‘Not Sulfin Evend,’ another scout quipped. ‘That one’s got hawk’s eyes and a nose for corruption to make an exciseman bleed on his silk.’
‘How many armed companies have embarked round Scimlade Tip?’ Arithon asked.
‘None, yet. An incompetence even a man without brains would find worrisome.’ The boisterous opinion was Kyrialt’s, carried uphill from the stream-side. Next moment, the young man hove into view, soaked and covered by nothing but shirttails. By unself-conscious clan habit, he flopped his shed leathers and weaponry over a branch, then wrung out his dripping clan braid. All the while, his tight survey tracked Rathain’s prince. A pleased grin emerged. ‘Your escort short-changed their report, busy man. Fit or not, you’ve leashed Lysaer’s southcoast officers up by their short hairs.’
‘Fiark’s agents did, mostly,’ Arithon amended. ‘They retired on orders after my personal interview with the Alliance Lord Commander.’
‘You came face-to-face and let that one live?’ Kyrialt snapped, surprised. His direct stare unbroken, he reached behind and fished for his small-clothes, smartly followed by his hide breeches.
Arithon watched, also unblinking. ‘Since the man was the guest of the Sanpashir tribesmen, neither one of us carried a dagger.’
‘That shouldn’t have stopped you.’ Kyrialt stuck his sheathed blades through his belt, then slung on the bossed baldric that hung his plain sword. ‘Am I wrong, then? This was the same dog who caused Jieret s’Valerient’s torture, followed up by the ignominy of a sorcerer’s execution.’
‘I deemed Sulfin Evend more helpful, alive.’ Still without armament, Arithon stood. He should have lost forceful ground, since the strapping young liegeman topped his height by six fingers, and outmatched him in muscle and strength. His phrasing seemed too mild, as well, for the fact he delivered a warning. ‘If you meet the man, you’ll acknowledge my thanks. His orders alone have bought Alland its margin of safety.’
That shocked the scouts.
Amid their stiff silence, Glendien reappeared, wet and thankfully already dressed. Without a glance towards her, the Prince of Rathain briskly addressed the scout who managed the horse relays. ‘The rest must wait for the ear of Shand’s caithdein. Might we ride, and spare your High Earl a night in the saddle to cover the distance?’
Rest by the stream-bank had wrought its strange alchemy. The Master of Shadow withstood the harsh pace that Kyrialt set in response. They covered rough ground through the afternoon heat, until even Glendien’s sharp tongue lost its edge to the lathered press of necessity. Sundown’s fire faded into a grey twilight. The pines moaned to the lash of a rain squall. Through biting insects, and sultry damp, the small cavalcade thrashed their steady way north-eastward.
By a tortuous route, marked by stones and faint game trails, they entered the heartland of Selkwood. One month had passed since last dark moon. The scouts crossed the forested hills under glimmer of starlight. Guided by woods lore, the party changed horses at speed and passed through a hidden series of check-points.
The country-side was more than just tightly guarded, with the clan women and children withdrawn deep inside protected territory. The precaution gave Arithon the comfort to breathe. Alland’s ruling council of chieftains had not chanced their families’ safety to the climate of pending war. When midnight came, he reined up in a clearing, nose to nose with another mounted company who had not spared their horseflesh to reach them.
Arithon awaited no man’s formal leave. At the first sight of Lord Erlien’s tall frame and imperious white head, amid the tight cluster of outriders, Rathain’s prince dropped his reins and dismounted. He strode forward, leaving his horse unattended, and dropped to one knee: even in darkness, none could mistake the traditional bow of deference offered by royal blood to caithdein.
Kyrialt sprang from his saddle, remiss. The liegeman’s courtesy that commanded his place at his prince’s back came too late. Resentment nursed from the day’s rebuke withered, as Arithon’s greeting to the High Earl struck even the hardest scout silent.
‘Lord Erlien s’Taleyn, I am not your crown prince. Yet my actions have drawn the adder to Shand, with none of the support I fore-promised. I will stand at your side for the reckoning. All that I have, with all that I am, I will do what I can to defend here.’
Autumn 5671
Witness
Sidir did not manage the down-river journey to Shipsport with anything near the aplomb that upheld his steadfast character. The wedged bone in the stark teeth of necessity became the fact he distrusted staking his life at long-term on the spells of an oath-bound Koriathain. Elaira’s allegiance was not her own. A direct order from her Prime Matriarch could overrule her heart’s love for Prince Arithon. Foremost a liegeman who chose courage before chance, Sidir rejected the risk. Should he fail in his charge to curb Jeynsa, he would not leave Feithan the legacy of a public maiming on a town scaffold. His unshakeable honour also denounced the enchantress, who would have raised blistering argument.
He slipped off while she slept. By morning, three leagues removed through dense brush, he left a flagged trail for the hounds. Small doing, from there, to permit the unthinkable and let a head-hunter tracker ensnare him. Hale as he was, bruised with fight, but not broken, the league’s greed spared him as a living asset. Avenor’s pledge of double bounty in gold saw him roped and turned in at Daenfal. Branded and chained, he was dispatched down-stream to be sold to the galleys at Shipsport.
The appalling tactic forced Elaira to follow his lead. She paid coin for deck passage and kept her anonymous distance.
No bargeman left such captive muscle to waste. Sidir suffered his first taste of the whip at the oar, crossing Daenfal Lake. At the far shore, he endured the cuffs and jeers of the rivermen, who steered their blunt craft on its white-water course past the southern spur of the Skyshiels. The torturous heat of the low country followed. The laden keel scraped and grounded on sand-bars where the slack current meandered through bulrush and marshland. As the river looped south, threading the mud channel that led towards the bay head, the tall Companion bore the harsh price.
Twenty-four days chained to the deck with a pole sweep left him sunburned to weeping blisters. He had cankers from leeches burned off with salt, after the hours spent waist deep in muck, dragging the barge with a tow-rope. If his raw palms grew callus, the festered scabs on his shoulders and back became scoured livid by the pitch slapped on him to ward off flies.
At nightfall, upon the first day of autumn, the choking heat had not broken. Sidir sat curled by the rail, eyes shut and tucked motionless. He was alone, except for one sentry, who paced out his irritable watch. The other bargemen lounged on the shore, just finished with roasting their supper. The scrape of tin plates travelled on the light breeze, and the pop of seared gristle, as chewed bones were tossed in the fire pit.
‘Dice, boys? Winner to get his first pick of the strumpets?’ Guffaws broke through another man’s boastful rejoinder. The rough journey behind them, the rowdy crewmen were primed with jingling pockets and lust for the harbour-front dives crowding Shipsport.
While the forlorn sentry slouched at the stern, wistful to rejoin his fellows, Elaira crept from the willow brake lining the bank. She slipped without sound through the reeds in the shallows. As the black, open water lapped up to her chest, she ducked under, scarcely breaking a ripple. The current was not strong for a determined swimmer. She stroked at length alongside the barge, nearly silent except for quick breathing.
‘No