Lady Warhawk (39 page)

Deyral met with Mrillis and the strongest Rey'kil enchanters and formulated a plan.
When they contacted Meghianna, she hesitated only a few heartbeats before agreeing with them.
It would be mercy for the terrified and suffering, and would take a great burden off the land's
defenders.

Meghianna reached out through every Thread covering the World, making her voice
audible and her face visible anywhere three or more Threads intersected. She made an offer and
an invitation to the terrified masses, from the foulest criminal rotting in a dungeon to the most
delicate noblewoman and elderly, reclusive scholar.

"From new moon to full moon, the Vale of Bo'Lantier will be open to anyone who
wishes to cross under the sea to Moerta. You can only take with you what you can carry on a
horse or put in a cart, or livestock you can drive ahead of you. Every person who crosses will be
subject to inspection by enchanters, soldiers and healers. No disease or blood magic or treachery
will be allowed to cross to Moerta. Every person who crosses will be required to swear on their
immortal souls that they will never return to Lygroes. They will renounce all claim to land and
power in Lygroes, and their loyalty is to King Markas of Welcairn and to the kings allied with
him. Anyone who swears falsely will never walk out of the tunnel in Moerta alive. Once the full
moon has come, the tunnel will be sealed and no one living on Moerta will ever be able to cross
back again, either by tunnel or by sea."

The first to come were the poorest of the poor. The ones with families too large and
resources too small to pay for passage by ship. They didn't trust the smaller vessels, or the
captains who offered to let them work their way across. The parents with pretty daughters, who
feared abuse or slavery. The craftsmen with tools and supplies, who would be ruined if there was
a storm or shipwreck and everything they owned went to the bottom of the sea. The herdsmen
and others with livestock for their livelihood.

The people came slowly at first, day and night, small numbers that were easily
inspected. They received advice, food, extra clothing, and letters of passage to hand to the guards
at the other end of the tunnel.

When the suspicious and less desperate saw how easily the first hundred or so families
passed through, then the numbers and the pace increased, to the point that the inspectors had to
ask for reinforcements. Athrar devoted five hundred soldiers to patrol the area around the vale,
because this would be a perfect time for the enemy to attack and slaughter thousands of
innocents. But no attack came, and that worried Athrar and Lycen and Mrillis.

When the full moon came and the last wagon full of scholars and artisans went down
into the tunnel, the shield around the Vale of Bo'Lantier snapped shut. Meghianna sent her
awareness through the Threads, and it seemed to her there was a hollow, deserted feeling across
the landscape. There were more people living in Quenlaque and the surrounding fifty leagues
than in all the rest of Lygroes combined together.

* * * *

On the first day of spring, Megassa stood on the shore of the Lake of Ice and sent waves
of searing heat across the surface, battering the Mist Gates.

Inside the Stronghold, Emrillian woke, crying out in terror. When Ynfara and Glyssani
came running to check on her, they found the little girl bleeding from her ears and nose, sweating
and pale.

Mrillis, check Athrar!
Meghianna called, when she rushed into the room at the
frantic calls from mother and grandmother.
She is using blood to attack.

She gathered Emrillian close and wrapped all her power and love and fury around the
child, trying to break the bond that Megassa had created, to allow her to penetrate the defensive
magic of the Stronghold. Blood was the key, Meghianna realized. The blood of the Warhawk
that ran in their veins gave Megassa her doorway, and the power to reach into Emrillian's body
and attack.

But every door allowed two paths. Meghianna reached through the Threads, tightening
the bond of a single, poisonous Thread that linked Megassa and Emrillian and Athrar
together.

Save Emmi,
her brother demanded, as the trickle of blood from his mouth and
ears thickened. Meghianna felt the pains like claws through his belly that made him double over
on the floor of his command tent. He gestured at Braenlicach, which glowed red and black in
response to the attack trying to strangle his
imbrose
.

Meghianna snatched up the sword with her mental hands, but she did not pull it toward
herself, as Mrillis had yanked it out of the first Athrar's hands to kill Endor so many years ago.
She called up the essence of Braenlicach, and from far across the land she heard the Zygradon
sing in response. For half a heartbeat, she nearly let the musical call of the bowl of power pull
her away from the task at hand, but time was of the essence.

Enough!
Meghianna shouted, so all the Threads clanged with dissonance. She
swung the essence of Braenlicach, severing the thickening, poisonous Thread that bound
Megassa and Athrar and Emrillian together, and slashed at her sister on the backswing.

Megassa's shriek of agony reverberated through stone and ground, so those inside the
Stronghold heard, even without the aid of the Threads. Emrillian's terrified, bubbling wail cut off
with a popping sound that brought a shriek from Ynfara. She barely restrained herself from
yanking her daughter from Meghianna's arms.

"She's all right," Meghianna whispered, and opened her eyes. She knelt on the floor,
Emrillian's arms and legs wrapped around her, the child's blood and sweat soaking into her
simple white nightshift. "They're both all right."

"Both?" Glyssani shuddered and sat down on the end of Emrillian's bed, while Ynfara
gathered her quiet, bloody, tear-streaked child into her arms. "Athrar? She was doing this to
Athrar, too?"

"She won't do it to them again." Meghianna tried to get off her knees, and laughed
brokenly when she had no strength to move. "Someone go out on the lake and see what
happened to...her." She choked, unable to even say her sister's name without wanting to
vomit.

This is the abomination. Not the false stories of having a child with Athrar. Not
poisoning Glyssani to prevent her having a child, and killing our sister. This, attacking an
innocent child and our brother using the bond of blood and family to penetrate all barriers. The
ultimate betrayal. Mrillis... I hope I killed her. Does that make me an abomination,
too?

No, my dearest.
Mrillis' voice came gently, soothingly through the Threads.
His presence wrapped around her like a warm, soft old blanket.
You could never be an
abomination. You are the one who waits, who watches, who sacrifices all for the sake of those
you love. He sighed. I fear Athrar is the one who suffers.

Is he all right?

Already on his feet and cleaning himself and furious. When you're stronger, send an
image of Emmi to show him, so he can be sure she's all right.

Meghianna opened her eyes and sputtered a weak, choked laugh to see Ynfara
struggling to peel the bloody nightshift off her daughter without letting go of her. "We're going
to be all right," she said aloud, to those in the room, and to Athrar and Mrillis on the far side of
the continent.

Ilianora led a contingent of boys from the stone village across the Lake of Ice to
investigate what had happened to Megassa. They found a burned, melted spot on the shore where
her power had snapped back against her, melting through snow and ice and the pebbly shore.
They found blood and fragments of rock, where she had torn her legs and feet free after sinking
down in the molten stone. They followed the trail of blood and black slime that sizzled and
smelled of rotting things. It went down the long, twisting passageways, showing Megassa's
struggling passage, sometimes on her feet and sometimes on her knees. The magic protecting the
Stronghold kept the Nameless One's forces from coming in to rescue her, until she passed
through the shielding. Then there was no more sign of her, but the signs of many horses.

* * * *

"It is time to follow the vision Athrar gave us," Mrillis said, emerging from the tunnel
into the Stronghold. He looked around the entryway and sighed, with a sad little smile. "Emmi is
too busy playing to come greet me?"

"It is the middle of the night, silly man. No matter how much that little girl adores you,
she needs her sleep." Meghianna hugged him. Then she linked her arm with his as they walked
up the multiple flights of stairs to her workroom to talk.

Mrillis hadn't needed to come to the Stronghold to tell her what he intended. He could
have called her through the Threads. Meghianna guessed that he had come for a farewell of sorts.
They had discussed all the ramifications and variables involved in thickening and solidifying the
sky-web, so it enclosed Lygroes and let no living creature in or out. For the good of the
defenseless people on Moerta--defenseless, because all the magic in the World was now
concentrated exclusively on Lygroes--they had to ensure the Nameless One and his forces stayed
on Lygroes. Even if it meant locking the enemy in with the defenders, so they fought until no one
remained.

Mrillis knew he would not die from the effort, because it would take the destruction of
the Zygradon to kill him. However, he might end up in eternal sleep, like the Seer Graddon. He
might never see the Stronghold again. He had been born here, and Meghianna knew he had
hoped to breathe his last there.

"When we begin our spell, the Nameless One will strike out with everything he has.
What good is it to rule the entire World if you can't go anywhere, can't command anyone, can't
strike out at them? A king who is a prisoner is no king," Meghianna said. She smiled sadly,
feeling some pity for the Nameless One, who had made himself a prisoner of his destiny, forging
more and more chains with every cruel, selfish, destructive decision he made.

"This will be the last battle. His only hope is to use Braenlicach to find the Zygradon,
and somehow destroy it." Mrillis sighed as they reached her workroom, and he settled down on
the long padded bench next to the door. "When the time comes, my dear, I want you to take the
sword and bring it here, and hide it among the hoard. Send everyone away--they will be safe in
Quenlaque, under the shield we have been weaving stronger all these years. Let there be no
living creature here in the Stronghold except you, so there will be no crack, no seam in our
defenses. Only someone of the Warhawk's blood will be able to draw that sword again."

"He will try to take Emmi," she whispered, suddenly cold and sick in the pit of her
stomach.

"He will try, but he will not find her. Do you remember all those silly experiments with
time and space that Deyral and the scholars on Wynystrys have played with? It occurs to me that
when the sky-web is made into a dome, we will be doing to all of Lygroes what Deyral and his
friends have been doing with Wynystrys."

"How can you move an entire continent through time?"

"That is the foolishly brilliant point. Lygroes will stay right here. Time will slow inside
the bubble. Days and nights will seem their usual length, and the seasons, just like on Wynystrys.
And because we are not moving forward with the rest of the world... It will appear that Lygroes
has vanished." Mischief sparkled in his eyes, despite his weary expression.

Meghianna decided he enjoyed the thought of confounding the rest of the world.

"Those who cannot see out of the dome will not know where she has gone when she
leaves the dome."

"But no one can leave the dome, once it is in place." Meghianna fought an urge to grab
him by his shoulders and shake him.

"Perhaps." He shook his head and shoved himself to his feet. "I am going to get a good
night's sleep. In the morning I am going to play hide-and-seek with Emmi for an hour. And then
all your charges must leave the Stronghold. The time for the last battle is upon us, and I find I am
very eager to have it over and done with."

The silence, the sense of moving in a vast emptiness, was the worst part of the journey
from the tunnel to Quenlaque. Mrillis put Meghianna at the head of the troop of
imbrose
-strong women and children. She only managed a twitch of her lips when he
gently teased her about being the spear-point of their attack.

He brought up the rear, closing the net of protection she flung around their troop, and
cast all his senses in every direction, waiting for an attack. He guided his thoughts away from the
precious mother and child riding directly behind Meghianna. The center of the troop, surrounded
by women trained in warfare and using their
imbrose
for battle, was the logical place for
Ynfara and Emrillian to ride, but logic was useless against the Nameless One. Meghianna had
proposed that they do everything they would not normally do, because the Nameless One would
expect them to act logically, cautiously.

And knowing what they would logically do, he would take steps to counter each
action.

So Glyssani rode next to Guard Captain Aneela, who was dressed as Ynfara, holding a
drugged piglet wrapped in clothes to be the approximate size of Emrillian. The little girl had
laughed to see the woman pretending to be her mama, and the piggie that would pretend to be
her. Glyssani had insisted on taking the risk, to deflect attention from her granddaughter's true
location.

He thought about Athrar, and the plans they had made. They agreed that the battle
would ultimately come down to Mrillis and the Nameless One. Just as it had come down to him
and Endor decades ago. This time, instead of Mrillis snatching Braenlicach from its safe spot at
Athrar's side, scorching and terrifying all those within a dozen paces, Athrar would
send
the sword to him.