Voice of the Lost : Medair Part 2 (3 page)

"
I DO NOT NAME YOU ENEMY, MEDAIR AN RYNSTAR.  YOU, AS I, SEEK PEACE, AN END TO WAR.  YOU FELL INTO THE HANDS OF THE WHITE SNAKES AND LOST PERSPECTIVE, REACTED TO THE MOMENT RATHER THAN THE LARGER PICTURE.  THERE WILL BE NO PEACE WHILE A SINGLE COLD SNAKE THINKS TO RULE FARAKKIAN TERRITORY.  THERE WILL BE NO END TO WAR UNTIL THE ROT IS CUT OUT.  CAN YOU DENY THAT?
"

Medair suspected he was right, but shied from the slaughter he seemed to consider the solution.  Did Estarion plan to hunt down every Ibisian on Farakkan, after razing Athere?  What of those like Ileaha, who were also Farakkian?  Or those with barely a drop of cold blood?  And yet, and yet–   She started to raise a hand to her head, then restrained herself, too aware of all who watched her through the gloom.  Ibisians.  White Snakes.  She would not show weakness before them.

"
AFTER THE BATTLE, SEEK ME OUT, MEDAIR AN RYNSTAR.  THERE IS SOMEONE I WISH YOU TO MEET; A TRUE DESCENDANT OF THE ONE TO WHOM YOU GAVE OATH.
"

He was talking of the heir he supported – or used as banner and excuse for war.  Said to descend from Verium, her Emperor's son, a line long kept hidden and protected until the moment came to return them too their rightful place on the Silver Throne.  And Medair knew very well that it was possible, that Verium had been involved with the woman said to have borne a true Corminevar heir.  Had she turned her back on him, this Tarsus, so-called Emperor-in-Exile?

And it was all too long ago, too muddied and tangled.  For Kier Inelkar descended from Medair's Emperor as well, and her throne had been won in conquest, making questions of legitimacy secondary.  More to the point, thousands of Farakkians, loyal Atherians with no drop of White Snake blood, would give their lives to protect their Kier.  To them, Decia was nothing but an invader, and Tarsus an irrelevancy.

Numbness gripped Medair, the crushing weight of impossible choice she had struggled with all year.  She shifted her gaze to the box which held what had been meant to be the salvation of the Empire.

"
NOW.  INELKAR.  HAS IT YET OCCURRED TO YOU THAT THE HORN OF FARAK WILL NOT ANSWER YOUR COLD BLOOD?
"

Estarion chuckled, a rumble of thunder in the night.  The glint of fire on metal served as lightning.  Out among the massed troops, torches were being lit.  They flared like stars, thousands upon thousands of points of light.  Medair's attention was briefly torn from the almost mesmeric influence of the metal-bound box.  She saw with a shudder that Estarion's army was holding aloft not torches, but burning swords.  The wind carried the tang of hot metal, and a faint whisper of words she could not understand.  Then Estarion's voice boomed again.

"
WHITE SNAKE, PALE INVADER.  YOU BURIED ANY TRACE OF FARAK BENEATH GENERATIONS OF OUTLAND BLOOD.  IT IS –
"

"Could he be right?" the Kier asked.

"
– A SOURCE OF AMAZEMENT TO ME THAT YOU COULD HOPE TO USURP –
"

"It is all too possible,
Ekarrel
," Antellar, the Keridahl Alar, replied.  "We were not certain what the Horn would do before the Conflagration, let alone in the world we now face.
"

"
– THIS AS WELL.  FARAK WILL NOT ANSWER YOU, INELKAR!  THE HORN OF FARAK SERVES THE CHILDREN OF FARAKKAN ALONE!  AND, MOST MAGNIFICENT IRONY, YOU HAVE OBTAINED A WEAPON YOU DARE NOT ALLOW BE USED BY ANY NOT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD.  FROZEN, CREEPING WHITE SNAKE.  HOW COULD YOU RISK GIVING THE HORN INTO THE HANDS OF ONE WHO TRULY IS OF THIS LAND?  DO YOU KNOW THE HEARTS OF THOSE YOU RULE?  OF THOSE WHO SHOULD BE RULING IN YOUR PLACE?  WHO WOULD THE WARRIORS OF FARAK CUT DOWN?
"

Who indeed?  Medair stared down at the box.  If she used the Horn, would Farak make the final judgment on who deserved death?  That was a path Medair had never thought to take, and it seemed to her both right and just.  Almost of its own volition, one of her hands lifted.

Cool fingers caught hers.

"There is compulsion in his words," Cor-Ibis murmured, lifting her hand to study tight-strapped bandages.  "This is a choice which, if you need to make it, should be made without such."  He added a word beneath his breath, the trigger for what must have been a dispell.  A cool breeze whisked away the cobwebs tangling Medair's thoughts.  She straightened, and looked first at his expressionless face, then at the box.

"
MAKE YOUR PEACE WITH YOUR GOD, INELKAR
," Estarion boomed, and Medair's shoulders tensed.  A compulsion in his words.  His prolonged speech to her had more purpose than demoralising those he was about to fight.  She could feel it now that it struck her afresh, not layered upon her behind the shield of words.

Cor-Ibis still held her hand, and she dragged her eyes from the box to his fingers.  They glowed faintly, paler even than her swathing of bandage.  The same old arguments trudged a circle in her mind.  Enemy, innocent, oath, trust, betrayal, loss, futility.  How many times did she have to chase the tail of her own internal rhetoric?  She had made her decision.

Momentarily, she tightened her clasp.  Cor-Ibis was not Ieskar.  He had never been her enemy.  Then she drew her hand free, and moved away from the Horn, looking inward towards the lights of the White Palace rather than the fires of the army at the gate.  She would not use the Horn.

"If Farak does not answer, She does not," Medair said, glancing at the Kier.  "But I have never heard that She picks and chooses.  All born to Farakkan are Her children."

"And you, Keris N'Taive?" Kier Inelkar asked the woman who had been outside the shield when wild magic's Conflagration had transformed the world and made her into Herald of a kingdom once thought dust.  "What is your judgment?"

"How could it be otherwise?" the Mersian Herald asked, her eyes shining with sincere faith.  "Farak is the mother of all."

Beyond the wall, the whisper had become a chant: steady, full-throated, accompanied by the tramp of booted feet.  The army had begun to move.  They would soon be within bow and spell-shot.

"Casting in the chant,
Ekarrel
," the Keridahl Alar said.

"Massive," Cor-Ibis added.  "As if the entire army is contributing."

"Is it possible?  Look to the walls, Antellar."

Protections were always set on the walls of Athere.  Over the day which had just passed, these enchantments had been reinforced along the southern reaches of Ahrenrhen.  Now, at a signal from Keridahl Antellar, they were strengthened to counteract anything which might be thrown at them in the first advance.

"Now we shall see if the air attack you predicted comes to pass, Keris N'Taive," Keridahl Antellar said.  "You are prepared, Cor-Ibis?"

Cor-Ibis inclined his head briefly.

"What of
–
" the Kier began, and everyone looked anxiously at her suddenly arrested stance, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowing.  Medair guessed that she was listening to a wend-whisper, a message sent by magic.

"Ekarrel?" asked the Kend, turning from whispering commands to her Das-kend.

"N'Taive, what is the 'Charaine Regiment'?" Kier Inelkar asked.

The Mersian gave the Kier a startled glance which meant she'd asked about something the Herald had assumed she could not
not
know.  But wild magic had made the world outside Athere nearly unrecognisable, transforming the loose clans of Mersians into a formidable power, and replacing three kingdoms with an inland sea.  A single regiment could have become anything.

"Charaine is the mountainous land to the south of the Forest of the Guardian," N'Taive replied, carefully.  "It is where most of your deskai are stationed.  The Regiment is a mainstay of Palladium's south-east defences."

"And what are 'deskai'?"

"Deskai..."  The Herald shook her head. "There were no deskai in the past where you lived?  How horrible!"  She made a gesture to acknowledge that now was not the moment to digress.  "Vecka, my mount, is part deskai.  They are shape-shifters, born to two forms, and to powers more enduring than most mage-cast."  She smiled obliquely.  "Tanis Araina will find it disconcerting to be forgotten.  Deskai are not easily put from the thoughts."

"Your horse can change shape?" asked the Kier, surprised.

"No.  Vecka is more horse than deskai.  They can breed to either race."

"I see.  It would seem this Tanis Araina hurries to our aid.  According to her wend-whisper, she is less than a quarter-measure away and regrets her failure to reach us before sunset."

"Wonderful!" exclaimed the Mersian.

Cor-Ibis lifted a hand, a short, sharp movement, adding a few hasty words beneath his breath.  The air shuddered, and Medair was nearly knocked from her feet by an invisible blow.  She had to clutch the smooth stone of the parapet to keep upright.

"A gate
,
" Cor-Ibis said tersely as the blast died away.  Medair's ears were ringing.  "Pass on to all points
,
" he ordered Avahn.  "If Estarion can produce a gate so soon after transporting his army here, we must focus much of our own defence on counteracting them.  Or allow the fight within the walls."

"How can he
–
?" Avahn asked, then restrained himself, obediently sending messages to mages throughout Athere.

But his question hung in the air, passing in glances between those who waited tensed for the next move.  A gate was beyond the strength of even adepts, and could only be produced by melding power in a grouped casting, or through the enhancement of a rahlstone.  The use of gates large and enduring enough to transport an army had already warned Athere's defenders that Estarion must have at his command dozens of mages of the highest calibre.  That there were enough casters to use gates in battle, in addition to the enchantments which would protect an attacking force from massed sleep or death, suggested immense superiority of both number and strength of casters...as the Palladian Empire's defenders had faced, when the Ibisians had invaded...

"It seems to me," the Kier said into the hush, "that the Horn must be used.  If it summons no aid, we have lost nothing.  We are outnumbered in a battle where the rules are no longer familiar.  I am willing to take the risk that we might hasten our deaths."  She signalled one of her attendants to fetch the box.

"In range," the Kend announced, and gave a command which sent a hail of arrows down on the approaching troops.  Selected mages added a drift of combative magic
–
flame darts, poison clouds, blood roses.  Medair stepped forward to see the volley hit, and flinched as one of the spells was reflected back to the top of Ahrenrhen.  There was a muffled shriek and a flurry of movement along the wall to the right, where the flame darts had caught a few unprepared.  Not so the southern troops, whose raised shields reflected the arrow shot.  Most of them hadn't even wavered in their chanting.

Only one of the defenders' spells had not been deflected or dispersed.  Medair could see a dull green cloud drifting over the first line of attacker, some distance to the east.  But, as she watched, a little whirlwind whipped it away.

With barely a pause, the first two ranks of attackers, all along the vast southern reach of Ahrenrhen, took two running steps forward and launched themselves into the air.  Not flying, exactly, but bounding up toward the top of the wall as if they weighed little more than thistledown.  Medair backed hastily away as Cor-Ibis snapped out a word of activation.

A blast of icy wind tossed the Southerners awry, and most of them were catapulted backwards to land in the midst of their troops, the upraised swords of their own forces doing more damage than their fall.  A few still reached the wall.  They were significantly outnumbered, but a giant now stood among Athere's defenders, far along the wall to Medair's right.

Barely had the first wave been flung away when another two ranks of soldiers leapt upwards.  Again Cor-Ibis raised a gale sufficient to knock the nearest back, but those further down the wall had not managed it.  Medair staggered as Keridahl Antellar disrupted another gate.  Cor-Ibis said something about set-spells, but Medair could barely hear him through the ringing in her ears.  And then came the song of the Horn, as the Kier opened the box.

Keridahl Antellar warded another gate, but even as those around the Kier's vantage point struggled to remain on their feet, the sky warped and twisted, shimmering as if from the heat of a fire.  How could Estarion summon so many, almost more quickly than they could disrupt them?

The gates were drawing vital attention from the army leaping forward, and a surge of new attackers almost gained the wall.  Pushing them back meant no-one was able to stop the newest gate, and the sky opened to drop a small cadre of warriors almost at Medair's elbow.  Two silver-clad giants and a dozen soldiers leapt in every direction.  The Kier had many protectors, but was only saved from death by a set-spell of her own, which sent the giant lunging for her spinning backwards to land with a thunderous crash on the upward stair.  But the attendant standing before her had crumpled to the ground, blood spurting from a gouged throat, and the iron-bound box he carried fell beneath booted feet.  The song of the Horn took on a peculiarly ringing note as it clattered into the melee.

Medair, tucked against the inner parapet, found herself facing two women in leather.  She choked as an arm wrapped around her throat, and struggled to turn away from her other attacker as she frantically thrust her hand into her satchel.

"The way to the wall's blocked!" one hissed, trying to clap a pad of white cloth impregnated with some noxious substance over Medair's nose.

"Tell me something I don't
–
" the other began, then shrieked.  There was an audible snap as Medair firmly removed the arm about her throat.  Smiling, she threw the woman off the wall into the street below.  The other went the same way, a moment later.

It felt too good.  Medair hastily removed the strength ring, even as she was buffeted by stumbling Ibisians.  She didn't dare fight within the curious euphoria of the ring, any more than the Ibisians would risk most of their arsenal of combat spells with enemy and ally in close melee.  Invisibility was a far better option and she hastily took it, working to get out of the press of battle.  The struggle surged toward the left, where the remaining silver giant was trying to reach the Kier.  Medair wriggled in the opposite direction.