The Singing (7 page)

They set off at a leisurely pace. It was still dark, and the road glimmered faintly beneath them. Keru, Maerad's mare, was clearly wishing that she was back in a warm stable, although she said nothing; she carried Maerad as she promised she would, but there was no willingness in her step. Maerad thought of Imi, and hoped that she was happy in Murask. No doubt she was safer than she would be with Maerad, but Maerad missed her all the same.

After a while the sky lightened to a faint gray, but the day brought no relief; the wind lifted and it began to rain. They quickened their pace: they planned to stay that night at an inn in Barcombe, a hard day's ride from Innail, and both were anxious to get there as swiftly as they could. The countryside was bare and wintry, and gave them little incentive to dawdle. Maerad's hands were freezing, even though she was wearing thick silk gloves, and her face began to turn numb. The farther they rode, the colder it became: soon it became unbearable. Maerad hunched miserably on Keru in a futile attempt to retain the little fugitive warmth in her body.

Cadvan pulled Darsor up, and Keru drew to a halt beside him. "I like not this cold," he said. "The wind has an unnatural taste."

Her wits slowed by the cold, Maerad stared at him, missing his meaning.

"Weatherworking, I think," said Cadvan. He was scanning the sky anxiously. "And powerful weatherworking, too. It must be the Landrost. Maerad, I am thinking it is a bad time to be out in the open."

Maerad turned Keru around, looked up at the sky, and swore viciously. They had been riding uphill, and the valley slanted down in front of her back toward Innail. The School itself was hidden in the murk, but Maerad could see black clouds building to the east of them in the distance beyond Innail. Even from this far it was clear that they were veined with strange lightning. There was a faint tang in the air, like the smell of burned metal, that left a sour taste in her mouth, and an oppression in her mind. She wondered why she hadn't noticed it before.

She and Cadvan had discussed the risk of being caught on the road during one of the Landrost's attacks. All previous attacks had been at night, and near Tinagel, and they had judged they ought to be reasonably safe if they left early and traveled fast. Fighting alone in the open against the Landrost's wers was the worst possible chance: they would have very little likelihood of survival.

"We can't stay here," she said. "Stormont is not so far— perhaps we could ride there."

"I'm thinking that Stormont will be no shelter against an attack like this," Cadvan answered. "But that storm looks as if it is heading for Innail, Maerad. Indik said that he was expecting an attack on the School very soon. And the Landrost knows that if he can destroy Innail, the rest of the vale is his."

For a moment they stared at each other, the same thought in both their minds. Then they pushed the horses on so sharply that Keru stumbled, and began to ride for their lives back to Innail. The road was straight before them, and Darsor stretched flat into a full gallop. Keru began to fall behind.

Faster, Keru,
Maerad cried to her mare.

I'm—trying,
Keru said.
I cannot run as fast as Darsor—

J/
we do not reach Innail very soon, we will die. Do you understand?

Keru didn't answer: she plunged forward, her ears flat against her skull. Now they were bolting down the road; Darsor was still ahead of them, but the gap between them was not growing. Perhaps Cadvan, seeing that Maerad had fallen behind, had slowed Darsor down. Maerad leaned forward in the saddle, the wind of their speed lashing her hair into her mouth, all thought of the cold forgotten. How long had they been riding since they left Innail? An hour? Two hours? For much of that time they had ridden slowly because of the dark; they couldn't have come too far. And how hardy was Keru? Maerad didn't know how far her mare could be pushed. She urged her on, checking the sky when she could. Visibility was poor, as the rain was getting heavier and turning to hail, and she could no longer see the clouds in the east. Perhaps they would be too late, perhaps they would find themselves outside the walls of Innail when the Landrost's forces attacked, caught between the hammer and the nail.

She concentrated on keeping Darsor and Cadvan in sight and staying on the road; the sleet drove into her eyes, but she strained to see ahead, knowing she had to guide Keru, who was running blind. Huge rolls of thunder boomed in the distance, and she could feel the mare panicking beneath her.

It's all right, my beauty,
she said to the mare.
Just keep on. We're getting there ...

I hope,
Maerad added silently to herself.
I hope we're getting there.
It felt as if it were taking too long. Her maimed left hand had been aching with the cold all morning, but now it was really hurting her. She began to worry that they had taken a wrong turning; but they had passed no forks in the road—there was no wrong turning here. There were evil voices in the wind, she was sure: screams and howls that came from throats. It was rising all the time, with powerful gusts that sometimes threatened to push them off the road, and the mingled sleet and hail and rain stung her face. She could feel Keru tiring beneath her.

At last Maerad saw a light burning through the veils of rain. She would have cried out with relief if she was not so breathless: Innail was in sight. Keru saw it too, and put on an extra burst of speed, catching up at last with Darsor. They were going so fast they almost slammed into the heavy oaken gates.

The gates were shut fast, and Maerad's Bard sense told her that they were held with powerful magery as well as iron bars; the wards almost made her head buzz. Of course they were shut: after her initial shock, Maerad realized that they would hardly be open if Innail was under imminent attack.

Cadvan stood up in his stirrups and thrust his arms high in the air, making a blinding light around him, and shouted in a great voice:
"Lirean! Lirean noch Dhillarearean!"

Maerad thought there was little chance that anyone could hear him above the storm. And even if they did, would they open the gates? She began to shout with Cadvan, fighting the panic that assailed her at the thought that they might be trapped outside the walls.

She had almost given up hope when the gate suddenly swung inward. Behind it a cloaked figure was waving them in; whoever it was shouted too, but their words were torn away by the wind. Darsor and Keru didn't have to be told to go inside: as soon as the gap was wide enough, they pushed through. The gate slammed shut behind them, and half a dozen people heaved the heavy iron bars back into place.

It suddenly seemed very quiet.

Maerad swung off Keru, who stood with head down, her chest heaving, wet and trembling all over.

Well done, Keru,
she whispered in the mare's ears, patting her neck. Then she turned to thank the person who had let them in, and saw it was Silvia.

"Thank the Light," said Silvia, clutching Maerad to her breast and then embracing Cadvan. "I told them it was you. I knew soon after you left that it had been a mistake."

Maerad hugged her tightly, and then stood back, because she was as wet as if she had jumped into a pond. "I'd better put Keru in the stables," she said.

"And I must see to Darsor too," said Cadvan. "Silvia, we'll take care of the horses and change our clothes. And maybe then we can work out how we can be of best use to you."

"Malgorn is in the Watch House. Meet us there, as soon as you can. I have to hurry. There are too many things to do." Silvia drew herself up and Maerad saw with a small shock that underneath her cloak she was wearing mail. She had never thought of Silvia as a warrior. "This is the attack that we all feared was coming. I can't pretend that we don't need all the help we can get. I'm grateful you're here, Cadvan."

Cadvan clasped Silvia's shoulder, and she nodded at both of them and left. They stood for a moment, listening to the howls of the wind.

"Well," Cadvan said, picking up Darsor's reins. "Once more into the storm, Darsor; but at least this time there's hay at the end of it." He turned to Maerad. "Better here than outside," he said. "But still, I have a feeling it's going to be a long day."

THEY rode the short distance to the stables at a gallop, fighting the wind all the way, and one of Indik's apprentices, looking pale, took the horses in hand. There they threw on some dry clothes from their packs, in one of the empty stalls: there wasn't time to run to the Bardhouse. That morning when she had dressed, Maerad had only thought of warmth: it had been foolish, she reflected, not to put on her mail coat. Now she slipped it over her head with a shiver. While she rummaged in her pack, her hand clasped the blackstone, sliding across its strange surface. She didn't like touching it, and dropped it at once. Then she picked it up, more slowly, and put it around her neck.

Maerad peered out of the stable door into the chaos beyond: even in the short time they had spent in the stables, the storm had worsened. It was now almost as dark as night, although it couldn't have been much past midmorning, and the air was bitterly cold. Torn branches and other objects were skidding down the narrow roads between the buildings. It looked dangerous simply to step outside.

"Shield yourself, Maerad," said Cadvan in her ear. "We're going to have to make a run for it, and you don't want to be knocked over by a flying tree."

She paused for a moment, shielding herself with magery, and then she and Cadvan left the warm refuge of the stables and began to run to the Watch House. The shield protected Maerad from the storm, and the light of the magery made it a little easier to see, although it was disconcerting when leaves and other debris blew straight at her face and then slid past. Rain, hail, and sleet were driven so violently by the wind that they spurted horizontally from the eaves of the buildings. Maerad heard a crash behind her—a tree, probably, falling onto a house or a wall. She didn't look back. Even with her shielding, the storm was terrifying. Such a storm could only be summoned by the Landrost.
This,
Maerad thought, is
why Bards distrust the Elidhu: this blind, amoral power, turned to utter destructiveness.

They were almost at the Watch House, a small stone tower which rose over the gates, when a terrible shriek sounded almost in Maerad's ear and something hit her shield from behind. Even protected as she was, she was almost knocked sprawling, and she called to Cadvan as she leaped sideways, backing up against a wall and drawing her sword. She couldn't see what had hit her, but she had felt a deathly cold, of a different quality from the freezing air, push past her like a wave.

Up,
said Cadvan into her mind.
Did you not see the wings?

I didn't see anything,
Maerad said.
And my hearing doesn't work in this noise.

Wers, I think,
said Cadvan.
And flying... they must have come over the wards.
He was squinting into the sky.
With this magelight, we're clear targets. I can't see anything up there, but that thing came down out of nowhere. I'd barely sensed it before it was gone...

Maerad was surprised to find that she wasn't afraid.
The Watch House isn't far,
she said.

Cadvan nodded, and they made a final dash, zigzagging down the street like rabbits dodging an eagle. Two guards stood by the door, sheltered very minimally by a porch, and let them in without comment.

"There are winged wers out," Cadvan shouted over the wind as they entered the door. "Beware."

One of the guards nodded to indicate he had heard, but he didn't look alarmed. He was probably too cold, Maerad thought; the skin on his face looked blue.

The door swung shut, and the sound of the storm was suddenly muted. Maerad sighed unconsciously with relief: the screaming of the wind was almost as unbearable as the cold. They stood in a small, bare room of undressed stone lit by a single lamp, but it seemed almost homey after the chaos outside.

"I expect Malgorn will be at the top," said Cadvan, gesturing toward a flight of stairs. Maerad nodded, and they wound their way to the top room. Like everything else in the Watch House, the room was without decoration, save for the horse emblem of Innail carved in relief on the wall above the wide hearth, where a fire burned. The storm rattled the shutters of the windows, and Maerad suddenly felt claustrophobic. What was going on outside? In the middle of the room was a broad wooden table surrounded by chairs, and the Bards of Innail's First Circle were gathered around it, deep in discussion.

Malgorn turned as Cadvan and Maerad came up the last steps, and waved them over. "Wise of you to come back," he said.

"The weather took a turn for the worse," said Cadvan. "And I have some bad news. A winged wer swooped down on Maerad as we came over here."

"A wer?" Silvia looked up, her face pale. "Malgorn, I told you the wards were not enough."

"The warding spells worked well enough in Tinagel," said Malgorn sharply. Their conversation had the air of an old argument. "And it's all we can do. We're stretched thinly enough as it is."

"Aye, we are." Indik looked grim. "This is a different attack from Tinagel, Malgorn; the weatherworking has an ill feel about it. This is no mere storm, though the Light knows that was bad enough at Tinagel. There's the smell of sorcery in the air. And I

sense something approaching that I haven't felt before. I like it not."

Maerad blinked. Indik was right: there was a presence, a sense of menace that she had only noted subliminally, that grew in intensity with every moment. It was unsettlingly familiar ...

"I recognize that presence," said Cadvan. "I remember it all too well. It is the Landrost."

A sudden appalled silence fell over the table. Of all the Bards, only Indik looked unmoved.

"I thought the Elementals could not leave their place," said Kelia, a short Bard who sat to the left of Malgorn, her dark brows drawn into a fierce frown. "I thought that the Landrost was bound to his mountain."

"They don't like to leave," said Maerad. The Bards turned to her, listening gravely. "Arkan—the Winterking—told me that it is to them like losing their being. But that doesn't mean that they can't."

"Would he be weaker for being away from his mountain?" asked Indik dubiously, pulling at his lower lip.

"I don't know." Maerad looked helplessly around the table. The six most powerful Bards in Innail sat before her. In battle, each of them was worth a rank of soldiers; and yet she felt her heart quailing within her. "But—there's a taste like sorcery in the air. The Elidhu are not sorcerers."

Indik flashed her a sharp glance.

"You think that there's some Hullish business here too?" he asked. Maerad shrugged. "There have been no Hulls in any other attacks. It's the one thing I've been grateful for. Well..."

He straightened himself, and looked around the table.

"Clearly, the wards have been breached by wers," he said. "I think they should be maintained, all the same. I sent out scouts early this morning, as soon as I smelled the weather, and they tell me there is an army of mountain men marching this way; they will be here soon. And there will be wers on the ground, to be sure." Suddenly his eyes went blank, as if he were listening to something no one else could hear. The other Bards watched him in silence, waiting courteously; Indik was mind-touching, in silent conversation with a Bard on the walls. At last he looked up. "Kelavar tells me that outriding forces have been sighted outside the east wall. They can't tell how many, visibility is very poor, but the flying wers are playing havoc in the town. Not much damage, but a lot of panic. Again, they don't know how many. He thinks five wers have been killed."

Malgorn frowned, stood up, and walked over to the fireplace. Maerad watched him anxiously. She liked Malgorn, and recognized his strengths; but she suspected that he was not a Bard of war. She looked inquiringly at Cadvan.

"The weakest place, as ever, is the gate," said Cadvan. "If the Landrost himself marches with his forces, he will lodge his fiercest attack here. Still, we must give thought to the rest of the wall."

"We lack an army," said Malgorn. "Farmers who use swords as if they're cutting hay are no match, no matter how brave . . . and yes, we have great Bards here. But too few." He said this almost in a whisper.

Indik's face darkened. "Malgorn, we have no time now for lamentation or regret," he said. "The Light knows that we may have plenty of time later. Yes, we have not enough soldiers, not enough mages. It seems to me that the Landrost aims to crush us utterly. The Dark marches with him. I admit, things do not look hopeful for us. So let us bend our thoughts to how best to use the strengths we have."

He glowered around the table, and the other Bards nodded. Malgorn flushed, and looked down at his hands. Silvia glanced at him, her face unreadable. She was very pale, but her jaw was set and determined. There was steel in Silvia, thought Maerad, that Malgorn lacked, and she wondered why Silvia had not been made First Bard. For the first time since she had entered the Watch House, Maerad felt a sudden focus of energy, a surge of purpose. As Indik began to outline how he saw the battle before them, she felt, despite the grim picture, a small flicker of hope.

Indik had a realistic notion of what Innail was up against. He had set captains at intervals around the walls of Innail, who communicated with him through mindspeech. Each was in charge of varying numbers of Bards and soldiers and bands of volunteers drawn from the valley population. There were too few of them, as Malgorn had said, and too few skilled or hardened warriors. They were armed with swords and bows— although in the chaos of the storm, arrows were next to useless—and vats of tar and boiling oil and stones to throw on the heads of the attackers. Indik had a select band of highly trained warriors, both horsed and on foot, whom he kept by the gates.

He had encountered the mountain men before, and he knew them as hard fighters, ruthless, cunning, and unafraid. He was more worried than he liked to admit about the probability that the Landrost was exploiting both Elemental powers and Dark sorcery. He could calculate the odds of battle as well as anyone, and he had measured the strength of wers in other battles in the valley; he figured that even if the wers had breached the wards that he and Malgorn had set in the walls, Innail still had a fighting chance. The presence of the Landrost was an imponderable; until they met him in battle, they wouldn't know his strength. Indik was one of those who believed the Landrost was the same figure as Karak, who in the

Great Silence had laid waste the lost realm of Indurain. If he was correct, they were up against one of the most powerful of the Nameless One's allies.

When he thought about it, Innail didn't stand a chance. But Indik was stubborn; the worse the odds, the harder he would fight. While he still breathed, Innail falling to the Landrost was something he was not prepared to contemplate.

Like Cadvan, Indik reckoned that the major force would be brought against the gates, but he thought their strength of soldiery should be deployed along the walls. "There we will most likely face siege ladders," he said. "And if the town is not to be razed behind our backs, we will need to fight them off. The wards will help, but I am not sure whether they will be enough, especially if the wers can simply fly over them. I am very disturbed that they are already breached. I don't understand why they haven't flown a whole wer army over the walls already."

"Perhaps only the powerful wers can break the wards," suggested Maerad. She was thinking of the first battle she had ever faced, against wers in the wilds of the Indurain: Cadvan had made a barrier then to protect them, and the wers had changed their wolf shapes in order to fly over it. "Or are they waiting?"

"The former, I think," said Malgorn. "We are not stupid: we know that wers shapeshift, and can become winged. These wards were set when Tinagel was attacked, and they do not work like walls. Not even a hostile bird should be able to pass them."

Indik nodded. "I think we should concentrate our strength of magery at the gate. If the Landrost breaks the gate, the wards will fail also. Maerad, do you know how to fight an Elidhu?"

"No," said Maerad.

"That's not quite true," Cadvan said impatiently. "You held back the Landrost even before you were in your full powers."

"I've never fought an Elidhu," said Maerad. "I don't know how." Indik's question made her feel sick with panic; she saw that she was his main hope. Suddenly a major part of the responsibility for defending Innail was on her shoulders, and she didn't know if she would be any help at all. She met Indik's gaze; he was studying her, his face inscrutable, weighing the odds. With a slight shock, she realized that on his face was the same expression as when he tried a new sword: he was calculating the merit of a weapon, testing its temper and edge.

"Maerad, you know much more about the Elementals than any of us; none of us have even seen one," said Indik. "I don't expect you to single-handedly strike the Landrost down, but I will be relying on your sense of him. Especially any sense you have of weakness. And you too, Cadvan: you were his prisoner for a time. In the coming hours, the smallest detail might swing things in our favor."

"The first thing is the storm," said Malgorn, frowning. "I've had all the Bards I can spare weatherworking since the clouds were first seen, to no avail. The winds will not hear us. Cadvan, I know you can weatherwork; perhaps you could use your powers there? It would free me up."

"Of course," said Cadvan. "It may be an idea for Maerad to help here too. Maerad?"