wine here—from your own Nad Mullach cellars, I think. Let’s find Ule and share it.”
“Gladly. I have had a strange evening. Our allies ... Isorn, they are like nothing and no one I have ever seen.”
“They are the Old Ones, and heathen on top of it,” Isorn said blithely, then laughed. “Apologies, Count. I sometimes forget that you Hernystiri are ...”
“Also heathens?” Eolair smiled faintly. “No offense was taken. I have grown used to being the outsider, the odd one, during my years in Aedonite courts. But I have never felt so much the odd man as I did tonight.”
“The Sithi may be different from us, Eolair, but they are bold as thunder.”
“Yes, and clever. I did not understand all that was spoken of tonight, but I think that we have neither of us ever seen a battle like the one that will take place at Naglimund.”
Isorn lifted an eyebrow, intrigued. “That is something to save and tell over that wine, but I am glad to hear it. If we live, we will have stories to amaze our grandchildren.”
“If we live,” Eolair said.
“Come, let us walk a little faster.” Isorn’s voice was light. “I am getting thirsty.”
They rode across the Inniscrich the next day. The battlefield where Skali had triumphed and King Lluth had received his death-wound was still partially blanketed in snow, but that snow was full of irregular hummocks, and here and there a bit of rusted metal or a weathered spearhaft stuck up through the shrouding white. Although many prayers and curses were quietly spoken, none of the Hernystiri had any great interest in lingering at the site where they had been so soundly defeated and so many of their people had died, and for the Sithi it had no significance at all, so the great company passed by swiftly as they rode north along the river.
The Baraillean marked the boundary between Hernystir and Erkynland: the people of Utanyeat on the river’s eastern side called it the Greenwade. These days, there were few living near either bank, although there were still fish to catch. The weather might have grown warmer, but Eolair could see that the land was almost lifeless. Those few survivors of the various struggles who still scratched out their lives here on the southern edge of the Frostmarch now fled before the approaching army of Sithi and men, unable to imagine any good that yet one more troop of armored invaders might bring.
At last, a week’s journeying north of Nad Mullach—even when they were not in full charge the Sithi moved swiftly—the host crossed the river and moved into Utanyeat, the westernmost tip of Erkynland. Here the land seemed to grow more gray. The thick morning mists that had blanketed the ground during the ride across Hernystir no longer dispersed with the sun’s ascension, so that the army rode from dawn to dusk in a cold, damp haze, like souls in some cloudy afterlife. In fact, a deathly pall seemed to hang over all the plains. The air was cold and seemed to reach directly into the bones of Eolair and his fellows. But for the wind and the muffled hoofbeats of their own horses, the wide countryside was silent, devoid even of birdsong. At night, as the count huddled with Maegwin and Isorn before the fire, a heavy stillness lay over everything. It felt, Isorn remarked one night, as though they were passing through a vast graveyard.
As each day brought them deeper into this colorless, cheerless country, Isorn’s Rimmersmen prayed and made the Tree-sign frequently, and argued almost to bloodletting over insignificant things. Eolair’s Hernystiri were no less affected. Even the Sithi seemed more reserved than usual. The ever-present mists and forbidding silence made all endeavor seem shallow and pointless.
Eolair found himself hoping that there would be some sign of their foes soon. The sense of foreboding that hung over these empty lands was a more insidious enemy, the count felt sure, than anything composed of flesh and blood could ever be. Even the
“Gladly. I have had a strange evening. Our allies ... Isorn, they are like nothing and no one I have ever seen.”
“They are the Old Ones, and heathen on top of it,” Isorn said blithely, then laughed. “Apologies, Count. I sometimes forget that you Hernystiri are ...”
“Also heathens?” Eolair smiled faintly. “No offense was taken. I have grown used to being the outsider, the odd one, during my years in Aedonite courts. But I have never felt so much the odd man as I did tonight.”
“The Sithi may be different from us, Eolair, but they are bold as thunder.”
“Yes, and clever. I did not understand all that was spoken of tonight, but I think that we have neither of us ever seen a battle like the one that will take place at Naglimund.”
Isorn lifted an eyebrow, intrigued. “That is something to save and tell over that wine, but I am glad to hear it. If we live, we will have stories to amaze our grandchildren.”
“If we live,” Eolair said.
“Come, let us walk a little faster.” Isorn’s voice was light. “I am getting thirsty.”
They rode across the Inniscrich the next day. The battlefield where Skali had triumphed and King Lluth had received his death-wound was still partially blanketed in snow, but that snow was full of irregular hummocks, and here and there a bit of rusted metal or a weathered spearhaft stuck up through the shrouding white. Although many prayers and curses were quietly spoken, none of the Hernystiri had any great interest in lingering at the site where they had been so soundly defeated and so many of their people had died, and for the Sithi it had no significance at all, so the great company passed by swiftly as they rode north along the river.
The Baraillean marked the boundary between Hernystir and Erkynland: the people of Utanyeat on the river’s eastern side called it the Greenwade. These days, there were few living near either bank, although there were still fish to catch. The weather might have grown warmer, but Eolair could see that the land was almost lifeless. Those few survivors of the various struggles who still scratched out their lives here on the southern edge of the Frostmarch now fled before the approaching army of Sithi and men, unable to imagine any good that yet one more troop of armored invaders might bring.
At last, a week’s journeying north of Nad Mullach—even when they were not in full charge the Sithi moved swiftly—the host crossed the river and moved into Utanyeat, the westernmost tip of Erkynland. Here the land seemed to grow more gray. The thick morning mists that had blanketed the ground during the ride across Hernystir no longer dispersed with the sun’s ascension, so that the army rode from dawn to dusk in a cold, damp haze, like souls in some cloudy afterlife. In fact, a deathly pall seemed to hang over all the plains. The air was cold and seemed to reach directly into the bones of Eolair and his fellows. But for the wind and the muffled hoofbeats of their own horses, the wide countryside was silent, devoid even of birdsong. At night, as the count huddled with Maegwin and Isorn before the fire, a heavy stillness lay over everything. It felt, Isorn remarked one night, as though they were passing through a vast graveyard.
As each day brought them deeper into this colorless, cheerless country, Isorn’s Rimmersmen prayed and made the Tree-sign frequently, and argued almost to bloodletting over insignificant things. Eolair’s Hernystiri were no less affected. Even the Sithi seemed more reserved than usual. The ever-present mists and forbidding silence made all endeavor seem shallow and pointless.
Eolair found himself hoping that there would be some sign of their foes soon. The sense of foreboding that hung over these empty lands was a more insidious enemy, the count felt sure, than anything composed of flesh and blood could ever be. Even the
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