Chapter 25

The orders had gone out four days before, in all directions, to all the cities: 'wall yourselves, arm yourselves, defend yourselves.' Iordan knew the last part was unreasonable. Farmers and traders could gather behind high walls with spears and knives, but they were undisciplined, untrained, and uncoordinated. Regulars of the royal army were too few, too spread, stationed across the expanse of the Hai Lei. Several units moved toward the Hai Krun border; the majority of the remaining soldiers were massed at the capitol.

Despite his precautions, Iordan did not fear for the safety of the outlying cities: the prize was the palace. Darrak Krun had begun his plot in the secrecy of the forest; but secrecy was of no further use since his armies had been captured and destroyed. If the dragon-tyrant meant to continue his conquest, the next stroke would fall on Iordantan, and fall hard. The prince did not know what forces would be marshaled to march against him, but he doubted whether the two thousand forest soldiers within the wall would be enough to hold back the enemy. If Darrak could send five thousand if the first wave, how many would follow? Five thousand more? Ten? The possibilities wore on his mind; he tried to remind himself that he was not even certain an attack would take place, that he had no proof. But the human mind has never needed proof to fuel such things as fear and doubt.

Around the city, the wall was nearing completion. Though behind the secondary calculations of the aged foreman Hama, the builders were still well ahead of the original eight day schedule. The final North faces would be completed by nightfall. The sounds of construction could be heard everywhere: the pounding of a thousand hammers, the throbbing of sulfurous generators and the whirring of great saws from the mills to the East, the creaking of endless wagon wheels as long caravans brought fresh cut lumber. But there was another sound as well - a sound that eased the young prince's mind - the laughter of children, come into the city from uncounted farming villages. So even the deepest of nagging doubts could not drive all happiness from the streets; the forest folk would not quail in the face of unknown danger. Most of the farmers and traders that entered the city brought with them spears, sharp and un-used, ready to wield them for the sake of their families. The sight was a testament to the fiber and character of the forest men, still stern and proud after twenty-six years of soft living.

But though a soldier may be a farmer when he is not in the midst of battle, seldom does a farmer become a soldier while away from his fields. Tough as the men may have been, nothing could change the fact that they were untrained and untested. Iordan had seen the faces of the farmers in Jion when battle had erupted within sight of their city: they had been terrified. Would he see the same expression of fear in the faces of those who manned the walls when the enemy rattled the gates? It is said that in defense of home ground, men are better than walls; but the young prince knew those words were spoken of seasoned veteran soldiers, that when the wall went, so would go the city. When faced at last with defeat, soldiers would stand back to back, fighting to the last man; farmers would run to their families, forsaking the defenses in a last attempt to escape.

Iordan knew he was a more cynical man than was his father. He knew he did not have the same faith in the quality of his people. The worries pressed on his mind, and he could see naught but hard truths and cold facts. He held realistic expectations for those that followed him, not fantasies of desperate heroics. When spears clashed and broke in the heat of battle, the prince prided himself on knowing who would stand and who would fall. He set his troops to spread strength where it was most needed, and hide weakness as best he could - so had it been during the near defeat in the forest: a lesser captain would have folded and fled long before the help un-looked for had arrived. So when the prince looked on the masses of farmers come to aid in the city's defense, he did not feel comforted. No matter how he positioned his men around the wall, he could not find a set that satisfied his rational mind. If and when the attack came, the city would fall.

'But the city must not fall, ' said the prince to himself. 'Not while men still live within.'

How was the prince to balance the need to defend the city with the simple fact that he knew he could not? He could not see a way. His father would have rallied the men, would have made them believe in a cause that would otherwise seem hopeless. If the great lord had in his age lost the power to wage a war, he still held the power to draw his people to him, even though he should venture to the very threshold of Hell; though only a shadow of his youthful legend, his absence was still a tremendous weakness. Men followed the prince because they liked him, but he did not know how to truly inspire. And all ration and reason told him the defense of the city was a cause without hope. But in the end, the answer was simple: he would hold the city because he must hold the city.

'It's the action that defines a man, not the fear that comes before.' The wisdom of Somoni applied to all occasions.

So the movement of people and supplies continued through the day. The sounds of construction mingled with the sounds of soldiers sharpening and testing their weapons in the large square. And from the sky came the ever-present crying of birds, unconcerned about the plight of the forest people below. From the scouts, there was still no word.

Thomas Horbac ran. His feet were sore inside his heavy boots, and his knees ached as his legs pumped across the uneven ground. Through the night he had run, down the face of the mountain, dodging scraggly trees and rough boulders in near-pitch blackness, until the sun cast its first light across the ice rings low in the Eastern sky. And then he had run some more. He descended from the mountain to the foothills, casting away his coat and hat as they became too warm and cumbersome to bear any further. His breath came in gasps and his vision focused only on the slopes that lay before him; he struggled with the heavy lowland air, emptying and filling his lungs with great effort. His face and arms were scratched and scraped from the nettling tips of tree branches. As he approached the border between the Hai Mahlner and the Hai Lei, he searched for the main road - the road had not been direct enough for the hurried young man bounding heedlessly through rough back-country - but as he neared the mountain's base, he needed to recover his bearings. The time had come as well to decide: Jion or Iordantan? The latter was nearer by road, but perhaps the former was nearer in a straight line.

Had the grip of the royal messenger conditioning been upon him, he could not have moved with any more swiftness. As his feet continued to pound, his destination was perhaps in doubt, but never his purpose. Still, even after many hours, he was not certain if his chosen course was the best to follow; anymore, his mind was too worn to provide an answer. Others in the village had not seen his cause for worry, had not seen the need for action. Those who did see tried to dissuade him.

"Thomas, listen to me," his mother had said. "This isn't for us to get involved in. The forest is too far away." Others gathered around had nodded their agreement.

"But we have to tell somebody," Thomas had said, even as he laced his boots.

"Let the boy go in the morning."

"You heard what he said! This can't wait 'til morning."

"Why can't you just go to Umbin-dir, then? Tell someone there."

"Mom," he had said, stopping for a moment to look in her eyes. "The Hai Lei has to know. This is important." And he had reached for his coat.

"Let the boy do it. It's his job." A last effort to steer the young llama keeper from an already inevitable course.

"You're right, it's his job to get down the mountain. And he almost died trying. He got this far, and now it's my job to take his message the rest of the way."

"Be careful, Tom."

He had opened the door, looked back into the warmth with the night wind biting at his back. "Don't worry about me. All I have to do is find the prince." And he ran out into the darkened street, lit only by the waning glow of blue and white moons.

In his mind, Thomas could see the young forest messenger, lying atop the old table in near seizure from hypothermia and frost-bite; his blue hands had shaked, his parched mouth had quivered, thick tongue struggling behind swollen lips to plead for help. It had not been an official message, but the conditioning had still pushed the young boy to his limits and beyond, seeking the Hai Lei prince. When the mountain had defeated him, not swayed in mercy by his valiant effort, he dragged himself into a village along the road and collapsed on the doorstep of the only building from which a light still burned: the tavern. From behind the cups of hot tea and piles of thick blankets, he had begged for help.

So Thomas answered. It was as if the sign of trouble he had been seeking suddenly presented itself, plain as day. There was no question in his mind about the wisdom of his decision, no wondering about the possible outcome. He simply threw himself down the mountainside, pouring every bit of anger he had ever felt into his mission, every bit of fear, of contempt, of outright rage. Thus, and so weary from endless hours of labor, he barely felt the steps he took, the aching breath he drew. Barely did he see his way before him, almost blinded by his efforts.

Then a step, just like any other before it. But the young man slipped, turning his foot on a loose stone, twisting his ankle from beneath him. He lost his feet, and was so carried by the velocity of his descent that he toppled forward over a dangerous precipice.

'So that's it?' he said to himself, almost in stillness. He watched the ground dropping away, then rushing forward as he tumbled. For an instant - an instant that seemed frozen in time - he did not draw breath, did not flail his arms, did not cry out or shut his eyes in fear. The ground simply came up to meet him. Closer, closer. Then: 'Not yet.' Time flashed forward again. He raised his arms before his face and felt the jarring impact with his wrists and elbows. The sound of a scream was on his lips, but was knocked free as he continued to bounce and impact upon the hill. His headlong dive became a sideways roll. His elbows and knees struck rock again and again, his ribs and spine pounding against the ground, the flesh of his bared arms tearing as it scraped across rough dirt and prickling briers. How far was the fall? It was not a sheer drop, but still very steep. Did he continue to gain speed as he tumbled and slid? Would he plunge over the side of some ravine, or would his fall be arrested by the unyielding trunk of an oak or whithering mallorn?

'Not yet, ' he repeated. His hand snaked out, his strong fingers locking round an exposed root. And he screamed; the blinding pain shooting up his arm jerked him roughly back to reality just as his grip jerked him roughly from his fall. He felt tendons stretched to their limits, bones stressed and joints pulled and twisted. From his fingertips to his ribcage, his entire left side was in crisis, sending stabbing signals along already frayed nerves. Tears sprang from his bleary eyes and he could not see. He felt his feet hanging in space, his body twisted against the side of the sheer lower bank of the hill. His left hand grasped a root: did that mean a tree grew at the cliff edge? By what margin had he missed a collision between the trunk and his abdomen? He tried to reach up with his free hand, tried to pull himself up. But it was too much, the pain too great.

He let go.

But the sheer drop-off was just more than the height of a man. Thomas lost his grip and felt the ground beneath his feet again almost at once. With a great puff of breath, he collapsed, and lay battered on the ground. Every part of his body cried in pain. His screams had startled flocks of sleek black birds into the sky, and their chorus of screeches filled the air. But another sound was missing: a different sound. When he began his fall, there had been the sound of shuffling feet from below, the sound of voices calling to one another, the sound of laughter. And another sound, harder to place; a ringing sound of sharp collisions, of two objects as though struck together again and again. At last fighting back the tears and shaking his head to stay the spinning, he realized those sounds had stopped; as he lay quiet, only the birds broke the still air of late morning.

"What was that?" came a voice. The speaker was female, the tone curious.

"I don't know." The second female was more cautious. "Sounded like somebody fell. Be careful."

Thomas pushed himself up, raising his face above the ridge of bristles that surrounded him. He almost screamed again, his gasping breath choked back behind his battered chest. His entire left side - the arm he used to grasp the root - would soon turn an ugly black, several shades darker than the bruising that would cover the rest of his body. He coughed once, spraying the dirt red. He struggled with his right hand, supporting his weight on the strained wrist; the back the hand had a slash across it and he could not seem to unclench his fist. His other arm was traversed from wrist to elbow by a thick bloody swath, caked with dirt and capped with course grass and sharp thorns. When he could will his body to raise itself no higher, he consented to roll himself into a seated position, his back against the short cliff face; his pants were torn and both throbbing kneecaps were visible, each swollen masses of blood and bruise.

"Over here!" called the first voice, much closer.

With another shake of his head, Thomas' vision began to clear. Both his eyes still worked and nothing important seemed to be broken. His neck was stiff and a dull ache was growing and spreading behind his eyes. He was amazed to find how far down the mountain he had come: well into the upper foothills, not quite to the plains below, within sight of the forest.

Then he saw the speaker come into sight, climbing from an open area below, between two large boulders. She was dressed in strange forest garb, her flowing hair was silvery blonde, and her face wore the unmistakable air of nobility. Both taller and more slender than the mountain women - even the prostitutes - she moved with a long-practiced sense of grace, even away from her native forest habitat. She carried something in her hand: a blade of sorts, but not made of bone. No manner of treatments could turn the whiteness of a bone blade into the deadly thing in her hand; it had the cold gleam of silver. Thomas knew as he saw her for the first time that she was the most beautiful girl his eyes would ever have privilege to behold. Then he saw he was wrong.

The second female appeared, following closely behind the first. Her hair was a black as the night. Her eyes, deep brown seas of mysterious depths, carried an expression both haunting and intoxicating. The delicate features of her face were possibly more delicate than her companion, but were also more treacherous. While the first woman appeared as an angel in all her glory, the second was even more noble, even more terrible. She walked the ground as though she did not realize she did not belong, did not have a right to exist among mere mortals of flesh and blood. She carried a silver blade as well, but in her hands it was truly a thing to inspire awe and fear. And the eyes: so probing, so knowing. Thomas wondered for a moment whether the fall was more damaging than he thought. Were they not an angel and a devil, come to claim his fallen body for themselves, come to challenge one another for the right to bear away his soul? But then they spoke again.