Кэролайн Черри - Fortress in the Eye of Time

He fought to hold the sword, but he gripped its mortal weight, swung it into the heart of the light — the sword met insubstance, clove it, echoing, shrieking into dark as the silver burned and seared his hand.

The cold poured over him as Dys and Owl and he lost each other then. He spun through dark, nowhere, formless and cold. He had no will to move, to think, even to dream, nor wanted any.

“Mʼlord. Tristen, lad. Tristen!”

A horse gave a snort. He was aware of dark huge feet near his head. Of something trailing across his face, a horseʼs breath in his eyes. Of the world from an unaccustomed angle.

Of silence.

“Mʼlord.” Another snort. A thump and clatter of armor nearing him. He saw a shadow, felt the touch of a hand on his face, a hand that burned his cheek, it was so very warm.

Then strong arms seized him and tried to lift him. “Mʼlord, help me here. Come on, ye said yeʼll heed me. Come on. Come back to me, mʼlord. Donʼt lie to me.”

It was Uwenʼs distant voice, Uwen wanted help for something, and, obliged to try, he drew a deep breath and tried to do what Uwen wanted, which required listening, and moving, and hurting.

He saw Uwenʼs face, grimed and bloody, with trails of moisture down his cheeks, shadowed against a pearl gray sky. The air about them was so quiet, so very, very quiet he could hear Dys and Cass as they moved.

He could hear the wind in the leaves. The world…had such a wealth of textures, of colors, sights, shapes, sounds, substance…it all came pouring in, and the breath hurt his chest as he tried to drink it all.

“Oh, mʼlord,” Uwen said. “I was sure ye was dead. I looked and I looked.” He stripped the wreckage of the shield from his left arm; he moved the fingers of his right hand and realized that he still held his sword. The blade was scored and bright along one edge as if some fire had burned it away. The silver circlet was fused to the quillons and the hilt, the leather wrappings hung loose and silver writing was burned bright along its center. He tried to loose his fingers and much of the gauntlet came away as if rotten with age. The skin there peeled away, leaving new, raw flesh.

He struggled to rise, with the other hand using the sword to lean on, and Uwen took it from him and helped him to stand.

All the field was leveled where they stood. There were only bodies of men and horses, and themselves.

“We won,” Uwen said. “Gods know how, — we won, mʼlord. Umanon and Cevulirn took the hills and kept the ambush off our backs. Then the Amefin foot come in, Lanfarnesse showed up late, and the ladyʼs coming with the baggage. It was you we couldnʼt find.”

“Is Cefwyn safe?”

“Aye, mʼlord.” Uwen lifted the hand that held his sword. “See, His Majestyʼs banner, bright as day, there by the center.”

Tristen let go his breath, stumbled as he tried to walk toward that place shining in sunlight — the gray clouds were over them, but it was brilliant color, that banner, brilliant, hard-edged and truer than the world had ever seemed. A piece of his armor had come loose, and rattled against his leg, another against his arm.

“Donʼt you try,” Uwen said, pulling at him as he tried to walk. “Easy, mʼlord. Easy. Ye darenʼt walk this field, mʼlord. Let me get you up on your horse. I can do it.”

He nodded numbly, and let Uwen turn him toward Dys, who, exhausted, gave little difficulty about being caught. Uwen made a stirrup of his hands and gave him a lift enough to drag himself to the saddle. Then Uwen managed to climb onto Cass with a grunt and a groan, and landed across the saddle until he could sort himself into it: Tristen waited, and Dys started to move, on his own, as Cass did, slowly.

Around them, from that vantage, the field showed littered with dead — until it reached the place where he had lain; and after that the ground was almost clear.

“It stopped?” he asked Uwen. “The Wind stopped here?”

“Aye, mʼlord, the instant it veered off and took you, it stopped. Just one great shriek and it were gone, taking some of its own wiʼ it. And some of ours, gods help ʼem. Andas is gone. Soʼs Lusin. I thought you was gone for good, mʼlord. I thought I was goinʼ. I thought that thing was coming right over us. But Cass was off like a fool, and I come back again and searched, and I guess I just mistook the ground, ʼcause there ye was, this time, plain as plain, and Dys-lad standing over ye, having a bite of grass.”

He looked up at the pallid, clouded, ordinary sky.

“What were that thing, mʼlord?”

He shook his head slowly. For what it was, he had no Word, nor would Uwen. He turned Dys toward the place where Cefwynʼs red banner flew, and saw that Ninévrisëʼs had just joined it.

The land along the forest-edge and across the hills had become a place of horror, riven armor and flesh tangled in clots and heaps, wherever the fighting had been thick. Someone moaned and cried for water, another for help they were not able, themselves, to give. Men moved among them in the distance, bringing both, he hoped.

They came on a little knoll, a tree, and a dead horse. One man sat with another in his arms. They wore the red of the Guelenfolk.

Erion and Denyn. The Ivanim, wounded himself, held the boy, rocking to and fro, and looked up at them as they stopped.

“Come with us,” Tristen said gently. “We shall take you to the King.”

“I will go there soon,” Erion said faintly and bent his head against the boyʼs, with nothing more to say.

Tristen lingered, wishing there were magic to work, a miracle he dared do; but there was none: the boy was dead — and he would not.

He rode on with Uwen. He saw the Heron banner of Lanfarnesse and the Amefin Eagle planted on the nearer hill, the White Horse and the Wheel on the slope of the farther. They rode to the tattered red banner of the Marhanen Dragon, and the knot of weary men gathered about it.

They rode up among the Guelenfolk. He saw the faces of those about Cefwyn turn toward him. He saw hands laid on weapons. He thought that they did not know him, and lifted his free hand to show it empty…he saw Cefwynʼs face, that was likewise stricken with fear.

“Cefwyn,” he said, and dismounted.

Idrys was there, and caught at Cefwynʼs arm when Cefwyn moved toward him, but Cefwyn shook him off and came and took his hand as if he feared he would break.

“I lost my shield,” Tristen said, only then feeling his heart come back to him. “—And my helm. I donʼt know where, my lord.”

“Gods.” Cefwyn embraced him with a grate of metal. He shuddered and held to Cefwynʼs arms when he let go. “You fool,” Cefwyn said gently. “You great fool — heʼs gone. Aséyneddin is dead, his whole damned army has fled the field, or surrendered under mʼladyʼs banner! Come. Come. The rest of us are coming in. Pelumer is found…lost himself in the woods, to his great disgust…”

“It is no fault of his.”

“Holy gods, — Wizards. No, I knew it. Ninévrisëʼs had word of Sovrag; his cousin was wiped out, lost, and Sovrag couldnʼt pass upriver. A blackness hung over the river, and the boats lost themselves while it lasted…even so, theyʼve taken down the Emwy bridge. The rebels that did escape us wonʼt cross. — Gods, are you all right, Tristen?”

He flexed his hand, wiped at his eyes. “Iʼm very well.”

He walked away then. Uwen led Dys and Cass behind him.

He had no idea where to go, now. He thought he would sleep a while. True sleep had been very long absent from him.

— Emuin , he said, but he had no answer — a sense of presence, but nothing close. Possibly Emuin was asleep himself.

“Where are ye goinʼ, mʼlord?” Uwen asked. “Sounds as if theyʼll be bringinʼ the wagons in, if ye please. Weʼll have canvas ʼtwixt us and the weather. Sheʼs clouded up, looking like rain tonight.”