and Tharidor have served summons on the outlying villages,’ Sidir disclosed, as the shadows lengthened towards sundown. His penetrating glance met Elaira’s frown and prompted more irritable commentary. ‘Sieges don’t need every hand trained to fight. The officers will take farm-steaders for digging ditches and hard labour. They’ll work every hand they can find to speed the construction of rams and assault engines. Grief will scarcely stop there. Women will be forced to serve with the cooks, and daughters for laundresses and camp-followers.’
His dire prediction encompassed the worst. The roadway would stay relentlessly jammed with the tramp of armed enemies. Rapacious horsemen also would sweep the hills, stripping the country-side of game and fodder.
‘Then let me lay wardings,’ Elaira insisted, a hand on Sidir’s wrist as he bridled. ‘I know other ways. Means that lie outside of Koriani doctrine. A hedge witch once taught me her bundle of skills as repayment for curing her grandchild.’ When the clansman’s tension failed to unwind, she was moved to rare anger. ‘Then what would you do? You are not in hale shape! Or haven’t you noticed you’re sweating a fever, with leaking sores that have festered? We’ll handle this here and keep you on your feet. Or else, of course, we’ll move on as you wish, until you keel over from sepsis. Make your choice, stubborn man. Lie down for this, now, or wait like a fool, until you’re raving and prostrate.’
Sidir’s glower melted into a flush, followed up by his soft laughter. ‘Did I say you’re well matched for my prince’s hot temper?’ Reliably steady, he shrugged, contrite, and stripped off his shirt and breeches.
Elaira made a small, smokeless blaze and mixed her concoction of simples. Though the remedies stung without use of her spells, her charge endured the full course of her treatment. By twilight, the deep-set infections were lanced. She wrapped up the scabbed flesh at ankles and wrists using salves that would draw down the swelling.
‘I could not sleep, before,’ Sidir confessed, his piercing glance fixed on Elaira’s deft hands as she secured the last dressing. ‘The pain was the goad that kept me alert. Now I fear I’ll nod off standing watch.’
‘Leave that part to me for tonight.’ The enchantress arose, dusting leaves from her lap. She would fetch four rounded stones from the streamlet that wound through the gulch where they sheltered. Given rock that was willing, she could bind an entrainment that would turn away venturesome foragers. Darkness always lent force to such spells. Even dogs should move past without scenting their campsite.
By nightfall, the Companion was deeply asleep, likely his first sound rest since the harrowing choice to fare south in captivity. The wood kept its peace. Ripe with the tang of on-coming frost, alive with the rustles of field-mice, the thicket his instincts had chosen provided the semblance of a secure shelter.
For Elaira, the seclusion permitted the chance for another tranced scrying. Sidir did not rouse when she retired to the mossy bank of the stream. Afraid for Jeynsa, and anxiously fretting the hazards of the open road, the enchantress engaged her disciplined skill to open her inner awareness. Her mind settled, then stilled. The reactive nature of water enveloped her. She let herself flow with the grace of the element, poised between thought and intent.
The moment did not unfold without incident: wild as wind, subtle as the scent of a flower, a welcome arose and embraced her. Touched by a tenderness beyond all words, she immersed in sweet silence until her breath caught with ecstatic delight. At long last! The enchantress encountered the presence that answered her aching heart.
‘Elaira, beloved,’ Prince Arithon sent.
A flood of sensation enlivened his words: of fire-light, and camaraderie, and air that smelled of goose grease, tanned leather, and tallow smoke. He sat in the comfort of a clan lodge tent, where the warm, southern wind wafted the tang of pine resin. Struck through by a sweet bolt of joy in reunion, Elaira soaked in the details: the Teir s’Ffalenn was at large within the free wilds of Alland. His guarded chagrin meant he would be a guest of the hard-bitten High Earl, Lord Erlien s’Taleyn. That powerful, combatively capricious man served as caithdein to the Kingdom of Shand …
The roisterous gathering called in for his counsel included two Selkwood chieftains, a clan grandame whose talent was healing, and an aggressive company of scouts. The captain of Selkwood’s war band presided, a slit-eyed panther hunched over a trestle, buried layers deep in maps. The discussion at hand was raid tactics, and the nascent fire riding the air meant divisive contention. The High Earl watched the sparring like a satisfied bear, chaos being his element. His avid glance gleamed, eager to see how his visiting royalty would field the heckling debate.
Arithon perched to one side on a hassock, deceptively calm, while the argument flurried about him. He had changed his borrowed leathers for the grey robe and sash given by Sanpashir’s tribesman. His hands were laced over his drawn-up knees, the nonchalant pose in striking contrast to the edgy young liegeman who stood at his back. Kyrialt carried both targe and sword, tense enough to pounce on all comers.
‘It’s the mouse fallen into a den of stirred adders,’ Arithon agreed, sharing Elaira’s dismayed assessment. ‘Already, fangs have been sunk deep in fur. They’re only stumped now out of contrary irony and an embarrassing conflict of honour.’
The enchantress grinned, secure as observer, couched in her distant glen. ‘They’ve forgotten the range of your initiate talents? Don’t say they believe the stacked odds set by numbers makes their brash challenge unsporting?’
‘Well, Erlien’s not fooled.’ That statement came through with flint-edged delight as Selkwood’s bearded war-captain banged a cantankerous fist on the planks, then assailed his lord nose to nose across the crimped maps.
‘Dharkaron’s black bollocks, we’re not equipped! The southcoast is swarming with Sunwheel galleys. Give their hazed troops any reason to land, we’ll see Alland’s trees put to the torch with intent to smoke out our families like vermin.’
Still seated, the High Earl bit back. ‘Then you might want to save your bristles and fight for trouncing Light-rabid fanatics!’
‘They’ll attack our north flank out of Atchaz, as well!’ the hatchet-faced veteran snarled, embittered. ‘We’ll be overrun. Struck down in cold blood, and for what? By the point on Dharkaron Avenger’s Black Spear! What brazen hope can be salvaged? If we’re lucky, our seasoned ranks will be pressed to defend us at hundreds to one!’
Erlien rose to his towering height. His icy blue eyes raked the company. ‘Yes. And we’re scrapping to see how much of our war band should rush to the slaughter at first engagement?’
‘Best to die free, if the compact’s to fall,’ a grizzled chieftain yelled from the side-lines. ‘Pack up our children. March them north with all speed. Those who are fit to survive the journey must plead for the Fellowship’s refuge with the spellbinder on guardwatch at Methisle.’
Shand’s caithdein smiled, now primed to provoke. ‘But the Prince of Rathain insists there’s a recourse. He’s given us his promise to lend help for the numbers we can keep living.’
The eldest veteran shoved through the press, a rumpled cock in a brigandine stitched out of boiled leather and elk bone. ‘Royal or not, he brings us a flawed trust!’
A second dissenter expounded, ‘I, too, bore witness the last time his Grace visited Alland from Merior. We heard him describe the geas that binds him. The curse of Desh-thiere is not revoked! His Grace’s own word once warned us to beware! The Mistwraith’s foul working undermines his intent. It can sap his free will, even claim him. If he fights at our side, he might turn, or go mad. We can’t sanction that danger. Only a fool would rely on his sword-arm among us!’
Linked into rapport, Elaira stopped breathing. Restraint veiled her distress: for that harsh accusation held only truth. The Mistwraith’s curse might well awaken. If its raw drive subsumed Arithon’s nature, his allies would be caught without recourse. The anguish of that incontrovertible flaw had almost shattered his spirit during his challenging