The Door into Sunset (50 page)

The clearing was close. He pushed between two last trees and was caught again, and tore himself free at last, panting for air: but not before the calm figure sitting in a chair in the middle of the clearing had opened its eyes and looked at him, with only mild surprise. Rian sat there in one of the old chairs Herewiss recognized from Freelorn’s bedroom: and in his hands he held a cubit-long piece of white wood, filigreed in silver. He rolled it between his hands, idly, while he watched Herewiss.

“I thought you might try this,” Rian said, his voice almost admiring. “It says much that you got this far: the other Rodmistresses who’ve tried have died of it.

“Nonetheless,” Rian said, and got not another word out, because Herewiss lifted Khávrinen and focused all his Fire through it, and put a bolt of it straight into the man’s brain.Rian froze expressionless as the Flame washed over him—and then laughed at Herewiss, not unkindly. “Come now,” he said, “this is
my
mind we’re in this time. I rule here, as you ruled in yours, however marginally—”

“This is
not
your mind,” Herewiss said, lowering Khávrinen and trying to think of something else that might work. “This is one of the overworlds, you know perfectly well—”

“But it’s in my Master’s mind now,” Rian said, “and so in mine. We are very nearly one. Just a little more power is needed to bring about His rebirth in the physical world.” Rian looked thoughtfully at Herewiss. “I wonder if that would do?”

He was looking at Khávrinen. Herewiss gripped it—

The sword was wrenched from him and went spinning off through the air, into Rian’s hands. Herewiss fell to his knees with a cry of pain, discovering that having your focus taken from you against your will felt much like having your heart ripped out. His own Fire still lived and bound Herewiss to his focus, but it was anguish feeling Khávrinen in that other’s hand—like feeling the sword of your sex held for idle examination in the hand of someone intent on your rape, or at least on your use. No Fire leapt about Khávrinen now; it was just gray steel with a faint blue sheen, a sword that in the thin pale light of the clearing looked clumsily made --

Herewiss knelt frozen there, held by Rian’s will. Whatever made me come straight into his place of power?! But the answer to that was plain. The Shadow was not above causing Its victims to act in accord with their own weaknesses: and his pride had been making trouble for Herewiss in his dealings with Rian since they first started. And he’s much stronger than he was before— “Khávrinen!” he whispered: but the sword was captive as he was, and could not come to him.

“It might do,” Rian said, musing. He leaned Khávrinen against the arm of his chair with as much regard as if it were a broomstick. “There’s a fair amount of Fire trapped in the steel just keeping it alive, and as long as you’re not touching it, it could be made amenable to use by another in no great time—”

Impossible
! Herewiss thought—but to his own horror, he now wasn’t sure that Rian couldn’t do what he claimed. He struggled, but his body was not his own, and remained as still as so much stone. “You’ve also been thieving elsewhere, I see,” Herewiss gasped—at least he could still speak. “Where is Cillmod?”

Rian shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. When Lionhall fell, I managed to rescue the one piece that was worth keeping, since an Initiate needs this silly stick to be acknowledged as King. Cillmod hardly matters, now that there is an Initiate. Freelorn will do as well as King as any other brat of Héalhra’s blood, once his will is burnt out and he’s tamed to our use. No great work, that, once my Lord is reborn.”

Herewiss thought he couldn’t even shudder, and then found that he could, as Cillmod picked up Khávrinen again and bent his attention upon it. “Let’s see,” he said. Herewiss felt the draining start, as if the Fire and his soul were being pulled out of him in a thin, strong thread, cutting like wire, spinning, spinning away. That throbbing that Herewiss had felt started to quicken. It was visual, now, as well; the shadows under the trees getting shadowier with each beat, darkness gathering. A few more beats, just a very few more, and Herewiss was afraid he would hear a breath drawn, hear the voice speak which it would be final madness to hear.
Khávrinen
!! he cried in mind. But no answer came. The darkness deepened—

Until the whole clearing flushed with light, and the deepening twilight that had filled it suddenly became dawn, with a vengeance. In the middle of the clearing stood a column of fire, licking up into the canopy overhead, and heat washed over Herewiss.

Now,
Sunspark said.
You have someone of mine. I will have him back.

Rian laughed at Sunspark too, and though Herewiss could see nothing of his face through the pillar of wreathing flames, his voice did not now sound quite so assured as it had. “Oh,” he said to Herewiss, “it’s your pet. Didn’t it learn the last time—”

Herewiss grinned. Rian had met Sunspark in its physical shapes in the real world, and had half-confirmed what Herewiss had himself suspected—the habit of living in a shape, and much trying to be human, had left it less fiery, more physical. But this was the otherworld, and freed of form as it was here, Sunspark was another story entirely.

Find out, manling,
it said, and leapt: not at him, but into the trees, streaking into the depths of them unhindered, a firestorm on the run. All the great boles kindled, and the shadows beneath them were forced back. Out and out Sunspark spiraled, until all that could be seen in any direction was the darker smoking red of heavy growth burning, and the brighter fire of needles and branches exploding into flame.Rian’s concentration broke as he saw his sorceries, both the warfetter and the dark birth he was assisting, threatened by this destruction. Herewiss staggered to his feet, held out his hands: Khávrinen tore itself from Rian’s grip and leapt into them. Sunspark came arrowing back into the clearing from behind Rian, and arched upward. Its blinding flames fell and wreathed about Rian with devouring force, and this time there was a scream, one quickly cut off.

Sunspark flowed away from the center of the clearing. Ashes drifted on the smoky, burning wind... nothing else.

Herewiss looked around at the inferno, the symbol of Rian’s sorcery going to pieces. That darkness, though, was unhurt, flowing among the burning trees: only the structure of the sorcery was destroyed. But it was enough for this moment.
Let’s get out of here!

Well enough.
It vanished. Herewiss clutched Khávrinen to him in relief and terror, and hurriedly took the long step backward into his body—

*

“Lorn, oh Lorn, get up,” someone was begging him. Freelorn rolled over and moaned, and his head hit a rock. He blinked at blinding light. His eyes were dry, and even closing them was agony: the light itself was terrible after the black silence he’d been in, but he wouldn’t have given it up for anything.

Blanis was trying to pull him up off the ground, and doing surprisingly well, for one so small. “Come on,” she was pleading with him, “hurry up, the Queen needs you!”

He managed to roll to his knees. “How long was it?” he said, and coughed: his throat was dry too.

Something shoved him hard in the side, so that he almost fell over. He clutched at what pushed him, but it was only Blackmane, nosing him worriedly, as he always did when Freelorn fell off, or down. Horses were not affected by warfetter spells: at the moment, Freelorn suspected this was simply because they were too stupid. “I’m all right,” he said, aggrieved, “keep your nosebag on!” Blanis helped him up, and Freelorn staggered: all his muscles were jumping with tics, a side effect of warfetter, probably. Better than the other side effect, which is being dead.... “What’s happening?”

“It was about twenty minutes,” Blanis said. “We’ve got about a thousand dead, or in coma. The rest are like you.”

“Oh, that’s just wonderful,” Freelorn said, and worked on remounting Blackmane through the dizziness from standing up suddenly. It took several tries.

Blanis was looking around her, confused. “Where is she? Oh—” She caught sight of the Lion banner, lying on the ground.

“Disappeared,” Freelorn said wearily. “She does that. Here, pick that up.” Blanis lifted up the banner, and Lorn shook his head as she offered it to him. “Sorry,” he said, “that’s going to be your job until we can find someone else to carry it. I’ve got something else to carry.” He unsheathed Hergótha. “Take the tack off her saddle. No, don’t try riding Steelsheen!—she’s a one-woman horse. Just turn her loose. She may get killed, but no Arlene will ride her, anyway.”

Blanis worked at Segnbora’s saddle breathlessly, while Steelsheen rolled her eyes and watched her suspiciously. “The Arlenes are moving,” Blanis said. “Herewiss did something again, the Queen doesn’t know what yet. Their main force is coming right at us.”

“Makes perfect sense,” Freelorn said. “They think we’re all lying on the ground, still, and ripe to have our throats cut. If I were the Queen, I’d tell my front lines to stay lying right where they are. With their pikes ready. And when the first riders come through—”

Blanis’s eyebrows went up at that, and her eyes went vague for a moment. “The Queen says you have a nasty mind,” she said then, “and she’ll give order for that. There are some pikes down that way, nearest the Road, and cavalry to support them around the bend at the wood at Lower Hetasb.”

“How far has the main army come?” Freelorn said.

Blanis was working on her own saddle now. “Their van is into the Ridings—their rear is still just passing the Vintners’ Rise. Our foremost cavalry is putting itself back together in a hurry, what there is of it.”

“How many?”

Blanis mounted up and started wrestling the Lion banner into place. “About nine hundred now,” she said. “Some of the rear cavalry group have come up to fill in.”

“I take it the groups that were in front of the main march of Arlenes are scattered all over this part of the world by now,” he said.

Blanis nodded as they started to canter northward. “That lightning... I really
do
want to meet your friend. Yes, they’re half of them about three miles north of Elsbede, and the other half somewhere south of Daharba on the near side, as far as we can tell. They’re running. And who would blame them?”

“Not me,” Freelorn said. He stood up in his stirrups as they went, to see a bit more. The Brightwood’s white banner was still up, and moving, far ahead and off to their right: between him and them, the Eagle banner rode, pushing down the road, much faster than the Brightwood levies were. Lorn looked at this, and said, “She wants us to hang back too?”

“For the moment.”

Other riders were gathering around them now, a crowd of muddy surcoats, bloody swords; but what stood out were the faces—some pained, some eager, some strangely cool. Freelorn held Hergótha up for them to see as he rode, and a kind of growl went up from the men and women who rode with him: appreciation, anticipation, anger. “Our turn now,” Freelorn said. The growl got louder.

They were running parallel with the road now, about two miles from the Arlid. Prydon was visible, silhouetted against the later afternoon light, the Sun declining to the south of it, its reddening light gilding the heights of Araf and Telgide and the other hills west of the southern townlands. The remains of the thunderclouds were blowing away northward to the Sea on the prevailing winds that blew this time of year: other more benign cloudcover was coming in behind and above them, long curdled streaks and mare’s-tails. The ground they rode now was badly chopped up with earlier engagements, and the bodies of people and horses lay about, making their own mounts snort and shy. Soon they would be into the eastern townlands, and the going would be worse yet: not this open meadowland, but hedgerows, fences, people’s houses—

Freelorn looked ahead and saw, on his left, the wood that comes curving down from the stony height of Esheh to within about half a mile of the Road. “There,” he said. “Is that where she wants us to brace this wing?”

Blanis looked at it, for a moment, with someone else’s eyes. “Yes,” she said. “The Brightwood people will rest their battle across the Road from you, against the northern slopes of the Rise.”

“Right,” Freelorn said. To the riders around them, he called, “In there, people! Among the trees and in front of them, and as high up the slope as is safe for what you’re riding.” He looked at the sheerer western side of Esheh, and added, “Any of you riding goats?”

There was laughter at this, and some of the troops around who were on Steldenes or other mountain-breds went on ahead to secure the western side. Lorn watched them go along, and many others follow, perhaps three hundred horse who had come after his banner: behind them, filling in the gaps among the riders, came a couple of hundred light-armed foot, and finally some straggling pikes. Freelorn looked back, saw more coming, and said to the pikers as he rode in among them, “Up front, people, on the slope: nothing really to do there—just don’t let anyone through.” Grim smiles showed at that.

He stood in the stirrups again and looked northward. The Brightwood people were steady around the northern spur of the Rise now, a great glitter of pikes in the low sunlight, their horse shifting and fitting themselves to the slope. With reason: off westward was a great dark mass coming, horse and pikes behind, the Arlenes, pushing forward fast. Very fast indeed—

In the center, the Eagle banner had begun to slide backwards, the horse and pikes around it giving ground eastward.
What’s the matter?
Lorn thought, his gut twisting with worry, as he watched the van of the Arlene army hurrying toward the Darthenes.
Why isn’t Eftgan holding, there should be no problem, she has plenty of support there—
And the Arlene rear was moving much too fast. The mist was starting to rise early as it did in the autumn, and the ground behind the Arlenes was somewhat obscured: but, squinting, Lorn thought that he saw some other force coming up behind the Arlenes, but scattered, not formed up—

Someone cried out up on the slope. Among the trees there was a crashing of branches, and a screech, not human: Freelorn saw a shadowy shape up there, and a horse toppled, screaming in pain. “Fyrd,” he screamed, “look out, there are Fyrd up there—!”