As Tilal heaved his saddle onto Rondeg’s back, Chaltyn gripped the bridle in one hand and rubbed his balding pate with the other. “I don’t like it, my lord,” he stated frankly. “That bunch of—mind your teeth or I’ll hood you like a hawk, you misbegotten brute!—those song-singing Sunrunners can’t fight. It will be just us against Goddess alone knows how many of those savages.”
Tilal kneed Rondeg in the belly; air whooshed from the horse’s lungs and tufted ears were laid back. He quickly tightened the girth. “Nice try, old son,” he told the stallion. “But I know your tricks by now. I know Sunrunner tricks, too,” he added to Chaltyn. “You don’t believe in rumors, do you?”
“I believe in nothing I can’t grab with my fists,” the old man growled. “I know the rumors, my lord. That a magical wall goes up at their bidding, turning warriors and horses to stone.” He snorted. “You’ll never convince me I’ll soon sit a granite gelding.”
“Don’t fancy yourself as an equestrian statue? No more do I. But it’s fear woven into the wall that makes enemies wish they’d turned to stone.” Sioned had told him the story of the battle at Dragon’s Rest nine years ago—a battle that had ended before it even began. Just where the gorge widened into the valley, Andry had constructed a spell from the Star Scroll. Those contacting that invisible wall slammed into their own worst nightmares.
“Wall or not, they’ll need us to do their fighting for them.”
“Agreed.” The ros’salath would keep the Vellant’im out of Goddess Keep, but it would not kill. That was Tilal’s job.
He inspected Rondeg’s leather battle harness, the equine equivalent of his own, covering breast, upper limbs, and back. Kolya had insisted he take the armor along with the stallion; a commander unhorsed was a very bad idea. Tilal’s gear was a gift from Kolya as well, the leather hastily redyed in Ossetian dark green. Matiya had fashioned a plume for his helm that resembled the wheat-sheaf symbol of his princedom. He also wore the belt of Desert blue and the gold buckle of his knighthood, given twenty-five years ago and brought out for the Rialla this year. It had been Pol’s notion that older men should wear the symbol of their status to honor new-made knights. Tilal was glad he would be carrying Rohan’s color into battle with him. He only wished he had the High Prince’s banner as well to fly beside his own.
The symbols and the substance were ready. He mounted and made a brief tour of his troops. Those gathered from around Kadar Water had been augmented by levies from elsewhere in Ossetia, until he commanded a respectable army of cavalry, bows, swords, spears, and scythes. Something Rohan had said years ago came to mind—that people fight for their own land with a fervor not born of mere loyalty to a prince. Tilal had no illusions that his four hundred and sixty-three followed him for himself alone. He was a just and able prince, generous, faithful to the law. His work in the war against Roelstra at so young an age was a source of pride to his people; he had a handsome wife and a charming daughter and two strong sons. The Ossetians loved him well—but for all that, he was a foreigner, a Syrene-born second son of River Run’s athri. It was just as well he had no territorial ambitions and did not make war to amuse himself; through duty his people would have followed him, but they would not have fought as they were about to do.
And, ultimately, fight for whom? Andry. Goddess Keep was on Ossetian land; it was only good tactics to stop the Vellant’im there. But that Andry would be the primary beneficiary of spilled Ossetian blood did not sit well with Tilal.
The Lord of Goddess Keep annoyed him on several counts. Tilal had philosophical differences with Andry over the direction faradh’im had taken in the last eighteen years. He looked askance on rituals and mysteries. His nature inclined him toward easygoing, friendly, unsuperstitious relations with the Goddess. But even if he had agreed with Andry, there was a deeper problem that was at once—paradoxically— intensely personal and overwhelmingly political. Neither the man nor the prince in Tilal appreciated Andry’s self-chosen position as rival to Pol’s power. He was on Pol’s side, simply and irrevocably. Family feeling was part of it. He also genuinely liked his cousin as a man. As a prince, he deplored the inevitable clash of two strong wills. And he had the uneasy feeling that this war would see a headlong collision between them.
But that was not his immediate problem. He nodded to Chaltyn his approval of the disposition of troops, beckoned to his banner-carrier—a place that would have been Mal-yander’s, now held by a woman archer from the southern coast—and began the march. They would reach Goddess Keep by noon, set up camp, and wait for the Vellant’im to land on the beach below the wrinkled cliffs. Tilal had several ideas about using those cliffs to his advantage, and as he led his army across the autumn-rich meadows of their princedom, he was smiling.
The alarm was called just after dawn. The Sunrunner on watch had no need of sunlight to see the dragon-headed ships; they were less than twenty measures off the coast and sailing fast.
Torien was informed first. He nudged his wife awake, threw on some clothes, and sent warnings to the home farm and the villages. Then he went to have a look for himself.
Jolan was already up on the battlements, gazing out to sea. She didn’t spare him a single glance as he stood beside her in the crisp morning air.
“By the Father of Storms—magnificent,” she breathed. Daughter of pearl-fishers along the Dorvali coast, she appreciated a fine spread of sail. Torien, born near Snowcoves in Firon, could not help but agree with her. Admiration for the ships momentarily banished all other thoughts.
Oclel appeared at Torien’s shoulder. “They’ll hit Trench-water soon,” he said. “That gives us some extra time.”
Wrenched back to practicalities, Torien nodded. The deep ocean floor gorge, hinted at by a swath of midnight-blue water, had a current as strong as the Faolain in spring flood. The captains of regular cargo ships knew how to negotiate
Trenchwater. It would slow the enemy’s progress—or so he hoped.
“I’ll wake Andry—if he’s not already up. Oclel, you start the drill. Everyone knows what to do.”
“They’d better,” Oclel replied in a voice that boded ill for slackers or those of poor memory. “As for the farmers and their noise—they’d best behave and not get in anyone’s way.”
“Kind but firm,” Jolan reminded him, smiling a little. “Don’t bite their heads off. War is new to them.”
“And the rest of us have been doing it all our lives?” Oclel asked. “I won’t have their pigs squealing underfoot while we work. They’ll do as they’re told and stay where they’re put or they can go take their chances outside.” He squinted at the dragon ships. “No one’s thought to find Tilal yet, I suppose?”
Jolan shrugged. “We can keep them busy until he arrives.”
“I don’t like being beholden to him,” Oclel muttered. “He’s Rohan’s, down to his last breath.”
“He’s prince enough not to gloat to our faces—unlike his brother.”
Torien elbowed his old friend in the ribs. “Be glad it’s not Kostas marching to our defense. We’d never hear the end of it.”
They went about their tasks, Jolan keeping pace with Torien to Andry’s door. “Having seen those ships, I don’t wonder Chadric fled,” she murmured.
Torien stroked her cheek, his fingers brown as taze against the white-rose paleness of her skin. “But you haven’t forgiven him.”
“Would you? My parents, my sisters and cousins—Goddess only knows what’s become of them. All I saw on sunlight was their village. Burned to cinders.”
“We’ll look for them again soon, love,” he promised. “Perhaps they’re with Prince Ludhil.”
“And perhaps they’re all dead.” Jolan straightened and continued more briskly, “I’ll go prepare the wine.”
“Make it fairly strong. We may be at this a while.”
This was Andry’s opinion as well. He was awake and dressing when Torien entered his chambers. The steward barely had time to report what had been seen and thus far done before the outer door burst open and Andrev ran into the room. The boy skidded to a stop at his father’s side.
“Valeda says I have to stay with the children! I’m thirteen, Father, old enough to be your squire! Please let me!”
Torien saw amusement war with consternation in Andry’s blue eyes. The son was the image of the father in that feature as well as the lines of mouth and jaw and the sweep of thick hair back from the temples. But Andrev was blond like his mother Othanel, who had died ten years ago attempting a Star Scroll spell. Since spring, Andrev’s height had started to go up and his voice had started to go down— but as he repeated his plea, the latter cracked back into a childish treble.
“I can hold the banner and I’ve been practicing with sword and knife and Oclel himself says I’m pretty good— please, Father!”
After a moment, Andry said softly, “No.”
“But why?”
“Because—“ Andry hesitated, and Torien saw the reasons in his eyes. Andrev was his eldest son, soon to begin the training that would make him Lord of Goddess Keep after Andry. Since his eleventh year he had been wild to be fostered at some court—preferably in the Desert, like his half-sister Tobren—and become a real squire like other boys of his age and high birth. His father had forbidden it.
Torien said, “Because the battle we’ll fight won’t be with swords or knives. Your skills will better serve to protect your brother and sisters.” He had iittle inclination for and less experience with children, despite the dozens at Goddess Keep—and Andrev was no fool. But for a disgusted glance, the boy ignored him.
“I could stand guard. I won’t get in your way, Father, if you’re worried about that.”
Andry shook his head. “I wasn’t. But I’d have to worry about your safety, and that would distract me from what I must do.”
The boy’s cheeks flushed. “I’m not like Joscev, that you have to rescue me from the roof or keep me away from the unbroken horses!”
“I know. But I’d worry about vou all the same.”
“But, Father, I—“
“Enough, Andrev. I have things to do, and you’re keeping me from them.” Even Torien recognized that this was the wrong thing to say. Hastily—but too late—Andry added, “We’ll talk about your fostering once this war is over.
Would you like to go to Kadar Water, or perhaps Kierst-Isel like your cousin Rohannon? Think about your choice.”
“Once the war’s over, I won’t be any use to you,” Andrev said, stiff pride trying to conceal angry disappointment. “I’ll get out of your way now, Father.”
“Andrev—“ He extended a hand, but the boy was already out the door. Andry sighed. “He won’t soon forgive me for this.”
“Andry, he worships you.”
“When he was little, yes. But he’s growing up. At his age, all I wanted was to prove myself—but in Sunrunner arts, not those of war. I suppose it’s my father and grandfather in him.” Shrugging, he donned a white wool tunic and belted it around his waist. “Let’s get started. I want an estimate of when Tilal will arrive. And Trenchwater won’t slow these people down long, you know—they’ve come from Goddess knows where through Goddess knows what kind of seas. We’re not dealing with casual sailors here.”
That became obvious when Jolan checked on the ships’ progress. “Faster than I thought,” she admitted as the devr’im assembled in the gate tower. Indicating the wine cups on a low table, she said, “Drink up. We’ve got work to do.”
Torien watched the others find their individual goblets. Commissioned from a Fironese crystaller, each of the nine had been designed by Andry in the primary colors of each faradhi’s gifts. Jolan’s was a scene of underwater pearl-beds, amber and emerald seaweed bending delicately in the current; for Oclel, born in the Veresch, a black wolf paced among ruby flowers near a sapphire river. Rusina paused to admire her cup before drinking; the glass showed a gray-white cat stalking blue birds through a grassy field. Everyone knew who Andry cast as the cat.
Ulwis drank her wine slowly, sunlight glistening off topaz-gold hawks wheeling above the blue-and-purple mountains of Cunaxa where she had been born. Nialdan’s had birds, too: red-feathered sea geese nesting in emerald grass on the beaches of his father’s holding near Waes.
Valeda drained her cup and set it down directly in the light; the complex design, mostly green with pinpoints of red flowers, depicted the circle of trees near Goddess Keep with its pond and rock cairn. It was a reference to her main duty here, that of making boys into men under the guise of the Goddess.
Torien’s was in shades of red and amber and blue, sunset over the sea. Deniker’s goblet must have caused the crafter many false starts before he got that unusual jade green right. Into the opaque green sea a blue waterfall tumbled, foaming white at its base.
But Andry’s was the most impressive, as was fitting. A ruby-bright dragon soared above his native Desert, amber beneath a sky streaked with amethyst clouds. The colors were augmented by bits of crushed jewels blown into the molten glass itself—a triumph of the crystaller’s art. Empty now as he turned it by its stem in the sun, it spat color onto the walls.
“Feeling it yet?” Andry asked quietly. A few nods; those who had not yet finished their wine quickly did so. By the time Torien joined the others on the sunlit balcony above the gate, the dranath had heated his blood and sharpened his perceptions. The faces of the others showed the same heightened awareness. Incredible, what a pinch of harmless-looking herb could do.
The configuration of strengths had been worked out years ago and tested many times—but never against a real attack. Yet Torien sensed no nervousness in the group, sure of themselves and especially of Andry. As core of the ros’salath, he was in the center. Flanking him were Nialdan and Rusina. Oclel stood at his wife’s side, Jolan next to him, and Valeda last of all to anchor that portion of the weaving. To Nialdan’s right were UYwis and her husband Deniker. Torien took Ms place at the far end, and they were ready.
Oclel needn’t have worried about distracting noise. The morning was quiet here, all the farmers and villagers inside the keep now, with thick stone walls between them and the devr’im. Neither was there any sign of the enemy. There was omy V\ie silent expanse ol £nomM6s\>ot6ele6^ l&6-or gold-leaved trees in thin autumn sunlight. But the quiet held warning: no birdsong, no grunting of plow-elk, not even the squeal of mice caught by hunting cats.
“No sunlight,” Andry murmured. Torien shifted his plans to allow for this, agreeing with the judgment. Had it been a cloudless day or a clear night, they could have used sun, moons, or stars without fear. But the autumn sun was unreliable, and could catch any working Sunrunner in clouds. So they would conjure only: more difficult, but safer.
Slowly, for they had time yet, and carefully, for this must be done right, the three anchoring minds gathered in the strengths of their subordinates. Torien had heard Valeda liken herself to a master weaver and a loom, with Jolan and Oclel the bright threads. Torien preferred to think of it in the terms of his Fironese homeland: he both crafter and window, Ulwis and Deniker the shapes of colored glass. But neither image was entirely analogous. Threads snapped or unraveled; glass splintered or broke. What was fashioned by the devr’im that morning would do none of those things— unless one of them was pierced by iron. Torien had no real fear of that for himself. He was part diarmadhi. It was his shame but it might mean his life. Those of that blood experienced terrible pain if hit by iron; Sunrunners died.
He worked, and made of the gorgeous blues and greens and golds and reds and Ulwis’ strange glowing purple a pattern of surpassing beauty. As crafter he fashioned the window; as window he was part of the pattern. But what was beautiful to see and be on his side was, in the way of all things, the opposite on the other. He had been on that other side several times. He knew the horrors waiting for those who came close enough to touch.
Jolan had made a poem of it, something about what was light becoming darkness, what was pleasure becoming pain. Fragments of her words skittered through his mind, distracting him. He chased them away with a promise to hear her sing the poem when victory was theirs.
Sensing that Andry waited, he presented his splendid window for use as if it were a shield. Valeda’s image of strongly woven fabric cloaked Andry, the Lord of Goddess Keep’s own concept, that of a sword with Nialdan as the solid hilt and Rusina as the glowing moonstone blade, com-oleted his armament. Andry, who had never ridden to war, was ready for battle.
They left their dragon-headed ships for the beaches, scaled the cliffs, marched in good order across the fields. Torien felt but could not see them. His physical senses were useless, just as during a Sunrunning. He had no flesh, no blood, no body to feel the deep trembling excitement brought by dranath. He was the window now, pieces of brilliant glass melded together by power. He was his Lord’s shield, as others were his cloak and sword. Those who encountered him would collide with nightmares; those who touched the cloth would be shrouded in hideous visions; those who braved the sword would be pierced by terrors. Let them come.
He knew when they approached the keep. He waited for Andry to use him. But Andry waited, too. If Torien had once known why, he had forgotten. He wanted to feel those minds crash into the seething darkness of him that for him was light. He was as eager for it as a hungry dragon for the kill, as a boy for the smile of his first love, as a man for the bed of an adored wife. This was what dranath gave him.
If he had known anything but the most tenuous connection to his body, he would have parted his lips on a cry of joy and possession and triumph. A pitiful ungifted mind shattered on its own worst fears. Shattered on the shield he had given his Lord against their enemies.
The first of many—but not enough. They drew back, and he quivered with rage. Come to me, come to me, part of him sang. Come to me and die. For this was the secret Andry had told none but him. The practice was for practice. This was lethal. Minds shattered or shrouded or pierced would remain so, to the death of the flesh as surely as if they were Sunrunners shadow-lost.
Had he been wholly of his body, he would have bellowed challenge, jeered their cowardice. The eager hunger surged and he knew he must glow and vibrate in the air like a shimmer-vision on the Long Sand. Come to me!
When they came, it was not with unguarded minds. It was with iron.
His body screamed with the pain of it, colors rent asunder by the onslaught of fierce bright steel. But he held. Crippled. Not yielding. Repair the crumbling glass, rethread the shredding weave, reforge the sword. / can. No one else.
He did it, and the Sunrunners did not die. He found unexpected strength in Ulwis, she of the dark Merida face who denied possessing that blood, and used her. What he presented to Andry was not the adamantine shield and enveloping cloak and shining sword of before, but it served. It served.
Tilal was silent as he strode through the gates of Goddess Keep. Chaltyn hobbled along beside him, favoring his left thigh. The prince was unhurt but for the usual bruises. But of his four hundred and sixty-three, eighty-one were dead, twice that many injured. The enemy had been driven back down the cliffs, back to their longboats and their dragon-headed ships. Goddess Keep was game bigger than they had teeth for. Tilal knew why they did not linger off the coast to try again, as at New Raetia, but instead set limping sail around the cape for Gilad or Syr or the Desert. Andry had defeated their minds. Neither Tilal nor his soldiers had been necessary at all.
A blond boy with Andry’s blue eyes pushed through the crush of Sunrunners and castlefolk, villagers and farmers and Tilal’s own people. “Your grace? May I escort you to the Lord’s chambers?”
Tilal nodded curtly, not trusting himself even to open his mouth to be civil. A path was cleared through the noise to the keep. As they mounted the inner stairs, Tilal decided it was both a good thing and a bad thing that he must slow his steps for Chaltyn to keep pace: good because it prevented him from pelting up to Andry’s rooms and wringing his neck, bad because he had even more time to seethe. He told himself to remember his love for Chay and Maarken and Pol and especially Rohan. They needed neither the personal anguish nor the political disaster Tilal’s fury was quite capable of causing right now. But stronger than feeling or practical wisdom, the memory of his dead and wounded threatened to ignite him like a bin of oil-soaked wood.
The Lord of Goddess Keep was waiting for him in an audience chamber rich with color, hung with fine tapestries, furnished with fruitwood chairs and velvet cushions. Andry sat in what looked suspiciously like a throne, all carved and elaborate. Flanking him, standing, were persons Tilal recognized as the Chief Steward and the mother of one or another of his children—Tilal neither remembered nor cared which. Andry and the woman looked exhausted. The steward looked half-dead.
“His grace of Ossetia,” the boy said, the form correct, the voice hushed.
“Thank you, Andrev. Bring a chair for his grace, and then leave us.”
“Yes, my Lord.”
So he made his own children address him by his title? How charming. How like Andry. The irritation of years flared, and it was no surprise that this one small thing had brought him to despise Andry at last.
Tilal nodded thanks to the boy but did not sit down. He looked an order at Chaltyn to get off his feet; the old man balked for a moment, then sat down in the presence of his prince—and the Lord of Goddess Keep. Andry’s brows did not stir, but the steward’s did.
Tilal had tried to calm himself enough on the way here to come up with a really blistering first sentence. Now, seeing Andry composed and waiting to be addressed, as if he were the prince and Tilal nothing more than a moderately useful servant, he said the first thing that came to him.
“Who in all Hells do you think you are?”
“Not a question requiring an answer,” Andry observed. “But to be pedantic, I am Lord of Goddess Keep, and not answerable to you. I am, barely and regrettably, answerable in some things to the High Prince.”
“Answerable to him? He’ll fry you! How dare you use your gifts this way?”
“What way is that, your grace?” the woman asked.
Tilal ignored her. “We saw the dying—so much for the faradhl vow not to kill! Goddess in glory, Andry—do you know what you did to them? Did you have any idea—“
“You care no more for enemy deaths than I do,” Andry replied quietly. “You yourself killed enough of them today.”
“Clean kills, my Lord!” Chaltyo burst out. “Not leaving a mindless, whimpering husk that flinches from wind whispering through a blade of grass!”
Andry held Tilal’s gaze with his own—but on a man who in many years at Stronghold had been taught what tricks Sunrunners used on the ungifted, the tactic was useless. Tilal was no ignorant, awestruck youth; he was a prince, familiar with Sunrunners, and had no intention of being caught the way it was said dragons snared their prey with a glance.
Andry recognized it, and his expression changed fractionally. “It’s not the deaths that bother you,” he reiterated.
“You made sure I saw them, didn’t you? I and all my army. You killed close on a hundred of them—but no more. Why is that, Andry? Did it take too much out of you? Would it have been too tiring to confront the whole army? Was a hundred enough to create the right impression?”
The woman sucked in an outraged breath. No one spoke to the Lord of Goddess Keep this way. Andry placed a hand on her arm.
“You waited!” Tilal spat. “You wanted enough witnesses to spread a tale of invincibility. I saw it, Goddess damn you—my people were fighting and dying! Those bastards were almost at the gates and you waited until then to work your spells!”
“Valeda,” Andry said to the woman, “you see before you a prince trained by my uncle Rohan, who sees clearly—and understands the meaning of what he sees. But he never learned to control his temper or his tongue.” He rose from his chair, and Tilal was not so far gone in rage that he missed the stiff weariness Andry tried to hide. “Yes, Tilal, you’re right. I waited. But you don’t yet understand why. It wasn’t to see your soldiers killed. Rohan’s own law allows me to employ the ros’salath in defense of Goddess Keep.”
“So that’s what you’re after,” Tilal breathed. “Pol failed at Radzyn. You’re putting Rohan on notice that you won’t fail. That he needs you. That you should have free rein, you and your—“
“Devr’im,” Andry supplied. “You’ll recognize the root words. It’s a term of my own devising.”
He recognized them well enough: “lords of light.” A pretty word with horrible implications.
“And once you’ve done all this,” Tilal said slowly, “once you’ve destroyed the enemy ... will we then call you High
Prince?”
“You insult me with more ambition than 1 possess.” Andry took a few steps toward him. “Listen to me, Tilal—cousin,” he added with a sardonic smile, and the word used between princes grated on Tilal’s ears. “We are cousins, you know, if only by marriage,” Andry went on. “My only ambition is to cleanse all lands of these barbarians. The rest of you are failing—my blood-cousin Pol being a prime example. I and my devr’im can succeed, but only if we’re allowed to work freely. That’s the message I wish you to convey to Rohan. It’s very simple. Let us work, and we’ll drive these savages out. What other hope is there?”
Tilal’s fingers twitched as he reconsidered his earlier notion about wringing Andry’s neck. No, there was a better way to do it, to fell him and leave him alive and in pain.
“I knew and loved your brother Sorin,” he said through his teeth. “For the first time, I’m glad he’s dead.”
He paused just long enough to watch the poisoned shaft strike home. With a sharp gesture to Chaltyn, he turned on his- heel and stalked out of the chamber—before his hands really did find and break Andry’s neck.
Chaltyn dissuaded him from leaving Goddess Keep that very evening. “It was a hard battle, for all that we won it,” he said. “Our people need and deserve at least one night’s sleep before they march again.”
His prince snarled at him. “I don’t care if it’s only half a measure, I want out of here now!”
“That would be a great unwisdom,” the old man scolded. “Stay the night. Use up Andry’s substance instead of our own. We’ve a long enough walk ahead of us to the Faolain and your brother—and fighting enough along the way to get the taste of Andry out of your mouth.”
By the time he was out in the courtyard again, he had cooled enough to recognize that Chaltyn was right. “Very well. But I’m not sleeping within these walls tonight.”
“Yes you are.” Tilal stared; Chaltyn leaned closer. “Have you forgotten that the High Princess your aunt still has friends here? You need a Sunrunner, my lord.”
He gave in with poor grace. “And a bath. I stink of Andry’s presence.”
Emerging from a long soak that soothed his muscles if not his mind, he found an excellent meal waiting for him in his chamber. When he was finished, he rang the little bell beside the bed. The boy who came to take the tray was none other than Andry’s blond son.
“More wine, your grace?”
“No, but thank you. I’ll sleep well enough on what I’ve already had. Andrev, isn’t it?”
“Yes, your grace.”
‘It’s ‘my lord,’ actually.” He recalled Andry’s mocking words—and how the boy had used a title to his own father— and added, “We’re cousins, of a sort. You can use my name if you like.”
A quick smile reminded him suddenly of Sorin. Andry would never forgive him for what he’d said—but he would not have taken it back even if he could.
“We’re kin by marriage, I know,” the boy said, and began unpacking fresh clothes from Tilal’s saddlebags for the morning. “My sisters and brothers didn’t believe me when I pointed you out to them during the battle. And now I see you have green eyes, like the High Princess.”
“My father was her brother. So you watched today, did you?”
“Oh, yes! I counted how many you unhorsed. That’s a real fire-breather you were riding. Don’t let my father hear me say it, but some of Lord Kolya’s horses are even better than my grandsir’s.”
“Some of them,” Tilal grinned. “But don’t let your grand-sir hear me say it!” He stretched and pulled a face as a sore muscle twinged in his back. “Thank you for your service to me tonight, Andrev.”
“I saw that you don’t have a squire, my 1- Cousin Tilal.”
“Not at present. No, you needn’t polish my sword, though I appreciate the thought. It’s late.”
“A fine blade,” the boy said wistfully, running a cautious finger over the gold-chased hilt.
“Unsheathe it if you like—but be careful, it’s got an edge like a dragon’s claw. I gave it to my father many years ago, and he left it to me.”
“Is it the same one my uncle Maarken used to kill the pretender?” Andrev breathed, eyes shining.
“The very same.” Tilal hid a grin. So Andry had a would-be warrior for a son, did he? That must go over well.
“Thank you for letting me see it,” Andrev said, sliding the blade carefully back into the scabbard. “Good night, Cousin Tilal.”
“Good night.” He settled back in bed to rest, but not to sleep. Chaltyn had promised to find and send before midnight a Sunrunner loyal to Sioned and Rohan. But despite his determination to stay awake, he was drifting off when his door opened and light spilled into the room.
“Who’s there?”
Shadows returned as the door swung closed. “My name is :ne one piece of information you may not have, your grace,” voice whispered, so low-pitched that he couldn’t tell if it vas male or female. “I swore to the High Princess.” Tilal didn’t trust Andry out of sword reach and he felt cry odd around the edges of his perceptions. Like some- ring tugged at part of him—not to draw him forward into
~e light, but to throw a blanket of mist over him. Struggling through it, he asked casually, “You knew her, I suppose, when she came here at thirteen.”
“Since the day she arrived—at age twelve.”
“And had a room in the west tower.”
“The fourth floor of the central hall. Satisfied?”
“Not yet.”
A dry chuckle. “You’re a suspicious man, my lord.”
“In Andry’s keep, do you blame me?”
“Not at all.”
“What was Sioned wearing the day she arrived here?”
“Oh, dear. How can I remember that far—wait. It must have been the green wool gown with the black sash. She insisted on wearing it until it was nearly in tatters, long after she grew too tall for it.”
Tilal relaxed. “My father sent her one almost like it when I went to Stronghold. Green and black are River Run’s colors. She told me about that other gown when she unwrapped the box.”
The shadows laughed softly, and their mist cleared a little. “I am believed on the strength of a length of wool! What shall I tell her on the moons?”
He gave a brief summary of his encounter with Andry. “You can also tell her I came within a hair’s breadth of throttling him. Now, what can you tell me?”
“Something happened to disrupt the ros’salath but was corrected. The weave wasn’t restored to its former strength. It no longer killed. But it was still strong enough to turn them from us to easier quarry. Your army.”
“Easier?”
“Your pardon. I meant more traditional fighting, where a sword is a sword—and not a knife through the mind. Not a perversion offaradhi gifts.”
Ashamed of his outburst and feeling deeply for the disgust and pain in that voice, he nodded. “Are there others who feel as you do?”
“Forgive me, but that’s another question I can’t answer.”
“Doesn’t matter, I suppose. It’s not something I understand or can do anything about. I need a favor, though. Is there someone who can come with me on the march? All I need is communication. I don’t want a warrior.”
A short silence ensued. Then the voice whispered on a sigh, “No one. Andry would know if even one of us slipped out. If he offers you a Sunrunner, accept. The spy you know is less dangerous than the one you don’t—and, as you say, you need communication.”
“He won’t offer.”
“Perhaps you’re right. If that’s all, your grace, the moons are rising and I should be quick about this. There may be cloud cover.”
“Just one more thing. My love to them—and if Sioned contacts Athmyr—“
“It has already been done. Your lady knows you safe and unharmed.”
“Thank you.”
The wedge of light appeared and vanished once more. Tilal sank back down in bed, and was too tired to think for more than a few heartbeats before he was swallowed in sleep.
Andry did not offer a Sunrunner. Neither did he come down to see Tilal leave at dawn. Chaltyn reported that a delegation from the common folk had come pleading for troops to be left behind in their defense.
“And what did you reply?” Tilal asked, staring at the road from between his stallion’s tufted ears.
“To trust in the Lord of Goddess Keep—and if that brought no comfort, try the Goddess herself.”
“It pains me to leave them without swords. But I won’t have my people die for Andry’s sake. Not again. The cost is too high—and I’m not talking about what I owe their families.” One of Tilal’s duties after this was all over would be to travel to every farm, village, and holding that had suffered a loss and offer the life-token due the survivors of a soldier dead in a prince’s service.
They rode on in silence. Clouds that had drizzled two days ago and parted yesterday were threatening rain in earnest. There would be no tales spread on sunlight of Andry’s power today.
About forty measures from the keep, when it was getting on for noon, Chaltyn rode up from an inspection of the column with another rider at his side. Tilal knew he shouldn’t have been surprised that it was Andrev.
“See who I found, my lord,” the old man said, “stuck between the horse and the archers.”
“You need a squire, Cousin Tilal,” the boy said simply. “And a Sunrunner.”
Chaltyn stared at him. “You know how? At your age?”
“I know how.”
“Where does your father think you are?” Tilal asked.
Andrev blinked. “With the others, helping the villagers return to their homes. They won’t miss me until sundown. If then,” he added.
By the Goddess, Andry would be livid—and after yesterday’s events Tilal couldn’t resist a decision guaranteed to infuriate the Lord of Goddess Keep.
“Very well. I need a squire and a Sunrunner. We’ll take care of the formal swearing later. Chaltyn, go find him a tunic of the right color.”
Andrev’s blue eyes shone. “Thank you, Cousin Tilal!”
“His father won’t thank you,” Chaltyn muttered.
“I know.” Tilal barely restrained himself from adding, Ask me if I care. “Andrev, from now on it’s ‘my lord.’ You’re in my service now.”