Word spread.
In its wake came wild cheers and cries of grief.
“Go,” Tanaros said harshly, shoving Ushahin, “Take what remains of the Helm back to Darkhaven, Dreamspinner! You will do more good there than here.” He found his mount without looking, mounted without thinking. He reached out his hand, and someone placed a helm in it. A mortal helm, made of mere steel. He clapped it on his head, his vision narrowed but unchanged.
Four Borderguandsmen had dismounted. One removed his dun-colored cloak, draping it over the body of Blaise Caveros. Together, they lifted him with care and began walking from the field. Tanaros let them go unmolested.
Aracus Altorus pointed at Tanaros with his sword. “You seal your own fate, Kingslayer. Haomane help me, I will kill you myself, enchanted blade or no.”
Tanaros gave his bitter smile. “You may try, Scion of Altorus. I will be coming for you next.”
Malthus the Counselor lifted his head, and the sorrow in his eyes was deep, deep as the Well of the World. But from a scabbard at his side, he drew forth a bright sword of Ellylon craftsmanship. The clear Soumanië on his breast blazed and all the horns of the Rivenlost rang forth in answer at once. Against the silvery blare of triumph a lone horn sounded a grieving descant, the tones intermingling with a terrible beauty.
From Darkhaven, silence.
When the Helm of Shadows is broken …
Tanaros exchanged a glance with Hyrgolf, saw the same knowledge reflected in his field marshal’s gaze. He thought of the crudely carved rhios in Hyrgolf’s den. Not bad for a mere pup, eh, General?
Hyrgolf smiled ruefully, extending one hand. “For his Lordship’s honor, Lord General?”
Tanaros clasped his hand. “For his Lordship’s honor.”
On his order, the army of Darkhaven charged.
Meronil was filled with the sound of distant horns.
Lilias of Beshtanag stood before the tall windows in her tower chamber, opening them wide onto the open air to catch the strains of sound. Throughout the day, it seemed they blew without cease.
The clarion call of challenge she heard many times over; and the undaunted call of defiance. Once, there was a peal of victory, brief and vaunting; but defiance and a rallying alarum followed, and she knew the battle was not ended.
This was different.
Triumph; a great triumph, resonant with joy, and a single note of sorrow threaded through it. Haomane’s Allies had won a great victory, and suffered a dire loss.
Lilias rested her brow on the window-jamb, wondering who had died.
She had been a sorceress, once; the Sorceress of the East. It was the Soumanië that had lent her power, but the art of using it she had mastered on her own merit, guided by Calandor’s long, patient teaching.
It could not be Aracus Altorus who had fallen. Surely, she would sense it through the faint echo of the bond that remained, binding her to the Soumanië he bore. What victory had Haomane’s Allies won, and at what cost?
A longing to know suffused her. Lilias clenched her fists, lifting her head to stare out the window. Below her the Aven River flowed, serene and unheeding. Around the tower, the sea-eagles circled on tilted wings, mocking her with their freedom. She hated them, hated her prison, hated the rotting mortal confines of the body in which she was trapped, bound tight in the Chain of Being.
Closing her eyes, Lilias whispered words of power, words in the First Tongue, the Shapers’ Tongue, the language of dragons.
For a heartbeat, for an exhilarating span of heartbeats, her spirit slipped the coil of flesh to which it was bound. She was aware, briefly, of the Soumanië—Ardrath’s Soumanië, her Soumanië—set in the pommel of Aracus Altorus’ sword, the hilt clenched tight in his fist. She saw, briefly, through his eyes.
Blaise, dead.
The Helm of Shadows, broken.
And war; carnage and chaos and war, Men and Fjel and Ellylon swirling and fighting, and in the midst of it Tanaros Blacksword, Tanaros Kingslayer, the Soldier, looming larger than life, coming for Aracus astride a black horse, carrying a black blade dripping with Blaise’s blood, a blade capable of shearing metal as easily as flesh.
No longer did it last, then Lilias was back, huddled on the floor, exhausted and sickened, trapped in her own flesh and weary to the bone. She saw again Blaise Caveros’ body, limp and bloodied; felt Aracus’ terror and determination, the desperate love that drove him. She remembered how Blaise had told her to look away when they passed what remained of Calandor, how he had forbidden the Pelmarans to desecrate the dragon’s corpse. How Aracus had shown her Meronin’s Children aboard the Dwarf-ship and treated her as an equal.
It was hard, in the end, to hate them.
“Calandor,” she whispered. “Will you not guide me once more?”
There was no answer; there would never be an answer ever again. Only the echo, soft and faint, of her memory. All things musst be as they are, little sssister.
All thingsss.
Lilias rose, stiff and aching. The horns, the horns of the Rivenlost were still blowing, still rising and falling, singing of victory and loss, of the glory of Haomane’s Prophecy and the terrible price it exhorted. And yet it seemed to her that beneath it all another note sounded, dark and deep and wild, filled with a terrible promise. It reminded her of her childhood, long, long ago, in the deep fastness of Pelmar, where Oronin the Glad Hunter had once roamed the forests, Shaping his Children to be swift and deadly, with keen jaws and amber eyes.
It sang her name.
Over and over, it sang her name.
“So be it,” Lilias whispered. A weary gladness filled her. The stories that were told in Pelmar were true after all. That was his Gift; Oronin Last-Born, the Glad Hunter. She was mortal, and she was his to summon.
She could resist his call, for a time. Hours, perhaps days. She was the Sorceress of the East and her will was strong. It might be enough to tip the outcome on the battlefield … and yet, in her heart, she no longer believed it. The Helm of Shadows was broken. The things that Calandor had shown her were coming to pass, and while the world that followed might not be the one that Haomane’s Allies envisioned, surely it would be one in which there was no place for Lilias of Beshtanag.
It would be a relief, a blessed relief, to slip the coil of mortality forever. She had tried. She had cast her die and lost, but it did not matter. Not in the end. Whether Haomane’s Prophecy was fulfilled or thwarted, there was no winning for mortals in the Shapers’ War.
And on the other side of death, Calandor awaited her.
There were things even the Shapers did not know.
Lilias embraced that thought as she climbed onto the window seat. She swayed there, leaning forward and spreading her arms. It was a clear day in Meronil, the white city sparkling beneath the sun. The wind fluttered her sleeves, her skirts. A sea-eagle veered away with a harsh cry, making her laugh. Far, far below, the silvery ribbon of the Aven River beckoned, flowing steadily toward the sea.
It was a relief, a blessed relief, to lay down the burden of choice.
“Calandor!” Lilias cried. “I am coming!”
She stepped onto nothingness and plummeted.