Crown of Vengeance

CHAPTER NINE

FIRST BLOOD

The Starry Hunt and the Starry Huntsman do not favor one cause, one army, over another. Make sacrifices and petitions for victory in their season, as is right, but know that the Hunt care only for honor and skill. The Hunt reward the valor of the Lords

Komen

with immortality and endless battle—but They do not choose the victor.

—Arilcarion War-Maker,

Of the Sword Road

Rain became Flower. In a few sennights Sword Moon would mark the beginning of War Season, when the formal battles arranged among the War Princes moonturns and even decades before would be fought. Border raids began as soon as the weather could be trusted: trials of strength, sport for younger knights, the settling of old grudges and the foundation for new ones.

The army of Ivrithir rode Oronviel’s borders, if not tirelessly, than at least dutifully and without complaint. By now the whispers Vieliessar had loosed by Nadalforo and her mercenary comrades had reached every intended ear: Come to Oronviel and swear to fight for her War Prince, and receive amnesty and sanctuary.

The first who came sought fresh prey and easy victims, thinking they could slip across the border unnoticed and say to any who asked that they were Oronviel’s sworn knights. They did not reckon with troops of komen who rode the borders as diligently as foresters might walk their lords’ estates, nor did they expect to be greeted with sword and spear and bow at every farmstead.

For that was another new thing Vieliessar had done in Oronviel. Nowhere in the Fortunate Lands were Farmholders or their tenants permitted possession of the sword and spear and bow. The sword was for a knight to carry to war. The spear and horseman’s bow were for knights and lords and princes to hunt with; the walking bow was for their foresters to clear their lands of beasts that would spoil their hunts. Farmholders might use the sling to take hares or birds and to frighten wolves, and use the cudgel and the stave for defense. To own or to wield a spear or a bow had brought harsh penalties. To possess a sword had meant death. And so those farmsteads which could not call upon a nearby manor and its knights for protection had been easy prey for raiders.

No longer.

She had set forth her proclamation in Woods Moon, knowing a knife could become a spear easily enough. Skill in bow and sword could not be granted by decree; it would be enough, she thought, that the weapons would no longer be forbidden. Gunedwaen had laughed, hearing her speak her thoughts, and told her she was wrong. Foresters, he said, who could slay a boar with one arrow loosed from the formidable walking bow, did not come from thin air, but from Farmhold families. Not only skill, but bows, were sown wider than she imagined, and as for swords … well, it was well known that any battlefield on which the fallen lay for more than a night or two would be found mysteriously bare of blades when the dead were gathered up.

And so all who entered Oronviel seeking to prey upon its folk were slain or captured, and the prisoners were brought to the Great Keep, and those who could not swear truly under a Spell of Heart-Seeing that they meant to pledge fealty to Oronviel were slain, for Vieliessar would loose no more wolfsheads to plague her people.

Those who swore truly swelled the numbers of those who inhabited her Battle City. Some had been komen in other domains and would fight for their new liege as they had fought for the old. Those who had not been, Vieliessar sought to train in a new way: as foot knights.

As infantry.

Their weapons would be the walking bow and a heavy pike-spear such as castel guardsmen carried. They would wear chain instead of plate, for foot knights could not be asked to bear the weight of a mounted knight’s armor through a long day of fighting. Such swords as they carried would be shorter than a mounted knight’s sword, to be used when pike and bow failed.

Some called the presence of such lowborn warrior-candidates in Oronviel a burden and a curse. Vieliessar called it a blessing. She could not have taught her knights to become infantry. They would have needed to unlearn too much, and they would have thought fighting on foot to be a foolish and menial task. But she had offered arms to any who asked them—Farmholder, craftworker, or Landbond—and many of the mercenaries who flocked to Oronviel’s standard had learned their battle skills not as children, but as men and women grown. Her ex-mercenaries saw the advantage of a dismounted force, and her Commonfolk had nothing to unlearn.

But even if she had wished to, Vieliessar could not spend all her time teaching her army new ways to fight. If her war for the High Kingship was to be won, it would not be won on the battlefield. It would be won because the people of Jer-a-kalaliel joined her freely. She had never planned to win by defeating or allying with the Ninety-and-Nine. She meant to win by drawing everyone else to her standard.

When Vieliessar is High King there will be a Code of Peace. One justice for all, be they highborn or low, and all voices heard.

When Vieliessar is High King, domain will not war with domain, for all domains will be one.

When Vieliessar is High King, the Lightborn will not be taken from their families and hoarded as a glutton hoards grain. They will go where they will and do as they wish. Nor will any children be forced to the Sanctuary against their will.

When Vieliessar is High King, lords will not steal from vassals, from craftworkers, from Landbonds—

When Vieliessar is High King, any with skill may become a knight, or a weaver, or a smith—

When Vieliessar is High King, any may own a horse, or a hound, or a sword—

When Vieliessar is High King …

The folk of Oronviel believed her—believed in her—because what she did as War Prince of Oronviel was exactly what she promised she would do as High King of the land entire. Her Lightborn were her greatest weapon in that secret war, for at least half of them came from Farmhold or Landbond families:

And if her knights and lords were disappointed by the fact that they could no longer hang poachers as they wished—or beat their tenants for their amusement—they were reconciled by the knowledge that Oronviel would soon be going to war.

I wonder when my good cousins and fellow princes will notice I have stolen half their lands? Vieliessar mused. It was a whimsical thought, but a serious one as well. She’d cleared her domain and much of the domains it bordered of bandits. Half by patrols, half by recruiting those bandits to serve in her army. She’d sent her Lightborn to tend the people of the border steadings on both sides of her borders. And in truth, even if Harvest were to see the paying out of tithes, many of the folk of the border steadings would not be there to pay: a vast army needed wagons and animals to pull them, servants to cook food and pitch tents and saddle and unsaddle horses. Landbonds had many of the skills her army needed, so she encouraged them to leave their holdings and come to her.

But if her strength and her victory lay in the commons, it did not mean she could neglect either her lords or her knights, for if she won through to peace when she sat upon the Unicorn Throne, she would fulfill the last of Amrethion’s promises to his future: the end of High House and Low. Equal justice for all meant not merely that there would no longer be great lords and lesser lords. It meant that none could be set above another: she changed little if she simply set those who were now low above those who were now high.

Vieliessar thought idly of how different Oronviel now was from the other domains of the West. In the springtide the War Princes usually went on a progress, traveling with an escort large enough to protect them from treachery or attack. Bolecthindial Caerthalien had taken no less than five hundred of his Household knights when he rode out, but Vieliessar could ride from corner to corner of her own land alone, certain not she would not be attacked. She thought of the story she had so often been told in her childhood: And the knights of the High King’s meisne were all great kings, and each was as sweet-tempered as a sleeping babe, as loyal as a hunting hound, as beautiful as the Vilya in fruit and flower, as strong as the storms of winter, and pledged to care for all they met as ardently as the Silver Eagle tends her hatchling.

In Oronviel, that nursery tale had come true.

Today, in the company of a mixed troop of Oronviel and Ivrithir knights—her own guard, plus a meisne of Ivrithir komen commanded by Lord Farathon of Ivrithir—she rode toward the place where Araphant’s borders touched hers. Aramenthiali and Caerthalien used it as a way to enter one another’s domains unnoticed. Through the winter, Vieliessar and her knights had used it as a hunting park, clearing it of outlaws.

Oronviel did not share much border with Araphant—a score of leagues, no more—and Vieliessar’s border lords had little to do, for Araphant’s manors and farms lay in that domain’s southern quadrant. Its northern reaches had been left to the stag and the wolf, for Araphant had long been a limp rag chewed by Caerthalien and Aramenthiali, helplessly ceding territory to each. When War Prince Luthilion died, his House might simply vanish, for Luthilion had lived far beyond his allotted years; fate and chance had taken brothers, sisters, children, and greatchildren all before him.

“My lord, someone comes,” Komen Bethaerian said.

“They ride one of our horses, whether they are ours or not,” Vieliessar said, peering at the mounted figure in the distance. “Peace, Betharian,” she added, “we are nearly two score.”

“If this is no scout for one of your enemies,” Farathon of Ivrithir said.

“If an enemy comes in force from Araphant, I will hold myself surprised,” Vieliessar said dryly. “But even if Luthilion rides at Bolecthindial’s order, he would head west and come at us over Caerthalien’s border rather than try to bring an army through this forest.” On their own side of the border the trees had been kept thinned by landbond families driven from their homes and forced to labor. On Araphant’s side, they had grown unchecked for centuries.

“That is so, Lord Vieliessar,” Farathon said with a smile, for his meisne had been riding this stretch of border for the past fortnight and had spent much of that time in Araphant’s forest. “Yet no good word ever came swiftly.”

The horseman had closed the distance to them as they spoke. Neither horse nor rider was encumbered by a single ounce they did not need to bear: the animal’s saddle was a thin pad of leather, the stirrups mere flattened rings. And the rider, who was little more than a child, wore no armor. He barely checked the horse’s mad gallop before he flung himself from its saddle and ran forward. His mount, freed of direction, cantered in a wide circle around Vieliessar and her knights, so filled with the excitement of the run that it hardly noticed its exhaustion.

“The War Prince—komentai’a, I must speak with her—my lord of Greenstone Tower said I would find her near—it is urgent—” the boy gasped.

“I am here,” Vieliessar said, nudging Sorodiarn forward. “Let him pass,” she said, for when she spoke, the boy had started toward her and Farathon had moved automatically to block him.

“Lord Vieliessar—” the boy began. He was as winded as his mount, but determined to deliver his message at once. “A meisne—from Araphant—my lord Peramarth did not know their intent until today—through the wood—”

“How many?” Bethaerian demanded, but the boy only shook his head.

“Why did your lord not use the sun-signal to warn us?” Farathon demanded, for each of the border towers were equipped with sheets of silvered glass that could be used to flash simple messages to watchers many miles distant. At least during bright, clear days.

“Said—not to warn them,” the boy gasped.

“You have done well,” Vieliessar said, putting warmth into her voice. “Come. You will ride with me. Sorodiarn is a gentle beast and your own steed deserves a rest. We will go to Greenstone Tower and see what there is to see. But first, someone must catch your horse. We are lucky he is tired.”

“My lord, you cannot mean to ride toward this peril, after Lord Peramarth has sent to warn you against it?” Bethaerian said. “We must retreat to a place of safety.”

“Better to ride to than from,” Vieliessar answered. “If knights come through the woods of Araphant, I do not think their number can be a force much larger than our own. Peramarth will be glad of extra swords if it is an attack.”

And I shall be glad to be there if it is not, Vieliessar thought. A party of knights crossing from Araphant to Oronviel was so unusual she did not wish to gain information of it second hand, and asking her people to discover whether something unusual was a threat before attacking it was a thing most of them thought was sheer moonstruck madness. Attack and be safe, Vieliessar thought. They do as their greatsires did, and so grudge is heaped upon injury until they breed war. She knew that asking her people to stop, to talk, to think would someday generate a tragedy. And I can only say that if I meant to rule as all the War Princes have ruled before me, it would be better if I had never ruled at all.

“Now come,” she said to the messenger. “Give me your name and your hand.”

The distance young Randir had covered in less than a candlemark took the troop of heavy warhorses three to retrace, and when they were near to Greenstone Tower, they were met by a troop of its defenders led by Lord Peramarth himself.

“My lord prince,” Peramarth said. When he pushed back the visor of his helm, his entire face was exposed, for the Border Lords might have to fight in any weather. “I did not expect you.”

Here so soon or here at all? Vieliessar wondered, for Peramarth’s thoughts were a flurry that could not be quickly untangled by True Speech.

“I had thought—” Peramarth began, then broke off. “No matter. Greenstone has stood since the days Araphant was a power in the land, and her walls have never been forced. Permit me to offer you my hospitality until we have repulsed our invaders.”

“It seems a strange way to invade anything,” Vieliessar commented a few minutes later, from atop Greenstone Tower. It was no taller than the watchtowers in her own keep, but it seemed as if it were, as there was nothing else for miles around and even the tops of the great trees were below them. Standing in this place, she could imagine she stood among the clouds themselves, and by spreading her arms, could join the hawks in the sky.

“I still cannot make the count,” Angeleb said, sounding unhappy. He was one of Peramarth’s sentries, chosen for his keen vision.

“We saw movement in the forest two days since,” Peramarth said, pointing out and down. The area near the border was thick with greenneedle trees; Vieliessar had been watching since they’d climbed out onto the roof of the watchtower and had yet to see more than an occasional bright flash. “At first I thought Old Luthilion might have come hunting, though he has not been since before the Long Peace. But see—there?” Peramarth pointed to a gap in the forest cover. “Blight and storm has killed the old trees, and the new ones are not yet grown. They rode across that place just this morning. Two tailles of knights, a Green Robe—and someone with the right to ride beneath the princely standard of Araphant.”

Peramarth—she knew—had delayed sending his warning until he was certain the party beneath the trees rode bowshot-straight, and not in the erratic circles of a hunting party. To the Border Lords, giving false warning was as shameful as giving no warning at all.

“Why does he come?” she wondered aloud. “He cannot expect to conquer Oronviel with twenty-four knights and one Lightborn.” Gunedwaen had not wasted his efforts spying on Araphant—he had too few people and too many places they needed to be—so she knew nothing more of it than she had learned at the Sanctuary, and that was little indeed.

“Perhaps he comes to offer you a marriage alliance,” Bethaerian said dryly. “It would be a brief marriage, at least. Old Luthilion has seen a dozen Astromancers tend the Shrine.”

“There is some luck in surviving so long,” Vieliessar said, still thinking aloud. “And perhaps wisdom, too. You say he will cross our border, Peramarth?”

“By midday, if they do not stop.”

“Then we will greet him and see why he has come.”

Peramarth disliked her plan—a mark of his loyalty, inconvenient though it was—and he liked it even less when Vieliessar said she meant to meet Araphant herself. In the end she prevailed, and sat her destrier before a taille of sixty knights: her own meisne and three tailles from Greenstone.

As the approaching party became visible, Vieliessar could see that tied to Araphant’s pennion was a bough of the greenneedle tree, the traditional symbol that the party riding beneath it requested a parley-truce. Beside the knight carrying the princely standard—a leaping green stag upon a sable field—rode another in armor the iridescent green-black of a beetle’s wing, and upon his left rode a Lightborn, his hair silvered with great age. When they reached the border stones, they stopped, and the standard-bearer and the Lightborn rode on alone.

The wind blew through Vieliessar’s hair, blowing its strands ticklingly over her cheek. She did not wear her helmet; the envoy must be able to know he spoke with the War Prince of Oronviel, not some faceless messenger.

Lord Peramarth’s knights were explicitly under her command, and she had given them unambiguous orders. Nonetheless, Vieliessar was proud of their discipline and that of the Ivrithir knights, for she had bidden them all stand still and silent, and not one armored figure moved, even when she rode forward, Bethaerian at her side, to meet the Araphant messengers.

“Oronviel gives you good greeting,” she said when she and the two from Araphant had stopped facing one another. “I would know how it is you come to us beneath the branch of truce, for there is no war between us.”

“Araphant greets Oronviel,” the aged Lightborn answered. His voice was thin, but in it Vieliessar could still hear the echo of the resonance and power it must have held in his youth. “I am Celeharth Lightbrother, Chief Lightborn to War Prince Luthilion Araphant. We ride beneath the branch of truce out of desire to speak with you, Lord Vieliessar Oronviel, honestly and in peace.”

“Your lord might have done so many moonturns since,” Vieliessar said, nodding in the direction of the green-armored figure who still waited on the far side of the border. She could skim the surface of Celeharth’s thoughts easily: he knew Luthilion had come to make an alliance with Oronviel, but what terms he would offer or accept, Celeharth did not know.

He smiled faintly at her mild gibe. “When one reaches my master’s years, one does not hasten. Yet he would speak now.”

“Events do not always wait upon the desire for reflection. Yet I am eager to hear Araphant’s word to me. Say to your lord that I and all with me here accept Araphant’s truce, and I offer my own body as surety for his life.” She unbuckled her swordbelt and held it out to Bethaerian. Slowly, her thoughts a roil of worry for her liege’s safety, Bethaerian took the weapon.

Celeharth inclined his head. “I bring him to your side.” He turned and rode back to the Araphant knights. The lone knight-herald holding the pennion of truce sat as motionless as if he were carved from stone.

Vieliessar could feel the tension of the komen behind her as if it were a wind she must set herself against. It seemed an eternity before Celeharth Lightborn reached his master’s side. His voice did not carry, but his thoughts did.

It is as we hoped, old friend. Oronviel’s new War Prince, Vieliessar once-Lightborn, offers us the truce of the body.

Then come, Celeharth. Let us see what we may do to dismay the dogs that bark at our heels.

Slowly the knights of Araphant rode toward their standard-bearer. When they were still a little distance away, Luthilion raised his hand and the knights behind him stopped. Araphant’s War Prince removed his helm and unbelted his swordbelt, handing both helm and sword to one of his knights before continuing forward, accompanied only by Celeharth.

If Luthilion’s Chief Lightborn was full of years, the War Prince himself was truly ancient. His hair, though still proudly worn in the elaborate braids of a knight, was colorless with age. His face was printed with the lines of all the joys and sorrows he had known in the long centuries of his life, but if his body beneath the bright armor was frail with age, his will was as unyielding as star-forged adamantine.

“I give you good greeting, Oronviel,” he said, when his destrier stopped beside his standard-bearer.

“And I you, Araphant,” Vieliessar answered.

“I would speak with you regarding matters of interest to us both, yet I would do so in more comfort. It is not seemly for two princes to shout at each other from their destriers as if they were maiden knights hot to win their spurs.”

“I listen,” Vieliessar answered. Lord Luthilion’s speech was slow and measured, couched in the courtly and careful phrasing of centuries past.

“Celeharth tells me you were a great scholar in your time at the Sanctuary. Granting this truth, you will know how many days’ travel it is from Araphant’s Great Keep to where you find me now. And I am far too old to delight in sleeping on the ground rolled in my cloak. I ask your leave to summon my servants to erect my pavilion, so we may be comfortable together.”

“I shall be most grateful for your care,” Vieliessar said, doing her best to match the mode in which the War Prince of Araphant spoke. “I ask only to send Komen Bethaerian with whom you will, so your meisne and mine know we may be easy together.”

“This thought is both wise and cordial,” Luthilion answered. He raised a hand and beckoned, and one of his knights urged his destrier forward. Vieliessar heard Farathon draw breath with a hiss, and saw Luthilion’s eyes flicker with amusement—The child prays none of her hot-blooded young swords seeks to protect her, and that is a good sign. The knight reached for the pennion.

“I commend to you and your komen’tai’a Komen Diorthiel, who serves me far more faithfully than I deserve. Diorthiel, here is Komen Bethaerian, who will accompany you as you give your word to my servants to bring my pavilion here to me.”

Diorthiel looked very much as if he wished to argue. Instead, he simply bowed to Lord Luthilion and rode away with Bethaerian at his side.

Where others might have filled the wait with inconsequential observations on the weather or the hunting, or even with some talk of horses, Luthilion simply sat, as silent and composed as a Lightborn in meditation. So Vieliessar sat quietly as well, wondering with faint curiosity how Luthilion had managed to bring baggage wagons through the dense northern forest. The waiting was broken once by a messenger riding out from Greenstone Tower to ask what was happening—for of course Lord Peramarth was watching all that went on—and being sent back with a curt reply: War Prince Luthilion and I discuss a treaty under truce-bough.

When the pavilion arrived, Vieliessar discovered Luthilion had not, after all, found some new way of getting large and unwieldy sumpter wagons through a dense forest. Instead, Luthilion’s pavilion was bound to the back of mules. Each mule wore a sturdy saddle with wooden legs atop it—much as if someone had taken a common chair and turned it upside down—and this odd device held heavy packs easily and securely. Vieliessar filed away the information for later use: mules could go where heavy wagons could not, and they moved faster.

The servants worked with quick efficiency. They did not care whether they worked in Araphant, Oronviel, or the Vale of Celenthodiel: servants were invisible, and even in battle were rarely an enemy’s target.

“All is ready, Lord Luthilion,” Celeharth said at last. Diorthiel stepped to Luthilion’s side, managing to give the impression he attended his lord out of courtesy, and not because Lord Luthilion required aid to dismount. Vieliessar allowed Bethaerian to do the same for her, then beckoned to Farathon to join them.

“Come,” she said quietly. “If you attend, you may say to Lord Atholfol you know all that took place here today.”

Farathon’s face went blank with surprise at being so trusted—and perhaps also because she spoke so frankly of mistrust. “Ivrithir is loyal,” he answered.

“I trust Lord Atholfol,” Vieliessar answered simply. “And was there ever a War Prince who did not wish half his great lords would conveniently die in battle?”

Farathon gave a muffled cough of laughter, and Vieliessar turned away, following Lord Luthilion into the pavilion, seeing that it was much like her own: two rooms, the outer one dominated by a sizable table. There were scrolls in a wooden rack at one side of the table and a tea brazier on the other side; a shin’zuruf pot and cups waited beside the steaming kettle. There were two chairs, precisely equal in ornamentation, set so that neither of the lords would sit with their back to the door. Nearby was another seat: a padded stool without a back. Vieliessar could feel that the pavilion had been bespelled to keep sound from passing its walls.

“My Healer tells me wine is not good for me any longer,” Lord Luthilion said, lowering himself heavily into a chair and gesturing toward the brazier. Now that he was afoot, the frailties of age seemed more pronounced.

“Three things the Light cannot Heal: age, death, and fate,” Celeharth answered. It had the air of a well-loved and long-familiar argument.

“As you know, Lord Luthilion, I was many years in the Sanctuary,” Vieliessar replied. “We did not drink wine there.” She took the second chair and Celeharth settled himself upon the padded stool. Once they were seated, one of the servants came forward to pour the boiling water into the pot.

“And then you left,” Luthilion said, surprising her with his directness. “And next we heard of a challenge in Oronviel, unwisely accepted, and now you say you will be High King.”

“Yes,” Vieliessar said simply.

“We also hear that you do not promise favors to those who aid you. Nor wealth. That you open Oronviel to outlaws and offer to raise up any Landbonds who come to you to the estate of nobles and great knights.”

“I do not promise favors to those who fight for me. Neither do I promise vengeance on those who do not. I offer sanctuary to any who will pledge true fealty to me.”

“And the Landbond? Who will till your fields if you fill their heads with dreams of knighthood?” Luthilion demanded, his black eyes sharp. Before she could answer, he raised a hand. “Celeharth, oblige me if you would.”

The Lightbrother rose to his feet, and poured tea into three delicate cups. “In my youth,” Luthilion said, “a heart for war was measured by the graces of peace. It was not enough to ride well and fight well—one had to dance gracefully, play harp or flute or cithern, compose poetry and copy it out in a fair hand, or craft tea. That art is lost, I fear. Today they rip some weeds from the kitchen garden, boil them into an undrinkable mess, and call it the heritage of Mosirinde Peacemaker.”

“They still teach the art at the Sanctuary,” Vieliessar said, holding the cup so she could inhale its fragrant steam. “Vilya,” she said in surprise, smelling the unmistakable perfume.

Luthilion radiated pleasure, though his face remained impassive. “Had we met some time ago, and in a different way, I believe I might have made a proper knight of you, Oronviel. Yes, there is Vilya in this blend. The fruit, not the flower. I thought it somehow appropriate for our meeting.”

“It is a fruiting year everywhere but the Sanctuary gardens,” Vieliessar commented dryly.

“Hamphuliadiel cannot expect whatever trick he has used to endure for long,” Celeharth said. His eyes flicked to where Vieliessar’s knights stood. “Some say he wishes to make the Sanctuary into the Hundredth House, to replace Lost Farcarinon, thinking by that means to avert the Curse of Amrethion Aradruiniel.”

“If it were so easy to avert our hradan, High King Amrethion would not have needed to prophecy at all,” Vieliessar answered. “But I would answer Araphant concerning my Landbonds.”

Luthilion waved that away with faint irritation. “I know already you arm them. But what next?”

“I take the High Kingship,” Vieliessar answered simply. She did not believe her arguments would sway Lord Luthilion. He was less interested in knowing what she meant to do than in knowing her, for she could see in his mind he meant to pledge Araphant to her alliance simply to leave Aramenthiali and Caerthalien a greater thorn in both their paws than Araphant could be otherwise.

She did not have time to hear him say so.

“My lord! A messenger!” Against all proper protocol and courtesy, Komen Janondiel burst through the doorway. “We are attacked! Caerthalien attacks!”

The battle standards carried by the Caerthalien force each flew a narrow red pennion as well the Caerthalien banner, signifying that the army would accept neither surrender nor truce from the enemy. The best thing about going to war in this fashion, Runacarendalur decided, though it was not so much true war as it was the chance to lead a raiding party of truly stunning size, was that he did not have to wait. War itself was a thing of temporary truces, of parleys, of days spent doing nothing more exciting than moving the army and the camp to the next battlefield and waiting for the enemy to arrive. There was no need for any of that in this expedition against Oronviel. The only thing he’d had to wait on were the travel wagons of Ladyholder Glorthiachiel and his recent betrothed. It had been a very long time since Mother rode on campaign, and as for Princess Nanduil … treaty hostages were not encouraged to develop any useful skills.

Runacarendalur had chosen as his entrance point a place along Oronviel’s border where there was no clear sight-line for the watch towers and where the terrain had forced the ancient builders of the border keeps to set the strongholds far apart. Three thousand horse weren’t inconspicuous, and Runacarendalur knew his army would be seen, but his strategy relied on the two nearest watchtowers—Hawkwind and Highstone—sending incomplete and useless information to Vieliessar. It also relied on the Border Lords being unwilling to engage a force so much larger than theirs: between them Hawkwind and Highstone could put perhaps three hundred knights into the field, and that only if they had been lately fortified.

As they crossed Caerthalien’s eastern border, his advance scouts encountered a taille in Ivrithir colors. Runacar’s scouts turned and galloped back toward the army and the Ivrithir knights followed. When Ivrithir saw the main force, the taille turned and fled, but Runacarendalur had organized a vanguard that would be ready to chase down Vieliessar’s bands of roving komen the moment any were spotted. Fifty against twelve offered little sport, and Runacarendalur did not even get to fight, but there were other compensations. He spread his army into a long line of skirmish—madness against an equal force of enemy horse, efficient when you meant to destroy as much that lay in your path as possible.

The border steadings will entertain my troops and the terrified refugees will spread panic.

But the people of the border steadings weren’t terrified. They fought back with bow and spear and sling. It should have been a futile, unequal battle. Unequal it was, but the border farmers had the advantage of surprise and while most of their weapons could not pierce armor, the walking bow could. Runacarendalur lost four knights and a dozen horses in the first clashes.

There were no terrified refugees to spread panic, because there were no survivors.

And worse, the smoke of the burned steadings alerted the Border Towers.

He’d expected no trouble: they were greatly outnumbered, and should have stayed in their keeps and passed warning messages. Instead, the Border Knights sallied forth to ride along his line of march, close enough to tempt the vanguard into giving chase, distant enough they consistently managed to escape without being caught. At night, they harassed his camp—riding through it, pulling down pavilions, setting fire to anything that would burn—so half his army needed to be awake all night to keep watch and guard their horses.

By the fourth day of their advance into Oronviel, the Border Knights had been joined by several of the knight-patrols.

On the fifth day, Oronviel’s army arrived.

It is not possible, Runacarendalur thought. He saw the red-and-white of Oronviel, the tawny-and-black of Ivrithir—and, unwelcome shock, a small cluster of knights in the sable-and-green of Araphant. He estimated the enemy to be three thousand horse. Half of Oronviel’s full array. They should not have been able to muster so many on a few days’ notice. He’d expected to be a full sennight or more into Oronviel before any part of Oronviel’s army could take the field. He’d counted on it, because he’d counted on provisioning his army along the march.

If he’d faced a force of the size he’d originally anticipated, he would have considered simply going around them, forcing them to follow and do battle nearer to the center of the domain. That would allow him the opportunity both to provision his army and to do more damage to Oronviel. But it would not be possible to flank three thousand horse.

At least it’s too late to fight today. He glanced at the sky. Nearly midday, so they’d have most of a day to prepare to meet the enemy and scout the terrain over which they would fight. Though this was not a field he would have chosen—it sloped slightly upward, and was littered with debris to trip or lame a destrier whose rider was unwary—it would do well enough. He wheeled his palfrey about and went to give the order to make camp.

“Why do we stop so early in the day?”

The servants had barely finished setting his pavilion before Ladyholder Glorthiachiel strode into it, glaring at her son. “Is it not enough that we move at such speed one would assume we carried vital messages? Now you propose to sit and do nothing!”

“And how is my betrothed? Sick with joy at this return to her homeland?” Runacarendalur asked.

“Were there anyone else in the Line Direct I could trust upon Oronviel’s throne, I would slit her throat rather than listen to another moment of her complaints,” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel said. “At least Nataranweiya’s brat never whined. Now. Why do we stop?”

“Why, so I may engage Oronviel at dawn,” Runacarendalur said, waving vaguely in the direction of the enemy. “Thoromarth has brought, if not Vieliessar’s army, then an army. You will be pleased to know Oronviel has made alliance with Araphant as well.”

“Impossible!” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel snapped.

“Possible,” Runacarendalur replied, “and fact. Unless you believe Thoromarth has somehow stolen the War Prince’s banner from Old Luthilion and garbed a dozen Oronviel knights in his colors.”

Ladyholder Glorthiachiel regarded him through narrowed eyes for a long moment, then gestured peremptorily to a servant to bring her a chair. “Wine,” she said, seating herself and shaking out the folds of her voluminous riding skirts. Runacarendalur served her himself; the pavilion was set, but nothing was unpacked yet. He located the chest he sought, took possession of a bottle and two goblets, filled both cups, handed one to Ladyholder Glorthiachiel, and seated himself on a chest.

“How many ride against us?” she asked after she’d tasted her cup and silently let him know the drink was not to her liking.

Runacarendalur hesitated, but any knight in the camp could estimate the size of Oronviel’s force as easily as he had, and Ladyholder Glorthiachiel’s personal guard would tell her if he did not. “Our forces seem equally matched,” he said reluctantly.

“And yet, when you proposed this expedition, you said Oronviel could only bring two thousand—at most—to the field,” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel said.

“Obviously Elrinonion Swordmaster should have tried harder to get scouts across Oronviel’s border who’d report back,” Runacarendalur retorted. “The army is there. We can fight, or we can run away.”

“Do not say to me I have given birth to a coward,” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel answered haughtily. “Thoromarth is beguiled by that Sanctuary-bred monster. Atholfol’s forces will flee the field rather than fight for Oronviel. And Araphant we will deal with in due time.”

Runacarendalur inclined his head. “It will of course be just as you say, Mother.”

One candlemark passed, then two, as Oronviel’s army continued to advance. It moved—as did any army on the march—at a slow and measured pace in order to spare the destriers’ strength.

But it did not stop.

Runacarendalur sat his riding palfrey, watching the enemy advance. Only a couple of miles now separated the front of their column from his camp. Two of the banners the knights-pennion carried signified War Princes on the field: Araphant’s and Oronviel’s. Runacarendalur had never faced Lord Luthilion—Luthilion had last taken the field in Runacarendalur’s greatfather’s time—but the gleam of his white hair was unmistakable as he rode beside Araphant’s standard. Runacarendalur glanced at Ivrithir’s banner, but Lord Atholfol was not on the field. Why do his knights ride here if he does not lead them? Runacarendalur wondered. He frowned, puzzled, then set the thought aside for now. And here is Oronviel. Thoromarth was a familiar sight in pearl-white armor, mounted on his grey stallion. Runacarendalur frowned again. Thoromarth was riding his destrier, not a palfrey. Everyone in the front rank was.

Between Thoromarth and Luthilion, on a bay so pale its coat was nearly golden, rode …

Her. That must be Vieliessar.

At first he’d thought the woman might be Thoromarth’s standard-bearer, until she leaned sideways in her saddle to touch his shoulder with the easy familiarity of a ruling prince to a favored knight. Thoromarth said something in return and she laughed, gesturing at the army that rode behind them.

I did not expect her to come armored as a knight to this battlefield.

His mother had been sure Vieliessar was merely a mask for Thoromarth’s ambition, and even if she were not, it was inconceivable she would ride to war. Yet here she was. She wore silver-enameled armor and the white surcoat with the red otter that marked her as a knight of Oronviel. The bay destrier she rode danced and fretted beneath her hand, yet she controlled him effortlessly.

When the advancing column finally stopped, Runacarendalur was relieved. He watched as it split, then split again, spreading and reforming behind the first line as gracefully as if the whole of the army danced. They do not wish to be caught unawares while they make camp, he decided.

Then Thoromarth spoke again and Vieliessar took up her helm and slid it over her head. Runacarendalur could not say why watching her give her helm the small back-and-forth twist to lock it into place made him feel so uneasy. It was something he’d done himself a thousand times. More.

And so has she. Runacarendalur frowned. Why does she helm if they are to make camp?

Then—impossibly—he heard the mellow dangerous song of warhorns.

Right flank: wheel. Left flank: hold. Center: advance.

Against all sense and custom, Oronviel was attacking.

Now.

He spurred his palfrey and galloped back to the camp, shouting for the alarm to be sounded, for his knights to arm themselves. Some had heard the enemy warhorns. Most had not. And only a handful were in armor. This is madness! Runacarendalur thought in outrage. The Code of Battle demands challenge be made and answered before the engagement begins! Not a random attack the moment you catch sight of your enemy! This is none of Thoromarth’s doing! Vieliessar fights as if she is a hedgerow bandit!

He reached his tent and flung himself from his saddle. Helecanth’s pavilion was pitched beside his own, and she’d come running at the sound of his horse. Runacarendalur noted with despair that his guard captain was as unready to fight as his entire army.

“My lord?” she said.

Runacarendalur opened his mouth to reply, then closed it again as the first of the Caerthalien horns sounded: To horse, to horse, arm yourself, to battle …

“I shall bring Gwaenor,” she said, and took off for the horselines at a run.

“My armor!” Runacarendalur shouted as he entered his tent. If they had reached us before the camp was set it would have been a disaster, he thought numbly. Only the flanks and the vanguard had been riding in armor, and no one had been riding destriers. But they meant to attack the moment they saw us.

Nithiach, his chamber page, came rushing out of the pavilion’s inner chamber, a polishing cloth in his hands. Runacarendalur shouted again for his armor and began stripping off his clothes. He struggled with his boots for a moment before sitting down on a chest to yank them off.

His arming page was nowhere to be found. Nithiach would have to serve; there was not time to find Arnarth. As Nithiach returned with Runacarendalur’s aketon and padded leather trews, the booming of the war drums overlaid the discordant and clashing sound of the horns.

Lengiathion Warlord always said battles could be won or lost by the speed a knight could arm, and I never believed him.…

He struggled into the complex elements of his armor, swearing at Nithiach in his desperate need to be armed, to be away. He nearly shouted at Helecanth to leave when she entered, followed by her arming page.

“They advance.” She had to shout to be heard over the uproar: horns and drums and knights shouting and the clatter of metal and the screams of overexcited horses. “I have ordered Ladyholder Glorthiachiel’s guard to move her wagon back and to keep her and Princess Nanduil inside, even if they must tie them hand and foot and nail the doors of the wagon shut.”

“They’d probably rather face Oronviel,” Runacarendalur muttered. “Good. How many—?” How many can we send against them at once?

“Five hundred,” Helecanth said grimly. “Enough to hold them until the rest arm. They will stand—if you are there.”

Runacarendalur settled his helm on his head. As he gave it the small twist to lock it into place, the vivid image of Vieliessar doing just the same filled his mind.

War was a thing of beauty. Runacarendalur had always believed this. The clash of two lines of knights meeting at full gallop, the moments of bravery and skill that were the fruit of a lifetime of training, the joyful dance of death when two knights fought each other as if no one else existed—He was a prince of Caerthalien, a knight, a warrior: he carried the honor of his House upon his shoulders each time he rode into battle.

But today was different. He’d been given no time to scout the battlefield, to meet with his commanders, to tell each where they must stand and where they must go, to settle the signals that would allow him to deploy hundreds of knights as easily as he flexed the fingers of his hand. Instead, he galloped from camp with barely a sixth of his army and only one thought in his mind: push Oronviel back and buy his komen time to take the field. He shouted orders to Helecanth as Gwaenor and Rochonan galloped side by side, and Helecanth put her warhorn to her lips and relayed them to the knights that followed: Break for the tuathal flank. Force it back into the center.

It was a proven strategy, especially when the enemy could not call up reserves to replace his losses. Since Thoromarth had not been able to position his reserves off the field, effectively he had no reserves—all his force was committed at the same time. The flanking positions were traditionally a fast moving force, meant to sweep an enemy’s fighters into the center where they could be hammered by heavy cavalry. If Runacarendalur could force Thoromarth’s tuathal flank into the body of his main force, he could not only destroy the flanking force but attack the center at a weak point. The main body of the column would have no place to go: if it retreated, the deosil wing would be behind it.

It should have worked.

Instead, as soon as Runacarendalur’s advance force was fully committed to an attack on the tuathal side, the whole of Thoromarth’s force spun as if it were a millstone turning on its axis. The tuathal flank was not forced against the center: the center swung right as the tuathal flank retreated in good order and the deosil flank elongated and galloped across what had—seconds before—been the center. In another few moments Runacarendalur’s advance force would be trapped between the two flanking forces while the former center line—now an enormously over-full deosil flank—continued its inexorable advance on his camp.

It was a stunning innovation in tactics.

Thoromarth could not have done this, Runacarendalur realized, even as his troop spun and struck the wing of Oronviel’s army that was coming up behind them. He could no longer see the whole of the battlefield. In moments, it had become a dizzying blur of knights and flashing swords.

And it is but four candlemarks to sunset, and how are you to shape the course of the battle if you are in it?

From the moment he’d proposed this expedition against Oronviel, Runacarendalur had held in his mind the image of how it would go: a raiding party cutting a swathe of destruction across the land from the border towers to the walls of Oronviel’s Great Keep. There he would face the force Oronviel placed in the field against him; at the sight of the red pennions flying from Caerthalien’s standards, the knights of Ivrithir would flee to their own domain.…

That was the dream, and he had not been willing to let go of it. And so he had led his knights into battle as if this were a raiding party. It did not matter that there was no plan of battle to oversee, no order of battle for him to shape and direct, nor that his knights would have been thrown into even greater disorder if he had not led them himself. He had made a disastrous miscalculation—and Caerthalien would pay the price of it.

Father wished me to bring back the army intact.…

That was already impossible. But if he could slay Vieliessar, the act would redeem at least a part of his folly. He risked a glance at the larger force surrounding him. Yes. There. The standard of Oronviel. She would be beneath it.

He began to fight his way toward it.

It had taken Vieliessar two days to reach her army, and two days more for her army to reach Caerthalien’s force. Lord Luthilion had announced his desire to fight at her side—audacious, for it would show Caerthalien Araphant’s disloyalty—and rather than subject the aged War Prince to the long and grueling ride to her western border, she’d told Celeharth to Send to her Lightborn and bring Lord Luthilion west by Mage Door. Then Vieliessar rode west as fast as she could. It was frustrating, for there was a Flower Forest half a day’s ride from Greenstone Tower, and she might have walked into it and out into Mornenamei in the same candlemark. But accompanied by her komen, she could not—she could not raise the matter of changing what the Lightborn were permitted to do at the same moment Caerthalien was invading in force.

She left Sorodiarn behind at the first change of horses. The journey was not a matter of pleasant rides and soft beds, but of galloping from manor house to manor house, bringing word of the attack and leaving with fresh mounts. Messengers from Thoromarth, from Rithdeliel, from Gunedwaen met her on the road, and so she learned her army already marched to meet Caerthalien. Lord Thoromarth had put them underway the moment word had come to Oronviel Keep.

Gunedwaen led her infantry in Thoromarth’s wake, but not to the battlefield. Gunedwaen’s place would be a day’s ride from Oronviel Keep, for Hawkwind’s sentries had not seen a supply train traveling with Caerthalien’s army, and if Caerthalien defeated Vieliessar’s army—or simply broke through it—the farmsteads of the Manorial Lands would be their target.

Since the moment she became War Prince, Vieliessar had been accustoming her army to the idea that it was more important to win a battle than to adhere to the ceremonial Code of Battle designed to turn war into an eternal game. Once she reached her army, she reinforced that lesson one more time: The purpose of war is to win so no more battles need to be fought. To win a battle, you must hurt your enemy. Not in some agreed-upon way Healers can put right so his knights can attack you again—but hurt him so he will never want to face you again.

In this battle, all her teaching, all her hopes, were to be tested. If they lost here, her army would go back to fighting in the ways it knew, and carry with it the seeds of their defeat. But when the enemy was in sight, her komen did everything in the way she had taught them. At her order, they attacked at once rather than allowing Caerthalien a night of rest and planning. When Caerthalien took the field with only a fraction of their own numbers, they did not attempt to break off the battle and offer the chance of a negotiated surrender.

And when the enemy’s camp was within reach, Vieliessar’s komen didn’t pretend it wasn’t because it would be discourteous to spoil the enemy’s comfort.

Gwaenor reared, striking out at the enemy knight with steel-shod forehooves. The enemy knight’s destrier tried to escape, but there was nowhere to go in the press of warriors and horses. The armored figure toppled from the saddle. If he made any sound as he died, it was lost in the clangor of battle.

Runacarendalur no longer knew how long he’d been fighting, nor if Caerthalien was winning. He only knew Oronviel’s standard was near, that the maddening figure in the blood-spattered silver armor was beneath it, and that he must see her slain if he was ever to know peace again. He roweled Gwaenor’s flanks mercilessly, asking the impossible from the great black stallion. Gwaenor snapped and kicked, forcing his way ever closer to Runacarendalur’s goal. Runacarendalur tightened the fingers of his free hand around his dagger, his eyes fixed upon Vieliessar. He could not stab her, but he could stab her mount. In the heat of battle destriers rarely noticed injuries, but a fatal blow—something that would bring the golden stallion to his knees—would fling Vieliessar to the ground to be trampled to death.…

As if his thoughts were a shout she could hear, Vieliessar turned and stared directly at him. Even with her visor in place, Runacarendalur imagined he could see her eyes.

No.

Some thought of Bonding as a gift, the greatest gift Queen Pelashia had given the children of the Fortunate Lands. Some thought of it as a curse, for it linked two souls together—no matter what heart and mind might wish—so tightly that if one half of a Bonding died, the other would soon follow. Still others, more cynical, thought of it as a myth, either lie or delusion or something crafted of both.

Runacarendalur of Caerthalien looked into the eyes of Vieliessar, born of Farcarinon, now War Prince of Oronviel, and knew the Soulbond of Pelashia Celenthodiel for a curse and no delusion. He felt as if he’d been struck over the heart with a hammer and he knew with a certainty that transcended thought that Vieliessar was as furious, as horrified, as he was.

It cannot be set aside, it cannot be undone—one may delay it, knowing what is to come—refuse it—and live all one’s years as a hungry ghost—but that is all.

He could not even tell, in this single blinding moment of oneness, which of them was thinking.

He’d been warned, seeing her in the distance as she led her army to battle. He hadn’t recognized the warning.

Bonded.

Soulbonded.

Bonded forever.

If he’d managed to kill Vieliessar before that horrifying flash of understanding, could he have kept this from happening?

The moment was so terrible and all-consuming that Runacarendalur did something he’d hadn’t done since long before he won his spurs: he forgot he was in the middle of a battle surrounded by armed and armored knights who were using all of their considerable skill to try to kill him. He wasn’t sure how long his inattention lasted. All he knew was that someone was hitting him on the rerebrace that covered his upper arm—not to injure him, but to gain his attention. He started in surprise, turning in his seat, clutching his sword. He’d dropped his dagger.

Helecanth pointed back toward the camp. She didn’t bother to speak; it would have been impossible to hear her. Hurry, she signaled, and Runacarendalur signed assent.

Haste was a thing easier asked than provided, however. They moved away from the standards of Oronviel, Ivrithir, and Araphant in whatever direction offered them space to maneuver. But the farther they got from the tight cluster of knights, the more they drew the attention of the enemy, and the more often they had to stop to fight their way free. It was only when Runacarendalur realized he could barely tell Caerthalien’s green and gold from Ivrithir’s black and tawny that he realized they’d fought on past sunset. The false day of twilight would vanish swiftly and without warning, but Runacarendalur was no longer certain that darkness would bring an end to Oronviel’s attack.

He was no longer certain about anything.

His life was in the keeping of one whom everyone from the Astromancer to his mother wanted dead. More than anything, he wanted to ride back to her side. But what he’d do when he got there, Runacarendalur didn’t know.

“You have to call the retreat!” Helecanth shouted when they had a moment’s breathing space.

“They’ll call the night halt soon, and—” Even as he spoke, Runacarendalur realized his words were ridiculous. Was he actually suggesting that an army that attacked in mid-afternoon without stopping to announce the terms of battle would call off the fighting with nightfall simply because it was civilized and customary?

“There’s no camp for us to go back to!” Helecanth shouted.

The unbelievable statement shocked Runacarendalur’s mind from the last of its daze, and in a few brief sentences, Helecanth explained.

When they’d struck the tuathal flank of Oronviel’s army, the army had pivoted in place to encircle Runacarendalur’s force. By that time, the rest of his knights were aware they were under attack and they took the field even though they had no clear plan of battle to guide them. In its absence, they’d done what seemed to be the most sensible thing: avoiding the center and the heavily reinforced right flank, they rode to attack the left.

“—and Oronviel’s tuathal wing continued to retreat, pulling our army in after it, until eventually the whole of our force was engaged, and what had been elements of Oronviel’s rear guard were facing our camp.” Helecanth shrugged. “So they rode down into it.”

They cleared the edge of the battle and rode wide to avoid its outliers. In the dusk, neither destrier wished to gallop, and Runacarendalur thought dismally of what would happen if they went lame or broke a leg. But it wasn’t until they reached the place where Caerthalien had made camp only a few scant candlemarks before that Runacarendalur realized the full scope of his failure.

No horses. No pavilions. No servants. Nothing, in fact, that he recognized as being the neatly organized camp with its pavilions of bright silk. Even the Lightborn were gone, and—

“Ladyholder Glorthiachiel!” Runacarendalur said in horror. For just one instant, he forgot about being Soulbonded. “They’ve taken her prisoner!”

“I don’t know,” Helecanth said, troubled. “I do know we need to retreat—if we can. I don’t think you were near any of them during the fighting, but— Did you see any knights on the field wearing Oronviel colors, but in brown armor?”

“Mercenaries,” Runacarendalur said realizing what she meant. Few sellswords began their lives as komen of the Hundred Houses, and those who did were often fortunate to escape their former masters with their lives, let alone with armor, sword, and destrier. Mercenaries did not wear armor in the bright colors of the komen. They greased their armor lavishly and then roasted it carefully; the burned-on grease created a weatherproof coating that made them nearly invisible at night. “We knew she was taking them into her army.”

“And adopting their tactics,” Helecanth said grimly. “Oh, they abide by the Code of Battle if they’re paid to. And if they’re paid to ignore it, they do that too.”

“Sound the retreat,” Runacarendalur said. He’d never imagined a simple sentence could hurt so much to say. “We need to find our Lightborn. They’ll be able to find Mother.”

Now that he stood looking down into the chasm of this disaster, Runacarendalur could see so very clearly all the steps that had led him here. Dismissing the lack of information from within Oronviel as unimportant. Dismissing the alliance between Oronviel and Ivrithir as meaningless. Believing Thoromarth still ruled Oronviel when every action Oronviel took was one Thoromarth would never have considered taking even if he’d managed to think of it. Riding heedlessly to the attack when Oronviel moved to engage, even though that was the final warning of how changed things were in Oronviel since Harvest.

In the distance, Runacarendalur heard another warhorn take up the call to retreat. For a moment it was drowned out by a mocking volley from the enemy: No quarter—No quarter—No quarter—echoed across the battlefield like the sound of a scolding jackdaw. He’d thought riding under the red pennion would be a useful convention that would allow him to execute any prisoners he took without breaking with the Code of Battle. But once he’d displayed the red pennion, his enemy was not bound to show mercy any more than he was.

His army would be slaughtered where it fell.

“I must—” Runacarendalur began, about to urge Gwaenor forward.

“You must not,” Helecanth said urgently, reaching out and placing her hand on his destrier’s rein. “We do not know how many we have lost. But if you are lost, Prince Runacarendalur, the army will have no leader. And all will be lost.”

Wise as it was, Helecanth’s counsel was bitter to hear.

And now there was nothing to do but wait.

Every Lightborn studied the Soulbond, for it was a riddle and a mystery: a thing of the Light—of Magery—that appeared among the Lightless. Without warning, without explanation. It behaved as if it were a spell, but unlike a spell, it could not be broken.

She’d known what was happening. Trapped in the midst of the melee, there’d been nothing she could do. She was already Warded against the thoughts of the injured and dying. There were no more powerful Wards she could summon.

It might have been delayed, even averted entirely, for all those who wrote of Soulbonding agreed that for the Bond to form, the two halves of the Bonding must be near each other. The scholars also spoke of desire, but the only desire she’d possessed was to win the battle.

Perhaps that had been all that was needed.

But those were things she thought of much later, when it was not necessary to spend every beat of her heart on surviving—and not merely surviving, but winning in the best way to further her need. The land’s need.

She’d prepared her commanders carefully on the journey here, from those who commanded a twelve to those who commanded twelve times twelve, so each would know what must be done before they engaged the enemy. She was grateful she’d done so much, for once the battle began it was impossible to know what was going on more than a few feet away. Rithdeliel and Gunedwaen and even Thoromarth had spoken of battles into which a commander could send a messenger to order a meisne to withdraw and could direct the battle as the huntsman directed the hunting pack. But those were not the sort of battles she was fighting.

The orders she had given to Nadalforo as she set her company to ride in the army’s fantail had surprised the former mercenary commander but had not shocked her.

“Loot the camp and take their horses?” she said, looking pleased. “Ah, Lord Vieliessar, you’re wasted as a War Prince!”

“There will be Lightborn and servants in the camp,” Vieliessar said. “Harm none of them. Offer them sanctuary. Drive those who will not accept it far from the camp.”

She did not know, in the press of the fighting, whether Nadalforo had been successful or not. Just as it became too dark to see, she heard the Caerthalien warhorns signaling retreat, and the flurry of mockery from her own knights-herald in reply.

If Caerthalien retreats, it means I have won.

“Disengage!” she shouted into Bethaerian’s ear. Bethaerian shoved back her visor and raised her warhorn to her lips. The signal echoed around the field: as it was received, her knights stopped pursuing the enemy.

There should have been bright, cheerful torches, servants offering cups of mulled wine or tall tankards of ale, cloudy globes of Silverlight shedding their eldritch radiance over the camp and the battlefield. Instead, there was cold and darkness and the screaming of wounded horses. At least the Oronviel forces were signaling to disengage. He could be grateful for that much.

As more of Caerthalien’s knights rode to where the camp should have been—and wasn’t—Helecanth switched from sounding the retreat to sounding the call to muster. At last there came the welcome glow of Silverlight through the trees. Runacarendalur let out a long breath of relief. He had not thought his Lightborn would be harmed, but when he had seen what had happened to the camp …

The tale the returning servants and Lightborn told was as grim as the battle itself. Knights in Oronviel colors rode down on the camp as soon as the last of the Caerthalien knights had entered the battle. They struck down the guards on the horselines, and as some gathered the livestock together, others ordered all who wished to live to run for their lives. Then they drove the horses and oxen through the camp. The pavilions and their contents were wrecked. The few wagons of supplies—mostly grain for the destriers—were carried off.

“And Ladyholder Glorthiachiel?” Runacarendalur asked, his mouth dry with fear.

“Here.”

Her voice was brittle with rage, but Runacarendalur had never heard any sound so welcome. She was riding the destrier of some slain knight, with Carangil Lightbrother leading it.

“I think we can safely consider your betrothal to Oronviel at an end,” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel said waspishly. “Your betrothed is gone.”

“She ran away?” He’d seen Princess Nanduil only a handful of times—including his betrothal ceremony—and could not imagine …

“Had your witless komentai’a not ordered my guard to hold us both prisoner,” Ladyholder Glorthiachiel spat, “I might yet have preserved her for your wedding. But first we retreated—” the word was a vile curse in her mouth “—and then they died.”

“They let you go,” he said, light-headed with relief. Oronviel would have taken no prisoners to ransom.

“Yes!” she said. “If you can call it that when I was dragged from my own wagon and set afoot. They carried off the wagon and your annoying bride-to-be. And rather than await the next party of knights, Carangil and I made our way to the wood to await your victory and the return of my wagon. You do not seem to have brought me either.”

“Be grateful they spared your life,” Runacarendalur answered, relief transmuted to cold fury by fear of what-might-have-been. “Do you see among us here any swordless knights who left the field under parole? We fought without quarter. I do not yet know how many dead there will be.”

As the servants returned, he set them to picking through the wreckage of the camp to salvage what they could. There wasn’t much. Bedding had been trampled into muck, carpets and furniture were smashed and befouled, provisions were gone. He ordered Carangil Lightbrother to Call back their stolen livestock, only to be told such a use of the Light was not permitted, as it would constitute tactical aid to an army in battle. At least Carangil and the other Lightborn were willing to Call water, since the horses and their riders were thirsty, and fire, since there was no shortage of things to burn.

“Do you think they will attack again tonight?” Helecanth asked, as if she were speaking of a tribe of Beastlings and not the army of one of the Hundred Houses.

“I don’t know,” Runacarendalur said wearily.

It was full dark now. The battlefield was lit by globes of Silverlight: he could see Oronviel’s Lightborn on it, seeing if any survived. It was a small break with custom—the Lightborn did not enter a battlefield even when the day’s fighting was over—but it was a break. Another break. He did not have fingers and toes enough to enumerate all the ways Oronviel had outraged the Code of Battle today.

His own camp looked as much like a battlefield as the ground over which they’d fought. Exhausted knights clustered around a hundred small fires, sharing the contents of their wineskins and waterskins. Four days to our border. No remounts. No shelter. Nothing along our line of march, because we burned it all on our approach.

And worst of all, he’d lost two-thirds of the army.

There might be a few more survivors found by dawn. Half the servants hadn’t come back yet, after all. But as soon as there’d been Silverlight to see by, he and Helecanth had done a rough tally. Eleven hundred of Caerthalien’s komen had survived.

Far in the distance, Runacarendalur imagined he could make out the constellation of colored lights that was Oronviel’s—and Araphant’s and Ivrithir’s—camp. For a moment he was filled with the wild desire to fling himself upon Gwaenor’s back and ride madly toward those bright pavilions. To seek out hers, to put an end to her victory celebration, to put an end to this day.

To put an end to her.

“Stop pacing,” Thoromarth said. “Anyone would think we hadn’t won today.”

“A battle—not the war!” Vieliessar answered.

“And at Midwinter I would have said we could not do even that much,” Thoromarth answered. “Yet Caerthalien’s force lies broken and ours does not. More than that, I have my Nanduil with me again, little though she values that.”

Vieliessar had expected Nadalforo to bring her the livestock from the Caerthalien camp. She had not expected to be presented with a weeping and furious princess as well. “I suppose I should be grateful that Nadalforo didn’t slay Glorthiachiel of Caerthalien,” she said reluctantly, and Rithdeliel laughed, raising his cup in salute.

“Since you wish to avoid open war with Caerthalien for the present, yes,” he said. “Though frankly, were I Bolecthindial of Caerthalien, I should not regret her loss overmuch,” he added.

Vieliessar looked around her pavilion at her allies and those of her senior commanders who had remained following her victory celebration. Oronviel had won today, and even though they would fight again tomorrow—for she meant to harass Caerthalien across every foot of Oronviel’s land—they were entitled to a moment of rejoicing.

“Araphant fought with distinction today,” she said. “I thank you for the alliance, Lord Luthilion.”

Luthilion waved the compliment aside. “Your tactics were an astonishment to me,” he said mildly. “It is true, then, what Celeharth has always told me. There are always new things to be seen in the world. Araphant has little to offer you. But you shall have all that she holds.” He bowed without rising; the battle would have exhausted a knight far younger than he, and since Celeharth Lightborn had come from the Healing Tents, he had been attempting to get his Lord to seek his rest.

“You’ve taken enough blooded livestock to mount these ‘foot knights’ of yours, at least,” Rithdeliel said. “We’ll need to wait for dawn to get a true count, but the Healers say Caerthalien’s losses were heavy.”

“They were.” Thurion stood in the doorway, his eyes distant. “Lord Vieliessar, your wounded are tended. Our casualties were light. Many injured, few deaths.”

“I would have given odds against that when I saw the red pennion,” Thoromarth said.

“I knew when Caerthalien came against us they would seek to slay all they could,” Vieliessar said, gesturing to Thurion to enter. “Caerthalien will not rest until the last of Farcarinon is dead.” For an instant the years dropped away and she was a child once more, hearing her true name and her fate from Ladyholder Glorthiachiel in Caerthalien’s Great Hall.

“If you die, my prince, it is not today,” Thoromarth said.

“No, but—” She hesitated, on the verge of blurting out the thing that had happened. She shook her head. “No, I did not die today.”