The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (29 page)

The warlord’s frown deepened, as if sensing a secret that concerned him. “I’ll do what I can, if it means so much to you. Perchance there is rumor to be gleaned from port settlements north and south. Else we might put forth a message to be carried overseas. I command no fleet, but the high sailing season is drawing nigh, and few are those merchant captains who wouldn’t empty their hulls to win my favor.”

A finer offer than she might have hoped for, Annleia thought, and one to consider. That he was willing to succor her in this, despite his obvious skepticism, was not something she could easily dismiss.

“It would mean a month, at the least,” Lorre confessed, “awaiting response. But you are welcome here for as long as you care to remain.” After a moment’s hesitation, he added, “Along with any others in need of protection.”

“His Lordship is too kind,” Annleia replied, ignoring the subtle reference to her mother and Finlorian people. The notion was impossible, and her grandfather knew it.

The braziers crackled and spat, reflected flames glinting in the warlord’s eyes. “We will continue this on the morrow, then. I will have my chief steward prepare chambers for you, and will arrange for that word with Torin’s companions. You may choose to wait here, if you wish, else follow me.”

“If it please you,” she offered with a bow, “I would be honored to attend His Lordship.”

Lorre grunted. He did not seem to know what else to say. Annleia stepped forward. She felt his discomfort, radiating outward. His arms unfolded from his chest, and for a moment she feared he meant to embrace her. She stopped, a pace away, near enough to smell his sooty musk, to see each crease in his pale, leathery cheeks, and to sense the many scars, both visible and hidden.

“Come,” he said, as if her scrutiny troubled him.

She followed him out, and kept pace down the wide, stark corridor. The breeze of their passage stirred the powerful odor that clung to him—not just of smoke, but of heavy tobacco, like cinder and ash, mixed with the brackish scent that seemed to permeate even the stone of this seaside fortress. She made no mention of that or anything else, preferring the silence between them. He was still ruthless, she reminded herself, a man who had dedicated the latter portion of his life to vengeance and bloodshed, and who, if her mother was correct, would make no apologies for it.

And yet, the fear and nervousness had gone out of her. For all his cunning, his influence, his physical control, this was not a man who would ever find true peace. Too driven was he, too full of passion. Despite all she knew of him, Annleia could only guess as to how such passion had become so rancorous. But she saw plainly its virulent effects, how it ate at him within and without. Her mother—Lorre’s child—believed that his wife’s death had triggered in him an obvious need not just for retribution, but for personal atonement. Either way,
his attempts to defy and subjugate and win freedom through forced tolerance had only intensified his anguish, sapping rather than nourishing his spirit. A ruthless murderer to some, a staunch and respectable leader to others. To Annleia, however, the austere overlord was but a victim of his own misguided hate, worthy of her compassion.

The chief steward was an aged fellow who greeted her kindly and vowed to ensure her every comfort. Almost as soon as they had been introduced to one another, her grandfather took his leave.

“Wait,” she called after him.

He paused, his seamed face a stern yet dutiful mask.

“You never questioned my claim,” she observed. “How did you know me for who I am?”

His steely gaze bore into her. “You have your grandmother’s eyes,” he said, then turned and stalked away.

W
ORD PASSED QUICKLY THROUGH THE
ranks of the grinding throng: breathless whispers, muttered curses, cries of terror, and groans of dismay.

Souaris was aflame.

Allion would have felt no different had someone sheathed a dagger in his gut. From a distance, the strange columns had the look of vast pillars seeking to support a sagging sky. But as he rode nearer in the open bed of that creaking wagon, tending to the wounded, the dawn’s light grew stronger, and he saw them for what they were: towers of soot worming up and away in the shape of twisted funnel clouds, to bathe the world in perpetual darkness.

Marisha’s hand slid into his, and he gripped her fingers tightly. He did not have to see her face to know her thoughts, and feared showing her his. It simply couldn’t be. They had not come all this way, survived all those skirmishes, pressed on day after day when it seemed there was no hope, only to be denied now the refuge they so dearly required. All knew Souaris to be mankind’s first true bastion upon these shores—and, if necessary, the last. Despite the horrors they had endured at Atharvan, and later on the road south, Souaris would see their strength renewed, their faith restored.

All of which was slipping away before his eyes, lost to the heavens amid those spreading stains of smoke.

A fool he had been, blind and vain, to believe the Ceilhigh watched over them—that some magnificent council of divine creators had reserved for mankind special favor and dominion over all. He should have known better. They were elven gods, after all, resurrected by man when he had come to these shores. And any gods that had allowed one people to be destroyed would not hesitate to abandon another.

“The city is secure!” a rider bellowed, swimming backward against the civilian flow. “Souaris is secure!”

This time, Allion
did
look to Marisha, and saw his own hope reflected in her eyes. He tried to catch the crier’s attention as the man surged past, but failed to do so. There were others amid the throng, shouting the same message and urging the crowds to pass it along. Trying to forestall a panic, the hunter thought. He could only pray the word they bore was true.

He sent forth one of Marisha’s pages to find out.

“’Tis true, my lord,” the lad gasped upon his return from the forward lines. “There’s fire within the city, aye. But the blazes are controlled, and the walls are not breached.”

Maybe not, Allion allowed privately, although these days, blazes of such
size meant one thing only. Perhaps Souaris still stood, but some ill had befallen her. Of that, he had no doubt.

Even so, he smiled bravely, and clapped the young page’s shoulder, urging him to help spread the good news. The smile he gave Marisha was more knowing, but he saw no need to voice his suspicions here.

Day and night they had traveled, for more than a week now, resting only when they believed it safe to do so. Too often they had been wrong, and had been roused from their dreams to face a living nightmare. Each time, they had banded together—men, women, and children—to weather the ambush and beat back those small flocks of scavengers come to peck at their flesh. Each time, Allion feared it to be that final attack, executed not by strays and rogues, but by an army that would devour them whole. And though it hadn’t come yet, each small bite taken by the enemy had left them that much more haggard, bloody, and disheartened than before.

Worse yet were the cancers that had eaten at them from within: hunger and sickness and despair. Men who stood side by side when the reavers came would rob, cheat, and even kill one another at the slightest insult or provocation. With so few soldiers to keep the peace, it was left to the refugees to govern themselves. And that was like fighting wildfire with boiling oil, for as often as not, men to either side would let the combatants be or else take sides and join the struggle.

It might have gone better, had they a true figurehead among them. But by now it seemed certain that neither Galdric nor any of the king’s royal house had escaped. Nightly councils were led by a smattering of low-level city ministers and presided over by Colonel Boldin, a battalion commander and the highest-ranking soldier among them. Allion was not without voice, since, as far as anyone here knew, he remained regent to the throne of Alson. But, much like his “dragon-slayer” moniker, that title now meant little. And even if it were otherwise, in order to command respect, a man first had to respect himself.

Given that, their leadership had done a remarkable job of keeping them together, and of avoiding the larger armies of Illychar said to have massed at Leaven. The force that had destroyed Atharvan was no longer in range of their scouts, but at last report had finished sweeping up the dead and had been driving west toward the Whistlecrags. If the remnants of the Parthan Legion rumored to have holed up at Leaven did not escape soon, both they and the citizenry they sought to protect were as good as dead.

The day had not gone by in which Allion had not considered the fates of Jasyn, Corathel, and the others. It was their courage, as much as anything else, that kept him going. More than once, he had decided that the Illysp could claim him. Let his own soul be damned, so long as it ended his present misery. But then he would recall how Corathel and his men had given their lives at Atharvan so that Allion and the thousands like him might escape. And when he remembered that, he would burn with shame at his own weakness, and remember that he had not come this far to die. To that end, he could have
left himself rotting upon that distant battlefield, or upon any of the smaller ones encountered along the way. To surrender now would be to destroy all he had endured, render all his sufferings meaningless, and make a mockery of his friends’ sacrifice. He was not about to let that happen.

He had heard similar talk throughout the camp. For every naysayer, there were those who called to memory the bravery of the fallen, the heroism of those who had allowed them to make it this far. There were thousands less fortunate than they, others would remind them. Praise be to the gods that they still had breath to bemoan their fate.

But those voices had grown quiet as the days and trials and weariness compounded, to form a morass in which hope suffocated and time held no purpose. With dour faces and feral longing, their ragged column had pressed forward in fits and starts, harried at all times, driven onward by a relentless fear of death. Only the shared dream of the security to be found at Souaris had kept the better part of them from turning against one another like a pack of rabid dogs. To learn that even the legendary City of Man was not immune to this horror carried with it a bitterness that few were prepared to taste.

The reassurances now being spread, however, seemed to be having the desired effect. While a few continued to mutter, and many more eyed those smoke plumes warily, most were heaving a sigh of relief at the word brought back by the forward spotters. Allion even saw a few smiles and heard a few celebratory laughs.
We’ve done it
, they cried.
Safety at last.
Though he wasn’t so certain, Allion understood their elation. For the time had come to either celebrate or surrender. Desperation had carried them this far, but it could carry them no farther.

The closer they drew, however, the harder it became to hold their smiles. Ash and soot blanketed the sky, casting all in dusky hues. It was not yet midmorning, and already the world looked as though it were bathed in sunset. Allion tried to focus on the tasks given him by Marisha, but more and more, his stomach churned and his heart’s cage seemed to shrink. He spoke assurances to any who asked his thoughts, even to those whose wounds were clearly mortal and who had no need to concern themselves with what another morrow or two might bring. He tried to tell even himself that his dark mood was unfounded, that he was sulking over things that could not be helped by more worry. But his insides refused to listen.

“Lord Allion! Lord Allion!”

He raised his head at the cry, scanning the nearby crowds whose marching feet stirred dust along the scrub-grown highway. A rider was weaving among them.

“Where is Lord Allion?”

Heads shook, and shoulders shrugged, but others turned and pointed. Allion stood in the back of that healer’s wagon, clutching the low wall for support as it jostled along. He raised his other hand in signal.

The rider shoved toward him through the press. Questioning gazes followed.

“My lord, you’ve been summoned to the van.”

“For what purpose?”

“A Kuurian envoy has come, led by a High Commander Troy. My lord, King Thelin himself has asked to speak with you.”

T
ROY HAD BROUGHT MOUNTS, FOR
him and Marisha both. When asked how he had known they would be coming apair, the high commander had offered them his typical sly smile and replied, “Just in case.”

Their pleasantries had been warm and heartfelt, yet brief. There was much to be shared and more to be learned, but King Thelin would conduct that briefing, and had requested their presence with all haste. Troy’s manner had been calm and confident, clearly intended to put them at ease. At the same time, there was a strain in the commander’s eyes that Allion wasn’t certain belonged. And though he saw no bandages beneath the other’s armor, its links were scraped, its plates dented, and the warrior seemed to wince every time his horse fidgeted beneath him. Marisha had asked if he’d been hurt, to which Troy had offered good-naturedly, “At a glance, my condition appears better than yours. Come, and all your questions will be answered.”

They had ridden hard, back toward the city, leaving the throng of Parthan refugees behind. Despite all his many fears, Allion had been overcome with awe as Souaris rose up before him, tiered battlements clinging to the faces of the mountains upon which they had been built. Atharvan had been huge—larger than Souaris, perhaps, in its sprawl. But Souaris cast the more forbidding shadow, with half-moon walls impossibly tall and impossibly thick, looming so far overhead that even from a distance, Allion had to crane his neck to glimpse those who manned the well-armed parapets.

The central gate of the lowermost wall had engulfed them with its vastness. Allion had been able to smell the strength, the timelessness, of that great corridor. For the first time, he felt a truer sense of the conflict his friends had endured in facing down thousands upon thousands of Killangrathor’s dragonspawn as they roiled and surged like ocean waves against these man-made breakers. A conflict no less vast and deafening and horror-filled than his own trials in the dragon-father’s lair.

Soon after, all he could smell was the rank closeness of the air that had been partially trapped behind that massive barrier. Winds swirled, but could not drive out the heavy odor of man and beast and all of their combined endeavors. Allion had tried not to breathe too deeply, hoping that the air would cleanse itself the higher they climbed.

It had not. After passing through the first tier, filled primarily with soldiers, they had entered the second, flooded to capacity with faces like those he had left upon the highway. Here, their pace had slowed, as it had become more difficult to part the sea of civilians than those of military discipline and training. Men and their possessions, mothers and their children, slow-moving elders and slower-moving carts, beasts of burden and free-roaming pets—all shuffled or scampered across their path or otherwise came underfoot. They
did their best to clear a path, but the sheer number of comings and goings—and the lack of open areas in which to turn—made that difficult.

The third and fourth in that series of arced rungs were no better. Not until they had climbed the central ramp to the fifth—those great, collapsible ramps used to such great effect in battle—did space open up again, giving way once more to a preponderance of men-at-arms and a lack of civilians. It had struck Allion as odd to find it so. That there were refugees enough to spill down into the lower fighting rings made sense. That they should fail to make use of the city’s highest and innermost defensive area did not.

Then had come the stench, and he had scarce been able to think at all. Even Troy and his twoscore riders had covered their mouths with their cloaks, and both Allion and Marisha had been compelled to do likewise. The hunter feared he might retch nonetheless. He knew that smell, but never had he encountered it so thick and foul. Sure enough, it was here that the great fires raged, those they had spotted from afar. Ash rained down upon them, and he had cringed to think of what it was made of. The glow of flames painted the inner battlement, danced upon the walls of buildings, and writhed against gray mountain slopes.

By then, he had known for a certainty that something terrible had happened, though he hadn’t yet guessed what it was. All he knew was that there would be no rest from their travails. Whatever reprieve they found here would be temporary at best.

These were the thoughts that weighed upon him as he climbed the steps to the Palace of Kings on road-weary legs. He had been more than two hours now in the saddle, perhaps three, so it should have felt good to stretch his own muscles again. But those muscles had been worked already beyond their limits, and might not feel good ever again.

Their trek through those stark and age-weathered halls continued without delay. The grim gazes of servants and guardsmen marked their progress. Only Troy accompanied them now, preceded at all times by a herald or page. The king was in council, they were advised, but had left orders for them to be brought to him at once.

Indeed, Allion had scarcely found time to brush some of the ash from his shoulders before the towering doors to the council hall cracked open and the herald who had gone ahead to announce them beckoned them forward. He glanced at Marisha, bright and brave as always, be it from her own inner fire or those which burned within the Pendant, hidden at her breast. Together, they followed Troy past a half dozen unflinching sentinels, into the chamber beyond.

The hall was immense, with vaulted ceiling, tiered galleries that rose up on either side into shadow, and a great central table flocked by massive stone chairs. Each chair was elaborately sculpted, though none grander than the one raised up and planted at the table’s head. Fire-tinged sunlight streamed through tall, slender windows set in the far wall behind the king’s seat, bathing all in a sullen red glow. The perimeter benches and gallery seats were
empty, as were a handful of the council chairs. The rest were filled with men in robes and furs and jewels—lords and lordlings, perhaps a dozen in all—each with a lone attendant. All, lords and retainers alike, glared back at him with stern brows and solemn faces.