Kohan sat a horse to one side of the tunnel entrance, watching as much as he could of the battle’s progress. He absently massaged his left arm until the ache faded to numbness and went away altogether. If only that damned Vellanti warrior hadn’t swung to one side, making Rohan lurch to compensate, he might have a right hand good for something besides rubbing his other arm. At least the shoulder hadn’t been wrenched out of the socket, as Chayla had originally feared. But it was useless just the same.
He followed the four divisions of his army with comprehension, but could not have anticipated them without having studied Maarken’s battle plan. Tactics had never been his strong point. He knew the basics, but had always relied on Chay to provide detail and inspiration. Maarken was proving just as adept at arranging the deadly dance of battle—in some ways it really was reminiscent of the pivots, whirls, approaches, and retreats of one of those court balls Meiglan had established at the Rialla. Only one did not leave one’s partner with a kiss on the hand, but a sword through the guts.
All at once he realized that he didn’t understand what was going on out there. Maarken’s careful template no longer fit. He urged his mount forward a little, searching the field. The little circle of white-hot battle that had jumped over the plain all morning no longer existed. Piles of corpses indicated where Sioned had directed the working—but no new skirmish was enclosed.
Good Goddess—so soon? he thought, remembering Maarken’s plan. “Sting them from behind—and don’t let them regroup. Kazander and Sethric will drive them forward. Our main force will split down the middle to accommodate them.
We’ll funnel them toward the canyon, and hit them from both sides at once. The Sunrunners will establish a screen halfway up the canyon. We have to keep pushing them forward, cramming them in, making them panic.”
The indicated spot for Sioned’s weaving was only a little way ahead of him. Rohan’s halfling gift responded to its proximity like the pricking of a cat’s whiskers. But he was no more use to her than to Maarken. All his power as High Prince, of his wealth in dragon gold, of his education and spirit and insight, and he was no use to anyone right now.
When a group of bearded warriors broke through at a gallop and headed straight for him, Rohan didn’t even move. His nervous mate lifted her front hooves tentatively, scraping, t\ietn against the stony ground, but he held her last. Let them come, Vie thought—let them come. I have my Sioned as my sword and shield.
They caught sight of him, and after his performance at Remagev they knew him e\en without the circlet on his brow. “Kir’rei!” one of them thundered, and it took him a moment to translate that into High Prince.
An archer braced in one of the canyon niches behind him yelled out a warning. He heard the cry echo back for a troop to protect him from the onslaught. Rohan smiled and shook his head. It was a curious experience, to sit calmly on a horse while a score of enemy warriors thundered toward him, desperate for his blood. Even more strange to watch them slam into an invisible wall. Most bizarre of all was this feeling of omnipotence, knowing he was wrapped in the power of his wife’s mind and nothing could touch him.
When the first new and unexpected colors hovered outside the weaving, Morwenna barely noticed. But then a second presence was snagged into the pattern, and a third and even a fourth, and Sioned used them. Morwenna sensed the surge in strength lent by young, untrained, highly gifted minds. That so many Sunrunners could be threaded together so easily more than justified Andrade’s faith in her.
But then Morwenna recognized that sameness she’d felt in Pol. Two of the newcomers were pure Sunrunner. Another was like herself and Pol, a half-breed. But the last was diarmadhi to the bone: rich colors, dark and lustrous, garnet and emerald and onyx and amethyst, all edged in opaque black. These colors, this power, remained outside Sioned’s grasp. It was by independent choice that a small hand wearing a delicate ruby ring reached up, rested atop Pol and Morwenna’s joined hands. There was innocent wonder and a bright laughing delight in this marvel as the colors stitched themselves throughout the weaving with instinctive, frightening skill—and shaded every strand with a silvery sorcerer’s glow.
The quiver of light on the far edges of Rohan’s perceptions ftated and then neatly vanished. Something, replaced it that kept the enemy iiom bim just as eftectwely ,
He turned at the sound of clattering hooves. Ten mounted soldiers stormed through the tunnel behind him. “Nol” he shouted. “Get back!”
Dannar reined in beside him, green eyes as big as two-crown coins as he saw the Vellant’im thrust themselves against that barrier and fall back stunned. “My lord? What in all Hells—“ He gulped. The thought Sunrunner magic — was written all over his face. “My lord — please come back within!”
“Ah, no. I’m a very effective lure.”
“At least let us stay to protect you!”
“Back up the canyon, if you must,” he conceded, “but out of their sight. I’m the one they want. Let them come after me.”
“No, my lord, please — “
“Enough, Dannar!”
The boy gave him a last agonized glance, then led his troop back up the canyon. Rohan stayed where he was, calming the skittish mare, and tried not to think what it meant when he could no longer sense a Sunrunner weaving.
Walvis had found comfort for his son’s death in the deaths of the enemy. As he worked, as assiduous in weaving a fabric of blood on the sand as the faradh’im were in threading light across the sky, he chanted softly to himself.
“This one for Jahnavi’s first year. This for his second. This for his third—“ and so on until he had accounted for each of his dead son’s twenty-six winters. Then he had started over. He’d reached six for the third time when he was wounded badly enough to be hauled out of the fighting. But once his wife had bound his leg he escaped her and remounted, intending to finish the tally and at least two more before the day was through. He just hoped there would be enough Vellant’im left.
He was at twenty^five and looking around for the gold-speckled beard that would complete the third recital when his eye caught on a structure being raised from a nearby dune. The great wooden frames that had flung destruction at Remagev had finally been brought into play.
Sunrunner’s Fire had not touched the awful things at Remagev. But Walvis swore to himself that if those ropes resisted his sword, he’d put gold beads in his own beard and join the Vellanti army. Shouting at Visian, who was glued even more tightly to his side now that Chay was back at Stronghold, he wordlessly pointed his sword at the wooden tower.
Visian put fingers between his teeth and gave a piercing whistle that brought ten Isulk’im to him in a matter of moments. “This abomination offends the eyes of Remagev’s noble lord. Destroy it.”
They surged forward at Walvis’ command. But the enemy knew how to defend as well as attack; the wooden arm drew back and let fly the contents of its hand before it was hacked to bits.
But this time it was not stones the arms threw. It was steel. Knife blades broken from hafts and otherwise useless, arrow tips split off wooden shafts—the Vellant’im knew the Sunrunner weakness. Walvis plunged his own steel into five more breasts and swung around, squinting into the storm of dust.
Iron struck the weaving with ferocious suddenness. Morwenna had readied herself in anticipation, but the death-metal cut into her in a thousand places and agony robbed her of reason.
Then she felt children scream.
Their pain was intense and terrifying, and their panic shot through the weave like wildfire. Sioned’s control turned rigid in response. The children struggled like caged hawks, their undisciplined powers more potent than any trained Sunrunner defense. In the next instant Sioned must have realized her mistake, for the spun colors relaxed as if a loom’s tension had been undone. Morwenna thought it might work—but then the weaving began to unravel.
Morwenna snatched her hand from Pol’s. She groped for the children, constructing her own fabric of diarmadhi light around them. As she had protected the other Sunrunners, so now she strove to blanket the children. But Relnaya still had hold of her other hand—the faradhi part of her, locked by Sioned’s strength into the faltering dome.
She had spread herself too thin. She realized it at once, but there was nothing she could do. The pull in opposite directions, Sunrunner and sorcerer, was ripping her apart. She could do one, but not both. She could shield the children or she could take the entire weaving herself, trusting her diarmadhi heritage to give Sioned time to stitch everyone back together.
She must choose. She could feel herself shredding at the edges, ragged threads falling away. Calling on the dranath in her blood, she made a grab for Pol’s fingers once more and firmly placed that other small hand in his. Screams raced through the weaving as she withdrew her sorcerer strength— and left the Sunrunner part of her behind.
It had felt so familiar, weaving the protection of light around her lord. But too familiar was this frantic reworking of chaotic color into recognizable, unique patterns. Tobin first—then Meath—so familiar to sort swiftly through bright threads—a stray, slightly mad thought crossed her mind that this must have been the way the world had been formed, when the two deities sat down to decide that these elements should make a tree, and these others a fish, and these a drop of water, until everything had its own uniqueness. Had they ever changed their minds? Had they ever reconsidered the horse, taken its wings back and given them instead to dragons? What if she gave Hollis’ graceful garnet faceting to Meath, replacing it with his complex topaz angles and arcs?
She was dangerously near madness. Sanity reasserted itself with angry impatience, rock-solid practicality ruthlessly quenching wild whimsy. She was the only one who could do this thing. But she had never done it before with children whose terror made the work doubly urgent. It was that critical need for swiftness that brought her back to reality— Sunrunner reality, which the ungifted might easily mistake for a kind of madness.
The children slipped through her fingers like fine, trembling silk filaments. She tried to be gentle, but their fear was more dangerous to them than her power. At last she clamped down on them with all her strength. First Tobren and Jeni, who were Sunrunners only; then Rislyn, with more difficulty because of her diarmadhi blood. Jinan was infuriatingly elusive. She tugged Sioned along with her by the thin glittering light that connected them. Now that there was no more pain, she was determined to explore this new world. The sorcerer in her was strong enough to take Sioned with her.
Sensing Pol nearby, Sioned cried out soundlessly to him. It was he who brought Jihan back—coaxing, cajoling, finally tricking her with a skein of even more brilliant color that attracted the child’s curiosity. Sioned finally felt herself whole again, no longer woven into the pattern of Jihan. She let go of the sunlight and collapsed to her knees on the courtyard stones.
Eventually she had the strength to look up. Pol clasped his sorcerer child to his chest, his face still stricken with fear even though she was safe in his arms. Rislyn was weeping quietly in Hollis’ embrace. Chay knelt, clutching his wife to one shoulder and his granddaughter to the other, eyes closed in silent thanksgiving. The castlefolk clustered at a respectful distance—no, Sioned amended, a frightened distance. She could hardly blame them.
At her side crouched Meath, waiting for her to notice him. When she did, he gestured wordlessly to the two still forms crumpled nearby.
“Morwenna?” she whispered. “I thought she’d done it herself—separated herself and Relnaya from the rest of us.”
“I tried to reach them,” Meath said, low-voiced. “I couldn’t. And don’t you try,” he added tersely. “She’s gone, Sioned. They both are.”
“No.” She made it to her feet and he helped her over to where they lay. “They’re still breathing—“
The tall Sunrunner shook his head. “She’s functioning on diarmadhi instinct now. We can’t touch her, not that way. Relnaya didn’t have the strength or the skill to free himself.”
“We can do it for him—for both of them—“
“No, I tell you! There’s no pattern to either of them anymore—except the pattern of that dome outside.”
She wove sunlight just the same, trying to connect to them. She caught her breath in horror. Meath was right: both Sunrunners were no longer really there. Only the weaving existed. Despite Relnaya’s Sunrunner presence within it—helplessly trapped—Morwenna had woven it of sorcery. Nothing in the Star Scroll could help Sioned. “Oh, Goddess,” she whispered, “what have I done?”
Meath shook her arm emphatically. “You couldn’t have known she’d do this. Who’d believe that she could?” He knelt where Morwenna lay senseless and almost lifeless on the ground. She was barely breathing now. “The nearest thing it compares to is being shadow-lost. Except—except there are no shadows.”
Sioned made a choking sound.
He looked up at her with a strange intensity in his blue-gray eyes. “I’m guessing that the work will last as long as they do.”
“But we can’t leave them like this,” she breathed. “There’s something of them alive still, Meath—not just the gifts, something of them.”
“There’s nothing we can do to bring them back.”
When she understood what he meant, she gasped.
“It has to be done, Sioned. They might live until evening.”
“No—“
“Would you want to live even one moment this way?” he asked harshly.
He made two painless, efficient strokes with a gleaming knife. There wasn’t even much blood from the two heart wounds.
Sioned turned away. So once again someone else had done her killing for her. Kept the final guilt from her. She could no more look at Meath now than she had been able to look at Ostvel then. But lanthe’s had been a death she actively desired. Morwenna and Relnaya—their deaths were her responsibility. Her failure. Her shame.
Rohan—she must find Rohan. She glanced around wildly, dizziness sweeping her. Myrdal came forward, and Meath, to hold her up as she swayed. But it was no use; she fought the encompassing blackness and lost.
Rohan had seen the Vellanti warriors hack at the weaving— Whose weaving? he thought, battling panic—and finally fall back in defeat. He had smiled slightly as others tried to the same effect. Archers positioned down the canyon picked off the enemy at leisure. Maarken was ready to close the two halves of his army around the troops obligingly herded into his grasp by Kazander and Sethric and Daniv and Isriam.
But then a rain of small, glittering steel objects impacted on the invisible wall and shattered it. Rohan raised both arms to shield his head, was pummeled by broken knives and shards of swords. Someone behind him screamed. It echoed off the sandstone walls in a sudden, terrible silence.
Rohan swung the mare around and galloped through the tunnel, past Dannar and his stunned troops. “Close the gates!” he roared. “Now!”
The outer ward swarmed with people—servants on hasty errands, litter-carriers with the wounded, those who were injured but able to walk swaying a path toward the barracks infirmary. Rohan stood in his stirrups, frantic for sight of Sioned. But it was Pol’s sun-bleached head he saw coming from the inner courtyard, and he shouted his son’s name.
Pol ran for him and grabbed the mare’s reins as Rohan dismounted. “Mothers all right,” he said at once. “But the children were caught in it and—I don’t know how she separated all of us. All,” he repeated grimly, “except Morwenna and Relnaya. They’re dead.”
Rohan swallowed convulsively. “The children?”
“Scared half to death, but they’ll be all right. The weaving collapsed. I can’t do any more good as a Sunrunner, so I’m going out to help Maarken. He’s going to need everybody.”
Rohan’s fingers tightened convulsively around his son’s arm. “Pol—“ he began. He knew how close he himself had just come to death. It made him even more aware of Pol’s danger. But if he ordered Pol back to safety, the rift between them would open wide and he was afraid they’d never be able to close it again. Besides, what could he do? Physically restrain him? And fundamental honesty forced him to admit that were he still young enough, strong enough, he would do exactly what Pol was going to do. So he swallowed what he’d been about to say and managed a fleeting smile. Then he turned and shouted for Kierun.
It was the work of a few moments for the boy to find battle harness to fit Pol. Rohan gave him his own sword.
“Thirty years and more didn’t even take the edge off it,” he said as Kierun fastened the belt around Pol’s waist. “I found that out earlier this morning.”
Then he heard what he’d said and it took a lifetime of self-discipline to conceal his despair. Yet somehow Pol saw right through him, and compassion shadowed the blue-green eyes. Not a complete understanding, not a sharing of his emotion, but—it was enough.
Pol enveloped him in a quick, hard embrace. “Don’t tell Meggie about this—she’ll have my teeth for shirt buttons.”
“She’ll have to fight your mother for the privilege. Goddess keep you safe, my son.”
And then Pol was jumping onto the Radzyn-bred mare and racing from the courtyard. Rohan looked down at the young squire. Big eyes in a sweaty, dirt-stained face yearned to follow Pol into battle.
“Kierun,” he said, “take me to the High Princess at once.”
Startled from whatever visions of excitement and glory had galloped away with Pol, Kierun blinked. “My lord? Oh—this way, my lord. Last time I looked, she’d woken up.”
From what? he asked himself bleakly, but knew he’d find out soon enough.
The worry in Meath’s eyes alerted Rohan before Sioned even spoke. Her voice was quiet, if a little too quick, betraying her tension. He heard a brief explanation of what had happened to the Sunrunners—and especially to Morwenna and Relnaya, whose bodies had been removed to the barracks. A large chamber therein was serving as a death room. And there were too many inside it.
“Hollis took Tobin and the children inside,” Meath told him, standing well away from Sioned—farther than a friend’s distance, much farther than even a stranger’s. “Chayla was out of the sunlight. I don’t know that she even felt anything. So she’s all right.”
“And you?” Rohan asked. When the big Sunrunner shrugged, Rohan went on, “Then will you follow the battle for me? Maarken has things in hand, but...”
“Of course, my lord.” He removed himself from their presence and went to stand in a corner of the courtyard, sunlight gleaming on his upturned face.
“Sioned?” Rohan took her arm. “What is it?”
“Nothing.”
He met her gaze steadily, waiting her out.
After a moment she gestured impatiently. “Very well, then—everything. Lady Merisel was right. Andrade was right. No matter how we try to work around it, justify it—the gifts can kill. And not just when and if we intend them to.”
“This wasn’t your fault.”
“You weren’t there,” she retorted brutally.
“Forgive me for presuming I understand Sunrunner ways,” he snapped, the tone deliberate. “Or the one I’ve lived with for forty years.”
Annoyance flickered in her eyes. “I’ll never forgive you for knowing me better than I know myself.”
He left it at that. “I need Chay. Where is he?”
“With Tobin, I suppose. Rohan, what’s going on out there? Are we winning?”
“They may outnumber us, but we’ve got Maarken.”
“And Pol. Oh, don’t try for surprise, you’ve never done it with a straight face. You’re not wearing your sword and there’s only one person you’d give it to.”
His turn to be irritated at being understood so well. “Come on, I want to find Chay and—“
“Rohan!” Meath’s hoarse cry swung them around as one. “Riders coming up from Rivenrock—“
“Sweet Goddess, not more of them!” Sioned cried.
The big Sunrunner shook his head. “No, no—only a few dozen. But under a lightning-bolt banner—crowned. And beneath it a man without a beard.”
Rohen’s breath hissed between his teeth. “So. Their warlord at last. I’ve been wondering when I’d meet him.”
“Warlord?” Meath echoed sharply.
“Of course. The man who needs no tokens of his kills or his power.” He turned to Sioned. “Find Maarken. Tell him I don’t care how he does it, but Pol mus^ be seen to lead the charge.” He held her stricken gaze with his own. “I’d do it myself, but it must be Pol. They must look to him now. not me.”
“Rohan—“
“I’m no warrior, Sioned. I’ve failed.”
“No!”
“But I have a son whose very nature won’t allow him to fail. Not in this. Not in battle like this. Find Maarken. Hurry, beloved.” He started away, unable to bear the sight of her anguish.
“My lord?” Meath had caught up to him in two long-legged strides, a hand on his arm. “I’ll keep watch if that’s your order, but—isn’t there anything else I can do?”
“Stay with her,” he murmured, low enough so Sioned wouldn’t hear. “Just—stay with her.”
Myrdal saw Chay’s broad shoulders sag, his proud head bending to his chest. “No,” he breathed. “Ah, Goddess, not again. This will break him.”
“He’s not as brittle as all that,” the old woman retorted, hoping it was true. “He can’t afford to be.”
“He’ll fight for Stronghold until his last breath.”
“It must be done,” Myrdal insisted, rapping her cane on the tiles. “If I’m wrong, and the castle holds as it’s done countless times, it won’t matter.”
“All right, then,” he said, defeated. “Show me.”
Betheyn came forward from the silent shadows of the Great Hall. “I’ve broken the seal. It must be at least a hundred years old.”
“More,” said the old woman, and did not elaborate. She leaned on Chay’s arm as they walked the length of the blue-and-green tiled floor. Its crystalline sheen was gone, worn by the hundreds who had been housed here—folly to wax and buff the tiles during a siege in any case. The one place no one ever walked was to the raised dais, where the high table rested, and the carved chairs, and above them the empty place near the dragon tapestry where Rohan’s sword had hung unused so long.
There was an anteroom between the Great Hall and the kitchens, a place for squires and servants to organize the presentation of courses during a banquet. Beth struggled to pull aside a heavy tapestry from one wall, a floor-to-ceiling depiction of a forest scene.
“Don’t bother, child,” Myrdai said. “Chay, tear it down.”
He did so. The fabric ripped and the thick iron rod holding it came loose from the wall. Beth ducked out of the way and all three of them coughed as dust rose from the crumpled hanging.
There was indeed a seal—a huge circle of plaster as large as a cartwheel. Half of it lay propped against the wall. The other ragged half remained. It had been incised with a few words in the old language that Chay couldn’t read, and there lingered traces of blue and yellow paint.
“It’s said that sorcerers put this seal here, with a spell woven into it so none could break it.” Myrdai snorted. “You aren’t by any chance secretly diarmadhi, are you, Betheyn?”
“So there’s a seal,” Chay said impatiently. “What was it there to protect?”
“Put your shoulder to that stone—third in, fifth up—and find out.”
Dust-thickened air clogged his lungs. He was aching and bathed in sweat by the time the stone finally moved. With it, creaking on ancient mechanisms, went half the wall. Revealed was a passage that descended at a steep slant into absolute darkness.
“It’s almost like the one at Remagev,” Beth said. “Only bigger.”
“And more complicated. The passages go on for a full five measures into the hills.”
Betheyn jumped and gave a little shriek as a family of mice scurried past her feet.
Myrdai continued, “The main one comes out near the road to the Court of the Storm God. Or so my mother led me to believe.”
“Passages? More than one?” Chay asked, shaken.
“I’m not sure where some of them lead,” she answered almost casually. “But the main one is marked.”
“Or so your mother led you to believe,” he said sourly. “Wonderful.” He wiped his hands on his trousers. “Beth, we’re going to need a lot of torches. And a Sunrunner in front of us. Let’s get busy.”
Pol yanked his father’s sword from the nape of an enemy neck and glanced around again, trying to find Maarken. His cousin’s banner suddenly sprang up on a little sandy knoll, and Pol made for the spot with a single-minded will, leaving five corpses and three severed sword arms behind him.
Maarken turned as the familiar voice yelled his name. Pol reined in so hard beside him that the mare danced back on her hind legs. Knowing what Maarken needed to hear, he reported that Hollis, Chayla and the others were well—only a partial lie.
“But there’s no working—it’s gone. We’re on our own.”
“Goddess damn these whoresons! Pol, take the Second— the Radzyn and Remagev regulars my father and Walvis were commanding. Swing them around and attack the left flank. Daniv and Laroshin are doing the same on the right. Hurry!”
“Yes, my lord,” he responded automatically, and galloped off.
“So that is how one commands a prince,” Kazander mused at Maarken’s side. Then he saluted and rode down the rise, howling “Azhrei!”
Maarken directed his attention back to the main battle. He longed to be in there with his people, but the collapse of his basic strategy demanded that he separate himself and, as his father would have said, use his imagination.
It was not imagination that gave him the sight of a banner the size of a bedsheet riding on a pole like a naked pine trunk. It was the same lightning-bolt design of the troops they’d battled all day—but its sheer size and its telltale crown signaled that someone special accompanied it. He had the sudden unshakable conviction that beneath that tremendous flag rode the real architect of all this slaughter.
And between that person and the rest of the Vellanti army, exactly where Maarken had told him to be, was Pol.
He flinched with the impact of Sioned’s mind. The techniques of resistance—the mere thought of resistance—never even occurred to him.
Rohan says their warlord has come to lead them—and that Pol must lead us. Do as you think best, but make sure he’s seen. Make sure, Maarken.
And then she was gone. He understood what Rohan meant—Pol was the prince here, not he—but what in the name of the Goddess could he do? If the Vellant’im rallied further, as they had begun to do in earnest with the sight of that banner, the Desert host would go on fighting, would blunt their swords hacking at enemy bones and retrieve arrows from corpses to take aim once more. Would follow Pol as they had always followed Rohan.
But the sky was already paling with sunset, and the glow of the Flametower was brighter, and soon the winter night would darken the battlefield. Could they set the sands ablaze as Pol had years ago, and struggle on until—
Until what?
He couldn’t plan anything without knowing what was going on. He wove sunlight and saw Sethric and Kazander and Daniv and even Walvis—and who had let him back on a horse, anyway?
But mostly he saw Pol. His cousin didn’t need to be told to rally soldiers to his side. He had created a place for himself—pushed time aside, claimed room enough for what he believed must be done. It was the place Rohan had once occupied. But it wasn’t enough.
Sudden shattering pain in his right arm. Leather and steel battle harness digging into Maarken as he slumped in the saddle. Sword dropping from his aching right hand. Agony more fierce than Sunrunner’s Fire—
Surcease.
“Come on, all of you. There’s nothing down there that will eat you! Just follow each other—it’s simple. Sheep can do this. Take your candle and mind you don’t bump your head!”
Myrdal felt the tray of candles grow lighter in her hands, and interrupted her urgings to call for another supply. Jeni brought them and told her that in a few moments the more seriously wounded would be brought across the courtyard.
“You handle this, child,” Myrdal said, pushing herself from the wall and picking up her cane again to support her. For a moment she watched the girl calmly hand out candles to each person entering the passage. Jeni had them moving with instant efficiency. She smiled reassuringly, encouraged in a soft voice—and lit each candle herself with Sunrunner’s Fire. Myrdal blinked, wondering when she’d learned this— and who had taught her. But then she shrugged off the irrelevancy. Camigwen’s namesake was worthy of her, she told herself with uncharacteristic sentiment, then cleared her throat and limped back into the Great Hall.
Most of Stronghold’s augmented population was out on the battlefield. The able-bodied had already gone down the tunnel; only the wounded who must be carried remained. Soon someone was going to have to ride down and tell Maarken to send groups of his soldiers back to follow through the passage. Myrdal was not sanguine about their following orders.
Meiglan and her daughters sat in one of the window embrasures, all three of them stormy-eyed. But it wasn’t Jihan who was refusing to budge; it was Rislyn.
“No. I won’t leave Papa and Grandsir,” she was saying as Myrdal approached.
“What’s all this, then?” She was furious with Meiglan for not managing her children better. She didn’t have time for this.
Meiglan must have seen the angry disapproval in her eyes. Her spine straightened and her gentle eyes flashed. But the access of energy was brief; she wilted back against the stones and looked an appeal at the old woman, who repressed a sigh.
A fine time for Rislyn to turn stubborn. She was still white-faced and strained after her ordeal; Jihan was eager for another adventure. Lacking time to coax Rislyn to obedience, she decided the three of them would be close enough to escape here in the Great Hall. But she had to lay the foundation for an order that would be heeded.
So she said, “You know that Lady Betheyn went first and took your cousin Tobren with her to call Fire so everyone could see.” The girls nodded. “Well, the younger you are, the more powerful your magic in the maze. Yes, that’s what’s down there—a magical maze that not even your grandfather has ever seen. Your mother will need you to guide her—but she’s rightly waiting for your father and the High Prince and High Princess. When they come, any of them, you have to be ready to take them through. Will you do that?”
“Somebody will have to teach us how to call Fire—we don’t know how,” Jihan said shrewdly, perking up at the notion of learning this Sunrunner skill.
Meiglan said firmly, “Papa or his mother will do that for you.”
“Yes,” Myrdal said, grateful that she’d gotten them past that sticky point. “But you have to be ready, and not delay. They’re counting on you.”
After due consideration, Rislyn nodded. “But not until they leave. You see, Grandsir made us his athr’im here.” She displayed her little emerald ring of office. Jihan thrust her hand forward too, for her ruby to be admired.
At last Myrdal understood Rislyn’s balkiness. “That’s a very great honor. But it also means you must serve him and obey him.” The girls nodded, and she exchanged a relieved glance with Meiglan before hobbling past the line of castlefolk into the courtyard.
She ran down her mental list of those who must be persuaded to leave Stronghold. Hollis, Chayla, Jeni, and Feylin would accompany the wounded; she anticipated no trouble there. Well, Hollis perhaps, but Myrdal intended to use Chayla’s safety as surety for Hollis’ cooperation. There was nothing she could do about Rohan and Sioned. But she spied her next target over by the stables. Tobin was directing grooms and pages to lead the few horses left within the keep—mares in heavy foal, colts and fillies too young to be ridden—toward the gardens. They would be taken out by the grotto exit. Myrdal shook her head in wonder that even without reliable speech, the princess managed to make herself understood. She started over to where Tobin sat neatly on the edge of a trough, marshaling her arguments.
Chay beat her to it. Striding up to his wife, he picked her up and carried her to the Great Hall—protesting vehemently all the way, of course—with young Kierun following to escort Tobin through the passage. Myrdal grunted her satisfaction and turned her attention elsewhere.
The wounded were taken across the courtyard, scores of them carried on litters or helped by more ambulatory companions. Myrdal saw Dannar run up to Feylin, question her, and head for the gardens with something she gave him from her coffer of medicines. Myrdal caught her attention, waving her over.
“What did the boy want?”
“Pain killer. That old wound in Rohan’s shoulder took a hell of a beating this morning.”
The last she’d seen him, he’d been rubbing his left arm, not his right. “Get up front and send Beth back to close the passage. The rest of us will leave by the grotto.”
Feylin glanced around. “Remagev was difficult enough,” she murmured. “I never thought I’d see this.”
“This is my doing, not Rohan’s.”
“I’d like to hear you convince him of that.” She strode away, calling for one of the pages to carry her medical case.
With the departure of the wounded, the inner ward was eerily quiet and empty. Myrdal shivered. Only once before had Stronghold felt so hollow, during that long summer and autumn when Sioned had paced the silent stones and waited for lanthe to give birth at Feruche. Then, they’d only been marking time before everyone returned. Myrdal wondered if there would be a Stronghold to return to.
Zehava would never have left the castle he’d killed thousands to possess; the home Milar had civilized and made gracious; the place where his children had been conceived and born. Would he blame Rohan for failure? Was his spirit now cursing his only son?
Myrdal glanced up at the sky. The responsibility was mine, as you charged me in his childhood: keep him safe, she said to the tall, black-haired ghost of her kinsman. He did everything possible. Could you have done more? Could anyone?
There was no answer—not that she had expected one.
Maarken became aware of Isriam’s strong arm keeping him upright—more or less—in his saddle. The young man held an arrow in his other hand, its tip coated in blood.
“What in all Hells—?” he managed, sick and dizzy but no longer in pain. The he realized that the blood was his, and what Isriam had done by tugging that arrow from his flesh. Shaken, he gripped the young man’s shoulder. “Thank you. More than you can know.” Confusion glimmered in the brown eyes; Maarken didn’t have time to enlighten him. The sight of Pol fighting at the rear of the Vellanti army while that huge banner advanced on him flared in his memory, and he said swiftly, “Take fifty warriors and go to Pol’s aid. Hurry.”
Isriam’s jaw set in fury. He threw down the arrow and spurred his horse, shouting, “To me, for Prince Pol!” as he went. Maarken glanced briefly at the bleeding hole in his sword arm and swore luridly. His wrist had been giving him trouble since noon, wrapped in supporting bandages though it was. Now he was unable to fight at all. Yet he had to lead his main force back to Stronghold, defend its gates, make a path for his army to safety within.
And then? A siege such as had not been known since his grandfather had surrounded Stronghold, trapping the Mer-ida within, starved them out, and slaughtered them as they emerged under a flag of truce. Zehava had avoided blame for this gross dishonor by claiming he had been at dinner, hadn’t seen the flag, and overzealous warriors had acted without his approval. Maarken had always known what a lie that was—for Zehava’s troops had been very careful to keep the chief Merida lord alive. His name, scrawled unsteadily at the bottom of the parchment, had given the title to the Treaty of Linse. He’d lived long enough to sign in High Prince Roelstra’s presence, then succumbed to an “accident” on the way to exile in Cunaxa.
Maarken saw the same thing happening again—only this time it would be his family and his people caged within Stronghold. There would be no surrender. Aid was many hundreds of measures away, across a Meadowlord given over to the enemy and a Syr whose ruling prince was dead. The northern Desert was under siege from the Merida and the whole Cunaxan army. Everyone within Stronghold would die before help came. All the warriors of Radzyn and Remagev and Stronghold itself would be pent up, useless but for brief and meaningless skirmishes against the overwhelming host outside.
He made the only decision possible, understanding at last Rohan’s until now incomprehensible theory about how and when to act.
“He’s pulling half his own forces and the whole right flank away,” Meath said incredulously. “What does he think he’s doing? Trying to make them follow him into the Desert?”
Chay shook his head. “He knows that if he’s locked up in here, he’ll never get out. His best bet is to save enough of his army to lift a siege later on. He’s leaving enough to defend Stronghold until our people get back in and the gates can be closed. It’s exactly what I’d do,” he added.
Sioned nodded numbly. Meath’s back-and-forth Sunrunning had drawn a horrifying picture of what was going on out there. Myrdal had just informed her that all the castlefolk and all the wounded were now fleeing through the passage, carrying with them everything they could. Some of it was useful—food, clothing, blankets; some of it frivolous, compared to lives—books, precious objects, jewels. Betheyn had come back to report that Feylin had gone ahead to lead. Sethric, the Remagev youths, and nearly fifty other mounted soldiers had left through the grotto; they would meet up with the others to protect against Vellanti ambush. Walvis was fighting his way up the canyon now toward the tunnel. Once his troops were through, the gates would be shut tight and he would follow Sethric. By nightfall there would be nothing and no one left in Stronghold to make it needful of defending—except that it was Stronghold.
Chay lifted Sioned’s face gently with a finger at her cheek. “It’s over,” he murmured. “For now, it’s over.”
She knew what he wanted. “I can’t.”
“You must.”
A flinch crossed her face as the first of Walvis’ soldiers clattered through the inner ward, bloodied and exhausted. She raked her hands back through her hair that had long since come loose of its pins and braids. “He won’t leave, don’t you understand that?”
“Then neither will I.”
“Nor I,” Meath seconded. Myrdal nodded her agreement.
Sioned turned away in defeat. “Meath, tell Maarken what we’re ... tell him,” she said shakily, unable to speak the words. “Get Meiglan and the children out of here, Myrdal. And Dannar. You follow them, Meath. No arguments.”
“Yes, my lady,” he responded.
“Chay,” she began, but then a terrible despairing cry went up in the outer courtyard. A moment later a single flame soared across the sky, long and bright and almost floating. It was followed by another and then another.
“The gate’s been breached!” Chay exclaimed. “Goddess help us, there’s no more time!”
Maarken swayed once more under the impact of a powerful faradhi mind. For the instants it took Meath to commu- nicate the frantic message, he saw nothing but the older Sunrunner’s blazing colors. When Meath left him, he found he’d had sense enough to fling his arms around his stallion’s sweaty neck to keep himself in the saddle.
Straightening, he cut to the outside of the riders thundering their way across the Desert and reined in. The work of a single thought allowed him to see the enemy that had forced their way up to the gatehouse along with Walvis’ last troops. But their fiery arrows could only destroy the empty shell that was Stronghold. Tears stung his eyes. He tasted salt and blood and the Desert itself on his lips.
Isriam had fought his way to Pol—and Pol was no fool. The left flank of Rohan’s army was now heading into the Desert, archers clinging to mounted troops, almost every horse carrying a double load. They could make no real speed that way. But the hundreds gathered now beneath that lightning banner showed no interest in the chase. They were marching with awful resolve for the keep now open to them.
He turned to Stronghold once again. Flames shot on enemy arrows sprouted in both inner and outer courtyards; the gatehouse was ablaze from the inside. But they were careful to direct their arrows away from the main keep. Radzyn, Whitecliff, Remagev—even Faolain Lowland, that they could have destroyed instead of trying to capture— what was it the Desert possessed that these barbarians wanted so much?
Coming back to himself, he cast one last agonized glance at the great castle with his own eyes, then swung his stallion around and galloped away.
Someone said she’d heard he was in the Great Hall, helping the wounded enter the passage. Someone else thought he’d been seen near the grotto, urging balky horses through. A servant, carrying Sioned’s casket of jewels and cursing for not remembering them earlier, said he’d been upstairs but that had been some time ago.
She found him in the dimness near the stream that meandered out from the grotto pool. He lay on his back on the brittle yellow grass, and his face and hands were wet, as if he’d bent to cup water to his’cheeks before starting back to the grotto.
She sank to her knees beside him. His skin was still warm beneath the cool droplets of water. His eyes were open, reflecting the Desert sky. There was no blood, no wound, no pain on his features. All age was smoothed away. She stroked silver-blond hair, fine as silk over his brow. Traced the proud line of his jaw from ear to cleft chin. Brushed a fingertip along the sensitive curve of his mouth.
Her head tilted back and her lips parted and her lungs filled and she gave a single howl of anguish that shattered her very bones.
Chay turned back from the grotto path and ran. He saw Sioned; then he saw Rohan. A strangled cry of grief and denial clogged in his throat and he stumbled to his knees at his prince’s side, tears running down his face.
Still blood, cold bones, lifeless flesh. He had known Rohan almost all his days and now there would be no more days. Looking on that serene face, he saw his own youth. Gone.
He closed Rohan’s eyes, feeling the lashes soft and thick against his fingertips. He gently slid the topaz-and-emerald ring off Rohan’s finger. For Pol. The High Prince. Then he reached across the body and put one hand on Sioned’s huddled shoulder.
“Come, heartling,” he murmured. He heard the sounds of battle out in the courtyard. He said her name, and again, and still she bent over Rohan, unknowing and uncaring.
“Sioned! For the love of him, we’ve got to—“
“No,” she said, quite clearly. “No.”
He smelled smoke and glanced up at the keep. But the plumes rose from the gatehouse and the outbuildings; the Vellant’im wanted Stronghold intact, too, just like every castle in Rohan’s princedom.
Pol’s princedom now.
“Come away, Sioned. We must.”
She had placed her hands on his chest, feeling for a heartbeat that was no longer there. Chay took her wrists, pulled her roughly to her feet. Her green eyes were wild, tearless, glaring at him as she struggled against his strength. He caught her close, holding her head to his shoulder.
“He’s gone. He doesn’t need us now. Pol does. Sioned, don’t fight me—“
“ ‘For the love of him—‘ “ she echoed suddenly in a queer, high-pitched voice. And she broke away, swooped down like a hawk, slipped Rohan’s belt-knife from its sheath. Chay cried out in horror—but the knife sliced only through her loose, heavy hair. She hacked it off in short, sharp strokes and it spread over Rohan’s chest, gold and red and silver gleaming in the last sunlight.
Ablaze with Sunrunner’s Fire.
She spun around, threw back her head, raised both hands toward the Flametower. Fire overflowed its pointed windows. It spilled white-hot down walls, streamed across roofs, flooded every room and hallway and stair. Beyond the garden wall flames leaped in the shadowy courtyard. And people began to scream.
Chay staggered back from the Fire consuming Rohan. He grabbed Sioned in his arms and ran for the grotto. Flames flowed across dry grass. Fire and Water became one, the stream and pool and even the thin trickling waterfall ablaze.
He carried her through the narrow gap in the rock wall, barely ahead of the flames. Then somebody took her from him, put her on one horse and pushed him onto another, and they were riding for their lives while behind them, all through the night, all Stronghold burned as a funeral pyre.
Index of Characters
ALASEN of Kierst (696-). m719 Ostvel. Mother of Camigwen,
Milar, Dannar.
ALLEYN of Dorval (724-). Daughter of Ludhil and Iliena. ANDREV of Goddess Keep (724-). Andry’s son by Othanel. ANDRY of Radzyn Keep (699-). Lord of Goddess Keep
719-. Squire at High Kirat 711-713. Father of Andrev,
Tobren, Chayly, Joscev, Merisel. ARLIS (710-). Prince of Isel 727- (regency to 730). Squire at Stronghold 722; knighted 730. m730 Demalia. Father of Roric, Hanella. ARPALI (704-). Court Sunrunner at Tiglath 725-727; Balarat
730-.
AUDRAN of Dorval (728-). Son of Ludhil and Iliena. AUDRITE of Sandeia (670-). m692 Chadric. Mother of
Ludhil, Laric. AURAR of Catha Heights (715-). Daughter of Patwin and
Rabia. Fostered at Swalekeep 732-.
BETHEYN (707-). At Radzyn 731-.
BIRIOC of Catchwater (716-). Miyon’s bastard son. Trained at Remagev 735-36. Half-brother of Meiglan, Ezanto, Zanyr, Duroth.
BRENLIS (718-). Mother of Andry’s daughter Merisel. Fostered briefly at Stronghold 730.
CAMIGWEN of Castle Crag (720-). Daughter of Ostvel and Alasen. Fostered at Stronghold 734-. CATALLEN. Bard, tutor, and Miyon’s spy at Dragon’s
Rest. CHADRIC (664-). Prince of Dorval 720-. m692 Audrite. Father of Ludhil, Laric. Squire at Stronghold 677; knighted 6??
CHAYLA of Whitecliff (722-). Daughter of Maarken and Hollis. Fostered at Remagev 736-.
CHAYNAL (668-). Lord of Radzyn Keep 689-. m690 Tobin. Father of Maarken, Jahni, Andry, Sorin. Battle Commander of the Desert 695-.
CHIANA (698-). Roelstra’s daughter. m719 Halian. Mother of Rinhoel, Palila.
CLUTHINE (695-). Halian’s niece; Isaura’s sister.
DANIV of Syr (721-). Son of Kostas and Danladi. Squire at
Stronghold 734-. DANNAR of Castle Crag (726-). Son of Ostvel and Alasen.
Squire at Dragon’s Rest 737-. DENIKER (705-). Devri. m735 Ulwis. DONATO (671-). Court Sunrunner at Castle Crag 720-. DRAZA (709-). Lord of Grand Veresch 732-. DUROTH (718-). Miyon’s bastard son.
EDREL of River Ussh (715-). Squire at Dragon’s Rest 727; knighted 735. m737 Norian of Grib. Brother of Kerluthan, Paveol.
EVARIN (716-). Physicians School in Gilad 733-735; Goddess Keep 735; Master Physician 736.
FEYLIN (684-). m706 Walvis. Mother of Sionell, Jahnavi.
GEMMA of Syr (694-). Princess of Ossetia 722-. Fostered at High Kirat 704-719. m719 Tilal. Mother of Rihani, Sioneva, Sorin.
HALIAN (680-). Prince of Meadowlord 722-. m719 Chiana.
Father of Rinhoel, Palila. HEVATIA of Isel (682-). m707 Latham. Mother of Arlis,
Saumer, Alathiel. HOLLIS (691-). m719 Maarken. Mother of Chayla, Rohannon.
IDALIAN of Faolain Riverport (718-). Son of Baisath and
Michinida. Fostered at Balarat 732-. ILIENA of Snowcpves (697-). m721 Ludhil. Mother of Al- leyn, Audran. Sister of Lisiel, Yarin. ISRIAM of Einar (721-). Son of Sabriam and Isaura. Squire at Stronghold 734-. IZAEA of Catha Heights (711-). Daughter of Patwin and
Rabia.
JAHNAVI of Remagev (711-). Lord of Tuath Castle 734-. m732 Rabisa. Fostered at’Skybowl 722; knighted 730.
Father of Siona, Jeren. JAYACHIN (702-). Waesian merchant. JIHAN of Princemarch (730-). Daughter of Pol and Meiglan. JOHLARIAN. Court Sunrunner at Faolain Lowland. JOLAN (702-). Devri. m722 Torien.
KARANAYA of Faolain Lowland (711-). Cousin of Mirsath and Idalian. KAZANDER (711-). Korrus (battle leader) of Isulk’im.
Trained at Remagev 728-729. KERLUTHAN (706-). Lord of River Ussh 729-. Brother of
Edrel, Paveol. KIERUN of Lower Pyrme (725-). Son of Allun and Kiera of Einar. Squire at Dragon’s Rest 737-. KOLYA (696-). Lord of Kadar Water 701-. Father of
Malyander.
KOSTAS (687-). Prince of Syr 724-. m720 Danladi, daughter of Roelstra. Squire at Kadar Water 700; knighted 708.
Brother of Tilal. Father of Daniv, Aladra.
LARIC of Dorval (698-). Prince of Firon 719-. m721 Lisiel.
Squire at High Kirat 710; knighted 718. Father of Tirel. LATHAM of Kierst (683-). Regent of Isel 727-730. m707
Hevatia. Father of Arlis, Saumer, Alathiel. LISIEL of Snowcoves (699-). m721 Laric. Mother of Tirel. LUDHIL of Dorval (694-). m721 Iliena. Squire at Fessada
705; knighted 714. Father of Alleyn, Audran. LYELA of Waes (709-). Tallain’s cousin. Resident at Tiglath
720-.
MAARKEN of Radzyn Keep (693-). Lord of Whitecliff 719-. Squire at Graypearl 702; knighted 712. m719 Hollis. Father of Chayla, Rohannon.
MALYANDER of Kadar Water (725-). Son of Kolya. Squire at Athmyr 737-.
MEATH (673-). Court Sunrunner at Graypearl 698-.
MEIGLAN of Gracine Manor (710-). Miyon’s bastard daughter. m728 Pol. Mother of Jihan, Rislyn.
MEVITA (714-). m731 Rialt. Mother of Polev.
MICHINIDA (688-). m708 Baisath of Faolain Riverport. Mother of Mirsath, Idalian.
MIRSATH of Faolain Riverport (716-). Son of Baisath and Michinida. Squire at High Kirat 728; knighted 736.
MIYON (689-). Prince of Cunaxa 701-. Father of Ezanto, Zanyr, Birioc, Duroth, Meiglan.
MORWENNA (680-). At Stronghold 724-.
MYRDAL (645-). Commander of Stronghold guard 675-703. Rohan’s bastard cousin.
NAYDRA of Princemarch (673-). Roelstra’s daughter. m705
Narat of Port Adni. NIALDAN (703-). Devri.
OCLEL (705-). Devri. m727 Rusina. Father of Surida. OSTVEL (673-). Lord of Castle Crag 719-. m (1) 698
Camigwen; (2) 719 Alasen. Father of Riyan; Camigwen,
Milar, Dannar.
PALILA of Meadowlord (723-). Daughter of Chiana and
Halian. PATWIN (691-). Lord of Catha Heights 701-. m709 Rabia, daughter of Roelstra. Father of Izaea, Sangna, Aurar. POL (704-). Ruler of Princemarch 726-. m728 Meiglan.
Squire at Graypearl 716; knighted 726. Rohan’s bastard son by lanthe of Princemarch. Father of Jihan, Rislyn.
RABISA of Tuath Castle (712-). m732 Jahnavi. Mother of Siona, Jeren.
RELNAYA (675-). Court Sunrunner at Remagev 724-.
RIALT (701-). Chamberlain at Dragon’s Rest 726-730; Regent of Waes 730-. m (2) 731 Mevita. Father of Mistrin, Tessalar; Polev.
RIHANI of Ossetia (720-). Son of Tilal and Gemma. Squire at High Kirat 732-.
RINHOEL of Meadowlord (720-). Son of Chiana and Halian.
RISLYN of Princemarch (730-). Daughter of Pol and Meiglan.
RIYAN (699-). Lord of Skybowl 719-; Lord of Feruche 728-; Lord of Elktrap Manor 730-. Son of Camigwen and Ostvel. Squire at Swalekeep 711-713, 717-719; knighted 719. Goddess Keep 713-717. m728 Ruala. Father of Maara.
ROHAN (677-). Prince of the Desert 698-; High Prince 705-. Squire at Remagev 690; knighted 695. m698 Sioned. Father of Pol.
ROHANNON of Whitecliff (722-). Son of Maarken and Hollis. Squire at New Raetia/Zaldivar 735-.
RUSINA (708-). Devri. m727 Oclel. Mother of Andry’s daughter Tobren; Surida.
SAUMER of Kierst-Isel (720-). Son of Latham and Hevatia.
Squire at High Kirat 734-. SEGELIN (702-). Lord of Gilad Seahold. m732 Paveol of
River Ussh. Father of Edrelin.
SETHRIC of Grib (717-). Velden’s nephew. Remagev 736-. SIONED of River Run (677-). Goddess Keep 689-698. m698
Rohan. Princess of the Desert 698-; High Princess 705-. SIONELL of Remagev (708-). m726 Tallain. Daughter of
Walvis and Feylin. Mother of Antalya, Jahnev, Meig.
TALLAIN (700-). Lord of Tiglath 724-. m726 Sionell. Squire at Stronghold 713; knighted 721. Father of Antalya, Jahnev, Meig.
TESSALAR (723-). Daughter of Rialt. Fostered at New Raetia737-.
THANYS (683-). Meiglan’s servant.
TILAL of River Run (692-). Prince of Ossetia 724-. m719 Gemma. Squire at Stronghold 702; knighted 712. Father of Rihani, Sioneva, Sorin.
TIREL of Firon (730-). Son of Laric and Lisiel.
TOBIN of the Desert (671-). m690 Chaynal. Mother of Maarken, Jahni, Sorin, Andry.
TOBREN of Goddess Keep (725-). Andry’s daughter by Rusina. Fostered at Whitecliff 737-.
TORIEN (697-). Devri. m722 Jolan. Chief Steward of Goddess Keep 723-.
ULWIS (711-).’ Devri. m735 Deniker.
VALEDA (700-). Devri. Mother of Andry’s daughter Chayly. VELDEN (683-). Prince of Grib 701-. Father of Elsen,
Norian. VOLOG (659-). Prince of Kierst 692-. Father of Latham,
Birani, Alasen, Volnaya. Sioned’s cousin.
WALVIS (685-). Lord of Remagev 714-. m706 Feylin. Squire at Stronghold 697; knighted 703. Father of Sionell, Jahnavi.
YARIN of Snowcoves (690-). m725 Vallaina. Father of Natham.