Shadowheart s-4 Read online

  The fairies' attack had either never stopped for darkness or had resumed with the first light. The sun had still not crested the hills when the Syannese troop reached the end of the far valley and could see the broken walls of Kleaswell Market, but the first thing they saw was that men-and Qar-had already died this day in plenty.

  The mortal defenders had taken up position atop a small hill on the far side of the road, protected in part from Qar arrows by the thick branches of trees. The fairy folk, a small force of which only a few pentecounts at the most were visible, had adopted an attacker's strategy and were besieging the small hill. At first it was hard to tell whether the Qar were much different from their human enemies-only their strangely-shaped banners and the equally unusual colors of their armor suggested otherwise-but as Eneas gave the order and his troops hurried up the road toward the rise at the end of the valley, Briony began to see more telling differences: one of the fairy commanders, who wore what Briony at first thought was a helmet decorated with antlers, proved not to be wearing a helmet at all. A group of small manlike shapes who seemed to be dressed in long tattered robes of black and brown were in fact naked. All of them fought fiercely, though, and with a strange absence of any sort of tactics that Briony could recognize. They swarmed like insects, and like insects, seemed to have some unspoken way of knowing what they should do next, because, when they changed method or direction of attack, they all changed together, without any sign or word being passed as far as she could tell.

  The mortal men they were attacking seemed to be a mixed lot of well-armed soldiers and unarmed or lightly armed civilians-merchants, perhaps, since many wagons had been drawn together at the top of the hill they defended. They flew no recognizable banner, but Briony recognized a few of the crests on men's shields and surcoats as Kracian. Mercenaries, she decided, hired to protect a caravan-but why hired from so far away? And why was a caravan moving through such dangerous territory in the first place? Surely the castle itself must be receiving most of its supplies from the sea, as it had been doing even before Briony left Southmarch behind.

  She had little time to think about this because just then the fairies seemed to notice Eneas and his oncoming troop for the first time. Arrows began to leap toward them.

  The prince abruptly interposed his horse between her and the distant Qar, driving her off the road. "You will not risk your life, Princess."

  "But I can fight!" Briony realized as she said it that it was foolish, but she could not help it. "You're a prince, and you're not hiding…!"

  "Without you, your people have nothing. I have two brothers and a father who will live many years yet." His face was hard: it was clear no argument would be entertained. A moment later he gave her horse a slap on the rump to propel it farther off the road, then wheeled his own mount and spurred back toward his men.

  The Qar soldiers had not been waiting idly. By the time the first of the Syannese riders reached them, they had formed a makeshift spear wall, some with actual pikes and spears, others by grabbing any long piece of wood they could reach and turning it toward the oncoming horsemen. Briony was almost as frightened for the horses as she was for the men, and as the vanguard of the charge struck, she had to close her eyes. She did not see it, but she heard the terrible, savage crash of splintering wood and screaming men and horses-and fairies, she could only presume, because no living thing could be struck that way and not cry out.

  Within moments, the main part of Eneas' troop had broken through and was wheeling back around to assault the fairies from the other side. Other soldiers and their Qar enemies had broken apart into knots of combat. The fighting was fierce, and Briony several times saw Syannese soldiers fall to the ground, pierced by an arrow or spear or sword thrust, but the fairies had obviously been taken by surprise and were slow to recover. Also, Briony saw nothing of the magical trickery she had heard that the Twilight People used at Kolkan's Field and in other encounters with the Southmarch soldiers. What exactly was going on here? If the Qar were still besieging Southmarch, why should they be trying to destroy a supply train so far to the west of the castle? And how had the merchants who hired the Kracian mercenaries expected to get their caravan into a surrounded castle even if they reached the shore of the bay? It was a mystery.

  She heard a shriek of dismay and turned in time to see something charging down out of the woods that at first she took to be a bear or something stranger still-a bull, perhaps, but running on its hind legs. The thing had a huge, square head and a back as broad as an ox-yoke, and it carried a sort of bladed club in its hands, a horrible weapon with several massive stone axes bound into the wide shaft. It charged right into the center of Eneas' men with weapon flailing and knocked several of them through the air like shuttlecocks to land crushed and bleeding at the side of the road, but other Syannese foot soldiers charged toward the thing, pikes lowered, and hemmed the monster in, jabbing and then falling back as it swung its club at them, stabbing at it again when it turned away. Despite its strength, the thing could not escape its smaller persecutors and was soon bleeding from several dozen wounds. The monster's face twisted in a rictus of agony as it threw back its head and bellowed its pain and rage. Moments later, it tried to break out of the circle of its attackers, reminding her of the day so long ago when Kendrick and the others had hunted the wyvern in the hills of the Southmarch mainland, but several more spears pierced the huge Qar fighter, one of them all the way through the throat, freeing a freshet of bright red blood. The great, dark creature swayed and then collapsed. The soldiers cried out in terrified triumph and surged forward, stabbing it and even kicking it repeatedly.

  Eneas himself, who had caught up to his men in time to join their charge through the thick part of the Qar line, had been immediately surrounded by a group of small, dark things that, were it not for their short stabbing swords, might have been mistaken for apes, but between his lance and his own sword he had made short work of them, aided by his warhorse and its heavily shod hooves. A group of Syannese riflemen had set up on the edge of the fighting and started firing into the knot of Qar farther up the slope, scattering them in retreat across the slope only moments after the merchants and their mercenaries had seemed on the verge of being eradicated.

  And then, just when it seemed that the Qar could do nothing but flee or surrender, a figure on a great gray horse appeared in the road as if it had stepped out of nowhere. The fairy folk collapsed into a semicircle around this armored warrior, who although nowhere near as large as the club-wielding giant still seemed tall beyond mortal men. His armor was a dull, leaden color, his face a sooty black-not black like the skin of Shaso or Dawet or the other southerners Briony had met, but black as something burned, black as charcoal or a fireplace poker. The creature's eyes, though, were like nothing Briony had ever seen, lambent yellow as amber held before a flame, and he carried a weapon that had an exotic blade on one side and a spike on the other, clearly meant to pierce armor-even more frightening when Briony contrasted it with the light mail Prince Eneas was wearing.

  To his credit, Eneas did not hesitate, but spurred toward the newcomer, recognizing that the Qar were rallying around him and a victory over the fairies that had seemed so certain a few moments ago now seemed much less so. A rain of arrows came from the hill above; Eneas' men screamed in outrage at the human mercenaries who had fired them, because as many of them seemed to strike the Syannese as the enemy Qar.

  The black-faced creature spurred toward Eneas, swinging his ax in violent circles above his head.

  "Akutrir!" the other Qar chanted-the creature's name, Briony guessed. "Akutrir saruu!"

  Eneas and the fairy lord met in the center of the road, scattering both men and Qar who leaped for safety like grasshoppers disturbed in a summer field. The spike on the fairy's ax bit into Eneas' shield, piercing the painted white hound, and for long moments the two could not separate, Eneas struggling to pull back his shield and hacking at the handle of Akutrir's weapon with his own sword. The fairy's grinning m
outh was huge-his dark-shadowed face seemed nothing but teeth and glowing orange eyes, like a Kerneia mask. The newness of everything that had distracted Briony was now gone; she was nothing but frightened. This was not an old story or a tale from the Book of the Trigon. Even though she was praying to Zoria as hard as she could and to the Trigonate Brothers as well, the gods would not step in and save them. They could all die here by the side of this lonely road, slaughtered by the enemy Qar.

  What had seemed at first like single combat was nothing of the sort-the fairy folk around Eneas jabbed at him with short spears even as he met Akutrir's blows with sword swipes of his own. The prince's men charged forward to even the odds and everything disappeared into the swirl of flashing blades and dust from the road, which now hung over everything, a gray cloud sparkling in the morning sunlight.

  And then it was over, as quickly as it had begun. The tall fairy lord retreated and the rest of the Qar fled away toward the east as the mortals who had been fighting a losing battle for their lives only an hour before shouted and cheered. Some of them even hurried down to chase the retreating Qar, but the fairy folk seemed almost to melt away into the trees at the end of the valley.

  The merchants and their mercenary soldiers might have been celebrating, but the Temple Dogs had lost more than a few men and were in no such mood themselves. Their grim faces as they brought back the bodies made Briony want to turn away. Instead, she forced herself to stand and watch the corpses being carried off the field to be laid beside the road. A detachment of the prince's soldiers began to dig the necessary graves.

  Now these Syannese men have died for my cause, too, she told herself. Eneas' comrades and brothers. That is a debt that cannot be forgotten.

  8

  And All His Little Fishes "… And so they entered into the great city of Hierosol. Along the way Adis was taught to pretend injury to excite the pity of wealthy folk, and other beggar's tricks, so that he could earn his keep…"

  -from "A Child's Book of the Orphan, and His Life and Death and Reward in Heaven"

  Barrick awoke in his chamber at Qul-na-Qar to find another meal waiting for him, just as good as the first-slices of some fruit crunchy as apples but tangy as a Kracian norrange, and thick brown bread that tasted a little of mulled wine, along with plenty of butter in a small pot. It seemed clear that some of the people who lived in the castle must still bake, and some kept cows or goats. At least Barrick hoped it was cows or goats supplying the butter and cheese, but if some other creature was responsible, he was just as happy not knowing because it all tasted good.

  Barrick swallowed the last of the small loaf, then wiped the butter pot with his fingers and licked them clean. Gods, but it felt wonderful to have something in his stomach-real food, too, not bitter herbs or even the scrawny black squirrels he'd been hunting since crossing the Shadowline, miserable, tasteless things that in his hunger and misery had seemed a festival meal.

  Harsar appeared a moment later, as though the little lop-eared servant had been in the hallway listening for the sound of Barrick sucking on his fingers. "She is waiting for you in the Chamber of the Gate of Sleep," he said in his clumsily accented speech. Barrick wondered why the little servant didn't just speak to him in thoughts as the queen did. "I will take you there."

  "Where?" But even as he said it he knew, as if it had been in his memory all along-the many-columned chamber with the shining disk where he had first arrived in Qul-na-Qar from the city of Sleep. His heart quickened. Saqri had been telling the truth, then. She had an idea.

  The first thing that surprised him when he reached the columned room was that the queen was kneeling in the center of the glowing, pearly stone disk with her head bowed as if she prayed. The second was that when she rose and beckoned Barrick forward, Harsar stepped toward her as well.

  "No, you must stay, Harsar-so-a," she told the hairless creature. "After all, the castle will need to be looked after in our absence, and there is no one who knows it better than you. Your sons will need you, too."

  He bowed, showing no emotion. "As you say, my lady." He turned and went from the room, quick and silent as a shadow sliding on the wall.

  "Very well, then." She turned to Barrick. "Two kinds of roads there are, as I told you. The first sort are those that Crooked himself created, or at least made available. We have one such road here before us." She gestured to the gleaming disk. "Through it, you can pass into the city of Sleep…"

  "But that won't do us any good…!"

  "Just so." She gave him a cold look, and he shut his mouth. "But there are other roads, other paths, and many of those the gods themselves found, although they did not know what they were or how to find or make more. They used them as a snake takes the burrow of a mouse for his own, although he did none of the work of digging. And just like a snake, sometimes the gods devoured or destroyed the roads' original owners, spirits of an earlier age-but that is another tale. In any case, there are still several such roads leading to the houses of the great gods like Kernios and his brothers.

  "Although it leads to the very place we seek, the road into Kernios' house is banned to us because we have the smell of Qul-na-Qar on us, the house of the Earthlord's enemies." She turned to Barrick. "But there is one other god who might open a road for us. Long has your family believed itself descended from the great sea lord Erivor, brother of Perin and Kernios…"

  "Is that true, then…?" said Barrick, amazed.

  "Not in the least," the queen told him. "Or at least not in my knowledge. Anglin's folk were fishermen, but they were also good fighters, and gained their thrones by wit and strength. No gods had a hand in it-at least not directly." Did she smile? "But long has your house held Erivor your special patron, and many sacrifices and festivals have you given in his honor, century upon century. It could be that he would listen to you, not because you have the blood of Crooked in you, but because you are an Eddon, and the Eddons have long and richly worshiped him."

  Barrick's head felt as though it were spinning. "But… but you said he was asleep!"

  "The sleep of gods is not like the sleep of others," she explained. "And in all the time your family has prayed to him and sacrificed to him, he has always been sleeping, for a thousand years and more." Now she did smile, the smallest stitch taking up the corner of her mouth. "So pray, Barrick of the Eddon. Down upon your knees and pray to your old tribal god. Ask him to open a way for us."

  Was she mocking him?

  "Kneel?"

  She nodded. "It helps one's perspective. Treating with the gods requires courtesy, and courtesy is ultimately an acknowledgment of power-the true power on both sides of the conversation."

  "But I have no power at all!"

  Saqri did not bother to agree with this.

  Barrick lowered himself to his knees. He could not help noticing how much easier it was now that his arm no longer pained him, and how much more comfortable it was now that the bruises and bloody scrapes of the journey were beginning to heal.

  Ask him… someone said quietly in his head; he couldn't guess whether it was Saqri or one of the bodiless voices. Ask the sea lord… to open the way…

  Barrick closed his eyes, uncertain of what to do. He had prayed countless times, especially in his childhood-oh, how he had prayed for the nightmares to stop, for his arm to be healed, to be able to play like the others-but never with such an unusual request in mind. He tried to remember some of the rituals held on Father Erivor's sacred days, but with little success.

  Father Erivor… that was what Barrick's own father had called him, almost as a joke. "Father Erivor and all his little fishes preserve us!" the king would growl when he was particularly exasperated with one of his children.

  Why did you leave me to suffer alone, Father? Why? It was bad enough what Olin had done, throwing his son down the steep tower steps, but why had he spoken so little of it afterward? Shame? Or because he was too busy with his own problems and the problems of the realm?

  Father Erivor. Barrick tr
ied to remember what he had thought then, as a child, when that name still meant somebody real-not just the bearded, blue-green giant portrayed on the chapel wall, silver fish surrounding his head like the rays of the morning sun, but the shape he saw in his head when they bowed their heads together and Father Timoid led them in prayers to the family patron.

  Great Erivor, monarch of the green-lit depths…

  As a child Barrick had imagined the god moving slowly at the bottom of the sea, slow as the great turtles or the ancient pike that lived in the castle ponds, wrapped in waving fronds of kelp.

  Great Erivor, who has blessed us beyond other men…

  It was strange, but Barrick could no longer tell if his eyes were closed or open. He seemed to hear the wind battering the waves to froth.

  Great Erivor, who calms the waves and brings his bounty to our nets, who rides the great whalefish and tames the world-girdling serpent, hear us now!

  The darkness swirled. The darkness was shot through with green light and flittering, bright shapes. Great Erivor, who slew many-armed Xyllos and drove vast Kelonesos back into the depths so he would prey no more on sailors! Erivor, who quiets the storm! Erivor, lord of ocean winds! Chieftain of all sunken gold! Master of treasure! King of the world's waters! Traveler's rescue! Hear me now!

  The darkness grew deeper, greener, and even more quiet. The winds that had howled in Barrick's ears only moments before were muffled, and even the waves themselves became only a distant roiling. Down here all was silent, the sediments ancient, the kelp coiling and uncoiling, fish darting through its strands. Here dark things swam and crawled. Here mighty armored shapes moved through the dim, greenshot day and the lightless night.

  Erivor? Barrick tried to send his thoughts out as boldly as he could. My family has always given you what was due. You have been our patron, our lord. Please, lord, help me now!