David Farland - Wizardborn

Jerimas offered cautiously, “You’ve been loath to make hard choices in the past. You’ve taken few endowments yourself, and you sought to spare Raj Ahten’s Dedicates. You have a good heart. But I fear that in war, a man’s conscience must be the first casualty.”

Gaborn stared up at the Wits. Moments ago, he’d seen their faces full of love. Now he saw them taciturn, hard.

He knew his father’s voice when he heard it.

“Without your full Earth Powers to guide you,” Jerimas said, “we must act swiftly. There are bribes to pay, mercenaries to hire, endowments to take, assassins to assign, weapons to forge, borders to fortify.”

Gaborn gritted his teeth. He did not want to fight his neighbors, but he knew that he was being backed into a corner. He might not have a choice. “What do you recommend?”

“You’ve already begun,” old King Orden answered through the mouth of Jerimas. “You did well to send Celinor to his father.

“Now we must send messengers to Internook, and hire up all of the mercenaries we can, lest Anders or some other lord beat us to it. With the combined might of Mystarria and the warlords, Anders will not succeed in gaining any support for his cause.”

Gaborn liked that idea. It would give him men to bolster his own defenses.

“Next we must deal with the Storm King, Algyer col Zandaros,” Jerimas said. “Your report says that he has already sent one assassin against you?”

“Yes,” Iome said. “He carried a message case with a curse attached to it.”

“We’ve had no hostilities with the Storm Lord lately. So I can only conclude that he acted against you based on lies spread by Anders or Lowicker. You’ll need to send a messenger to speak on your own behalf. Sue for peace, but prepare for the worst.”

“Agreed,” Gaborn said.

“Zandaros will feel slighted if you do not send a kinsman,” Jerimas warned. “It is the Inkarran way. The closer the kin, the better. Paldane would have been your best choice.”

Gaborn felt uneasy. It was a risky thing for any man to go to Inkarra.

The Storm King had an uneven temper. To Gaborn’s consternation, Jerimas’s gaze fixed on tome.

“I could go,” Iome offered quickly.

Jerimas nodded, as if that would be best.

But Gaborn stiffened. He sensed danger around her. “No, I dare not. I want you to stay beside me. We’ll send someone else, perhaps my cousin.”

“It will have to do,” Jerimas said. “I’ll consider the matter.”

Gaborn felt emotionally and intellectually depleted, even with all of his endowments. His weariness went beyond physical pain. His mind had been racing now for hours, for days. He closed his eyes. “I’ll leave you men to it. “Sue for peace and prepare our defenses. But send no assassins, make no preemptive strikes. Our battle—” He could not help but think of Binnesman’s warnings. His battle was not with men or reavers, but with Powers unseen. What did that mean? How could he fight the Powers? How could one defeat Fire or Air?

“Our battles are not with men or reavers,” Gaborn said. “I fear the battle cannot be won with sword or shield.”

At that, Binnesman looked up from his table where he’d been writing on the wylde. “You’re learning,” he said. “You cannot win this battle any more than you can hope to stamp out the fires of the sun or draw the air from the sky.”

All eyes turned to the wizard, with his stooped back and greenish skin. Jerimas asked, “What do you mean, we cannot win?”

“Simply that,” Binnesman said. “Our goal is not to conquer, merely to survive.”

That was it. Gaborn hoped to save his people, nothing more. Gaborn stood and stretched as the Wits began to talk animatedly, speaking first of lords to contact, fences to mend. He left them to their work.

Binnesman bent back over his wylde, continuing his preparation of her. He placed a twisted root upon the green woman’s forehead and began to chant.

Gaborn dared not disturb the incantation. Iome got up, and Gaborn went to the door. Iome followed behind him. Rain fell. As droplets blurred past the lighted doorway, they glowed briefly like golden ingots. Gaborn could hardly see the cottages hunched across the street.

A bead of sweat trickled down Gaborn’s left temple. Iome squeezed his hand, tried to comfort him.

“What’s wrong?” Iome asked.

“I sense...a rising danger,” Gaborn said. “I’d hoped my father’s Wits might help, but I suspect that none of their plans, no matter how cunning they seem...can change much.”

“You’re keeping me close on purpose,” Iome accused. “Do you sense danger toward me?”

“Nothing immediate. But...stay close to me.”

Erin brushed down her mount, fed it some rich miln. It would be a long ride tomorrow, heading north to Fleeds and beyond that to South Crowthen. The beast needed all the nourishment she could give it.

She looked forward to the journey, even if she feared that it would lead to an unhappy conclusion. Celinor’s father sounded dangerous. King Anders was plotting against Gaborn, and had concocted some scheme to show that Erin was the rightful heir to Mystarria’s crown. She suspected that she would have to confront the man.

Outside the stable, cool rain thundered out of the heavens. The scent of it hung heavy in the air and mingled with the sweet odor of horses.

After the battle at Carris, Erin found that she longed for the clean smell of rain and horses and the open field. The odor of battle, the decay at Carris, the images of men dying, thoughts of her father dead while Raj Ahten walked free—all preyed upon her mind.

She wanted to feel clean again. She wanted to stand in the autumn showers and let rain wash over her.

All evening in the inn, she’d been aware of Prince Celinor, watching her slyly every time she looked away. He’d done it on the ride north. He’d done it as she sat before the fire dwindling in the hearth.

He’d won her fair, she knew. Before the battle at Carris, he’d asked her to sleep with him if he saved her life. It was a clumsy attempt at courting. They were from different lands, with vastly different customs. He had no idea how to approach a woman of Fleeds. So she’d conceded to the spirit of his request.

He’d saved her life twice in battle, though he was too much a gentleman to remind her. Still, she could tell that he dwelt on those thoughts. Celinor worked on his mount, replacing a shoe on its left front hoof. He did not speak to her.

She went up into the stable’s loft. The straw there was warm, fragrant, and comforting. The roof didn’t leak. It kept the straw dry.

The stableboy had brought the Wits’ mounts in for the night. He finished feeding them and brushing them, then went home to sleep at last. She was alone with Celinor.

Celinor finished shoeing his charger. He went to the tack room to oil the leather of his saddle and bridle.

Erin crept up behind him, found a fine leather lead rope.

She slipped her rope over Celinor’s neck. He stiffened at its touch. She whispered, “Come with me.”

“What?”

She said no more, simply pulled the rope tight and laid it over her shoulder, guiding him toward the loft.

“Where are we going?” he asked. “What is the rope for?”

“In ancient times,” Erin said, “the horsesisters would claim a husband in the same way they would claim a foal. They’d tie him up and take him to the corral. It’s not often done that way anymore, but I’m a traditional girl.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Celinor said. “You don’t have to sleep with me. I mean...I saved your life twice today, but in case you weren’t counting, you saved me at least as often.”