Crown of Vengeance

strike—or drain the Flower Forests of the domain to dust to move it.

But not today, Vieliessar thought. Not today.

“Ah. There. At last—I was getting bored,” Nadalforo said cheerfully.

Vieliessar looked behind her. Two grand-tailles of knights had moved out from the enemy vanguard.

“Inglethendragir,” she said, finally identifying the colors.

House Inglethendragir had risen from Less House to High at the end of the Long Peace. Its device was three silver wolves on a purple field—this acknowledged that its elevation had come by the erasure of Farcarinon. Randragir Inglethendragir had replaced the silver leaves of his previous device with Farcarinon’s silver wolves..

“There’s a surprise,” Nadalforo said. “I would have expected them to send one of the Less Houses. Perhaps no one likes Lord Randragir very much.”

“They’ll like him less a candlemark from now,” Vieliessar said, and Nadalforo laughed.

Nadalforo raised the signal whistle to her lips and blew a complicated pattern of notes. Vieliessar reined Snapdragon to a stop as the former mercenary companies detached themselves from the line of march and formed into two ranks facing the enemy. Inglethendragir’s grand-tailles broke away from the vanguard and began to move over the ice, spreading from column into line as they did. When they were in formation, they moved to a trot.

“Are you ready?” Vieliessar asked Terandamil.

“We are,” the Master of the Archers replied.

Inglethendragir advanced. Vieliessar’s force waited. The belling of her banner on the wind—the High King’s banner defiantly displayed—was the only movement. The attackers moved from trot to canter to gallop and still Vieliessar’s force waited.

“Now,” Terandamil said.

In one smooth movement, infantry stepped from behind the second rank of destriers and moved into the open spaces between the first rank. Once they had been favored servants of their domains, huntsmen and foresters. Each carried a forester’s bow. Terandamil had not honed their deadly skill, for that was a thing only years could do. But it was Terandamil who had told them they were warriors.

They loosed their arrows, and the shots came so close together that the release of the bowstrings was like a rippling chord of harpsong. Three heartbeats later another volley of arrows sang forth, and three heartbeats later, another. The music of the third volley was drowned out by agonized screaming. The ice had grown bright and slick with blood. At the ends of the enemy line a few wounded destriers thrashed.

Most of the rest were dead.

The enemy center was still intact. Some of the knights tried to rein in and turn back. Their mounts skidded and slipped—some fell, and over all the other sounds, in a freakish heartbeat of silence, there was the sound of a leg bone breaking, loud and sharp. Others galloped on, or tried to turn at the gallop, simply did their best to slow down.

Whatever they did, nothing saved them.

Terandamil’s rangers nocked and loosed, nocked and loosed, and the long, heavy arrows flew low over the ice in flights as regular and inexorable as the beats of a war drum. Behind the lines of mercenaries a line of palfreys waited, each with a rider already in its saddle. As the archers ran out of arrows, or when a string or bow snapped, that archer retreated. Each archer moved with calm precision, though the bitter cold numbed bare fingers and made bowstrings brittle. Each arrow struck its target: the destriers—and only the destriers. Warhorses were precious and nearly irreplaceable. The fewer warhorses the Alliance possessed, the fewer komen they could send against her. And when Terandamil’s archers were done, the Alliance had two grand-tailles less.

When all the destriers were dead or dying, the archers walked away, quietly, without display. It was as much a warning to their noble comrades as it was to their enemy.

The attack was over so swiftly the Alliance commanders had no time to ride to Inglethendragir’s aid—or summon their Lightborn to Shield them. A few single knights rode out from the Alliance column and loosed arrows, but the horseman’s bow had less range than the forester’s bow, so the shafts fell harmlessly to the ground. The destriers of Inglethendragir lay slewed across the blood-smeared ice. Some riders had been thrown, some had jumped clear as their mounts went down, some still lay trapped beneath the dead and dying animals. A few moved with daggers to end the lives of the still-suffering beasts.

“It would be funny if it weren’t so sad,” Nadalforo said quietly, watching. “Even if you lose, it’s the end of the komentai’a. Everyone now knows a meisne armed with forester’s bows can slaughter a troop of knights any time it chooses to. That won’t make them massacre their foresters. They’ll all scurry to find and train them. We’ll be facing them ourselves if this war goes on long enough.”

“It won’t,” Vieliessar said. It can’t.

“As I say, Lord Vieliessar, I hope you win,” Nadalforo said. She reined her destrier around and trotted after the army.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

WIND AND DUST

For the road is long and the world is wide

The wind is cold and the way is dark

When again shall I see her, Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor, beloved who has turned her face from me?”

—Perhael Storysinger,

Perhael’s Song

That night Terandamil’s archers celebrated their victory and the rest of the infantry joined them. The komen and their lords withdrew to their own precincts and the mood of the encampment was unsettled. Vieliessar made a brief visit to the victory feast, then spent a long, fruitless evening pouring over maps of the Uradabhur before retiring to her sleeping chamber.

Sleep did not come. Her mind was too full of problems. The arming of the commons to fight beside the komen had always been the point on which her army could fracture. Only the Light could raise one of the commonfolk to the level of the Lords Komen. The lords of the Hundred Houses had been convinced the Light was Pelashia’s Gift: rare, valued, mysterious. They had even been able to blind themselves to the fact that the mercenary companies, whose warriors were the equal in skill of any komen, had held more former farmers than former knights among their ranks.

It was harder to unsee a forester’s skill turned to a tool of war, but everyone knew mastery of the forester’s bow was a task of years; not even Lightborn spellcraft could change that. But the pike can be learned in a few sennights of practice, and the infantry have already proven their worth in battle. They cannot stand against charging warhorses—but even komen do not do that unless they must.

Nadalforo would tell her she was worrying about things that would not matter if she lost. Rithdeliel would tell her this would only last for a brief while, for Vieliessar knew that in his heart, he could not accept the idea that war would never again be a contest of skills that were both art and homage. Gunedwaen …

He would tell you victory is as much a battle as war. I only wish Arilcarion had written a scroll about that!

* * *

By Snow Moon, storms battered both armies mercilessly, and no matter what the Alliance did, Vieliessar did something unexpected, as if she played gan when they played xaique. And victory slid further from their grasp each day.

They could have won. While they were still in Jaeglenhend, they could have won—if Vieliessar were dead. Her death would have left her army leaderless. Disheartened. They could have spent the winter picking it to pieces.

After Jaeglenhend, Runacarendalur would have cut his own throat gladly. He could not. He’d tried many times to end the life that would end hers.

He’d gone to Lord Bolecthindial and accused Ivrulion of plotting against Caerthalien. Bolecthindial hadn’t taken him seriously enough to even become angry.

He’d tried risking his life on the field, but all he’d managed to do was get Gwaenor killed.