Chapter Five
Towards the glutted margins of battle they ride,
With their greying hair and rusting blades.
—Kovalti, Ode To The Warrior
It was a cold, grey autumn morning in the Bachruz Mountains, cold without being icy, grey without the promise of an imminent downpour. Mist veiled the cruel crags and pinnacles and hid from view the few streams that wound along ravines and gorges worn deep by uncountable summers and winters. One of these streams, a river almost, came down from the highest snow-wrapped slopes, tumbling through mossy,boulder-strewn gullies till it reached the upper reaches of a high, sheltered valley called Krusivel. There, the waters slowed and widened towards the north of the valley where they fed a small lake and the town gathered around its banks. A runoff stream led away from the lake's northeast bank to a notch at the edge of a sheer drop, near the foot of a natural rock tower rooted in the cliffs themselves. The stream flung itself over the brink and into the air, falling from such a height that it bathed the barren rocks below in never-ending spray.
A philosophically-minded townsperson might have pondered that long journey and wondered why anything would travel so far only to leap into oblivion.
That morning, two men sat on a boulder near the edge of those falls. The taller and older of the two wore thick woollen breeches and a battered-looking black jerkin of quilted leather. His companion, a short, burly man in a trader's many-pocketed tunic, poured pale wine into a wooden beaker which he then handed over.
Ikarno Mazaret, Lord Commander of the Knights of the Order of the Fathertree, accepted the cup and took a mouthful. He let the pungent savour fill his head before swallowing, then whistled.
"What a vintage," he said. "That has to be the finest cup of Ebroan white I've ever tasted." He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. "What a difference from these Honjir ales, which are fine in their way, you understand. And as for asmirith, that distilled furnace-milk..."
His companion leaned forward with the bottle but Mazaret shook his head.
"One's enough this early, Gilly," he said. "Besides, you didn't come all this way just to bring me a flask of wine."
"Well, I also happen to have a piece of Cabringan cheese," said the man called Gilly, producing a wax-paper package from a pocket and unwrapping it. "But if you'd rather not..."
"Daemon in human form," Mazaret growled with a smile, reaching for the cheese and breaking off a piece. As he chewed, enjoying the sharp tang, he regarded his companion levelly.
"So the news is bad, then?"
Gilly shrugged, then poured himself a cup of wine. He was a round-faced, bearded man whose affable demeanour belied his lethal abilities with the broadsword.
"Depends on your definition of 'bad'. Our sympathisers in the east have all promised to keep sending supplies through our people in Scallow, but the Sejeend and Oumetra cabals have decided to reduce their contributions."
Mazaret's heart sank. "Why?"
"They're impatient, Ikarno. Damn it, everyone is impatient. They all seem to think that you're sitting up here in charge of ten, fifteen, twenty thousand hardened warriors, each ten feet tall and able to blow arrows from their nostrils!" He gave a lop-sided grin. "Of course, I couldn't confirm or deny such speculations, being a mere messenger."
Mazaret sighed and ran a hand through his bushy, greying hair. "What about the Mogaun troop strengths? Any reliable numbers?"
"Some, yes. In Cabringa the tribes can field about four and a half, five thousand, mostly light cavalry; in Kejana, about three and a half thousand split equally between cavalry and foot soldiers; and in Dalbar it comes to roughly nineteen hundred, again half cavalry, half on foot. The Ogucharn Isles scarcely matter - there's only a couple of minor tribes there, totalling maybe eight hundred."
"And Yasgur?"
The trader smiled and examined his fingernails for a moment before looking up. "At least fourteen thousand, of which two thousand are heavy cavalry, another four thousand light cavalry, and the rest foot troops."
Mazaret looked away, not wanting Gilly to see the dismay in his eyes. Instead he gazed at the nearby stream as it rushed away over the edge of the cliff and tried to make sense of the numbers and totals that filled his head. Since the invasion sixteen years ago, the military strength of the tribes had waned, some by nearly half. Except for Yasgur.
Son of Hegroun, the Warchief who led the Mogaun invasion seventeen years ago, Yasgur had held northern Khatris and all Mantinor during the chaos that followed his father's death just months after the fall of Besh-Darok. In the years since he had forged an alliance with several noble families, initially as a response to the incursions and raids by neighbouring warchiefs eager to grab Hegroun's prize. His army was now the largest of any warlord, its ranks filled with recruits drawn from the native Khatrisian and Mantinoren peoples as well as his own tribe.
"Can't be done, can it?"
"No such word as 'can't', Gilly," Mazaret said. "They may have the numbers but we have the strategy and the unity of purpose."
The trader gave him a piercing look. "As well as the numbers, they also have all the towns, forts and outposts, whereas we have, what, two thousand would-be knights - "
"Two and a half thousand, plus a thousand of the Hunter's Children."
"Ah yes, the Hunter's Children. What a unity of purpose that is!"
Gilly's face was stonelike and Mazaret glared at him, feeling a sudden resentment at the man for speaking aloud the very doubts and fears that clouded his every day. Then a ghost of a smile crept across the trader's features, and Mazaret shook his head ruefully.
"I seem to recall having a similar discussion about ten years ago," he said. "You were so scathing back then that I almost decided to give up any idea of resistance or rebellion, sail away to Keremenchool, perhaps. But I didn't."
"You should have," Gilly said softly. "It was a madman's dream then, and it still is." He drank off the last of his wine. "But what sort of madmen would we be to let things stay as they are?"
They were silent for several moments before Gilly spoke again.
"Earlier, while I was on my way here, I heard a rumour that Suviel returned last night, and not alone."
"And what else did you overhear?" Mazaret said testily.
"That one of her companions was none other than Korregan's bastard and thus heir to the Imperial throne." Gilly smiled widely. "Which could upset your agreement with the Hunter's Children, if it's true." He gave Mazaret a sidelong glance. "Is it?"
"Bardow and the other mages certainly seem to think so," Mazaret said. "They also think that he will lose an arm."
"How so?"
"Apparently the boy was tortured by his captor, one of the northern Honjir warlords, who sliced his left arm to ribbons," Mazaret said, keeping back what he'd been told about Byrnak and the mirrorchild. "Suviel tried to save it, but the damage is too great."
Gilly cursed. "Beasts, some of them. Worse than beasts." He looked thoughtful. "How would the people regard a crippled Emperor? Would they follow him, do you think?"
"They followed Orosiada," Mazaret said.
"That was nearly two thousand years ago."
Mazaret shrugged. "For the moment I am more concerned with what Volyn and the Hunter's Children are going to say at the War Council later."
"That's at noon, I believe..."
"Yes, and I would thank you to speak with Abbess Halimer before it starts," he said dryly. "I've no wish to have to send the procurals out to find you..."
Gilly glanced to one side. "We have company."
Mazaret turned to see a staff runner approaching, pale yellow overshirt and trews flapping as he ran. The boy came to a halt a few feet away and saluted, open hand against opposite shoulder.
"Yes, lad."
"My Lord Commander, there is a visitor to see you at the Temple."
"Who is it?"
"I do not know, my Lord. The Rul told me to say only that it was someone of importance."
What is Rul Dagash up to? Mazaret wondered as he stood. "Will you join me?" he asked Gilly. "Or are you going to stay and finish the wine?"
The trader grinned, put the bottle to his mouth and uncorked it with his teeth.
Mazaret shook his head. "There could be only one answer, eh? All right, lad - let's be on our way."
* * *
It was a short walk back round the lake. As he followed the runner Mazaret looked across at the town, remembering how it was when he and the ragged remnants of the Order arrived here sixteen years ago. Then there had been only a decrepit Skyhorse shrine by the small lake, along with the tumbled, mossy stones of a few abandoned huts. Now there were barracks, cabins, stables, barns, a forge, a tavern, a mill and a bakery. And the Temple.
The Temple of the Earthmother was a large, single-storey building situated on a slight rise overlooking the town. It had a flattened dome at its centre and a slender tower at each corner. Within its confines were cells, and chambers as well as a library, the main armoury, a school, the healer's chamber, and the chapel with the sacred Tabernacle of Ash. As well as the fighting yards, the temple grounds included an orchard, a vegetable plot, and a burial garden. Mazaret's regard lingered on the gravestones and plinths clustered around a nearby copse of aging trees. His wife and three children lay buried there, along with several close friends and scores of brave knights. Although many had perished during the long, desperate flight from the terrible defeat at Arengia sixteen years ago, it was not till they reached Krusivel that others began to die from a contagion loosed by the Mogaun shamen. Perfect recollection brought back to him how the ghastly fever had taken hold of his loved ones and burned them from within, melting their flesh away, filling their eyes and minds with horror, destroying their memory of him before finally freeing their souls from agony.
With time the raging grief had ebbed to a dulled sorrow but he could still remember when the last of his family, little Talve, had died and how he had uttered a cry of anguish and ran out into the night, stumbling among the trees and bushy undergrowth, losing himself. At some point he had staggered, scratched and bleeding, out of the dense forest and found himself beside a deep pool into which a waterfall poured with an embracing, rushing sound. Madness was upon him and, filling his tunic and his pockets with stones, he threw himself into the pool. There had been a blinding pain in his head and he had known no more till waking on his back, lying on the rocks behind the waterfall with sunlight shining down through the spray. Then out of the hissing cascade had come a voice:
"Death is not for you, son of my daughters. Much has been lost, yet the fight is not done, the race is not yet run."
A swirl of odours filled his head, earth, roots, the heavy moist smell of growing things. A cold fear had made his heart pound. "Who speaks?"
"You know me, and my beloved who was slain with your emperor at Arengia. Bitterly have I wept for my heart's desire whose spirit is no more but who I cannot forget. Know that your sorrow is as my own, black and tenacious, yet my hunger for vengeance is more than its equal. So hear me, Ikarno Mazaret, choose life so that life may yet triumph. For although the Lord of Twilight appears to have been victorious, his darkest strategy has failed. And a day will come when the Lord of Twilight's baleful workings shall again twist the world and war shall eat the weak and the innocent. So live, son of my daughters - live and prepare for that day. And avenge our loss."
Searchers found him later, half-dazed and slumped by the side of the pool. A brooding darkness of spirit had gripped him for weeks thereafter, during which the guidance and command of the survivors was in the hands of the Order's Shield-Prior, Attal. Mazaret frowned, trying to recall Attal's likeness, then sighed in regret. Poor Attal's remains lay in the burial garden with the rest now, dead from a spearthrust that should never have reached him.
But the memory of that voice speaking in his head, and of the intense, eldritch smells of leaves and wood, would remain undimmed by the passing years.
Mazaret and the runner followed the quicker path to the Temple, leading round the town and through a small orchard. About two score novitiates and knights were practising swordcraft in the Temple's main yard as they hurried by, heading for the vestry-gate. Rul Dagash was waiting in the archway as they approached.
"See Tol Urzik," he said to the boy. "He has other tasks for you."
The runner saluted and darted away. Dagash watched him disappear round a corner before turning to Mazaret.
"My Lord," he said quietly. "A visitor is waiting in your antechamber - "
"Good." Mazaret said, following the Rul into the dim interior.
" - where I have him closely guarded by two senior novitiates."
He paused, staring at Dagash. "Why? Who is he?"
"A patrol encountered him and another, an elderly manservant as it turned out, riding in along one of the ravine paths in the middle of the night. After hearing the man's explanation, the Tol in charge of the patrol had them bound, gagged and blinkered then brought up to Krusivel."
"So who is he?"
"My Lord, he claims to be your brother."
Mazaret went very still, gaze averted from Dagash. "Describe him."
"A man in his forties, shorter than yourself, carries more weight than is good for him, has a sallow complexion, and shoulder-length black hair tied back. He was carrying a sabre and a sleeve dagger when the patrol found them."
Mazaret nodded, holding up his hand. "Thank you, Dagash. You've done very well. I'll deal with this matter immediately."
Without another word, he turned and stalked off down the corridor, bootheels loud on the floor planks. Emotion surged through him in varying shades of anger and as he came to his antechamber he slowed, trying to regain his equilibrium. Then he opened the door.
Salutes came from the two guards within, and a figure sitting at the room's single long table rose as he entered and took a couple of steps towards him, smiling with hand outstretched. The smile faltered when Mazaret's demeanour remained grim and the hand fell to fingering the edge of a shabby brown cloak. Mazaret dismissed the guards and closed the door behind them. Then turned back to his younger brother.
"So - you're here," he said. "Now what do you want?"
Coireg Mazaret resumed his seat at the end of the table, leaned one elbow on it and stroked his chin. "The tapestries in here are quite rare, did you know that? And as for that Order banner over there - there are collectors in the north who would really pay - "
"Right, I'll call the guards..." Ikarno Mazaret reached for the door.
"No! Wait! Damn, but you never did have a sense of humour." The younger man sighed, took a handful of his cloak and rubbed his face on it. "I'm...sorry, I forget how badly we get on usually."
"Another thing you forget is what I said I'd do if I ever saw you again," Mazaret said, hand straying to the dagger at his waist.
Coireg's eyes widened in alarm. "In the name of the Mother, Ikarno, it was an accident!" He rose from his chair and backed away as Mazaret advanced. "It was eight years ago, for pity's sake!"
"She was our sister and you let those Mogaun scum take her..."
"There was nothing I could do, do you hear me? Nothing!" Trembling, Coireg tore the cloak from his shoulders, flung it on the floor then walked up to Mazaret and looked him in the eye. "There! You want to gut me? Well here I am, and you won't even have to reach very far. But before you do anything, you better listen because there's something you should know."
Staring back, Mazaret was unsettled to see despair and sorrow naked in his brother's face. "What could you have to say that would interest me?" he muttered.
"He's dead," Coireg said, falling into a chair at the table. "Father's dead."
An awful empty silence came in the wake of those words and a sense of hollowness and a kind of panic filled Mazaret. This was no ruse. He could hear the truth in Coireg's voice.
"How..." he said.
"Poison in his food. He hadn't been well for quite a while, and the Mother knows how many times I begged him to leave Casall and join you here. He'd have none of it, of course, always claiming that the Midnight Ships would come to a halt without his personal direction."
Mazaret leaned on the table. It was as if it were someone else hearing the terrible news and feeling this powerless anger and grief. Out of a numb stillness he tried to remember the last time he saw his father, which was during a secret journey to the north five years ago. Hevelik Mazaret, a baronet to the ancient crown of Anghatan, was also Master of Harbours for the city of Casall. Instead of fleeing the invasion, he had appeared to bend the knee to the conquering Mogaun, offering to manage the harbours and docks on their behalf. In reality he was assembling a clandestine organisation called the Midnight Ships, dedicated to providing an escape route for refugees, particularly nobles, desperate to leave. In the years that followed, the risk of being unmasked grew steadily but despite that, and his advancing age, he refused to step down.
"If I retired," he told Ikarno during that last visit, "they would put some spineless fool in my place, a puppet for this Thraelor they've made High Captain. If that happened, many traders would opt for Rauthaz instead, or even some of the Jefren ports, and then where would they be, hmm?..."
For a moment or two, Mazaret listened to the sound of his own breathing. Then he said: "Did they catch whoever did it?"
"A kitchen servant was found dead the next morning." The younger Mazaret shrugged. "Maybe it was because too many refugees were turning up across in Keremenchool. Or perhaps one too many high-ranking prisoners had been spirited out of the Red Tower, and someone close to Thraelor decided that Old Man Mazaret should be made an example of..."
His voice tailed off in a quiet, gasping sob, quickly stifled. Ikarno Mazaret regarded him with sorrow and pity, recalling how deeply Coireg had been affected by their mother's death sixteen years ago. They had, he realised, both drunk deeply from the cup of grief. He released a shaky sigh and reached out to rest a hand on his brother's shoulder. Coireg looked up with reddened eyes.
"I was nearing Casall when word reached me. I stayed there a day and night before deciding to ride south to tell you. Five weeks is a long journey on horseback, especially for Olgen, my servant. When I started out, all I intended was to find you and deliver the news. But I dwelled on what had happened and now, as I sit before you, all I know is that I want someone to pay." His fist clenched. "I want the chance to hit back, Ikarno, you understand? That's the other reason why I'm here, to ask you to let me join you. Oh, I know I'm no knight, but I am a good scout and I know how to fight dirty. At the very least, I could teach some of your people a few tricks, perhaps go on a raid here or there..."
His voice was level and serious, but Mazaret knew with a kind of shock that his brother was begging. He thought of his mother and sister, of the graves behind the Temple, and of his father, then considered the arrival of Suviel and the boy Tauric and found himself with the seed of an idea. With a hand on Coireg's shoulder, he drew him to his feet.
"There is a way that you can help us."