fortress of dragons.html (63 page)

And he had recovered his men from the panic charge they might have made. It was harder to go deliberately, to measure their advance, but he relied on his veteran companies, and had sent out messengers sternly advising the line to prepare a moderate advance… gods keep the peasant levies steady.

He gave the signal and led, keeping Kanwy tight-reined. Behind him, the veteran companies that were the stability of Ylesuin's line held their horses to the pace he set, allowing the peasant line to keep up.

He could see the center, Ryssand's forces; and the right wing, Maudyn's, stretched out to indistinction against an unkept woods fortress of dragons.html

which had already sent out an ambush. They advanced, keeping their ranks, never quickening the charge. It was a game of temptation: Tasmôrden tempted him to a mad rush downhill: he had his own trap in mind.

"They aren't facing untried boys!" Cefwyn shouted at Anwyll, with the Dragons, where a little too much enthusiasm from Anwyll's lot crowded up. "Steady pace!"

Ryssand and Nelefreissan and Murandys to the center, the Dragons, Osanan and the Prince's Guard in the left wing with him, while Maudyn commanded the right wing: Panys and Llymaryn, Carys and the other eastern provinces, with the Guelen Guard, as they had settled among themselves. At the very last, their heavy cavalry had to screen their far fewer pikemen, who would be slow as tomorrow getting to the fray, and in peasant order, which was to say, damned little order at all… likely to arrive only for the very last action if the cavalry once lost its good sense and plunged downslope.

Yet it was always Ylesuin's habit to have the pikemen for support, and Cefwyn asked himself a last time was it folly on his part to have declined to summon the Guelen and Llymarish levies into this, not to have had the double line of pikes that had distinguished his grandfather's successful assaults.

It was far too late now for second thoughts. Kanwy fought him for more rein and jolted under him like a mountain in motion, plate-sized feet descending a steep slope in deliberate, uncomfortable strides that made it clear Kanwy wanted to run.

For a guard at his back he had those who had defended him for years; and for a man at his right he had young Anwyll, lately from watch on the Lenúalim.

Where are you now, master crow? Taking account of this? On the ridge watching?

I know where all my enemies are. I've dealt with it, thank you, faithful crow. I could use your shield just now. Anwyll's a fine young man. But he hasn't your qualities.

The horizon flashed white, then dark, and the foot of the hill gave up a sudden movement of dark banners with a white device that shone like the lightning itself.

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It was the heraldry of the Sihhë High Kings carried before him, in the lines of the enemy, the black banner of the Tower Crowned.

And before Ylesuin's line, beside the red Dragon Banner of the Marhanen kings, shone the Tower and Checker of the Lady Regent, blue and white and gold, bright under the leaden sky.

"Hold!" Cefwyn said, and reined in, to allow his line to assume a better order: the wings had begun to stray a little behind. "Let's see if they'll climb to us!"

The line drew to a ragged stop, re-formed itself in an even, bristling row of lances.

He sorely missed the Lanfarnessemen, archers that would have taken full advantage of this height. From the right wing issued a thin gray sleet of arrows aloft, archers from Panys' contingent, the best they had, and likely to do damage with the higher vantage.

Back came a flight from the other direction, uphill and short, a waste of shafts.

A solitary horseman rode out from the halted opposing line, rode back and forth, shouting something in which Cefwyn had no interest at all, except the mild hope that an arrow would do them a favor.

There, he said to himself, seeing the glint of gold encircling that helm, there was Tasmôrden at last, taunting them, wishing the king of Ylesuin to descend into the trap he had laid.

He would not shout back, would not give way to anger. He set Kanwy out to the fore at a mere amble, rode across the center and rode back again, gesture for gesture, leisurely as a ride through his capital. Arrows attempted the uphill shot with no better effect than before. Arrows came back down the hill, and the dull thump of impact below echoed off the rocks to their left, with satisfying outcries of anger from the enemy below.

In the same leisure Cefwyn rejoined his wing, rode to Anwyll's side, and pointed to a stand of brush somewhat past Tasmôrden's line.

"When we do charge, we will meet Lord Maudyn there, behind his line. Bear somewhat left. We shan't be in a hurry until the last."

"
Left
, Your Majesty…"

"Left, I say. Out and around his flank. There may be trenches. But there we meet Lord Maudyn, and come back east again. No driving fortress of dragons.html

into Tasmôrden's center, where I most think he's fortified. That honor is Ryssand's."

"Yes, Your Majesty." There was grave doubt in Anwyll's voice.

"Relay that to Captain Gwywyn."

Anwyll rode off at a good clip, met with the captain of the Prince's Guard, who stood in Idrys' place in general command of the king's forces, and came back again in haste toward him, to take his place as shieldman.

"
Sound the advance
!" Cefwyn cried to the trumpeter, and as the trumpets sounded, gave Kanwy rein to resume a measured advance.

Only when he was close enough to the foot of the long descent did he let the pace increase, and set himself not in the lead, as he had done in other wars, but back with the line: his guard was around him, the Dragons beside him, and the forest of ash wood lifted at the heavens now began to lower as the ranks closed.

He lowered his own visor, lowered the lance, took a good grip for the shock to come; and hoped to the gods the veteran Dragons evaded the brush where he wagered stakes were in place: they were too expert for such traps.

And his leading was not to ride full tilt into the lines that offered; they evaded the rows of brush that skirted the center and met the shock of heavy horse that swept out from the enemy's line to prevent that flanking move—met it with a crack like a smith's hammer.

Horses went down, fewer of theirs than the enemy's, and they slid by—doing nothing to attack the entrenched line of brush-hidden stakes and pikemen. They went past the flank of the cavalry, and the heavy horse of Tasmôrden's center, seeing the gap they had left, charged past them, going uphill, unchecked.

Ryssand had buckled, had retreated.

And Tasmôrden's riders plunged up and up into that pocket of retreating men, blind to the sweep from either wing that now turned behind them.

Cefwyn took down an opposing pikeman with the broken stub of his lance, sent Kanwy through a last curtain of infantry, and saw Maudyn's banners coming toward him from the east, to meet him behind Tasmôrden's line.

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More, he saw Tasmôrden's banners in the heart of the remaining pikemen, and saw the cluster of mounted heavy horse guards that betokened a lord's defense, between him and Maudyn.

"With me!" he shouted at Anwyll and whatever of his own guard could keep up, and, sword in hand, he rode for that gold-crowned man in the heart of the enemy.

The pretender to the High Kingship failed to see his approach; he shouted in vain after his charging troops, who by now had chased halfway up the hill in pursuit of Ryssand's retreat.

"Tasmôrden!" Cefwyn shouted, and the man turned his face toward him, a dark-bearded man in a crowned helm, in black armor, bearing the forbidden Tower Crowned on his coat and his shield.

Kanwy went through the guard like a bludgeon, scattering unready pikemen, shouldering horses aside as Cefwyn laid about him with sword and shield; with a shove of his hindquarters as if he were climbing a hill, Kanwy broke through the last screen of defense, trampled a man, kept going. The clangor of engagement was at Cefwyn's back: his guard was still with him, shouting for the gods and Ylesuin; and the crowned man, realizing his danger, reined full about and swept a wild blow at Cefwyn's head.

Cefwyn angled his shield, shed the force of it, and dealt a blow past the opposing shield. Kanwy shouldered a horse that hit them hard, bit another. Cefwyn cut aside at the encroaching guard, veered Kanwy full about as he bore, in time to intercept another of Tasmôrden's attacks, this one descending at Kanwy's neck.

The sword grated past the metal-guarded edge of his shield, scored Kanwy's shoulder. Kanwy stumbled, recovered himself against another horse, and blows cracked like thunder around them. One numbed Cefwyn's back, but as Kanwy regained solid footing he had Tasmôrden in sight and drove his heels in, sending Kanwy over a fallen rider and through the mistimed defense of two pikemen who tried to prevent him. A pike grated off Kanwy's armor. A man cried out and went down and Kanwy bore him past, and up against his enemy.

Tasmôrden flung up his shield, desperately choosing defense: but Cefwyn's strike came from the side, with Kanwy's impetus behind it on a wheeling turn. The blade hit and hung, needing force and a twist fortress of dragons.html

of the arm to free it, and when Cefwyn freed the blade, Tasmôrden toppled from his saddle, helmless, a black-bearded and bloody face disappearing down into a maelstrom of horses and men.

"Majesty!" Cefwyn heard a man shout, and saw Lord Maudyn across an ebbing rush of Tasmôrden's forces.

Suddenly the air thickened. The hairs of his head and Kanwy's mane alike stood up.

Wizard-work, he thought. A trap.

And force and light and sound burst from the heart of the enemy.

Lightning broke above the towers, ripped across the sky, and even at a distance the air shivered with it. "Gods bless!" Uwen said, yet to Tristen's knowledge not a man behind them turned back.

The child and the Lady still went before them, and still that inky flow ran along the edges of the woods, but the lightning flash had for the blink of an eye seemed to illumine men and horses, gray as morning mist, that moved where the darkness flowed.

"I see men," Crissand said, while above them and near at hand the towers of Ilefínian now seemed to flow with inky stain in the cracks and crevices. The darkness flowed, too, in the ditch beside the road, and between the stones of a ruined sheep wall. It wound itself among the thin, straggling branches of blackened, bare trees, and drifted down like falling leaves, to coalesce and run like dark fire along the ground.

It became footprints, and the next flicker of the heavens showed ghostly riders in greater numbers.

"Haunts," Sovrag said, and Umanon blessed himself. Ahead of them all moved the lady of Emwy, but now it seemed banners had joined theirs, banners in great numbers, and a handful of ghostly gray riders, heedless of the trees, paced beside them toward the looming gates.

"Lord Haurydd," Aeself said in a muted voice, and Tristen, too, recognized the man and the banners, dim as he was under the flickering heavens. The walls of the town seemed manned, but it was uncertain whether with living Men or Shadows.

Behind his banners, the Elwynim, the Lady's sparrows, had come to take back their town; and the south of Ylesuin had come to defend their land against Elwynor's wars of succession.

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Tristen turned in the saddle and looked back over the host that had come to this place, men who had left their own lands for a comfortless camp and the risk of sorcery out of the stones of walls that had known too many wars. The earth itself seemed to quake, and the gray place held no comfort.

—
At my very doors, the Wind whispered. Mauryl's precious
hatchling. Have we known one another at some time, disagreed,
perhaps
?

He swung about. It was not only that voice. There was another
presence, far more familiar, that drifted around the perimeter, one
that taunted and mocked him and still dared not come close.

He recalled the courtyard at Ynefel, and Mauryl's face within its
walls, as all the others had been imprisoned, all the lost, all the
defeated.

So
might Ilefínian stand, as haunted, as wretched in its fall
.

"The gates are barred," he said to Uwen, for the Wind told him so.

—
Ylesuin's down, it said. Folly. Great folly. Will you help him, I
wonder
?

In the unstable clouds of the gray space he saw a field where
lightning had struck, and the dead lay all about, men and horses, and
Cefwyn… yet alive, within reach of him, if only he reached out to
rescue him.

He turned his head suddenly and looked up at the walls, seeing the lure it cast him, its intention to have Cefwyn's life and his as surely as he turned that direction, and he would not do as it wished.

He struck at all of its presence he could reach within the gray space, he struck desperately and hard, and failed. His hold on the world weakened. His strength ebbed. It was the wards that drank it away from him.

"Uwen," he said, "I have to go in there. I have to open the gates."

"Not alone," Crissand said. "No, my lord!"

There was no debate. The way was plain to him for an instant, the blink of an eye, and he cast himself into it, alone, knowing only that there was within the fortress of Ilefínian a room where a banner had hung.

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And that his enemy, bent on destruction of all he loved, invited him.

Lightning had hit, and only the fact he remembered that told Cefwyn that he had survived. He remembered Kanwy falling sidelong and pitching him to shield-side. He recalled the impact on his shield against a carpet of metal-clad bodies, and after that was uncertain whether Kanwy had risen or not: all the world was a noise in his ears and a blinding light in his vision, so bright it might have been dark instead.

He lay an instant winded and uncertain whether he felt the sword in his hand or whether it was, like the fall, only the vivid memory of holding it.