The Fall of Waterstone

A Patient Beast

How few, how few remain

The dead outnumber us, and yet

Perhaps they are fortunate.

For they rest in the Shadowed Halls

And that is in the West.

—Lament of the Uncrowned

Some few horses had been brought from the wrack and burning, slender-legged cream-colored Elder beasts with wise dark eyes. The steady discomfort of the thing resting in my chest swallowed any other pang I might have felt at their appearance.

I gathered that our small group had the best mounts, and the few others were left for carrying children and those Elder too wounded or grieved to move swiftly as necessary.

So few had survived the burning—threescore and a little more in this camp along with the children. There were other collecting-points for those who had managed flight, but they had to make shift for themselves.

All the rest of Laeliquaende’s folk, the festival throngs and city crowds, the builders of vineyards and high-prowed boats, beautiful stone houses, the gardens, the fountains… all gone. The crystal-roofed library was no doubt turned to ash and shards, for orukhar were not likely to see its utility and were, in any case, under orders to erase everything Elder they could reach or affect.

Nothing else satisfied their lord. Those wonders proving more durable or valuable could be judged by their commanders and carted back to the Black Land by liches, for though the Allmother’s first son hates the Children of the Star, he also yearns to own what he cannot make.

He can no longer create, only twist what he has not wrought. Or so the sagas say.

I had to lean upon Arn, my legs weak as a newborn’s, and I was surprised my feet did not sink into the ground, though it was still hard-frozen. The heaviness made it difficult to move, and I wondered if my wits were also slowed. I hoped not; they were all I had—seidhr is many things, but chief among them is cunning, knowledge, the tongue to move through both and song as well.

The Elder paused as my shieldmaid escorted me past. A few shaded their eyes with a hand, though the sky was a grey infinity promising snow. I could taste the weather as any child of Dun Rithell learned to, especially in winter, and decided nothing would fall today but the night would be cold indeed.

It was a barbed comfort to be out of the valley’s temperance. For all its discomforts, I knew mortal weather much better, and that morn I welcomed it as an enemy so old and familiar his appearance is almost greeted with a smile by opposing warlords.

A murmur passed through them. I tried not to hear the whispers in the Old Tongue, but a volva’s ears are sharp as a shieldmaid’s.

… the Crownless… from the South… with our princess… Riversinger… the Enemy…

Did they hate me for bringing ruin to their home? Each Elder was surrounded by that strange glow, subtle selves burning as mortals’ do not; my eyes were sharpened beyond anything I had ever dreamed, but the seidhr-sight was distracting. I would have gladly given it up if the thing in my chest would cease its pressure, the aching relentless smolder.

My mount was to be a tall mare with a placid gaze and beautifully tooled Elder saddle; I hoped I would not bring her grief. She eyed me sidelong, her tail moving gently, and I could not approach. Arn thought me perhaps stricken with some new weirding-ill, for she watched my face anxiously, and her arm tensed.

“’Tis heavy,” I whispered. The language I thought of as my own was unexpectedly difficult, twisting in my mouth. “The poor beast cannot bear it.”

“We’ll ride double.” Arn bumped me, a chivvying movement; she had been given a salvaged mantle of greygreen cloth, for though a shieldmaid loves the cold she was also Secondborn. “’Tis an Elder horse, Sol; it could carry four of us. Or so the sagas say.”

A jagged laugh slipped between my lips, but it also eased the discomfort inside my ribcage. To hear my practical shieldmaid speak of the old stories we had been so certain were merely tales to frighten or delight the littles, like Lokji’s long-backed eight-legged horse and the price for riding her… Bjorn and I had teased Astrid, not unmercifully but certainly more than our mother liked, with grim tales of the Black Land too.

I could almost see Dun Rithell under a coat of heavy snow, the river glittering as ice-floes bobbed past—our water-mother under Tarnarya’s black bulk had not frozen completely since the time of Gwenlara my own mother’s distant progenitrix. The gilding upon the greathall roof, the thin cheerful pillars of smoke rising from nearby steadings—

“Sol.” Arn jostled me again, and we were at the horse’s side. “Up you go. Better than walking, and they say we must travel far today.”

Who says?But it was my Arneior asking, so I reached for the saddle-horn and gathered myself. She stepped back slightly, cupped her hands, and I found I could lift a foot. Into the saddle she flung me, and indeed almost tossed me over the horse itself. I swayed, righted myself, and found to my amazement that the patient beast merely flicked her tail again, not staggering splayleg under the weight in my chest.

“See?” Arn watched me for a few moments. “Can you ride? I will climb up after, if needed.”

I did not cherish the thought of how I would feel at the end of the day, but it would be cruel to make the horse carry this hideous weight and more—though Arn would be slight indeed compared to the thing burning in me. “I can ride.” To prove it I gathered the reins, and fixed my gaze upon the horse’s ears. They looked like Farsight’s; that mare had ever a mischievous air.

She had done her duty well, endured more than any mute beast should, and I wondered again if she had escaped Nithraen’s fall. I hope you had better luck than your rider, my fourfoot friend.

The sounds of the Northerners mounting were familiar, from Gelad’s slight chirruping noise as he settled a-saddle to Soren’s habitual Blessed make us swift muttered like a prayer. Eol wasted no time and bid no farewell, touching his heels to his horse’s sides and striking for the edge of camp, Efain in his wake.

Arn vaulted atop a charger whose ears flattened, but she patted his mane and the Elder horse visibly decided a Secondborn with a spear was less upsetting than the previous night had been. The saddle even had a sling for her weapon, and she looked glad to be riding once more.

Aeredh shrugged into another mantle, though of rough black Northern cloth, while speaking softly to Naciel and Tjorin. The motion behind them—Elder breaking camp, the tents struck and furled with swift efficiency, even the children helping with any task their size and quickness could accomplish—was strangely stilted, for they often stopped to look in our direction, squinting or shading their eyes. I could not tell why; if anything, the clouds were darker than even winter had a right to be.

Perhaps I was merely exhausted.

Aeredh clasped Naciel’s hands, murmuring something—a last farewell, perhaps, a congratulation, or simply a few words of comfort. She nodded, and her chin rose. He smiled at Tjorin, gave them both a nod as good as a deep bow for the respect it carried, and turned to his own mount. In a trice he was a-saddle, and the Northerners closed about me. The mare knew her business was to stay with her fellows, and I sensed her eager to be gone. She set off, and the rhythm of a steady walk lengthened into a jog. At the edge of camp the snow rose, a smooth ramp, but Elder mounts are well used to such footing and stepped lightly, barely sinking into old, packed drifts. There was little sign of Eol and Efain; Karas and Gelad dropped back to take the rearguard, Elak and Aeredh bracketed Arn and me. It was just as it had been upon leaving Dun Rithell, right down to the sound of hooves, the slight jingle of tack, and the occasional chuffing as a horse scented something upon the wind.

We had not gone far before two more white horses appeared between shrouded evergreens—Daerith, tall and proud, his hair lifting upon the breeze, and Yedras the spearman, blue eyes vivid and his weapon slung like Arn’s. The harpist carried his great bow and there were two quivers upon his saddle, both loaded to match the one upon his back; his expression betrayed nothing though Yedras’s eyes half-closed and he studied me intently. They took their places with not a word, and I thought the rest of Nithraen’s folk wished to stay with their kind—or were perhaps more wounded than Eol had given me to understand.

I clung to the reins, trying not to sway too badly atop my patient mount, and it was little comfort that I would be too miserable from the Jewel’s weight to notice much of the soreness being a-horseback again would grant before nooning, let alone the day’s end.

Thus the Flight to Dorael began.