Rhiannon watched the victory unfold with sincere relief. Her guilt had been lessened by the charge of the Warders, but she would not soon forget the torment that her welling powers had put her through this morn. Would she ever come to terms with this hideous strength? Or was she a damned thing, always to be torn apart by magics she could neither control nor understand?
They were questions Rhiannon wanted to sit and ponder, but a short time later the witch’s daughter had to put her emotions aside once again. One side effect of the battle did indeed concern her directly.
The lines of wounded began anew.
Chapter 12
The Lull
ANDOVAR WATCHED THE large tent patiently as the quiet hours of night drifted by. He wanted to rush inside to the young woman who had stolen his heart, but he understood that the wounded needed Rhiannon more than he. Every so often her shadowy silhouette crossed the side of the tent, hunched and weary.
The ranger did not like to see the spirited lass that way.
When the moans of the injured had become a soft murmur, and the witch’s daughter had turned down the lamp inside the tent to a slight glow, the ranger could wait no longer. He moved to the flap of the tent and pushed it aside. Rhiannon had her back to him, barely five feet away, yet so weary was she that she did not even sense his presence. She was bent over a basin, washing the blood and gore from her delicate hands.
She knew it was Andovar as soon as he laid his gentle hand on her shoulder. Rhiannon spun into him, crushing her face into his chest, and all the frustration and sorrow she had suffered these past few days came pouring out in a deluge of tears and quiet sobs.
Andovar fought back the wetness rimming his own eyes, knowing that he had to be strong for her at this moment. He was a Ranger of Avalon, living on the borderlands of civilization, and had known battle before, had lived it all of his life. But Rhiannon, grown twenty years under the springtime canopy of her mother’s enchanted forest, had no experience and no understanding for the horrible sights that fate had so abruptly thrown in her path.
“Ye knew I’d return,” he said after a short while. “I’d not leave ye in yer trials.”
Rhiannon nodded and stepped back from him. “Never did I doubt ye,” she replied. “But never could I guess if ye’d be in time.”
“But I am a ranger,” Andovar protested with a spirit-lifting chuckle. “Me duty it is to arrive on time. And I’m not for missin’ me duty!”
A smile crossed Rhiannon’s tired face, a wonderful smile that for an instant washed away all the pain and weariness. She started to say something, but Andovar’s lips pressed in against hers.
And for both of them, for that brief moment, everything was all right.
But only for a brief moment.
Rhiannon pulled back suddenly and turned away.
“What is it?” Andovar asked.
Rhiannon still could not look him in the eye. “Many the things I have done,” she started to explain. “Terrible things.”
Andovar did not understand.
“The earth itself split apart at me call!” Rhiannon confessed. “And I know not how many I killed.”
Now Andovar understood. Belexus had told him of the young woman’s-the young witch’s-actions against the talon cavalry. She had saved the day, but Belexus had observed, correctly it would seem, that the act had disturbed Rhiannon greatly.
Now Rhiannon did look Andovar in the eye, and her expression was one of terror as much as remorse. “I do no’ know how I did it; truly I do not. The power grew in me and forced itself through, from the very ground at me feet, it did.”
“Ye did as ye had to do,” Andovar replied softly. “Ye should feel no guilt for killing an enemy that picked the fight.”
The ranger didn’t comprehend that killing the talons was but a small part of Rhiannon’s trauma. “I’ll be takin’ no credit for the killing,” she said sharply. “For suren ’twas not meself that did the deed. Ye canno’ understand, though I know ye mean to try.” She paused, searching for the words to express her feelings of being possessed, of being violated, by the terrible power.
“And how many have ye saved this day?” came a voice from the tent flap. The two turned to see Belexus enter. “I number meself among them, for me wounds had me down and dying just a day ago.”
Rhiannon shrugged; the good deeds she accomplished seemed almost unimportant compared to the confusion this power, even in the act of healing, brought to her. And compared to her failure in the course of the day’s events, when she had pushed the power away and denied its call, when she was too weak and cowardly to use it even to save what remained of the brave defenders of the bridges, any good she had done surely paled.
“Many still draw breath because of the work of Rhiannon,” Andovar agreed. “Ye have brought comfort and rest; look around ye for the proof.” He led her gaze to the dozens of men sleeping peacefully on the cots of the large tent. “What guilt then should ye feel?”
“But how many would have felt the pain not at all?” Rhiannon cried. She looked at Belexus, and he could not understand the apologetic expression etched into her delicate features. “I could’ve crushed them, every one, when they came on us this morn! I felt it growing in me, and stronger than the fury when I tore up the western field.”
No anger crossed the faces of the rangers, only sincere pity.
“But I pushed it out!” Rhiannon hissed, a new wave of tears rolling down her cheeks. “I threw it away, though me own cowardice sent men to their deaths!”
Andovar pulled her close and hugged her with all his strength. “No,” he said.
Belexus agreed. “Ye did as ye could, lass. And more than any other, it was. Ye owe yerself no guilt, and no apologies do ye owe to any others, though me guess’s that many owe ye their thanks.”
“And the day was won,” Andovar reminded her.
Rhiannon buried her face in the folds of Andovar’s cloak and did not reply. Belexus left them with a nod to his friend, and Andovar put his head on Rhiannon’s and held her as her sobs soon transformed into the steady rhythm of merciful sleep.
And still he held her, slipping into a chair and cradling his love until the first light of dawn pinkened the eastern skies.
The Black Warlock did not sleep that night-again-and truly this wretched being no longer required any sleep. The thing that Morgan Thalasi and Martin Reinheiser had joined to become little resembled a living creature now, and each day the absolute evil that bound the two spirits stole more of the remaining resemblance away. But this drawing vileness did not take from the life force of the being. Quite the contrary, the Black Warlock felt himself growing stronger every day as the harmony of the two spirits increased into a singular obsession for power.
But at this moment Thalasi knew only rage. His plans for a swift and brutal march to the Calvan seat of power had come to an abrupt end, for though his talons still outnumbered the human defenders across the river, the rabble force could not hope to break through the skilled defenses of the more experienced soldiers. Both sides would dig in now, with reinforcements streaming in daily. Thalasi could only guess which army would eventually prove the larger.
And so it was with the battle of magics as well. The Black Warlock knew that he would only get stronger, but he had lost the offensive against his rivals in Avalon and Pallendara. Istaahl and Brielle would confer and seek methods of combining their powers against him.
And what of Ardaz? The Silver Mage of Lochsilinilume had not yet even made an appearance, a situation that the Black Warlock knew would not last much longer.
Above all the other contemplations and possibilities that the Black Warlock faced on this calm night, one inescapable fact hammered at him relentlessly: he had erred greatly. If his talons had been better organized and controlled, the sweep across the western plains would not have sent so thick a line of refugees in flight down the roads to warn the more eastern towns. And even after those initial blunders, if he had better coordinated the assault against the Four Bridges, his army would have broken through and gained a firm foothold on the eastern bank before the forces from Pallendara had joined in the battle.