrad warned me as we passed rough huts newly lashed up from green wood and untanned skins.

“Who’s going to take an interest if they think I’m simple-minded?” I objected.

I caught a sardonic sapphire glance. “They’ll be curious to know what happened when you were driven into the soke at midwinter of your ninth year, to face Maewelin’s judgment on whether you should live or die.”

I pulled myself a little straighter.

In the upper reach around the fess, the women were busy baking on griddles over their fires, making the hard, pale biscuits you take on journeys, either to guarantee you food to eat, or better yet to smash and use in a sling to fell anything more tasty. Their men must have slaughtered every animal with meat on its bones within a day’s travel. A gang of reluctant youths were spreading dust and gravel on a blood-soaked stretch of land to baffle iridescent flies and racks of meat were drying in the fierce sun.

A woman standing at the alert with her spray of green leaves offered us each a strip of dark, slightly sticky flesh. I tucked it in the broad pocket across the front of my smock. I could always use it to resole my boots if I wore this pair out.

’Gren chewed with appreciative noises. “There’ll be plenty of rations on the march, then.”

“Have you heard something?” The woman swatted at a few hopeful flies, the nails on her hand broken and chipped, dried blood stubbornly staining their edges. “Is there to be a real strike into the lowlands at last?”

“We don’t know,” Sorgrad shrugged apologetically. “We’ve only just arrived.”

“My husband could always use more swords at his side.” The woman’s shale-gray eyes turned calculating. “Why don’t you join up with us?”

“Shouldn’t we get our orders from the rekin?” queried Sorgrad.

“What rights have they over you? Just tell them you’re tying up with Yannal’s men,” she urged. “You’re Middle Rangers, aren’t you? We’ve not been at outs with any soke over the Gap since my foremother’s time.”

I could sympathize with her eagerness to put more swords between her husband and the enemy. That way she stood a better chance of not going back home a widow.

Sorgrad smiled at her. “I’ll go and suggest it to the others.”

We moved on down the valley. “This army’s holding together about as well as a madwoman’s knitting,” I commented to Sorgrad.

“Let’s hope yanking the enchanter out sets the whole thing unraveling.”

We continued our apparently aimless circuit of the valley, pausing here and there to admire the new arrivals showing off their spoils. Wooden trinkets and some gold and silver jewelry suggested they’d cleared Folk out of a stretch of woodland but the bulk of the loot was barrels of flour, bales of blankets, household goods of little value. A whiff of smoke suggested fire as well as blades had been used to good effect. These returning heroes had just gone on a rampage through defenseless upland villages.

No, the brave warriors had been driving off armed intruders, greedy interlopers, according to the fragments of gossip the three of us picked up along with bits of bread, meat and fruit kindly offered. Their appetite for fighting was undimmed and all the talk was of carrying the battle down into the lowlands proper, even of reclaiming the entire Ferring Gap, reuniting Easterlings and Westerlings. What they couldn’t understand was the reason for delay.

I found it increasingly hard to choke down the well-meant gifts as the day crawled sluggishly on. Apprehension was filling my belly and gnawing at my ribs. I just wanted to get things in play. I’d be able to name my own price to Messire, or Planir come to that, I reminded myself firmly. I could invite the other to match it and stand back while their rivalry made me rich. Coin gives choices the poor are denied and I wanted to explore my preferences with Ryshad. That did more to settle my stomach than any apothecary’s remedy as we worked our way back to keep watch on the gate of the fess.

“Sun’s sinking,” ’Gren observed finally.

Sorgrad nodded. “Let’s get you ready for your performance.”

“We should have brought Niello,” I joked feebly as we moved to a conveniently obscure hollow among the abandoned diggings.

Sorgrad lounged casually on the turf to keep watch and ’Gren and I started work. He opened his belt-pouch while I pulled seemingly endless folds of linen over my head, relishing the touch of the cooling air on my stifled skin. I bent and untied one garter, stuffing it in a pocket and letting my stocking droop.

“Let’s be having you.” ’Gren tipped a little water from his belt-bottle into a wooden dish. “Head back so I can make you beautiful.” He was mixing a nauseating palette from cosmetics we had begged from the Forest women.

I tilted my face obediently as he rubbed black, purple and yellow into my cheek with gentle hands. “It’s got to look a few days old,” I reminded him, “and make sure that bastard isn’t going to recognize me. If he sees me for who I am, it’s all over.” I swallowed hard to clear my throat of qualms.

“Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you.” ’Gren smeared a convincing fakery of old, dried blood around one eyebrow and temple, drawing painful cuts across the corner of my eye.

“She hasn’t seen me for ten years or more,” I pointed out. “That’s no great achievement.”

“A bit of green as well, I think.” ’Gren applied judicious pigments to his fingers and laid them carefully around my neck to leave the prints of a strangle, grinning evilly at me. I stuck my tongue out and crossed my eyes.

My spirits were rising as I rolled back the sleeves of my shirt, warming my blood, as is generally the way, once a game’s in hand. ’Gren seized my forearms, drawing me close for a moment. “We’ll be right beside you, all the time.”

“You’d better be, pal.” I blew on the pigments to dry them before letting my cuffs fall loose and unlaced. “What do you think?” I turned to Sorgrad, who was gazing out over the valley, motionless as the mountains themselves. The long twilight was nearly upon us now and the peaks behind him were gilded by the sunset. Snowfields on one hand were fringed with lace against the buttery softness of the rock. The dark peak was warmed, severity muted by shadow, a fallacy of beauty in the deceptive light.

He drew his gaze back from distant illusions to the realities of the present. “Some dirt in your hair?”

I scooped up a handful of dust. ’Gren was about to stuff the grubby smock into his pack in place of the thin blanket Sorgrad pulled out. “Wait a moment.” I took the crudely dried meat out of the pocket. “A trace of scent is always the final touch, isn’t it?” I rubbed the sticky lump against the ripped neck of my blouse, the blackened residue of blood smelling both sweet and metallic at the same time. “Let’s get this masquerade on the boards.” I wrapped myself in the blanket, the bold pattern of blue chevrons against the yellow wool unmistakable and well worth the coin it had cost us down in the foothills. I wondered if that peaceable little village was just a burned-out ruin by now.

’Gren caught me up in his arms and I lolled boneless against his narrow shoulder. He made nothing of my weight, and I felt the haste in his steps as we headed for the rekin. An insane urge to giggle swelled in my throat as I recalled playing the wilting blossom like this one year at the Selerima races. The impulse died on my next breath; we weren’t here gulling touts out of coin, busy crowds to hide us from bully boys with nailed boots and pickaxe helves.

I let my jaw slacken in despair, eyes blank and lifeless. I’d once seen a brutalized girl mercilessly used by Lescari mercenaries; I recalled her terror-filled screams, her agonized hysteria as she had clung to me and Halice, barely able to stand, once ’Gren and Sorgrad had raised a riot and fought through to rescue her. The memory helped me force a few sluggish tears, not so many as to risk runnels in the paints on my face but just enough to give my eyes a crystal sheen of grief to convince onlookers. Niello would have been proud of me. Beneath the façade of helpless victim, I steeled myself.

Sharper notes rose in the voices around us, horrified questions, hisses of outrage and pity. ’Gren’s strong arms held me close and I hid my face in his chest. The metal links dug into my cheek at every step but I was willing to add a few real scrapes to the painted deceits. Sorgrad’s forbidding presence stopped anyone getting too close, rebuffing offers of help with a curt explanation. We were going straight to the Sheltya, for healing and for justice. The cautious agreement I heard wasn’t as wholehearted as I might have expected.

“Jeirran will already have avenged the insult, like as not.” One voice sounded loud in the jumble of concerned voices. This assertion raised a full-blooded roar of approval. I pondered this as I was carried, limp as a discarded doll. Would taking the Elietimm out of the scales be enough to unbalance Mountain Men determined on war? My grimace of frustration could be one of pain for the onlookers. No, I’d worry about the fate of the uplands later, or preferably leave it to someone else. I just wanted the Elietimm enchanter.

“Let us pass!” Sorgrad’s demand was nicely pitched between challenge and supplication, a break in his voice suggesting near intolerable anguish. “We need to see Sheltya!”

“What’s your concern?” The guard’s voice trailed away as Sorgrad stepped aside to reveal my pitiable form cradled in ’Gren’s arms. I felt the beat of his heart picking up pace beneath his hauberk and smelled the sharpness of fresh sweat. My own pulse was rapid in the hollow of my throat, every sinew tense.

“I’ll get one of the women to tend to her,” said the gate ward hastily.

“We want to see Sheltya,” demanded Sorgrad. “Not some wise woman. We’ve tended to her hurts as best we can but we don’t know exactly what happened. We need Sheltya’s care for her memory, to tell us just what those misbegotten lowlanders did to her!” The air of suppressed fury in his voice was most effective. I let tears spill over my lashes, shuddering faintly like an injured animal.

“I’ll send for someone,” offered the hapless guard.

“Maewelin freeze your seed!” spat Sorgrad. “Do you keep us on the threshold like lowland beggars, every curious eye to see her shame, every eager ear to hear her misery?”

“What’s going on here?” A new voice, older, less easily swayed by his own emotion or anyone else’s.

Sorgrad modified his tone accordingly, respectful and to the point. “Our sister was attacked as we traveled. We were told there were Sheltya who could ease her memory. We can wait but not here, where everyone can stare. The fewer who know…” He let his voice trail off.

“Traw, take them to the kitchen yard,” the voice ordered briskly. “I’ll send word to Sheltya—”

“Would that be Cullam?” asked Sorgrad eagerly.

“No, it’ll be Aritane or one of her people.” The voice did not like to be interrupted. “She’ll send somebody as is convenient. There are more than your sister needing healing this day.”

“My thanks,” Sorgrad began but the voice was already turning away to deal with the new sentries.

I let my eyes wander around seemingly unfocused as we followed Traw the gate ward around to the back of the rekin. The court of the fess was thronged with people, some walking fast with an air of purpose, others slowing at the end of a long, hot day, weariness in gait and faces. Tension lay beneath the rumble of conversation, ripe with anticipation and antagonism. All seemed rapt in their own concerns.

The doors to the kitchen and scullery of the rekin stood open, lamplight spilling out into the slowly deepening dusk. A low wall bounded a paved yard where a sizable number of men and women sat with various degrees of patience. Most of the men bore obvious battle wounds, some with dressings tied tight around legs and feet, a couple with bandaged heads. One had the bruised eyes and dark stains behind his ears that always bode ill. The women made up for the silent men with animated conversation. Some were seeking lotions for burns from fire or sun; two others were looking for Sheltya support in some quarrel. A couple of young girls were going to and fro with bread and meat, beakers and bottles, and as we approached an elderly man emerged from the rekin, scratching his head in apparent confusion. He moved aside with a muttered apology as an agitated youth pushed past, one hand clasped tight around bloody linen swathing his remaining two fingers and thumb.

’Gren set me carefully down on the broad coping of the little wall, my face away from the revealing light. Sorgrad stepped over the notional barrier to sit facing the rekin, alert to every coming and going. I raised a cautious corner of my blanket to conceal my face and to dab away sweat that might set my bruises running.

“So what now?” ’Gren demanded.

Sorgrad leaned back so I could see his face. “No one seems overly interested in us.”

“Any guards?” I picked off bits of the gritty stuff at the corner of my eye. This was no time to find myself blinded by tears.

“Not that I can see,” murmured Sorgrad. “Plenty of people going in and out, but no one seems to be asking their business.”

“We should get hunting, while we’re sure they’re not expecting us,” I decided. “There’s no point waiting for some Sheltya to come and look inside my head and call me a liar.” I wasn’t ever going to risk aetheric magic rummaging through my memories again.

“We go in through the side door, and if anyone comes asking we’re looking for this Aritane?” ’Gren asked.

“Privies are that way,” nodded Sorgrad.

In the privacy of the fetid little outhouse, I tied up my drooping stocking and checked my belt-pouch, making sure everything I was going to need was ready. I took a moment to look down at my hands. They were steady enough in the dim light filtering through the half-moon cut in the wooden door. It was time to draw the runes and see how they lay.

Teyvasoke, 18th of Aft-Summer

Eresken turned aside from the sturdy arch of pale stone that spanned the chuckling river. Crunching across gravel, he dipped a handful of water from the dimpled surface; he spat crossly—the taint of beasts was bitter in the water. Straightening up, he knuckled the small of his back and waited for the stubborn ache in the back of his legs to ease. He’d never walked so many leagues in his life!

Scorn soured his stomach. These fools had so much land and yet they used so little of it to good effect. Properly managed, even the parched desolation of Aritane’s once beloved home would support a fertile clan breeding loyal sons eager to fight. No wonder Misaen had sent the best of his people to be refined in the howling crucible of the ocean islands.

At least these soft stay-at-homes had a proper attitude to encroachment on their territory. Eresken shook his head in renewed wonder. It was so easy to persuade these people their lands were under threat, that the loss of so much as an arm’s length out of all this bounty would leave them destitute. His father would have no reason to criticize his efforts there. The Elietimm’s spirits rose, the ache in his muscles fading.

He noted the number of fires across the river, busy cooking suppers made known on the fragrant breeze. Were these fresh fools flocking to the cause or had Jeirran arrived back before him? Exasperation darkened Eresken’s mood; he’d meant to keep a closer eye on the bumptious fool, but what with keeping his own force toeing the line and making sure Aritane had this valley under her thumb, when had he had the time? Cold striking up from the water hit him like an omen of his father’s disapproval. He’d better get some sleep, the better to take charge of this multifaceted task once more.

A hand shook him by the elbow. “What do you want?” he snapped, a vicious glare searing the man hesitating beside him.

Reflexive anger straightened the man and his face hardened in the failing light. “What’s the delay? We’ve been marching since noon without a break.”

“Of course.” Eresken managed a conciliatory tone. He held the man’s eyes for a moment, searching blunt features beneath a grubby bandage obscuring one brow. There was weariness in the man’s mind, and an ominous shadow of doubt, both in the wisdom of taking on the lowlands and in the men and women supposedly leading this campaign, all because of a few reverses when the sheepherders turned defiant and some tree dwellers bolder than the rest had loosed their pinpricks on unwary stragglers. So much for the bold and mighty Anyatimm who had driven his forefathers away. Were these fair-weather warriors to be the guardians of the ancestral lands? The sooner true heirs of Misaen claimed these peaks, the better. Let worthy men see the real secrets revealed by Solstice suns.

Eresken curbed his contempt lest it seep into the man’s unwitting perception. He reached through clouding tiredness and looming misgiving and dragged a memory of recent looting to the forefront of the man’s mind. He struck an echo from the guilty delight in such easy spoils and the relish of violence let loose. The man’s face lightened, all in no more time than it had taken Eresken to draw a long breath. The Elietimm considered thrusting deeper, but his own exhaustion and exasperation balked at further effort.

“Take the goods we recovered to the stores-master at the fess.” Eresken laid a friendly hand on the man’s shoulder. “When it’s all been noted, tell him you’ve my authority to take back the ale. We’ve won some mighty victories and I think we’re due a little celebration!”

“Misaen made you true gold!” The man shouted his extravagant approval to the bedraggled troops and Eresken muttered a complex chant beneath his breath. With that charm following him, the man’s renewed enthusiasm would be carried along by his words into the minds of any he spoke with. That should keep the fools from brooding on recent minor setbacks.

The long column of laden men trudged across the bridge. Most were silent, many glum, faces set and shoulders bowed. They were just tired, Eresken decided; a good night’s sleep, a few days’ rest, Jeirran’s undoubted eloquence with the whisper of Elietimm enchantment running beneath it and he would have them marching down again to grind the Forest Folk beneath an iron heel. His stomach growled low but insistent at a tempting savor of frying onion. When had he last eaten?

Men burdened with litters and supporting the ungainly struggles of walking wounded had reached the bridge now. “Go straight to the fess,” Eresken told them, face concerned. “Sheltya will tend your hurts.” And soothe away memories of pain along with disloyalty stirred by the shock of injury, Aritane’s scruples be cursed.

Grazed and bruised faces lightened with gratitude. “Come on, I’ll walk with you.” Best to get these miserable failures out of sight. Bloodied stumps and gashed limbs would only spoil the goodwill mixed from a few looted barrels and some judicious manipulation of memory.

Crossing the bridge with the first of the litters, Eresken considered the simpletons gawking by their campfires. Could he enlist Aritane’s help in turning the thoughts of the more fatigued back to the rage that had first spurred them on? Eresken warned himself against demanding too much of her too soon. Aritane’s usefulness still depended on her cherishing the illusion that, though breaking her vows and defying her elders, she was still working for the greater good of her people.

Raucous cheering distracted him. A group of men were clustered around a figure whose beard and hair glowed golden in the light of the flames. So Jeirran and his men were back earlier than expected from the lowlands. Eresken’s annoyance was tainted with jealousy. Had Jeirran won some great victory that had enabled him to return in triumph?

“You all go on up to the rekin.” Eresken turned to the wounded men who had obediently halted to wait for him. “I must just speak with Jeirran.” He forced a smile to answer the grins of admiration the men were turning to their leader. Jeirran’s voice was loud, his gestures animated. “It sounds as if he has successes to report, doesn’t it?” There would also be food he could commandeer to stifle his gnawing hunger.

Eresken began to force his way through the crowd gathering around Jeirran. Tiredness weighed him down like a physical burden but he managed a warm enough greeting. “Jeirran! Good to see you back so soon. How did you fare?”

“Eresken!” Jeirran pushed a man with a flagon of ale aside and dragged Eresken into a crushing embrace. Jeirran’s breath was piercing with an unfamiliar, woody sweetness, eyes bright with the exuberance of alcohol.

Eresken detached himself with some difficulty and held Jeirran at arm’s length for a moment in a passable imitation of affection. “So how did you fare?”

“We drove those mewling cowards of villagers clean out of the foothills, all the way down to the chase above the lakes.” Jeirran laughed uproariously. “We thought about ducking them in the water but let them alone once they’d cleared our lands.”

“For the present, anyway,” quipped a bystander to ominous laughs.

“I thought you were to drive the Folk of the Forest south of the road?” Eresken managed a tight smile to cover his annoyance.

“Oh, we sent the squirrel fanciers scurrying up their trees, right enough. Took ’em on, man for man, fair fight and no quarter asked or given!” Jeirran took a swig from a crude glass bottle and sucked in air to cool the mellow burn of the spirits in his mouth. “We hit ’em first, burned ’em out, told ’em not to set foot on our lands again!”

Eresken steeled himself to look beyond the surface confusion of recollection and wishful thinking in Jeirran’s mind. Teasing out the truth was no easy task; memory was curdled by drunkenness and complicated by deliberate refusal to acknowledge darker truths lurking in the depths.

Jeirran had heeded the agreed plan to begin with, Eresken saw, attacking a small group of Forest Folk already fallen foul of an earlier sortie from the uplands. Eresken listened to Jeirran’s vainglorious boasting while seeing the truth of the events in his mind’s eye. The Forest Folk’s few possessions were dragged from their feeble grasp, the men hacked mercilessly down as they fought despairingly. Any woman who took up a weapon was cut to the ground by the fury of the Mountain Men. Those that sued for mercy were cruelly disappointed, used and discarded, bleeding and weeping.

Eresken nodded his approval; that much at least had been done properly. It had taken long enough to convince these fools to wage war as it should be done, unpicking their nicety and scruples, convincing them to use every terror as a tool.

He stumbled over a fearful recollection Jeirran had thrust deep into a recess of memory, cloaked in shame and confusion. So the heroic leader had joined his men in the wholesale rape? After all his high-flown words and claims to a lofty cause, he’d gone nosing in the dirt as eagerly as any beast, but this wasn’t just something done in the heat of the moment, Eresken realized with interest. Jeirran had a taste for it, unmasked by the deceits of drunkenness. That would be worth letting slip to Aritane, if her loyalty to this fool ever threatened to draw her away.

Eresken’s concentration wavered as anger shook him. The arrogant shit could take the western sweep next time, deal with the shoot-and-run tactics of the cowards with their bows and spears. Let Jeirran lose his best men to deadfalls and pit traps, find his nights poisoned as sentries were stabbed from the darkness by darts bringing death and madness.

Jeirran broke into a paroxysm of coughing, the spirits searing his throat as he tried to subdue unlooked-for memories with an unwary gulp from his bottle. Eresken blinked and saw the other man was ashen beneath his golden beard. He had to be more careful; if the sot mentioned such disturbance of thought and memory, Aritane would realize what he was doing, even if her idiot brother didn’t. Not that Jeirran was likely to tell her though, admitting weakness, when all the dolt’s own sense of worth depended on the admiration of others.

“So what took you out to the villages?” The Elietimm slackened his grip on Jeirran’s mind.

“It was time to take the fight to the real villains,” replied Jeirran robustly if hoarsely. His men had been squabbling over the inadequate spoils won from the Forest Folk; his unconscious mind told Eresken loudly. “Suratimm are like ticks on a goat, they drain its strength but can’t do too much harm, not if you burn their arses with a hot ember every so often,” Jeirran continued with an expansive gesture. “It’s the lowlanders that are the real thieves, the ones who’ll rob you blind and then steal what’s left from under your nose.” He paused, frowning a little as his own meaning escaped him. He need not worry, thought Eresken sardonically. The audience hanging on his every word were well on their way to being so drunk they’d cheer a quacking duck.

“So we took the fight to them,” Jeirran repeated, nodding with satisfaction. “Fought ’em, drove ’em off, a boot up the arse so hard their teeth shook loose!”

Eresken tried to make sense of his jumbled recollections; thatch burning in the gray light of dawn, screaming women, howling children, the outraged roars of men dragged from sleep by sudden assault. He gave up the struggle with a silent curse of derision. Come the morning he’d determine if Jeirran’s success was all the fool was claiming or just another ineffectual raid that would have to be gilded with enchantment to satisfy the men they had indeed won a mighty victory.

Eresken closed his eyes for a moment. Another task to remember, yet more demands on his time and energies. Well, he’d use more direct methods in the morning, no more tiptoeing around the edges of Jeirran’s arrogance, stealing his memories unseen. He’d go in with the ruthlessness his father favored; Jeirran could put the subsequent headaches down to indulgence in looted lowland liquor and any evil memories down to the lash of conscience. Sudden desire seared Eresken, to drown all the myriad tasks clamoring for his attention in the seductive golden depths of a bottle.

The Elietimm turned his back on Jeirran. Such release was denied him but Aritane was up in the rekin. Perhaps this was the time to break down her idiotic scruples and make a true woman of her. Once she’d forsworn that final vow, she’d be unable to betray him. He could draw on her strength, force her to take some of the load. Eresken’s step quickened as he headed for the fess. A brazier was smoking by the gate, white and red beneath a layer of fresh fuel. The Elietimm strode past without so much as a glance at the knot of men chatting casually around it.

Inside the fess, the noise confined within the massive stone circle buffeted him. Every building around the walls had windows lit and chimney smoking. Some doors were closed on work or sleep within, more were open to people coming and going, stepping around each other with scant apology. Two men stood unyielding as everyone else flowed around them, intent on comparing closely written slates. A shout made them both look up and one hurried over to a heap of sacks, spilled grain drifting at his feet. The main steps to the rekin were clogged with men deep in conversation, women exchanging news and opinion. The stone walls were dappled with shadows of torch and firelight until they reached high enough to cut a hard black outline in the starlit sky.

Eresken fumed; once he and his kind held sway here, this would all stop. True magic was meant to rule. No Elietimm enchanter would be at the beck and call of every self-important buffoon puffed up over a few bare leagues of mountainside. Hunger nagged at him so he skirted the rekin. He clicked his tongue with annoyance at the miserable crowd in the kitchen yard. Pushing his way past importuning hands, he tapped one of the Sheltya briskly on the shoulder. “Where is Aritane? I must speak with her.”

Krelia looked around, her face drawn with the anguish she took into herself with every healing touch laid on some needy body. “Did she go inside, for something to eat perhaps?”

The fool woman was going to lose herself completely soon, Eresken realized with a faint chill, seeing the vagueness in her eyes. He must watch Krelia more closely; if she was going to dissolve into madness, she wasn’t going to hamper his plans when she did so. He’d smother her in her sleep first.

“You’re looking for Aritane?” Remet halted, all manner of questions in his raised brows. “Bryn came; they went inside to talk in private.” Remet’s eyes were alert in the soft lines of his face, a newfound maturity in their focus. “He had news of Jeirran.”

Eresken nodded and hid curses in the deepest hollow of his mind. Bryn’s long friendship with Aritane made it so much harder to displace whatever doubts his news might fix in her head. What had Bryn heard from Jeirran? Did he know something Eresken didn’t?

“Thank you.” Eresken managed a friendly smile, man to man, overlaying it with a faint promise of confidences to come, of admission to an inner circle of knowledge. As he turned, he felt the youth’s eyes on the back of his neck. Yet another thing to remember and to step wary around. This onslaught of incessant and varied demands had tested Remet’s training in a way he’d never have faced in ten years of trailing up track and down vale after some ineffectual soothsayer. The boy was starting to think for himself and Bryn only needed someone to share his faltering loyalty to go running to his Elders, ruining everything.

Eresken’s pace quickened. The side door was ajar, a few huddled figures cowering on the wooden steps. Eresken spared no glance to encourage some worthless request. He took the stairs two at a time and hurried to the door at the far end of the corridor.

He halted on the threshold, honeyed words dying on his lips. “What are you doing here? Where is Aritane?”

Ceris sprang to her feet, looking for guidance from the men flanking her. “She went with Bryn?” Her pathetic smile beseeched him not to be cross with her.

“Who is this?” Eresken scowled at the older man, whose gnarled hand clasped the girl’s drooping shoulder. “You should work healing outside, not where we gather to meditate!” He took a seat behind the long table, forcing the others to rise from their chairs, stamping his authority on the situation.

The newcomer matched the Elietimm glare for glare. “I’m her father and this is her brother. We’ve come to see how she does, now that Jeirran tells us Sheltya need not be cut off from their blood no more.”

Yet another cursed complication to deal with. Eresken heard hurrying steps in the corridor. “Then please take your reunion elsewhere.” The Elietimm rose, expecting to see Bryn or, better yet, Aritane. Instead two unknown men charged into the room, faces alight with a hostility that hit him like a kick in the stomach. A woman followed, face obscured by some ghastly mask of paints but green eyes clear and bright with hatred.

It was the wizard’s slut from the Forest. Pain searing along his jaw told Eresken the bitch was using her cursed darts again. He stumbled with the cold shock of the drug in his blood. Scrambling around the table, he swept maps, parchments, goblets to all sides, throwing the jug bodily at the burlier attacker.

Closest to the door, Ceris drew breath on a panicked scream but the woman silenced her with a slap. The frail blond crashed back into the stone wall to slump whimpering to the floorboards. Eresken goaded Ceris’ startled father to attack, seizing on his impulse to protect his child. With an inarticulate roar, the man swung at the whore’s back. The elder of the traitors with her stepped in to block the vengeful fist, equal violence bolstered by the energy of youth. Eresken took a moment’s thought to weave the attacker’s face into an image of Jeirran’s foulest lust, with Ceris the weeping victim beneath the heaving body. He rammed this into her father’s mind, burning it into his consciousness, heedless of the damage he did.

“See what they—” He had no time to reinforce the vision with words. The second man, the skinny one with savage eyes, was a scant pace away, knife in his grasp. Eresken seized Ceris’ brother with hands and wits, throwing him bodily onto the gleaming blade. In the instant of agony distracting the boy, Eresken grabbed hold of his mind. He tied the lad’s wits tight in a web of chaos, isolating him mercilessly from all conscious thought and memory. Working faster than ever before, Eresken denied him any perception of pain from the myriad blows and cuts the frustrated attacker inflicted. Ruthlessly ripping out any instinct for defense and protection, he set alight every unconscious fury and hatred the boy harbored, turning each involuntary movement into aggression, tying the whole into a storm of mindless violence.

Eresken snatched himself from the maelstrom of the boy’s ruined mind just in time to see the shorter attacker go down under that insane rage. The father was laying into the other one with a chair leg, wood splintering as the agile man dodged and feinted and blows crashed into the wall behind him.

What of the whore? Eresken saw her biting her lip with vicious intent, halfway across the room with an upraised dagger. Eresken overturned the table, the stout oak board a futile defense, but it gave him long enough to drag Ceris’ body to its feet. With a frantic reach of his mind, he crushed the girl’s feeble volition with one explosive curse, leaving the girl’s eyes vacant pools of darkness. Barely an instant before the Forest bitch reached him, Eresken flung Ceris onto the whore’s back, uncoordinated limbs flailing, dead weight clinging, gray cloth hampering, dragging the murderous slut down.

Echoes of agony reverberated around Eresken’s mind as the brother died. Illusion of invulnerability was no defense against being bodily broken into a bloody mess, joints shattered, sinews cut, throat cut with a savagery that all but severed the head. The traitor was already moving forward, teeth white in a rictus of savagery against a mask of gore, reddened knife thirsty for Eresken’s blood. Kill or be killed, the simplicity of this one’s mind rang louder than any other thought in the room. A simple mind and one with no defenses worth the name.

The Elietimm felt the hardness of stone at his back, floorboards slick beneath his feet, the reek of blood, ordure and hatred thick in the air. The drug was tainting his senses, colors distorting, sounds both deafening and distant in the same moment. Eresken gritted his teeth, forced the turmoil from him with a shouted incantation and plunged his razor-sharp intellect, honed over so many years, into the naked reason of his assailant.

That much was easy. The Elietimm exulted in the sudden success before a sense of wrongness undermined him. Where was the shock? What of the recoil from sudden invasion that Eresken had learned so painfully to resist and then to redouble, turning panic back against the assaulted mind? All sensation and sound faded from Eresken’s consciousness as his world shrank to the confines of the mind he sought to capture. Why was he the one ripped from reality, when he had the chains of his iron will to bind this madman? Where was the flaw or weakness offering up the consciousness within? The Elietimm redoubled his efforts, but in a baffling reversal this domain, where he knew himself the master, turned itself inside out. Now Eresken found himself frantically seeking escape from a mental maze. How could this be? The man had no discipline, no training in the manipulation of mind and memory.

The enchanter found himself in the center of a nightmare world of blood and barbarism. The destruction of Ceris’ brother whirled past him in a dizzying circle of images. Scarlet life blood foamed up into a mouth already broken from teeth ripping into ragged lips. Bluish cords of throat and gullet were laid bare with a sweeping downward stroke from a red-streaked silver blade. Dark loops of gut bulged from the belly, a deadly gash oozing unheeded filth. A pale gloss of bone was overlaid with a tracery of blood as an elbow was split, the merciless knife piercing linen, skin and sinew, a calculated move to cripple for life had the boy not already been dead, kept moving only by the will Eresken had sent into madness without limit. Horror surrounded the enchanter in a seamless sequence as each vision came again and again, ever more vivid, ever more threatening. There was nothing beneath his feet, no sound in his ears, just this endless parade of horror and he had no eyes to close to it.

But where was the fear? Where was the desperate seeking for justification, the noisy reasoning as the mind sought to excuse the inhumanity, to distance itself from responsibility and the freezing grip of guilt? There was none. With an intense effort, Eresken managed to force a small stillness for himself in the midst of that abominable array of consciousness. With a sinking horror, he realized he was hemmed in on every side by a hard, hot exultation, reveling in the intensity of physical perception, surging rapture in that unfettered release, overarching ecstasy at facing the ultimate challenge of mortal battle and winning through.

The memories stopped, frozen images fading into crimson darkness. The limits of the enchanter’s refuge of sanity began to buckle and bend beneath an inexorable pressure.

“Who are you?” yelled Eresken into the blood-blackened silence oppressing him.

“My name’s ’Gren, at least that’s what my friends call me,” a cheerful voice echoed all around the enchanter, incongruous against the deepening sense of menace. “But you don’t really need to know that because I’m going to kill you.” Now the threat was all in the voice, hard and bright as steel.

“Do you know who I am?” demanded Eresken, incredulous, forgetting in that instant the inexplicable burden constraining his powers.

“Not really,” admitted the voice. “Livak and Halice both say you and your kind are scum-sucking bastards. Let’s find out.” With uncomplicated brutality, a single-minded curiosity ripped through every defense Eresken had ever learned beneath the blows of his father’s cane and the lash of his scorn. Dragged helpless and unresisting to the furthest edge of memory, Eresken saw people and places he thought long forgotten. That mewling slave girl his father had brought back from one of his earliest forays across the ocean, once he had recovered the lost art of defying currents that swept ships to oblivion. Eresken scarcely recalled his mother, always turning her face from her child of rape, pulling long brown hair across her branded face. Her tears and thinness of unrelenting misery shifted, face swelling, blackening, tongue protruding and eyes bulging in the aftermath of hanging.

His father’s harsh face loomed large in Eresken’s mind’s eye, eyes so brown as to be nigh on black, pale skin crowned with dead white hair. “She was weak, disloyal, of neither use nor ornament. What purpose did her life serve, when so many need food and warmth?”

Nor had she been the only one condemned to die in that harshest winter of his childhood, sacrifice to his father’s wisdom. Fiefdoms ruled by lesser men had fallen to disease and dissension. There was no food to spare in that hungry season when the scant harvest had rotted green in the fields, when the seabirds had flown early and the sea-beasts had come late and few in number, bony and diseased when the hunters’ harpoons had finally reeled them in. The grudging streams had frozen solid, the vital heat beneath the earth seemingly withdrawn for good, and people had murmured in corners that Misaen had finally forsaken them.

Not so Eresken’s father. This was a sign, clear as the eruption bringing the contrary death of burning to so many starving at the icy turn of the year. He had the vision to see a testament to Misaen’s will, that they had been proved by this bitterest trial. This was the signal that time had come to leave their barren fields, the few sheltered valleys where stunted trees clung to life, the pitiless reaches of gravel and broken rock that ran up into the snow fields and glaciers that cloaked the mysterious heights. Once he had knit the empty lands of those cursed by Maewelin into a power to rule the Elietimm, it would be time to reclaim the lands of western plenty. Why else had he been granted the powers over wind and sea so long lost?

No longer was Eresken an unregarded junior in the rigid hierarchy of the keep. Now he had all the attention he could have desired and fully understood the paradox of being careful what one wished for, lest it be granted. To be claimed as his father’s son was to be schooled hard and long in the arts of true magic, to be trained in tactics and strategy, to be sent against rival clans when any opportunity offered itself or pretext could be claimed to cross a border, attack a stronghold, shed competing blood. Finally he had been set in the place that was rightfully his by birth, to defend his father’s shield arm or die in the attempt.

“Strike my stones, but you’re a boring lot, aren’t you?” Memories were pulled out, examined, tossed aside, Eresken raging helpless and wretched as ’Gren went searching for something to interest him, his disdain loud in the silence of recollection.

“If we are to cross the ocean to fight for our rights there, we will leave none behind who might stab us in the back.” His father’s oft-repeated words rang in Eresken’s mind, judgment on a neighboring fiefdom destroying it down to the last infant.

“Sound enough reasoning,” ’Gren’s voice sounded approving, a fleeting instant when his crushing grip relaxed.

“Who are you?” demanded Eresken, trying to drag himself free of the treacherous mire of recall. “How are you doing this?”

“Who knows? Who cares?” The looming threat all around him returned, ever more ominous. “You’re the one came into my head uninvited and now you get to take the consequences. I’m not going down without a fight!”

“But who are you?” raged Eresken, treacherous fear gnawing at him.

“Someone who’s had a shitload more fun out of life than you have, pal.” Scarlet fire shot through the darkness, assailing Eresken on all sides with bright visions that both terrified and perplexed him. The traitor’s brother was holding out a hand, urging him on as the two children explored every last nook and cranny of some remote fess. Memory jumped outside the walls, a furtive foray into the woods, following older brothers, uncles and father on a trapping expedition, nearly fatally lost in a sudden blizzard, only returning half frozen in the dawn light to hysterical women and a day’s slow warming in an outhouse. That last bit had been no fun, the two had concluded. They had to learn how to beat the cold and the weather in order to go farther afield the next time.

Recollection sprang down a dark cavern. Mines weren’t so cold and weather couldn’t reach them underground. That foolhardy premise died beneath the discovery that exhaustion was as insidious a potential killer as the cold, while rain on the surface half a day away could leave a bold youth exploring a cave up to his neck in water inside a few breaths. Fear a hair’s breadth from madness rang through Eresken’s mind, recollection of a dive through flooded tunnels, lungs aflame in the midst of icy water, the insane urge to take that killing breath of drowning. In the next instant, all terror was submerged in the maniacal laughter of the exultation of survival.

The pace of memory increased, intensity deepening as experience built on experience. Growth, responsibilities and a gathering realization of alienation. The first death, an accident in a wrestling match, cause for mild regret, but an awesome revelation all the same that he had such power in his own two hands. Eresken grew sick with panic at the memory of the Sheltya attempting to discipline this mind and the way it had made this madman determined never to suffer such invasion again. This defiance was something entirely beyond Eresken’s experience.

He flinched from vivid images of warfare, bloody set battles with army cutting army to pieces, smaller vicious skirmishes at night or from ambush. Comrades came and went, either to their deaths or getting out while still alive to spend their coin. All losses were regretted and none. In the mercenary life there were no restrictions, only freedoms. Orders were followed if agreeable, evaded if not. One brother relied on persuasive reasoning to avert disaster where possible, the other on physical resilience to get them both out of ever more hazardous situations.

Every death was held up to Eresken’s appalled gaze, a chilling chuckle echoing around and around him. ’Gren was amused by his captive’s reaction and piled horror on horror. Rivals were stabbed or beheaded in unexpected assault. Any enemy identified was murdered as soon as possible before they could launch their own attack. Gratifying deaths, these. Men were disemboweled in battle and bled out their life with unavailing curses and pleas; such deaths were not directly pleasurable, but welcome insofar as they brought loot and payment to spend on the parallel pleasures of women and gambling. Those fallen foul of the crude discipline of the battlefield were hanged from the nearest sturdy tree, bodies jerking in the throes of slow strangulation, deaths of no consequence.

Eresken felt his defenses crumbling beneath the unrelenting onslaught, sanctuary shrunk to a cramped desperation, vainly struggling to hold out against the contempt crushing him. He couldn’t feel the floor beneath his feet, the stone beneath his fingers, no sensation of breath rasped in his throat, no pulse of terror rang its beat through his body.

There was nothing but this shattering ridicule breaking him apart.

“You’re a coward, aren’t you?” the hateful voice continued in a conversational tone. “There’s nothing for you in the hand-to-hand, the kill-or-be-killed, the ultimate gamble. You fix the odds by messing with people’s minds. You’ll send folk to their deaths with your trickery but you don’t like to do the killing yourself. Now you’ve made a mistake because you’ve gambled more than you’re willing to lose, pal. You shouldn’t ever do that. You’re not really a killer, not truly, but I am, and that means you’re the one who’s going to die.”

The Teyvarekin, 18th of Aft-Summer

“You can let go of me.” I twisted vainly against Sorgrad’s iron grip. My wrists would carry the mark of his fingers long after I’d washed off ’Gren’s handprints.

“Drop the knife,” he commanded. “If anyone kills him, it’ll be me.”

I complied with difficulty, bloodless fingers numb. The blade with its oily smear of tahn clattered to the floorboards.

We stood still as statues on a shrine, me and Sorgrad poised, the Elietimm frozen, eyes empty hollows into the blackness of his heart, ’Gren motionless beneath a mask of blood, face slack, gaze of sunlit blue glazed over.

“If his eyes go black, it means they have him,” I warned Sorgrad, trying to watch both unmoving figures and find some weapon within reach all at the same time.

’Gren blinked sapphire eyes and I jumped as if I had been stuck with a brooch pin. “Are you all right?” The Elietimm slid down the wall. “Is he dead?” I demanded hoarsely.

“I reckon so.” My heart rose at ’Gren’s familiar cheeky grin.

“What did you do?” Sorgrad was checking the limp figure for breath or pulse of life.

“He got inside my head and I didn’t like it.” ’Gren shrugged. “What he didn’t expect was me not letting him out.”

“You’re telling me you know Sheltya tricks?” I couldn’t stop my voice from shaking.

“No.” ’Gren sounded a little affronted. “But he came rummaging around in my mind, so that meant I could have a look around his. I decided he was a worthless piece of shit so I sort of squashed him. He didn’t put up much of a fight.”

“I don’t suppose he’d expected one.” And of course, ’Gren never believed he could be beaten, did he?

“You’re sure he’s dead?” Sorgrad kicked the Elietimm with all his strength and a metal-capped boot.

Recollection quenched my sudden optimism that we had finally found a weakness in the Elietimm.

“Artifice can separate mind and body,” I said with a sinking feeling. That was how the colonists of Kellarin had passed countless generations untouched by the years, down in their hidden cave.

“So his mind could have fled somewhere safer?” Sorgrad looked down at the inert heap. I wondered how a man who’d wielded such fear in my imagination could be reduced to an insignificant figure, dirty blond hair falling over a nondescript face hollow with hunger and shadowed with weariness, clothes stained, boots thick with the dust of travel.

“We can make sure,” ’Gren said obligingly. He grabbed a fistful of the enchanter’s straggling locks and thrust his knife blade deep into the joint of neck and skull, twisting it around. I wrinkled my nose and coughed on the reek of blood. “I thought Halice was joking when she said you lot used to collect heads.”

“We’d best—”

The opening door slammed into Sorgrad’s words. A woman froze on the threshold, jaw dropping at the carnage within, slate-blue eyes white-rimmed in consternation.

Sorgrad and I had her before she drew breath. Leaping over the bodies, we seized the woman, dragging her into the room with irresistible hands. Kicking the door closed, Sorgrad spun around to force her backward into me in one fluid movement. I had tahn-soaked cloth ready in one palm. Cupping it over her mouth and nose, I twisted my other hand mercilessly in the hood of her long gray robe. Her hands clawed at mine, adding fresh blood to the mess of paint and braises. She kicked like a mule but soft indoor shoes were no real weapon. Sorgrad caught her under the knees, her struggles weakening as the smothering drug and the strangling hood did their work. She went limp and heavy in my arms and we laid her hurriedly on the floor.

“It’s that bitch that threw us out of the Hachalfess,” observed ’Gren, abandoning his grisly attempts to claim a trophy.

“Then she’s Sheltya and that means aetheric magic and that’s what we came for,” I said incoherently. “She’ll do.” Action took over from thought. Pads of soft linen for her eyes, tied tight with broad swathes of bandage. Plugs of wool for her ears, covered with more creamy bands. A kerchief folded around a dark lump of thassin for her mouth, to keep her quiet if the tahn wore off. More bandages tight around her jaw and lower face; let her try enchantment while unable to see or hear or speak.

“She may be unconscious but she does still have to breathe, my girl.” Sorgrad reached down and tweaked a fold of cloth around the unrecognizable woman’s nose.

“Aritane, wasn’t that her name?” ’Gren looked at her with interest.

Tying off the last knot with deft hands, I sat back on my heels, heart drumming, breath fast and furious. My exultation faded at the sight of the younger man, broken like a butchered hog, and the older, unmarked save for the killing gash of Sorgrad’s knife in his throat. “They must have been waiting for the lass, already here before we started watching the stair.”

“I did try to stun her.” Sorgrad looked regretfully at the dead girl, golden curls matted with blood leaking from the shattered bones of her skull puddled around the chair leg he’d used to fell her.

“I don’t think you can, not when aetheric magic gets inside their heads. She had me all but strangled,” I reminded him soberly. Another set of bruises that would linger after I’d washed away my disguise. “I need to clean myself up.” I looked around for water.

“You and me both,” chuckled ’Gren, waving sticky hands.

Sorgrad passed me his water bottle. “Get your mail off,” he ordered his brother, stripping the woman Aritane of her long gray gown. With its wide sleeves and cowled neck, it covered ’Gren’s blood-soaked linen and breeches entirely.

“Belt it up shorter or you’ll go flat on your nose the first time you go up stairs,” I advised. “You’re not used to skirts and you’ll trip on the hem.” No one would notice his boots in the darkness and the blood was nigh on invisible against the oiled leather.

Aritane was pale and limp in her decorous linen shift and Sorgrad rapidly bundled her up in our bright blanket. He’d entered carrying an unconscious woman in it; he was going out with the same, wasn’t he? No one was going to look too closely in this confusion. I smeared some of my painted bruises on her flawless arms and then scrubbed off as much of the rest as I could. I coughed at the sickly smell of blood overlaid with the foulness of voided bowels and bladders and swallowed hard. “Let’s get clear of this charnel house and fast.”

’Gren threw the linen smock at me as Sorgrad opened the door a cautious crack. “All clear. You go first, ’Gren. Hood up, head down, and don’t talk to anyone. You’re Sheltya, so that means cock of the walk.”

“Cock-a-doodle-do,” whispered ’Gren from his anonymous cowl.

“Head for the postern gate,” I told Sorgrad. “I’ll catch up.”

As the others made their measured way down the stairs, I knelt by the door. I narrowed my thoughts to the task in hand; there’d be time enough later for nightmares and nausea. Taking picks from my pocket, I worked on the complex lock, closing my eyes the better to feel the stubborn tumblers beneath the metal fingers.

“What are you doing?” A tall man in Sheltya gray stood at the top of the stairs, coarse-cropped hair bristling like a brush. He twisted his hands around each other in an unconscious gesture.

“I were sent for my lady Aritane,” I mumbled, palming my lock picks and dropping my chin to my chest. “Door’s locked.”

The man reached the door in a few strides. Moving to let him pass, I got myself halfway to the stair unnoticed. He rattled the latch impotently before looking back over his shoulder. “Get me some woman who holds keys.”

I was down the worn stone stairs and into the busy fess like a cat with its tail on fire. People pushed past, I shoved back, and slipped through any gap that offered. There was a new urgency in the air, a harsh note of fear in the voices clamoring for attention. I ignored it, ducking and sidestepping. Sorgrad’s armor gleamed in the torchlight ahead before the seething crowds closed between us. ’Gren’s Sheltya gray was clearing a path toward the rear gate, Sorgrad close behind with the woman Aritane disguised in the gaudy blanket.

Some new commotion broke out over by the main gate. People halted, rising on their toes to try to see what was amiss; I seized my chance, weaving my way through the hesitating crowd. We could find out what was happening when we were clear of the fess. It wouldn’t take that Sheltya man long to get into the room and blood might already be seeping through the ceilings below.

I caught up with the others at the little postern. One man was pulling the gate closed while another hefted the closing bar, thick as his arm and bounded with iron like the bracers ringing his wrists. A third was pacing to and fro with a torch from a wall bracket. A flurry of horn signals struggled up the valley against the breeze.

“Did you catch that?” asked the first, running a three-fingered hand over grayish hair.

The torch-holder screwed up his eyes with effort. “I can’t make no sense of it.”

“Then go ask. Ebrin will know.” Bracers with the fastening bar rolled it between his hands.

Three Fingers turned to ’Gren. “What’s the news?”

“Send your man to your commander,” ’Gren said curtly, face invisible beneath his hood. “Let us pass.”

“They sent signal to secure the gate.” The torch-holder gestured to a distant flame swept urgently from side to side on the top of the wall.

“Secure it behind us,” ’Gren’s voice was soft with benevolent menace. “Or do you claim some authority over the gray?”

Even in the uncertain light of torch, brazier and starlight, I saw the man blench. Bracers pushed the gate open at once. ’Gren strode through, back straight, head high, managing to radiate subtle threat. Sorgrad was a few strides behind, cradling Aritane, shielding her face with a protective fold of blanket. I scuttled along at his heels, head down in my grubby smock. ’Gren lifted one hand in a lordly wave once we were through the irregular tunnel and the solid wood slammed emphatically behind us, bar rasping home. Whatever dangers lay outside, we were safe from pursuit.

Deprived of firelight, it was a dark night. Glare above the parapet only cast a deeper shadow at the foot of the wall where the path curled away down toward the looming mass of a spoil heap. I blinked and the night-sight my Forest blood favored me with gradually sharpened. Good night-vision was a trait shared by all the ancient races, which was one reason we’d waited for the darkest night Halcarion offered us.

“I could get used to this,” Gren was chuckling to himself.

“Don’t,” advised Sorgrad. “Real Sheltya catches you in that gray, we’re all for a flogging.”

“Is she still off the board?” I peered at Aritane. “Maybe I should give her a few drops on the bandages, just so she gets the fumes?” I rummaged in my belt-pouch for the vial of tahn tincture.

“Then I’ll get a light head as well, but if you fancy carrying her, go on.” Sorgrad hefted her in his arms. “Any more and we might as well just drop her down a mineshaft anyway. I thought you wanted her to wake up eventually.”

“I don’t want her getting enough of a grip on her wits to use enchantments,” I insisted.

“Hush!” ’Gren halted like a scenting hound, eyes distant. The brazen clamor of horns came up from the lower valley again, clearer this time. “That’s a call to arms!”

“Wait here.” I ripped off the hampering smock and, tucking my skirts up into my belt, climbed the nearest spoil heap. The broken rock was treacherous and I was soon using hands as well as feet. Reaching a vantage point, I kicked the toes of my boots into the stubborn debris, forcing a footing. Spots of light dotted the slope, the broad orange blooms of cook fires and the smaller sullen red of braziers. Canvas tents glowed like giant horn lanterns, shadows grotesque and distorted on their sides. Black outlines passed in front of fires, hurrying urgently to and fro.

The river was a streak of blackness curving untroubled down to the rocky ridge. Fewer lights, hidden by the curve of the land, pierced the darkness beyond. The frantic scream of the horns came again, floating above hostile roars, bellows of defiance and the unmistakable clash of sword on sword.

“Livak!” Sorgrad’s low voice clearly carried his urgency. I started to descend, hands and feet feeling in the dark for any secure hold. I was halfway when a stretch of sun-shattered clay betrayed me and I slid the rest of the way, vicious stones scoring deep into my thigh.

“What is going on?” Sorgrad’s question was more important than my stinging gashes.

“There’s a fight going on, but I can’t say who’s attacking who.” I ripped off my shredded stockings; skirts really are for women with boring lives.

“Maybe we should have brought Sandy along,” quipped ’Gren through the muffling gray wool as he pulled it over his head.

I nodded. “I could stand him dabbling in his water and inks just about now.”

“You take the prize package for a stretch.” Sorgrad handed Aritane over to ’Gren without ceremony. “It’ll hide all that blood.”

We moved cautiously on. Our path through the spoil heaps brought us to a close-knit circle of shelters. We took a pace back toward the concealing gloom near the cliff face as a mail-clad runner hurried up, shouting. “Take your valuables and get into the fess! Lowlanders are attacking in the lower valley! Jeirran’s going to make a stand at the ridge.”

“Good luck to him,” I murmured doubtfully.

A drum beat echoed back from the steep rock towering above our heads.

“I’ve heard that rhythm before,” I said slowly. “Winter before last, in the camps along the Caladhria border.”

Sorgrad listened. “The Lakeland mobs used a cadence like that.”

“So it’s men from the Gap?” ’Gren’s eyes were bright as a stag-hound’s scenting blood. “They’re not so tough. Let’s get going.”

“Not with her to carry.” I nodded at the unconscious Aritane. “What are the other ways out of this valley?”

Sorgrad sucked his teeth. “Precious few, that’s the whole point of having the fess here. I don’t fancy trying a pass up there with dead weight on my back, never mind the night and lack of any gear.” He nodded at the sharp jags black against the star-studded sky.

“Could we keep out of sight until the moons rise?” I suggested.

“Two quarters still isn’t enough light.” Sorgrad shook his head.

’Gren was kicking at something. “Livak, get this open.” It was a small building, roofed with stone slates and thick walls densely mortared but barely chest-high to me. Double doors at the front were securely locked so it wasn’t some child’s playhouse. I winced as sharp gravel bit into my naked knee and I ran my fingers around the lock plate. “Just what is it with you people and locks?” I muttered crossly as my probing revealed the intricacies of this particular fastening. “Is everyone as dishonest as you pair?”

“You don’t steal another man’s ore, not yet his ingots.” I heard the smile in Sorgrad’s voice. “But if he were to lose his tools, so he couldn’t go digging till he got them back or traded for new ones, now that would be something else.”

I nodded pointlessly, unseen in the shadows, finally snicking the last tumbler free. “So what’s worth my trouble?”

Sorgrad reached in blindly. “Rope.” He slung a coil over one shoulder. “Sacks; ’Gren, shove a few around the girl. Ah, that’s what we want, lanterns.”

“Pass one over.” I felt for my tinderbox.

“Don’t light it,” warned Sorgrad. He must have caught the scorch of my glare despite the gloom. “Sorry.”

“Let’s have a pry-bar.” ’Gren looked around with some difficulty over Aritane’s rump. Pushing one into his hand, I took one for myself as well and passed a third to Sorgrad. I didn’t fancy my chances trying to explain to anyone that this wasn’t actually my fight so this would have to do as a weapon.

People rushing for the fess didn’t even look our way as they stumbled over discards in the dark, faces tight with fear. A few figures were forcing their way in the other direction, toward an ever-increasing tumult. Some were mailed with swords in hand, more were trusting to leather, picks, axes and cudgels.

I saw the eagerness in ’Gren’s eyes and prodded him meaningfully. “Can’t fighting wait until you get back to Lescar? That’s why we need to get your lady friend back to the wizards, so they can call off Draximal’s hounds, remember?”

“We’ll work our way around the far side of the spoil heaps,” said Sorgrad decisively. “See if we can slip past down toward the ford.” The rounded tops of the spoil heaps faded into the blackness of the mountains above us. I was looking all ways, gripping the comforting weight of the iron bar. My eyes met Sorgrad’s and we shared a tight, humorless smile.

Our path brought us to the edge of the battle. Mountain Men were hard pressed, split into separate stands and hemmed in on all sides. The lowlanders had come to exact their revenge and in numbers enough to do the job thoroughly. The noise of battle hammered at our ears and bright light seared our eyes. Fires running out of control ripped away the protection of the shadows.

“Back,” ordered Sorgrad. We found ourselves in a dead end of shattered stones, bounded by a conduit full of foul water.

“Arseholes,” hissed ’Gren.

“Trouble,” I spat. A handful of figures were silhouetted against the glow of the battle. One had already seen us and he alerted his mates with a delighted shout, thick with the accents of Grynth. The other four spread out to block the gaps we might have fled through. These were out to take their recompense wherever they could, slung around with the lumpy outlines of purses and pouches, looted bags and belts. One saw Aritane, bare legs seductive beneath the gaudy blanket. The lowlander licked his lips and showed a gap-toothed smile of eager anticipation.

’Gren dumped the enchantress unceremoniously. “You want a taste of honey, you get past my sting, shit-sucker.”

Hearing obscenities from the gutters of Col coming out of a Mountain mouth halted these bravos long enough for me and Sorgrad to take stance either side of ’Gren. All our opponents had swords but held them more with the tight, close grip of the self-taught than the relaxed readiness of the competent.

’Gren took a pace forward and the middle man lifted his blade, but in opening his shoulders he ducked his head forward. ’Gren shoved the beak of his pry-bar up under the lowlander’s chin, ripping up into the skull beyond. The man went down like poleaxed beef, blood and spittle spraying.

As ’Gren yanked his pry-bar free, the next man along recovered enough to stab at him. He didn’t even look at me in my muddy skirts until my iron bar smashed his arm with a crack audible even above the tumult. He gaped, aghast as I brought the jemmy up under his ear, sending him clean into the Shades. Shoving him hard against his fellow gave me time to slide out of reach. ’Gren filled the gap, a sword sharp in his hand sending the man howling toward a sizable gang of ruffians, clutching a bloody gash to his thigh.

“Leave him!” Sorgrad wiped his own captured sword on a decapitated body.

’Gren halted, expression mutinous.

“You’re going to take them all on?” Sorgrad pulled his pry-bar free from the head of another corpse, where it stuck through the temple like a spoon in an egg.

“This way.” I followed the conduit up the slope, slabbed rim treacherous and water evil with an oily sheen. It had to be coming from somewhere in the apparently featureless cliff face. I traced the flow to an opening barely perceptible in the inky shadows, ’Gren and Sorgrad hard on my heels, our pursuers shouting their outrage over the bodies we’d left behind.

Once in the mine entrance I flattened myself against the wall, forcing myself to slow my breathing. Sorgrad pushed past and ’Gren came next, Aritane’s shift brushing my arm. I laid one hand on ’Gren’s shoulder and stretched out the other, running fingertips along the wall to steady myself in the utter darkness. We shuffled slowly forward until shouts behind us made us halt.

I turned and looked at the pale square of starlit sky. At least down here they could only come at us one or two at a time. Sorgrad worked his way to my side, sword ready. The curses and taunts came and went, the only sound the distant clamor of battle.

“Do we risk going out again or do we sit in our hole until they’ve all killed each other?” My voice sounded heavy in the still air.

“Let’s see where this goes first.” Cloth rustled as ’Gren shifted Aritane’s weight. “Word is you can get right through from the next valley into these seams.”

“They say that about any number of sokes.” Sorgrad clicked his tongue in thought. “But Teyvafess have been working this valley pretty much since Misaen made it. We could try to get around the fighting through the tunnels.”

“What are the odds?” I asked. “There won’t be any miners in here?”

“Nothing more than a few surprised rats.” Sorgrad led the way. ’Gren slung Aritane over one shoulder like a sack of wheat and I followed close behind, sliding my feet cautiously over the irregular rock, cursing as a cold puddle caught me unawares and splashed my bare legs.

Pry-bar still in one hand, I felt my way along the jagged wall with the other. The stone was slick with moisture and slimy in patches that I didn’t want to think about. I looked back over my shoulder to see the square of night sky get smaller and smaller. What had been darkness outside now looked more pale and bright with each step away. The still, cool air smelled of metal and earth, with a faint undercurrent of piss. The faint echoes of the fight outside could have been coming from the Otherworld, they sounded so far removed from us.

We turned a corner and the darkness was absolute, a cocoon of black so total it made no difference whether my eyes were open or closed. Forest blood did me no favors here. I swallowed to get a little spit for the dryness catching my throat and carefully felt for tinder, flint and steel in my belt-pouch. “Sorgrad, can you take the lamp for a moment?”

His hand touched mine and I closed his fingers around the punched-metal cylinder. “Wait till I get the slide open.”

I heard a grating noise and struck a spark. The darkness fled at the bright flare of the candle only to come rushing straight back. The boundless black was revealed as a tunnel tapering slightly to its roof and curving gradually in the direction of the valley bottom. The walls were brown and gray, streaked with odd pigments and sparkling faintly, perhaps from moisture, perhaps from some crystal or metal in the rock. My spirits rose at the cheerful flame throwing dapples of light out through the lamp’s pierced sides. We were well away from the fighting, we finally had a prize worth holding, and once we found a way out of this warren we could be clear and on our way back to somewhere civilized before sunrise, Halcarion willing.

The Teyvarekin, 18th of Aft-Summer

Jeirran hammered on the gate with the hilt of his sword, bloodied to the pommel and beyond. “Open, do you hear me, open up!”

For all the rage swelling his chest, his bellows made little impression with the clamor on every side. Choking on fury, fear and the treacherous fumes of alcohol, he vomited, the spirits searing his throat. Coughing, he reeled unsteadily, sweat breaking out on his forehead, cold shivers running the length of his body. Without the bulk of the fess wall to support his blindly reaching hand, he would have fallen.

The spasm passed, but little improved. The ground seemed to be rocking beneath his feet and his head was ringing like an anvil. The hollow in his gut had little to do with spewing up the golden liquor, looted bread and meat.

Where was Eresken? Where were the foreigner’s promises of lofty enchantments and secret wisdom? Jeirran groaned with confusion; this was no time for wavering, when they were hemmed against the walls of the fess. But why hadn’t Eresken warned them of this, asked a treacherous hint of doubt as the press of bodies grew ever thicker, struggling for the gate blind and deaf to their entreaties. The yells of the encroaching lowlanders grew ever more threatening.

“Aritane!” roared Jeirran in frenzy. Some echo of his desperation, some sympathy of blood must surely stir her Sheltya skills. He stood, panting, mouth dry and foul, but felt no gentle touch of her mind on his. Two men shoved him aside, raising bloodied hammers more used to honest toil than warfare. They hit the gate together with three ringing blows. A pause for breath, the same again, and a slide in the arch above the lintel wrenched open.

“Maewelin’s mercy, let us in!” screamed someone.

There was a moment of frantic debate, voices raised in argument and fear. “Get ready to run. We can only do this once.”

Jeirran fought his way to the front, pulling lesser men aside. He set his shoulder to the gate, heedless of armor digging into his shoulder. The massive gates creaked but did not open.

“Back off a pace,” yelled someone in frustration. “The bar can’t lift with you all pressing inward.”

Hands dragged Jeirran back and the gates swung apart. With a howl of triumph, savage as hunting wolves, the lowlanders redoubled their efforts, desperate to gain the gates before they could be closed.

Jeirran stumbled through the huge doors, fighting the surge of frantic men threatening to carry him past. He grabbed for an iron tethering ring, snatching at those passing him with the other hand. “We have to close the gates!” In that moment he felt sober and certain; the next he longed for the oblivion of drunkenness.

“But ours are still out there! We can’t shut them out!”

Jeirran backhanded the man with a mailed glove. “If the lowlanders get in we’ll all be deader than winter-killed birds!”

The yelling bloodlust of the lowlanders rang through the confines of the tunnel, unreasoning as a maddened dog. Jeirran pushed against the gate’s inner face, digging his heels in the dust. Others joined him, black with gore, arms hanging uselessly by their sides, some even blinded with their own blood, guided by friends and groping for a handhold. As the hinges creaked, others hovered at the narrowing aperture, dragging comrades bodily through, seizing a hand, a belt, a jerkin. Men were passed bodily along, feet barely touching ground littered with weapons, boots, bandages, pitiful fragments of once prized possessions.

New faces appeared in the gap, dark lowland eyes beneath steel-rimmed caps, burning with hot desire for slaughter and revenge. Two got through the gap, then three, then a handful. In some distant corner of his mind Jeirran realized he must surely be killed, a thought bringing not so much horror as resignation, even relief.

“Let us through!” Men from the rekin, old and young, injured and sick, rushed forward, falling on the foe with the tools of ore mill and furnacehouse. Picks and axes bit deep to crack bone and rip flesh. The lowlanders fell back and the gates were forced shut. A knot of lowland men were cut off; assailed on all sides, they soon fell. Shouts of abuse screamed frantic outside, blows hammering in vain on the ancient timbers. The great beams were rammed home in their brackets, bracing the gate against the bulk of the wall, unmoved by the furious assaults.

Jeirran slid down to the ground, gripping his hair in frustrated fists, wits in turmoil. He raised his head to find a ring of questioning faces. Some were hopeful, others doleful, some were expectant, others accusing. All were looking for answers and all were looking to him.

Jeirran scrambled to his feet, feeling a numbness in his legs. His senses seemed awry; silent anticipation on all sides was loud in his ears, drowning out the riot beyond the walls. He stumbled toward the rekin, forcing a ghastly smile, unable to frame answers to the urgent questions thrown at him. Panic threatened to overwhelm him. All this pain, all this carnage, he had started it—and for what? How could he hope to take on even a fraction of the lowlanders? Why had he urged these good and trusting people into such folly? Screams beyond the gates tore holes in the comforting delusions woven by liquor and self-deceit.

Where was Eresken? Cudgeling his bewildered wits, Jeirran headed for the side door of the rekin, heedless of the curious crowd following him. He turned to yell at them, “Let me alone, can’t you? Go ’way!” The alcohol he’d drank in heedless celebration betrayed him with slurred and broken words. Jeirran’s courage failed him and he stumbled blindly up the stairs.

The door to Aritane’s room stood ajar, a keening coming from it to ran around the rekin like a lost shade. The insane sound raised the hairs on Jeirran’s neck and the skin on his arms crimped into gooseflesh. A trickle of clotted blood pooled on the threshold like a visible curse. The nerve-rending wailing didn’t waver. Jeirran kicked wide the door but backed away from the ghastly sight within, one hand convulsively wiping his mouth and beard. Krelia hugged the lifeless Ceris to her breast, gore and filth covering them both. Her uncomprehending face was that of an animal knowing only its agony.

“What happened? What happened?” raged Jeirran. He dug vicious fingers into Krelia’s shoulder, in a vain attempt to halt her noise. All he did was jar her to an even more ear-shredding screech punctuated with noisy sobs. Her eyes remained locked on some unseen vision of horror.

Jeirran gaped at the body of Ceris’ father, baffled, retching at the butchered thing beside it. Wrenching aside an overturned table, he halted, shock stifling the breath in his throat. Blood hammered through his head so hard he thought his skull would split clean in two. Eresken was dead, face ghastly pale and head half severed.

Who was this stranger, this thin-faced man with his mixed-blood hair and distant features? Aritane had brought him, told Jeirran to take his unsupported word. Lifelong habits of self-justification and excuse reared up within Jeirran but quailed beneath the cruel lash of inescapable truths. He had urged her to summon this mountebank. He’d turned a blind eye to their unseemly fumblings, telling himself his reclaimed sister deserved to know love, scorning the strictures of Sheltya vows. But that code was necessarily harsh, treacherous memory reminded him, to ensure strict neutrality gave no one grounds to dismiss Sheltya judgment.

“Where is Aritane?” Jeirran yelled at Krelia, his useless hands jerking in impotent confusion, desperate to beat some answers from the howling bitch.

“What has happened here?” Remet stood in the doorway.

“I don’t know!” Jeirran exploded with sudden fury. “You tell me; you’re Sheltya, all knowing, all wise. Tell me what has happened! Tell me what to do! Tell me why Eresken is dead and why did I ever listen to him! Tell me where to find Aritane!”

Jeirran stormed forward, grabbing the boy’s robe and forcing him backward, fistful of gray cloth twisted at his chest, other hand lifted in a threatening fist.

Remet’s eyes were huge in his pallid face. “I have no idea where she is. I cannot find her mind,” the boy said with a tremor in his voice. “All I know is the soke is under foreign feet, the fess is surrounded and we have no way out.”

“I don’t know what to do,” screamed Jeirran, “I don’t know how we came to this. Why has it all gone so wrong?”

“I can’t answer you,” quavered Remet.

Jeirran smashed his fist into the boy’s mouth, shocking a cry of pain from the lad. As he drew back his arm for an even harder blow, Remet wrenched himself free with the unexpected strength of terror. Pausing in his flight at the top of the stairs, he wiped blood from lips gashed on broken teeth. “You’ll answer for this, for all of this. Somehow, someday, you’ll answer.”

As Jeirran took an enraged step forward, Remet’s nerve broke and the boy scrambled down the stairs. Lifting his head, Jeirran took a deep breath, straightened his back, beard jutting as he set his jaw. Walking slowly, he took the stairs at a measured pace, closing his eyes for a moment before he pushed open the door and stood on the threshold.

“Give me that.” He took an axe helve from a nearby hand, thumping it on the planks at his feet. Three times, three more and three again, the ringing blows echoed above the heads of the milling crowd and the terrified motion slowed, faces upturned, bewildered.

“Everyone who can fight must find a weapon. Those who cannot must take to the upper levels of the rekin.” Jeirran struck the wooden balustrade at his side. “Cut this away and pack the lower level with turf and timber, ready to set slow fire in case we lose the walls. Ropes will get the defenders inside if we have to hold the rekin alone.”

The crowd exchanged uncertain glances.

“We can hold this place against thrice this number of lowlanders,” Jeirran declared with bravado. “Or does Misaen no longer make Anyatimm strong, Maewelin make them wise?” A few faint smiles greeted this sally. “To work!” Jeirran urged them and slowly the people began to move, a sense of purpose soon replacing the earlier aimless fear.

Jeirran jumped down from the wooden stair and, taking up an axe, began reducing it to ragged ruins. Slow fire in the ground level, the barriers of smoke and heat had saved more than one rekin in the past when walls and all seemed lost. It could do so again. If not, well, then he would find oil, spirits, whatever it took to raise fast fire and set the whole rekin alight as a beacon to kindle hatred of the lowlanders in every Mountain heart.

Teyvasoke, 19th of Aft-Summer

There are no chimes to sound inside mountains but by the time I judged we were Poldrion’s side of midnight I was feeling far less cheerful. I leaned forward to peer at Aritane; her breath was coming in harsh jolts jerked by ’Gren’s increasing pace, but I couldn’t believe anyone could lie that limply, so uncomfortably, and be faking. Lifting my lantern to check the color of her skin, I nearly burned her pale wrist on the hot metal as ’Gren halted.

Sorgrad had reached a junction in the workings. “The main seam should be straight ahead. This way.” Water dripped on my head and I felt a cold downdraft, suggesting some kind of ventilation shaft. The tunnel roof grew lower and more irregular, ragged diggings branching off, broken rock underfoot, stretches shored up with timber.

“Shouldn’t there be more of these props?” I wondered uneasily how much mountainside was hanging over my head.

“No need in this rock. That’s one reason Teyvafess has always been so rich,” ’Gren said over his shoulder. “Until their copper lode ran out, that is.”

I felt our direction changing from time to time but with no reference points beyond the ever-changing yet monotonous patterns of the walls, I soon lost my bearings. When a larger space finally opened out, I lifted my lantern to reveal a lofty cavern, though I couldn’t have said if it were natural or dug by hand. Sorgrad was looking for exits, the yellow candlelight throwing his features into sharp relief, the walls behind him melting into darkness.

“Which way?” ’Gren moved Aritane to his other shoulder. “This one’s not getting any lighter.”

Sorgrad looked at me. “All these seem to lead deeper into the mountain, not down the valley.”

I shrugged. “We won’t find out standing here. Better keep moving and hope to pick up some kind of crosswise tunnel.”

We opted for the widest digging and I walked beside ’Gren as Sorgrad scouted ahead. “I went down to the lowlands because I never fancied being a mole,” ’Gren muttered.

“Not because you were scared of the wyrms coming out of the deeps to eat you?” I teased.

“I’d throw them this one.” He hefted Aritane to a more secure hold. “She’d choke a litter of wyrms and leave something over for their dam.”

“She’s not that big,” I objected.

“Do you want to try carrying her?” ’Gren threatened to hand over the unconscious enchantress and he wasn’t joking.

“I’ve got the lantern.” I waved it hurriedly. “Anyway, I bet she’s lighter than a sack of ore.”

Sorgrad cursed something in the Mountain tongue that had ’Gren miss a step.

“What’s the matter?” I called out to him.

“This is just an adit to get to a series of seams.” He came toward us, shaking his head in disgust. A sudden radiance flared on the metal side of his lantern and Sorgrad dropped it with an oath.

A familiar voice sounded above the clatter of dented tin. “Just look into the spell, Sorgrad!”

He picked up the lantern. The candle was dead and guttered but the warm amber light of magic shone in its stead. Usara’s face smiled at us from a swirl of sorcery.

“Hello,” I said stupidly before Sorgrad turned the spell toward himself.

“You’re using the tunnels to get past the fighting?” Usara didn’t waste time on pleasantries.

“Have you been scrying us?” Sorgrad asked suspiciously.

“Snatching the odd glimpse. You’ll have to work right down to the bridge; the whole of the lower valley is a battleground.”

“How do you know that?”

“Who’s attacked?”

“There’s no way these diggings go that close to the ford.” Sorgrad’s firm statement overruled questions from me and ’Gren.

“Don’t worry about that,” Usara said. “You take the second off-hand tunnel.”

“What about the enchanters?” I ran a hand over my face and grimaced at the feel of encrusted muck.

Usara’s face was reflected in the blackened tin of the lantern, overlaid with a yellow sheen, curious faces of Forest warriors indistinct behind him. “I’ve got the boys keeping up a concealment charm. Anyway, given the present chaos, I don’t see the Sheltya checking for unexpected wizardry.”

We hurried to the digging Usara had indicated. The spell cast a hard-edged light compared to the softer fluttering of my candle, calling lumpy, distorted shadows to chase us down the tunnel. The roof sank lower and lower until we found ourselves dead-ended in a litter of shattered rock and broken wood.

“Come on, wizard, impress us,” demanded ’Gren.

The glow on the lantern faded to leave only the feeble light of my candle.

“Let me take her.” Sorgrad lifted Aritane off his brother’s shoulder. As he cradled her in his arms, I held a hand in front of her nose, feeling for the reassurance of her breath, when a sudden gust snuffed my candle and left us in utter darkness.

“Saedrin’s stones.” I groped awkwardly for flint and steel but a new light was already breaking the blackness. It came from deep within the rocks in front of us, dim at first as if unimaginably distant. A faint crazing like the crackle on a pot’s glaze grew brighter and brighter, light pulsing steadily, glowing ever more intense with each beat. Soon it was as bright as a festival fire, magic interlaced across the surface of the rock and riven deep into it, rippling and moving like a living thing. We felt warmth coming from it, the pattern extending from the face of the rock, weaving itself into the empty air. Rapid vibration ran through the floor, up through the soles of my boots, to set the nerves in my belly fluttering in sympathy. Sudden cracking sounds sent us a pace backward in one accord. The smell reminded me of an empty cook pot set over a fire, forgotten till someone burns a hand on it.

The rock began to splinter, shards flaking away at first, larger chunks falling free as the stresses of the magic split stone like a child hammering a pan of toffee. ’Gren began to drag rubble aside with his pry-bar, looking up warily to make sure nothing was about to fall on his head. I raked the debris further back down the tunnel, trying to avoid the razor-sharp fragments snapping into the walls.

“That wizard could make himself a fortune if he found a soke willing to mine with magic.” Sweat glistened on ’Gren’s forehead. “He could do ten men’s work in a day.”

“Can we get through?” asked Sorgrad, arms full of Aritane.

I paused to ease my back. “Is she stirring?”

Sorgrad shook his head in the uncertain light of the spell.

“Not yet, but I’d rather be out of these tunnels when she does.”

“The thassin should keep her sweet even if she does come through the tahn.” People chew it to forget grief, poverty, love and hatred, so with Arimelin’s grace it should tangle her wits for a while.

“There’s a space through here,” ’Gren called over his shoulder. I followed him down the glowing tunnel, keeping well away from fading walls now melted and molded like tallow for candles. The light of magic was still bright at the end where ’Gren was prying at the edges of a hole opening into nothingness. A jagged slab of rock dropped into the blackness and slid down some unseen gradient. I relit my lamp and held it out cautiously into the void.

“Where are we going now, Usara?” I demanded of the empty air. I was looking into a cleft heaped with jagged boulders, a rustle of water somewhere unseen below. I squinted up and wondered where the roof might be and if any rocks intended falling on our heads.

A golden tracery shone on the far wall, the pattern spreading like ripples in a pond. The light revealed the full extent of the broken stone we’d have to cover and I grimaced. “Better tie her ladyship to your back, ’Gren. You’re going to need both hands and it’s not a climb for Sorgrad with a load as well as his armor to unbalance him.”

I looked in frustration at my lamp, blew out the candle and clipped it on my belt. I needed hands more than light for this climb. Sorgrad unslung the coil of rope from his shoulder and I knotted the creaking hemp securely around my waist. Sorgrad looped his end around arms and back. I grinned at him and moved out cautiously onto the irregular stones. Getting a footing, I tested my weight before moving my other boot, taking a hold, then another, both hands secure before I moved a foot, both feet solid before lifting a hand to feel for the next grip. I concentrated on the familiar skills that have taken me up more walls and houses than I care to recall and firmly refused to think of unseen, bottomless pits that might lie beneath any one of the tumbled boulders I was trusting myself to. A sibilance of water in the depths or maybe something worse came from between two cracked slabs. Ignoring unwelcome recollection of the wyrms in ’Gren’s songs, I moved slowly on. Fingers and toes were cramping with effort by the time I reached the far side of the cleft and I sat on the ledge polished by Usara’s magic to get my breath.

“It’s awkward, but you just need to keep going straight.” I unknotted the rope and looked for some way to secure it. If ’Gren slipped with Aritane on his back, the weight could drag me off my ledge. A little amber light flared beside me as I pulled fruitlessly at a chunk of gray and yellow stone, a spinning circle of magic boring into the mountain. The sorcery faded to muted gold with a hot smell of hearthstones, leaving a hole as thick as my wrist clean through the ledge. Smiling, I threaded the rope through and had it secure in moments. Usara most assuredly had his uses.

By the time ’Gren reached me, I had my lamp relit and the homely flicker shone on the sweat slicking his hair to his forehead. “Get her off me.”

Sorgrad’s knots were the usual fiendish puzzle but I laid Aritane motionless on the hard floor eventually. ’Gren bent this way and that to ease his back and when Sorgrad arrived he took up the burden of the unconscious enchantress without comment.

I looked down the tunnel where Usara’s magic had been crumbling the rock while we’d amused ourselves in the cleft. The bright glow of the busy magic was some distance away now, the walls fading to orange and red and a final muted ocher as the sorcery moved on.

“Watch your footing,” I warned unnecessarily. “This is no time to break an ankle.” ’Gren and I pushed treacherous shards aside with our pry-bars to clear a path for Sorgrad, whose view of his own feet was obscured by Aritane. She’d better be worth all this trouble, I thought grimly.

“Wait.” I went ahead to a gold-rimmed opening and lifted a cautious lantern into a tunnel with walls unmistakably scarred by toolwork. “We’re back to a digging proper,” I told the others with relief.

“Which way?” demanded ’Gren. “Usara?”

A tinny echo of the mage’s voice came from Sorgrad’s lantern. “The working goes down a fair distance and then joins a bigger gallery. Turn to the off-hand when you reach it.”

We moved faster now; the floor couldn’t have been cleaner if my mother had swept it. The bigger gallery came as a welcome relief from the oppressive narrowness of the smaller workings and shafts unseen above gave fresher air. Finally we turned a corner and I squinted uncertainly at a smudge on the edge of my vision. Sliding the shutter across my lantern proved it was no illusion but the way out of the cursed maze. I heaved a sigh of relief.

“You two wait here.” I handed Sorgrad my lantern and moved forward slowly, tread silent on the bare rock. I couldn’t hear fighting, but that didn’t mean much. Back flat to the wall, jemmy ready in my hand, I edged up to the sharp corner and paused, letting my eyes get used to the night. As the featureless gray resolved itself into slope and turf and mountains beyond, I took three stealthy steps outside. We were well down the valley, I saw with relief. The fighting had moved up past the ridge and, although stragglers were looting the lower valley, we should get out of the mine unnoticed.

But the lowlanders held the bridge; torches lined it with men outlined against their smoky glow. Men with helms and pikes, militia from somewhere, not opportunist peasants we might rush past with a couple of swords and a jemmy. I skirted a bulge of grass-covered debris to try and see where the ford might be.

A step behind me clicked two loose stones together. I turned to tease whichever brother had been so careless but the words died on my lips. A gray-robed figure regarded me, face impassive in the light of the quarter moons, lesser waxing, greater waning.

“Where are your companions?” it demanded from the shadow of its cowl. I saw two other shadowy figures emerge from the darkness behind it.

I fixed my gaze on the Sheltya, determined not to look at the mine entrances and began to recite the charm I’d learned against the Elietimm under my breath. “Tror mir’al, es nar’an, tror mir’al, es nar’an.”

“You need not fear I will search your mind without cause!” The Sheltya sounded positively insulted.

“It’s happened to me before,” I retorted before considering the wisdom of my words. “The Elietimm don’t waste any time.”

“Alyatimm—” The Sheltya’s contempt was cut short by a word from one of the others who came down the slope, putting back his hood. His head was shaking slightly and I recognized the old man we’d met at the Hachalfess.

“You’re Cullam, aren’t you?” I wasn’t sure how knowing his name might help, but I didn’t see how it could hurt.

The old man nodded. “There are no persons inside either of those workings,” he told the first Sheltya, deference in his tone.

“And that one is blocked.” The third Sheltya to arrive was the one from the fess, the younger man. He gave me a hard stare. “Where is Aritane? I cannot find her mind!”

I silently repeated the charm over and over to myself, telling myself to believe in it.

“What happened in the fess?” demanded the younger one. “Is Aritane dead as well?”

“Bryn!” Old Cullam rebuked him sharply.

I steeled myself as the Sheltya in charge pushed back his hood. I saw a bald man in his middle years, with a cleft in his chin and fierce brows jutting in a frown. For a heart-stopping moment, I thought his eyes had slid into the blackness of Elietimm possession but then realized he had only blinked. His eyelids were painted black and, while relief weakened my knees, I wondered uneasily what that might signify.

“I’d have every justification in searching your mind for the answers I seek,” he said silkily.

I gritted my teeth, trying to summon up whatever bloody-mindedness it was ’Gren had so unexpectedly turned to his advantage in defying Artifice.

“But that would be to forswear my calling and make me no better than the Alyatimm,” he continued. “It was to save our people from their abuses that they were driven into the Ice in the first place!”

This meant nothing to me, but I nodded willingly. As long as he was talking, he couldn’t be messing around inside my head. Time to try to win some goodwill. “I came here to warn the people of the mountains about these Elietimm,” I said hopefully. “We have seen their evil enchantments and—”

“You came here for your own purposes.” The Sheltya cut me off disdainfully. “That much I can read without effort. Do not pretend to nobility of purpose.”

I felt insulted; turning a profitable rune for myself doesn’t preclude doing someone else a good turn. “We came here to warn you,” I repeated stubbornly, “and to look for guidance as to how we might recover true magic in the lowlands,” I added, sudden inspiration suggesting a way to change the subject. “We were looking to cooperate, to learn from you, to join forces against a common enemy.”

“But you brought a mage to do it,” the old man Cullam said regretfully. “There can be no meeting between those who govern the four realms of the mind and those who twist the four realms of substance to their command.”

I filed that obscure pronouncement away for later examination and decided Sorgrad and ’Gren would have to look after themselves. All I wanted to do now was leave, so I curtsied to Black Eyes with all the grace I could muster in the tattered remnants of my skirts. “If you’ll excuse me, I would like to get away from the battle.”

“You will depart when I give you leave,” the Sheltya stated calmly.

The one called Bryn smirked and I made the mistake of glancing at him. “What did you do to Eresken?” he demanded. “You were outside the room where he lay dead; don’t think I don’t remember you. Is that how your wizardry is used to murder?”

“The Elietimm enchanter? The one who’d got into your mountains and your counsels and roused half an army to attack the lowlands? He was called Eresken?” I kept my eyes on Black Eyes. “No wizardry was used to kill him, you have my word on it.”

“Where is Aritane?” Bryn’s voice was thick with a turmoil of anger and fear.

“Don’t you know?” Surprise faked for the squirrel game had never been so sincere. “Weren’t you one of those helping, what was his name, Eresken?”

Black Eyes pinned me with his stare once more. “Who has done what among Anyatimm is no concern of yours. It is no concern of the charlatan Planir and his covey of greedy conjurors. We will determine the truth and punish the guilty. None have authority over Anyatimm but Sheltya.”

“No one seeks to challenge your authority. It’s the menace of the Elietimm that we are concerned with. Look at the trouble just one of them has caused.” I spared a desperate prayer to Saedrin that there had only been one of the bastards. “The Elietimm are a threat to everyone, Hadrumal, Tormalin and the lands to Solura and beyond. We should all be working together to defeat them. Since you alone seem to have retained true magic, you could do so much to help.” And if I could deliver that help, I could name my own price, an optimistic voice commented in some hidden corner of my mind.

Black Eyes looked at me with a contempt that sparked a rebellious flame of defiance to scorch my paper-thin pretense of humility. This enchanter had scant right to sneer at me when he couldn’t even keep his own people in check, arrogant as any wizard.

Cullam muttered something under his breath and frowned for a moment. “The lowlanders have reached the walls of the fess,” he said sadly.

Serves the Teyvakin right, I thought uncharitably.

Black Eyes folded his arms, eyes hard in the starlight. “We will remove the lowlanders from our lands. We will find those who conspired with Alyatimm and punish them as we see fit. Should Alyatimm attempt to suborn our people again, they will find us ready and waiting to defend ourselves.”

From the certainty in his voice, I wouldn’t be taking any bets against him.

“Tell Planir that we do not want his magic in the uplands, we do not need it nor will we tolerate it. We do not want Tormalin weapons or troops or any other lowland incursion under the pretense of sending us aid. We look to our own as we have always done.”

I dropped another quick curtsey. “Very good. I’ll take your message at once. The sooner Planir knows, the better after all.” As I spoke, I glanced around to see if I could spot any hint of the ford. Looking to the front again, I jumped like a startled rabbit. The Sheltya had vanished, all three of them, gone like smoke as gray as their robes.

“Drianon save me from magic in all its forms,” I muttered crossly. Since no one from the bridge was showing any interest in this direction, I climbed up to the mine entrance. The opening was indeed choked with stones and rubble, so either the roof had come in on them or Usara had managed some cleverness. I prodded at a rock with a dubious finger but it was solid, cold and very real beneath my touch. No illusion this. I raised my pry-bar but lowered it again. There was no way I was going to clear this on my own, not without getting a double handful of curious soldiery coming to see what was going on. I couldn’t see them offering to help, even if I did tell them there was an unconscious maiden wearing nothing but her shift on the far side.

Heaving a sigh, I laid the jemmy across my shoulder and turned for the river. All I could do was trust Usara was getting Sorgrad and ’Gren out of their predicament. If he wasn’t, I’d use the pry-bar to persuade him. I knelt to cup a mouthful of water from the river. Now I wasn’t so worried about being killed, crushed or captured by the Sheltya; other cares were asserting themselves. I was cold, tired, hungry and had enough scrapes and bruises to keep an apothecary amused for days. I scratched my head again; with my current run of luck, I’d picked up lice.

I finally found the nubby remnants of a post marking the ford. With the river so low, it was an easy enough crossing, but water still left my skirts clinging wetly around my legs and seeped into my boots. I was breaking my nails on my sodden laces when the world whirled madly around me in a flurry of azure and diamond sparks.

“It’s all right, it’s all right.” Sorgrad’s voice saying that was probably the only one I’d have believed. Screwing my eyes tight shut against the dizzying sensations and praying I wouldn’t be sick, I gritted my teeth until the sensations of being caught in a whirlwind subsided.

“Here you are, all safe with the rest of us,” said Usara cheerfully.

I wrapped my arms around myself and counted to five before opening mistrustful eyes. What I saw was the gloomy hollow where we’d left the wizard and Bera’s men. As far as I was concerned, we were still a long way from safe, but Sorgrad and ’Gren were there. “So you got them out first.”

“As you see,” smiled Usara with relief.

I tugged at the wet cloth hampering my legs. “You couldn’t have picked me up before I went wading through the river? Where’s my bag? I want some dry breeches!”

“We wanted to be sure the Sheltya had left you,” said Usara. “I was scrying the whole time. I’d have risked it if anyone had come near you,” he assured me, and now that his smile was gone I could see the lines of effort carved deep on either side of his mouth.

“She’s waking up,” said ’Gren suddenly. I saw Aritane feebly wave a hand in the gray light I was startled to realize was the first faint promise of dawn.

“The Sheltya have been looking for her.” Realization sounded hollow in my voice. “If she gets her wits together, they’ll find her.”

“What do we do now?” asked one of the Forest archers, gripping an arrow, knuckles white.

The thought of that black-eyed bastard stepping out of the shadows made me shiver even more than the cold. “We see which way she’s going to jump and if need be we kill her.”

I knelt beside Aritane and rapidly uncovered her ears. “Don’t even think about any enchantments. Try any kind of escape or magic and we’ll kill you, do you understand?” This wasn’t faking sincerity; I meant every word and I gripped her throat to prove it.

Sorgrad laid the naked blade of a dagger across her palm, pressing the edge into the soft angle of finger and thumb. “As Sheltya who forsook her vows, your life is forfeit.”

“Nod if you can hear me,” I commanded. After a moment, the blind head tilted slowly forward.

“Good.” I thought fast. The thassin would be making her very suggestible, so now was the time to show her any alternatives but mine were worthless. “I have spoken to Bryn and Cullam,” I told her. “They introduced me to another Sheltya, one with black-painted eyelids.” Aritane stiffened in involuntary panic, fingers nearly cutting themselves on Sorgrad’s knife.

“So the Elders know exactly what you have done,” said Sorgrad sorrowfully. “Betrayal as well as forswearing, leading those you had vowed to protect into a pointless battle.”

“The Elietimm have no love for the Mountain Men,” I told her. “All they are doing is stirring up trouble to draw off Tormalin forces that might oppose an invasion in Dalasor. They did the same last year, trying to start a war among the Aldabreshin in the far south, setting family against family. The woman who was gulled into helping them there was pressed to death,” I said slowly. “What should we do with you?”

“I can think of a few things,” offered ’Gren with relish. Aritane visibly flinched at the sound of his voice. “A woman who betrays her blood to an ancient enemy deserves a slow and painful death.”

“Won’t the Sheltya give her that?” I asked innocently.

“I imagine so,” said Sorgrad pleasantly. “Given the trouble they’ll be put to untangling this mess, I’d expect examples made of any ringleaders. We’d have done you more mercy by killing you outright.”

“So what shall we do with you? Have you anything to offer us, any talent or knowledge that might make it worth our while to save you?” I was pleased to see a faint tremor in Aritane’s hands.

“We have wizards to defeat the Elietimm,” said Sorgrad, indifferent.

“But we are curious to learn more about Artifice, aetheric magic, true magic I think you call it,” Usara chipped in, finally catching up with the game. “That’s what brought us to the mountains, after all.”

Aritane’s jaw worked helplessly under constricting bandages damp with thassin-stained spit.

“It’s your choice, woman,” I said harshly. “Do we kill you here, do we leave you for the Sheltya to punish, or do we take you somewhere no Sheltya will ever find you?”

“All the powers of Hadrumal will protect you if you share your knowledge and enable us to defeat the Elietimm,” Usara told her earnestly. “They so nearly led your people into a war that would have been the death of them all.”

“It’s starve or eat your seed corn, my girl,” said ’Gren with happy menace.

Aritane held herself tense and stiff beneath the bandages masking her head and the inadequate drape of her shift. A bird whistled a blithe greeting to the sun and the first blush of pink warmed the sky.

This was taking too long. Even with the thassin clogging her wits, it was too much to expect of her. I shivered in the chill breeze and laid a heavy hand on Aritane’s breastbone. “Let’s just kill her. Forsworn once, she can’t be trusted.”

The enchantress twisted in vain beneath the pressure and gripped at the blade of Sorgrad’s dagger. Blood welled up between her long white fingers. He held her grasp tight around the vicious edge. “Would you make a blood vow? Is that what you want?”

The blind head nodded urgently. Sorgrad winked at me and released her hand. He took the dagger and ran the tip lightly across his own palm, just scoring deeply enough to raise a scarlet line beaded with blood. Clasping Aritane’s hand, he nodded at me. “Unwrap her mouth.”

I hesitated but ’Gren knelt to do it, cutting through the linen with his own dagger. “As long as she says the words, she’s bound for life. If she forswears, ’Grad gets to kill her.”

“Sikkar als Misaen, terest Maewelin verath, dolcae en rocar alsoken.”

Aritane echoed Sorgrad’s intense words with difficulty, wits still reeling from the tahn, tongue numbed and lips stained brown as old blood by the thassin.

“Will this hold her? Will she remember it?” I demanded of Sorgrad.

He looked at me, eyes mysterious in the pale light. “It’s a vow to break all vows. If you make it falling down drunk at your coming of age, you still remember it on your deathbed. She has betrayed everything else and all that’s left to her is death at the hands of Sheltya if they find her.”

I shrugged and turned to Usara, who was watching wide-eyed, Bera’s men behind him even more so. “So what’s our best route out of here? We don’t want to run into anyone coming up to join the siege and be mistaken for some halfwitted raiding party.”

“And we have to get her away before any Sheltya come looking.” Sorgrad nodded at Aritane.

Usara smiled. “I’ll contact Planir and get him to work a nexus. He’ll get us back to Hadrumal even if it means rousting half the Council out of bed.”