‘Help?’ Luhaine huffed. ‘I’d sooner converse with a Sanpashir scorpion. At least they don’t sting before they are threatened, and they are soft-spoken and gracious.’
‘Once, I was the hare-brained scapegrace,’ Dakar entreated. Warned that his charge might open his mouth, he dispatched a kick, underwater. ‘Luhaine, for pity! Grant me the favour. The delay from your summons to Rockfell Peak is what cost us our safe passage on Evenstar.’
‘There are limits.’ Yet the missed rendezvous with the brig scored a point that could not be dismissed. For the harrowing service just given to spare his strapped Fellowship from a crisis, the Sorcerer chose to unbend. ‘I can’t ease the constraints,’ he admitted, begrudging. ‘Technicalities cloud your present awareness. Fionn Areth bears a life debt, acquired at birth. Elaira yielded that tie under oath-bound duress to the power of the Koriani Council. Her retraction might free him, with Asandir’s backing. But at present, your lump-headed moorlander can’t ask that choice, or be traumatized by any-one’s act of grand conjury’
Though the cresting tide surged through the cell in black currents and immersed the chained prisoners chest-deep, Luhaine’s summary cancelled the needful alternative. ‘My colleague cannot spare the resource, just now. Nor have I the leeway to chase after an ingrate stripling as nurse-maid. You’ll have my warding as far as Alestron. From there, take to sea aboard Khetienn forthwith. Wring what refuge you can from blue water.’
To the bumpkin, inflamed by his feckless ideals and his suicidal confusion, Luhaine discharged his last word. ‘Dakar must escort you to safety himself. The wards that will hide you are spun through his aura. By your will, mark my warning particulars carefully! I can’t grant you a guarded shred of autonomy under my Fellowship’s auspices. Woe betide you if you should ever stray from the side of your oathsworn protector.’
‘Luhaine, wait!’ Teeth chattering, Dakar shouted to stem the rushed breeze of the Sorcerer’s departure. ‘What of the fee imposed by the Kittiwake? Hold back! Shipsport has passed sentence, and we haven’t the coin to defray the clerk’s fine or meet the landlord’s exorbitant damages.’
‘You do now,’ corrected the Sorcerer’s shade, his fading voice thinned to asperity. ‘The magistrate’s clerk will find an entry that states the fine’s paid in full in the morning. Farewell!’
The chained prisoners were abandoned to hollow darkness, scored through by the lap of salt water and the resurgent chittering of swimming rats.
‘Is he gone?’ Fionn ventured, his rage drained away to threadbare exhaustion.
Dakar cursed in spectacular, rough language until he ran short of breath. ‘Yes, Luhaine has left us. Bad cess to your yapping grass-lands insolence! Now we get to soak through a miserable night. Don’t try another damned word or believe this! I’ll leave your scared arse as chained bait for the witches and watch Shipsport’s vermin feed on your carcass!’
Late Spring 5670
The town of Erdane’s formal banquet to honour the Divine Prince’s return from his arduous campaign against Shadow had been planned as an effusive celebration, until the moment of Lysaer s’Ilessid’s opening statement. Hushed anticipation welcomed his entry. Resplendent in the sharp glitter of diamonds, his state presence on fire with white-and-gold thread, he delivered the list of shattering losses that outlined a vicious defeat. Beyond words for sorrow, he retired at once. His wake left behind a stunned silence.
The lean companies from Etarra encamped by the south wall were not the advance guard, transporting the critically wounded. In harsh fact, no more troops would be marching home, bearing accolades, honour, and triumph.
Hours later, the impact still rocked the guests who lingered in the mayor’s palace: news that Arithon, Spinner of Darkness, had escaped beyond reach through the entry to Kewar Tunnel. Everywhere else, that formal announcement might ease the impact of tragedy, even offer resounding relief. The renegade Sorcerer, Davien the Betrayer, had fashioned the maze that lay beyond that dread threshold. The foolish who dared to venture inside did not survive the experience.
Yet Erdane possessed more accurate knowledge concerning the powers of Fellowship Sorcerers. Here, where the archives had not been destroyed with the overthrow of the high kings, breaking word of the s’Ffalenn bastard’s evasion was received with sobering recoil.
The terse conversations exchanged in the carriage yard became a trial on Sulfin Evend’s taut nerves. Despite the biting, unseasonable cold, guild ministers decked out in jewels and lace seemed to pluck at his cloak at each step.
‘My Lord Commander of the Light?’ The latest petitioner ploughed in, undeterred by the field weapons and mail worn beneath the Alliance first officer’s dress-surcoat. ‘What are your plans? Will the Divine Prince regroup his defence in the east?’
‘I don’t know,’ Sulfin Evend demurred. His hawk’s features turned from the blasting wind, he unhooked the merchant’s ringed fingers. ‘Too soon to tell.’
‘The entrance to Kewar should stay under guard.’ The insistent courtier still barred the way, unscathed by the war veteran’s impatience. ‘Did the Prince of the Light leave no company in Rathain to stand watch over the portal?’
‘Had any-one stayed, they’d be dead to a man!’ Sulfin Evend barked back, since his tied hands on that score rankled sorely. Although tonight’s bitter weather still gripped all of Tysan, to the east, spring thaws mired the roadways. Ox-trains would labour, slowed to a crawl, with Daon Ramon rendered impassable. Melt-waters now roared through the boulder-choked vales, too engorged for a safe crossing. Supply would bog down in those forsaken notches, riddled with uncanny Second Age ghosts, and enclaves of hostile clan archers. ‘I won’t post my troops as bait to be murdered. Our toll of losses has been harsh enough without risking more lives to stupidity!’
As the guildsman bridled, Sulfin Evend cut back, ‘That ground is reserved as Athera’s free wilds, and deep inside barbarian territory’
‘Your bound duty is not to eradicate vermin?’ a fresh voice declaimed from the side-lines. ‘Our gold fills the coffers that arm your men! To what use, if you pack them up and turn tail each time the chased fox goes to earth?’
‘Good night, gentlemen!’ The Alliance commander shoved through the last wave of inquirers, pushed past his last shred of patience. Too many fine officers had died on the field. Left in sole charge of demoralized troops, he found his resources stretched far too thin. Erdane was a stew of insatiable politics, both council and trade guilds riddled with clandestine in-fighting, and coloured by the entrenched hostility held over from past resentment of old blood royalty. The Lord Commander preferred not to billet the men here, worn as they were from the last weeks of a harried retreat. Yet his bursar lacked ready funds for provision, and troop morale was still fragile. Tempers ran too ragged to risk quartering the company at large in the country-side.
Beside the Master of Shadow’s escape, Lysaer’s regency faced pending crisis: each passing day raised the spectre of famine, as the unnatural, freezing storms rolled down from the north and forestalled the annual planting.
Yet since the Blessed Prince had wed the Lord Mayor’s daughter, a strategic refusal of this town’s hospitality became a social impossibility.
Sulfin Evend outpaced the overdressed pack at his heels, stamped slush from his spurs, then mounted the stair from the carriage-way. Admitted through the mayor’s front door, he endured the butler’s imperious inspection. He stood, steaming, for the liveried boy who removed his sunwheel cloak, and sat for another, who buffed his soaked field boots until he was deemed fit to tread on the mansion’s priceless carpets.
Their service