The Curse of the Mistwraith

Three Valleys

Streaming sweat from an arduous sprint, the runner sent from the west valley arrives at the breastworks where Caolle and the bulk of Deshir’s clansmen fight unassisted by sorceries or flooded rivers, against Etarra’s right flanking division who outnumber them three to one. ‘Tell Lord Steiven,’ he cries, gasping, ‘I’ve come from our liege. Arithon said you would know what he meant, that the disaster he foresaw has not been stopped…’

Plunging through woods toward the grotto where the women and young hide for safety, Arithon, Jieret and eleven clansmen hear screams and male shouting cut off as a burst of light shears through the trees; lost in a ground-shaking report of fell thunder is Arithon’s abject denial, ‘Lysaer, oh Ath, Lysaer, no!’

In the vale to the west of Tal Quorin, a shadow-wrought barrier ward shatters and lifts, which leaves half a company of Etarra’s beleaguered garrison fighting mad and unimpeded to regroup and engage the handful of clan enemies who no longer can shelter behind sorceries to inflict damages and death with impunity…

XVIII. CULMINATION

‘She went not to wed,

nor to comfort or rest,

But to free the dazed dead,

and to reclothe cold flesh

in fair flowers.’

Last stanza,

ballad of the Princess of Falmuir

Thunder cracked the air to whirlwinds as bolts of light ripped the grotto in sheets that immolated trees to flayed skeletons. On protected ground some distance from the rimrocks, checked by flares etched like lightning through gaps in forest greenery, Arithon caught the back of Jieret’s brigandine. In a despair too horrorstruck for expression, he yanked the boy cold from his run and bundled him into an embrace. Around their locked forms, the coruscation flared and died. Gusts spent themselves to a fall of unmoored leaves, while echoes raged on in vibrations that slapped and slammed through Tal Quorin’s chain of ravines. Arithon pressed his cheek to red hair, while under his tight hands the orphan he had sworn bloodpact to protect convulsed into sobs against his shoulder.

As clansmen they had outstripped in their rush caught back up, nothing could be done except end their hope quickly. ‘It’s over. We’re too late. Stay here.’

The reverberations from the blast rumbled and faded into quiet. Arithon stared unseeing as three older men caught back a teenager whose berserk rage impelled him to plunge ahead toward the grotto regardless.

Held arm locked and struggling, the young scout pealed wild protest to his prince. ‘They can’t all be killed, some were sword-trained.’

Arithon, icy, cut him off. ‘They are dead, every one. You can’t help them.’

No one could: the brutality of Jieret’s vision had been graphic, of bodies tossed and charred, flash-burned in an instant to flaked carbon and bones crisped beyond all recognition. To the scout still driven to argue, Arithon said baldly, ‘It’s your clansmen we’ll have to save now.’

Against him, Jieret moved impatiently. ‘Our liege speaks truth.’ Though muffled by the cloth of his prince’s sleeve, the boy’s dull pronouncement was still clear enough to be heard. ‘I had Sight. None in the grotto survived.’

The scout subsided to stunned quiet and guarded companions let him go. In response to Jieret’s push, Arithon also loosened his arms. He cupped the boy’s chin in the hand not burdened by Alithiel and gave him a searching study.

Jieret had seen, in merciless, involuntary prescience; three sisters burned and one forced, and a mother lying bloody in dead leaves. The dream’s memory stamped his child’s face with a hardness that might not, now, ever leave him.

‘I would have spared you, if I could,’ Arithon said in a voice so racked, not a man in the company overheard him.

Jieret looked up into green eyes that held no barriers against him. Offered depths and mysteries whose difficulties were beyond him, he could answer just one shared pain. ‘My liege lord, behold, you have done so.’

Arithon’s touch jerked away. ‘Ath,’ he said on a strangled note of pure rage. ‘Just don’t let me close with my half-brother.’

To the scouts who saw only rebuff, uncomprehending in scope and viciousness just how far Desh-thiere’s curse might turn him, the Master of Shadow said plainly, ‘Run. Back downstream and find Caolle. Keep the men out of the canyons.’

‘I’ll go.’ The younger scout pushed forward, desperate to distance grief with action. ‘On the way, I can recall the boys.’

Jieret made a sound in protest; pressed past tact, Arithon shook his head. ‘Forget them. Just go straight to your captain.’

‘Forget them!’ Raw with emotion, the scout rushed him. ‘What are you saying?’

‘That they’re beyond help.’ Not a quiver of reflex changed Arithon’s stance. Weariness tautened his face, and he seemed not to care whether or not he was assaulted. He said, ‘I’m sorry. Just go now and stop thinking.’

The scout drew up short of striking him because Jieret interposed himself between. Shamed by the boy’s stiff loyalty, and by the disbelief that paralysed his fellows, he regarded his prince, who had drawn, as he warned, the might of Etarra to the clans. ‘Sorry! Sorry isn’t enough.’ He spun away and blindly sprinted.

‘Don’t mind him.’ White-haired and scarred to stoic toughness, the scout Madreigh offered brusque sympathy. ‘That boy’s not badhearted, only sore. Next month he was to marry.’ The others were content to leave him as spokesman as he tactfully fingered his sword edge. ‘We should send another runner after Steiven?’

Arithon moved not at all, but only closed tortured eyes.

‘Ath!’ said Madreigh. ‘Forget I ever asked.’ Then, in a queer catch of breath he caught Arithon’s wrist and clamped down. ‘Trouble’s here.’