Darham spoke: "My brother-"

Cvinthil whirled on him. "Do not call me your brother, Corrinian, until you begin to act like one."

Darham dropped his eyes. He turned away from Cvinthil. Calrach cantered up and halted before his king. "My lord?"

Pa.s.sing a hand over his face, Darham deliberated. Cvinthil waited. At last the king of Corrin said: "Prepare for attack, Calrach. But be cautious. I suspect that there are adders among our corn."

"The Vayllens are indeed devious," said Cvinthil.

"Perhaps," said Darham bitterly. "But our crops do not lie in Vaylle."

A short distance ahead, the road rose and pa.s.sed through a range of low, rolling hills, then once more descended to the coastal plain. On the far side of the hills was a village that should have been taken first, but time did not allow for that; so Cvinthil sent his troops into the hills, there to lie hidden until the Vayllens could be surrounded, and Darham's phalanxes moved into position for a simultaneous a.s.sault on the village.

By the time the Vayllens came into sight at the crest of the low pa.s.s, there was not a trace of the Gryylthan and Corrinian forces. Even the baggage and supply wagons had been hidden. Sword in hand, Cvinthil waited behind the lip of a ditch with Darham, but doubts were still nagging at him, doubts that were increased by Darham's silent but obvious opposition. "You do not believe that they are our enemies, do you?" he said in an undertone. . "I would find another way than this."

The very words of Alouzon to Dythragor, once upon a time. Cvinthil was shaken, and he tried to sh.o.r.e up his crumbling convictions with his memories of what Vaylle had left of Bandon. To be sure, he had no great love for the town that had attacked him when he was in the company of the Dragonmaster, but the weapons that had been used against it were strange, inhuman: the mark of a people who were ruthless enough to slaughter sleeping men and women without remorse.

But was this not Cvinthil, king of Gryylth, who had carefully hidden his wartroops so as to better fall without warning upon an unwitting party of Vayllens? So as to better slaughter them without a fight? Was this what Vorya would have done? And what about Marrget?

He clenched his hand on his sword. Marrget was dead. They were all dead. Helwych had said so. Helwych had . . .

He looked at Darham. The Corrinian was waiting patiently. In the distance, his phalanxes were lying ready.

The Vayllens crested the pa.s.s and began to descend. There were no more than fifty of them, and they were traveling in a tight group as though in fear of an attack. Well, Cvinthil thought as the last Vayllen crossed into the killing zone, their caution would not save them.

The hills grew tense with imminent attack, and as though suddenly aware of the slaughter that was about to fall upon them, the Vayllens stopped. The white- haired man at the head of the party looked behind him. He called out, but his words were too faint to hear.

Cvinthil shouted for the charge.

The hills sprang alive with men and women. Swords slid out of scabbards with a shrill ring. Pikes rattled against one another. Shouts echoed Cvinthil's command. Within seconds, the wartroops were advancing on the Vayllens.

The old man looked up. He saw the men and women and weapons. His face turned sad.

But before the charge reached the Vayllens, before spears could be launched or warhorses could grind the apparently unarmed men and women beneath their hooves, a stirring went through the Vayllen party. From among the rich robes, gold jewelry, harps, and staves, a woman appeared. She looked worn and weary, and the braid in her ash-blond hair was dirty and frayed with days of inattention. But in her hand was a sword, she wore the leather armor of a Gryylthan warrior, and she carried herself as proudly as a queen.

Cvinthil was on his feet. He was running. He was screaming: * 'For the love of the G.o.ds, stay your weapons! That is Marrget of Crownhark!''

* CHAPTER 9 *

Relys drifted in a foggy haze of pain and violation. She had long ago lost any cognizance of day or night, was, in fact, no longer sure where she was, or even at times who. Such matters had been rendered meaningless by the utter reality of her circ.u.mstances: the hard pallet beneath her naked body, the faces-young faces of young men-bobbing above her with the rhythmic thrust of violent penetration and climax, the white hot pain of ma.s.s rape.

Afloat in a universe of b.l.o.o.d.y thighs and an inner pain that rose like a river in flood to engulf everything of what she had been, she gazed almost sightlessly at the ceiling above her, at the faces, at the floating phosphenes that swirled in her vision as she clenched her eyes with repeated torment; but she clung to the words that Kallye had spoken: A woman's power lies in change, and in patience, and in endurance.

Endurance.

Change had been forced upon her, patience was a thing unthought-of, but, fists clenched, jaw clamped shut against her screams, she endured. Her abdomen bucked and burned with each new entry, but she endured. Hours pa.s.sed. Days pa.s.sed, but she endured.

A woman's strength. Helwych had told the Guard in jest and irony to teach her what it meant to be a woman; and, in a way, Relys had indeed learned that. Entered, entered again, her v.u.l.v.a bleeding and raw as a fresh wound, she held to the midwife's words, held herself, held the tattered shreds of her mind and consciousness-and she gathered them all up and retreated at last to what small region of comparative oblivion lay deep within her, beyond the reach of the faces, the rapes, and the mocking laughter.

Thunder, suddenly.

She opened her eyes. The room was dark. Her wrists were still chained to the top of the pallet, and the thin mattress beneath her was soaked with s.e.m.e.n and blood and sweat; but she was alone, and she could hear, faintly, the sound of rain pattering on thatch, splashing on bare ground, running off roofs and eaves.

Endurance.

She forced herself to feel, to listen, to see. She forced herself to become aware of her body once more. She had been violated, invaded, forced repeatedly; but she was a woman: she would endure. Her pride had been battered and crushed, her very ident.i.ty shredded; but she was a warrior: she would fight.

The rain poured down on the thatch, drumming now softly, now fiercely. Lightning flashed, and she saw that the barracks was indeed empty. Her tormentors were, for the time, gone.

Why? The question rose automatically, the product of a lifetime of command and soldiery, but her body, with a deeper wisdom, raised its own: How long?

For a minute she struggled with herself, for despair was an open pit at her feet, one that beckoned invitingly and pointed the way into madness and oblivion. But her pride jerked her back like a strong arm, and Kallye's wisdom had become a litany of hope for her. Endurance.

She had nothing to lose by trying. Continued rape would be no more than a simple prolongation of what had gone before, and death would be a welcome release. Her thighs and belly were on fire with pain, her legs so bruised and strained that movement was an agony, but wincing, stifling her groans, she drew her knees up, set her feet against the filthy pallet, and pushed herself up until there was slack in the chains that bound her hands.

By the light of the low-burning fire in the corner hearth, she examined the fetters. Designed to shackle a man, they had been bent rudely inward so as to grip a woman's narrower wrists, but the one fastened at the base of her left hand was loose.

Painfully, gasping through clenched teeth, she pulled against it. The iron ring slid part way along her hand and stopped, but her flesh was slick with the rank sweat of pain and fear, and once she consciously relaxed, she managed to slide it completely off.

Trembling, she felt her face as though to rea.s.sure herself that, in spite of the horror and the degradation, she was still herself. Her fingers examined the features of a woman, slid down over a small, finely boned chin, touched a slender throat that, inside, was raw with suppressed shrieks.

She wanted to weep. She wanted to cry out. She did neither. Although within her was an edge of fear that surpa.s.sed even the sharp brilliance of the lightning outside, it vied against the calm skills of an embattled warrior and her newfound knowledge of a woman's strength, and as Relys examined the shackle on her right wrist, she felt a calmness returning.

But this iron had been bent more tightly against her flesh, and her hand would slide only a little way through before it caught.

Ears straining for the sound of returning guards, she dragged herself up and examined the band more closely. It had been pounded shut-no key on earth would free her-and she had neither hammer nor file. There seemed to be no way out: she would remain here, bound to the bed of her violation, until the men of the Guard returned and resumed their sport.

No. The thought hammered at her. No.

She looked up at the door. It was shut. There might be men waiting on the other side, but once again she had nothing to lose.

With an endurance born of the unendurable and a patience chipped out of walls of despair, she slid the fetter back, set her teeth to the base of her little finger, and began to gnaw.

Yyvas of Burnwood came as Senon of Bandon had come: exhausted, wounded, his body charred by what only Helwych knew to call napalm. When he staggered up the road to Kingsbury Hill the gate guards, frightened by his appearance, rushed him directly to the Hall, and the quick rumor of his coming and his wounds brought the other men from their barracks, their pleasures, and their duties to fill Hall Kingsbury and hear what he had to say.

Parts of his flesh had literally melted and fused under the deluge of liquid fire that had enveloped him, and Helwych was reminded strongly of Tireas's description of the man-Flebas was it?-who had accidentally touched the Tree. But his tale was even more alarming than his appearance.

"They came ... out of the sky," he gasped. "Roaring and shrieking. And there were cracks and roars . . . like ..."

Thunder shuddered along the roofs of Kingsbury. The rain poured down. Yyvas cowered. Several of his wounds still smoked in spite of the drenching he had received: the emblem of white phosphorus.

"Like that. . ."he managed. "And then there were hounds . . . like a flood ..."

Helwych started. Hounds? He controlled the hounds, and he had been keeping them away from the towns. By what improbable autonomy had they-?

He felt cold, and he did not have to remind himself to waver with illusory wounds as he shifted in his chair. "These . . . things from the sky," he said slowly. "Did you see them?"

"Lights only, master."

Dryyim prodded Yyvas. "The t.i.tle, hayseed, is lord."

"Let him be," Helwych snapped. Jets. Hounds. A sudden and s.a.d.i.s.tic attack on a small village of Gryylth. Shaken, he cast about in his mind, searching, wondering whether the dark recesses of his consciousness still belonged to him alone. Was that a flash of blue-black off there in the distance? Did he detect a faint echo of mocking laughter that faded even as he strained to hear?

"And there were others," Yyvas rambled on. "They walked like men, but their faces were gray and glistening, and they bore weapons that killed at a distance."

And the words rang in Helwych's memory: Stupid little Dremord fool . . .

It had not mattered, then. The Specter had not been stopped by the curtain wall. It might even now be closing in on Kingsbury, looking for the petty little sorcerer who had betrayed it.

Helwych fought down the sudden flare of panic. He had controlled the hounds. He could control the planes and the Gray faces, too. For now, he sent riders out into the storm to alert the garrisons and inform the towns that he was taking charge of the defense of the land. He did not bother with the formality of using Seena's name. The Guard knew who was running Gryylth, and the Guard would make sure that everyone else knew also.

Yyvas stared stupidly as the sorcerer parceled out tasks and orders. Eyes gla.s.sy, the man sat slumped in his chair like a tree struck by lightning.

"Go," said Helwych to his men. "Now. I will make other arrangements by myself, in private. If the Specter-"

He caught himself. Yyvas was staring. So were his men.

"If Vaylle wishes to attack," he faltered, "it will find out what kind of reply it receives. We shall meet sorcery with sorcery."

Even Dryyim was puzzled. "My lord," he said. "If you command such powers, why did you not go with our king?"

Helwych was tempted to slay Dryyim on the spot. "If I had gone," he said, "we would all be dead in our beds." He struck his staff on the ground, and the starburst of light made the men of the Guard stagger back a step. "Go. Now. "

But as the men fled into the night, Helwych wondered whether what he was doing would prove to be of any use. The Specter had been unaffected by the curtain wall. It might be unfazed by his most potent spell. After all, it had taught him all that he knew. Perhaps it had only taught him what it wanted him to know.

Stupid little Dremordfool . . .

What did the Specter do to those who betrayed it?

Helwych looked down at Yyvas. "Tell me," he said, "were there any survivors of Burnwood?"

Yyvas did not reply. Helwych realized that he was looking at a corpse, that his question had been answered.

Stupid little ...

He turned and ran from the room. He needed time. Time for plans. Time for magic.

Although exhaustion threatened to tumble them to the ground, the men and women of Alouzon's expedition insisted upon giving an immediate report to the three kings. Cvinthil listened attentively, and though he judged that Darham and Pellam were as distressed by the condition of the members of the party and unsettled by the tale that they told as he himself, still his own emotions were exacerbated and deepened by the stark knowledge of his own part in the workings of entrapment and betrayal.

A fool. An utter fool.

It was dark by the time that Martha, who had shocked the men of Gryylth and the women of her own wartroop with her new name, her braided hair, and her attachment to Karthin, finished with a description of the ruins of Mullaen and the frenzied ride to Lachrae. The man she now freely called her husband stood by her, his thumbs hooked in his belt, nodding slowly as she spoke. Her hand had slipped into the crook of his elbow midway through her speech, and before she was done, Karthin had covered it tenderly with his own.

Dumb horror had, long before, rooted Cvinthil in his chair, but Darham stood and bowed deeply to Manda. "To attack six to save one comrade was a brave deed, and ..."

Manda and Marrha exchanged glances that said that there was more to their tale than had been told. But the maid of Corrin only mustered a sad smile. Marrha nodded in return, then looked away, wiping her eyes with a dirty arm.

"... and the odds and weapons you faced made it all the more valiant." Darham bowed again. "I am proud that you are my countrywoman, and proud also to call you a captain of my Guard, and my friend."

Several men of the Corrinian Guard cheered and whooped, and the Gryylthans murmured in approval, but the Vayllen harpers and healers looked bewildered. They had been obviously disturbed by the appearance and behavior of their own high priestess, and now, surrounded by these strangely polite and gentle warriors who had, a few hours before, been bent upon killing them, they were awash in confusion.

Manda blushed. "My thanks, my king. I ..." Groping, she reached out and took Wykla's hand.

Smiling and extending his arm, Darham turned to Wykla, but she only bowed and withdrew slightly. Darham stood for a moment, nodded slowly, and resumed his seat.

"They are all valiant," said Cvinthil softly. Be- trayed and betrayed again. And not just by Helwych, but by his own heart. Would Vorya have been so swayed by the wheedling voice of a boy sorcerer? "They fought against their own wounds and weakness to warn the people of Vaylle, so as to keep us from doing a great wrong."

Marrha had hung her head, and now she leaned close to Karthin and murmured to him. The big man bowed to the kings. "Lords," he said. "I would take my wife to bed. She is with child, and she needs rest."

Cvinthil blinked. Pregnant, too? At the front of the warriors who had gathered to listen, the women of the First Wartroop looked at one another in confusion, but Pellam nodded understandingly. "By all means," he said. "Rest has been delayed too long." He stood, regal and white-haired, the campfires flickering on the gold and silver embroidery of his robe and cloak. "To bed," he said. "All of you. Let those of us who have strength bear your burdens for a time.'"

The members of the party bowed and allowed themselves to be led away to the blankets and cushions prepared for them. Dindrane, though, remained at the edge of the firelight as though she had not heard. Indeed, she looked so worn that Cvinthil thought that quite possible.

Pellam regarded her for a time, then, limping, he went to her and took her gently in his arms. "As all my children are precious to me," he said softly, "so are you precious. 'Tis little I care for appearances, or for change. You are safe, and alive. I grieve for Baares, but I rejoice for you."

"I . . ." Dindrane shook her head, blinked at the harpers, could not meet the eyes of the healers. "I have seen too much, my king."

He rocked her like a child. "Peace."

Kyria appeared. Her eyes were dark with fatigue, but she smiled and offered a hand to Dindrane. "Come, sister. You saved my soul and my life both. Now let me help you to bed."

Cvinthil looked up. "Saved your soul, Lady Kyria? You said nothing of that."

Kyria straightened, met his gaze. "It would be ill to speak of it, lord," she said softly. Her courtesy was perfect.

Marrha had, freely and joyfully, embraced her womanhood, a husband, and a child. Wykla and Manda had fallen deeply into a love that any man and woman might envy. And Kyria had turned from a raging demon into the epitome of gentleness and power. "You have . . . changed, my lady," said Cvinthil.

Kyria smiled thinly. "I have indeed. We all have changed. Some found peace, others a horror that led to peace." She curtsied deeply. "My liege, my powers are at your command. Call me at need." Pellam put Dindrane into her arms, and she led the priestess away.

Cvinthil hung his head. "And do all who come to Vaylle grow in wisdom?" he murmured. "Then perhaps it is good for Gryylth that I have proven such a fool."

Darham had not uttered a word of accusation or shame, but it had not been necessary: Cvinthil was unstinting in his self-reproach. But now the Corrinian put a hand on Cvinthil's arm. "Brother," he said, "do not torment yourself.''

Cvinthil lifted his head, eyes flashing. "Do not torment myself? Tell me, then: who shall be tormented? My wife and children? My people? My land? The captain and lieutenant I left at the mercy of a possessed sorcerer and a pack of bigoted soldiers? Who shall suffer in my stead?"

"Enough," said Pellam. "The question at hand is not what we have done, but what we shall do." He looked at Cvinthil, and the Gryylthan king suddenly felt himself the object of an examination as penetrating as any that Vorya had ever offered. "Are you satisfied, my friends ..." Pellam paused meaningfully. "... that Vaylle is innocent?"

Darham nodded. "More than satisfied. But Broceliande, given Marrg-" he caught himself, smiled. "Given Marrha's description, the spirit that dwells beyond the Cordillera cannot be fought with ordinary bronze and steel. And even Alouzon Dragonmaster and Kyria were daunted."

"Alouzon is gone," said Cvinthil. "And Kyria admits that she cannot do again what she did once." He shrugged. Despair, horror, and shame fought against his devotion to duty. He had to do something. But he had no idea what.

Pellam spoke. "I am no warrior, good sirs. Tis a priest and a ruler I am. But as much as your people learned from us, so did we learn from Alouzon and her companions. The lessons were painful, and not all of us have accepted them, but ..." His eyes were wise and deep. "... the G.o.ddess and G.o.d give us abilities commensurate with our tasks."

Cvinthil shook his head. What good could five hundred warriors do against a Specter that could defeat a Dragonmaster and a sorceress?

But Pellam continued. "That Kyria and Alouzon accomplished something is unquestionable, for since they entered Broceliande, the random attacks on the people of Vaylle have decreased. Hounds still prowl, but they are fewer. Much fewer. And no Grayfaces or flying things have been sighted for some time. Indeed, the main conflict . . ."He paused at the word as though examining an unpleasant taste. "... appears to be behind you; in Gryylth. I would therefore counsel that we learn something of the nature of the barrier that has been erected about your lands, and from that perhaps we can judge how you might return home to deal with the threat there."

Darham folded his hands, nodded. "I hear you and agree."