town walls ahead than for the illomened sky. 'I told you, the colour is caused when the lowering sun strikes the underside of the clouds instead of the top. And it looks so bright because we're in the mountain's shadow, and it's reflecting off the lake. It's very beautiful, but I tell you there's nothing otherworldly about it.'
'This is a demon sky,' Jaryd disagreed, staring upward as he walked. 'Father Urys in Algery used to tell me about this when I was a lad-sometimes at evenings, when the sun god slips into his netherworld, there opens a space between Loth and our world. This is all the power of Loth spilling free, and demons with it… there's bad things afoot this night, I can feel it.'
'Aye,' Kessligh said sourly, 'and if you lot don't cut the superstitious rubbish, I'll be one of them.'
They crossed the bridge above the small stream, the torches held by the Royal Guardsmen to the front and rear gusting trails of flame. Ahead, the walls of Halleryn were alive with torchlight and whipping, wind-blown banners. Their party's own banners, held aloft by the two guardsmen not wielding torches, fluttered and snapped above their heads. In the light from the battlements, Sasha could see the dark shapes of archers watching their approach.
On the far side of the bridge, she risked a glance back across the river. The Hadryn camp stretched wide among the scattered trees and farmhouses of the valley, the blaze of many fires aflicker in the cold wind. Another five hundred men had arrived that afternoon, mostly militia from Hadryn villages, without the heavy armour and equipment of the Hadryn Shields, but formidable soldiers all the same. Word was that there were another thousand infantry afoot, but delayed without the speed of cavalry. Sasha eyed the movement atop the torch-lit walls ahead. She greatly doubted the forces within would match what was building outside.
'Usyn will have enough forces before the walls to contain any breakout by tomorrow,' she said to Kessligh, folding her arms tightly within her cloak to guard against the freezing wind. 'He'll then divert forces about the lake, and Vassyl will fall. Halleryn's forces will be trapped, and then a real siege.'
'We can't let it come to that,' Kessligh replied, eyes also scanning the battlements. His mood was the darkest Sasha had seen on this trip. 'A siege will drag into Rathynal. Such is precisely what your father would wish avoided.'
Some horsemen were approaching along the lakeside road ahead, the back way from Vassyl, moving for the gates. The tall, metal grille stood open, but was doubtless manned to slam shut at a moment's notice. In the gathering gloom, the horsemen looked to be Taneryn militia, long braids blowing in the wind. Behind them came several horse-drawn carts, laden with what Sasha guessed would be fresh food. So long as Halleryn held the back road around the lake, food supplies would stay fresh. So long as they kept the Hadryn on the other side of the stream, fresh water could be collected from the lake. But if Usyn decided to press forward in force, neither could be guaranteed.
'What's wrong?' she asked Kessligh then, into that solemn, wind-swept silence. The blood red sky was fading now, deepening to the colour of coals in a dying fire, once the most brilliant heat had paled.
'I remember this place,' Kessligh said heavily. 'Thirty years ago. The walls had not held the Cherrovan then. We took it back after they'd held the place for a week. Inside the walls we found…' and he grimaced, unwilling to complete the sentence. He gazed away across the rumpled, darkening surface of the lake. Sasha stared at him for a moment. Kessligh rarely displayed such emotion recounting his time in the Great War. The spirits of this place must surely have been unsettled, for all the blood that had been spilt here.
She made the spirit sign again, unable to stop herself. This time, Kessligh did not appear to notice.
Halleryn's gate loomed ahead, alive with burning torches within the archway.
'Who approaches?' came a cry from the battlements, and they halted on the road.
'Prince Damon Lenayin!' a Royal Guardsman yelled up, with extra volume to be heard above the loud flapping of green and black Taneryn banners overhead. 'Yuan Kessligh Cronenverdt! M'Lady Sashandra Lenayin! Master Jaryd Nyvar of Tyree!'
Along the walls to either side, many faces peered down, some leaning out for a better view. It was one of the more dramatic announcements any arrival could have declared. A formality, of course, as they'd been invited.
'The Great Lord Krayliss of Taneryn grants you welcome!' came the call down from the battlements. 'Pass within and be at peace, for you are within the protection and hospitality of the Great Lord of Taneryn!'
They passed beneath the portcullis into Halleryn town itself. The main street ahead was lined with buildings of stone base with wooden walls and rooftops, as was the fashion of northern towns. A soldier of obvious Goerenyai appearance arrived before them and beckoned them to follow. The road was cobbled, rare for a Lenay town, but then, stonework was the tradition in these parts. And there were drains, Sasha saw as they walked, leading to what she presumed were underground outflows. God forbid they led into the pristine lake. She couldn't imagine any Goeren-yai township allowing that. More likely a river inflow washed it someplace outside the walls to be buried or composted for farm use… another serrin innovation that the Goeren-yai had adopted many centuries ago.
The streets of Halleryn were mostly empty and unlit by any street lamp or torch. Sasha could not help but think the town dank and gloomy, with nary a tree to break the monotony of stone and cobbles. The central road sloped upward until it opened on a broad, paved courtyard busy with soldiers. New arrivals were dismounting and leading their horses to the stables on the right. Men gathered in the courtyard about makeshift ovens and the smell of cooking wafted in the air.
Attention turned as the royal party crossed the courtyard, some men coming to their feet, more from curiosity than respect. Here too, there was little warmth to greet a prince and, in several quarters, even some coarse laughter at a whispered joke. Then, halfway across, there came a new murmur sweeping through those watching… 'Cronenverdt! Cronenverdt!'… and suddenly all men were standing and pressing forward to watch, openmouthed and incredulous.
Overlooking the courtyard was a tall keep of stone walls and overlooking arches. The keep's grand wooden doors were thrust aside by a pair of guards as the royal party approached, and they entered a stone hallway lined with old, faded tapestries and alive with the dancing flame of ensconced torches. Their guide led them up a broad stone staircase to the left, where they found themselves emerging from the floor of a great clansman's hall.
All was stone, but for the tall windows in the walls. Central pillars made rows to either side of the very long, central table, laid for serving. Light came from flaming torches mounted to the ceiling pillars, and a grand, carved chair dominated the table's far end. About the pillars, standing with swords at the hip and mugs in their hands, were numerous Goeren-yai warriors of Taneryn-long-haired, tattooed, beringed and proud. All paused in conversation now and turned to look as the Royal Guard extinguished their torches and parted to present their four charges.
Damon walked forward, surveying the array of hard faces that confronted him. Sasha remained at Kessligh's side… and realised that Damon, to the best of her knowledge, had never met Lord Krayliss and did not know what he looked like. She scanned the faces herself, searching.
'This is a meeting of war!' announced one man, tall and broad with long hair flowing, a strong moustache trimmed in two lines on either side of his mouth. His hard eyes were fixed upon Sasha with evident anger. 'There has never been a woman present at a Goeren-yai council of war, and there never shall be!'
Sasha glared in return. Kessligh hooked a thumb into his belt and repressed a grimace that was somewhere between a wince and a sarcastic smile. 'Looks like dinner to me,' he remarked.
'Yuan Kessligh,' growled the man. 'You walk into this hall with more honour, and soaked in the blood of more enemies, than might any man in Lenayin. Do not tarnish that honour, sir, by betraying the honour of Taneryn and its chosen men.'
Kessligh strolled forward to Damon's side, and then a step beyond, gazing about at the gathering as he might typically consider a strange clutch of chickens-with thoughtful, off-handed curiosity. To Sasha, his manner and poise seemed nothing but familiar. And yet the armed and braided strongmen of Taneryn seemed to flinch backward-not in steps taken, but in posture, a slight lowering of the eyes here, a defensive folding of the arms there. Kessligh stood no taller than most, and somewhat slimmer than some, his unkempt hair streaked with grey, his person lacking any martial adornment save the blade at his back. And yet somehow, before warriors, nobles and a prince, he dominated the room.
'Your name, sir?' Kessligh asked the angered man, as calmly as ever.
'Yuan Cassyl Rathan of Dessyd village,' the man replied, with a proud lift of his chin.
'A first thing, Yuan Cassyl.' Meeting the man's gaze with a firm stare. 'My honour is mine. Not yours. It is mine to do with as I wish. Your preferences mean nothing to me. Likewise your honour is yours. My actions have no bearing upon it. Only you can gain honour, Yuan Cassyl. Or lose it, by your deeds.'
