A Second Shadow
Orukhar may be eluded, if one is swift and canny enough; others among the Enemy’s thralls may be baffled or outraced. Even the wights, those weakest of liches, may be turned aside or granted true death. Those of Kaer Morgulis may veer aimlessly if their prey passes beyond a barrier of some might, and return empty-handed despite the punishment.
But those from the third tower of Agramar do not cease pursuit, save at the will of the Enemy himself.
—Farail son of Batura, Rede of the Dead
Arn’s recovery was swift; mine was otherwise but I could be dragged. We careened down the stairs, my feet scarce touching every second step, and her arm about my waist was tight and sure. Landing with a jolt at the bottom, she set off through the passageways, and in short order we rushed past the room we had been given for sleep—a burst of warmth leaking from its now half-open door, low reddish firelight making a distorted shape upon stone flags—and from there it was a mere twinkling before the high, shadowy great hall swallowed us.
There was no evidence of the others, though we heard voices calling our names; no doubt they had found us missing shortly after the first hunting-cry shook them from rest. There was no time to wonder, and Arn took the steps at the far end of the hall in a single leap.
We burst through the tower’s door and almost collided with Efain outside, the Northerner only saving himself with an astonishing sideways lunge, landing braced and ready, his blade held down and away but alive with reflected snowlight. His eyes widened, but he asked no questions. “Here!” he shouted in the Old Tongue, and an edge of wolf-cry rode the edge of the words. A stronger hint of burning swirled past us on cold wind. “They are here!”
Several paces away upon stone pavers a blackened, broken shape moved in painful, uncoordinated spasms. The stable-doors were thrown open, and movement within turned into hurriedly saddled Elder horses, their eyes white-ringed and their ears laid back, barely heeding Yedras and Daerith’s coaxing.
Efain threw his head back; a ribbon of sound lifted from his throat. I flinched, for there was something close to seidhr in it, and Arn began to haul me for the stable with alacrity.
Yet there was a second shadow near the writhing body at the tower’s foot. Eol of Naras unfolded from a crouch, the swordhilt over his shoulder giving a single icy flash though the gem was well-wrapped. Perhaps only I saw it, since the weapon seemed almost-alive in the way of named things; I had not heard its title yet, but was certain it bore one.
My brother had killed his, now my shieldmaid had slain his father. My throat was dry as road-dust in late summer; I found my right hand, fingers cramping, flattened against my chest and pressing hard as if to keep the Jewel—or my gristle-thumping heart next to it, a high hard pulse brushing sharp edges—from flying free. My lips shaped Eol’s name, and perhaps the heir of Naras read what had happened upon my face.
A thin, lacy veil of smoke drifted past the tower. Something was aflame, but I did not have time to wonder. Nor did I have time to be reminded of Laeliquaende’s burning.
Aeredh burst from the shadows between two smaller structures on the west side, Gelad and Elak from the east. They came together like raindrops running down a scraped-horn window, all the wolves of Naras appearing, bright-eyed despite being shaken from much-needed slumber.
“Get to the horses,” Aeredh called. His expression changed as he sighted us and he repeated the order in southron, but Arn needed no translation. Nothing could halt her, in any case; she was bearing me along like flotsam upon a river during those damp spring seasons when melt mixes with heavy storms, ripping giant chunks from weakened banks and carrying entire trees past in a twinkling.
But I could not look away from Eol. I am sorry, I wanted to say. The weight in my throat would not budge, and neither would the pain.
The heir of Naras drew, his hand flickering to hilt and his blade almost burn-bright as an Elder’s. The brazen hunting-horns sounded again, and this time they were so close the sound sent awl-tips through both my ears, thin invisible blades riving my skull. I cried out and saw Karas snarl, his face echoing a wolf’s for a bare moment.
Even so, it bore no relation to the agonizing, congested hatred upon the varulv.
Yedras and Daerith were fully occupied with the horses. Aeredh reached them first, near vaulting into the saddle, and his mount wheeled, its hooves dancing with fear. He urged the snowy beast forward, and ’twas not until it loomed before us that I realized what he intended. He leaned down, shouting something almost lost in another high glassy glaring cry, and the sensation was familiar—seidhr thick and foul, spreading like ordure in fast-flowing water.
A lich. Or more than one, because the air grew still, knifelike cold thickening as if no spring threatened to turn the drifts of the Taurain to sucking mud.
Arn might have sensed it too, for her grip upon me changed. I was lifted, tossed like a sack of wet laundry, caught by an arm strong as an iron bar, and before I knew it Aeredh’s horse had wheeled and the rattlethump of a gallop jarred my bones.
Some things that night I did not see, only hearing of them later—the corpses Soren and Elak found in a cellar, frozen stiff and with deep clawmarks showing how they had died, the fires as orukhar ravaged wooden buildings though they could not do much to the tower itself, a lich rising from a pool of shadow across the paving and Daerith putting an arrow freighted with cold blue Elder brilliance into the space where its face should have been, the suddenly appearing knot of mounted orukhar who almost pulled Gelad and Karas from their saddles before Yedras and Efain arrived, the Elder’s spear flickering and the scarred Northerner’s battle-cry lifting high and clear to overpower the dread horns for a brief moment.
But as the Elder horse fled, Aeredh’s arms around me and Arn gaining her own charger’s saddle with a leap I would sing of could I but find the words to do it justice, I caught a glimpse of a swordblade, descending so rapidly it was a solid bar of silver, as Eol of Naras put an end to the shattered thing that had been his father.
Aeredh’s mount whinny-screamed and the Crownless replied with a single smoking word in the Old Tongue, clipped and harsh. The force of it thundered through all my internal halls; we shot away, shod hooves striking sparks until the ground became snow over packed earth, and there was a thunder behind us as well as beside. Arneior’s charger followed, needing no encouragement, and the rest kept pace as best they could.
Barael-am-Narain was burning, a ruddy glow, and we burst from a gap in the southron palisade onto the moon-silvered plain.