Maudyn gave him a look of intense distress. “Surely—”
“He’ll retreat. We’ll advance,” Cefwyn said. “Trust in me, sir. And hell take Ryssand.”
Owl called, in the world, and Tristen opened his eyes on stars above him, aware of Uwen sleeping on one side, aware of Crissand not so far away with his household guard and the Amefins all around: aware of the Amefin, the Ivanim, the Olmernmen, and the Imorim, with a handful of Pelumer’s rangers tucked away to the side, in their own group.
That awareness went on to all the camp and the lay of the land. Horses slept. Almost all the camp slept.
But the woods did not.
A second time Owl called. And Tristen gathered himself to his feet, feeling the stir of a wind out of the woods, a wind that smelled of rain and green things, a wind that rushed at him and blew and blew, and yet Men slept. Uwen slept. Only Crissand and Cevulirn waked, and roused to their feet as well, seeking shields and swords and helms, for they had simply loosed buckles and slept in their armor.
So indeed Tristen had done, but what he perceived was not a threat that would stop at leather and metal, nothing a shield could turn: Shadows moved in the woods, and with a thought of that Elwynim force left dead in the snow near Althalen, he felt the hair rise at the nape of his neck: he would not fall to it, but he was determined his friends would not perish: Uwen would not perish, nor would the men who came here trusting him.
The horses grew uneasy: to have them break the picket lines was a disaster they could not afford, either: the beasts smelled danger, but except for the three of them, and a slight stirring here and thefe across the camp, no man roused out of sleep.
Peace, he wished the Shadows, and was instantly confident they heard him, instantly reassured, for out of the wood came a whisk of wind that flattened the meadow grass in the starlight, and there skipped a child, blithe and happy and as perilous as edged iron. She skipped and she played in the starlight, and beyond her, around her, came other streaks in the grass, and other children that laughed with high, thin voices, distant and echoing as in some far and vacant hall.
Seddiwy, he named her, and looked for her mother in the shadows.
So Auld Syes came, a white-haired woman as he had first seen her, in homespun and fringed shawl, like any grandmother of the town; and as he had first seen her, the shadow-shapes of peasant folk came following her, the inhabitants of some village, he took them to be, but dim even for starlight.
Then he recognized an old man, and another, a lame youth, and a chill came over him, for they were the folk of Emwy village, dead since summer, young and old.
“Auld Syes,” he said to the old woman, and in the next blink saw banners among the trees, a sight that alarmed him for an instant, but Auld Syes turned in slow grace and held out a hand toward those that came. It was the Regent’s banner, and the men with it were Shadows as that banner was a Shadow itself.
It was Earl Haurydd, who had died facing Aséyneddin at Emwy Bridge, Ninévrisë’s man, and her father’s; and with him were others of that company.
And there was Hawith, one of Cefwyn’s men, killed at Emwy, and there… there was Denyn Kei’s-son, the Olmern youth who had stood guard at Cefwyn’s door, Erion Netha’s young enemy turned friend.
He saw his own banner, the Tower and Star, and the shadowy youth bearing it, and felt the deep upwelling of loss, for it was Andas Andas-son, who had joined him so briefly to carry that banner at Lewenbrook. The dark had rolled over the boy, and he had gone bravely into it, and never out again.
He trembled at the sight, he, who was no stranger to Shadows, but it was not fear that shook him, rather that he felt his heart torn to the point of pain. It was not harm the Shadows brought with them, but their loyalty, their fidelity, faith kept to the uttermost.
“My lord,” Crissand whispered, having moved close to him, and Cevulirn arrived at his other hand.
“I know them,” Tristen said. “I know them all.”
But it was not the end of visitations, and at the next the brush rattled and moved to the presence of living men, and a handful of peasant villagers appeared, ragged lads carrying spears and one of them a makeshift standard.
Then from another quarter, from the road, appeared a handful of men on horseback, and them with well-made banners, and one of them the Tower Crowned.
Aeself was one of them, and slid down from his horse and walked forward as sleeping men began to wake to the commotion, hearing sounds in the world. Men leapt up, seizing weapons and shields, and calling out in alarm.
“Friends!” Aeself called out. “His Grace’s men!”
A third time Owl called, and the Shadows all were gone. More and more men came from out of the wood, men on horseback and peasants afoot, and a scattering of banners among well-armed and lordly folk.
Aeself went to one knee, and so did the others. “The King,” Aeself said, and so the others said, one voice upon the other, “the King.”
“There is a king,” Tristen protested, but there were more and more of them, spilling out of the trees, while the wood could in no wise have concealed all of them and he could not have been so deceived about their presence. They arrived like the Shadows, as if they had risen out of the stones and the earth, and a wind skirled through the clearing, startling the horses, lifting the banners half to life.
And Aeself rose, foremost of the rest, while Ivanim and Amefin, Imorim knights and Olmern axemen, and a scattering of Lanfarnesse rangers stood utterly dismayed, no less so than their lords.
Auld Syes arrived in their midst like a skirl of wind, fringed shawl flying like threads of cobweb, gray hair shining like the moonlight, and her daughter danced, holding her hand and skipping about her skirts.
—King in Elwynor, King Foretold: deny nothing! The aetheling has found his King, and peril to deny it!
He hoped with all his heart none of the men heard. He wished Auld Syes’ aid for all of them, and by no means rejected Aeself or the Shadows… how could he turn from Andas Andas-son and Earl Haurydd or deny the outpouring of so many wishes? If Men could bind a magic, he found himself snared in it, caught in their wishes, their long, faithful struggle in what he feared was his war, always his war… but now theirs, as well.
“My name is Tristen,” he said to them all as he had said to Hasufin Heltain. He said it as a charm and as the truth which anchored him in the world. “My name is Tristen. Nothing else.”
“King of Elwynor!” some cried, among the living, and the Amefin cried, “Lord Sihhë’!” But he shut his ears against it, and turned away, and in doing so, met the faces he most dreaded to meet: Uwen, as Guelen as ever a man could be; and Cevulirn, steadfast in his oaths; and Crissand Adiran, Amefin, aetheling, king of Amefel… all his friends, all with claims impossible to reconcile, one with the other.
“Lord Sihhë!” the Amefin all shouted now, and so the Elwynim took it up: “Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë! Lord Sihhë!”
That was the only truth he heard. He turned again to confront Auld Syes, but in that moment’s distraction the very light had changed to earliest dawn: there were no Shadows among them to answer, there was no lady and no child, only the shapes of trees and the shapes of Men still indisputably among the living. He knew what he had seen, but he could not believe that every man in the company had seen the same, and could not reconcile what he knew and what they knew, or reason out how much they had heard. They shouted for him: they wanted him with such a fervor it shook him to the heart, and yet he wanted nothing of it, nothing but Cefwyn’s safety.