“Options?”
“The Realm is not the Realm without a monarch. And in a time of chaos people will look to the strongest man for leadership, regardless of blood or station.”
Vaelin studied the man’s face, wondering if some fresh design lurked behind his eyes. “More honest and unselfish intent, brother?”
“Merely the observations of a well-read man, my lord.”
“Well, confine your observations to those subjects I ask you to consider.” He moved to the map table, his eyes picking out Alltor, the blood-song flaring as it always did whenever his thoughts turned to Reva. Recently there had been a change in the tone, an ominous counterpoint to the usual compulsion. They come for her, he decided. And she won’t run.
“The population of Alltor?” he asked Harlick.
“The King’s census ten years ago put the total at some forty-eight thousand souls,” the brother replied without hesitation. “Though, in times of siege it could be expected to double.” He paused. “That’s where we’re going?”
“As fast as the men can stand it.”
“The distance . . .”
Vaelin shook his head. “Is immaterial. We march to Alltor, even if it’s only to survey a ruin. That’s all for now, brother.”
Four days’ march saw a dark uneven line appear on the horizon. It thickened as they marched, growing into a great wall of trees, stretching away on either side as far as eyes could see. Vaelin ordered the army to camp a half mile short of the forest and bowed to Dahrena. “Allow me to escort you home, my lady.”
Nortah guided his horse closer, Snowdance padding alongside. “We should go too,” he said. “The sight of a war-cat may ward against anger at your intrusion.”
“It’s more likely to provoke it,” Dahrena told him. “In any case, my people will not harm us. I’m sure of it.” Vaelin detected a wariness to her gaze as she eyed the forest, indicating a lack of conviction in her own words.
“If you don’t return?” Nortah asked.
Vaelin was tempted to offer a flippant response but seeing Dahrena’s unease decided on a reasoned reply. “Then I name you as my successor, brother. You will lead the army back to the tower and prepare against siege.”
“You imagine these people will follow a simple teacher?”
“A teacher with a war-cat.” Vaelin grinned and spurred Flame into motion.
The blood-song swelled as they neared the forest edge, not in warning, but welcome. It subsided to a soft contented note as the trees closed in around them, the air cool and musty with the myriad scents offered by all forests. Dahrena reined to a halt and dismounted, her face raised to the canopy of branches, eyes closed and a faint smile on her lips. “I missed you,” she said softly.
Vaelin dismounted and left Flame grazing on a patch of long grass, his eyes scanning the trees and finding a man standing between two elms, watching him with a deeply furrowed brow.
“Hera!” Dahrena gave a joyous yelp and ran to the Seordah, jumping to embrace him.
The man seemed less joyful as she drew back, his smile of welcome strained. His hair was long and streaked with grey, swept back from a hawk-nosed face stirring Vaelin’s memory.
“Hera Drakil,” he said, moving towards the man. “Friend to Tower Lord Al Myrna. I . . .”
“I know who you are,” Hera Drakil said, his accent thick but clear. “Beral Shak Ur, though I had hoped to be hunting in the dream age when your shadow fell on this forest.”
“I come with friendship . . .”
“You come with war, ever the way with the Marelim Sil.” The Seordah laid an affectionate hand on Dahrena’s cheek and turned away. “Come, the stone waits.”
There were a dozen Seordah chiefs waiting, five women and seven men, all of an age with Hera Drakil who sat in their centre of their line. He had led them to a small clearing some miles into the forest, in the centre of which stood a stone plinth. The shape and height of the stone reminded Vaelin of one he had seen before, although whilst the stone in the Martishe had been overgrown with weeds and creepers, this was free of any vegetation, the carved granite seemingly unmarked by age or weather. In the trees beyond he could see many other Seordah, faces concealed in shadow, but he made out bows and war clubs amongst the shifting silhouettes. Warriors, he thought. Waiting for something.
Vaelin and Dahrena sat before the dozen chiefs, finding no welcome in any gaze. One of them said something, a woman with a crow feather in her hair.
“We give you no leave to enter,” Dahrena translated. “Yet here you are. She asks for a reason why they shouldn’t kill you.”
“I come to seek your help,” Vaelin replied as she related his words to the chiefs. “A great and terrible enemy has attacked my people. Soon they will come to the forest, bringing fire and torment . . .”
Hera Drakil held up a hand and Vaelin fell silent as the Seordah spoke in his own language. “Your people could not take this forest from us,” Dahrena related. “Though they tried. Why should we fear these newcomers when we do not fear you?”
“My people saw wisdom in making peace. Our enemy has no such wisdom. Ask your sister, she has seen their hearts.”
The chiefs’ gaze turned to Dahrena who nodded and spoke at length in the Seordah tongue, no doubt relating what her gift had revealed of Varinshold’s fate and the Volarians’ nature.
“You face a cruel foe indeed,” she translated when one of the other chiefs responded to her tale, a wiry man with a foxtail hanging about his neck. “But it is your foe, not ours. The wars of the Marelim Sil are their own.”
Vaelin paused, pondering how best to phrase what he hoped would silence their doubts. “I am named Beral Shak Ur by Nersus Sil Nin. I tell you true that I have seen and spoken with the blind woman. She has blessed the course of my life. Can any here claim the same?”
He saw some flickers of uncertainty on the faces of the chiefs, but no shock or fear, and certainly no change of heart.
“If the blind woman blesses you,” Dahrena related the words of Hera Drakil as he pointed over Vaelin’s shoulder, “she will hear you now.”
Vaelin turned, regarding the stone for a moment then getting to his feet. “You don’t have to.” Dahrena moved to his side as he approached the stone, looking down at the smooth flat surface with the single perfectly round indentation in the centre. “Let me talk to them. With enough time, they’ll listen.”
“Who am I to deny them a show?” he asked. “One I suspect they’ve been expecting for a long time.”
“You don’t understand. Seordah have been coming here for generations, usually the old and the sick, some the mad. All come to touch the stone and seek the blind woman’s counsel. Most just touch it, wait for a time then leave disappointed, but some, only a very few . . . Some it takes, leaving their bodies empty.”
“Except you,” he said. “You said you had seen her.”
“After my husband died . . .” Her eyes went to the stone, clouded with sorrowful remembrance. “My grief was such I didn’t care if I lived. I came here in search of some kind of answer, some reason. If that was denied me then I would happily accept death. The blind woman . . . She showed me something to live for.” Her hand reached out, hovering over the surface of the stone. “It put me back in my body, because she willed it.”
“Then,” he said, stepping closer. “Let’s hope she finds me similarly worthy.”
The granite was cool under his palm, but he felt no other sensation, no change in his song, but when he looked up Dahrena and the Seordah were gone. It was night and a woman sat at a fire, face turned away from him but he knew her instantly. “Nersus Sil Nin,” he greeted her, walking to the fire. She was older than he remembered, lines deeply etched into the flesh around her red marble eyes, her hair entirely white. She blinked and glanced up at him.
“You’re older,” she said. “And your song is stronger.”