"Are you going to be all right, sire?"
The First Lord, his silver hair plastered to his head by the rain, stared down at the valley to the south and shook his head slowly. "None of us are going to be all right." Then he glanced at Ehren and jerked his chin in a sharp gesture toward the door. "On your way."
"Sire," Ehren said, and turned to go back down the stairs and tell the Legion commanders which way to run.
Chapter 21~22
Chapter 21
When the sun rose the next morning, Isana was already awake. She took a brief, simple breakfast that Araris brought from the Legion's mess hall, and then put on her warmest cloak and went up to the top of the Shieldwall again. Aria fell into step beside her along the way, as she passed the High Lady's chambers.
Isana felt Aria's tension and worry at once, thick enough to breach her self-control. She frowned at the other woman. "Aria?"
"Word from the south. The First Lord has engaged the Vord."
Isana traded a quick look with Araris. "And?"
"The Vord have taken Ceres. The Legions are falling back toward Alera Imperia, trying to slow the Vord enough for refugees to stay ahead of them."
Isana drew in a quick breath. "Your husband?"
"He's well. For now." Aria shook her head. "But they confirmed that the Vord are using furycrafting, and on a significant scale. Rhodus Martinus was slain in the battle. Several dozen Citizens and nearly a hundred Knights Aeris were also killed or are unaccounted for."
Isana shuddered at that last. Unaccounted for. In the course of a normal war, one could generally expect such soldiers, missing after a battle, to have been killed and their bodies fallen in some hidden place, to have been scattered by the tides of conflict, or to have been captured by the enemy and taken to some sort of prison. When fighting the Vord, though, capture could mean something infinitely more hideous than death. Worse, it could mean that the Vord had gained several of the furycrafters that Alera had lost.
"Then we had best get to work," Isana said, doing her best to sound calm and confident.
Placidus Garius met them at the head of the stairs as they emerged into the light of predawn. He saluted crisply. "Your Highness. If you'll come this way, our engineers have just finished crafting a stairway down the northern face of the Wall."
Isana lifted an eyebrow. "There weren't any already?"
Garius fell into pace beside Isana and shook his head. "No, milady. It would be too easy for the enemy to use it against us, were we to leave a permanent stairway." His eyes flicked uneasily to the north. "They're dangerous enough without giving them any help."
"Garius," Aria asked, "did your father contact you?"
Garius turned back to look at his mother and nodded grimly. "He did. Here we are, milady." He'd led them to a staircase that ran down the northern face of the Shieldwall and into the snow-covered country beyond. He pointed to a slight rise of ground to the north. "That hill there is where the meeting is set to take place. We'll be watching from here, and you'll have help right away when things get violent."
"'When'?" Isana asked. "Not 'if'?"
Garius shook his head. "Milady... you haven't been up here. You don't understand. You might talk to them for an hour, or a day. But in the end, there's only one way this is going to fall out." He touched a hand to the hilt of his sword to illustrate his point.
"You don't think it's possible to reach an agreement with the Icemen?"
"No, Your Highness," Garius said, without malice. "Realistically, I just don't think it can happen."
"When is the last time anyone tried?"
Garius sighed. "You just don't-"
"Understand?" Isana asked quietly. "No. I don't. The conflict between the Icemen and Alera has been nothing but a plague on our land. I doubt it's done anything better for theirs. And given what's coming at us, we have little choice but to secure some kind of armistice, if not a peace. We need it to survive."
He gave her a brief, strained smile and a nod. "I sincerely wish you the best of luck, Your Highness."
Isana nodded. "Thank you, Garius." She turned to Araris. "Ready?"
Araris, dressed again in his mail, a sword hanging from either hip, nodded. "I'd better go down first," he said quietly. Then he started down the stairs. Isana and Aria followed.
The Shieldwall, Isana decided, looked a great deal smaller from the air than it did from ground level. The face of the enormous Wall, pitted and pocked by time and weather and war, rose beside her into a massive cliff face as she went down the stairs. Upon reaching the bottom, they found the ground covered in several inches of snow. Araris turned and began slogging through the snow, breaking a path for Isana and Aria.
As she followed Araris, Isana glanced back at the Shieldwall with an irritated frown. How was she to forge a peace amidst such mistrust? Garius might be a good soldier and a good son, but his mind was completely closed with intolerance. Couldn't the young idiot see that a peace was not merely desirable but crucial to survival?
It was enough to make Isana want to slap him.
Though the hill wasn't far away, it took them a solid quarter of an hour to reach it through the snow-only to find no one waiting for them. A slow scan around the land beyond the hilltop showed them stands of evergreens clothing increasingly high hills, but no delegation from the Icemen.
Aria frowned, looking around them, and Isana felt a surge of impatience escape the High Lady's restraint. "Where are they?"
"If Doroga is with them, they'll be waiting for the sun to rise," Isana replied.
"Why?"
"The Marat regard the sun as a higher power. They worship it, and conduct all their most important business only under its light."
"I see," Aria replied. "I suppose barbarians have many strange customs."
Isana fought down her own surge of irritation, attempting to rein it in before Aria sensed it. "Doroga is quite urbane, in most senses of the word. Furthermore, he has put himself in harm's way for the sake of the Realm twice over, and has personally saved the lives of my brother and my son. I would appreciate it if you would refrain from insulting him."
Aria's lips compressed, but she only nodded once and turned away to watch for the Iceman negotiators. The cold wind continued to blow from the north, and Isana wrapped her cloak more tightly around herself. She looked back at the Shieldwall behind them, looming black and massive in the dim light. She could see, here and there, the dark form of a legionare on guard, the outlines of their spears slender and wicked against the grey sky.