He meant Mother Dark, she presumed. ‘They must line the steps of that path first, and so they urge you to remain here. Sir, was it truly your desire to … do nothing?’
‘And yield trust to any messenger? Were you, captain, not enough?’
‘Day by day, sir, my reiteration of your avowed loyalty, in the name of peace, rang more and ever more hollow.’ Pray that stings you, Urusander. Words scud like clouds over the blood-soaked landscape. High and noble they might be, but their shadows prove weak.
He squinted southward for a time, and then seemed to deflate. ‘I am filled with promises,’ he said. ‘None worth the weight of the breath that utters them.’
The wealth of light, it seemed, invited extremity. There would indeed be little balance left to this newly forged weapon. In sudden clarity, she saw the marriage, this union that would bring peace upon the realm. A bloody peace. Light and Dark will war, one against the other. I see the spitting out of children, a family brood both venal and vicious. A marriage of two bedrooms, two keeps, two worlds. ‘Commander Toras Redone’s grief, sir, is for the soldiers of the Hust Legion, almost all of whom are now dead.’
The face he swung to her was such a cascade of expressions that she could make no sense of it. ‘That cannot be. Have the Forulkan returned? Does the war begin again? I’ll not yield this time! I will pursue them down to the very sea, and see the crest ride red for years upon that cursed shore!’
She blinked. ‘No. The Forulkan have not come. They renew no war. Did their own queen not acknowledge the justice of their defeat? Lord Urusander, you broke them, and they shall not return.’
‘Then what has befallen the Hust?’
‘Treachery,’ she replied, once more searching his face, and once more baffled by what she saw. A warlord in search of an enemy. But surely, this is the season for it, as the chambers you pace grow smaller and smaller still. ‘They were poisoned,’ she said. ‘In a single night, following a gift of wine and ale. A gift, sir, from Captain Hunn Raal.’
When he said nothing, when he but stared at her, his face like cracked ice, Sharenas looked away – almost desperately. ‘This is why,’ she said, ‘they speak only of the wedding.’
Urusander finally spoke, his tone viciously cold. ‘How does the First Son give answer? Does he now march upon us?’
‘With what?’ Sharenas snapped. ‘The Houseblades of the nobles? None are summoned to Kharkanas. Lord Anomander is not even there. Instead, he searches for Andarist. Lord Silchas commands in his place, and seeks to restore the Hust Legion.’
‘But – how?’
‘He raids the mining pits, sir.’
Urusander raised a hand between them, as if to push her away. She fell silent. With her words she had battered at him, wielding them as would a madwoman. No shield thrown up against them survived their relentless frenzy. She thought she saw in him, now, at last, signs of shock. But balance is not a game. Have I pushed too far, even when I spoke nothing but the truth? Is this, perhaps, the reason for keeping Urusander ignorant?
‘They think me a puppet,’ Urusander said. ‘I was told that Ilgast Rend defied every effort at conciliation. He threw away the lives of the Wardens, and killed many of my own soldiers. Was it courage or cowardice that he chose to die in battle?’ He waved a hand. ‘When Calat Hustain learns of this, of what Rend did with his people … ah, even I do not know how I would survive that. Such betrayal, and by a nobleborn …’ His voice trailed away. He stared south again. ‘It is curious, is it not, how the horrors climb the walls of our righteous indignation? Up and out, spilling over the battlements with howls, in a night of lit torches and wind-whipped flames. I see their grim forms, spreading out, and out, over Kurald Galain. Hunn Raal? May the spirits forgive me, but it was my hands that shaped him. My blessed, poisoned portrait.’
‘Sir, it is not enough to harden yourself to such atrocities.’
‘You misjudge me, Sharenas,’ Urusander replied. ‘It seems that you have forgotten the campaigns against the Forulkan and the Jhelarkan. No battle shall be unveiled until it is already won. I must think like a commander. Again, after all this time. Gift me with your patience, and consider my words a promise.’
Sharenas shook her head. ‘The time for patience has passed, sir. Your camp is in need of cleansing.’
Urusander glanced at her again. ‘Is it so hard to understand?’ he asked her. ‘I keep looking for justice.’
Sharenas looked down at the castle leavings that crowded the lord’s ankles. You’ll not find it here, Vatha Urusander. ‘Sir, Hunn Raal cannot be trusted.’
His mouth twisted into a faint smile. ‘And you can?’
She had no reply to that question. Any exhortation would demean her.
After a moment he shook his head. ‘Forgive me, captain. As you say, there have been changes since you were last here. Thus, you remain, for the moment at least, outside all of that. Your clay is still wet, awaiting impress, and I but wonder at who would claim such an unmarred surface.’
‘Sir, I cannot but doubt Hunn Raal’s version of that battle. I have known Lord Ilgast Rend all my life. I fought at his side. We knew fear upon the field, in the clash of weapons and the roar of the press. True, he possessed a fierce temper-’
‘Captain, he chose to march upon us. He arrayed the Wardens and sought battle. None of that can be questioned.’
‘Perhaps not. And if he came with his own Houseblades, and not Calat Hustain’s Wardens, I could be made to believe Hunn Raal’s tale – although even then, I would expect an exchange of insults, and indeed a grievous offence committed, to which Ilgast had no choice but to give answer. But the charge set upon Lord Rend – the safe keeping of the Wardens – he would have taken most seriously.’
‘It seems not,’ Urusander retorted.
‘There was the matter of the pogrom-’
Urusander grunted dismissively. ‘For which Rend chose not to accept my own promise of justice, to be attended upon every criminal in my ranks, every slayer of innocents.’
‘Did you give him that promise, sir? Face to face?’
He drew his cloak tighter about him, and then turned to the narrow trail that led back to the gatehouse. ‘I was indisposed on that day,’ he muttered. He set out.
Rattled by that admission, Sharenas followed. ‘And then, sir,’ she persisted, ‘there is the murder of the Hust.’
‘Your point?’
‘The attending of justice, sir.’
He halted abruptly and faced her. ‘Civil war, captain. This is what is now upon us. Though I held to peace – though here I chose to remain, holding fast upon my legion. Though I summoned every wayward veteran back into my fold, under my responsibility. Yet still they elected to march upon me. How can I know if Ilgast Rend was not following Anomander’s orders? How can I not contemplate the purpose of striking at my legion before it was fully assembled, the tactical value, the strategic purpose of such a thing? After all, captain, it is what I would do.’
He resumed walking.
‘I doubt that, sir.’
Her words brought him back. ‘Explain, captain.’
‘If at Anomander’s behest, sir, Ilgast Rend would surely have come with more than just the Wardens. His own Houseblades, for one, and perhaps even those of Anomander. Or what of the Shake? Who more bears the wounds of that pogrom than the warrior monks of Yannis? And what of the other Great Houses? To crush you now would be the proper tactic. Sir, Ilgast Rend brought to us a show of force, a symbol of his disapproval. Something happened, in that meeting between him and Hunn Raal. If Raal can poison three thousand men and women of the Hust, would he shy from provoking Rend to a foolish decision?’
Urusander studied her. The day was failing around them, the wind picking up, bitter with cold. ‘I cannot say,’ he finally said. ‘Let us ask him, shall we?’