Mercedes Lackey - Crown of Vengeance

“What are you?” the Elfling whispered, his voice shaking with beautiful terror.

“We are death and pain and darkness. We are your masters,” Virulan said, smiling hideously. “Kneel.”

Virulan rose to his feet, his nostrils flaring as he inhaled sharply. He had grown used to the stink of soil and sun upon the flesh of new slaves over the centuries. But this was … different.

Irritating.

“No!” the Elfling shouted. He flung himself away from Rugashag, the tatters of his green robes swirling about his limbs. “I will never serve you! Never! ”

Rugashag laughed mockingly, spreading her wings and baring her fangs.

The stink Virulan had sensed grew stronger. He took a step forward.

“The simplest spell…” the Elfling whispered. Tears glittered in his eyes.

And then his body erupted in flame.

The Endarkened sprang back in surprise, though mere flame had no power to harm them. The captive began to scream in agony, and the sweetness of the sound held Virulan transfixed for a fatal moment. By the time he doused the flame with a spell, the captive was dead.

“I swear to you, my king, I would never—” Rugashag babbled, throwing herself to the floor in terror. No one else in the chamber dared to move so much as a wing.

“ Magic, ” Uralesse hissed. “The maggot-things have magic .”

“Yessss…” King Virulan said broodingly. “It is weak, compared to ours. But you did not know that when you brought me this Elven Mage, did you, my dear Rugashag?”

“I swear to you— My king— I swear—” she babbled, scrabbling backward, her mouth hanging open in horror.

“Indeed you do,” Virulan said. “Let us see what else you will swear—with the proper inducement.”

He gestured languidly, and two of the Lesser Endarkened came to bear his consort away.

His former consort.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE WAY OF THE SWORD

A commander is often faced with two bad choices and no good ones. One gains the victory by concealing that truth from the enemy.

—Arilcarion War-Maker,

Of the Sword Road

For days Vieliessar’s dreams had been troubled, filled with the clash of swords, the screams of the dying, images of a vast battlefield upon which thousands fought. When she drifted from sleep to waking, it took her long moments to realize that the sounds had followed her into wakefulness.

No battle should come here! she thought, scrambling through the narrow tunnel of her sleeping-place into the clearing. But that was custom, not law. Only the Sanctuary itself was sacrosanct. She kilted up the skirts of her green robe and ran toward the sound. She must see.

When she reached the edge of the Forest and looked out over the winter-bare fields of Rosemoss Farm, she saw that the fields were as yet unplowed and the snow that lay on them was patchy and thin. Empty. The sky was clouded, the air was heavy and wet, and she could smell woodsmoke. Somewhere a dog barked.

There is no battle, she told herself in exasperation. I have mistaken dreams for Farseeing, nothing more.

She was about to turn back into the trees when she saw a bright flash in the distance: pale sunlight on armor. She heard shouting and the mellow, demanding call of warhorns. A moment later she felt the faint trembling of the ground as it resounded to the beat of hooves. Destriers. Many of them.

The first of the riders thundered into view. She saw the white-and-silver of Penenjil—the grey stallions marking their riders as the feared Silver Swords of Penenjil, never defeated in battle—the tawny and gold of Enerchelimier, the tawny and marron of Calwas.

But the Silver Swords of Penenjil never ride to battle outside Penenjil’s lands—and Calwas has never made alliance with Enerchelimier in all the history of the Hundred Houses!

She barely had time to form her thought before their pursuers became visible. Purple and gold: Haldil, its House colors almost indistinguishable from the tawny and marron of Calwas. Deep blue and green: Bethros, barely distinguishable at this distance from Hallorad’s green on green. She knew the colors and blazons of all the Hundred—and she knew Haldil and Bethros to be enemies as often as allies.

There were perhaps a dozen who fled, and twice that number pursuing. When they reached the open field, the fleeing komen wheeled their destriers and stood to battle.

Vieliessar had read hundreds of songs of great battles but had never seen one. As if she were a songsmith, she marked how the bright blood slicked the silver blades, how droplets seemed to trail in the air after a blow. She heard the hard dull sound, like an axe upon wood, as a sword struck through armor into flesh, the high, ringing bell sound when it struck shield or blade instead. She saw destriers, mortally wounded, unhorse enemy knights and batter them to death upon the frozen ground, then fall, screaming in rage and pain as they disemboweled themselves in their frantic attempts to stand. Steam curled skyward from open wounds, as if the battlefield was afire. Blood pooled upon the earth and the thick metal scent of it filled the air.

Against all expectation, more wearing the colors of Bethros and Haldil fell than those they sought to slay, for the knights of Penenjil, Enerchelimier, and Calwas fought as if they were demented, drunk on the very blood they spilled. Vieliessar saw a knight of Calwas fling himself from his destrier’s saddle as it fell, grab the tack of a riderless mount caparisoned in Penenjil colors, and drag himself to its back.

This is what you were born for, she thought, even as she flinched at the screams of the wounded. This implacable conviction was a terrible, aching weight in her chest, the sight before her both horrible and exciting. Once she had dreamed of fighting upon such a battlefield. Then she had been trained to care for its survivors. There will be no survivors today, she thought. This was no formal combat, where the injured could throw down their swords and ride back to their own lines if they could not fight on. The knights upon the field before her would fight until they died.

And this—even this—might be some trick to lure me out of hiding, she thought furiously, for the time I have left with Lady Arevethmonion grows short, and Hamphuliadiel must be more subtle when I am in the sight of all.

As if her thoughts had the power to command reality, the Calwas knight she had marked turned his Penenjil mount from the field. The blood-maddened destrier reared and fought, desperate to rejoin the battle though it was bleeding from a dozen wounds. At last its rider prevailed, and the grey warhorse flung itself from the field.

Directly toward Vieliessar’s hiding place.

She stood her ground. Half in disbelief, half with the desperate need to Heal at least one of the injured. The grey’s rider had dropped his sword as he fought for control of his mount, and his armor was so slicked with blood that the bright metal looked as if it had been enameled.

Arevethmonion would be safety. Arevethmonion would hide him.

But when he was no more than a bowshot’s distance from where she stood, she heard a sound like the crack of an ice-laden tree limb. The destrier went down as if it had struck a tripwire, crashing to the earth so hard that it lay stunned for a moment, and Vieliessar could see the ruin of its shattered foreleg. Once more the knight managed to jump clear as the animal floundered desperately, trying to rise. He staggered to his feet, hesitated, then turned back to the destrier. He flung himself upon its neck, pinning it to the earth as he slashed its windpipe, and the great beast at last lay still.