King's Last Hope: The Complete Durlindrath Trilogy Read online

  More stone popped, and powdery dust filled the air. Rubble fell. The foundations of the Cardurleth shook. The coils gripped ever tighter, yet no one fled.

  Gilhain stumbled back. This was it. This was the fall of Cardoroth. He was powerless to stop it, and the prophecy of old, the foretelling of destruction that had come down through the long years was correct: the city would fall in red fire and blood.

  Cold fear stabbed him. Despair smothered him. His own life would soon end also, and that of his wife. Ruin would take them all.

  He held out a hand to Aurellin, and she took it. They did not speak. No words were necessary. All that mattered was that they would be together when the end came.

  He drew his gaze away from the person he loved most in the world, and looked to Aranloth. He would say goodbye to one of his great friends. But the lòhren did not look at him. Instead, he strode forth.

  Aranloth lifted his arms high, and there was a look of such determination on his face that the king’s heart skipped a beat. The lòhren would not yield. His was a will beyond a normal man’s; a will honed and strengthened by forgotten ages. He was like a force of nature, and his heart’s beat was one with the life of the land that he had wandered for years beyond count.

  The lòhren spoke no word. He gave no sign. And yet every other lòhren along the rampart instantly looked at him. Something passed between them, between the students and the master. If it were possible, the expression on his face of iron-hard will strengthened further. It was a will that had seen ages of men come and pass. He was a thing of the land itself – old as the hills, bearing a burden of time and change even as did they. And he had learned a thing or two in that time. He had survived.

  Gilhain watched, awed and puzzled. What would the man he dared to call a friend do?

  7. The Flicking Wings of a Hawk

  “You cannot tempt me,” Brand said. “I want neither realms nor armies. I want nothing you offer. Stand aside. You have no claim on the staff.”

  The witch smiled at him sweetly. Her glance was long and keen and intimate. With a sudden stab he knew that he wished to see that same look on the real Kareste.

  “Begone!” he said.

  She tossed her ash-blond hair. “In life you often get what you don’t want, though few say no to realms or armies – or even magic.”

  It disturbed Brand how much she knew of him, how much she read from his mind. Some things were easy to guess, but others were not. Hers was a peculiar magic, but all magics had strengths and weaknesses. He would discover her weakness in due course, and to that end he did not mind talking. It would give him time.

  She smiled at him. It was a smile for him alone as though no one else in the world mattered.

  “I know what it is that you most want. A simple thing it is too. You wish to inherit what should have been yours – the chieftainship of the Duthenor. You already wear the helm on your head, and the sword of your forefathers is always by your side. But an usurper rules in your place, supported by men from other tribes, and he will not be easy to dislodge. Yet it would be a small thing for me to accomplish. For you, I could do it. I could do it with ease. And you should know this, also. The usurper will one day be usurped himself. The wild men that he has brought in will turn on him, and in the end they will rule the Duthenor. And they will be harsh masters.”

  Brand was troubled, and this time he could not disguise it. Not that it would be worth the effort to try; Durletha seemed to know more about him than he did himself. Worse, she seemed to know his very thoughts.

  “Begone!” he said again. “Temptation will not sway me, and fate will be what it will be.”

  For the first time, the witch showed displeasure. And in that Brand took hope, for it seemed to him the only reason she had to be displeased was that her offers were rejected. Yet, if she truly knew his innermost thoughts, she would have known from the beginning that it would be so. He was loyal, if nothing else, and Gilhain, and now Kareste, were his friends. No force on earth, and no temptation, would cause him to break trust with them.

  Durletha hissed. It was a frightful sound, and it was all the stranger to now see open hatred on the mask of Kareste’s face. That hurt him, even though he knew it was not her. Suddenly, he realized that he could hear that same hiss in the tops of the trees all around them, and then he understood that all the while that she had been talking her voice was also reflected in the wood. The sound of it was in the hollows of tree trunks, in the whispering of leaves, in the slow creak and mutter of tree roots. It was in the bubbling of water in a rill somewhere further into the wood and out of sight, and it was even in the slow seeping of water though the earth.

  He understood now what had troubled him all along about her voice, for there was power in it, and all the while that she spoke it was gathering itself, building, forming some spell, and only at the last did his instincts perceive it. At the last, and perhaps too late.

  There was a sudden noise. It was shrill. From all around them it came, and Brand understood even as it drove into his ears, turning, twisting, piercing like a hot needle, what it was. All the sound for miles had been turned into a weapon by the witch. Her magic had taken it, transformed it, compressed it into a single thing and sent it tunnelling into their ears. It was unbearable.

  Kareste fell off her horse, yet she managed to hold onto Shurilgar’s staff. Brand could not think. He was dizzy, and the pain drove him like a madness. He wanted to act, to do something to relieve it, but it only grew and scattered his thoughts to the wind.

  All the while he heard the voice of the witch beyond the shrill sound that speared into him. She chanted, and though he did not understand the words, he perceived that her power was growing as the need for subterfuge was gone. Soon, she would kill them.

  Brand struggled to control his mount. The idea came to him to ride the witch down, but he floundered in a sea of pain and confusion. It took him some moments to realize that the horse’s reins were no longer in his hand but had fallen and trailed between its legs.

  Durletha’s chanting rose to a higher pitch. If it were possible, the pain redoubled. Brand’s vision swam, and he knew that there were only moments left before he fell from the horse as had Kareste.

  And then he heard another sound. Faint at first, but something different from the high-pitched daggers in his ears. It was Bragga Mor’s flute. As it had been earlier, so was it now: beautiful, sweet, haunting.

  The chanting of the witch faltered for just a moment. She seemed perplexed by how to take this new sound up into her attack. In that moment Kareste regained her feet. She staggered up, but she did not attack with her sword or try to summon power from Shurilgar’s staff.

  Brand, his newfound senses growing day by day, dimly perceived her mind reach out, and her own power become one with the music of the flute.

  He was staggered by the shadowy sense of what she was doing. With skill and precision her power became one with the music, and swift as thought took hold of it and transformed it into a kind of shield. It veiled them from the witch’s attack, not nullifying it completely, but subduing it so that it was no more than an unpleasant noise.

  He realized that though his sensitivity to lòhrengai was growing, he had only the same skill in the craft as a young boy picking up a sword for the first time. It had taken him years of hard practice to acquire the skill to be bodyguard to the king, and that same effort awaited him if ever he wished to become proficient with the power that was in him.

  He shut down that line of thinking. It was yet another way the magic inside him tempted him to its use, for to learn a skill was a challenge, and the harder something was to achieve the more Brand set his mind to attain it.

  All sound in the wood now seemed muffled, yet still Brand heard the witch shriek. Whether it was in anger or pain, he did not know, but he sensed her frustration and knew instinctively that the danger had not passed. She would not give up on claiming the staff, and a new attack was imminent.

  As soon as Brand h
ad that thought he knew that he must attack to forestall her. But driven by need rather than considered reason, his body reacted with an instinct of its own, or at least the magic that was in him did.

  Without thinking he raised Aranloth’s staff. Fire burst from it; a hot wild stream that roared to life and leaped at the witch like a living thing.

  He rode toward her, forgetting his sword and concentrating only on the flame.

  Kareste moved also. No flame came from Shurilgar’s staff, but it was raised in threat. It was a threat that Durletha saw and understood. She understood also that her attack had failed. Temptation had not worked, nor surprise. And she did not like it.

  The witch hissed again. Her left arm she held up as a shield, and by the power that was in her she rebuffed Brand’s flame. A small thing for her to do, and easily could she turn it aside and launch her own assault upon him. But for this Kareste waited, for in that moment she would strike herself, and the witch would be open to a greater attack, directed by skill and strength.

  “Begone!” Kareste yelled, taking up Brand’s words.

  The witch looked at them, poised amid the flame, beaten, but not defeated.

  “This is not over,” she said. “It will never be over until that staff is in my hands, and then the other half after it. Old as the hills I am, and I have patience. I’ll watch you fall yet, and it will be all the sweeter.”

  With a toss of her ash-blond hair she fixed Brand with a look of hatred, and he wished never to see such a look again, for it was Kareste, Kareste as she would be if she fell to the Shadow and refused to destroy the staff at the end. It was the way she would look at him if they fought, and fight they must, no matter that it was the last thing he wanted, if that came to pass. For he saw now more clearly than ever before, understood so much better Aranloth’s warning, that for the sake of Alithoras the staff must be destroyed. Otherwise, the evil in the world would constantly seek it.

  One moment the witch was before them, her ash-blond hair tossing, and then she was gone. In her place were the flicking wings of a hawk and a fierce cry from its hooked beak. The pale underwings flashed. Feathers beat the air and swift as an arrow it drove, talons outstretched, at Brand’s face.

  He ducked, but not quick enough. Talons ripped and clawed, seeking for his eyes, yet his head was now bent low and the shrieking attack struck only the helm of the Duthenor.

  There was a flash of silver light, and then the hawk shot upward into the air and was gone.

  Brand and Kareste looked at each other. They did not speak. The only sound they heard was the playing of the flute.

  They turned to Bragga Mor. Tears ran down his face, and the music, up close as they were to it now, filled them with sadness and a sense of longing for something forever beyond reach. It had saved them, but it was heartbreaking, and Brand felt the outside edges of a sorrow greater than any he had ever known. It was a grief that this stranger endured every day.

  Bragga Mor ceased playing, and he looked at them with eyes sadder even than the music.

  8. What Hope for Cardoroth?

  Aranloth stood still. His hands were raised, and only the sleeves of his robe moved, fluttering in the northerly breeze. Gilhain felt the same air on his face.

  For a moment, the stench of the serpent was gone. The air was sweet once more, sweeping down from the north, from the mountains that Gilhain had never seen nor now ever would. He even fancied that he smelled the scent of pinewoods and snow – crisp and fresh.

  He heard a grinding noise and more stone popped to dust under the enormous pressure exerted by the serpent’s tightening coils. The odor of stone overpowered whatever else Gilhain smelled, for it was driven into his face by the north wind which gusted stronger, moment by moment.

  With the wind came cold. Either that, or the shadow of death that fell over the wall blotted out all warmth and drained the air of life.

  The wind now blew with genuine force, whistling through the crenels and moaning along the sides of the merlons. All the while, the lòhrens stood unmoving.

  Gilhain felt something on his cheek. At first, he thought it was crumbled stone from the battlement, and then he knew that it was sleet.

  The wind suddenly died. Yet it remained cold, strangely cold given how hot it was before. So cold that Gilhain noticed with amazement that white frost began to settle in patches over the stonework of the Cardurleth.

  He looked about him. The soldiers were shivering, and a great shudder ran through his own body. He looked at the blade of his sword. It glittered with ice.

  Gilhain whipped his head around in astonishment. Even the serpent was coated by a layer of rime: the slime that dripped from its belly was now turned to a dirty white crust.

  And the serpent did nothing to shake off its icy coat. It lay, twisted and sluggish, over the Cardurleth. The coils no longer tightened. The dust of crumbled stone no longer filled the air.

  Nothing moved in the icy stillness, not until a sudden sign from Lornach to a few of the Durlin. They leaped across the rampart and closed the short distance between themselves and the serpent in the flicker of an eye. They hacked with their swords, but these were still useless. Then Lornach seized a long spear from a nearby soldier, and Taingern joined him.

  Together the two men positioned the spear beneath the creature’s pale belly. And then they drove it upward with slow precision. The air from their lungs billowed out in a silvery mist about them, and the spear, driven with their combined strength, guided by four hands, penetrated the thick skin.

  The serpent moved with a spasm. Cold or no, sluggish or not, it felt pain for the first time and lifted its body away from it.

  A great coil rose. The belly shone pale beneath. Blood dripped from the spear wound, turning to dark ice as it spattered the stone.

  The two men did not relent. They followed the creature, continuing to push the spear upward by clambering atop the merlons.

  With another great heave the coil lifted high above them. The spear was taken beyond their reach, and they tumbled from the merlons back onto the rampart. The coil rose higher, the spear sticking from it, and then with a twist and thrash the loop of the serpent’s body dropped once more.

  More merlons burst. Men were crushed. The two Durlin scrabbled away from the rubble, and the serpent shuddered, raising up the coil with a jerk more sudden than the first, for its efforts had only driven the spear deep; the full six foot length of it now pierced the creature.

  It thrashed. Coils rose and fell all along the Cardurleth. For a moment it hung there, roiling in pain, but then the extremity of its anguish drove it to twist too far. With a final undulation of its whole body, it lost its grip on the battlement and fell.

  Down the massive creature plummeted. It thrashed as it went, and when it landed it sent a tremor through the earth and the battlement shook. There in the dust it writhed. A long time it would take to die, but Gilhain had no doubt that it would. Somehow, Cardoroth was saved.

  On unsteady legs the king walked over and looked down. The creature churned violently in its death pangs. Blood streamed from its wound. He looked along the battlement. The men were in shock, but quickly they began to clean the rampart of bodies and broken stone. The lòhrens all along the Cardurleth leaned on their staffs.

  He turned toward Aranloth, but did not see him at first. Then, some way from the broken edge of the rampart, he spotted him, collapsed to the ground.

  He raced over. From afar he heard the groaning of the enemy horde, and also the pain-filled screech of elùgroths. When he came to Aranloth the old man’s eyes flickered open, and the lòhren spoke, his voice soft but grim.

  “Thus do they pay for their sorcery,” he said. “They linked themselves to the serpent to bring it here and keep it in this world. And as it dies, so too do the weakest among them.”

  Aranloth spoke no more. His eyes blinked strangely, and then closed. Gilhain looked at him, dread creeping though his veins even though he had thought that after the serpent nothing c
ould scare him again. But dread was worse than fear – dread spoke of human tragedy and loss that was irrevocable, but yet to come.

  The king bent down and felt for a pulse. He could not find one, but he had little skill with such matters. The Durlin had more.

  He looked up to call one over, but Taingern was already striding toward him. The Durlin kneeled. With deft movements he felt at Aranloth’s wrist and neck.

  Gilhain knew that he should have seen this coming. The lòhrens had no prop as did the elùgroths. For them, there was no artifact such as Shurilgar’s staff. What they did, they did by the power that was in them, and by the strength of their will and the courage of their hearts. And Aranloth, oldest and greatest among them, he who had given most for the longest, had perhaps finally given too much.

  Gilhain felt suddenly cold.

  “Well?” he asked.

  Taingern did not look at him, did not remove his intent gaze from the lòhren.

  “I don’t know. I thought I felt a pulse, but then it was gone. Sometimes, it’s hard to find.”

  Gilhain did not quite believe that. The Durlin had some skill in healing. It was necessary, for they might have to help someone before a proper healer could arrive. There were times when battlefield medicine, the treatments given to a wounded man while the blood spurted from him, later made the difference between life and death. At other times, if not done correctly, the man was dead before help arrived at all.

  Gilhain bit his lip. Yet, he saw that Taingern had not stopped feeling for a pulse, and that surely must be a good thing.

  The king remained where he was. He took the lòhren’s hand, the hand of his old friend. But beyond friendship there was this also – the fate of the city was bound to him. Without Aranloth to lead them, the other lòhrens were no match for the elùgroths. What hope for Cardoroth without him?