Fallowblade (17 page)

‘But Solveig, Solveig,’ Kieran murmured, rocking restlessly back and forth. He reached for the casket, took out a golden locket and snapped open the case. It parted like the wings of a yellow moth. He brought it to his mouth and kissed the miniature portrait inside, then gazed fondly at the image, the pretty face, her amber-gold braids wound around her head like a crown, a gentle smile curving her lips. The prince glanced up and noted Ronin watching him with a look he could not interpret. ‘Here!’ Kieran held out the locket, its golden chain dripping through his fingers like strings of liquid fire. Ronin accepted it reverentially, glanced at it, then handed it back. Carefully Kieran closed the keepsake and replaced it on the stand.

‘She is sure of your feelings,’ said Ronin.

From just outside the tent a tiny bell tinkled.

‘Enter!’ said Kieran.

A footman came in. He bowed to Kieran, saying, ‘Your Royal Highness, His Majesty requests your presence.’

‘I must go,’ said the crown prince, and he left immediately.

Ronin stayed longer. He barely moved, except to make as if departing, only to change his mind. Once or twice he glanced across the silk-lined apartment to the casket containing the locket, then tore away his gaze. Clearly his sole desire was to spring across the floor, seize it and feast his eyes on the contents, but he never touched it; indeed he barely breathed, until with a long exhalation he turned his back on the image of Kieran’s troth-plighted princess and departed from his brother’s quarters.

Near sunset on the fifteenth of Juyn, unheralded by fanfare, the first of the reinforcements from Grïmnørsland at last approached the northern slopes of the Black Crags. Without access to semaphore signals from the north of the mountain barrier, without sky-balloons to observe and report activity behind enemy lines, Uabhar remained ignorant of Thorgild’s arrival.

Asr
ă
thiel, accompanied in the gondola by Prince Halvdan and one of the Grïmnørslander flagmen, guided
Lightfast
in advance of the new arrivals. Keeping the balloon low to avoid being spotted by enemy sentinels, the weathermage stared at the long line of dark hills vanishing at each end into the misty distance, north-east and south-west, their western flanks glowing golden in the evening light. Her brí-senses were subject to the air pressures that flowed around the range in invisible tides, the clamminess of the clouds that slowly seethed through the peaks; yet she apprehended them with detachment. Her eyes gazed, but her mind saw only the faces of Ryence and Galiene, Baldulf and Engres, and the rest of her friends and kindred who had perished at the hands of the King of Slievmordhu. Even the thrill of flight was gone. All joy was gone; there was nothing left except anger and terrible sorrow, since she had learned the truth.

A cavalcade headed by King Thorgild proceeded along the road below the balloon. Spurred by urgency, Thorgild’s Shield Champions and cavalry battalions had raced ahead of the plodding infantry troops who, still on the march, were catching up as swiftly as possible.

Looking ahead, Asr
ă
thiel spied Warwick’s watchmen high in the rocky steeples, distinctive in the murrey-hued uniform of Narngalis. They spotted her too and, in greeting, waved flags, sending a series of signals in code. ‘Warwick safe in Keep. Enemy at bay,’ the flagman translated. Halvdan instructed the signaller how to respond, whereafter the flagmen on the ground sent, ‘Guides ride now to meet Thorgild and escort him to Warwick.’

Equipped with this information, the balloon flew back to rendezvous with the King of Grïmnørsland. Asr
ă
thiel did not land, for Thorgild refused to halt, even for a moment. Due to his desire for haste, he had taken to holding conference on the move. A short distance ahead of the procession she hovered just above the rutted road, while Prince Halvdan jumped over the side of the gondola and ran back to the advancing horsemen. His well-trained steed allowed him to vault into the saddle without breaking stride. While
Lightfast
ascended, Asr
ă
thiel was aware of Halvdan animatedly passing the tidings to his father and brothers as he rode alongside them, but it all seemed remote, like a play being enacted before her, rather than an event in the world. Her heart was breaking.

Thorgild left his heavy cavalry bivouacked amongst the low spurs on the north side of the pass, while he and his three sons, with the Shield Champions, followed King Warwick’s guides along a devious, hidden path that led high amongst the Crags. Along precipitous cliff paths and through a jumble of tors, pikes and scars their steeds climbed, alternately lapped by chill shadows and diagonal rays of amber sunlight, until the riders found themselves before the great circular door of stone that guarded the mouth of the siege tunnel. All were so glad Thorgild had finally reached his destination that they slackened their vigilance by a fraction. It was only a modicum, but enough that the watchmen failed to observe Uabhar’s favourite spy, that sly, evasive fellow who had peered at the weathermasters in the Red Lodge. Having tracked the newcomers on quiet feet, even managing to dodge the sharp eyes of Asr
ă
thiel in her balloon, he discovered the hidden portal and watched the kings and princes enter on horseback, ducking beneath the arch. Armed with this intelligence he slunk away, as the door of Ironstone Keep rolled shut behind the newcomers.

When Uabhar heard the spy’s report his fury reached new heights. ‘We have lost our opportunity to waylay the fish-stinking barbarians before they reached Wyverstone!’ he shouted at his officers. To Prince Ronin he said, ‘Lead your troops to this tunnel’s door. Post a guard around it. Let no man enter or leave. Watch it strenuously, so that no provisions may be smuggled within, and none of our foes may escape. At the very least, I shall starve them out.’ The prince bent to kiss his father’s hand and acknowledge his orders, while Uabhar added, ‘Wait for me there.’

As Ronin set off with his men, following the spy to the hidden door, the weathermage on the opposite side of the pass summoned a swift breeze. She flew back with her signalman to deliver the latest tidings to the oncoming infantry. It was her last errand for Thorgild. Her work as message bearer and escort to the Grïmnørsland army was now finished. She was free to return to The Laurels at King’s Winterbourne if she so desired, but the idea never occurred to her. Her lodgings seemed empty and unwelcoming without the urisk; moreover, above all things she wished for Uabhar’s defeat, so that he might be brought to justice for his crimes. Chohrab was not exempt from blame either, for in his greed he had chosen to ally himself with iniquity.

It was impossible for Asr
ă
thiel to endure the raging emptiness where her heart used to be. That void had to be filled, and what better to fill it than a renewed zeal to overthrow the invaders, who were ravaging Tir with their hunger for power and weakening humankind’s ability to defend itself against genocidal wights. A powerful weathermage would be a useful weapon to the northern allies. On the spur of the moment she decided to join them in Ironstone Keep. Briefly she hovered low to let the flagman alight at the bivouac amongst the foothills of the Crags, and then ascended at great speed, gliding in amidst the upstanding wedges of the dusky tors. The Grïmnørsland knights and cavalrymen, who had been sharpening their swords and oiling their armour, paused in their tasks. They looked up at the ethereal bubble, lustrous against the gloomy escarpments, sunlight-gilded. Their eyes followed it until it vanished. ‘Good Fortune go with thee, Lady in the Moon,’ they murmured.

Good fortune did not favour Asr
ă
thiel, however. In the dying afternoon she flew
Lightfast
down the gasping throats of soaring chasms and across clefts brimming with darkness, towards the place she had seen the guides taking Thorgild. At length, arousing herself from brooding upon Uabhar’s atrocities, she realised with sudden shock that the enemy might spy the balloon and follow her to the hidden entrance. She was about to retreat when it occurred to her that perhaps she could twist this handicap to advantage. By feigning a landing at some spot far from the tunnel’s door she could mislead anyone who might be watching. When night fell she could rise again under cover of darkness and alight closer to her destination, before ditching the aircraft down a crevasse where it would be hard to find and proceeding the rest of the way on foot.

To avoid the place, first she had to know its position. As she searched for the entrance to Ironstone Keep, arrows began whizzing towards her from some rocky rampart and she knew enemy marksmen had already spied her. The barrage did not worry her at first, for she skilfully kept out of range, but as the sun finally slipped beyond view and she caught, at last, a glimpse of the location she sought, flaming bolts began to sizzle out of the dusk, close at hand. The weathermage tried to dodge them, but a fiery bolt lodged in the balloon’s rigging and flames took hold of the fabric. As it sailed over a sharp ridge the balloon shuddered and collapsed inwards, releasing a storm of sparks.

There was to be no saving the aerostat. It would crash down to the rocks below. The enemy would be able to locate the brightly glowing wreckage easily, and the pilot did not wish to be discovered there too.
Lightfast
gently tumbled out of the night sky, blazing, and Asr
ă
thiel fell with it. Or rather, she jumped.

Just before she let go the rope and threw herself into thin air, a primeval voice within her skull screamed in terror, and every particle of her mortal ancestry revolted against taking such a suicidal plunge. Deep-rooted instinct flashed vivid memories of joy through her mind; times spent with her cherished parents, Avalloc, William, Dristan, Albiona, Corisande and Cavalon and others; she remembered laughing until her sides ached; whirling on a crowded dance floor; drowsing by the fireside at night, listening to raindrops pattering on the roof . . . and she hesitated. A sheet of flame blasted from the shrivelling envelope across her field of vision, and at that moment she saw instead the faces of her betrayed kindred, and felt the anguish of voiceless beasts doomed to enslavement, torment and death through the agency of humankind, and then eternity unrolled like a path before her feet, leading nowhere. At that instant nothing seemed to matter any more and she released her grip.

Even as she hurtled towards the ground with the wind booming in her ears she could hear the sound of
Lightfast
’s priceless sun-crystal being smashed to smithereens against some adamantine cliff. In those few moments it took to fall three hundred feet her mind cleared and she became extraordinarily calm. Composedly she took note of her surroundings so that when she landed she would know where she was in relation to the secret and tortuous route to the door of Ironstone Keep. It came to her, too, that everything in fact mattered a great deal. Curiously, it was the urisk she thought of, though briefly; that immortal creature Crowthistle. He lived, and so must she.

He had lived forever.

And so would she, regardless.

On the rocky rampart, Ashqalêthan snipers watched the sky-balloon’s demise and believed they had destroyed one of the weathermasters aiding Narngalis. ‘The mage sprang from the stricken vessel to avoid the flames, and fell to his death down a crevasse,’ they said, when reporting their success to Chohrab. The ailing King of Ashqalêth jubilantly and mistakenly told Uabhar that one of the last remaining weathermasters had been slain, and the King of Slievmordhu was gratified.

‘It is most likely the Storm Lord’s granddaughter who has fallen,’ said he with a smirk. ‘There was talk the chit had some shield of enchantment about her, but if she hurled herself from the basket to avoid being burned alive she must have been as perishable as the rest of us. Now the age-raddled Storm Lord is the only remaining threat.’

Contrary to Uabhar’s deductions Asr
ă
thiel had jumped from the balloon, fallen three hundred feet and landed safely. Not so much as a bruise marred her flawless skin; not so much as a fingernail was chipped. After her body slammed into a rocky outcrop at high speed she merely picked herself up and looked around, trying to get her bearings.

She had guessed it would be that way.

Never had she taken the testing of her invulnerability to such limits, but there was no reason to suppose that plummeting from a great height could cause her injury, any more than fire, or water, or disease, or any bane of mortalkind had ever touched her.

Having survived the fall unscathed the damsel found herself standing on a ledge above a whistling, echoing gorge, deeply cloven. Overhead the stars were coming out, and by their feeble light, combined with her heightened sense of the atmosphere, she was able to discern her surroundings. Along tiny ledges jutting only inches from sheer walls she made her way. If the shelves petered out she dropped fearlessly to footholds further down the cliff face in a manner that would have made the most intrepid mountaineer think twice. If she missed her purchase she slid out of control, only to be brought up on the next projection, bones unbroken, flesh intact. She swung from rocky arches, climbed scarps and leaped across gulfs that would have made mortal hearts quail, and her strength never failed, though her heart pounded with excitement.

In this way the weathermage came, at length, near the door of Ironstone Keep well before Prince Ronin’s battalion. King Warwick’s watchmen, who had seen the balloon destroyed, spied her. Recognising her immediately they first poised stockstill, jaws agape—for, ignorant of her immortality, they had believed her to be dead, killed in the balloon crash. Overcoming their astonishment the men were filled with joy, and sent word to the two kings inside the fortress, who, greatly gladdened, sent mounted men-at-arms to escort the damsel to their inner sanctuary. By the time Ronin’s troops appeared, Asr
ă
thiel was safely within.