Текст книги "Fortress of Dragons "

Автор книги: C. J. Cherryh

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"Your Majesty." Murandys' dismay at this wide-ranging attack was no pretense, Cefwyn was sure: Prichwarrin was too cautious a man and Ryssand too grossly affronted to say what he would wish to say. It was too early for them to launch a rebellion; it was possible that Prichwarrin himself was ignorant of what Ryssand planned and Ryssand might not want him to know it. And by the gods he was of no disposition to smooth rebels' feathers.

"Have you brought him?" he repeated his question regarding Cuthan, and used his grandfather's temper, nothing held back. " Parsynan, perhaps, the hero of Amefel. Do I see him in your train?"

"No, Your Majesty," Ryssand said in cold formality.

"A pity," he said with sudden and equal coldness. "Set your tents in what space you can find tonight. I trust after this debacle there'll be no tardiness on the field."

That, imprudently, perhaps, he sent straight to the heart of Ryssand's intentions, but Ryssand never blanched.

"No, Your Majesty."

On that, Cefwyn began to turn away, allowing them time to show their real expressions, and suddenly spun about and measured one after the other sour face with a long stare, ending with Ryssand, at whom he gazed a long, long moment.

Then he said in unfeigned disgust: "I need you. Have Iyour observance of your oaths?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Ryssand said for all the others, with never a blink or a glance down in shame, but Ryssand's eyes burned.

"Heavy horse to the center," he said. "Your infantry to guard the camp."

"Your Majesty,—"

"To guard the camp, I say! And your horse to the center! I've a notion where I'll meet that blackguard, if I can rely on my maps… if you have better, provide them."

"I've received no such information, Your Majesty. Nor have any of us, save from Cuthan, of course, in whom Your Majesty has no confidence."

Damn you, he very nearly said. The effrontery was at the surface now, the other barons standing well behind, obscure in the twilight, perhaps asking themselves how far indeed Ryssand was prepared to go. Corswyndam's temper had almost leapt into flame. It smoldered, it very clearly smoldered. So did his.

But they were neither of them utter fools.

"Then expect an encounter tomorrow or the next day," Cefwyn said shortly, "depending on Tasmôrden's speed on his own roads. Have your men in order. No drunkenness in the ranks tonight, and early to break camp tomorrow. Here's the redemption of our differences, sir. Make me your friend. I can be courted."

"Your Majesty." Three heads bowed. Three lords backed as if they were in the throne room, despite the informality of a martial camp, and withdrew to their own counsel.

He remained with Lord Maudyn and with his bodyguards and Panys', and told himself he had been laudably calm throughout the encounter, remarkably cold-blooded. Now he found tremors of anger running through his limbs and asked himself whether he should order Ryssand's arrest and execution tonight.

It might bring Nelefreissan and Murandys into line. It might be the prudent thing. He might survive the action, and Ylesuin might.

Or might not. Dared he do that, and then lead the army into battle with questions unanswered and regional angers broken wide open? He could not answer what Murandys and Nelefreissan might do… and that might rest on how much evidence they feared might come to light if he came home again. He had no idea, that was the difficulty.

March home again to settle matters, his war unfought and Tas-morden glorying in a temporary victory… that was a mouthful he could not swallow. Ylesuin had not wanted his war, but Ylesuin would come asunder in regional and religious bickering. Ryssand had his supporters among the clergy even yet, and as yet he could prove nothing of his charges against the man but his illicit traffic with Parsynan and the fact he had lodged Cuthan and taken messages from Tasmôrden. Both offended the king's law, but the fact that Cuthan had betrayed his brother lords in Amefel was nothing at all to Guelenfolk, who detested the Amefin.

But if Ryssand died, he had, gods help him, Artisane, and whatever man besides his brother he found to sacrifice to that marriage: if Ryssand was a brigand, Artisane was a lying baggage who with a duchess' title would lie louder and with more credible virulence.

Twoheads at the Guelesfort gate might bring a wholesome silence, vacate the duchy, and take the consequences of unrest and claimants to vacant lands.

And for a moment Ryssand's life trembled on the knife's edge of his temper. But it was wise to consider who would stand with him: Osanan, who had joined them, had been Ryssand's man in most questions: the lord of Osanan had always inclined himself that way in matters of regional import, the questions of fishing rights and the doctrinist Quinaltines. Where would Osanan stand if he killed Ryssand?

Or would Osanan and many another simply lack enthusiasm to advance in the battle, and retreat at the first reverse on the field? Every man for himself it would be if that sentiment took hold in various units.

Sulriggan? The lord of Llymaryn was no hero. If the army began to break, Sulriggan would trample the foremost riding to the head of the pack, and take his men with him.

Maudyn would stand. Panys. And the Guard.

No. He had laid his plans during this long day's ride, he had settled what he would do with Ryssand, even how he would shape the battle so that units like Osanan could make their choice and units like Panys and the Dragons and Guelens would have their honor.

Let Ryssand fold or hold, as he planned matters: the outcome would be the same. And they would stillpush Tasmôrden back to Ilefínian, with Tristen, he fondly hoped, coming from the other leg of the triangle, to catch Tasmôrden from the other side—the last of the pretenders to the Regency, with an army large only because it was the scourings and the survivors of the long struggle. Honest men had taken to the hills. Bandits took Tasmôrden's hire. And if they pressed Tasmôrden back and if the Elwynim saw Ninévrisë's standard, Tasmôrden would find no support among the commons. It was Ninévrisë's hope and it was his, that one defeat would shatter the pretender's army and honest Elwynim would rise out of the thickets and the hills.

Trust Tristen, that if wizardry could arrange it, Tristen would be there, where he needed him, no blame, no recrimination: Tristen was coming, with Cevulirn and Pelumer and all the south, where he should have placed his trust from the beginning.

And of all unexpected things, a flight of birds soared above the wood's edge and turned.

Pigeons, for the gods' good sake! Pigeons. He stared after them amazed.

When did pigeons become forest-dwellers? They were not. They never had been, not these birds.

Tristen was there, he was surely there, just the other side of this cursed ridge.

Captain Gwywyn, of the Prince's Guard, and in Idrys' absence over the Dragons and the Guelens as well, approached him from the side, bringing a practical and immediate question. "The west for the latest to camp, Your Majesty?"

"The west and north," he said, for there was room in the meadow on that side, and while the petty notion occurred to him to move the horse pickets on the east and let Ryssand and his allies pitch on that soiled ground, the same as they had marched on it all day, the peasant levies did not deserve it, and he did not indulge the whim. "I'll cool my anger. Bid them join us at supper."

"As Your Majesty wishes."

"Advise all the lords to join us at supper. We'll settle our marching order. Hereafter we have the enemy to quarrel with, not each other."

Gwywyn went aside on his mission. Lord Maudyn, who had walked with him, gave him a questioning look and a blunt question: "Will Your Majesty inform Ryssand of allthe plans?"

"We have to stand on the same battlefield and face the same enemy," Cefwyn said with a sigh. "We'll leave no lord out of our councils. I've no wish to expose the men afoot to risk of their lives: gods know they're not at fault, and I'll not face the widows." He walked a few steps farther in the lord of Panys' company. "But you and I have somewhat to say together. Perhaps we won't tell Ryssand everything."

"I would be easier in my sleep," Maudyn said, "if Ryssand knew less."

"I'm very sure," he said. "To tell you the very truth, I have more doubt of Prichwarrin's courage to defy me than I have of Ryssand's, and that alone frets me: I don't know what the man may do. Ryssand, on the other hand, has courage; but he doesn't give a damn for his servants, his staff, his men, or his horses, not when he sees what he wants. His sworn men and his peasants have no worth, save as they serve him: Ipity them. He doesn't, and no few will die."

"Then I pray Your Majesty arrest him. Others stand with the Crown. No honorable man could misunderstand."

It was exceedingly comforting to hear Maudyn say so, and he wished he knew it was true. It was almost like hearing Idrys' voice saying: kill Ryssand.

And when he recalled how often and why he had denied Idrys that satisfaction, he became quite clear in his own thoughts.

"No," he said. "No, my dear friend. Much as I wish it… much as I regard your advice and your wisdom… no. Let him at least do what we accuse him of. Let it be clear beyond even Murandys'

ability to find excuses. They think him simply clever at going to the brink. Iknow how far he'll go, but they don't believe it yet."

"Stand by and let him bring a sword against my king's back?"

"That's not what I expect of him."

"What, then?"

"Oh, he'll run—and not he, no, never say Ryssand bolted. Some unnamed man of his will turn and start a panic, and the officers will turn and the company will run, leaving the peasants to face Tasmôrden's heavy horse and leaving the rest of us to the slaughter. And if it's found out later, blame will fall on some poor wretch of a lieutenant, but mark me! Ryssand deals with Tasmôrden, makes a treaty, and marches home with clean hands. ThereforeI set him in the center. Remember I said so beforehand, and report it in the court later, but say not a word of this even to your sons. I fear I can't help Ryssand's peasants. But the rest I can deal with."

Maudyn gave him a look of intense distress. "Surely—"

"He'll retreat. We'll advance," Cefwyn said. "Trust in me, sir. And helltake Ryssand."

Owl called, in the world, and Tristen opened his eyes on stars above him, aware of Uwen sleeping on one side, aware of Crissand not so far away with his household guard and the Amefins all around: aware of the Amefin, the Ivanim, the Olmernmen, and the Imorim, with a handful of Pelumer's rangers tucked away to the side, in their own group.

That awareness went on to all the camp and the lay of the land. Horses slept. Almost all the camp slept.

But the woods did not.

A second time Owl called. And Tristen gathered himself to his feet, feeling the stir of a wind out of the woods, a wind that smelled of rain and green things, a wind that rushed at him and blew and blew, and yet Men slept. Uwen slept. Only Crissand and Cevulirn waked, and roused to their feet as well, seeking shields and swords and helms, for they had simply loosed buckles and slept in their armor.

So indeed Tristen had done, but what he perceived was not a threat that would stop at leather and metal, nothing a shield could turn: Shadows moved in the woods, and with a thought of that Elwynim force left dead in the snow near Althalen, he felt the hair rise at the nape of his neck: hewould not fall to it, but he was determined his friends would not perish: Uwen would not perish, nor would the men who came here trusting him.

The horses grew uneasy: to have them break the picket lines was a disaster they could not afford, either: the beasts smelled danger, but except for the three of them, and a slight stirring here and thefe across the camp, no man roused out of sleep.

Peace, he wished the Shadows, and was instantly confident they heard him, instantly reassured, for out of the wood came a whisk of wind that flattened the meadow grass in the starlight, and there skipped a child, blithe and happy and as perilous as edged iron. She skipped and she played in the starlight, and beyond her, around her, came other streaks in the grass, and other children that laughed with high, thin voices, distant and echoing as in some far and vacant hall.

Seddiwy, he named her, and looked for her mother in the shadows.

So Auld Syes came, a white-haired woman as he had first seen her, in homespun and fringed shawl, like any grandmother of the town; and as he had first seen her, the shadow-shapes of peasant folk came following her, the inhabitants of some village, he took them to be, but dim even for starlight.

Then he recognized an old man, and another, a lame youth, and a chill came over him, for they were the folk of Emwy village, dead since summer, young and old.

"Auld Syes," he said to the old woman, and in the next blink saw banners among the trees, a sight that alarmed him for an instant, but Auld Syes turned in slow grace and held out a hand toward those that came. It was the Regent's banner, and the men with it were Shadows as that banner was a Shadow itself.

It was Earl Haurydd, who had died facing Aséyneddin at Emwy Bridge, Ninévrisë's man, and her father's; and with him were others of that company.

And there was Hawith, one of Cefwyn's men, killed at Emwy, and there… there was Denyn Kei's-son, the Olmern youth who had stood guard at Cefwyn's door, Erion Netha's young enemy turned friend.

He saw his own banner, the Tower and Star, and the shadowy youth bearing it, and felt the deep upwelling of loss, for it was Andas Andas-son, who had joined him so briefly to carry that banner at Lewenbrook. The dark had rolled over the boy, and he had gone bravely into it, and never out again.

He trembled at the sight, he, who was no stranger to Shadows, but it was not fear that shook him, rather that he felt his heart torn to the point of pain. It was not harm the Shadows brought with them, but their loyalty, their fidelity, faith kept to the uttermost.

"My lord," Crissand whispered, having moved close to him, and Cevulirn arrived at his other hand.

"I know them," Tristen said. "I know them all."

But it was not the end of visitations, and at the next the brush rattled and moved to the presence of living men, and a handful of peasant villagers appeared, ragged lads carrying spears and one of them a makeshift standard.

Then from another quarter, from the road, appeared a handful of men on horseback, and them with well-made banners, and one of them the Tower Crowned.

Aeself was one of them, and slid down from his horse and walked forward as sleeping men began to wake to the commotion, hearing sounds in the world. Men leapt up, seizing weapons and shields, and calling out in alarm.

"Friends!" Aeself called out. "His Grace's men!"

A third time Owl called, and the Shadows all were gone. More and more men came from out of the wood, men on horseback and peasants afoot, and a scattering of banners among well-armed and lordly folk.

Aeself went to one knee, and so did the others. "The King," Aeself said, and so the others said, one voice upon the other, "the King."

"There is aking," Tristen protested, but there were more and more of them, spilling out of the trees, while the wood could in no wise have concealed all of them and he could not have been so deceived about their presence. They arrived like the Shadows, as if they had risen out of the stones and the earth, and a wind skirled through the clearing, startling the horses, lifting the banners half to life.

And Aeself rose, foremost of the rest, while Ivanim and Amefin, Imorim knights and Olmern axemen, and a scattering of Lanfarnesse rangers stood utterly dismayed, no less so than their lords.

Auld Syes arrived in their midst like a skirl of wind, fringed shawl flying like threads of cobweb, gray hair shining like the moonlight, and her daughter danced, holding her hand and skipping about her skirts.

– King in Elwynor, King Foretold: deny nothing! The aetheling has found his King, and peril to deny it!

He hoped with all his heart none of the men heard. He wished Auld Syes' aid for all of them, and by no means rejected Aeself or the Shadows… how could he turn from Andas Andas-son and Earl Haurydd or deny the outpouring of so many wishes? If Men could bind a magic, he found himself snared in it, caught in their wishes, their long, faithful struggle in what he feared was his war, always his war… but now theirs, as well.

"My name is Tristen," he said to them all as he had said to Hasufin Heltain. He said it as a charm and as the truth which anchored him in the world. "My name is Tristen. Nothing else."

"King of Elwynor!" some cried, among the living, and the Amefin cried, "Lord Sihhë'!" But he shut his ears against it, and turned away, and in doing so, met the faces he most dreaded to meet: Uwen, as Guelen as ever a man could be; and Cevulirn, steadfast in his oaths; and Crissand Adiran, Amefin, aetheling, kingof Amefel… all his friends, all with claims impossible to reconcile, one with the other.

"Lord Sihhë!" the Amefin all shouted now, and so the Elwynim took it up: "Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë!"

Thatwas the only truth he heard. He turned again to confront Auld Syes, but in that moment's distraction the very light had changed to earliest dawn: there were no Shadows among them to answer, there was no lady and no child, only the shapes of trees and the shapes of Men still indisputably among the living. He knew what he had seen, but he could not believe that every man in the company had seen the same, and could not reconcile what he knew and what they knew, or reason out how much they had heard. They shouted for him: they wanted him with such a fervor it shook him to the heart, and yet he wanted nothing of it, nothing but Cefwyn's safety.

And in hailing him, they turned from Cefwyn. The Elwynim and the Amefin hailed another king: they made him their lord, and would hear nothing else, while the southern lords who had followed him at risk of life and honor stood dismayed, not knowing what to do at this sudden turn of loyalties on the borderlands.

Tristen held up his hands, begging silence, and it was difficult to obtain, in the dim gray light that only hinted at the dawn.

"Lord Sihhë I am," he said. "Lord Sihhë I am willing to be." The cold dark seemed to gape beneath his feet, threatening to drink him in, and yet he strained to see their faces, in that hour that stole the stars. But no more than that, he wished to say… yet all along he had listened to Auld Syes, and was not sure she was wrong.

"Cefwyn is my friend," he said, difficult as it was to speak at all. "Her Grace is my friend. Crissandis the aetheling, and Amefel has a king, the king of the bright Sun! But my name is Tristen!"

And with that he could bear nothing more, and turned away, past Crissand's reaching hand, past Cevulirn's grave face. Only Uwen went with him in his withdrawal, and his guard shadowed him until he had found a refuge at the edge of the horse pickets, where Dys and Cass stood and offered mute comfort.

He had left confusion behind him. He had left Aeself and Crissand and Cevulirn with wizardry unexplained. He had left the lords of the south with their understanding challenged. He thought he should have done better. But he could not find how.

He was aware of Owen's presence, of his new guards, Gweyl and the others, and at this moment he sorely missed Lusin, who would stand by Uwen come what might. He ached heart-deep with what he feared, and what was laid on him to do, with no choice of his: it was what he was made to do. He apprehended at least that Auld Syes was not in charge of him, nor beyond mistakes, only charged with truths as she perceived them. He could refuse.

And his heart cried out against their expectations. It was not Cefwyn's doom to fall. It was not his own to sit in a hall signing and sealing and rendering judgments, when this single judgment was so difficult.

He drew a deep breath when he knew that, as if bands had loosed about his heart. He looked up at a sky in which the stars had all perished, and at Uwen's sober, stubbled face. Love shone there, brighter than the dawn; and he opened his arms and embraced Uwen, for all that Uwen was; in his heart he embraced Crissand, and Cevulirn, and the lords of the south, too, and Aeself, who had come by no ordinary road to find him, whether or not Aeself understood what company he had had or how unnaturally he had arrived.

He heard Owl complaining of the sun. He stood still, cold to the very heart of him, as if his very next breath hung suspended between day and dark.

Lord of Shadows he could be. That, more than Lord Sihhë, he might be. He knew the gray space: it would open for him, and he could draw power out of that realm, hurl the hapless dead against the dead that Hasufin summoned until between them they laid waste to the gray space as well as the lands of Men. The last struggle had imprisoned Shadows within the walls of Ynefel and brought down the towers of Galasien. Between them, Mauryl and Hasufin, they had done that: Mauryl, wielding wizardry, and Hasufin, wielding wizardry, had not seen the consequences of the struggle. But he saw that it would not last. At the last, Mauryl had seen the wards falter, he was sure of it: Galasien had perished in vain. It did not hold.

And Efanor and a small band of priests walked a perilous Line in Guelessar, as Emuin and Ninévrisë warded the south and Ni-névrisë's father and Drusenan's Wall held the border of Amefel.

It was to keep those barriers strong that he had arrived on Mauryl's hearth.

"I dreamed," he said to Uwen, who most knew the youth who had come to Amefel. "Such, at least as I do dream… that there's something behind Hasufin, and the Sihhë-lords fought it, all those years ago."

"Lad, such as I couldn't tell."

"This is true." He could no longer bear to wait, not for the men who stood in doubt and debating among themselves what he had said, not for the disturbance in the wood where Shadows hid for the coming day. He would not be the king Auld Syes foretold. He was never suited to it: it was not—he was as sure of it as of the coming day. "Mauryl didn't Summon me to sit on a throne," he said. "Cefwyn hates it… but he's a good king. I'm not what he is. None of us is what he is."

Uwen was silent, in what mind he could not read.

"You don't ask me what I am," he said, curious, for curiosity was always his fault, and he could never understand the lack of it.

"Ye don't rightly know, do ye?" Uwen answered him with a wry smile. "Nor me. Nor do I need to. Ye're my good lad."

"Uwen is what you are," he said, "and the captain of my guard, and my right hand." He reached out to Uwen's leather-guarded shoulder, as much to feel his solid strength as to reassure Uwen. "Set us to horse. Make these men move. Cefwyn needs me. That'swhat I know."

"Aye, m'lord," Uwen said with relief.

That was Uwen's answer.

And for his own, when he went back to Cevulirn and Crissand, he took their hands, and embraced them in the murmurous hush of the army. He embraced Sovrag's huge shoulders, and Umanon's stiff back, and Pelumer's thin and aged frame: he opened his arms to Aeself, when Aeself would have cast himself to his knees, and made him stand and have that, and not a lord to worship.

"My lord," Aeself whispered.

"You can't make me King," Tristen whispered back. "Mauryl didn't, and you can't. But Sihhë, yes, as the five were, that I do fear I am." Ice came to him, as strong a vision as if it had Unfolded for the first time, ice, and the fortress of the Qenes, a dizzying long view, a dizzying long remembrance, for memory it might be. He did not know where he had begun, but he knew what the boundaries of the world should be.

"Yet," Aeself said, "others will join us, my lord, if only they see there's hope: they'll come as these men have come—not for me, not even for my cousin, gods save her: they'll come to the name of the King."

"Then believe there is such a King," he said, for he drew that certainty out of his heart, breathless with the urgency with which he knew it. "He'll be born: Ninévrisë's child, and Cefwyn's. And Cris-sand aetheling will sit the throne in Amefel. But my banner is not the High King's."

Loyalty that so yearned to bestow itself somewhere worth its hopes shone in Aeself's eyes. "Then whatever that banner is, I am your man, and so are the rest of us. The forest brought us here. The earth poured us out. I don't know how we came, but we've come here, and nothing frights us after this."

"Auld Syes brought you. She may bring others. Until there is a King, I cansay what is and what's to be, and I set you in charge of all the Elwynim that come to my banner."

"I am no experienced man—"

"I say what is."

" Yes, my lord." So Aeself said, and Tristen turned to a clearing filled with men and horses, and more men and horses within the trees. Their company had become an army, between dark and dawn.

"We go on!" Tristen said. "Everyone to your horses! Cefwyn needs us!" And turning from Aeself, he encountered Crissand, and pressed Crissand's arm, for he saw confusion on Crissand's face: the dawn showed it to him, a silent, but heartfelt distress.

"Auld Syes said it: aetheling. King of Amefel. —But Uwen I keep for myself."

"My heart you keep, my lord! Have no doubt of it!"

He clapped Crissand on the arm. In the next moment he heard Uwen shouting at the men:

"Arm an' out, arm an' out, you lads, and get them horses ready. We're off to give Tasmôrden 'is comeuppance."

It was a voice to give courage, a voice that had soothed his night fears and his darkest hours: give Tasmôrden his Comeuppance… there was a Word that by no means Unfolded to him, and yet did, as an outcome wider and more true than justice a king might deal out… it was justice for the Shadows that had joined them in the night, justice for Crissand's father and Cefwyn's messenger, for the old archivist and the soldiers dead at Emwy and on Lewen field… justice for very many wrongs: not a justice of death for death—rather the settling of balances back into true and the world back to peace.

Men moved, horses snorted and pulled at their tethers: the whole clearing seethed with an army setting itself rapidly in an order of march.

So Tasmôrden had moved, carrying the threat against Cefwyn, to deal hurt where their enemy could, to gain an advantage, a hostage, a distraction.

The five first Sihhë had retreated to the ice to avoid this very conflict as long as possible: had met it once in its ascendency and brought down Galasien. In its slow working, in retaliation, the enemy had seized Althalen… and lost it, destroyed Ynefel, and lost it.

Now it bided the second assault against its domain, beneath all the movement of armies and threat of iron: five Places in the land, where Shadows seethed, a Working of wizardous sort: five points of attack to confront five Sihhë-lords who afflicted it. Ynefel was last to fall to this onslaught: the old mews in the Zeide was the next to last, where now Emuin and Ninévrisë stood guard over Orien's restive spirit. The third was Althalen, where Uleman now warded the way; the fourth he had set Efanor to watch, to shut the very first door it might ever have used…

All these ways it had had once at its command, and one by one he had denied it use of them, if the wardens he had set in place could hold firm the Lines.

All but one was shut, that in Ilefínian's fortress, the way Crissand had discovered, when Tasmôrden had lost his banner.

And it Unfolded to him with the breaking of the dawn that their enemy might have arranged them to come to this conflict: but equally they were here because of what they were. There was no turning back now. The Sun King and the Lord of Shadows had come together to set the world and the gray space in balance as best they knew how, while their enemy meant to confound it entirely, and they had no choice. Whatever the grief it brought either of them, whatever the loss or the pain, they had come to do what neither wizardry nor magic yet had done, and not, this time, be held in check, one power with the other.

Halfway had not sufficed, and Mauryl had surely known it when he Shaped him out of fire and Shadow.

And he had known when he looked the first time at the aetheling, that he had found something essential to what he was. Mauryl's spell had finished its Summoning, and he was here, finally, where all along he had needed to be, wizardry and magic opposed to the Wind that had torn Ynefel's stones apart.

CHAPTER 4

The hills that had been only knowledge on a map became a forbidding rampart of stone and bristling evergreen distantly visible on the left hand, a rough land out of which small bands might come to spy or to harry the approach of an invader on the road that led to Ilefínian. Cefwyn had scouts out well ahead looking for just such a force, but they reported there was no sign of enemy presence.

It was troubling not to meet opposition: leaving unexploited the advantage that rocky ridge posed to its native lord was certainly not what Cefwyn would have done, were he defending Ilefínian, but then, Tasmôrden had failed all along to do those things that a prudent commander would have arranged—first of all not having a force at the bridge to have hindered their crossing, and archers in the woods to make their advance far slower than it had been for two days now.

And in that consideration Cefwyn heard the reports of the scouts and frowned, wishing his enemy would do predictable things that had to be fought: the man's brutal dealing with the villages was a terror to Elwynor. Pretenders to the throne and the Regency for a time had been thick as the leaves in this land. It was worth remarking that all the other pretenders were dead, including Aséyneddin, who had perished at Lewenbrook, and that this man was at last report among the living.

That argued that the man was not the easy mark he had seemed all winter, and it suggested that taking too many of Tasmôrden's gifts too recklessly might lead to the one gift an opponent should not have taken.