Mark Sehestedt: The fall of Highwatch

"My orders," said Jatara, "are to bring you to the fortress. Alive. But I was not told 'unscathed.' Force me to chase you, girl, and I promise you, you will be… scathed."

Hweilan tumbled over the fence, grabbed her father's bow, and ran.

Raised in Damara among formidable citadels, Guric had come east to foster relations between his family and the High Warden. He expected these colonials to dwell in hovels of stone, scarcely finer than swept-out caves. How wrong he had been. Highwatch was not the most beautiful fortress he had seen, but in terms of martial defense, there was none finer.

From the watchtowers on a clear day one could see for a hundred miles into the open grassland. At Highwatch's feet, surrounded on all sides by cliffs, was the bowl-shaped valley of grass the Nar named Nar-sek Qu'istrade. The only way through the cliff wall was the narrow way of the Shadowed Path, where only a few horsemen could ride abreast. Even if half the Nar in existence had laid siege outside the Shield Wall, no large-scale charge could make it through the Shadowed Path, and with the Knights' scythe wings able to bring in supplies or drop flaming pitch on any besiegers, no army in Narfell could siege the fortress. As a knight, Guric had admired the fortress, perhaps even envied those who dwelled there, but it had not been home.

Until he met Valia.

Her family had fallen out of favor with King Yarin. Forced to flee their ancestral home with only what possessions they could carry, Valia's father had taken them into the Gap, deciding to take his chances against the goblin and ogre tribes of the mountains rather than wait for Yarin's forces to catch up with them. A third of their company died before they made it halfway, and they lost more daily to raids and the cold. Had Soran and his knights not found them and come to their aid, they would never have made it.

Homeless, branded traitors, with no wealth save what they had carried, Valia's family had begged protection from Vandalar. He granted it.

Guric, still in his first year at Highwatch, had been among the soldiers sent into the Gap to bring the refugees to Highwatch. Never had he seen such a pitiful sight. Frightened out of their minds, freezing, and half-starved, there was nothing aristocratic about the sorry company. It was hard to tell noble from servant. But one look at Valia, and Guric had eyes for no other. His heart was hers.

Later that year, when the storms lessened and messenger hawks could again make it across the mountains, Guric had written to his father, begging his blessing to marry Valia. His father had refused. Not just refused. Forbidden. His son and heir would not marry some vagabond outlaw's daughter. Their family could not afford such an affront to Yarin's authority. He demanded his son return at once.

Guric's final reply was short and to the point. He withdrew all claims to inheritance, lands, and titles. He would marry Valia and live, with honor, in Highwatch. The High Warden had not encouraged the decision, but he had accepted it and given Guric a place in the household.

Guric never heard from his father again.

He and Valia married, and for over a year, Guric had never known such happiness. He had something he had never felt before: a home and hope. He knew his place in the world and loved it.

But then came the fever. Most thought it had first started among the Nar, who lived in such scattered groups that it did little damage. But then people began to sicken in Kistrad. The healers and priests did what they could, and many recovered. But in the close confines of the village, it spread beyond their control. All the medicines of the healers and prayers of the priests could not stop it. Many graves were dug and pyres lit that year.

Valia's father's spirits had never recovered from the loss of his household. He was the first to sicken in Highwatch itself. And the first to die. The disease spread. There seemed to be no pattern. No distinction. The fever struck servants, soldiers, knights, and even the Warden's household. As in Kistrad, some recovered and some did not. To some, the prayers of the priests brought an almost instant recovery. To others, no amount of prayers, litanies, sacrifices, or medicines brought relief. The High Warden's wife was one of the lucky ones. Valia was not.

She sickened not long after her father. It struck lightly at first, and for a while the fever lessened. She was even able to leave her bed at times and sit with Guric upon their balcony that overlooked the little garden. But when her father died, the grief weakened her. Her mother had not survived their journey out of Damara. Her older brother had died defending them in the Gap. With her father gone…

"You're all I have left," she told Guric. Tears came at her words, and that night the fever returned with a vengeance.

She died nine days later.

Soran himself had prayed at her bedside, had offered sacrifices on her behalf, but all to no avail.

"I'm sorry," she said. The last words she spoke to Guric. She closed her eyes and fell into some dark dream from which she never woke.

Guric begged for Soran to perform the rites to raise her, but Soran refused, saying that if his prayers had failed to heal her, it could only be the will of Torm.

"Damn Torm's will!" Guric said.

"That's your grief talking," said Soran. "I forgive you. But don't do it again."

And then Guric had understood. He had thought Highwatch his home. He had thought himself a valued member of a proud and noble house. If not a son, then at least a beloved liege. But in that moment he saw it all for the sham it was. How could he have been so wrong? The Knights spoke of honor and truth and loyalty, of fidelity. But when it really mattered, when nothing else mattered more, it was all empty platitudes.

Guric could not return to Damara. He'd severed those ties. If he went back, he'd return as a beggar. And Guric would beg no more. He would seize what he wanted, and gods help anyone who stepped in his way.

It was Argalath, his favored counselor in his dealings with the Nar, who had first told him of other means to bring Valia back to him. Ways that the Knights would not smile upon. Older ways. Rites that the Nar had performed when they were a great people. But there would have to be sacrifices.

Guric had not balked and, in fact, seized on the notion. He began gathering Damarans who were disaffected with the rule of Highwatch, who felt themselves wronged at one time, or those who simply wanted more. Argalath found allies among the Nar.

Guric had placed his men well. Inside the fortress, they weren't many. The Damarans he could trust numbered less than a score. The Nar, mostly Creel gathered by Argalath, numbered almost a thousand. But they were camped outside the Shield Wall. Just as Guric had planned.

It brought the Knights out of the fortress. A third of the knights or more were out on their usual patrols. A scarce few remained at Highwatch. But the others, led by Soran himself, went to confront the Nar, whom they believed to be the usual winter bands who simply lingered too long. That many Nar gathered this late in the season…

Highwatch, which had once struck Guric with such awe, which he had once believed to be the most formidable fortress within a thousand miles, fell in a single afternoon.

"What are they doing?"

Guric heard the guard's question as he approached the main gate. Before the Damarans had come, this bit of the Shadowed Path had been unworked walls of solid stone. But in the years since, Damaran and dwarf craftsmen had hollowed out tunnels, halls, raised a thick wall at the entrance and exit, and built parapets along the cliff wall, both inside and outside.

The gate guards were all gathered around the doors, both the large main gates and the smaller postern door. Three of the ten had their faces pressed up against the small peepholes. None of the men turned at Guric's approach.