Brotherhood of the Wolf Part 21

Run! she decided in a blind panic. The Darkling Glory is coming.

She would have raced away from the castle in that quilt alone but she realized that it was too immodest. She leapt to her wardrobe and threw on a chemise and skirt, along with a traveling robe and her riding boots, while her five yellow pups circled her and yelped and leapt and wagged their tails, wondering what new game this might be.

She thought only of the stables, tried to determine the quickest route to her stables and her mount. She was about to flee the castle with nothing else in hand when she stopped cold.

Wait, she thought, panting. Binnesman had said that the Darkling Glory would not arrive until tonight. Which meant that she had all day to make good her escape.

Yet the Earth King had warned her through his powers, had warned everyone in and around the city to arise and flee. No, not to flee, to "prepare" to flee.

As she considered, she realized what a feat it would be. There were tents to move, and animals, baggage, and stores by the wagonload. Worse than that, people had been traveling to Castle Sylvarresta from all across Heredon and environs beyond. Never had the city hosted more than a hundred thousand people, yet now the fields around the castle were cluttered with seven times that number. If everyone fled at once, every road out of town would be jammed Gaborn had decided to warn them all now so that he could give them a head start. Instead of running for the forest, as every instinct warned her to do, Iome stooped and stroked each of her pups for a moment. Outside, she heard a few thousand people crying out in dismay, and the sounds of the people camped outside the castle rose to a dull roar. Gaborn had warned them only to prepare, yet it sounded as if the mob were panicking. Iome closed the pups inside her room, and raced to the top of the King's Keep.

There she found Gaborn staring out over the city: The place was bedlam.

Thousands of people were running for the Dunnwood, screaming and crying, many carrying nothing but the clothes on their backs. Others tore down their pavilions as quickly as possible. Horses bucked and grew frightened, racing from their desperate owners. Yet not everyone did as Gaborn had commanded. Many among the camp had not yet been Chosen, and therefore had not heard Gaborn's command. Thousands of these raced for the castle, as if to seek verbal orders or possibly defend the keep. Others had decided that running north, away from the Dunnwood, was more sensible. They blindly surged toward the town of Eels, some two and a half miles north of Sylvarresta.

At the far edge of the camp, King Orwynne had mounted some five hundred knights, and another thousand lords of Heredon stood with him, prepared to head south. They included every lord or knight among Gaborn's retinue who could command a force horse.

It was not a large force to send against Raj Ahten, but a powerful one, comprised only of those warriors who rode force horses capable of traveling two hundred miles a day. The warriors looked eager to ride as they awaited Gaborn, many of them glancing back over the camps.

Yet the Earth King stood on his tower, awestruck, dismayed at he madness he had caused by issuing his warning through the earth powers. Gaborn wore a simple shirt of horseman's mail beneath his cape, and had put on his riding boots. But he had not yet donned his helm, so that his dark hair hung down to his shoulders.

"What are you doing?" Iome demanded. "You nearly frightened me to death! You nearly frightened all of us to death." She put one hand over her chest, vainly trying to still her heart, to calm her breathing.

"I'm sorry," Gaborn said. "I'd hoped it would go better. I've been fighting the urge to issue the warning all night. I had to give them as much time as possible to flee, but I dared not have them running blindly in the darkness. I don't want to panic them."

His tone was so apologetic that Iome knew he meant it He was concerned only with the welfare of his people.

Suddenly his voice rang through her mind again. "Calm yourselves. You have the whole day. Work together. Save the old and the young and the infirm. Get as far from the castle as you can by nightfall."

People were still running, though many of them stopped and tried to obey his newest command.

He pointed down to the roiling ma.s.s of fling tents and fleeing citizenry. "You see what happened? Many of those people camped by the river came out of West Heredon, and they would have trampled everyone in camp as they dashed for their homes.

"And down there, see that red pavilion where the children are crying? Their mother and father fled without them! I applaud the parents obedience, but I had hoped for a more measured response.

"Yet I Chose the man and woman in the tent next to them, and neither of them have bestirred themselves to get out of their beds at all, as far as I can tell! They must be packing, I think, but what if the danger were more immediate? Should I applaud them for their measured response, or will they someday die because of it?

"And see up there, many people have reached the edge of the Dunnwood already, and now they mill about in confusion, unsure what to do next. And others may not stop running--no matter what I say--until they faint from exhaustion. Who among them is right? Those who follow the very letter of my command, or those who strive too hard?

"And over there, you see that old woman struggling to escape? She must be ninety. She cannot possibly walk more than two miles in a day. Do you think anyone will help her?"

As Gaborn studied the swirling miasma of humanity, his mouth gaped open in astonishment and horror.

Iome understood now. He was so new to his power, so unused to it, that he wielded it clumsily. He could not afford to wield it so. His power was like a sword, a weapon that was only useful if the arm that wielded it could parry and thrust with accuracy. He was trying to learn his strokes now.

And so much depended on those strokes--the lives of every man, woman, and child in this vast throng.

But even as she watched, she realized that he witnessed an even greater horror. As Earth King, he had power to warn his people, but he could not force them to obey. He could not compel them to act in their own best interests.

With the issuing of his second command, the confusion began to ease. Gaborn sent them a third warning, asking them to calm themselves and care for one another. People all took a moment to stop and stare up at Gabon. Tents and pavilions still fell with marvelous rapidity, but now parents raced back to their children, while strangers went to help the elderly. Iome no longer worried that people in the lead might be crushed under the feet of those behind.

Gaborn nodded in approval, turned to Iome and hugged her.

"Are you leaving now?" she asked, not wanting him to go.

"Yes," he said. "King Orwynne and the others are already mounted, and we have far to travel today. Few of the horses will be able to handle such a pace. I've sent messengers to Queen Herin the Red and on into Beldinook, asking them each to host us for a day. We'll travel without cooks or any other camp followers."

Iome nodded. It would be a hard march without any camp followers, without cooks or washwomen or tents or squires to care for the armor and animals. Yet if they were to travel quickly, they'd have to make do. In troubled times like these, no lord would dare refuse to feed his company. They'd be glad for the reinforcements, and a night's food and lodging would be small recompense.

Then Gaborn asked something unexpected. "Will you ride with me?" It was not common for a lord to take his wife to war, but it was not common for a lord to desert his wife within six months of the wedding, either. She suspected that it was a hard thing for him to ask "You ask me to come now?" she said. "You could have asked me hours ago. I'd have been ready."

"I looked in on you hours ago. You slept fitfully, and you don't have the stamina to go without sleep and then ride all day. So I had the idea of asking Jureem to stay a few hours this morning and take notes, watch the camp and learn what he can, so that next time I must warn a city to flee, I'll know how to do it. I thought that you could stay with him, then ride later this morning. Your horses are fast enough so that you should catch up quickly."

"May I bring Myrrima?" Iome asked. "She'll want to come, too. I'll need a lady to keep me company."

Gaborn frowned slightly. He would not want to take another lord's wife on what might prove to be a dangerous journey, but saw his wife's need to follow the rules of propriety. "Of course."

He stared, his dark blue eyes gauging her. "I saw the pups in bed with you."

"You weren't there," she said in her own defense. "I needed something to keep me warm."

"Are the nights so cold?"

"'The Knights are Hot in Heredon,"' she said, quoting the t.i.tle of a bawdy ballad that she'd never heard openly sung in her presence.

Gaborn laughed uproariously and his face reddened. "So, my wife wants to be a wolf lord and slouch about alehouses now, singing bawdies and showing her legs!" Gaborn said. "Queen of the byways! People will say I'm a bad influence."

"Do you disapprove?"

Gaborn smiled. "No. If I did not have my endowments already, I might have slept with some pups last night. I'm...relieved that you accepted Duke Groverman's gift. He will be delighted that he has served you so well." Gaborn considered for a moment. "I'll have the treasurer set aside forcibles for your personal use. A hundred should do."

"I will have Jureem bring some extra puppies for you, too, then," Iome said. "You are going into battle soon."

Iome grabbed him and kissed him on impulse, then suddenly realized she was kissing him here on the tower, while probably not less than ten thousand eyes were watching. She pushed back in embarra.s.sment. "Sorry," she said. "The people are staring."

"They saw us kiss at the wedding," Gaborn said, "and as I recall, some cheered." He kissed her again. "Until this afternoon, then?"

"Thank you," she replied.

Gaborn bit his lip, smiled worriedly, and said, "Never thank a man for taking you into battle until after the war is over."

Then he turned and raced down the hatch at the top of the tower. In moments she saw him striding out of the keep, along the cobbled streets to the King's Gate, then he was lost as he moved down to the blackened corner of Market Street, where he'd killed the flameweaver last week. Masons had been hard at work repairing the damage to the buildings there, but cleaning and replacing the stone faces of the market would take months or years, and already the place was being referred to by the locals as the "Black Corner." Iome imagined that four hundred years from now, strangers getting directions to some establishment would be told, "Aye, the silversmith's shop is up on the Black Corner, toward the portcullis," and everyone would understand what it meant.

If we are lucky enough to live so long, she thought.

Then she got to work. She packed her own things, then had some servants and a new guardsman--a powerful young lad named Sir Donnor out of Castle Donyeis--go with her to the King's treasury to remove all the gold and precious spices and armor and forcibles.

Gaborn had taken twenty thousand forcibles south to return to Raj Ahten, in hopes that the Wolf Lord would agree to his terms for a truce. Yet he still had ten thousand forcibles in the treasury, along with other gifts that had been given recently by lords of Heredon. The gifts included plate mail for Gaborn and barding for Gaborn's horse given by Duke Mardon upon their wedding, but which Gaborn would not take into this battle, because of its onerous weight. In addition, there was a good deal of gold and spices given in revenue, for the harvest taxes were normally paid during the week of Hostenfest. The sum total amounted to several thousand pounds of treasure. So she had the servants quietly haul it all up to the tombs, where she locked it in the vault among the bones of her grandparents.

This feat in itself took her two hours, and when she had finished, the thought struck her that she ought to check on Binnesman, for she had not yet seen him, and she worried that he might need the help of some servants before they all left the city.

When she went to his room down in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the keep, he was not there, though a fire burned in an old hearth, and the air smelled heavily of simmering verbenaan herb with a lemony scent, often decocted to make perfumes. Indeed the fresh fragrance filled the whole bas.e.m.e.nt, and smelled like liquid sunshine. In the b.u.t.tery Iome found Chancellor Rodderman's daughter, a sharp-eyed girl of eight, who had stayed in the keep while her father made certain that it was properly evacuated. The girl reported that Binnesman had left at dawn, saying that he would search the manor gardens down in the city for goldenbay, succory, and faith raven.

Iome abandoned that concern for a moment. Instead she made her way to the Dedicate's Keep, to make sure that the Dedicates had been evacuated In the past week the keep had become a different place. Sir Borenson, acting upon the orders of Gaborn's father, had slain all of the Dedicates here, for Raj Ahten had forced her father's troops to grant him endowments, thus seizing attributes from thousands of Sylvarresta's people. Borenson's had been a horrific deed, and though part of Iome was grateful that someone had had the courage to do it, another part of her was still shocked and saddened. Many of the Dedicates had been servants who'd offered the use of their minds or brawn, stamina, or metabolism into the service of King Sylvarresta. Their only crime had been to love their lord and seek to serve him as best they were able. Yet when the knights to whom they had granted endowments were captured, forced to grant endowments of their own, the Dedicates had become converted to the use of a monster like Raj Ahten. Since no one could hope to slay Raj Ahten, his enemies best hope was to weaken him which meant slaughtering the enfeebled and innocent Dedicates. Borenson's feat had been a grisly task, killing fools who did not know that their own deaths were upon them, butchering those who had given metabolism in their endless slumber, murdering those so weak from having given brawn so that they could not even raise their hands to ward off a blow.

Borenson had been cold and distant to her and Gaborn since that night. He did not handle the guilt well.

And as Iome walked through the bailey that served as the courtyard to the Dedicate's Keep, she did not handle her own memories of this place well, either. The high narrow walls around the keep made it feel suffocating. The Dedicate's Keep carried too many dark memories.

Only a couple of small trees, stunted by lack of light, grew within the bailey. A week past, Iome's mother had lain here, her body hidden from sight after Raj Ahten murdered her. And after her father had given his endowment of wit to the Wolf Lord, Iome had stayed here a day serving him, though he did not know his own daughter to look at her. For not only was he witless, but she had given her own endowment of glamour to Raj Ahten's vector, and so had become ugly.

Iome crossed the bailey but dared not enter the keep itself, for fear that it would arouse too many memories of lost friends, for fear that she would find herself looking for bloodstains on the mats and on the floors. Although the steward a.s.sured her the beds had all been burned and the floors, walls, and--by the Powers--ceilings had been scrubbed spotless, she could not willfully try to imagine what it had looked like.

At last she sent Sir Donnor into the keep proper to find Myrrima, while she waited in the courtyard with her Days.

Several wains were parked in the courtyard and Iome watched a few guards leading the blind to one wain, carrying those who had given grace or brawn to another. They were a sad-looking lot, these people who had offered to become cripples in service to their king.

A moment later Sir Donnor exited the keep and a.s.sured Iome that Myrrima had attended to her mother and sisters, and even now was packing in her own room.

Iome bade Sir Donnor go to the stables and prepare their mounts, then went to inform Myrrima that they would leave together, heading south with her husband. Iome wasn't surprised to find Myrrima with her pups yapping at her feet, and a longbow with a quiver full of deadly looking arrows and a wrist guard on her bed. But she was surprised to find Myrrima trying on a rather shabby, heavily quilted old vest that looked fit to be worn only while scrubbing floors.

"Do you think it smashes my b.r.e.a.s.t.s down enough" Myrrima asked.

Iome stared at Myrrima in frank surprise and said, "If you want smashed b.r.e.a.s.t.s, rocks might work better."

Myrrima made a sour face. "I'm serious."

"All right, smashed enough for what?"

"So that they don't get in the way when I shoot!"

Iome had never fired a bow, though she knew ladies who had, and she recognized Myrrima's predicament.

"I've got a leather riding vest in my wardrobe that might work better. I'll get it for you," Iome offered.

Then she told Myrrima that they would both be riding south. Myrrima seemed both astonished and genuinely gladdened by the prospect of following the men to war.

An hour later, Myrrima and Iome had a good breakfast with Iome's Days and Sir. Donnor, but by ten in the morning Binnesman had still not come back to his room, So they sent to the stables for their horses and prepared to ride out, leaving little undone. Iome's puppies were left in the King's kitchen, until she felt sure that she would depart.

In all the confusion, Iome still had not talked to Jureem. When she reached the city gate, she found him shouting at people who loafed outside the castle.

Iome had imagined that by now everyone would have fled the grounds outside Castle Sylvarresta, but it was not so. As she looked through the city gates, she realized that the roads to the south and to the west, the roads heading into the Dunnwood, were jammed with carts and oxen and peasants, many of whom had given up on the notion of travel and were just milling about. Of the pavilions near the castle, a full quarter of them still stood, and many of their occupants seemed not to be interested in going anywhere at all.

Jureem had his hands full. Though he was a fine servant--perhaps the most capable servant she'd ever met, he could not do the impossible.

And the situation before him was clearly impossible. A full five thousand petty lords and knights and even some peasants with nothing more than longbows to use as weapons had besieged the gates of the castle and demanded entrance. The city guard--about forty men--barred their way.

"What's going on?" Iome demanded.

"Your Highness," Jureem explained, "these men have decided that they want to guard the castle walls."

"But..." Iome could think of nothing to say for a moment. "But Gaborn told everyone to flee."

"I know!" Jureem said. "But they choose not to listen."

It astonished her that a va.s.sal would disobey the command of his king. She looked to Sir Donnor, as if for an answer. But the blond lad merely glared at the troublemakers. She gazed out over the throng. "Is this true?" she asked. "Are none of you Chosen? Did you not hear the commands?"

At that, hundreds of men looked away in shame. Though they might stand up to Jureem, a mere servant, they would not do so to Iome.

Baffled, she said. "Do you even know what a Darkling Glory is? Can, you guess its powers?"

One man, a petty lord she recognized as Sir Barrows, stepped up. "We've heard of Glories and Bright Ones--we all have," he said. "And if the old tales be true, they can die in battle, same as a man. So we was thinking we could stand fast on the battlements with the siege engines--the ballistas and catapults and steel bows, and kill it before it even lands."

"Are you daft?" Iome shouted, astonished by the man. "I know you are all courageous, but are you also daft? Did you not hear your lord's command? He told you to flee!"

"Of course we heard, Your Highness," Sir Barrows replied, "but surely that command was meant mainly for women and the little ones. We're all strong men here!"

At that, the men all shook their spears and axes and raised their shields and shouted in a great cry that echoed from the hills.

Iome stared in utter amazement. They had heard the word of the Earth King and had decided to keep their own counsel. She turned to the captain of the King's Guard and commanded, "Place two hundred archers on the wall. Shoot any of these men who comes within bow range."

"Milady!" Sir Barrows said in a hurt tone.

"I'm not your lady," Iome turned on him and shouted viciously. "If you will not follow my lord's word, then you are not his servant, and you are doomed to die, all of you! I may applaud your valor, but I will curse your foolishness; and I will punish it, if I must!"

"Your Highness!" Sir Barrows said, dropping to his knees, as if awaiting her order. After a moment, the others fell in line and followed his example, though some were slower to bend the knee than others.

She turned on Jureem. "Why are people milling about on the roads" she asked. "Can't they get away from the city?"

"The slower travelers get in their way," Jureem said "Many of the carts are heavily laden, and some have broken axles or lost wheels, so everyone must move around them."

Iome turned to the troops that knelt before the castle gate. "Sir Barrows, send a thousand men up each road and have them clear the carts of those who are stranded. Put them to work fixing wheels and axles. As for those folk who have chosen to remain afield, go find out why they are here. If they have valid reasons to stay, I want to know. If they don't have good reasons to stay, tell them that you have orders to kill anyone found within five miles of the castle within the hour."

"Your Highness," Sir Barrows cried in astonishment. "Do you really want us to kill them?"

Iome felt bewildered by his stupidity. But then she remembered that Gaborn had said earlier in the week that he thought it wrong to ever curse a man for being a fool, for fools could not help themselves and were forever at the mercy of the cunning. "You shan't need to kill them," she warned. "The Darkling Glory will do it for you."

Sir Barrows opened his mouth in sudden comprehension. "It will be done, Your Highness." He turned and began shouting orders.

Jureem bowed his pudgy figure to her, the decorative hem of his golden silk robes sweeping the dust. "Thank you, Your Highness. I was not able to reason with them, and I dared not disturb you."

"Next time, dare," she said.

"There are other matters," Jureem said.

"Such as?"

"Hundreds of people are too ill to run. Some are too old, too infirm; some are mothers who have given birth in the past few hours, or warriors who were injured in yesterday's games. They have asked permission to take cover in the castle. I've had them carried to the inns until we can decide what to do."