“Why the Caineron and Ardeth Lordan, but not the Knorth?”
Death’s-head fidgeted under her. He wanted to get past these blockheads and at the enemy, whoever that might be. The officers’ horses stirred uneasily.
“For one thing,” said Ran Spare, “you see what effect that monster of yours has on our mounts. Are we to sacrifice the entire cavalry for one rider?”
He rode toward her as he spoke, calming his nervous mare with the touch of his hand. Death’s-head’s nostrils flared with interest. Pray Ancestors that she wasn’t in season.
“For another, have you ever fought in that armor? I thought not. For some reason, you’re also dripping wet. Worse, where is your helmet?”
Jame touched her bare face, shocked by memory. The helm with its fearsome guard of ivory teeth still lay on her bed in camp, where in her haste she had forgotten it. She hadn’t even missed it until now.
Fool, she thought. What am I doing here?
The randon was beside her now, their mounts head to tail. The rathorn sniffed. The mare stood her ground, although her withers darkened with nervous sweat. “Most important, though, there is this.” Spare spoke too softly now for anyone else to hear. “In the next hour, we may all die. Your lord brother survived Urakarn, otherwise no one would have known what happened to him or to the troops under his command. Someone must survive here too, to tell our story. Please, lady.”
Timmon rose in his stirrups and pointed. “Here they come!”
Beyond the gap, the valley widened and turned toward the southwest. Black-clad riders appeared around the bend, filling the Betwixt from side to side as their front line swung across it. They seemed to bring the wings of night with them, under whose shadow they rode in a many-legged mass. Likewise, their hoofbeats rolled together into a continuous rumble like distant thunder and dust rose like smoke in their wake. Through rents in the latter, one could see something looming behind them that was neither the Escarpment nor any Apollyne peak. Black it was, high and wide enough to dominate the sky, although its snowbound summit was broken. Columns of steam rose above it from its hidden interior and its flanks were fissured with cracks that glowed red in the dusk of its shadow.
“‘Black rock on the dry sea’s edge,’” Gorbel growled, quoting one of Ashe’s songs to the surprise of those close enough to hear. “‘How many your dungeons swallowed. How few came out again.’ D’you mean to tell me that that hulk is . . .”
“Urakarn,” breathed Timmon. “Or a counterfeit of it, like a mirage.”
Snow tumbled down from the heights and a cloud of ash belched up over its ramparts. Jame remembered the boiling lake and the seam of rising fire within the earth. Some moments later, the ground shuddered slightly underfoot, but any sound it might have made was swallowed by the rumble of the oncoming horde.
Jame watched the gray stallion in the vanguard. It really was Iron-jaw, she decided, who had been her father’s war-horse. She remembered Tori daring her to ride the brute, and that bone-jarring fall, and Tori dragging her back through the fence, out from under those deadly, steel-shod hooves. Iron-jaw had always had an evil temper. Then Ganth had ridden him to death in the Haunted Lands, searching for the Dream-weaver, his lost love. When the stallion had come back as a haunt, the changer Keral had claimed him for his master, Gerridon.
. . . we can always feed you to his new war-horse . . .
Was that who rode Iron-jaw now?
The figure on the haunt stallion’s back wore silver-gilt mail and black steel plate of an ornate, antique design that predated the Kencyrath’s experience on Rathillien with the rhi-sar. A horned helm obscured his features. It occurred to Jame that, despite growing up in his house, she had never seen the Master’s face clearly. He had always stood in the shadows, or behind her, or behind something else, such as those red, bridal ribbons. Tori had met him at least twice in his youth with the Southern Host but never face-to-face, if her experience of his dreams was to be believed. Only the Randir Matriarch Rawneth had had that dubious honor in the Moon Garden, but it was the changer Keral with whom she had mated, not Gerridon as she still believed.
How had she known one face from another?
How was Jame supposed to now?
“M’lord Caineron,” said Ran Spare, “take the rocky slope. We can’t afford to be outflanked. M’lord Ardeth, can you fortify that hill?”
It required someone who knew him to see the strain in Timmon’s answering smile, but it wasn’t cowardice. He hadn’t yet proved himself to his house. This might be his last chance.
“With pleasure,” he said, and wheeled his horse back into the crowd, followed by the Ardeth cadets.
Spare turned back to Jame. “Lady . . .”
Death’s-head snorted and pawed the ground. When he tossed his head, he nearly pulled Jame out of the saddle. Spare tried to grab his bridle, but Jame knocked his hand away before the rathorn could take off his arm.
It comes to this, she thought.
Ever since she had first seen the gray stallion and had guessed who might be riding him, this fight had become personal. The Master had betrayed the entire Kencyrath, but his own house first, including her own hapless father. And she owed him for a miserable childhood which she still only partly remembered.
Yet doubts arose: what could a single rider do, even on such a mount as Death’s-head? To make a sacrifice was one thing; to make a fool of oneself while doing so was another, and to what end?
Moreover, despite her suspicions, what could have possessed the Master to risk his person after so long lurking in the shadows—not that he was really in the light now with night roiling over his head, slashed by distant lightning. If he was here, he must think that there was no real risk. He meant to smash through the cadets and seize the camp before the Host could arrive to defend it. Meanwhile, he must believe that his puppet Prince Ton had overthrown King Krothen to become the Host’s paymaster. To whom did the Host belong then, if not to him?
Jame didn’t think it would be that simple, but the Master of Knorth was arrogant enough to believe that it was.
Thus her thoughts and emotions churned, underlaid with an unspoken fear: was she simply afraid?
The Karnids had seen them. They came on at a gallop that made the earth shake, Iron-jaw thundering before them with sparks under his hooves where steel met rock. Thousands of swords cleared their scabbards and flashed back the dawn light from under the boiling clouds of night.
In the next hour, we may all die.
At the very least, she might buy them some time.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Spare. “He was Lord Knorth before he betrayed us all. This is house business.”
With that, she put her heels to the rathorn’s sides and he bolted forward, almost leaving her in midair.
They passed through the gap, hearing the cries behind them as the cadets formed ranks. They would hold their position as long as they could, but not follow, nor did Jame expect them to. The rathorn’s hooves devoured the ground. She felt his back arch with each stride while the wind tore at her loosened hair.
Her shield was slung across her back. She slipped it down onto her left arm, truly feeling its weight for the first time. The rhi-sar lashings might be light, but the ironwood backing was not.
Iron-jaw lunged toward her. Jame remembered meeting him in the soulscape, how he had nearly run down the foal that had been Death’s-head, how she had grabbed his thick neck, swung up, and plunged her nails into his eye. Sure enough, the right socket was a scarred cavity weeping thick, dark blood. Blind on that side . . .
The space between the two equines was closing rapidly. Trinity, were they going to crash head on? The haunt was larger and heavier than the young rathorn, his hooves the size of platters. He loomed over them like a gray cliff.