The RuneLords (33 page)

He waited for several long minutes for his men to regroup, hoping they'd reached safety. Here in the trees, he felt safe, hidden. The leaves hung over him, closing him in. Surrounding him like a cloak. The branches were shields against arrow and claw, a wall to slow the flames.

Down in the valley, he heard a tremendous cry--Raj Ahten shouting threats of murder against House Orden. Borenson did not understand the reason, but the fact that Raj Ahten would be so outraged made him giddy.

Borenson blew his war horn, calling men to regroup. Minutes later, four hundred men had gathered from all around the valley near Castle Sylvarresta. Some bore alarming news of battling Frowth giants east of the castle. Others said nomen were regrouping, trying to reach the castle gates. Other warriors had chased nomen deeper into the woods and hunted them to good effect. Some men had busied themselves slaughtering Raj Ahten's horses. This whole battle was getting crazy, losing focus, and Borenson almost wished now that he'd not covered the battlefield in fog.

He considered what to do, felt it would be safest to stay in the woods, hunting the last of the nomen. But more tempting game lay before the castle, in the fog.

"Right then," he ordered. "We'll do a sweep from east to west before the castle. Lancers in front, to handle the giants. Bowmen to the sides to clear the nomen."

The air was filling with smoke from the fires in the fields and in the woods downhill.

The knights of Orden formed ranks, charged through the trees, down to the east field. Borenson had no lance, and so took the middle of the pack, near the front, so that he could direct.

As his horse thundered through the mist, Borenson saw a huge giant looming off to his left, a great shaggy mound in the dense fog. Two lancers veered, slammed into the beast.

The wounded monster bawled out, slashed with its enormous claws, sent a warhorse sprawling as if it were a pup, snapped a warrior in half with its tremendous jaws.

Then Borenson was charging past that battle. A few bowmen had spurred into that fray.

Two more giants came wading through the fog. Nomen had gathered in their wake, taking courage. Twenty of Borenson's knights veered toward them. Borenson's heart hammered. One giant roared in rage, calling others. A vast horde of giants and nomen came rushing together, dark hills with a black tide of spearmen behind. A shout of triumph rose from the monsters' throats.

Borenson's heart nearly stopped. For in their midst rode hundreds of soldiers with brass shields. At their head, one huge warrior in black scale mail, with a helm of white owl's wings, raised a great warhammer and shouted a war cry with a voice of a thousand men: "Kuanzaya!"

The fellow struck terror into Borenson's heart, for he bore the armor and the weapons of kings.

Raj Ahten had his helm raised, and he was the most astonishingly handsome man Borenson had ever seen. The magnificent volume of the Runelord's voice made Borenson's horse stagger in its tracks. Witless with fear at the sound of the war cry, it struggled to retreat. Borenson shouted for it to charge, but Raj Ahten's voice had been so deafening, perhaps it had damaged the mount's hearing.

The horse thundered to a halt, fighting its reins, trying to turn on Borenson. Borenson managed to pivot it toward the enemy. Then they were in thick battle. Borenson's lancers frantically charged the giants, spreading the cavalry dangerously thin, bowmen firing a hail of arrows, while Borenson himself struggled to charge Raj Ahten.

His mount would not go near that man, fought instead to flee. It raced to Borenson's left, and Borenson found himself charging into the thick of giants as Raj Ahten swept past, warhammer rising and falling with incredible speed as he blazed a bloody trail through the ranks of defenders.

A giant rushed at Borenson through the fog, swung a huge oaken staff. Borenson ducked the blow, fled past the giant, into a knot of nomen who hissed and snarled, happy to see a lone soldier in their midst. Several giants raced past Borenson, seeking the heart of the battle.

Somewhere behind him, one of Borenson's lieutenants began blowing his war horn, desperately sounding retreat.

Borenson raised his hammer and shield, began to chuckle as he fought for his life.

Three hours after a perfect pink dawn, Iome stood atop the Dedicates' Keep and watched as Raj Ahten and a thousand of his Invincibles rode back into the castle, along with dozens of Frowth giants and hundreds of war dogs--all amid cheers and shouts of celebration. The fog on the downs had burned away, but a few wisps still clung amid the shadows of the Dunnwood.

Apparently, the Wolf Lord had taken a great chance, had gone to skirmish with Orden's troops in the woods, and had succeeded in killing and scattering them.

Raj Ahten's men rode smartly, weapons raised in salute.

Chemoise had brought Iome here to the Dedicates' Keep at first sign of attack. "For your own protection," she'd said.

The remains of many a tent and farm still burned out on the fields, and a wildfire ran amok through the Dunnwood, blown now by the easterly winds, two miles from the castle.

For a while the flames had squirmed more like a living thing--tendrils shooting out in odd directions, plucking a tree here, exploding a haycock there, consuming a home with greed.

The blazes within the castle had extinguished, for Raj Ahten's flame-weavers drew the power from them. And though Raj Ahten sent men among the streets to seek the murderer of his flameweaver, his beloved pyromancer, he did so to poor effect. The elemental had consumed most of Market Street, destroying any trace of the identity of her murderer.

In the charred and smoking ruins outside the gates of Castle Sylvarresta, one could see many signs of destruction. A thousand nomen had burned near the moat, where they'd sought to make their stand against Orden's mounted knights. One could count Orden's fallen knights among them, too--two hundred or so blackened lumps that had once been men in bright armor, clustered in smoking heaps along the battle lines.

Hundreds more nomen lay strewn at the edge of the woods, where the battle must first have raged fierce and heavy. The trees there were now nothing but blackened skeletons.

Three dozen Frowth giants littered the battlefield, strange-looking creatures, with their hair burned off. Iome had never envisioned them thus--each with pink skin and a long snout like a camel's, the hugeness of their claws. From atop the Dedicates' Keep, they looked like misshapen, hairless mice, dotting the battlefield. Some dead giants still held knights and their horses in their paws.

Raj Ahten's horses were dead, cut down with many of the guards who'd been stationed at the edge of the wood.

Yet now his men celebrated a victory, a battle won.

Iome did not know if she should rejoice at Raj Ahten's victory, or weep for Orden.

She was a Dedicate now to Raj Ahten. Rather than fear Raj Ahten, Iome now had to fear assassination at the hands of other kings, or from the Knights Equitable who battled the Wolf Lord.

Chemoise stood at Iome's side, gazed over the blackened fields, weeping as Raj Ahten's troops rode to the castle. Smoke still crept over the ash, and stumps burned all the way to the hill and into the woods.

Why does Chemoise cry? Iome wondered. Then she realized that she, too, had eyes filled with tears.

Iome understood. Chemoise cried because the world had gone black. Black fields. Black woods. Black days ahead. Iome drew her hooded robe more tightly around her, hiding her face. The heavy wool seemed thin protection.

Some of Raj Ahten's troops waited down in the lower bailey. Raj Ahten rode from the battlefield toward the city gates, to meet with his flame-weavers and counselors. Even the Frowth giants ducked under the posterns of the gates and came into the lower bailey, seeking protection.

In the hills to the south, a hunting horn rang out, followed by another farther east, and another. A few last stragglers from Orden's army perhaps, calling to one another.

Iome waited for Raj Ahten's men to turn around, ride out, and mop up the survivors. Given the strength of his forces, she did not understand why so many of his men remained here in the castle.

Unless something had happened on the battlefield that she couldn't see. Perhaps Raj Ahten feared for his own men. Perhaps they were weaker than she believed. The Wolf Lord must have feared to chase Orden's men any farther, for he knew full well that he could get drawn into an ambush.

Raj Ahten's wisdom went far beyond Iome's. If he was frightened, perhaps he had good reason to fear. Yesterday, Gaborn had told Iome that King Orden could soon reach the castle with reinforcements.

Iome hadn't given it much thought. Orden often brought a couple hundred men in his retinue. What could they do?

Yet Gaborn clearly believed the force was powerful enough to strike at Raj Ahten. Gaborn had never spoken the number of his father's troops, she now realized. Wisely so. House Sylvarresta could not divulge information it didn't have.

Iome glanced at her Days, who sat a few paces off, with her mother's Days, both of them watching the dark fields. They knew how many men Orden had brought, knew every move each king was making. Yet for good or ill, the Days only watched the armies move like pieces across a chessboard.

How many men had Orden brought to Hostenfest this year? A thousand? Five thousand?

Mystarria was a rich country, populous. King Orden had brought his son with a proposal of marriage. It was common with such proposals for a royal family to make some display of wealth, to marshal some soldiers, engage the knights in friendly competitions.

Orden would have many of his best men on hand. Five hundred of them, perhaps.

Yet Orden was also pompous, given to vain display. So double that number.

The warriors of Mystarria were fierce. Their bowmen trained from youth to fire from horseback. The prowess of their knights with their long-handled horseman's axes and warhammers was legendary.

Perhaps the legend of Mystarria's warriors would keep Raj Ahten at bay, so that he would not dare leave the castle again. Or perhaps Raj Ahten feared the Earth King that his pyromancers warned of.

Iome watched for a long moment from the Dedicates' Tower. No one else returned to the castle--not one black-maned noman.

Defiantly now, in the wooded hills to the east and south and west, battle horns blared in a dozen directions, sounding charges, calling new formations.

Orden's knights still fighting nomen in the woods. It would be a long, grueling day for those warriors.

Down at the city gate, Raj Ahten turned in his saddle to look back over the fields one last time, as if wondering if he should ride once more; then he entered the city, and his men closed the ruined drawbridge.

Life went on. From the tower, Iome could see much of the city. Down by the Soldiers' Keep, women and children hunted for eggs left by the hens. The miller was grinding wheat by the river. The fragrance of cooking fires mingled with the smoke and ash of war. Iome's own stomach felt tight. When Iome judged that she had watched from the wall long enough, she went down to the bailey in the Dedicates' Keep, her Days following. Her mother's Days stood on the tower, kept watching the fields.

Iome's father sat in a shaft of sunlight, playing with a pup that snarled and chewed at his hand. Her father had soiled his britches while Iome stood on the wall, so Iome went to work with bucket and rag, to clean her father. He did not fight her, simply stared at her ruined face, frightened by her ugliness, not knowing who she was.

He was handsome as ever, with his endowments of glamour intact. Stronger than ever. A superman with the mind of a child. While she washed the feces off him, King Sylvarresta lay watching her with wide eyes, and made gawping noises, blowing bubbles. He smiled innocently at this newfound pleasure.

Iome nearly broke into tears. Twelve hours. Her father had given his endowments nearly twelve hours ago. This was a critical time, this first day--the worst for him. Those who gave greater endowments went through a time when they were in grave danger. The facilitators called it "endowment shock." One who gave wit would sometimes forget to breathe, or his heart would forget how to beat. But if he survived through this first day, if he survived the shock of the endowment, he might regain a small bit of his wit. Somehow, his body would claim a tiny fraction, enough to survive. At the moment, Iome's father was at his weakest, his most helpless, but later today he could go through a "wakening," a moment when the endowment between lord and vassal became firm, when he regained some small part of his mind.

Thankfully, Iome's father had suffered none of the worst effects of endowment shock. Now that twelve hours had passed, she hoped he might regain some wit. It was possible--if he had not wished to grant the endowment with all his heart, if the forcible had not been perfectly fashioned, if the facilitator had not chanted his spells with precision--it was possible that he might even remember her name.

So Iome sang to her father softly as she finished cleaning and dressing him. Though he showed no signs of recognizing her, he smiled at her songs.

Even if he never remembers who I am, Iome told herself, it will be worth it to sing. In time, he might learn to love my singing.

When she finished changing him, Iome dressed him with a cloth diaper beneath his tunic.

The bailey of the Dedicates' Keep was filled with ruined men and women, people who had given endowments the night before. The influx had overwhelmed the caretakers. As quickly as Iome and Chemoise finished caring for their own fathers, they began caring for other men--guards who'd faithfully served House Sylvarresta since childhood.

The cooks got breakfast ready, and Iome carried plates of blackberry-filled pastries among the Dedicates. She knelt to waken one young woman who slept in the sunlight beneath a green blanket, a guard named Cleas, who'd escorted her on many a trip into the hills.

Rarely did women serve as guards. Even less rarely did they serve as soldiers of the line. Yet Cleas had done both in her life. She had endowments of brawn from eight men, had been one of the strongest swordmasters in Sylvarresta's service. Raj Ahten had delighted in taking the strength from her. Now Cleas did not breathe. Sometime during the night, she'd become too weak to draw breath.