Janny Wurts - The Curse of the Mistwraith

Lysaer dredged up energy to give a quick smile of reassurance. ‘Would you lead me to him?’

The boy brightened. ‘At once, your Grace.’

Together, they crossed the camp. The mist was thinning quickly now. Grooms stood in for tired messengers, since sorrowfully decimated horse lines left them short of duties. Some of the watch fires were doused. Between the leaning scaffolds of weapon racks and the comings and goings from the officers’ pavilions, patrols prepared to ride out. The nearer circuits would be quartered on foot, sound mounts being precious and few.

Lysaer assessed all with the sure eye of a ruler and where he made suggestions he was given deference and respect. He took care to acknowledge every greeting with a nod, a smile, or with names, if he knew the speaker: Pesquil’s young staff-runner was overwhelmingly impressed.

In subdued little groups, conversation underscored by the screeling hiss of busy grindstones, the veteran pikemen mended gear. A few commiserated over losses. Most others slept sprawled on wet ground, their blankets reapportioned first for litters and then used for pallets and rough bandaging. Past the phalanx of the supply stores, unloaded in haste from the wagonbeds and lashed under tarps by the carters, the racket and confusion of the night was subsiding. In sunlight, the green recruits who had seen their companions half-butchered or drowned were less driven to seek blind relief in scraps and hysterical boasting. Shrieks from the campfollowers’ tents raised in dissonance over the sobs of refugees from the west valley still deranged by terror of the dark.

The core of the army remained, Lysaer assessed. Carefully handled, these men could be reforged into a troop of formidable strengths. All he lacked was excuse to stay; already his authority was not questioned.

The wagon-train bound for Etarra formed up, its escort of fifty lancers in twitchy lines as men made last minute adjustments to tack and gear. One of the few banners not lost in the river flood flapped erect at the column’s head. Pesquil gave instructions with rapidfire gesticulations to the dispatch rider who would report to Lord Governor Morfett. A mule strained at its lead rein to graze, bearing a lashed bundle in city colours; Captain Gnudsog’s remains, to be interred in the mausoleum gardens reserved for the city’s most revered.

The rest of the wagons bore wounded, ones with privilege and pedigree foremost. The little space remaining had been allotted to men with irreplaceable skills or standing, and then grudgingly, to the staff and supplies needful for a slow journey home.

The cart draped in the Lord Commander’s horsecloths was easy to spot. Lysaer dismissed his young guide with a word of praise that left him blushing. Then he crossed the open ground, threaded past an ongoing, heated dispute and dismissed a hovering servant.

Lord Diegan lay under blankets, dark, untidy hair emphasizing a drawn face and eyes that wandered unfocused from soporifics not fully worn off. He murmured in question as Lysaer’s shadow fell over him, then settled as his sight recorded a sun-caught head of gold hair.

The prince said gently, ‘I am here.’

‘Your Grace?’ Diegan struggled with a fuzzy smile that dissolved into discomfort. He struggled painfully to concentrate.

‘Don’t trouble,’ Lysaer said. ‘I shall speak for both of us.’

‘We lost Gnudsog.’ The Lord Commander plucked at his blankets. ‘You knew that?’

Lysaer captured the wandering fingers and caged them in gentle stillness. Clearly, firmly, he said, ‘Pesquil has charge of the garrison. He’s got twenty good men left who will instruct on barbarian tactics. Enough men remain to finish our original intent. If you still want to destroy the Deshans, Strakewood’s springs will be poisoned and the game by the river shall be hazed and killed. With nothing to hunt, the few clan survivors will be starved out of the forest. The north will be cleared of such pests. No disaster such as happened by Tal Quorin shall visit these northlands again.’

Colour flushed Diegan’s cheeks in patches. ‘They say you’re staying with the troops.’

Lysaer smoothed the Lord Commander’s hand and let go. ‘I must. If I cannot bear arms, I will use my gift of light to safeguard our forays against sorcery.’

Weakly, Diegan cursed. ‘He survived then.’

The name of the Shadow Master hung unspoken between them as an answering grimness touched Lysaer. ‘We haven’t lost. The Deshir clans are finished, there will be no next generation. And your city now knows the measure of its enemy.’

Lord Commander Diegan shut his eyes. A frown pulled at his brows, and shadows of stress and fatigue seemed etched in the hollows of his bones. ‘This pirate’s bastard. You know we can’t take him alone. Without your gift of light, any army we send to the field would be ensorcelled and ruinously slaughtered.’

Lysaer weighed the wisdom of pursuing this subject with a heartsick man who was also drugged and gravely ill. Heavy between them lay the unspoken accusation: that Lysaer had sent Diegan into safety on Tal Quorin’s banks and by risking himself to the river had exposed them all to unconscionable peril. Aware that Lord Diegan had rallied himself and was watching in fragile-edged fury, Lysaer smiled. ‘I’ve had all night to ponder regrets. Here’s my promise. No more exposure on the front ranks for me. The next campaign you launch should be planned and executed to make use of every advantage. Years will be needed to prepare. I could suggest you have the headhunters’ leagues train the garrisons, then sharpen their field skills in small forays to eradicate barbarians. And when the army is readied and equipped to perfection, send out heralds to recruit allies. The burden should not fall to Etarra alone.’

Diegan shifted in distress. ‘You say nothing of yourself.’

‘I am royal,’ Lysaer said, his eyes clear blue and direct. ‘Once, you thought that a liability.’

Lord Commander Diegan swore explosively, then curled on his side in a spasm of wrenched muscles and bitter pain. ‘If I get Lord Governor Morfett to issue an invitation under the official city seal, would you stay?’

Lysaer smiled. ‘Do that, and I shall labour with you to mobilize cities the breadth of Rathain. Then we shall march upon Arithon s’Ffalenn, and we shall take him with numbers no sorceries can overwhelm.’

Lord Commander Diegan relaxed in his blankets, his eyes veiled in drug-hazed speculation. ‘I like your plan. Pesquil agrees?’

Lysaer laughed. ‘Pesquil made your scribes miserable jotting letters to headhunters’ leagues the breadth of the continent before our casualties were tallied.’ For Pesquil, the near total loss of his troop had been a sore point, alleviated by moody bursts of elation that, after feuding years and too little funding from city council, the Earl Steiven’s dominion over Strakewood had been decisively broken.

‘I shall have to buy manuscripts on strategy,’ Diegan said in mixed recrimination and distaste. ‘They’re longwinded and boring, I presume. Hardly entertainment for the parties.’ But fall season would be dreary as it was, with so many ladies forced to mourning. Diegan drifted for some minutes near sleep, while the prince, who knew far more about armies and the art of command than he, attended him in tactful respect. Finally, eyes closed, Lord Diegan murmured, ‘Come back to us safely in the autumn. My sister Lady Talith will be waiting.’

‘Tell her…’ Lysaer paused, gravely pleased, while the captain at the head of the column shouted orders, whips snapped in the hands of cursing drovers and carts began, groaning, to roll forward. Striding alongside Diegan’s wagon, the sun in his hair like sheen on the wares of a silk spinner, Lysaer spoke from his heart. ‘I’ll return to pay court to the lady. No Master of Shadow with his darkness shall be permitted to keep us apart.’