Prophecy's Daughter Page 11

  He said, “I came here to protect you. You know what I am. Now I fear that my selfish longings will place you in even greater danger.”

  Seeing the old hurt creep back into her brown eyes, he forced himself to continue. “But my love for you is so strong that I cannot deny it. So, yes, I am asking. Will you be my wife?”

  Relief flooded her face. Then she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him as he pulled her close.

  When the kiss ended, she let out a shuddering breath. “I’ve wanted you to ask me that since I was seventeen.”

  Dizzy with wild joy, Arn swept Carol up in his arms and carried her back into the cabin.

  14

  Areana’s Vale

  YOR 414, Late Summer

  “Ah, there you are.” Rafel stepped forward to clap a big hand on Arn’s shoulder as he walked into the high lord’s meeting chamber. “I expected you first thing this morning.”

  Despite the tightness Arn felt in his chest, he reached for a bit of levity. “I guess I must be getting old, oversleeping.”

  “Ha. I shall not live to see that day. I have some news that you will find of interest.”

  Rafel led Arn to the rough-hewn wooden chairs that surrounded the sand table used for briefing his commanders. “We are going to be invited guests tomorrow night.”

  “One of the local tribes?”

  “Actually, Ty ran across a patrol from a clan of horse warriors while he was out riding, and they escorted him back to their fortress city about a day’s ride north of here. While there, he arranged to introduce me to their leader, whom these warriors refer to as the khan. Your Kanjari friend is a rather presumptive fellow.”

  “No doubt about that, but knowing how he hates socializing, he must have had a damned good reason for doing it.”

  “He thinks the clan may be distant kin to the Kanjari. I suspect that their chief wants to learn if we pose a threat. I’d like to find out the same thing about them.”

  Arn strolled slowly around the sand table, one hand resting on the carved wood siding, rubbing its rough surface.

  “If Ty’s right about these people being kin to the Kanjari, or at least similar enough for him to regard them as such, then they’re warlike,” Arn said. “They’ll be highly protective of their domain. Any perceived encroachments or challenges to their prowess will invite an attack.”

  “So you think turning down their invitation would be regarded either as fear or an insult?” asked Rafel.

  “Most likely,” said Arn.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to cultivate an alliance with our neighbors to the north, if possible. I want you to accompany me, along with Broderick, Ty, John, and a small group of rangers.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to bring at least a company of soldiers? A show of some strength never hurts.”

  “Our people have their hands full with what I want done here,” said Rafel. “Besides, that amount of force wouldn’t be of much use if something goes significantly awry.”

  “Carol, Gaar, and Alan are not going to like being left behind.”

  “Carol is second-in-command and would need Gaar to help her if something happens to us. As for Alan,” the high lord said, his face darkening, “I am reluctant to take him. He tends to be reckless, ready to fight at the slightest provocation.”

  “If you ask me,” said Arn, “the trip represents a good training opportunity.”

  “You see straight to the heart of the matter. Carol has a natural feel for the right thing to do, but Alan needs to learn. I’ll bring him along.”

  Arn locked eyes with those of the high lord, taking a deep breath before he changed the subject. “I need to talk with you about something else.”

  “I’ve never known you to be shy. Spit it out.”

  “I’m in love with your daughter.”

  The high lord stared at Arn, arching his left eyebrow ever so slightly.

  “Are you planning on telling me something I haven’t known for eons, or is this what you thought I needed to be braced for?”

  “I asked her to marry me, and she said yes.”

  For a moment, the warlord froze, and Arn braced himself for the worst.

  Then the steel-gray eyes sparkled with a strange light as Rafel stepped forward and crushed Arn in his famed embrace. “Arn, you witless fool. I’ve long wondered when you two would see what was clearly in your hearts. You’ve finally given me the hope that I’ll get to hold some grandchildren of my own.”

  Rafel stepped back. “Did you doubt that I’ve loved you like my own son?”

  “No. But there are prodigal sons as well. With me, she inherits many enemies. And I’m confident you’re aware that tongues will wag unfavorably at our union.”

  “Prodigal perhaps, but the best protector that has ever served any lord or king. As for wagging tongues, the day I start running my court like some waifish wisp of a courtier, then you are welcome to put an end to my misery. I suppose you think that she inherited only friends from me. Though I will not hesitate to come to their aid, the world we live in is a treacherous place, and I will not shelter my children from the glorious dangers that the adventurous confront.”

  Arn started to respond but found that a strange lump in his throat had appeared. He swallowed hard and finally managed to speak. “Thank you.”

  He gripped Rafel’s forearm, maintaining his hold as a wave of emotion rocked him. Then, turning swiftly on his heel, Arn strode from the room.

  Rafel moved up onto the fort’s east wall and watched as his future son-in-law melted into the woods beyond, a broad grin lighting his features. Gaar’s arrival interrupted his reverie.

  “What’s so funny, High Lord?”

  Rafel turned, leaning back against the rough logs. “Old friend, there are moments in this life that make a man wish he was young again, that he might experience the glories of this world for ages yet to come.”

  “I’ll have the priests check the purity of the water supply,” Gaar replied. “You seem to have consumed something that does not agree with you.”

  The sound of Rafel’s happiness drifted out on the breeze and echoed through the reeds and hollows. The young soldiers lifted their eyes to the walls in wonder, having never heard that booming laugh. Those who were older and more experienced merely continued their work on the fortifications. That joyous sound almost always preceded battle.

  15

  Coldain Estate—Southeastern Tal

  YOR 414, Late Summer

  Coldain’s Keep was perched atop the white cliffs against which the ocean pounded far below, its stone ramparts having stood in place for three centuries. Never had it fallen to an enemy. On the western wall, Garret Coldain stood atop the ramparts, backlit by the red glow of the approaching sunrise. Clad in leather armor beneath a chain-mail shirt and wearing his iron helmet, he studied the three hundred soldiers who would soon fight to hold the wall against the horde gathering to the west of this fortress.

  Garret lifted his eyes to the siege engines that moved at the forefront of Kragan’s army. Should the gates withstand the magical assault that Kragan and his wielders were certain to unleash, this keep would still fall. But there would be those who would whisper the name Coldain in reverent memory of the fight Garret would deliver on this day.

  Atop the tower behind him, Gregor stood, his dark blue robe billowing out in the stiff morning breeze, staff in hand. On the wall to Garret’s left stood his father’s skeletally thin wielder, Panko, in a coral-colored robe, bearing a staff as white as ocean foam. Alongside these masters of air and water, Garret would soon give battle to his enemies.

  As he surveyed the long lines of marching vorgs and brigands that merged into the gathering horde, Garret clenched his teeth, trying to still the tremor that had crept into his sword hand.

  Kragan stared up at Coldain’s Keep, using the air elemental, Ohk, to lens his view so that it seemed that he looked through a far-glass. It was not the image of Coldain’s son standing atop the wall that shocked him
. It was the sight of Gregor standing on the tallest tower, his robe the blue of the ocean that extended beyond the keep to the distant horizon. Somehow, Rodan’s wielder had deceived him, making Kragan believe that he had broken Gregor’s mind when they had contested in the chambers beneath Hannington Castle.

  Clearly Gregor posed a much greater threat than Kragan had believed. And Gregor was not the only enemy wielder visible to Kragan. Coral-robed Panko stood atop the western wall beside Garret Coldain. Although these two were masters of controlling the powerful elementals of air and water, they were adept at wielding elementals from the other planes as well. This battle would not go as easily as Kragan had hoped.

  Kaleal’s thought rumbled in Kragan’s mind. The primordial’s comment did little to improve Kragan’s mood. But he did not allow his anger to force him into hasty action. Instead, he chose caution. He would unleash his army and allow the dozens of wielders within the horde to deal with this unexpected turn of events. By his so doing, Gregor and Panko would be forced to reveal what strength they could bring to bear. Only if needed would Kragan directly involve himself in the fight. He trusted that would be unnecessary.

  Garret Coldain watched from the courtyard as the tree-size battering ram, propelled forward by dozens of vorgs, crashed into the gates with such force that its metal tip split the thick wood. It was nothing short of a miracle that the keep’s defenses had held until midday. That had been thanks to the combined efforts of Gregor and Panko as they battled the magic of dozens of enemy wielders. But as they tired, Kragan had floated up above his troops, his inhuman form visible for all to see.

  Through his far-glass, Garret had stared into those malevolent eyes, having to work to keep his knees from buckling. He had beheld a being from the deep and was afraid.

  Then Kragan had reached out a hand, and the shielding Gregor had erected over the keep shimmered, glowing red. A terrific blow struck it once, twice, three times, creating a thunderous boom that threatened to deafen the soldiers and townspeople within the keep’s walls. The last of these invisible attacks created a spiderweb of black cracks in the shielding above the tower where Gregor battled. These cracks spiraled inward, widening until the entire shield gave way. The gray-bearded wielder staggered, then tumbled from where he stood.

  In horror, Garret had watched Gregor’s body smash into a bloody mess on the paving stones of the courtyard below. But the young lord had not remained frozen in place.

  “To the gates!” Garret had yelled as the vorgs carrying the battering ram charged forward, protected from arrows by walls of shield bearers. He had rushed down a ladder into the courtyard as Commander Volker sent dozens of soldiers carrying support beams to the gates as a hundred soldiers formed into battle ranks behind them.

  Now Garret assumed a battle stance beside Volker, at the front of those soldiers. As Garret stood, shield raised, sword at the ready, a new sound pulled his eyes up to the ramparts above the gates. Panko turned eastward to face the sea. He lifted his arms, palms up, and the mist rolled in, curling over the cliffs and rising above the keep. The mist boiled, turning from white to gray as it thickened into clouds, growing darker with each passing moment. Beyond the gates, a downpour began, quickly increasing in intensity as Panko’s face tightened in concentration.

  Garret had never seen a rainstorm such as this. A massive waterfall from the sky splashed to the ground, flooding the invading horde and sending spray onto the guards manning the battlements above. A fireball exploded around Panko, its flames engulfing the wielder and setting his robe on fire. Panko screamed, then stumbled forward, plunging out into the maelstrom beyond the wall, taking the last of Garret’s hopes down with him.

  Suddenly the weakened gate exploded inward, propelled by the floodwaters that Panko had unleashed. Garret found himself knocked off his feet and swept along with other soldiers across the courtyard. Dropping his sword and freeing his left arm from his shield, he struggled to right himself, but the weight of the chain mail prevented him from doing so.

  Then Garret’s head struck stone, and darkness took him.

  The overwhelming odor of raw sewage tugged Garret back to wakefulness. He opened his eyes but could see nothing in the darkness. He tried to thrash about in his panic, but his body was pinned to wet muck beneath a pile of debris. Steeling himself, he lifted with all his might and felt the pile move. Again he tried, ignoring the pain that hammered his head, and felt something give way above him. Some of the rubble slid aside, allowing him to push more of it off his body.

  He managed to roll to his knees and then crawl forward through stinking sludge, ankle deep, until his outstretched hand felt a stone wall that curved upward. Tracing the wall with his fingers, he felt it arch to form a ceiling just above his head. If he tried to stand, he would knock himself senseless again.

  Then he understood. This was the sewage channel beneath Coldain’s Keep. How far down he’d been washed, he didn’t know. But Garret knew he was fortunate to not have drowned. If he had not been jammed into the pile of debris that partially blocked the tunnel, his body would have washed out through the exit spillway to tumble down the cliff and into the roiling sea.

  Kneeling in sewage, he reached up and winced when his fingers found the knot where his head had connected with stone. How long had he been unconscious? If his parched throat was any indication, he had lain here for at least a day.

  He reached down into the foul stream that trickled past him, finding he was currently facing the direction from which it flowed. Good. This would take him back to the storm drain into which the water had swept him.

  As he began the painful crawl, his thoughts turned to his mother and sisters. Garret had promised his father that he would take care of them, along with the people who resided on the Coldain estate. Instead, Garret had never even raised his sword against the enemy. He knew that he could not have stopped Kragan’s horde, but at least he could have given his life with honor.

  He dared not think about what had happened to his loved ones while he had lain unconscious. His desperation to get to his mother and sisters lent strength to the arms and legs that propelled him back up the channel.

  The smell of smoke becoming stronger than the stinking slime through which he crawled alerted Garret to his proximity to a storm drain. That and the distant shaft of sunlight that speared down through the hole. When he reached the drain, he squinted as his eyes adjusted to the bright light. Then, ever so slowly, he straightened and climbed the metal rungs embedded in the wall, dreading the moment when he could peer out at the keep beyond.

  That moment took his breath away. Garret peered out from beneath an overhanging stone shelf at the burned-out ruins that had been Coldain Keep. Nothing moved among the rubble. The dead lay scattered everywhere. Although the fires were out, smoke still wormed its way upward, as gray as the overcast sky above.

  Garret crawled out of the drain and wandered aimlessly through the courtyard, struggling to keep from vomiting at the sight of dismembered corpses and the line of impaled bodies that led from the destroyed outer gates into the ruins of the village at the base of the hill. The horde that had done this was gone, apparently having taken survivors with them.

  He turned away from the sight and walked to the burned-out inner keep, stepping across fallen beams as he made his way into the interior. Although he had intended to go first to his family’s living quarters, higher in the tower, the horror that he saw as he passed the earl’s audience chamber brought him to a halt. There, in Earl Coldain’s high-backed chair, bound hand and foot to its arms and legs, sat his mother, her final screams frozen on her seared face. If it had not been for her seashell necklace and bracelet, he would have failed to recognize her.

  For a moment that stretched into eternity, Garret stood there, frozen in place. Then, as his knees gave way, he sank to the floor and wept.

  16

  Val’Dep

  YOR 414, Late Summer

  Rafel’s party assembled at the stables at sunrise. Arn wat
ched as a handful of rangers led by Derek Scot sat silently astride their horses, waiting for the signal to fan out on the flanks. Alan sat atop his warhorse near John, Ty, Arn, Broderick, and his father.

  Carol had accepted the logic that kept her back in command of the valley. Gaar was not happy about being left behind, either, but he understood the risks of sending the entire leadership on the trip.

  Arn watched as John and Kim each reached out with their right hand to caress the other’s cheek, an Endarian custom between husband and wife when parting. John straightened in his saddle, the light of the morning sun filling his dark eyes.

  “Gods,” Ty said, “can we move along?”

  When John and Kim ignored him, Ty continued. “We will be traveling north along the foothills once we leave the vale. The khan’s escort riders will meet us about four hours north of here and will guide us the last several leagues to the fortress city of Val’Dep. Once our escorts join us, you can pull the rangers back in. From that point, there will be no further need of our own watch.”

  “I don’t like that idea,” said Broderick.

  “Since we are already committed to going in small numbers,” Rafel said, “it makes no sense to act skittish once we’re in the midst of our hosts. We’ll do as Ty suggests.”

  The high lord turned to the guards. “Lower the drawbridge.”

  Broderick pulled his rangers in for a quick conference, and then the group of riders trotted out onto the trail that led out of the vale. The rangers moved out quickly, disappearing around the nearest bend in the trail, while Ty rode beside Rafel. With a nudge of his heels, Arn put Ax into motion beside John and Alan.

  As they rode northward, the coolness of morning gave way to a warm afternoon. Arn saw the first of the khan’s riders at the same time as Ty. Two dozen warriors raced toward them at a gallop. A much larger group of horsemen sat their mounts on the ridge that formed the west side of the valley. Arn looked up the eastern slope but did not spot any additional riders.