(Shadowmarch #1) Shadowmarch (73 page)

Barrick felt a chill trace down his back. Vansen’s words were much like his dream, the cold, female voice out of the empty night. He almost said something, but the stony, doubting faces all around made him hold his tongue.
The prince is imagining things,
they would whisper to each other.
His wits are going.
He should never have confessed his secrets to Briony. Thank the gods he had not given up all caution and had kept the strangest of them to himself.

“Is there some reason this enemy
couldn’t
be a woman?” Briony demanded. Barrick could not help noticing changes in his sister: it was as though she had grown bigger, harder, while he grew smaller and more helpless daily. “Didn’t Anglin’s granddaughter Lily lead her people against the Gray Companies? If the Twilight People are somehow led by a woman, does that mean we have no need to be wary of them?”

“No, Highness, of course not.” Vansen flushed easily. Barrick wondered if the man was trying to hide a great anger.

“But the princess raises an important question,” said old Steffans Nynor with surprising matter-of-factness. The castellan seemed to have put aside his fluttery servility in this time of need.
Eyes of Heaven,
Barrick thought,
have I been asleep for a hundred years? Is everyone turning into something else?
For a moment the walls of the chapel seemed to drop away and he was turning, falling. He recovered himself by biting his tongue; as the pain jumped into the back of his mouth he heard Nynor say, “. . . after all. Perhaps they merely wish to test their strength—a raid or two, then back across the Shadowline.”

“Wishful thinking,” declared Tyne of Blueshore. “Unless Vansen is utterly mistaken, that is no raiding party. They are bringing a large army, the kind that will stay in the field until it has accomplished its task.”

“But why me?” said Earl Rorick. “First they steal my bride and her splendid dowry, now they will attack my lands. I have done nothing to offend these creatures!”

“Opportunity, my lord—that seems most likely,” said Vansen. He looked at Rorick with such a calm, measured gaze that Barrick could almost see him weighing the man and finding him to be a short measure.
But Vansen is a dalesman, isn’t he? So Rorick is his lord.
The idea that a liege lord would not receive the unquestioning respect of all his liegemen was a slightly new one to Barrick, who had spent his childhood so taken with his own cynicism that it had not occurred to him others might also find the ancient order of things to be less than perfect.

“Opportunity?” asked Briony.

“When I was in . . . when I was behind the Shadowline, Highness,” the captain said, “it was like falling into a fast river, even though I was less troubled than many of my men. But time and even . . . even the
substance
of things seemed different from place to place there, in the way . . . in the way that someone swept down a river might for a moment be pulled down and then be lifted to the surface again, or be caught for a moment in an eddy, then pushed helplessly into the rocks.”

“What are you talking about?” Avin Brone demanded. “You said ‘opportunity.’ ”

Vansen suddenly realized they were all looking at him. He colored again, lowered his head. “Forgive me, I am but a soldier . . .”

“Speak.” There was something in his sister’s voice that Barrick had never heard before; again he felt adrift, as though Vansen’s river had whirled him far away from his own, familiar life. “You are here precisely because you have seen things the rest of us haven’t, Captain Vansen. Speak.”

“I meant only that . . . that I wonder why, if they have gathered such an army, they should choose to enter the March Kingdoms at Daler’s Troth. I was born there, so I know it well. There are a few large towns, Dale House and Candlerstown and Hawkshill, but mostly it is hill crofts, a few larger farms, scattered villages. If they mean to come against us, and I believe they do, why should they start so far away? Even if they do not know that my men and I spied them and so they still believe they will surprise us, why should they take the chance that others will flee east with news of their coming and allow us to prepare? If they had come across the Shadowline in the Eastmarch hills, they would have been upon us already and I fear we would not be having this council, unless it was to meet our conquerors.”

“That is treason!” said Rorick. “Who is this lowborn soldier to tell us such things? Are you saying we cannot defeat them?”

“No, my lord.” Vansen’s jaw was set. He would not look at Rorick, but didn’t seem cowed. “No, but I saw them with these eyes—they have a great force. Had they come down on Southmarch in the night, this city would have been in terror and disarray.”

“What exactly
are
you trying to tell us, Captain Vansen?” Briony asked.

“That perhaps the Twilight Lands have their own ebb and flow.” He looked at her, almost imploring her to understand. “Perhaps they came through in the only place they could. It is hard to say what I mean—there are no words for it . . .”

“Perhaps the captain is right,” said Earl Gowan, whose fiefdom in Helmingsea included a small but excellent personal navy. Gowan usually had the air of someone who joined a discussion, no matter how serious, chiefly for amusement. “But perhaps they have no interest in Southmarch. Perhaps the hobgoblins are only a raiding party after all and you are mistaken, or perhaps their goal is farther south, in Syan. Wasn’t it King Karal of Syan who led the armies of Eion against them once upon a time? Perhaps they want revenge.”

Barrick could feel an easing of tension around the table. Some of the other nobles nodded their heads, agreeing. “No,” he said. He had been silent a long time: the others seemed surprised even to hear the prince speak. “They want this place—Southmarch. They lived here once.”

“That is an old tale,” Brone said slowly. “I am not certain it is true, Highness . . .”

But Barrick knew it was true, as certainly as if he had wakened on a cold, damp day and knew it was going to rain; he was not, however, able to explain why he was so sure. “Not just a tale,” was all he could muster. “They lived here once.”

Old Nynor cleared his throat. “It is true that . . . that there are stones beneath the castle and in the deep places that are part of some older stronghold.”

“Men have lived here a long while, even before Anglin’s folk,” said Tyne dismissively. “And the Funderlings were here when men arrived, everyone knows.”

“This is all beside the point,” said Briony. “Much as some of you might wish it, we cannot hope the Twilight People are going to Syan to revenge themselves on Karal’s heirs and leave it at that. They are in our lands. Every farm in Daler’s Troth is a part of the March Kingdoms. Just as Rorick is their lord and must protect those people and those lands, it is up to the crown of Southmarch to help him.”

Earl Rorick brushed a curl back from his forehead. He had made a concession to the fact of a war council—his outfit, though beautifully tailored, was considerably short of his usual extravagance, but he still looked no more ready for combat than would a peacock. “What . . . what do you plan, Highness?” He looked around at the other nobles, unhappily aware of how glad they all were that his lands, not theirs, would bear the brunt of what was coming.

“We will fight them, of course.” Briony suddenly seemed to remember her brother; she turned to Barrick with the tiniest flicker of the shamefaced smile that he alone knew well enough to recognize. “If you agree.”

“Of course.” A thought had come to him—a simple thing compared to all the dreadful visons that had been plaguing him, simple and satisfying. “We will fight.”

“Then we must finish our preparations,” she said. “Lord Brone, Lord Aldritch, you will proceed as we discussed earlier. We must put an army into the field now—if nothing else, to see how strong they are.”

Avin Brone and Tyne slowly nodded their heads, weighty men with weighty concerns.

“And I will lead it,” Barrick announced.

“What?” Briony recoiled as though he had slapped her. He was almost pleased to see her look so startled. A small, resentful part of him knew that she had grown accustomed to making decisions without him. Now that would end. “But, Barrick, you have been ill . . . !”

Avin Brone thumped his big hands down on the table, then crossed his arms, hiding those hands in his jacket as though he feared they would get into mischief. “You cannot take such a risk, Highness,” he began, but Barrick did not let him finish.

“I am not a fool, Lord Brone. I do not imagine I am going to single-handedly drive off the Twilight People. I know you think I’m only a crippled child, and a headstrong one at that. But I will go and I will lead our army, at least in name. The Silver Wolf of Anglin must be on the field—anything else is unthinkable.” The glorious idea that had seemed so clear and so obvious a moment ago now seemed a bit muddled, but he pushed ahead. “Someone said earlier that Rorick must go, to show that the nobles of these lands will fight for what is theirs. Everyone knows that the people of Southmarch are frightened by the terrible things that have happened—our father a captive, Kendrick dead. If Vansen is right, even darker days are coming to us—a war against things we hardly understand. The people
must
see that the Eddons will fight for them. There are two regents, after all, which is an uncommon luxury. One of us must go into the field.”

His twin was so angry she could barely speak. It only made Barrick feel more coldly comfortable with his decision. “And what if you’re killed?”

“I told you, Sister, I’m not a fool. When King Lander put on his father’s crown at Coldgray Moor and fought the Twilight People, was he in the vanguard, trading blows? But he was remembered for a great victory and his people treasure his name.” He realized too late he had said something foolish—they would misunderstand.

And they did. “This will be no place for a young man trying to make a name for himself,” Tyne Aldritch declared angrily. “I beg Your Highness’ pardon, but I will not stand silently and see men and land put at risk so you can earn a reputation.”

Now Barrick was angry, too, but mostly at himself. What he couldn’t explain, what he could barely acknowledge himself, was that the lure of his idea wasn’t glory but resolution—that he would thrive in the simplicity of the battlefield, that he would not need to fear his own anger or even the madness growing inside him, and that if he died it would be a relief from the dreams and the great fear. “I know what kind of place it will be, Blueshore,” he told the new master of arms. “Or at least I can guess. And I certainly know my own failings. Would you rub my nose in them?”

Tyne’s mouth snapped shut but his eyes spoke for him.

“Prince Barrick and I must talk about this.” Briony had pushed down her own anger now, hidden it behind a mask of determined calm.
She’s turning into Father,
Barrick thought,
but not the way that I am.
It wasn’t a happy realization.
She has inherited his grace. I have his curse.

“We will talk all you wish,” Barrick told his twin. “But I
am
going.” And he knew it was true. He was one of the reigning Eddons, after all, and at this moment there was a hard, cold thing inside him that none of them could match. He would have his way.

“Hoy, Chert, have you found that boy?” shouted a woman he only vaguely recognized. He thought she might be one of the Sandstones; the woman with whom she was gossiping on the front porch certainly seemed to have the huge Sedimentary Clan’s telltale chin.

“Not yet,” he called.

“Must tha boom like the wind in the chimneys?” complained Beetledown from his perch on Chert’s shoulder. “Fair collapsed my headbones, that did.”

“Sorry.” Chert was glad that he was far enough away from the women that they couldn’t see the little fellow. Better to have them think he was talking to his own shoulder than to have every child in Funderling Town, and half the grown ones, chasing him down Gypsum Way in hopes of seeing a live Rooftopper. “Are you sure you can’t ride in the pocket of my tunic where no one can see you?”

“And where I can’t smell nothing, neither?”

“Ah. True enough.”

Beetledown stirred and sniffed loud enough for even Chert to hear. “Turn . . . turn . . .
chi’m’ook
!” He drummed his tiny heels in frustration. “Where is the sun? Where is sunwise? How can I say the turning?”

“Left and right will have to do, because I don’t think you know where the Stonecutter’s Door or the Silk Door are. You do know left and right, don’t you?”

“ ’Course. But we call uns, ‘leef’ and ‘reck’ when we speak thy tongue. So go leef, left, what tha will. But there, turn.”

Chert couldn’t understand why the Rooftoppers would use different words than everyone else did in a language that wasn’t even their own, but it had long been clear that Beetledown had his own odd way of talking; of all that small people, only the queen could speak to Chert in a clear, civilized fashion. He wondered again why she spoke the language of the larger world better than her subjects did, but he didn’t waste much thought on it.