“Indeed, I’m sure they are. Teneamus, brave Scholar.”
I jumped lightly up and over the fallen masonry that I had scarce been able to crawl over two hours previous and sprinted for the cloister. As I worked the shift, the boy closed the lighthouse door and the ivory light from across the garth winked out, plunging the ruined abbey and the world into a sea of night and winter.
Chapter 34
The battle had been joined at Dashon Ra. The earth itself had told me of the assault while I had purged myself of nivat in my sianou. And now my senses perceived the dread results. A cacophony of drums, trampling boots, and rage-filled cries blared about the ancient mine and its rugged approaches, and I smelled battle sweat and loosened bowels and warm blood dripping on consecrated ground.
The Harrowers threw themselves against Thane Boedec’s warriors like the raging sea against the cliffs of Cymra, only these cliffs were not formed of granite, but of five hundred brave men who knew they were outnumbered ten to one. Strung out in a long crescent about the rim of the vast bowl, they had bent at the first wave. Torches and magelights flared bright in the driving snow, lighting the way for the frenzied mob that raced steadily upward from the east. Gods preserve my erstwhile brother, I saw no sign of Bayard’s Moriangi. But the banner of Perryn of Ardra flew alongside the orange pennant of Sila Diaglou at the solid center of the assault. Their wedge had already driven Boedec over the rim and onto the downward slope to the mine’s dark heart where Osriel lay bleeding—preparing to become a blood-addicted shell like Voushanti in order to preserve Navronne.
“We’ll get you down there,” said Philo. With his faithful comrade Melkire, the ginger-bearded warrior crouched beside me atop the west rim of the ridge, where Renna lay below the rock-gate stair. “But we’d best be quick. Old Boedec is as strong as lords are made, but none were made to withstand such odds as this.”
Of course they weren’t. Such was Osriel’s plan. When Boedec’s line broke, the Harrower legions would rush down into the bowl of the mine—and into Osriel’s trap. Only Voushanti and a handful of soldiers would stand between the mob and our prince. At that point Osriel would have to act—to summon power for enchantment—whether the Canon had reached its climax or not. It would be a race to determine which happened first. My blood thrummed with the imminent change of season, and my stomach throbbed with the pounding of Harrower drums. And Osriel did not yet know that Kol could give him the power he needed.
I snugged the dark cloak Voushanti had left for me and raised the hood to hide my facial gards. Then the three of us scrambled down from our perch and slipped and slid downward between spoil heaps and broken slabs, through snarls of iron and rope, and under rotted sluiceways. After Melkire twisted his ankle in a trench, I led the way with my better night vision, while the two warriors guarded my flanks. Voushanti had pledged their lives to protect mine.
The oppressive horror of the souls’ prison had not waned. The music of this ravaged landscape was as frigid as the frost wind that pierced flesh and bone, and as dissonant as the clangor of weaponry from the approaching combat. Yet something had changed here since the morning. On my every visit, these prisoned souls’ pervasive, virulent enmity for all that lived had left me shaking and ill. But on this night, I felt only confused anger and an overpowering grief. What had happened to their hate?
The wind whined and swirled powdery snow into our faces. Philo crept under a dry sluiceway, peering around the rotting supports to ensure no Harrower flankers had sneaked so far around the pitted vale. He waved us through. After a long, shallow descent, we encountered Voushanti and his sentries posted about the rim of the pit, a steep-sided grotto the size of Renna’s Great Hall, ripped out of the core of the mine. The Center of Dashon Ra matched the Center of the Danae dancing ground.
“Merciful Mother,” I whispered when I gazed down into the pit, for surely this place was the inverted mockery of the Canon’s heart. Where, in Aeginea, wheels of light turned to the earth’s music, here a thousand calyxes sat upon the layered rocks and ledges that lined the walls of the grotto, each giving off a bilious glow. And with the stench of leprous decay speeded a thousandfold, a monstrous, corrupt magic shaped of human torment and royal blood poisoned the air and earth. Its source lay in the center of the pit, where a dark-haired man had been stretched and suspended facedown across the black, gaping mouth of some deep shaft or sinkhole. His wrists and ankles were bound to iron stakes driven into the rock. Wide bands of gold encircled his upper arms, smeared with the blood that ribboned his shredded back. Only slight jerking movements of his shoulders told me that he lived.
Recklessly, I galloped and slid down a crumbled, near-vertical stair, unwilling to take the long way around to the sloping cart track that led into the deeps at the north end of the pit. “My lord, I’m here,” I yelled. “You need not suffer this. Voushanti, get him out! Saverian!”
The mardane followed on my heels. By the time we skidded to the bottom and dashed to the sinkhole, Saverian was pelting down the cart path, arms laden with blankets and medicine bags.
Strips of cloth bound Osriel’s eyes. Tufts of wool stopped his ears.
I touched his hand. He jerked, the binding ropes squeezing blood from the raw wounds about his wrist. “Valen?” he whispered. “Tell me.”
Stretching my arm across the empty blackness, I yanked the tuft of wool from his ear. “Kol dances the Center,” I said softly. “The change of season is not yet.”
A quiet noise that might have been a sob caught in his throat. I did not release his cold hand. “Hurry!” I called to the others. “Get him out of this.”
Deep walls and howling wind muted the noise of the approaching battle. The mardane and his men slipped a wide plank under the prince’s torso and another the length of his body, supporting him as they unbound his limbs. Carefully they lifted him away from the gaping shaft and onto Saverian’s blankets, where he lay quivering, gasping for breath. I could not imagine the agony of his fevered joints.
As I slipped off Osriel’s blindfold, Saverian unstoppered a vial and pressed it to his lips. “Mother of life, Valen, I thought you’d never come,” she said.
“Get me up,” Osriel murmured into the blanket. “Help me into my armor.”
“You’re mad, Riel,” said Saverian, near tears as she sponged some potion on his lacerated back and peeled away his shredded shirt. “You must stay down until I stop this bleeding.”
“If I am not to share their fate, then I must lead them, at the least,” he said, drawing his hands underneath his shoulders as if to rise.
Their fate…He spoke of his prisoners. He had spent this day of torment listening to the dead.
Voushanti squatted beside us. “I’ll send down your arms, Lord Prince. Then I’ll deploy my line farther up the hill, as you commanded.” Osriel jerked his head, but Voushanti looked to me for confirmation. I nodded, and the warriors left Saverian, the prince, and me alone.
“Valen, would you give him—?” Saverian’s stopped breath made me look up. I had thrown back my hood, and she stared at me, blue sigils reflected in her dark eyes. I’d near forgotten my newest gards.
Smiling and rolling my eyes, I took the proffered flask. But she quickly averted her gaze, and even amid these matters of far more import, I selfishly wished she had not. I hated that she might think me some freakish creature.
While she prepared another potion, I helped Osriel sit up. I knew he needed to be on his feet to get his blood moving, to feel alive. Strength would come. He had reserves I could not imagine, and a physician unparalleled in any kingdom.
“Breathe a bit, get warm, and drink this nasty stuff,” I said. “Then I’ll help you stand. God’s bones, you look a wreck.” Gingerly I bundled blankets about his torn shoulders and helped him drink. His face was the color of ash, save for the bruises and blood.