Ebarn, but more than a dozen extra magic-users would add bite to any assault.
‘Me neither,’ Doranei said eventually. ‘Bunch o’ whining children, the lot of ’em. It’s amazing how many different delays they found that prevented them reaching Moorview in time. Most of them’ll just shit themselves when the battle starts.’
‘Your Majesty!’ a small man perched on a powerful horse called, and with some difficulty, High Mage Endine negotiated his way past a regiment of infantry in Canar Fell colours to reach the two men.
‘Endine, you’re well? Not too drained?’ King Emin enquired. ‘I know you’ve taken on the bulk of the scrying and warding each evening.’
‘Pah! Most of those fools can’t be trusted with it,’ Endine huffed, almost overbalancing in his saddle as he cast a dismissive look over his shoulder.
‘Gods, man, you’re still crap on a horse, even after all these weeks,’ Doranei exclaimed.
‘I have had little practice,’ Endine replied tartly. ‘I’ve spent half the days sleeping in the carriage, but those bickering idiots who flatter themselves my peers have driven me to refresh my riding skills again.’
‘It’s good to see you getting some exercise,’ the king said with a small smile. ‘It lifts the spirits of the whole army. We do need you rested, however, and preferably not catching a chill in this damn rain.’
Endine scowled. ‘Your Majesty, you’ll not get rid of me quite so easily, I’m afraid.’
‘My dear-’
‘Emin,’ the mage broke in sharply, ‘you are my friend as well as my king, and I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re being politely evasive. You’ve been avoiding me for weeks now, and we both know why.’
The king took a breath, about to retort just as sharply, but instead he sighed. ‘Doranei, would you mind?’ he asked.
The King’s Man saluted and rode away to a suitable distance, giving the two some privacy but remaining close at hand.
‘Endine, my friend,’ Emin began, suddenly at a loss for what to say. Even as he faltered he realised that was sufficiently telling already, if the mage hadn’t already worked out what was wrong.
‘Were you not going to bother to say goodbye?’ Endine asked quietly. ‘We’ve been friends for more than ten years — I’ve known you since you founded that damn club of academics. You were the one who paired my skills with Cetarn, for pity’s sake!’
‘And as such,’ Emin replied slowly, ‘I don’t want to acknowledge the end of what I built there.’
‘I’m not your pet, your Majesty.’
‘I know that — but I am your king, and you are my subject, and I am responsible for my subjects. If I must ask them to do some thing foolish and dangerous, the responsibility remains mine.’
‘All the more reason why you should spend some time with your friend,’ Endine said, ‘remembering better times, before he volunteers to do something stupid.’
‘You will not volunteer, my friend.’
‘No?’ Endine sat tall in the saddle. The thin, sickly man was shorter than his king, but with a Crystal Skull in his possession he had a grander presence these days. ‘King you may be, my friend, but some things you cannot dictate!’
‘No, that wasn’t what I meant,’ Emin said, trying to placate him. ‘I won’t have any man volunteer for something I know must be done. I am the king. I know why you would do so, but I will not allow you to absolve me from responsibility. My duty to my subjects is this — that I must look them in the face and ask them. Cetarn’s sacrifice at Moorview — he realised it just as I did, and Legana with me, but I asked him all the same. I would not have the burden of cowardice added to my guilt.’
Emin lowered his head. The recent years had taken their toll: there was more than a little grey in hair that looked thin and wispy under his rain-sodden hat. His cheeks were gaunt and greying. Though the king had never been a large man, there was less fat on his body than ever before. Though he might be strong for his age still, worry had slowly eroded what bulk he had possessed.
‘There is a war to win, your Majesty. You cannot distract yourself with feelings of guilt.’
‘And yet I do,’ Emin said sadly. ‘I have lost many friends, and I will lose many more in the weeks to come. I know I must ask you to push yourself far beyond a sensible limit, that Ebarn and Wentersorn stand almost no chance of surviving what I must ask of them, and so I am reluctant to ask-’
‘Then don’t!’ Endine cried. ‘Make that one fewer burden to carry. We’re not the only ones who’ll go to our deaths when it comes to battle — far from it. Wentersorn’s a mercenary — you recruited him just for the attack on the Ruby Tower and he’s had plenty of opportunities to escape if he wanted.
‘These soldiers here — they’re the ones who must fear, they’re the ones in the jaws of uncertainty. We mages, we have a single, noble purpose that we embraced a long time ago.’
‘One fewer burden?’ Emin managed a smile. ‘The fate of the entire Land rests on our shoulders. The blood spilled in the Waste will be the ink used to write the future of all peoples.’
He broke off and watched the ordered lines of Legana’s Sisters as they followed close behind the mages. There were more than a hundred of them now, a dozen priestesses with at least a regiment of spear-wielding former acolytes. Legana had named them the Sisters of Dusk, though she declined to explain why, even to those few brave enough to ask Fate’s Mortal-Aspect directly.
The women wore leather armour reinforced with steel bands and, perhaps in echo of their leader, each carried a pair of long-knives on her belt. Legana was at the heart of them, a thin shawl hiding her face. Though she limped, as always, the pace of the group never faltered. As evening fell, she would walk through the camp, her face uncovered and her green eyes shining bright. She looked taller in the ghost-hour, edged in light as the shadows lengthened, while her bodyguards, blessed and augmented by the touch of the divine, faded into the background as they pulled off their boots to reveal Mihn’s owl tattoos.
Emin could feel her green eyes on him now, and thought he saw Legana’s head dip in greeting. Her knives were hidden by the folds of her cloak, but everyone in the army knew they would be there when she needed them. There were rumours in the camp that she could call them to her hand, the same way Isak could produce Termin Mystt in an instant, but Emin knew it was just the speed of a skilled woman enhanced by her divine blood.
‘There are too many I’ve failed to spend the time I should with, these past few weeks,’ he said at last. ‘Too many I may not see again.’
As one the Sisters turned to face them, a hundred faces looking their way, making Endine flinch. Emin smiled, knowing that was Legana, talking into the minds of her followers. The Mortal-Aspect had been Emin’s closest advisor leading up to the battle of Moorview, becoming friends as she’d helped him to plan a war that involved Gods, magic and belief. That disconcerting, otherworldly reaction had been a private joke between the two of them — a salute from a friend.
‘Legana? I think she’ll be the last of us to fall,’ Endine grum bled, ‘her and Daken, soaked in blood and standing back to back most likely.’
‘You may be right there.’ Emin squinted up at the angry grey sky, ignoring the rain falling onto his face. There were birds circling high above, despite the poor weather. ‘Let us hope they won’t be the only ones left.’
CHAPTER 38
Light snow fell unnoticed as Morghien stood at the hill’s peak. His attention was focused solely on the plain, a featureless expanse scoured by centuries of storms. In the distance a fat column of soldiers advanced towards them, a creeping stain of shadow over the grey earth. They were miles off yet, their scouts not yet in threatening range, but fear still fluttered in Morghien’s stomach.
‘So many years ago,’ Morghien mused, breaking the tense hush, ‘all these years, and what have I learned?’
‘Learned?’ asked Shanas, the tattooed young woman at his side. ‘Old man, don’t start on that rubbish — you can go senile and catch up with your true age later. For the next few weeks I need you sharp.’
‘ Need me?’ Morghien echoed. ‘I’m not sure what good I’ll be doing here. I’m not a soldier; I’m nothing to what’s coming.’
Shanas flashed a smile. ‘Maybe not, but until we meet up with the army your spirits and magic’ll keep us safe
