The Curse of the Mistwraith (68 page)

While on the plain of Araithe, pounding at a gallop away from the city of Etarra, a fugitive mounted on a stolen draught-horse rides hunched against the falling slash of rain…

XV. STRAKEWOOD

The last of the equinox storms that Kharadmon released to pass southward encountered the fierce dark of Arithon’s shadows some leagues to the north of Etarra. The result warped nature. For a long time, snow fell like a madman’s tangle of lacework and patterned lands barely clothed by green spring.

Covered by darkness, given a clear road by the biting, unnatural cold, Arithon spread spells of illusion and concealment over the hillsides he travelled, until his reserves burned dry within him. His protections lifted finally because fury and strength were spent to lassitude.

The snowfall thawed to sleet, and then to rain that slashed in blinding torrents; soaked soil heaved porous by frost churned up to a froth of mud and puddles. The deep footing made his horse labour. All gaits past a walk became a rolling, sliding misery that begged for torn tendons and lameness. Out of pity for the dun mare, Arithon turned her loose to wander the sedge-grown downs before she stone-bruised or crippled herself.

Her markings made her far too conspicuous to keep anyway; for all the good sense in his decision, her relinquishment stung, which surprised him. Since Ithamon and Etarra, he had not expected to have any place left in him for sentiment.

The carthorse he stole to replace his spent mare fared worse. Ill-shod and less sure-footed, it stumbled and careened, until Arithon at last dropped the reins and let it go forward as it could. He had abandoned his saddle, the dun’s girth being too short to accommodate a draught breed. Rain soaked both mount and rider to the skin, the only warm patch shared between them where human seat and thigh made contact with steaming wet horse.

Contrary to belief in Etarra, Arithon had not chosen the north road by design, but only because he had been driven, and because south, there lay only Ithamon.

Three days and two nights of blind flight had left him so wrung by exhaustion that when the scouts sent by Steiven to intercept him closed in a ring to bar his way, he had neither strength nor inclination to wheel his head-hanging mount and try even token resistance.

They brought him under escort to a camp in a copse between the hills channelling a river that wound its course north toward the sea. Dawn had broken and the storm had slackened to drizzle. A silvery patter of droplets off leaves and budding twigs interlaced with bright notes of birdsong. Except for small sounds, the chink of bits and soft snorts from an inbound scout’s mount, sign of human habitation remained scant. No smoke trailed from any firepits, and no dogs whined or barked.

Confirmed in his suspicion of an encampment in enemy territory, Arithon dismounted. The wet ends of his cloak dragged streaks through the muddied lather caked to the gelding’s heaving sides. Barbarian hands steadied him as he swayed on his feet. The draught-horse was led away, while a scout pointed toward a hide tent pitched a short distance off through the trees.

‘Lord Steiven awaits you within, your Grace,’ she said.

Arithon followed her direction, too weary to disclaim the royal title. To move at all required daunting concentration. His hips felt on fire, and extended hours astride had left him a jelly-legged mess of hurting muscles. He stumbled into the lodge tent, bringing the scents of skinned grass and fusty wet wool into an atmosphere of warmth, tinted in autumn colours by fine-patterned carpets and candlelight. As the tent flap slapped shut on his heels, he stood blinking, vaguely aware that a cluster of people regarded him expectantly. A rustle of motion shifted their ranks.

Belatedly he understood that they had not simply sat down at the low table scattered across with quill nibs, tin flagons and battered rolls of parchment. Instead, all four were kneeling behind the clutter: one young man, one middle-aged female and two elders. The fifth, a dramatically imposing man who wore a russet leather brigandine said in deep-voiced command, ‘Honour and welcome to s’Ffalenn, your Grace.’

Arithon flinched. A right-handed gesture of denial spattered droplets from pleated cuffs and laces sadly ingrained with dirt. His left arm held something bulky cradled amid the spoiled and wadded wool of his cloak, while, touched to hard highlights in the candle-glow, the circlet of Rathain gleamed forgotten through a rain-plastered swathe of black hair. He spoke finally, in a rasp that sounded dredged from his bootsoles. ‘I ask guest-welcome as a supplicant and a stranger. None here owes me any fealty.’

His eyes were adjusting to the dimness, but the dazzle of candles defeated what clarity of sight he regained. The speaker arose, smiling in welcome, and in a nerve-stressed flash of intuition, Arithon beheld his aura as a mage would. This man with his scarred face and arresting dignity had a seer’s gift. Forevision had revealed this moment to him, and his manner held no fear for compromise as he said, ‘You are Teir’s’Ffalenn, and sanctioned for succession by the hand of Asandir. I am sworn to serve your line, as my forefathers before me were appointed regents of the realm until return of Rathain’s true high king.’

‘
Caithdein
,’ Arithon whispered, white-lipped.

A stir swept the others at his use of the old tongue, but the phrase for ‘shadow behind the throne’ merely caused the large warrior’s smile to broaden. ‘I’ve preserved Rathain’s heritage and fighting strength only in the absence of a royal heir. Claim your inheritance, my prince. My regency is ended.’

Arithon clamped his teeth against anger. ‘Tell your clansmen to stand up.’ He was too tired for this. The light hurt his eyes and his head spun, and the burden wrapped up in his cloak could not be put off for much longer. ‘I’m a bastard son,’ he added desperately. ‘I lay claim to no man’s loyalty.’

‘Your Grace, that does not matter.’ The aristocratic elder at the clan chieftain’s shoulder was silver-haired and attired as if for court in a black tunic elegantly slashed and lined with gleaming saffron silk. Sure in stride and bearing, he left his place and crossed the piled carpets to bow in quiet style before the prince. As he rose, wing-tip eyebrows turned up. A mouth seamed deep by humour revealed a flash of spaced front teeth. ‘Birth cannot negate your birthright. Illegitimacy has never before deterred the line of s’Ffalenn succession. Back to Torbrand’s time, direct descent has always ranked above the claims of cousins or siblings by marriage. I can name a dozen ballads as quick example.’

Arithon stared at the straight-backed, spare-voiced old man, and weariness spread across his steep features. ‘Who are you?’ he whispered.

The gentleman ignored his question and instead raised a voice too flawless to be mistaken for anything less than a singer’s. ‘You are of s’Ffalenn blood, and the Fellowship of Seven themselves have marked you heir.’

‘Who are you?’ Arithon repeated, strain setting edges to a tone already rough.

‘I’m called Halliron and I, too, have claimed guest welcome of the clans of the north.’

Colour drained from Arithon’s features. The irony hit him like pain: before him stood the Masterbard, the single individual in Athera’s five realms who could grant his heart’s first desire; had an unwanted throne not spoiled opportunity.

A candle burned on a staked brass stand not a foot from Arithon’s elbow. He reached out and pinched the wick, a half a second too late; light had already betrayed his naked longing to every stranger present.

He seized his only diversion and unfurled the wadding of his cloak. ‘Take her,’ he said as veiling cloth fell away from the blue-tinged corpse of the child he had carried in his arms since Etarra. Perhaps five years old, she was stunted and drawn by starvation. The bony arm curled and stiff across her breast showed the ravages of a wound gone septic, and the hand half-hidden by its stained shreds of bandage reeked overpoweringly of corrupted flesh.

Those clan councilmen not already standing shot to their feet in distress.

‘She died in the night,’ Arithon said. ‘She was one of yours, conscripted to serve Etarra’s horse-knackers. Others enslaved with her were freed to make their way home as they could. This one was too sick to walk.’

Someone spoke an oath in the old tongue. Someone else hurried forward to relieve him of the dead child’s weight. This last was a woman clad in the leathers of a scout, and in more ways than her hardness reminiscent of Maenalle of Tysan. ‘It’s Tanlie’s girl, can’t be doubt. No other had that mole on her earlobe.’

Caught aback by the sudden change in his balance, and the loosening of an arm bound by cramps, Arithon fought a battering wave of sorrow. ‘Please, then, offer Tanlie my sympathy. Her girl died bravely, none better.’ He slipped the sodden velvets of his tabard and offered Rathain’s leopard blazon for her shroud.

The woman accepted with tears in her eyes. Before the shock could pass, Arithon rounded on the others who advanced to surround him. ‘I bring you no legacy but strife!’

His cry halted nothing. Quite the contrary: their tall, scar-faced chieftain said firmly, ‘Tanlie’s girl is no grief we’ve not seen, and many times, in the generations since Ithamon was torn to ruins.’

‘No. Not this grief.’ Arithon broke through hoarseness to achieve a tone that finally, mercifully, checked them cold. ‘I’ve been bound and spell-cursed by Desh-thiere to fight my half-brother, Lysaer s’Ilessid. There is no sanity in the hatred that drives us both, only unbridled lust to kill. Lysaer has raised Etarra against me, and their garrison will march within days. Would you spend your lives for a stranger not even born in this world?’

Concern rather than force shaded the clan chieftain’s rebuke. ‘Townsmen have held our lives cheaply since centuries before your birth, and for less cause than butchering horseflesh. Tanlie’s girl lived for naught if she failed to teach you that.’ His glance toward the snuffed candle betrayed his suspicion that his liege’s inveigling tactics hid infirmity. ‘By right of Rathain’s charter, the northlands clans have cause to stand in your defence.’

‘Will you listen?’ Arithon lost grip on his temper. ‘Oppose Lysaer, and you’ll call down certain ruin on your loved ones. Rights are not at issue. Causes are fallacy. We are speaking of geas-driven obsession, a madness that holds to no limits. Against my half-brother, I have no shred of conscience. For that most basic fact, I refuse the responsibility. Your clans would become no defence for me, but just another weapon to be squandered.’

A stir rippled through the gathered clan lords, while a sough of breeze spattered raindrops across the tent roof. The storm outside might be ending: the one brewing inside threatened to break into open contention. The fugitive arrived among the clans was unquestionably of s’Ffalenn blood but he spoke with the forevision of a sorcerer, reminding them uncomfortably that his were the powers of the West Gate Prophecy, that had banished Desh-thiere from the sky. He might wear Torbrand’s image; yet he was a stranger, unknown and unnamed, promising disaster and pleading release from his birthright. Hotly awaited though his arrival had been, lives hung in the balance. The council would be wise to listen.

Blunt-faced, his hair greyed as worn steel by years of ambush and skirmish, Caolle urged his chieftain to stay wary. The rest marked his words in respect, for the toughened veteran presented opinions few others cared to voice.

Steiven was moved, but not to caution. He left his place by the council table and took stance beside Halliron. His rangy frame dwarfed the Masterbard, who was not short, and his hazel eyes shone bitter as he admitted, ‘I have Sight. For years I have lived with foreknowledge of the moment and manner of my death. There is no option, your Grace of Rathain, elders. Etarra will march upon the northlands whether or not a Teir’s’Ffalenn is given sanctuary among us.’ He half-turned to face down Arithon, his large hands hooked in the lacing that clasped his belt with its row of black-hafted throwing knives. ‘My liege, our destiny is to defend you. The city garrison will campaign against us, and we must stand to fight. Your choice is simple. Shall we die for an empty title, or a living, breathing sovereign?’

Arithon measured the taller man. His stillness bespoke distaste, for the claim upon his conscience was shameless; also double-binding as Sithaer’s traps for the damned since the plea gave proof of the clan chief’s supreme dedication. Only the tap of the rain across canvas, and the whispered hiss of hot wax as draft fanned the candleflames lent sound to the tensioned atmosphere.

Arithon’s response, when it came, was pitched for the chieftain’s ears alone. ‘My lord. Ath and Daelion Fatemaster have conspired. They should have sent me a regent I could hate, a man drunk on power and tied to petty interests. Where the unlucky accident of my birth would never bind me, your courage leaves me humbled and tied. As the sovereign cause of your death, what is left? It’s a shabby, spiritless gesture, to beg in advance your forgiveness.’

‘That you have,’ said the clan chieftain of Deshir, neither speechless, nor subdued. ‘But in exchange I ask your friendship, Arithon of Rathain.’

The prince managed to curb his recoil at the unexpected knowledge of his name. ‘Did your dreams spoil all of my secrets?’ And then strain and sleeplessness undid him. He had to cover his face with both hands to mask unbidden emotion. ‘What are you called?’ he said through his fingers.

‘Steiven s’Valerient, Earl of Deshir.’

A shudder jarred the prince. The oddly-singed silk of his shirt sleeve slithered back to reveal a seared weal that snaked the length of his right forearm, to vanish under cloth at the elbow. Arithon ignored the murmurs that broke out among the clan lords, as through blistered, shaking hands he swore guest-oath.

‘To this house, its lord, and his sworn companions, I pledge friendship. Ath’s blessing upon family and kin, strength to the heir, and honour to the name of s’Valerient. Beneath this roof and before Ath, count me brother, my service as true as blood-kin. Dharkaron witness.’

Arithon’s fingers fell away, to uncover features as hollowed as stripped bone. ‘You’ve seen this before,’ he accused.