Traitor's Knot Part 26

Out of the cold dark, the spelled voice kept taunting. 'But your son's name is not on the rolls of the dead. This I vow! The master I serve could tell you what forces have laid claim to Prince Kevor's destiny.'

Sulfin Evend felt the hardening under his hands. 'No!' His scream shattered the welded tension with echoes, while his liege's mad fury unleashed. Lost beyond hope, the lord commander cried out, 'Lysaer! Destroy the conspiracy that murdered Princess Talith! Then handle the Spinner of Darkness in a conflict at arms, untainted by black ties of necromancy!'

Success or failure, the shocked air burned white. Dazzled blind, scoured by heat, Sulfin Evend hung on, as hammer to anvil, the percussive clash of Lysaer's raised light smashed down. He heard ragged speech; realized his liege was weeping the name of his departed beloved. For Talith, the force of Lysaer's outraged a.s.sault turned upon the worked tool of the grey cult below him.

The strike roared through the keep like the fires of Sithaer. Flash-point heat glazed the lower cellar to slag. Both ward-room and dungeon were scoured. Doors, walls, and steel glistened red, then ignited. The unnatural fires belched up a curtain of black smoke, as razed masonry bloomed orange and ran molten. The stairwell above became a chimney, blasted by the winds of inferno. Clothing smoked. Skin blistered. Whipped hair singed in the blast. On the landing below, the downed guardsmen sizzled, flesh and bone seared away, while the stink of the fumes ripped the guts of the living into paroxysms of nausea. Retching, flash-blinded, Sulfin Evend slammed his liege into the stone step with stunning force. Then, scoured fingers still gripped to the knife, he locked his left arm and dragged his unconscious charge in a stumbling rush up the stairwell. He reeled ahead, hauling Lysaer along with him. Hot air seized his throat. Swirling fumes turned his senses. Sulfin Evend could not see, only grope his way upwards. If the mercury shadow of spell-craft still stalked, his gifted talent was blinded. He could but hope the uncanny a.s.sault had been thwarted when the necromancer's string-puppet cabal had been consumed.

Fire raged, beyond salvage. Bricks shattered, red-hot. The dungeon was blasted to ruin.

Coughing, stung b.l.o.o.d.y as the blast fragments raked him, Sulfin Evend rounded the bend. He saw torch-light, then the pallid square of the upper postern, stamped amid the mora.s.s of churned smoke. Cradled in his locked grasp, his liege lay rag-doll limp, a wound running red at his throat. Ahead, faint shapes against the trammelled twilight, he saw his posted guardsmen, responding. Their distressed shouts seemed far off. Sulfin Evend had no voice left to cry warning. He was fordone. If wisps of vile spell-craft streamed through the murk, no recourse remained. He could not enact further remedy.

Above, the grand hall of state was in flames, gone up like a torch to the roof towers. The foundations already crumpled, below. In moments, the whole lower stairwell would give way and collapse into crumbling ruin. Sulfin Evend could not do any more than continue his harried flight upwards .

The men reached him. Hands fumbled and grabbed. Their touch woke his seared skin to agony. Sulfin Evend cried out, even as saving strength hauled him up, then dragged him along with his unconscious burden in a careening rush towards the doorway.

'That's the Blessed Prince himself!' someone cried. 'Mercy on us, he's bloodied! What ill force attacked him?'

'Get him out!' Sulfin Evend managed to gasp. He could scarcely see, barely hear, while the wheeling roof seemed to plunge in a downward spiral upon him. Before farntness claimed him, he croaked, 'Chain my liege in bed. Strap this knife to his skin. My orders, on pain of treason! No man is to take me away from his Grace's presence!'

Aftermath left the harsh, appalled silence that followed an earth-shaking thunder-clap. The blackened, raw scar of the grand hall of state still belched sullen fumaroles of black smoke. Ash sifted over Avenor's smudged roof-tops, while the smouldering talk in the streets placed the blame on the Spinner of Darkness.

There would be war.

Clad in stark white with a discreet, b.u.t.toned collar masking his bandaged throat, Lysaer s'Ilessid confronted his Lord Commander, who lay swathed in dressings soaked with medicinal unguents to cool the raging sting of his burns. 'I will not deflect the course of this outrage,' Lysaer declared with crisp sovereignty. 'This nest of conspiracy at Avenor is cleaned, but connections remain under question. If corruption did not work hand in glove with the Spinner of Darkness, ties existed. Find my wife, or my son, and I'll prove them.'

Prostrate on pillows, and sweating in discomfort, Sulfin Evend glared back. Hoa.r.s.e, he still argued. 'Etarra, first, liege. More trouble lurks there. If the corruption we just defeated has tapped into Raiett's ma.s.sive network of spies, the connection you attribute to Shadow is falsehood.' He held firm on that point. His harrowing acts in the stairwell granted his claim to that licence. Yet the privilege did nothing to lessen the force of his liege's imperious displeasure.

Sulfin Evend did not waver. If his eyes were raw red, his wits stayed ice-cold.

A populace convinced that the heart of their regency had suffered an a.s.saulting strike by raised sorcery might be blindly convinced to lay blame on a culprit. Frightened guilds would bring outlays of funds for fresh troops; a unified council would speed restoration. But here, in this sun-washed, taut chamber, alone, the Alliance commander would not play sh.e.l.l games with the truth. The palace page who had carried the false message was missing, with the thirteenth fugitive still somewhere at large.

'Your interests are being played against sorcery,' Sulfin Evend insisted. 'You must realize that, liege. A clan war and a siege of Alestron will undermine the Fellowship Sorcerers, then whittle away at the talent that safe-guards the open country-side. Distrust of Ath's adepts will only serve the cult factions that just tried to lay claim to your talent for their use as a private weapon.'

'Light has triumphed.' The statement was too polished. Jewels threw off scintillant glints in the daylight, while the icy draught through the cas.e.m.e.nt still wafted the flint reek of char. 'Today, the streets of Avenor are safe.' Lysaer moved, found a chair, and sat by the bedside. His pale grace caught the breath, for the spark of conviction that fuelled what seemed bed-rock earnestness. 'The plot to destroy my regency is disarmed, and your loyal defence will not be disowned or disparaged.'

That lost love for a woman had been the stay that spared the staunch hero from immolation had gone unspoken. Yet Sulfin Evend's taut stillness spoke volumes.

'No disgrace will arise for our difference,' said Lysaer. 'A discharge with honour is yours, at a word.'

Sulfin Evend held to his stark silence. He dared not state his view: that war against Fellowship interests, and clan presence, may have been the main thrust of the treasonous cabal's agenda. If so, then the cause of the Kralovir necromancers had been brilliantly served. When the Light of the Blessed raised arms against Shadow, an untold evil might bid for free rein to slip through the ragged breach.

'I will fight alone as need be,' Lysaer promised. Such regal poise would never beg, even at risk of dismissing the sole, selfless friendship that touched his humanity. 'You need not retain your Alliance rank if my service wears too heavily upon you.'

While Sulfin Evend refused speech, those piercing blue eyes dared not waver. Lysaer pressed on. But his immaculate hands now had locked in his lap, while the trembling flicker of gold braid at his cuffs exposed the pent force of his feelings. 'This much of your counsel I will take to heart. I promise to test my convictions. Once the hard evidence has been disclosed, woe betide Duke Bransian if his family has worked a covert betrayal against me. For Alestron's fortified strength is too powerful a resource to align with the powers of Darkness.'

'I shall keep the command,' Sulfin Evend rasped back. He had little choice. What he could not blunt, he must now strive to temper.

His oath to a Sorcerer married him to the land. With eyesight unsealed, he had glimpsed the deep mysteries preserved by the Fellowship's compact. Too late, he perceived the raw conflict: that the blinding effects of the curse that drove Lysaer could never be leashed in restraint. The Alliance ideology would not be laid to rest before the b.a.s.t.a.r.d half-brother's blood stained the field. As a weapon, the geas of Desh-thiere offered a tool without parallel. The inflammatory words just unleashed by the Kralovir's machinations surely seeded a deadly design: for a wife in the custody of Ath's adepts, and a clan ally turned, and a son kept alive by no less than mystical sorcery, swords would be raised for the cause of the Light. With Arithon Teir's'Ffalenn as the dangled prize, Lysaer's flawed will would forge a new war host to launch another a.s.sault against Shadow.

Strapped by a blood oath and conflicted honour, the one man at the right hand of the avatar foresaw the tragic crux. The invidious play was poised to destroy Athera's bright powers of initiate mastery. For dark ends, the black cults wanted the world's greater mysteries torn asunder and broken.

'I should weep to take up the challenge,' Sulfin Evend grated at length.

The words raised his liege's most dazzling smile. The gift of such trust was undeserved. Shamed to the quick, he ached for grief, that an upright man's justice should have been suborned to spear-head annihilation. Against curse-flawed charisma, and the risen star of a self-proclaimed avatar, Sulfin Evend became the last voice of sanity, wedged in the bleeding breach.

Late Winter 5671 Signatures Midwinter to spring, when the pa.s.ses were closed, all items crossing the continent followed the shipping that plied the prosperous, southern sea-routes. As terminus for the silk caravans from Atchaz, whose raw bales were in prime demand, the port of Innish on the coast of Shand became the stewpot for breaking news. Dispatches moved with the commerce of trade. The factors who handled the lading of ships also pa.s.sed the brisk traffic of state correspondence.

Though Fiark's obtuse network might be the least recognized, his unerring eye for profitable cargoes suggested the unusual depth and diversity of his contacts. Close-mouthed and quiet, his discretion was legend. He met with his hired captains in public and kept the family interests carried out by his sister the carefully guarded exception.

'Did you know,' Feylind groused, 'that they call you "the clam"?' Sunburned and raffish, and wearing a man's jerkin redolent of ship's tar and fish oil, she grinned, then perched herself with flagrant abandon upon the most comfortable brocade chair. 'You owe me, for patience,' she declared without fuss as her brother winced for his cushions. 'I'll buy you two beers, with the fact, I didn't kick any nitpicking customs men off my decks into the harbour.'

'That's because Teive kept your temper in hand,' Fiark denounced, though not without sympathy. Since the Innish port officers had noses like weasels and a rabid aversion to contraband, the Evenstar's logged movements were dealt a devouring scrutiny each time she hove into home port.

Feylind shrugged. 'You'd think the d.a.m.ned vultures would tire of picking for carrion on a clean slate.'

No thanks to her brother, for the obdurate fact that her registry stayed above- board. Her late trials had been no whit less, for that honesty. Long delay, a spoiled cargo, and an unscheduled hold-over to refit storm damage at Southshire had ruffled the hair of the clerks. The custom keeper's grilling had been worse than cantankerous.

Fiark's wry delight stayed undimmed behind the privacy of shuttered windows. 'They didn't much like the fact you switched shipyards?'

'Not!' Feylind snapped. The tapping search for hidden compartments had lasted two nerve-wracking days. 'The old outfitter's peeved that we took business elsewhere. And Southshire's so dazzled by sunwheel banners, I daren't explain that some Innish port rat with a grievance sold us out for a Koriani sigil meant to entrap the Master of Shadow.'

'They wanted Fionn Areth,' Fiark corrected, as always averse to high drama. 'So you swore them to prostration and headaches instead?' His timely s.n.a.t.c.h saved his stacked papers, as his sister lounged back with intent to plant her sea-booted feet on his desk. 'I know better than to think a few reddened ears might civilize your randy tongue.'

'If oaths could snip b.o.l.l.o.c.ks, I'd have gelded the lot,' Feylind agreed with bad humour. She delved into the satchel strapped at her waist. 'So what have you done in redress?'

'Sent an inquiry.' Fiark neatly fielded the catch as a sealed packet was tossed his way, granting discharge on the Evenstar's bill of inspection. 'I have a man, a desert tribe half-breed, who works an orange press at the docks. He'll track down your spy. Although I suspect he will find nothing worse than a shamefaced labourer caught up in a sworn oath of debt.'

'I'd spit him, regardless. You'd better check out the excis.e.m.e.n here, too. One of them wouldn't look me in the eye the last time we got laced by a round of impounded inspection.' Feylind trained her far-sighted squint on the disarranged letters on Fiark's desk. 'That's King Eldir's seal? Did he sign you a trade grant? He should, for the service you gave through the famine.'

'You're digging for news?' Fiark raised his eyebrows. 'Don't say! The Southshire yards were that starved for new gossip?'

His sister tossed back her wisped rope of hair, her sh.o.r.e manners in place: at sea, she would have spat over the rail in excoriating contempt. 'That port has the Light in its eyes to the point where the adult population couldn't whack the b.u.t.t end of itself with a stick! Teive's with the children so I could come here and badger you for the truth.'

Fiark flicked the ship's papers. 'Insurance, first,' he stated point-blank. 'Your happy rendezvous on the high seas happens to have lost me a cargo.'

Feylind stretched forward and s.n.a.t.c.hed up a pen. 'I'll sign three blank sheets. You can copy the rest. The manifest's been inventoried five times at least, by the custom keeper's zealot accountants.'

'They would inflate the values,' Fiark said, douce. 'I'd much rather settle this quietly.' Which careful comment made Feylind glance up. 'You talk like a merchant expecting a war.'

Fiark blinked. The uncanny way that his twin shared his mind was not always a comfort. While his sister uncapped the ink and scrawled signatures in her emphatic capitals, he recited the gist of the scandal that had all of the north taking pause - a blistering purge of Avenor's high council from a covert incursion of necromancy. Lysaer's summons in appeal to rectify damages had followed the shock to his dependent allies. Representatives were sent by Alliance-sworn mayors to help draft astringent new laws. These returned to their towns, clad in white robes and gold sashes, and quoting policy with a.s.sured serenity; of young talent recruited to speak for the Light, and a new order of priesthood expressly dedicated to expose the secretive workings of sorcery.

'This batch has arcane awareness guarding its works, fledgling seers declared for the Light. Far from shaken in faith, we're seeing complacent delusion. Lysaer's distrust of sorcery is fast becoming a rigid doctrine,' Fiark finished, saddened. 'After such a betrayal, which threatened a black nightmare, we are now promised that any man taking arms against Shadow will receive the reward of death without Darkness. Avenor's sent out a starry-eyed flock of recruiters -'

Feylind broke in, 'Those fanatics who pitch sunwheel tents in the fields and hold meetings? Folk wander in out of friendly curiosity, and leave euphoric with strong wine and slogans.'

'You heard about those?' Fiark said, surprised. 'But that trend is recent!'

His sister chuckled. 'Word's carried, and fast. The water-front landlords are loudly displeased. Free drink dents their profits. The brothels haven't loved Lysaer for years. Not with the herb witches hounded from practice. The simples business has gone over to Koriathain, which change has raised venomous catfights. The order's always been greedy for girl-children. Any tincture they brew to stay pregnancy goes at an extortionate rate.' Paused for a.s.sessment, Feylind shook her head, serious. 'What does King Eldir say? Is he worried that s'Ilessid evangelists are foaming too much at the mouth?'

'Not words. A crown warning.' Fiark ticked the sealed paper. 'Lysaer's priesthood's not welcome in Havish. Their ruling on sorcery threatens the compact, and their blithe stance on cult practice is dangerous.'

Feylind moved, straightened, then lifted her crossed ankles and a.s.sumed the first sober posture her brother could remember, away from command on a ship's deck. 'The High King would dare close the ports to this threat?'

Fiark winced. 'It must lead to a royal edict eventually, but you're right. For now, the subject's too volatile. Lysaer himself does not preach violence. Nevertheless, the view is wide-spread: the guild merchant who shares his wealth with the Blessed gets an armed pack of sunwheel dedicates to defend his interests from clan predation.' He shot his neat cuffs, then searched out a sheet and read in direct quotation, '"Teach them kindness, that the ma.s.ses will learn to despise evil. Attach them to beauty, security, and allegiance, and they will grow to resent the least hint of a threatened intrusion. Let the Master of Shadow a.s.sume his due blame for all discord. Outrage will set the more deeply and grant us the strength of a fear-based response."'

'Whose lines?' Feylind gasped. 'Ath on earth! What a bundle of c.o.c.k-and-bull rhetoric!'

'Etarra's new Minister of the Peace at his finest.' Fiark sighed. 'A misnomer, truly. War's brewing. Not quickly. The Alliance of Light has to rebuild its troops. My contacts a.s.sure that Lysaer will move first to secure his runaway wife. He's launched stringent inquiries concerning a rumour that questions the fate of his son. Deeper intrigues are moving. I have inside word that the s'Brydion at Alestron may have been exposed. Their transgressions will be probed through diplomacy to mark time as the Light's new war host is mustered. If there won't be bloodshed next season, the tone at large is brewing towards resonant hatred. Is Prince Arithon warned of the danger that's rising against him?'

'Oh, he knows.' Feylind frowned, conflicted by difficulty. How to explain the change in the man who had emerged from Kewar's trials alive? Liaison with an eagle who shapechanged to a Sorcerer kept Arithon tightly apprised. Yet against the shifting tangle of politics, even Davien dared not presume to foretell the Master of Shadow's' response. 'Who can guess what his Grace will do next? Let me tell you, Dakar squirmed like a moth in hot wax each time the subject was mentioned.'

'Well, the question's not dangling,' Fiark said, drained. He tossed the d.a.m.ning copy of Etarra's state doc.u.ment onto his disarranged desk. 'The Prince of Rathain is coming ash.o.r.e; I received his royal word yesterday. I've pleaded with him to stay at sea with the Khetienn, again and again, to no use. When his Grace decides he has unfinished business, no one alive can gainsay him.'

'Not now, they couldn't. Nor Dharkaron himself, with his d.a.m.nable Chariot and Horses.' Feylind met her twin's splintering stare. Then she locked shaking hands, sucked a deep breath, and came to an inward decision. 'You've got a cargo outbound for Havish? Then I beg you, send Evenstar west.'

Fiark considered this, quiet. On matters that counted, he could become the very soul of considerate tact. 'Teive doesn't like Arithon?'

A desperate, fast head-shake came back in reply. For drawn moments, Feylind managed no speech at all, while the razor-thin mote that glanced through the cracked shutter splintered against the seal of the High King's distressed correspondence.

Feylind masked the sight behind her taut hands, then admitted, aggrieved, 'Teive likes our difficult friend all too well. Honest as pig-iron about it, forbye!' Defeat, when it came, was all bitterness, tempered by an ineffable sorrow. 'So I'll choose life, for both of us. I don't want my mate pulped, or my children left parentless. Not for one of us speaking our mind in the breach to these packs of Light-blinded fanatics!'

Late Winter 5671 Movements In the dark of the moon, cowled figures crouch over a fire, savouring the flesh of a slaughtered page, while the fifth, starved lean from an overland flight, speaks of colleagues, whose covert roles as priests of the Light in Rathain must shortly fall into jeopardy: 'Two are gambits, planted as an intentional sacrifice to Fellowship intervention. The other insinuates his cabal behind Etarra's new-warded walls. In Asandir's absence, he'll be forewarned should Sethvir dispatch a discorporate colleague to disturb him beforetime As sun glares off the icy mire at Mirthlvain, and streaming mists mantle the lake, the master spellbinder, Verrain, presents his regrets to the guests who have wintered with him at the fortress: the last leg of Princess Ellaine's journey to Spire must be delayed since the Sorcerer, Traithe, expected as escort, is deferred by a more urgent errand to Atwood . . .

On the same day a small pleasure sloop casts her tow-line and charts a course towards the southcoast mainland, a caravan bearing a guild shipment of woven silk leaves Sanshevas for export at Southshire, at the last minute reinforced by the mayor's train, bearing the tribute gold gathered to bolster the cause of the Light . . .

Spring 5671 IX. Alland The small sloop made her landfall just before dawn, disembarked her five pa.s.sengers, then put back to sea, still under cover of darkness. The party delivered to Shand's southern sh.o.r.e slipped unnoticed down a small estuary. To avoid leaving tracks, they by-pa.s.sed the dunes and breasted the reed-beds, ploughing through clouds of blood-sucking insects as they waded the lead pools of the salt-marsh. Dripping, they crossed the packed earth of the trade-road, unseen by the galloping couriers bearing dispatches west through the gloom. Daybreak found them under the shadowed'black pines that marked the free wilds of Alland. There, no matter how quiet their step, their presence came under the piercing review of the clan scouts who guarded Selkwood.

Perhaps warned by the change in the chorus of bird-song, loud under the dappled sunrise, the cloaked figure leading them signalled a halt. 'Let me handle this,' he murmured to the paired men-at-arms who hovered in step at his back. To another m.u.f.fled companion behind, he repeated his earlier warning. 'Whatever occurs, keep your hands off your swords. The archers here are stealthy as cats. Depend on the fact we're surrounded.'

While the fat, huffing laggard scratched his welted arms, the speaker stepped away from his fellows, alone. His trilling whistle signalled the cordon of scouts, concealed in the windless forest. Then he cast off his hood. Brazen, he stood in the burgeoning daylight, though his black hair and sharp, angled features were hunted the breadth of the continent.

Unconcerned for the bounty promised in gold for his body, living or dead, he announced, 'Lord Erlien was told to expect me.'

'Your Grace of Rathain?' someone ventured in cautious response from a nearby screening of pine boughs.

'None other.' Poised, yet not smiling, Arithon dropped his cloak. Clad in hose, wet suede boots, and a nondescript jerkin, he was not armed. Though the Paravian blade would have affirmed his ident.i.ty, his sheathed weapon and baldric had been left in the hands of his flaxen-haired liegeman.

The signal was silent. But twenty archers in plain leathers emerged from the wood with scarcely a rustle of evergreen. Mostly men, but not all; in clan fashion, some of the young women bore arms. Their bows were nocked with plain arrows and primed to be drawn at fast notice. Bristled with swords, long knives, and packed quivers, the party was winter lean and fit as a wolf pack gathered to hunt down rough quarry.

'I've seen head-hunters carry less bloodthirsty steel,' said Arithon in tacit greeting. Apparently careless, he hooked up his mantle and shook out the chaff of caught pine needles.

His nonchalant manner did not ease strained diplomacy. The bearded scout who stepped to the fore raked his person with tigerish appraisal. He noted the presence of the made double. His wary glance jumped as Dakar stirred behind. But the fat prophet only raised placating hands and parked his panting bulk on a deadfall.

Mindful of a past hot reception dealt him by the High Earl of Alland, Arithon draped the cloak back over his frame and offered his upturned wrist. 'What must I do to convince you I'm honest, or is Erlien lining his treasury for bounty gold?'

The circle of archers remained at the ready, while their spokesman accepted the courtesy. 'Nothing so shady as double cross, your Grace, though the price on your head defies reason.' The exchanged clasp of amity was brisk. 'This foray's been pulled off of an ambush gone bad. We're moving north, and in a smart hurry. The road will be crawling with townsmen by noon. Jumpy as wall-eyed ponies, the lot. They're wont to shoot crossbolts at bushes through each twitching change in the breeze.'

Arithon raised his eyebrows. 'The bullion train out of Atchaz, I hope? Or else, Ath on earth, I should worry in fact? It's Erlien's avarice after all?'

The scout loosened to wry laughter. 'd.a.m.n the Light's tribute. We were sent to s.n.a.t.c.h silk. Would've gotten it, too! Except the forsaken guild caravan chose to join up with the mayor's guard at Sanshevas. We still could have raided. Mind you, the goods would have gained a few blood-stains. We're not squeamish, your Grace. But the cloth's for a wedding. Lord Erlien wanted it clean.'

'No t.i.tles,' said Arithon. 'The formality's tiresome, and Dakar's too hot to stay thirsting for beer on a pine-log.'

Vhandon and Talvish were beckoned forward and introduced. Throughout, the taut scouts held their stance with raised bows. If they marvelled, wide-eyed, at Fionn Areth's resemblance, their predator's vigilance kept Arithon's paired liegemen drawn to the edge of snapped nerves. Caught in between, the Mad Prophet strove to disarm the cranked mood of hostility. 'Who's marrying? Not Erlien.'

While the female scouts masked their reproving grins, the touchy clan spokesman affirmed, 'Not Erlien.' His following gesture relaxed the scouts. Through the rustle as nocked arrows were slipped from gut-strings, he expounded, 'Our High Earl's got mistresses who'd have his head if he favoured one woman over the rest. They've all borne him children. It's his youngest son, Kyrialt, whose saucy wench has demanded a bride-gift of silk.'

From the side-lines, another scout snipped, 'The High Earl's sprig is a feisty stud, to think he'll hobble that vixen's f.e.c.kless temperament!'

'She's a gamine?' asked Arithon, rapt as he sized up the company Shand's High Earl had dispatched to meet him. 'You'd think a few blood-stains would heighten the sport.'

The onlooking clanborn turned their heads, fast.

'Sport, is it?' Lithe and dark, and hackled to peppery pride, their spokesman narrowed his nailing regard. He had piercing eyes. Grey as pressed ice, they fixed on the prince. 'With a round hundred lancers in the vanguard alone? Sixty-four foot, the best half packing cross-bows. That's without counting the outriders consigned with the caravan guard. Their trackers wear head-hunter's badges from Ganish. They go nowhere without four dozen diligent fellows scouring the brush on the flanks at the front and rear. Erlien mentioned that you could be difficult. But how many dead would a visiting prince care to (bring to the feast on the eve of his lordship's son's wedding?' Dakar remarked from the side-lines, 'Even for bullion, that many men seems an excessive protection.' A fresh tear in his breeches had made him reappraise the wisdom of sitting on deadfalls. Sidled in closer, he overheard the exchange with ever-increasing suspicion. He knew that bear-baiting style too well; had observed too many men being expertly tuned for who knew what guileful purpose.

'Try amethysts,' said Arithon, stripped of smiling charm. 'Mined from the Tiriacs by a rogue prospector who neglected to honour the principles of land rights. Difficult, surely? And Lord Erlien's charge, since the offender has crossed his ill-gotten gains into Shand.'

'By Ath! How'd you know this?' Fl.u.s.tered to shock, the scout spokesman reddened.

The seething mutters exchanged by his company gave rise to a dissident voice. 'There's a crook in the road not two leagues distant that we could have primed with an ambush. Looted minerals, you say? For this, we'd have dug a pit trap with stakes, scalpers with cross-bows or not!'

'Leash that! We're too sorely outnumbered.' To the prince's gadding comment, the scout spokesman explained, 'Our crowd of crack bowmen was sent back to camp. We could thwart the hors.e.m.e.n through a covert strike from the bluff. But without heavy cover and dense flights of arrows in support, we'd be dead meat the moment we moved onto the roadway to rifle the carts.'

The affable interest on Arithon's features chased a grue through Dakar's bones. Talvish and Vhandon stirred, touched uneasy, which in turn cued Fionn Areth.

'These guards,' pressed the Master of Shadow, conversational. 'Do they travel in state?'

To his left, a wiry scout bowman spat. 'With the tribute chests for the Light, bound to Southshire? You're kidding. They're flagged and ta.s.selled and prinked for the ball-room, except the d.a.m.ned weapons are lethal.'

The threatened smile gave rise to a chuckle that caught the clan reivers aback. 'I'd hand you that silk,' said Rathain's brash prince. 'And the looted stones, too, without any-one p.r.i.c.king a finger. Are you up to the challenge?'

The lead scout stared back, breathless. 'The bride's name is Glendien, and she'll hack your b.o.l.l.o.c.ks to mincemeat for sure.' He eyed the slight frame of the royal before him, still trying to measure the fitness beneath the una.s.suming, loose shirt. 'That's if Kyrialt doesn't dismember you first, for starting a war on his wedding day.'

'No deaths,' promised Arithon. 'Every townsman who marched from Sanshevas this morning will be left hale enough to salve his disgrace in the arms of the harlots at Southshire.'