A long way north of that burning, Darien stood in the shadows below the Valgrind Bridge. It was very cold, here at the edge of the Ice with the sun gone and no other living thing to be seen or heard. He looked across the dark waters of the river spanned by that bridge, and on the other side he saw the massive ziggurat of Starkadh rising, with chill green lights shining wanly amid the blackness of his father’s mighty home.
He was utterly alone; there were no guards posted anywhere. What need had Rakoth Maugrim for guards? Who would ever venture to this unholy place? An army perhaps, but they would be visible far off amid the treeless waste. Only an army might come, but Darien had seen, as he walked here, countless numbers of svart alfar and the huge urgach moving south. There were so many, they seemed to shrink the vastness of the barren lands. He didn’t think any army would be coming: not past those hordes he’d seen issuing forth. He had been forced to hide several times, seeking shelter in the shadows of rocks, swinging gradually westward as he went, so the legions of the Dark would pass east of him.
He was not seen. No one was looking for him, not for a solitary child stumbling north through a morning and an afternoon, and then a cold evening and a colder night. With pale Rangat towering in the east and black Starkadh growing more oppressively dominant with every step he took, he had come at last to the bridge and crouched down under it, looking across the Ungarch at where he was to go.
Not tonight, he decided, shivering, his arms wrapped tightly about himself. Better the chill of another night outside than trying to pass into that place in the dark. He looked at the dagger he carried and drew it from its sheath The sound like a harpstring reverberated thinly in the cold night air. There was a vein of blue in the sheath, and a brighter one along the shaft of the blade. They gleamed a little under the frosty stars. He remembered what the little one, Flidais, had said to him. He rehearsed the words in his mind as he sheathed Lökdal again. Their magic was part of the gift he was bringing. He would have to have them right.
The metal of the bridge was cold when he leaned back beneath it, and so was the stony ground. Everything was cold this far north. He rubbed his hands on the sweater he wore. It wasn’t even his sweater. His mother had made it for Finn—who was gone.
And not really his mother, either; Vae had made it. His mother was tall and very beautiful, and she had sent him away and then had sent the man, Lancelot, to battle the demon in the Wood for Darien’s sake. He didn’t understand. He wanted to, but there was no one to help him, and he was cold and tired and far away.
He had just closed his eyes, there at the edge of the darkly flowing river, half under the iron bridge, when he heard a tremendous reverberating sound as some mighty door clanged open far above. He scrambled to his feet and peered out from under the bridge. As he did, he was hit by a titanic buffet of wind that knocked him sprawling, almost into the river.
He rolled quickly over, his eyes straining up against the force of the sudden gale, and far overhead he saw a huge, featureless shadow sweeping swiftly away to the south, blotting out the stars where it passed.
Then he heard the sound of his father’s laughter.
Anger, for Dave Martyniuk, had always been a hot, exploding thing within himself. It was his father’s rage, unsubtle, enormous, a lava flow in the mind and heart. Even here in Fionavar in the battles he’d fought, what had come upon him each time had been of the same order: a fiery, obliterating hatred that consumed all else within it.
This morning he was not like that. This morning he was ice. The coldness of his fury as the sun rose and they readied themselves for war was something alien to him. It was even a little frightening. He was calmer, more clearheaded than he could ever remember being in all his life, and yet filled with a more dangerous, more utterly implacable anger than he had ever known.
Overhead the black swans were circling, crying raucously in the early morning light. Below, the army of the Dark was gathered, so vast it seemed to blot out the whole of the plain. And at their head—Dave could see him now—was a new leader: Galadan, of course, the Wolflord. Not a blessing, Ivor had murmured, before riding off to receive Aileron’s orders. More dangerous than even Uathach would have been, more subtle in his malice.
It didn’t matter, Dave thought, sitting tall and stern in his saddle, oblivious to the diffident glances he was drawing from all who passed near to him. It didn’t matter at all who led Rakoth’s army, who they sent against him: wolves, or svart alfar, or urgach, or mutant swans. Or anything else, or however many. Let them come. He would drive them back or leave them dead before him.
He was not fire. The fire had been last night, when Diarmuid burned. He was ice now, absolutely in control of himself and ready for war. He would do what had to be done, whatever had to be done. For Diarmuid, and for Kevin Laine. For the babies he’d guarded in the wood. For Sharra’s grief. For Guinevere and Arthur and Lancelot. For Ivor and Levon and Torc. For the dimensions of sorrow within himself. For all those who would die before this day was done.
For Josef Martyniuk.
“There is something I would ask,” said Matt Sören. “Though I will understand if you choose to deny me.”
Kim saw Aileron turn to him. There was winter in the High King’s eyes. He waited and did not speak.
Matt said, “The Dwarves have a price to pay and atonement to make, insofar as we ever can. Will you give us leave to take the centre today, my lord, that we may bear the main shock of whatever may befall?”
There was a murmur from the captains gathered there. The pale sun had just risen in the east beyond Gwynir.
Aileron was silent a moment longer; then he said, very clearly, so it carried, “In every single record I have ever found of the Bael Rangat—and I have read all such writings there are, I think—one common thread prevails. Even in the company of Conary and Colan, of Ra-Termaine and fierce Angirad from what was not yet Cathal, of Revor of the Plain and those who rode with him … even in such glittering company, the records of those days all tell that no contingent of the army of Light was so deadly as were Seithr and the Dwarves. There is nothing you might think to ask of me that I could find it within me to deny, Matt, but I intended to request this of you in any case. Let your people follow their King and take pride of place in our ranks. Let them draw honour from his own bright honour and courage from their past.”
“Let it be so,” said Ivor quietly. “Where would you have the Dalrei, High King?”
“With the lios alfar, as you were by the Adein. Ra-Tenniel, can you and the Aven hold our right flank between the two of you?”
“If we two cannot,” said the Lord of the lios alfar, with a thread of laughter in his silvery voice, “then I know not who can. We will ride with the Riders.”
He was mounted on one of the glorious raithen, and so, too, behind him, were Brendel and Galen and Lydan, leaders of their marks. There was a fifth raithen, riderless, standing beside the others.
Ra-Tenniel gestured towards it. He turned to Arthur Pendragon, but he did not speak. It was Loren Silvercloak, no longer harnessing a mage’s powers but still bearing a mage’s knowledge, who broke the waiting silence.
“My lord Arthur,” he said, “you have told us you never survive to see the last battle of your wars. Today, it seems, you shall. Although this place was once called Camlann, it carries that name no longer, nor has it for a thousand years, since laid waste by war. Shall we seek to find good in that evil? Hope in the cycle of years?”
And Arthur said, “Against all that I have been forced through pain to know, let us try.” He stepped down from his horse and took the King Spear in his hand, and he walked over to the last of the gold and silver raithen of Daniloth. When he mounted up, the spear blazed for a moment with light.
“Come, my lord,” Aileron said, “and my lord Lancelot, if you will. I bid you welcome into the numbers of Brennin and Cathal. We will take the left side of this fight. Let us seek to meet the Dalrei and the lios before the end of day, having curved our ranks inwards over the bodies of our foes.”
Arthur nodded, and so, too, did Lancelot. They moved over to where Mabon of Rhoden was waiting, with Niavin, Duke of Seresh, and Coll of Taerlindel, stony-faced, now leader of the men of South Keep, Diarmuid’s men. Kim grieved for him, but there would be griefs and to spare this day, she knew, and there might be final darkness for them.
It seemed that they had said what had to be said, but Aileron surprised her again.
“One thing more,” the High King said, as his captains prepared to move off. “A thousand years ago there was another company in the army of Light. A people fell and wild, and courageous out of measure. A people destroyed now, and lost to us, save one.”
Kim saw him turn, then, and heard him say, “Faebur of Larak, will you ride, in the name of the People of the Lion, at the forefront of our host? Will you join with the Dwarves today, at the side of their King, and will you take this horn I carry and sound the attack for us all?”
Faebur was pale, but not with fear, Kim saw. He moved his horse towards the black charger Aileron rode, and he took the horn. “In the name of the Lion,” he said, “I will do so.”
He rode forward and stopped at Matt’s left hand. On the other side of Matt, Brock of Banir Tal was waiting. Kim’s mouth was dry with apprehension. She looked up and saw the swans circling overhead, unchallenged, masters of the sky. She knew, without looking, how utterly lifeless the Baelrath was on her hand. Knew, as a Seer knew, that it would never blaze for her again, not after her refusal by Calor Diman. She felt helpless and a little sick.
Her place would be here on the ridge, with Loren and Jaelle and a number of others from all parts of the army. She still had her training, and they would have to deal with the wounded very soon.
Very soon indeed. Aileron and Arthur galloped quickly off to the left, and she saw Ivor cantering to the right beside Ra-Tenniel and the lios alfar, to join the Dalrei waiting there. Even at a distance she could make out the figure of Dave Martyniuk, taller by far than anyone around him. She saw him unsling an axe from where it hung by his saddle.
Loren came to stand beside her. She slipped her hand into his. Together they watched Matt Sören stride to the front of the host of the Dwarves, who had never fought on horseback and would not do so today. Faebur was with him. The young Eridun had dismounted to leave his own horse on the high ground.
The sun was higher now. From where Kim stood she could see the seething army of the Dark carpeting the whole of the plain below. To the left, Aileron raised his sword, and on the other side the Aven did the same, and Ra-Tenniel. She saw Matt turn to Faebur and speak to him. Then she heard the ringing note of the horn that Faebur sounded, and there was war.
Cechtar was the first man Dave saw die. The big Dalrei thundered, screaming at the top of his voice, towards the nearest of the urgach as the armies met with a crash that shook the earth. Cechtar’s momentum and his whistling sword blow knocked the urgach sprawling sideways in his saddle. But before the Dalrei could follow up, his mount was viciously speared by the horn of the slaug the urgach rode, and as the grey horse stumbled, dying, Cechtar’s side was exposed and a svart alfar leaped up, a long thin knife in its hand, and plunged it into his heart.
Dave didn’t even have time to cry out, or grieve, or even think about it. There was death all around him, bloody and blurred. There were svart alfar shrieking amid the screams of dying men. A svart leaped for his horse. Dave dragged a foot free of his stirrups, kicked at it viciously, and felt the ugly creature’s skull crack under the impact.
Fighting for room to swing his axe, he urged his horse forward. He went for the nearest urgach then, and every time thereafter, with a hatred and a bitterness (cold, though, icily, calculatingly cold) that drove him on and on, the head of his axe soon red and wet with blood, as it rose and fell, and rose and fell again.
He had no idea what was happening even twenty feet away. The lios alfar were somewhere to the right. He knew that Levon was beside him, always, through everything that happened, and Torc and Sorcha were on his other side. He saw Ivor’s stocky figure just ahead, and in all that he did he fought to stay within reach of the Aven. Again, as in the fight by the banks of the Adein, he completely lost track of time. His was a narrowed maelstrom of a world: a universe of sweat and shattered bone, of lathered horses and slaug horns, and ground slippery with blood and with the trampled flesh of the dying and the dead. He fought with a silent savagery amid the screams of battle, and where his axe fell, where the hooves of his horse lashed out, they killed.
Time warped and twisted, spun away from him. He thrust the axe forward like a sword, smashing in the hairy face of the urgach in front of him. Almost in the same motion he drove the axehead down, to bite through the flesh of the slaug it rode. He rode on. Beside him, Levon’s blade was a whirling thing of ceaseless, glinting motion, a counterpoint of lethal grace to Dave’s own driven strength.
Time was gone from him, and the morning. He knew that they had been advancing for a time, and then later, now, with the sun somehow high in the sky, that they were no longer pressing forward, only holding their ground. Desperately, they strained to leave each other enough room to fight, yet not so much space that the quick svart alfar might slip between, to kill from below.
And gradually Dave began to acknowledge, however hard he tried to block the thought, something that a part of him had known the evening before, when first they’d topped the ridge and looked down. It was the numbers, the sheer brutal weight, that would beat them.
It isn’t even worth thinking about, he told himself, hammering the axe right through the blocking sword of an urgach on his right, watching Torc’s sword slash into the creature’s brain at the same moment. He and the dark Dalrei—his brother—looked at each other for one grim instant.
There was time for no more than that. Time and strength had rapidly become the most precious things in all the worlds and were becoming more rare with each passing moment. The white sun swung up the sky and paused overhead, balanced for an instant, as were all the worlds that day, and then began sliding down through a bloody afternoon.
Dave’s horse trampled a svart alfar, even as his axe severed the raking horn of a dark green slaug. He felt a pain in his thigh; ignored it; killed, with a mighty blow of his fist, the dagger-wielding svart that had slashed him. He heard Levon grunt with exertion, and he wheeled just in time to crash his mount into the side of the slaug menacing the Aven’s son. Levon dispatched the unbalanced urgach with a sweep of his blade. There were two more behind it, and half a dozen of the svart alfar. Dave didn’t even have room to stay with Levon. In front of him three more of the slaug pressed forward, over the body of the one whose horn he’d smashed. Dave fell back a couple of paces, sick at heart. Beside him, Levon was doing the same.
Then, disbelieving, Dave heard the ceaseless shrieking of the svart alfar rise to a higher pitch. The largest of the urgach advancing on him roared a sudden desperate command, and a moment later, Dave saw a space suddenly materialize on his left, beyond Levon, as the enemy fell back. And then, even as it appeared, the space was filled by Matt Sören, King of the Dwarves, fighting in grim, ferocious silence, his clothing shredded, saturated with blood, as he waded forward over the bodies of the dead to lead the Dwarves into the gap.
“Well met, King of Dwarves!” Ivor’s voice rose high over the tumult of battle. With a glad cry Dave thrust forward, Levon just ahead of him, and they merged with Matt’s forces and began to advance again.
Ra-Tenniel, dazzlingly swift on the raithen, was suddenly beside them as well. “How are they doing on the left?” he sang out.
“Aileron sent us this way. He says they will hold!” Matt shouted back. “I don’t know for how long, though. Galadan’s wolves are on that side. We have to break through together and then circle back west!”
“Come on, then!” Levon screamed, moving past them all, leading them northward as if he would storm the towers of Starkadh itself. Ivor was right beside his son.
Dave kicked his own mount ahead, hastening to follow. He had to stay close: to guard them if he could, to share in whatever happened to them.
He felt a wind suddenly. Saw a vast, onrushing shadow sweeping across Andarien.
“Dear gods!” Sorcha cried, by Dave’s right hand. There came a tremendous roaring sound.
Dave looked up.
At dawn Leila woke. She felt feverish and afraid after a terrible, restless night. When Shiel came to get her, she told the other priestess to lead the morning chants in her stead. Shiel took one look at Leila and went away without a word.
Pacing the narrow confines of her room, Leila struggled to hold the images that were flashing into her mind. They were too quick, though, too violently chaotic. She didn’t know where they were coming from, how she was receiving them. She didn’t know! She didn’t want them! Her hands were damp and she felt perspiration on her face, though the underground rooms were as cool as they always were.
The chanting ended under the dome. In the sudden silence she became conscious of her own footsteps, the rapid beating of her heart, the pulsing in her mind—all seemed louder, more insistent. She was afraid now, more so than she had ever been.
There was a tapping at her door.
“Yes!” she snapped. She hadn’t meant to say it that way. Timorously, Shiel opened the door and peeped in. She did not enter the room. Her eyes grew wide at the sight of Leila’s face.
“What is it?” Leila said, fighting to control her voice.
“There are men here, Priestess. Waiting by the entranceway. Will you see them?”
It was a thing to do, an action to take. She brushed past Shiel, walking swiftly down the curving corridors towards the entrance to the Temple. There were three priestesses and a dun-robed acolyte waiting there. The doors were open, but the men waited patiently outside.
She came to the threshold and saw who was there. She knew all three of them: Gorlaes the Chancellor, Shalhassan of Cathal, and the fat man, Tegid, who had been so much in attendance while Sharra of Cathal had been here.
“What do you want?” she said. Again her voice was harsher than she meant it to be. She was having a hard time controlling it. It seemed to be a bright day outside. The sun hurt her eyes.
“Child,” said Gorlaes, not hiding his surprise, “are you the one who is acting as High Priestess?”
“I am,” she answered shortly, and waited.
Shalhassan’s expression was different, more quietly appraising. He said, “I have been told about you. You are Leila dal Karsh?”
She nodded. Shifted a little sideways, to be in the shade.
Shalhassan said, “Priestess, we have come because we are afraid. We know nothing, can discover nothing. I thought it was possible that the priestesses might somehow have tidings of what is happening.”
She closed her eyes. Somewhere, at some level, in the normal weaving of these things, this should be taken as a triumph—the leaders of Brennin and Cathal coming to the sanctuary thus humbly. She was aware of this but couldn’t summon up the appropriate response. It seemed lifetimes removed from the brittle fevers of this day.
She opened her eyes again and said, “I, too, am afraid. I know very little. Only that … something is happening this morning. And there is blood. I think they are fighting.”
The big man, Tegid, made a rumbling sound deep in his chest. She saw anguish and doubt in his face. For an instant longer she hesitated; then, drawing a deep breath, she said, “If you like, if you offer blood, you may enter within. I will share whatever I come to know.”
All three of them bowed to her.
“We will be grateful,” Shalhassan murmured, and she could hear that he meant it.
“Shiel,” she said, snapping again, unable not to, “use the knife and the bowl, then bring them to the dome.”
“I will,” Shiel said, with a hardiness rare for her.
Leila didn’t wait. Another inner vision sliced into her mind like a blade and was gone. She strode from the doorway, stumbled, almost fell. She saw the frightened eyes of the acolyte, as the young one backed away from her. Young? a part of her mind registered. The girl was older than she was.
Leila went on, towards the dome. Her face was bloodless now. She could feel it. And could feel a dark, cold fear rising within her, higher and higher all the time. It seemed to her that all around her as she went, the sanctuary walls were streaming with blood.
Paul tried. He wasn’t a swordsman, nor did he have Dave’s tremendous size or strength. But he had his own anger, and courage to spare, sourced in a driven nature, infinitely demanding of himself. He had grace and very fast reflexes. But swordsmanship at this level was not a thing one mastered overnight, not matched against urgach and Galadan’s wolves.
Through the whole of the morning, though, he stayed in the heart of the battle on the western flank, fighting with a passionate, coursing renunciation.
Ahead of him he saw Lancelot and Aileron dismount, side by side, the better to wade, swords blurred with intricate flashing speed, among the giant wolves. He knew that he was seeing something never to be forgotten, excellence on a scale almost unimaginable. Lancelot was fighting with a glove on his burned hand, that the hilt of his sword might not dig into the wound. The glove had been white when the morning began, but already the palm of it was soaked through with blood.
On either side of Paul, Carde and Erron were fighting savagely, slashing through the svart alfar, battling the wolves, holding back, as best they could, the terrible mounted urgach. And, Paul was painfully aware, doing their best to guard him all the time, even as they fought for their own lives.
He did the best he could. Bending on either side of his horse’s neck to thrust and cut with the sword he carried. Seeing a svart fall under one blow, a wolf draw back, snarling, from another. But even as that happened, Erron had been forced to whirl, with his lithe speed, to skewer another svart that had been leaping for Paul’s exposed side.
No time for gratitude to be expressed, no time for any words at all. And only chance scattered seconds amid chaos in which to reach within himself and vainly seek some clue, some pulsebeat from the God, that might show him how to be more than a liability here, more than a source of danger to the friends guarding his life.
“Gods!” Carde gasped, in one brief respite some time later. “Why are the wolves so much worse than they were in Leinanwood?”
Paul knew the answer to that. He could see the answer.
Ahead of them and to the right, lethally fluid in all his movements, a palpable aura of menace hovering about him, was Galadan. He was battling in his animal shape, providing the guiding spirit, malevolent and subtle, for the onslaught of his wolves. For the whole of Maugrim’s army.
Galadan. Whom Paul had so arrogantly claimed for his own. It seemed a mockery here, an act of fatuous hubris on the part of someone who couldn’t even defend himself from the svart alfar.
In that moment, as he looked across the surging crush of the battle, a space opened up in front of Galadan, and then, with a hurtful twist of his heart, Paul saw grey Cavall move to confront, for a second time, the wolf with the splash of silver between its eyes. Memory slashed through Paul like a different kind of wound: a memory of the battle in the Godwood that had served to foretell the war they were fighting now.
He saw the scarred grey dog and the proud Lord of the andain face each other for the second time. Both were still for a frozen moment, coiling themselves in readiness.
But there was to be no reprise of that primal clash in the glade of the Summer Tree. A phalanx of mounted urgach thundered into the space between wolf and dog, to be met with a ringing crash of blades by Coll of Taerlindel and redheaded Averren, at the head of a score of the men of South Keep: Diarmuid’s band. Fighting with a bleak savagery that day, each of them driving back heart’s grief with the fury of war. Glad of the chance to kill.
On either side of Paul, Carde and Erron held their ground, covering his body as well as their own. The sight of the Prince’s men struggling with the urgach just ahead decided him.
“Go join the others!” he shouted to the two of them. “I’m no help here! I’m going back up on the ridge—I can do more there!”
There was an instant to exchange a glance with each of them, an instant to know it might be the last. He touched Carde’s shoulder briefly, felt Erron’s hand grip his arm; then he wheeled his horse sharply and cut away, racing back to the high ground, bitterly cursing his uselessness.
To his left, as he rode, he saw another pair of figures break free of the press, galloping back towards the ridge as well. Angling his mount over, he intercepted Teyrnon and Barak.
“Where are you going?” he cried.
“Up above,” Teyrnon shouted, sweat streaming down his face, his voice raw. “The fighting’s too congested. If I try to throw a power bolt I’ll hit as many of our own men as theirs. And Barak is hopelessly vulnerable when he has to source my magic.”
Barak was weeping with frustration, Paul saw. They reached the slope and charged upwards. At the top, a line of lios alfar stood, scanning the stretch of the battle. Mounted auberei waited beside them, ready to race down with word for the High King and his captains.
“What’s happening?” Paul gasped to the nearest of the lios, as he dismounted and spun to look.
But it was Loren Silvercloak, striding forward, who answered him. “Too finely balanced,” he said, his lined features grim. “We’re being held to a standstill, and time is on their side. Aileron has ordered the Dwarves to drive east, towards the Dalrei and the lios alfar. He’s going to try to hold the western flank and half of the centre alone.”
“Can he?” Teyrnon asked.
Loren shook his head. “For a time. Not forever. And see, the swans are telling Galadan everything we do.”
Down below, Paul could see that the Wolflord had withdrawn to a cleared space towards the rear of the army of the Dark. He was in his mortal shape again, and every moment another of the hideous black swans would descend from the uncontested reaches of the air to give him tidings and carry away instructions.
Beside Paul, Barak began to curse, a stream of heartfelt, anguished invective. Below, to their left, a flash of light caught Paul’s eye. It was Arthur, the King Spear gleaming in his hand, guiding his magnificent raithen all along the line of battle on the western flank, driving back the legions of Maugrim with the incandescent flame of his presence, shaping a respite for the beleaguered men of Brennin wherever he went. The Warrior in the last battle at Camlann. The battle he had not been meant to see. And would not have seen, had not Diarmuid intervened.
Behind Paul the embers of the pyre still glowed, and ashes drifted in the morning sun. Paul looked up: no longer morning, he realized. Beyond the circling swans the sun had reached its zenith and was starting down.
He jogged back towards the south. In a cleared space a handful of people, Kim and Jaelle among them, were doing the best they could for the wounded that the auberei were bringing up the ridge in frightening numbers.
Kim’s face was streaked with blood and sweat. He knelt beside her. “I’m useless down there,” he said quickly. “What can I do?”
“You too?” she answered, her grey eyes shadowed with pain. “Pass me those bandages. Behind you. Yes.” She took the cloths and began wrapping the leg wound of one of the Dwarves.
“What do you mean?” Paul asked.
Kim cut the bandage with a blade and fastened it as tightly as she could. She stood up and moved on, without answering. Paul followed. A young Dalrei, no more than sixteen, lay in breathless agony, an axe wound in his side. Kim looked down on him with despair.
“Teyrnon!” Paul shouted.
The mage and his source hurried toward them. Teyrnon took one look at the wounded boy, glanced briefly at Barak, and then knelt beside the Dalrei. Barak closed his eyes and Teyrnon placed his hand over the jagged wound. He spoke under his breath, half a dozen words, and as he did the wound slowly closed itself.
When he was done, though, Barak almost fell, fatigue etched into his features. Teyrnon stood up quickly and steadied his source.
“I can’t do much more of this,” the mage said grimly, looking closely at Barak.
“Yes, you can!” Barak snapped, glaring. “Who else, Seer? Who else needs us?”
“Go to Jaelle,” Kim said tonelessly. “She’ll show you the ones who are worst off. Do what you can, but try not to exhaust yourself. You two are all we have in the way of magic.”
Teyrnon nodded tersely and strode off to where Paul could see the High Priestess, the sleeves of her white gown pushed back, kneeling beside the figure of a crumpled lios alfar.
Paul turned back to Kim. “Your own magic?” he said, pointing to the dulled Warstone. “What’s happened?”
For a moment she hesitated; then she quickly told him the story of what had happened by Calor Diman. “I rejected it,” she concluded flatly. “And now the swans have the sky to themselves, and the Baelrath is totally dead. I feel sick, Paul.”
So did he. But he masked it and pulled her to him in a hard embrace. He felt her trembling against his body.
Paul said, “No one here or anywhere else has done as much as you. And we don’t know if what you did was wrong—would you have gotten to the Dwarves in time if you’d used the ring to bind the creature in the Lake? It isn’t over, Kim, it’s a long way from over.”
From not far off they heard a grunt of pain. Four of the auberei set down a stretcher they’d been carrying. On it, bleeding from half a dozen new wounds, lay Mabon of Rhoden. Loren Silvercloak and a white-faced Sharra of Cathal hurried to the side of the fallen Duke.
Paul didn’t know where to look. All around them lay the dying and the dead. Below, on the plain of battle, the forces of the Dark seemed scarcely to have diminished. Within himself the pulsebeat of Mörnir seemed faint as ever, agonizingly far. A hint of something but not a promise; an awareness, but not power.
He cursed, as Barak had done, helplessly.
Kim looked at him, and after a moment she said, in a strange voice, “I just realized something. You’re hating yourself for not being able to use your power in battle. You don’t have a power of war, though, Paul. We should have realized that before. I’m that kind of power, or I was, until last night. You’re something else.”
He heard a truth, but the bitterness wouldn’t leave him “Wonderful,” he snapped. “Makes me awfully useful, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe,” was all she said. But there was a quiet speculation in her eyes that calmed him.
“Where’s Jen?” he asked.
She pointed. He looked over and saw that Jennifer, too, was dealing with the wounded as best she could. At the moment she had just risen from someone’s side to walk a step or two north, looking down over the battlefield. He could only see her in profile, but as he gazed at her Paul realized that he had never seen a woman look as she did then, as if taking the pain of all the worlds onto herself in the manner of a Queen.
He never, ever, knew what made him look up.
To see a black swan diving. Soundlessly, a terror against the sky, razored claws extended straight for Jennifer. Black Avaia, putrescent death in the air, returning to claim her victim for a second time.
Paul screamed a warning at the top of his voice and launched himself in a frantic sprint over the distance between. The swan was a black projectile hurtling down with annihilating speed. Jennifer turned at his cry and looked up. She saw, and did not flinch. She grappled bravely for the slim blade they’d given her. Paul ran as he’d never run before in all his life. A sob escaped him. Too far! He was too far away. He tried, reached for speed, for more, for something. A meaty stench filled the air. A shrieking sound of triumph. Jennifer lifted her blade. Twenty feet away, Paul stumbled, fell, heard himself screaming her name, glimpsed the raking teeth of the swan—
And saw Avaia, ten feet above Jennifer’s head, smashed into a crumple of feathers by a red comet in the sky. A living comet that had somehow materialized, blindingly swift, to intersect her path. A horn like a blade exploded into Avaia’s breast. A bright sword smote at her head. The black swan screamed, in pain and terror so strident they heard it on the plain below.
She fell, screaming still, at the feet of the woman. And Guinevere walked over then, not faltering, and looked down upon the creature that had delivered her unto Maugrim.
One moment she stood so; then her own slim blade thrust forward into Avaia’s throat, and the screaming of the swan came to an end, as Lauriel the White was avenged after a thousand years.
The silence on the ridge was overwhelming. Even the tumult of war below seemed to have receded. Paul watched, they all watched in awe, as Gereint, the old blind shaman, climbed carefully down to the ground, to leave Tabor dan Ivor alone astride his winged creature. The two of them seemed eerily remote even in the midst of so many people, blood on his sword, blood on her deadly, shining horn.
The shaman stood very still, his head lifted a little, as if listening for something. He sniffed the air, which was foul with the corrupt odour of the swan.
“Pah!” exclaimed Gereint, and spat on the ground at his feet.
“It is dead, shaman,” said Paul quietly. He waited.
Gereint’s sightless eyes swung unerringly to where Paul stood. “Twiceborn?” the old man asked.
“Yes,” said Paul. And stepping forward, he embraced, for the first time, the old blind gallant figure who had sent his soul so far to find Paul’s on the dark wide sea.
Paul stepped back. Gereint turned, with that uncanny precision, to where Kim was standing, silent, inexplicable tears streaming down her face. Shaman and Seer faced each other, and no words at all were said. Kim closed her eyes, still weeping.
“I’m sorry,” she said brokenly. “Oh, Tabor, I’m sorry.” Paul didn’t understand. He saw Loren Silvercloak lift his head sharply.
“Was this it, Gereint?” Tabor asked, in a strangely calm voice. “Was it the black swan that you saw?”
“Oh, child,” the shaman whispered. “For the love I bear you and all your family, I only wish that it were so.”
Loren had now turned completely away, staring north.
“Weaver at the Loom!” he cried.
Then the others, too, saw the onrushing of the shadow, they heard the huge, roaring sound, and felt the mighty buffet of the wind that had come.
Jaelle clutched at Paul’s arm. He was aware of her touch, but it was at Kim that he looked as the shadow came over them. He finally understood her grief. It became his own. There was nothing he could do, though, nothing at all. He saw Tabor look up. The boy’s eyes seemed to open very wide. He touched the glorious creature that he rode, she spread her wings, and they rose into the sky.
He had been ordered to stay by the women and children in the curve of land east of the Latham, to guard them if necessary. It was as much for his sake, Tabor knew, as it was for their own: his father’s attempt to keep him from leaving the world of men, which was what seemed to happen whenever he rode Imraith-Nimphais.
Gereint had called for him, though. Only half awake in that grey predawn hour in front of the shaman’s house, Tabor heard Gereint’s words, and everything changed.
“Child,” the shaman said, “I have been sent a vision from Cernan, as sharp as when he came to me and named you to your fast. I am afraid that you must fly. Son of Ivor, you have to be in Andarien before the sun is high!”
It seemed to Tabor as if there was an elusive music playing somewhere amid the ground mist and the greyness that lay all about before the rising of the sun. His mother and sister were beside him, awakened by the same boy Gereint had sent with his message. He turned to his mother, to try to explain, to ask forgiveness….
And saw that it wasn’t necessary. Not with Leith.
She had brought his sword from their house. How she had known to do so, he couldn’t even guess. She held it out towards him, and he took it from her hands. Her eyes were dry. His father was always the one who cried.
His mother said, in her quiet, strong voice, “You will do what you must do, and your father will understand since the message comes from the god. Weave brightly for the Dalrei, my son, and bring them home.”
Bring them home. Tabor found it hard to frame words of his own. All about him, and more clearly now, he could hear the strange music calling him away.
He turned to his sister. Liane was weeping, and he grieved for her. She had been hurt in Gwen Ystrat, he knew, on the night Liadon died. There was a new vulnerability to her these days. Or perhaps it had always been there and only now was he noticing it. It didn’t really matter which, not anymore. In silence, for words were truly very difficult, he handed her his sword and raised his arms out from his side.
Kneeling, his sister buckled the sword belt upon him, after the fashion of the old days. She did not speak, either. When she was done, he kissed her, and then his mother Leith held him very tightly for a moment, and then she let him go. He stepped a little way apart from all of them.
The music had gone now. The sky was brighter in the east above the Carnevon Range, in whose looming shadows they lay. Tabor looked around at the silent, sleeping camp.
Then he closed his eyes and inside himself, not aloud, he said: Beloved!
And almost before the thought was fully formed, he heard the voice of his dreaming that was the voice of his soul respond, I am here! Shall we fly?
He opened his eyes. She was in the sky overhead, more glorious to see than even innermost knowledge remembered her to be. She seemed brighter, her horn more luminous, every time she came. His heart lifted to see her and to watch her land so lightly at his side.
I think we must, he answered her, walking over to stroke the glistening red mane. She lowered her head, so the shining horn rested on his shoulder for a moment. I think this is the time for which we were brought together.
We shall have each other, she said to him. Come, I will take you up to the sunrise!
He smiled a little at her eagerness, but then, an instant later, his indulgent smile faded, as he felt the same fierce exhilaration surge through him as well. He mounted up upon Imraith-Nimphais and even as he did, she spread her wings.
Wait, he said, with the last of his self-control.
He turned back. His mother and sister were watching them. Leith had never seen his winged creature before, and a far-off part of Tabor hurt a little to see awe in her face. A mother should not be awed by her son, he thought. But already such thoughts seemed to come from a long way away.
The sky was appreciably lighter now. The mist was lifting. He turned to Gereint, who had been waiting patiently saying nothing. Tabor said, “You know her name, shaman. You know the names of all our totem animals, even this one. She will bear you if you like. Would you fly with us?”
And Gereint, as unruffled as he always seemed to be, said quietly, “I would not have presumed to ask, but there may yet be a reason for me to be there. Yes, I will come. Help me mount.”
Without being asked, Imraith-Nimphais moved nearer to the frail, wizened shaman. She stood very still as Tabor reached down a hand, and Liane moved forward and helped Gereint up behind Tabor.
Then it seemed that there was nothing else to be said, and no time to say it, even if he could have managed to. Within his mind, Tabor told the creature of his dream, Let us fly, my love. And with the thought they were in the sky, winging north just as the morning sun burst up on their right hand.
Behind him, Tabor knew without looking, his mother would be standing, straight-backed, dry-eyed, holding his sister in her arms, watching her youngest fly away from her.
This had been his very last thought, his last clear image from the world of men, as they had sped through the morning high over the rolling Plain, racing the rising sun to a field of war.
To which they had finally come, and in time, with the sun high, starting over into the west. They had come, and Tabor had seen a black thing of horror, a monstrous swan diving from the sky, and he had drawn his sword, and Imraith-Nimphais, glorious and deadly, had reached for even greater speed, and they had met the diving swan and struck her two mortal wounds with shining blade and horn.
When it was over Tabor had felt, just as he had before, each time they’d flown and killed, that the balance of his soul had shifted again, farther away than ever from the world through which the people all around them moved.
Gereint descended, unaided, and so Tabor and Imraith-Nimphais stood by themselves among men and women, some of whom they knew. He saw the blood dark on his creature’s horn, and heard her say to him, in the moment before he formed the thought himself, Only each other at the last.
And then, an instant later, he heard Silvercloak cry aloud, and he wheeled about and looked to the north, above the tumult of the battlefield where his father and his brother were fighting.
He looked, saw the shadow, felt the wind, and realized what had come, here, now, at the last, and knew in that moment why he had dreamt his creature, and that the ending was upon them.
He did not hesitate or turn to bid farewell to anyone. He was already too far away for such things. He moved his hands a little, and Imraith-Nimphais leaped into the sky to meet the Dragon.
The Dragon of Rakoth Maugrim in the sky over Andarien.
A thousand years before it had been too young to fly, its wings too weak to bear the colossal weight of its body. Most secret, most terrible of all Maugrim’s malevolent designs, it had been another casualty of the Unraveller’s untimely haste at the Bael Rangat—his Dragon had been able to play no part in that war.
Instead, it had lurked in a vast underground chamber hollowed out beneath Starkadh, and when the end had come, when the army of Light had beaten its way northward, Rakoth had sent his Dragon away, flying with awkward, half-crippled motions, to seek refuge in the northern Ice where no man would ever go.
It had been seen from afar, by the lios alfar and the long-sighted among men, but they had been too distant, still, to discern it clearly or know what it was. There were tales told about it that became legends in time, motifs for tapestries, for nightmares of childhood.
It had survived, nurtured through the long, turning years of the Unraveller’s imprisonment, by Fordaetha, the Queen of Rük, in her Ice Palace amid the Barrens. Gradually, as the years passed and then the centuries, its wings grew stronger. It began to fly on longer and longer journeys through that white and trackless waste at the roof of the world.
It learned to fly. And then it learned to harness and hurl forth the molten fire of its lungs, to send roaring tongues of flame exploding amid the white cold, far above the great ice floes that ceaselessly ground and crashed against each other.
Farther and farther it flew, its great wings beating the frigid air, the flame of its breath luridly lighting the night sky over the Ice where no one was there to see save only the Queen of Rük from her cold towers.
It flew so high it could see, at times, beyond the glacier walls, beyond the titanic prison of cloud-shouldered Rangat, to the green lands far away in the south. It was all Fordaetha could do, as the sweep of time pushed even the stars into newer patterns, to hold the Dragon back.
But hold it she did, having power of her own in the cold kingdom she ruled, and in time there came a messenger from Galadan, the Wolflord, and the message was that Rakoth Maugrim was free, and black Starkadh had risen anew.
Only then did she send it south. And the Dragon went, landing in a space prepared for it north of Starkadh, and Rakoth Maugrim was there. And the Unraveller laughed aloud to see the mightiest creature of his hate now full grown.
This time Rakoth had waited, savouring the malice of a thousand years, watching his own black blood fall burning from where his severed hand had been. He waited, and in the fullness of time he made the Mountain go up in flame, and he shaped the winter, and then the death rain over Eridu. And only when these were ended did he let his army issue forth in might, and only after that, saved for the very last, that its unforeseen coming might shatter the hearts of those who would oppose him, he sent out his Dragon to scorch and burn and destroy.
So did it come to pass that the sun was blotted out, and half the sky, over that battlefield in Andarien. That the armies of Light and Dark, both of them, were driven to their knees by the pounding force of the wind of the Dragon’s wings. That fire blackened the dry ground of wasted Andarien for miles upon miles in a long, smouldering strip of twice-ravaged earth.
And so, also, did it come to pass that Tabor dan Ivor drew forth his sword, and the shining creature he rode lifted herself, wings beating in a blur of speed, even into the fury of that wind. They rose aloft, alone at the last, as both of them had known they would be from the very first, and they hovered in the darkened air, shining, gallant, pitifully small, directly in the path of the Dragon.
On the ground below, battered to his knees by the wind, Ivor dan Banor looked up for one instant only, and the image of his son in the sky imprinted itself forever onto the patterns of his brain. Then he turned away and covered his face with his bloodied sleeve, for he could not bear to watch.
High overhead, Tabor lifted his sword to draw the Dragon towards him. It was not necessary, though; the Dragon was already aware of them. He saw it accelerate and draw breath to send a river of flame towards them from the furnace of its lungs. He saw that it was vast and unspeakably hideous, with grey-black scales covering its hide and mottled grey-green skin below.
He knew that there was nothing, and no one, on the windswept ground below that could withstand this thing. He also knew, with an exquisite, quiet certainty—a last space of calm here in the teeth of the wind—that there was one thing and one thing only they could do.
And there was only a moment, this moment, in which to do it, before the Dragon’s flame burst forth to turn them into ash.
He stroked her shining, glossy mane. In his mind, he said, So here it is. Be not afraid, my love. Let us do what we were born to do.
I am not afraid, she sent back in the mind voice whose every cadence he knew. You have named me your beloved, since first we saw each other. Do you know that you have been mine?
The Dragon was upon them, blackness filling the sky. There was a roaring, a deafening noise of wind pushed to its outermost limits. Still, Imraith-Nimphais held steady before it, her wings straining as fast they had ever gone, her horn a point of blinding light in the roaring chaos of the sky.
Of course I know, Tabor sent to her, his last such thought. Now come, my darling, we must kill it as we die!
And Imraith-Nimphais forced herself higher then, somehow, and forward, somehow, directly into the maelstrom of the Dragon wind, and Tabor clung to her mane with all his might, letting fall his useless sword. Above the Dragon’s path they rose; he saw it lift its head, open its mouth.
But they were hurtling towards it, angling downwards like a shaft of killing light straight for the loathsome head. Making themselves, the two of them, having only each other at the last, into a living blade, that they might explode at this dazzling, incandescent speed, the sharp horn shining like a star, right into and through the skin and muscle, the cartilage and bone of the Dragon’s brain, and so kill it as they died.
At the very edge of impact, the edge of the end of all things, Tabor saw the Dragon’s lidless eyes narrow. He looked down and saw the first tongue of flame appear at the base of its gaping throat. Too late! He knew it was too late. They were going to hit in time. He closed his eyes—
And felt himself thrown free by Imraith-Nimphais in a tumbling, spiraling parabola! He screamed, his voice lost in the cataclysm. He spun in the air like a torn leaf. He fell.
In his mind he heard, clear and sweet, like a bell heard over summer fields, a mind voice say in the purest tones of love: Remember me!
Then she hit the Dragon at the apex of her speed.
Her horn sheared through its skull and her body followed it, truly a living blade, and just as Imraith-Nimphais had shone, living, like a star, so did she explode like a star in her dying. For the Dragon’s gathered fire burst within itself, incinerating the two of them. They fell, burning, to the earth west of the battlefield and crashed there with a force of impact that shook the ground as far east as Gwynir, as far north as the walls of Starkadh.
And Tabor dan Ivor, thrown free by an act of love, plummeted after them from a killing height.
When the Dragon came, Kim was beaten to her knees, not only by the wind of its wings but by the brutal awareness of her own folly. Now she knew why the Baelrath had blazed for the Crystal Dragon of Calor Diman. Why Macha and Nemain, the goddesses of war whom the Warstone served, had known that the guardian spirit of the Dwarves would be needed, whatever the cost might be.
And she had refused. In her arrogance, her own imposed morality, she had refused to exact that price from the Dwarves, or to pay it herself. Had refused to accept, at the last test, the responsibility of the Baelrath. And so now Tabor dan Ivor, hopelessly overmatched, was rising into the sky, into the wind, to pay the price for her refusal.
If he even could. If they weren’t all to pay that price. For the Dragon that was coming down upon them meant the end of everything. Kim knew it, and so did every person on the ridge or on the bloody plain below.
Stricken with a guilt that numbed her senses, Kim watched Imraith-Nimphais fight desperately to hold her place in the air against the annihilating whirlwind of the Dragon’s approach.
There was a hand gripping her shoulder: Gereint’s. She had no idea how the old shaman knew what she’d done, but nothing about Gereint could surprise her any more. It was clear that he did know and was seeking, even here at the end, to comfort her—as if she had any claim, or right, to comfort.
Blinking tears from her eyes, she saw the monstrous, jointed, grey-black wings of the Dragon pound the air. The sun was lost; a huge, rushing blackness lay over the land. The Dragon opened its mouth. Kim saw Tabor let fall his sword. And then, unbelieving, stupefied, she saw the glorious creature he rode, gift of the Goddess, shining, double-edged, begin to move forward into the maelstrom, straight towards the obliterating vastness of the Dragon of Maugrim.
Beside her, Gereint was still on his feet despite the force of the wind, stony-faced, waiting. Someone cried out in fear and awe. The horn of Imraith-Nimphais was a dazzling thing of glory at the edge of night.
And then it was a blur, moving almost too fast to be seen, as she found, from somewhere in her being, an even greater, more defiant dimension of speed. And Kim finally realized what was happening, and just how the price would be paid.
“Teyrnon!” Paul Schafer cried suddenly, at the top of his voice, screaming it over the wind. “Quickly! Be ready!”
The mage threw him a startled glance, but Barak, without questions asked, fought to his feet, closed his eyes, and braced himself.
And in that instant they saw Tabor thrown free.
Then Imraith-Nimphais met the Dragon and a fireball exploded in the sky, too bright to look upon.
“Teyrnon!” Paul screamed again.
“I see him!” the mage shouted back. Sweat was pouring down his face. His hands were outstretched to their fullest extent, reaching. Power surged from them in shimmering waves, as he struggled to break the fall of the boy tumbling helplessly earthwards from so high.
The Dragon crashed to the ground with a sound like a mountain falling. All around Kim, people tumbled like dominoes to the trembling earth. Somehow Gereint kept his balance, staying upright beside her, one hand still on her shoulder.
And so, too, did Teyrnon and Barak. But as Kim looked up, she saw that Tabor was still falling, if slowly, spinning like some discarded toy.
“He’s too far!” Teyrnon cried in despair. “I can’t stop him!” He tried, though. And Barak, shaking in every limb, fought to source the magic that could break that terrible fall.
“Look!” said Paul.
Out of the corner of her eye Kim saw a flashing movement on the plain. She turned. A raithen of Daniloth was streaking westward over the ground. Tabor fell headfirst, slowed by Teyrnon’s magic but unconscious, unable to help himself. The raithen shot over the ground like a golden and silver brother of Imraith-Nimphais herself. On its back, Arthur Pendragon let fall the King Spear and rose to stand in the stirrups. The raithen gathered itself and leaped. And as it did, Arthur stretched forward and up towards the boy spinning down out of the sunlight, and with his strong hands he caught Tabor as he fell and cradled him against his chest as the raithen slowed and stopped.
Racing in his wake, Lancelot leaned sideways in his saddle and reclaimed the fallen spear. Then together the two of them sped southward up the rise of land, to halt on the ridge where Kim stood, and Gereint, and all the others watching there.
“He is all right, I think,” the Warrior said tersely. Tabor was ash white but seemed otherwise unhurt. Kim could see him breathing.
She looked at Arthur. There was blood all over his body; one deep gash above his eye was bleeding freely, partially blinding him. Kim moved forward and waited until he had handed Tabor down to be taken by a great many hands; then she made Arthur dismount while she tended his wound as best she could. She could see the ruin of Lancelot’s palm, even through the glove he wore, but there was nothing, really, that she or anyone else could do about that. Behind her, Jaelle and Sharra were dealing with Tabor, and Loren had knelt beside Barak, who had collapsed. They would recover, she knew. They both would, though Tabor would carry an inner wound that only time might salve. If time were granted them. If they were allowed to go forward from today.
Impatiently, Arthur endured her ministrations. He was speaking constantly as she worked on him, relaying crisp instructions to the auberei gathered around. One of them he sent to Ivor, with word of his youngest son. Down on the plain the army of Light was battling again, with a passion and hope that the afternoon had not yet seen. Glancing down, Kim saw Aileron carving a lethal swath through the urgach and wolves with Diarmuid’s men beside him, moving forward and to the east, struggling to link with the Dwarves in the centre.
“We have a chance now,” Teyrnon said, gasping with fatigue. Tabor has given us a chance.”
“I know,” said Arthur. He turned away from Kim, preparing to race back down.
Then she saw him stop. Beside him, Lancelot’s face had gone ashen, as pale as Tabor’s was. Kim followed their gaze and felt her heart thud with a pain beyond words.
“What is it?” Gereint asked urgently. “Tell me what you see!”
Tell him what she saw. She saw, at this moment, even as hope seemed to have been reborn out of fiery death, an end to hope.
“Reinforcements,” she said. “A great many, Gereint. A very great many coming from the north to join their army. Too many, shaman. I think there are too many.”
There was a silence on the ridge. Then: “There must not be,” Gereint said calmly.
Arthur turned at the quiet words. There was a passion in his eyes beyond anything Kim had seen there before. He said, in echo, “You are right, shaman. There must not be.” And the raithen leaped down the ridge, bearing the Warrior back to war.
For one second only, Lancelot lingered. Kim saw him look, as if against his will, to Guinevere, who was gazing back at him. Not a word was said between them but a farewell was in the air, and a love that even now was still denied the solace and release of being spoken.
Then he, too, drew his sword again and stormed back to the battle down below.
Beyond the battlefield, north of it, the plain of Andarien was lost to sight, dark with the roiling movements of the advancing second wave of Rakoth’s army: a wave, Kim saw, almost as large as the first had been, and the first had been too large. The Dragon was dead, but that hardly seemed to matter. It had only bought them time, a little time, shaped in fire to be paid with blood, but leading to the same ending, which was the Dark.
“Are we lost?” asked Jaelle, looking up from where she knelt by Tabor. Kim turned to her, but it was Paul who made reply, among all the people gathered there.
“Perhaps,” he said, in a voice that suddenly carried more than his own cadences. “It is likely, I’m afraid. But there is one last random thread left for us, among all the weavings of this day, and I will not concede dominion to the Dark until that thread is lost.”
Even as he spoke, Kim’s own knowledge came sweeping over her, in an image like a dream. She looked at Jennifer for an instant, and then her gaze went north, beyond the battlefield, beyond the thunderous approach of Maugrim’s reinforcements—they had been seen now, down below; there were cries of harsh, wild triumph rising everywhere—beyond the blackened line of fire-ravaged earth that marked where the Dragon had flown. Beyond all these, far, far beyond, Kim looked towards a place she’d only seen in a vision given her by Eilathen, rising from his lake so long ago.
To Starkadh.