Shadows of Destiny

“If this is so,” Lutte said, “then our agents in Bozandar must be at their task. Surely Bozandar can crush the slave people and end this rebellion.”

“Bozandar will not be our ally,” the ruler said. “In the end, it will come to us and us alone. It will come to me. For only I can slay my brother.”

Again he is on about his brother, Lutte thought. As if the rest of the world were mere pawns in this sibling rivalry. Lutte had heard the whispers, that his ruler was in fact the second son of the Firstborn King, but he did not believe them. The children of the Firstborn were long dead, if ever they had existed. Lutte needed no ancient good or evil to empower him. The evil of the human heart more than sufficed to afflict the world. And only the good of the human heart could bring it comfort. The rest were tales, legends, myths told to fortify the sheep against the hardness of life, and make the sheep compliant within it.

“Is there anything else?” the ruler asked.

“No, my lord.”

“Then go,” the ruler said. “Tend to your numbers and your geometries. And pray that you never stand on a field where straight lines bend and twice two is not four.”

He did not read my mind, Lutte thought as he bowed and turned to leave. His face had betrayed his skepticism, and his ruler knew of his reputation. It was nothing more.

What a pity, Ardred thought as Lutte left. What a pity that such a talented young mind should lack the most essential of all knowledge: the numbering of the gods, the geometry of the soul.

Lutte was a good soldier, but poor counsel. What he lacked, Ardred most needed. For no man can make war upon his brother with lightness of heart, whatever their past. Once, Ardred had laid siege to Annuvil. Now Annuvil would come to lay siege to Ardred.

Lutte thought he knew what danger lay when two men loved a woman, for such had been his crime. But he knew nothing at all.

Ardred must kill his brother. The world could not be stitched back together until Annuvil was dead. Only then would the glory and true power return.

And all this for the love of a single woman.

Theriel.

Chapter Three

The rustle began at the edges of the Bozandar camp. Muted gasps and movements filtered through the camp as if through the muscles and sinew of a waking giant, slowly willing it into motion. Tuzza put down his pen and emerged from his tent, his senses alert for any hint of danger or malice. He felt none, and slowly made his way through the gathering throng of soldiers at the eastern fence.

“It cannot be!” one man whispered.

“They cannot live so far south!” another added.

“My eyes deceive me, for they bend to her!”

Tuzza shouldered his way through until he could see for himself what had caused such a stir. And his mouth dropped open.

There stood Lady Tess, a semicircle of snow wolves arrayed behind her, silent yet alert, their eyes fixed on her as if she were their pack leader. One of them, however, stood beside her, golden eyes searching among the soldiers until at last they fixed on Tuzza. A shiver ran through him as he made eye contact with the beast, a recognition of something preternatural and unexplainable.

So it was true.

Tuzza instinctively lowered himself to one knee and bowed. He had no need to speak, for his men were still soldiers, whatever their current lot. They knelt with him.

“Rise, Topmark Tuzza,” the woman said, her voice quiet but firm. She spread her hands behind her, indicating the wolves. Then the fingers of one hand returned to rest on the head of the snow-white beast beside her. “Rise and make way for your Lady and her court.”

“Fall in!” Tuzza commanded.

Some, those whom fortune had placed at the rear of the battles and who had not needed her healing touch, grumbled. But they were the fewer, and the looks of their comrades shamed them into obedience.

“Dress ranks!” Tuzza said.

Even in those who grumbled, the first act of obedience had rekindled the training and drill that countless hours had transformed into automatic responses. The men adjusted their spacing, and soon stood in lines so straight that they might have been set down by a surveyor.

Tuzza faced Lady Tess. “My men stand ready, m’lady. We are at your service.”

“Very well,” Tess said, now striding toward them as if she were gliding on air, the wolves in her train.

She marched to the front of the formation, then turned to face them. Once again the wolves took up their places behind and at her side. When she spoke, her voice was clear and strong, a bell ringing in the soul itself.

“I am she who was foretold,” Tess said. While she loathed the words and what they meant, she knew their truth. She could not hide from herself any longer. “Believe, or disbelieve. But disbelief will be your doom, for you will disbelieve that which you now see for yourselves. Topmark Tuzza stands at my service. Where stand you?”

For long moments, the host stood frozen. Tuzza stepped forward and ranged himself beside the lady. Now, perhaps, he could quell the unrest in his ranks and refashion from them an army. He spoke quietly, yet pitching his voice to reach even the most distant of ears among his men. “The days we learned about as children, the days we thought were mere tales fashioned for our amusement, have arrived. While we may have to fight our brethren, our purpose is not to bring about the fall of Bozandar, but her salvation. For the Enemy we fight would bring the death of all.

“Stand with me, my men, for the sake of your families, for the sake of your children yet unborn. For if we do not stand now, we shall face the fate of the Firstborn, and never shall our names be heard again.”

He could see his men wavering, uncertain in their loyalties. Outside the walls of the compound, however, the Anari guards bent their knees and made signs of fealty toward the Lady Tess. Then the wolves began to keen, a sound that made the hair on the back of a man’s neck rise, that sent a tingle running along even the bravest spine.

With a simple movement of her hand, the lady silenced the wolves, a sight so shocking that many doubtful hearts were swayed.

“Brave men of Bozandar,” she said, “declare yourselves now, for your entire future is writ in this moment.”

A ripple of movement ran through the ranks, and when stillness again returned, every soldier had knelt.

The lady opened her arms and turned her face heavenward. To those with eyes to see, she almost seemed to glow a pale blue, an aura that enveloped the wolves at her feet. Then snow began to fall, gently, sparkling in the rising dawn light, looking almost like blood. Above, gray clouds churned, marked red here and there as the sun rose above the mountains.

“He brings the snow,” the lady said. “He seeks to destroy you with cold and hunger. He would murder your brothers and leave barren the wombs of your sisters. He would strike from the fabric of time your very existence. I will not let this be.”

Reaching up with one hand, she appeared to grasp something in the air and twist it. A sudden wind sprang up, strong enough to make men lean. As it blew, it drove the clouds away, clearing the sky until it was the perfect blue of dawn.

The lady lowered her arm and looked at all the men kneeling before her. “Rise,” she said. “You have chosen wisely this day. I will arrange better accommodations for you as swiftly as I can. May Elanor bless you and your families.”

Then she turned and exited the compound, the wolves a protective phalanx around her.

In the Bozandari compound, the murmuring and even arguments continued throughout the day. Some refused to believe what they had seen. The vast majority, however, believed their own senses, and eventually argued the dissenters into silence.

The strongest voices among them were the voices who had seen Tess on the battlefield, those who had seen or experienced her healing and that of her sisters.

Such magicks had long vanished from the world, and had long been thought to be silly tales. Now those who had seen with their own eyes no longer could deny the truth of the stories.

Tuzza chose to remain mostly out of sight this day, while the discussions raged outside his tent. His men had elected to offer fealty to the lady, and he never doubted that they would keep that oath. Honor was held in the highest esteem by the Bozandari army, and these men would not go back on their words. Yet still they might argue about what they had seen and what it meant.

Toward evening, as the sky reddened again to the west and the camp began to settle for another cold night, Archer Blackcloak, he who was Annuvil, came to the prison camp to speak with Tuzza.

The first thing Tuzza noted was that Master Archer, as he preferred to be called, seemed to have grown somehow since last they spoke. It was as if in shouldering the burdens left to him by his heritage, as if in announcing his true identity, Archer had grown physically as well as figuratively. The lines of care and suffering still carved his face deeply, but they only enhanced the sense of power about him.

Tuzza offered him wine, and the two of them sat at the wooden camp table, the map of the Bozandari world between them.

“I heard,” Archer said, “that the lady paid you a visit early this morning.”