The Raven Collection Part 160

The confusion within her made her mind pound all the more.

She turned her head to look at Denser. His beard was trimmed, his black hair neat and short, his cheekbones and jaw angled and so attractive. He was looking down at the bed, tears rolling down his face either side of his sharp nose.

For a heartbeat, she thought about kissing his tears away. But in that moment, the grief deluged her again and she crumbled back into her nightmare.

Chapter 4.

Rebraal arrived back at Aryndeneth after two sharp downpours, each followed by steaming heat as the sun forced its way through the cloud. He could imagine the strangers running for cover as an inch and more rain fell in drops the size of his thumbs, extinguishing fires and drumming on canvas, finding its way through every loose st.i.tch and seam.

For his part, the leader of the Al-Arynaar had merely found the best shelter he could under the broad green leaves of trees, and had listened to the sounds the rain brought to the forest: the undergrowth alive with animals scurrying for holes and burrows; the spatter of water on leaf and branch; the shifting of vegetation at every level of the harmony.

Rain was something to be enjoyed, not endured. It brought a freshness to the air and drove the insects from the sky. It brought life to the environment. It was warm on his skin and cooled the extremes of temperature. Rebraal loved the rain.

Later, standing on the overgrown stone ap.r.o.n in front of the temple, Rebraal called the Al-Arynaar to him. It was a call to arms and one that struck a chord of fear and determination in all of them. He had wondered whether the call, a song that echoed out through the forest in an ancient and long-dead language, was really required. But in truth, the threat was so great even the Deneth-barine song couldn't communicate its magnitude.

With Mercuun gone to spread the alarm and light fading quickly with the close of day under a bank of thickening cloud, Rebraal faced just eight. Two mages and six warriors. Their faces told him they understood the gravity; he now had to explain the reality.

There was an expectant air, tinged with anxiety. The song had not been heard in the living memory of any of them or indeed the two generations before them. They gathered in a loose group around Rebraal as the evening birds began to call and the rasp of a thousand pairs of cicada legs sawed at the fading light.

'The strangers' camp is a half-day standard march north. The path they made took me straight to it.' He paused to take them all in. 'The Al-Arynaar a.s.sembled here face a threat at least ten times our number. We will need all of our guile and the blessing of Yniss to survive.'

Rebraal let his words sink in. He saw fear, which was right, but no desperation. He hadn't expected to.

'How long before they get here?' asked Caran'herc. Keen eyes and a fine archer even for an elf, Caran'herc had her hair close-cropped for convenience and a narrow face that robbed her of real beauty. Her eyes though, piercing and deep blue, shone from her face, bewitching.

'By the position of the sun, I left them four hours ago,' said Rebraal, 'and they were making no preparations then. They will miss their dead by dawn if not before and though the rain might slow them, they could be on us and wary before night falls tomorrow.'

'Mercuun will be gone until the day after tomorrow at least,' said Sheth'erei, a thoughtful, quiet mage. She chewed at her thin lips, the tips of her high cheeks pink, the hood of a lightweight cloak thrown over her head against the insects of the night.

Rebraal nodded. 'Yes, Sheth. We have to a.s.sume we are on our own.'

They took the situation in, each one weighing up the risks and possibilities. They knew the forest was their greatest ally, but that for all its strengths, overwhelming odds would ultimately be victorious. Unless the few were prepared.

'Sheth, Erin. Perimeter wards need to be laid and activated. So do the temple doors. When these are set, remember your distances all of you.' He looked hard at the two mages. 'It's up to you to tell us when we can no longer pray inside. Right. The rest of us. Check and unlock the stakes and pits. Re-lay the camouflage on the archer platforms, rub down the boards and check fastenings for silence. Check every arrow tip and shaft for imperfection, the toxin supply for age. Hone every edge of every blade. Clear your lines of sight, retie the netting. Leave no mark on the earth. That done we will talk of our positions.

'But first, we will pray.'

Rebraal led them to the temple.

The Unknown Warrior walked through the entrance of the house, nodding at Aeb who stood just inside. The Protector inclined his head in return.

'The kitchen is still the most habitable area,' he said in response to the question The Unknown had been framing.

The Raven warrior smiled. 'And the rest of the house?'

'Safe from collapse. We have repaired roofing over some of the bedrooms but we lack tools.'

'Not any more you don't. Nor do you lack muscle.'

'A hundred of my brothers is a welcome addition,' said Aeb.

'A hundred?' echoed Hirad.

'Later,' said The Unknown. He turned back to Aeb. 'We'll tour the house later, set some priorities. I'll be in the kitchen with my family.'

Aeb inclined his head again. 'I will have our brothers leave there.'

'Thank you.'

The Unknown pointed the way and led Diera towards the kitchen, which stood at the far end of the house. It was not a walk he enjoyed.

Directly opposite the sh.o.r.ed-up frontage with its battered but repaired doors was the gaping s.p.a.ce that had once been the wood and gla.s.s entrance to the orchard, the devastated centrepiece of the house. The Unknown paused and looked out, and the battle flickered back through his head with disturbing clarity.

He saw the orchard ablaze with mage fire from the bombardment of Dordovan FlameOrbs. The shapes of mages descending on Shadow-Wings into the blaze. The sound of spells drumming on the roof. The rush of cool air as the front doors were battered down. The spatter of blood on his face. Dear G.o.ds, The Raven had fought so hard against such numbers.

The Unknown placed a hand on his forehead and felt the sweat sheen there. His hip ached in sympathy at the memory of the desperate run up the corridor to the ballroom and through to the kitchen. The ache intensified, jabbed pain at him.

The smells of ash and fear were in his nostrils once again. The deaths of Protectors blown apart by close-focused magic flashed in front of his eyes. He could hear Denser's frantic attempts to shield them from crossbows behind and Hirad's roar and the cut of his sword into Dordovan flesh. And, with sickening repet.i.tion, he saw a Protector sacrifice himself to save Lyanna from an IceWind, Ilkar's sword spinning end over end through the air and the blood that flowed from the mage's nose. There was Selik, too, standing over the p.r.o.ne body of Erienne, and Hirad charging towards him. And at the end, Darrick and Ren saving them all when they should have died.

All except Lyanna. And it was his abiding sorrow that everything had been reversed. Because she should have been the only one to live but ended up being the only one to die. For all their defence. For all the fight way beyond normal endurance. For all their belief, The Raven could not save her.

Nothing could have. He swayed against the door frame.

'Hey, lost in that head of yours, are you?' asked Diera, free arm linked through his.

They moved left to the long pa.s.sageway which led up to the banqueting hall and overlooked the orchard all along its length. A long door-studded wall ran the other side.

'A little,' he said. 'You can't stop the memories coming back.'

'You fought up here?' asked Diera.

The Unknown looked down at her as they walked. Hirad kept a respectful silent distance behind. She was glancing about as if trying to imagine the scene. Jonas had snuggled into her shoulder and looked asleep.

'All the way from front door to kitchen. When we weren't running, that is.' He tried to smile but she shuddered.

'It must have been awful,' she whispered.

'I thought we were all going to die,' he said.

Diera leant a little further into him and he squeezed her shoulder.

'Gets to you, doesn't it?' said Hirad, coming to his side.

'You could say,' he replied.

'It fades but it never goes away,' said the barbarian.

'Come on,' said The Unknown. 'Let's get The Raven together. I'll worry about my mind later.'

Rebraal led the Al-Arynaar into the dome of Aryndeneth and at once the majesty of the temple surged through his body and he felt, as they all did, the pulsing life of the harmony. Sweet and soothing, it swept away the threat that lay without and filled him with the surety of the everlasting. It stoked his belief and imbued his mind with the determination that set the Al-Arynaar apart.

He breathed deep and walked further into the cool of the great dome, towards its magnificent statue and glorious pool. Rebraal still found it hard to believe that Aryndeneth and all it contained had been built five millennia ago.

Beyond the threshold, marble and stone flags patterned the floor, the multicoloured slabs positioned exactly to catch the light of the sun at a dozen different times of the day, when prayers could be offered to the G.o.ds of the forest and the land, of the air and mana, and of harmony. There were no seats in the main dome, although contemplation chambers at each corner of the temple provided rough benches and stands for candles. And further back, a corridor had other chambers on either side, the doors of which opened only at given times of the day or season. The dome itself was the place for silent reverence and hands touching the ground when praying brought the G.o.ds closer.

Between the precisely set windows, the walls and domed ceiling were covered in intricate murals. They depicted the rise of Yniss and the trials of the elven peoples as they grew to longevity and earned the right to live with the land, vibrant colours tracing the history of Calaius. And, in the centre of the domed ceiling, was painted the only fully rendered impression of the Balaian dimension, with Calaius at its centre. Radiating out from the Southern Continent were the energy lines the elves believed linked the lands and the seas together. They were the lines that gave elves their innate sense of home anywhere in the world and originated from one place. Aryndeneth.

Beautiful though the murals, maps and line tracings were, they were as nothing in comparison to what dominated the temple. In the exact centre of Aryndeneth, a statue rose seventy feet into the dome.

It was of Yniss, the G.o.d the elves worshipped as the Father of their race and He who gave the elves the gift of living as one with the land and its denizens, the air and with mana. Rebraal's eyes tracked down the statue, which was carved from a single block of flint-veined, polished pale stone.

Yniss was sculpted kneeling on one leg, head looking down along the line of his right arm. The arm was extended below his bended knee, thumb and forefinger making a right angle with the rest of the fingers curled half fist. Every detail of the sculptors' vision had been intricately included. Yniss was depicted as an old elf, age lines around the eyes and across the forehead. His long full hair and beard were carved blowing back towards and over his right shoulder.

Romantic idealism had led the sculptors to depict the G.o.d's body as toned and muscled perfection. There was the odd age line but nothing to really divorce the body from that of a pure athlete. A single-shouldered robe covered little more than groin and stomach, leaving open the bunching shoulders, stunningly defined arms and powerful, sandal-shod legs.

Though there was no colour other than that of the marble itself, Rebraal always stared hard at the slanted oval eyes, their powerful lines and clever use of the temple's light and shadow making them all but sparkle with life.

The majesty of the statue, though, was all mere dressing for its purpose. The scriptures of Yniss spoke of him coming to this place to give life to the world and construct the harmony that made the elves, gave them long life and showed them the beauty of the forest and the earth. Yniss had channelled his life energy along forefinger and thumb into the harmonic pool, from where it spread throughout the land, bringing glory where it touched. The scriptures laid down the exact design of Yniss's hand for the sculptors who came after him, their precision ensuring the flow of life energy was forever unbroken. Pipes concealed within the statue's thumb and forefinger fed water from an underground spring into the pool beneath the statue's outstretched hand.

Rebraal believed the harmony was what kept him alive, though the scriptures were vague on the consequences of disruption, save that it would cause disaster. Perhaps the forests would wither or elves would die. It mattered little. While the Al-Arynaar lived, no one would damage the harmony, either by accident or design.

Rebraal knelt before the statue and in front of the thirty-foot-wide crescent-shaped and sweet-smelling pool into which the waters of life energy fed. He placed his hands firmly on the stone and bowed his forehead to touch its cool surface before lifting his head to look into Yniss's eyes and pray again for his miracle.

Selik, commander of the Black Wings, had travelled much of eastern Balaia since the death of Lyanna, Erienne's abomination of an offspring. He'd seen what the child's filthy magic had done to his country. He'd seen smashed towns and villages, ruined fields and livestock corpses strewn across flattened pasture, rotting where they lay. He'd seen forests uprooted and levelled, rivers flood plains and lakes double their size, drowning all they touched. And he'd seen where the earth had opened to swallow the land, leaving great scars on the landscape that seeped death and disease.

And worse than the ravaged countryside was the suffering in those towns and cities where people still lived because they had nowhere else to go. In Korina, the extravagance of earlier years had come back to haunt the capital. With farm produce from outlying areas all but gone and no sensible provision for grain storage, the population was reliant on the remnants of the city's fishing fleet. But it was in a pitiful state. Less than thirty seaworthy vessels remained, the wreckage of the rest still lying among the smashed docks. But Korina's population exceeded a quarter of a million and even with the huge outflow of refugees to inland towns, they were fighting a losing battle.

The population had survived a harsh winter but were now close to starving, and though the storm and flood waters had receded, their legacy was disease and rats. He knew it was the same throughout Balaia. With four exceptions: Xetesk, Dordover, Lystern and Julatsa.

Magic. Travers, his leader when the Black Wings he now led had been formed, had been right all along. Though magic did superficial good, it upset the natural balance. And where its hand had been then abandoned, people suffered and died. How fragile Balaia was and how blind so many had been to that fragility. But magic had always had the capacity to create disaster and now no eyes were closed to that fact. The evil child and her untamed magic had blighted a whole continent and left the innocent to struggle with the consequences.

And where were the mages now? Guilty by a.s.sociation, they had fled back to the safety of their college cities to hide, grow fat and prepare for war. And all the while those they purported to care for starved. Rightly, the populace was turning against them. Even where mages had stayed, the damage was too great for them to truly help and their efforts were born of guilt not concern.

They had shown their true colours. Magic was not strong; it was a force of opportunism turned on the helpless to force obedience. Well, now things were different. The helpless would learn to help themselves and would not see magic return to their lives. Once they could, they would live without it.

It would not be an easy path. Balaia would have to find a new strength and would need a new order. One that shunned and despised the wretches in their colleges. Never again could the users of magic be allowed to hold the balance of power.

Selik had seen all he needed to see. Already his followers were spreading dissent and rumour, preparing the ground. And already there was support for what he represented. The pure path. The righteous path. Once the majority of the population was behind him he could move to strike at the heart of the evil that had plagued Balaia for too long. He would smash them, their colleges and their towers, and liberate the people.

Selik smiled, the expression dragging his spell-ravaged face into a sick sneer. His time had come. The mages had struck the mortal blow against themselves and would not survive it. While they hid and licked their wounds, his power grew. What the great Travers had started as an exercise in control, Selik would finish as an example of extinction. And when magic was gone, his would be the dominant force; he would see to that.

He kicked his horse into a canter, fifty of his men behind him. Erskan and the villages nearby were next. He had heard that mages still worked their sick trade there. Some still had lessons to learn.

Rebraal waited in the temple long after the other Al-Arynaar had left to begin their tasks. His was the first sitting of contemplation and he had prayed fervently it would bring him new wisdom.

Aryndeneth was cool and quiet but for the waters of harmony falling precisely into the crescent pool before continuing their journey through the veins of the earth. It was a sound that he allowed to wash over him until he was conscious of nothing else but its sustaining beauty.

This evening was revered by the Al-Arynaar because of the conjunction of land, sun and sky, and Rebraal was aware of the shifting of the light through his closed eyes. He opened them and watched, from his kneeling position, the amber glow of late sunlight through an exactly positioned tinted window set into the base of the dome.

Every point the light touched on the polished walls glistened, details of murals and mosaics picked out in glory then banished to relative shadow as it crawled by. He watched on, seeing the pool dancing and sparkling in the periphery of his vision. The light reached the statue; part of the diffuse beam pierced the crook of its left arm. In the back of the temple, stone grated on stone as a doorway to learning opened.

It would be brief. Once the light had pa.s.sed the crook, the door would slide shut and twenty days would pa.s.s before it opened again. Some doors opened daily but here was a chance for rare study. This was the tome of Shorth, the fleet foot G.o.d. The Death Keeper. He was the balance at the end of life's cycle. He restored the living to the earth and their breath to the sky and their mana to the harmony. Rebraal had barely studied him. Perhaps he would learn enough to ensure this was not his last chance.

Offering a short prayer of thanks to Yniss, Rebraal rose to his feet and paced silently past the statue, his eyes easily piercing the gloom at the back of the temple. To his left, a doorway let into a small, mural-covered cell bathed in warm amber light from a large window above. A single desk and chair faced a double shelf full of texts, some almost too ancient to touch. Rebraal selected a heavy leather-bound book and began to read.

Chapter 5.

The look on Ilkar's face when he strode into a kitchen filled with the delicious smells of soup and fresh bread that evening was just as The Unknown had expected. The elegant eyebrows were arrowed in, the lips thin, the high-boned cheeks reddened and leaf-shaped ears p.r.i.c.king furiously. His words stopped the desultory conversation around The Raven's table.

'I've had the most wonderful day,' he said. 'Clear blue skies, warm water, an island a short sail away just for me and the woman I love. Then, to cap off the perfection, I sail back here to find we've handed over control of Herendeneth to Xetesk. Anyone want to volunteer a reason?' He stared squarely at The Unknown. 'h.e.l.lo, Unknown. At least it's good to see you if not the rest of the pa.s.sengers that came with you.'

He sat down.

'Great entrance,' said Hirad.

'Some performance,' agreed Denser.

The briefest of smiles registered on Erienne's face, gone in a heartbeat.

'This isn't funny,' snapped Ilkar. 'Correct me if I'm wrong, but we agreed a research party of six. Now I'm not the world's greatest mathematician but I reckon I counted more than six Xeteskian mages on my way through the house. Oh, and I think there was the odd Protector in addition to the half-dozen who were here when I left this morning.'

The Unknown would have laughed under other circ.u.mstances - Ilkar's sarcasm was always so perfectly delivered - but this wasn't the time.

'There are thirty mages and one hundred Protectors here. They are here because they fear invasion of this island by Dordover.' The silence around the table was total. 'That is because Xetesk and Dordover are now at war. It is open conflict and it will soon consume Balaia, our country, which is already starving and broken.

'They are here to research dimensional magics across the spectrum and we can't stop them or make demands of them. But we can do something about Balaia. There's a tide early tomorrow afternoon. We have to be on it.'

Soup spoons were forgotten, bread hung from fingers. The Unknown Warrior could hear them all breathing - The Raven, less one notable absentee, the people in whom he had unshakeable faith. They would be tested now, for sure.

'We've fought for Balaia for so long. For peace and for somewhere we can grow old in safety and security. But I've brought my wife and son here because I fear for their lives from starvation, disease or the sword if I leave them there. We can't let it go on. Or everything else we've done will be for nothing.'

'But I thought peace was being brokered,' said Hirad.

'You thought wrong,' said The Unknown. 'We all did. This was just a matter of time.'

In his chair to The Unknown's left, Ry Darrick shifted uncomfortably. The former Lysternan general had been accused of desertion back on Balaia to fight with The Raven but that didn't change the way he felt about his home.