He had come to them, to her, in their own war. She had heard him weep and had lain with him in love on a hill in the Ember dark after the green moon had set. She would not fail him now. She would lead the Carlozzini to him along the pathway of her mind and her soul.
Without warning they broke through. The link was forged. She was in a high place under a fiercely blazing sun, seeing with the eyes of the Duke of Astibar on a hill in Senzio. The vision rocked with stomach-churning dislocation. Then it steadied and Elena saw men killing each other in a valley below, armies grappling together in the heat like beasts in a convulsive embrace. She heard screaming so loud she felt the sound as pain. Then she became aware of something else.
Sorcery. North of them, that hill. Brandin of Ygrath. And in that moment Elena and the three other Night Walkers understood why they had been summoned, feeling in their own minds the punishing weight of the assault they had to resist.
Back in Castle Borso, Alienor stood by, helpless and blind in her uncertainty, understanding nothing of this at all, only knowing that it was happening, that it was upon them at last. She wanted to pray, to reach back towards words not thought or spoken in almost twenty years. She saw Elena bring her hands up to cover her face.
‘Oh no,’ she heard the girl whisper in a voice thin as old parchment. ‘So strong! How can one man be so strong?’
Alienor’s hands gripped each other so tightly the knuckles were white. She waited, desperately seeking a clue to what was happening to all of them, so far to the north where she could not go.
She did not, could not hear Sandre d’Astibar’s reply to Elena:
He is strong yes, but with you we will be stronger! Oh, children, we can do it now! In the name of the Palm, together we can be strong enough!
What Alienor did see was how Elena’s hands came down, how her white face grew calm, the wild, primitive terror leaving her staring eyes.
‘Yes,’ she heard the other woman whisper. ‘Yes.’
Then there was silence in that room in Castle Borso under the Braccio Pass. Outside, the cool wind of the highlands blew the high white clouds across the sun and away, and across it and away, and a single hunting hawk hovered on motionless wings in that passing of light and shadow over the face of the mountains.
In fact, the next man scrabbling up the slope of the cliff was Ducas di Tregea. Devin had actually begun to swing his sword before he recognized who it was.
Ducas reached the summit in two hard, churning strides and stood beside him. He was a fearful sight. His face was covered in blood, dripping down into his beard. There was blood all over him, and wet on his sword. He was smiling though, a terrible red look of battle-lust and rage.
‘You are hurt!’ he said sharply to Devin.
‘I wouldn’t talk,’ Devin grunted, pressing his left hand to his torn side. ‘Come on!’
Quickly they turned back east. More than fifteen of the Ygrathens were still on their summit, pressing forward against the untrained band of men Alessan had kept back to defend the wizards. The numbers were almost even, but the Ygrathens were the picked and deadly warriors of that realm.
Even so, even with this, they were not getting through. And they would not, Devin realized with a surge of exultation in his heart, rising high over pain and grief.
They would not, because facing them, side by side, swinging blades together in their longed-for battle after all the long waiting years that had run by, were Alessan, Prince of Tigana, and Baerd bar Saevar, the only brother of his soul, and the two of them were absolute and deadly, and even beautiful, if killing could be so.
Devin and Ducas rushed over. But by the time they got there five Ygrathens only were left, then three. Then only two. One of them made as if to lay down his sword. Before he could do so, a figure moved forward with an awkward, deceptive swiftness from the ring guarding the wizards. Dragging his lame foot, Ricaso came up to the Ygrathen. Before anyone could stay him he swung his old, half-rusted blade in a passionate, scything arc, cleaving through the links in armour to bury itself in the man’s breast.
Then he fell to his knees on the ground beside the soldier he’d killed, weeping as though his soul was pouring out of him.
Which left one of them only. And the last was the leader, the large, broad-chested man Devin had seen down below. The man’s hair was plastered flat to his head, he was red-faced with heat and exhaustion, sucking hard for breath, but his eyes glared at Alessan.
‘Are you fools?’ he gasped. ‘Fighting for the Barbadian? Instead of with a man who has joined the Palm? Do you want to be slaves?’
Slowly Alessan shook his head. ‘It is twenty years too late for Brandin of Ygrath to join the Palm. It was too late the day he landed here with an invading force. You are a brave man. I would prefer not to kill you. Will you give us an oath in your own name and lay down your sword in surrender?’
Beside Devin, Ducas snarled angrily. But before the Tregean could speak, the Ygrathen said: ‘My name is Rhamanus. I offer it to you in pride, for no dishonour has ever attached to that name. You will have no oath from me though. I swore one to the King I
