Stormed Fortress: Fifth Book of The Alliance of Light. Janny Wurts
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shed pile of harness was only half-cleaned, when Lysaer s’Ilessid arrived on his dappled charger. He reined in, a white cloud against storm amid the mounted guard wearing the silver-and-sable surcoats of Kalesh. From shining blond hair to immaculate appointments, to eyes glinting blue as cut sapphire, the avatar’s presence seared sight to witness. Men in his shadow were reduced to servants, but never so callously disregarded. Lysaer’s smile of welcome to his least groom made the bearded, blunt mayor in his gaudy wealth an overstuffed caricature.
Both men dismounted. For an instant, the attentive descent of trained staff obscured the immediate view.
Then the acting captain at arms shoved from the shaded pavilion. Massive and rumpled, he forced his way through. Man and horse, groom and equerry, the tableau before the staked standards and awnings crystallized to expectation.
Sunlight shone down on snowy silk and cold majesty as the dawn’s urgent news reached the Blessed Prince.
‘Ath above, show us mercy and sense!’ murmured Vhandon, unwittingly stunned. No thought had prepared him as his lungs stopped with awe. He had never expected such beauty and strength, or the impact of Lysaer s’Ilessid’s innate charisma.
Every retainer’s rapt face showed that grace. His brief smile to the least, insignificant page could have fuelled a torch by sheer caring.
Before this, the patient years spent unravelling Arithon’s reticent quiet became as a dream, scoured off by noon heat.
Then the moment passed. The pavilion’s flap was thrust open again. More ranking officers rushed out in a pack, declaiming Keldmar’s brute ferocity. Lysaer asked them for calm. Against abashed silence, he demanded the recount of his Lord Justiciar’s murder.
There came no self-righteous cry to raise arms. No flourish of trumpets to strike in retaliation. Lysaer stood firm. Upright as the poised spear-shaft, he heard through his officers’ riled account with focused attention. That stillness gripped him for one second more. Not a diamond stud on his gold-braided collar flashed in the flood of the morning.
Then he said, ‘Fetch the banner-bearer who carried the Light’s abused standard. I want a front-rank witness to corroborate.’
‘But of course!’ Flushed by self-conscious embarrassment, the subordinate captain from Tirans backed down. Movement ruffled the packed horsemen as he sent an equerry, bearing the summons. Liveried grooms crept on with their chores, apologetically gathering reins and running up dangling stirrup-irons. Inert in their midst, Kalesh’s flummoxed mayor watched the proceedings like dead wood.
‘Carry on,’ murmured Lysaer. His wave dismissed the hovering escort. Sun burned through his jewels, as he raised taut fingers and raked back his sweat-damp blond hair. For that brief moment, he averted his face, a seamless pause, apparently made to ease his overwrought company. The wise leader with set-backs allowed his fraught men to vent their unconstrained reactions.
Yet the perfect, staged move granted Vhandon full view, as the impact touched Lysaer’s expression.
He looked tortured with pain. Sorrow transformed his face. Given his stance, he now had to act, regardless of personal preference. He was no born killer. Only a man, dedicated to courage, who carried a steadfast commitment. He commanded selflessly, and without stint. But never without thought: and not without feeling the hideous cost for the retribution he must now carry forward.
Soul spoke, in that instant of scalding agony, torn down to honest revulsion. For Lysaer’s sworn covenant to stay unbroken, he would bear the weight of the service he had pledged all his resource to defend.
Then the distraught standard-bearer arrived. Lysaer straightened to meet him; reforged the façade that claimed to be avatar, and with the purity of his conviction, requested the spoken truth.
Hush fell over the officers gathered for council. Their advice was not asked. None ventured to speak, while the barbaric fate of the Light’s dead ambassador became repeated in full. Lysaer s’Ilessid did not interrupt. Every inch of him royal, he listened as though each stammered word was the last sound in the world.
Then, as fresh anger savaged the ranks, shouting for blood in redress, Lysaer raised his fist.
Silence descended. ‘Fetch another white stallion,’ he bade. ‘Bridle and saddle him in full state panoply.’
As his dismounted lancers crowded and begged for the chance to bear arms as his vanguard, Lysaer turned them down. ‘I have no need for protection! No call to risk you, or rely on your bravery. Not for this, the opening hour that the Light is called to scour this land of hypocrisy.’
‘You will burn them out!’ exclaimed the war-captain from Tirans. ‘Rout the enemy with fire until the citadel boils to magma!’
‘I support no such cruelty!’ Lysaer pealed back. His cool purpose was unassailable, a chiselled display that cowed those men closest, and pressed the faint-hearted to unwitting retreat. Justice enforced the gap between the aroused dedicates and their hailed idol.
‘The enemy captain of Alestron’s field defences was the man who delivered the honourless order to fire. His archers enacted this uncivilized death. The farm-hands they defended condoned the crime. These are the guilty. I shall not tear down walls! Or destroy innocent town citizens over an action they did not commit!’
The crestfallen officer flushed. Around him, his fellows shifted, abashed, as though the ground trembled beneath them.
Against that crushed pause, where none dared opinion, the Mayor of Kalesh cleared his throat and clapped the shoulder of Lysaer’s white surcoat. ‘My Blessed Lord! That’s ingenious strategy! Of course, if you raze the field troops alone, those trapped inside the citadel will mew themselves up. They’ll crowd in panic and stress their own garrison, while we set our leisurely course for a siege.’ His shark’s smile widened. ‘We can watch in comfort as the s’Brydion fortress becomes overburdened, then starved to submission.’
Lysaer s’Ilessid’s smile curdled with frosty politeness. ‘Quite, as you say.’ He sucked a sharp breath. ‘Except, for civility, I will deliver their barbaric duke his due warning.’
His poised fist stirred. Lean fingers snapped, once. Out of clear air rose a pillar of light. The beacon pierced like a needle towards heaven, dazzling unshielded sight. The self-proclaimed avatar shone for the masses. He became as the blade of the unsheathed sword, crowned in white fire and diamonds.
‘Mercy!’ gasped Vhandon, forgetting the young scout, who shared equal danger beside him.
How could any man bear to witness such splendour? How not to become bedazzled by triumph? Could any mortal mind fail to be stirred by the clarion cry to honour the moral high ground?
‘Mercy alive!’ Vhandon wept, torn in pieces, and all but seduced by the lure of sheer fascination. Such glory could not do other than blaze. Every last blinded follower would marry their efforts to what seemed a lofty ideal. Those who cheered with their dazed eyesight sealed would hurl themselves into a life-and-death struggle. By sheer mass and numbers, they would kill every standing troop caught in their path.
Vhandon ached for hope’s loss. He was alone, clenched fast in the breach. His hand was not other than human. No field-captain possessed a sorcerer’s wisdom. To denounce the false avatar in the enemy camp could only bring swift self-destruction. The horrific thought chilled him: that he was informed. Had he not held an intimate association with Arithon, he would not have escaped the insanity. Would not have grasped what these followers never had grace to perceive: that this war had been seeded by Desh-thiere’s curse. If not for the memory of a clearer music, called forth from a Paravian-made sword, Vhandon realized he could have been swept off his feet. Too easily, ignorance swayed decent men to cast their lot with the Light’s mustered soldiers.
Yet he had heard. His vision saw past ennobled passion as the bridled white stallion arrived, and its blond rider accepted the reins. Lysaer received the dazzled salutes of his officers, then strode forward