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Prelude: Summer Thunder

All day, the forest had been blanketed by a thick mist that weighed down the meadow grasses. The trees, just shadows. The land, transformed into a puzzle, all its familiar markers hidden. Lanyon Kyramanthes kept her place halfway back in a long line of riders. She could not see to the front of the column. The horses ahead of her and the hooded warriors astride them faded into invisibility. A saddle creaked, hooves thumped their quiet beat against wet ground. Bird song, soft voices. The annoyed snort of her mare who'd grown increasingly restless, pulling to the right as if determined to take a new direction. The horse's stubborn insistence nurtured Lanyon's doubt. Had their guide become confused? Had the company lost its way in the mist? Doubt crystallized to certainty with a faint, menacing rumble of faraway thunder. Lanyon pushed back her hood, turned sharply in the saddle. Behind her, more riders, silhouetted in the mist.

Thunder rumbled again. It came from behind them, growling down their trail. Again her mare snorted, pulled to the right, but this time, Lanyon did not resist. She let the mare turn, while she called out in a voice meant to be heard at the front of the column, "Jahallon! War Father! We are going the wrong way!"

The warrior behind her reined in his horse with a questioning look. She offered no explanation as she brought her mare around in a full circle to face the oncoming beat of cantering hooves.

Jahallon burst out of the mist, pulled his horse up alongside hers. He eyed the tiny, warm bundle of her newborn daughter asleep in a carrier against her chest. Lanyon's son, who was already one and a half years in the world, was farther back in the line, in the doting care of those women who served as Jahallon's couriers.

"Do you need to stop?" Jahallon asked, sounding puzzled.

"No, War Father."

To the casual eye, he could seem an ordinary manhis broad shoulders might draw notice, or the odd coppery color of his clipped hair; otherwise, he appeared as any warrior in his prime—but this was only the surface of things, the thin skin of creation. Jahallon-the-Undying was bound to a deeper place. Time could not catch him in its current. Alone among the people he could not grow old and he could not die, yet he was loved, not feared, and his willful descendants felt easy enough in his company that they did not hesitate to speak their minds.

"War Father, we have strayed in the mist. I know it. We are going the wrong way."

And after all, Jahallon did not know this land. He had never visited the Citadel of the Snow Chanter, even though the bitter history that had kept him away was long since crumbled to dust. On this, his first journey into the heart of Samokea, he relied on a senior captain to guide the column. But looking at him, Lanyon could see he had doubts, too.

"You're listening to Siddél's thunder?" he asked her.

"Why does it lie behind us? Should we believe the monster has gone south to trouble Habaddon? Or is it more likely Siddél cleaves to custom, growling and threatening from the escarpment of the Tiyat-kel, where no arrows can reach him? He can be heard there almost every afternoon from the ramparts of the Citadel. But that is not all. My horse remembers her home. She fights to turn north ... or what I think is north. I'm certain we're not going north now. We have lost our way."

The riders behind were coming up one by one, gathering around, while those who were ahead had stopped to look back.

Jahallon, too, looked back the way they had come, glaring into the mist as if he could part it merely by the fierceness of his gaze. His age and his long experience had given him a disturbing prescience so that he could foretell an outcome from the least clues, whether on the battlefield or in the hearts of his people. He had also an unrelenting temper.

Fixing his gaze on Lanyon he asked, "Did you summon this mist?"

"No," she said in fierce denial. "Why must you think ill of me? Édan is my husband and it was always my intention to return to him."

"You should not have left the Citadel without telling him, when he was gone to war and you with child."

"I have already said I was wrong. I cannot undo it."

How foolish she felt now!

Not so, then, when the cold stone of the Citadel had seemed impervious to the spring. Where was the trickling snowmelt? The glint of new leaves and delicate flowers? The shy face of the sun, lost and found again behind roving clouds? After Édan had gone, such a longing came over her to return for a time to the bright forests of Habaddon, and to visit her friends there, and truly, she meant to stay only a little while. So when a company of couriers set out, she took her son and went with them.

But the campaign dragged on past all expectation. Spring edged into summer and no company could be spared to escort her back to the Citadel. When the army finally did return, Lanyon was so close to term the midwives wouldn't let her undertake the ride. So her daughter wasn't born in the land of Samokea as she should have been, but in Habaddon. Now the infant was twenty-three days old, and though Édan had been back at the Citadel of the Snow Chanter for twice that time, he had not come south to see his daughter, nor sent any word.

"I cannot undo it!" Lanyon said again. "And I am returning to him now—or I would if this mist did not hinder us and set us on false paths."

Jahallon nodded. "I loathe this blind wandering." He lifted his gaze, to address the riders gathered around them. "Let us find a place to raise the tents. We will go no farther until this mist gives way."

◆

Leaving her tiny daughter in the care of the other women, Lanyon took her son walking, letting him play and clamber in the wet grass. She made sure to smile at his antics, though Jahallon's question had added to the dread that already haunted her. Did you summon this mist? She had not. She did not know how, but she too wondered at the mist's nature. It was an unseasonable fog, persisting in defiance of the summer sun, and its effect was to resist her return to the Citadel.

Édan, Édan.

She called to him silently, in that way they shared, but the wilderness of Samokea lay vast around her and he was yet too far away to hear.

The mist though, listened.

It rolled slowly, turning, drawing itself into the shape of a diaphanous woman adrift above the grass, her hair, her skin, her eyes, all distinguished only by subtle shadings of gray. She was one of the Inyomere that were the spirits of the Wild. And to Lanyon she said, "Why do you call to him? He does not want you to come."

Lanyon picked up her son and held him close, whispering to him, "Do not be afraid." Then she addressed the Inyomere, asking, "Did Édan send you to hinder me?"

The Inyomere of the mist drifted nearer, her hair billowing in wide, soft clouds. "I have heard his lamentations and the prayers he whispers in the night. He says, 'Do not let her come home to me. Do not let her come home. Better for her if she is lost in the Wild. Do not let her come home.'"

Lanyon shook her head, astonished at such tidings and longing to reject them. Yet Inyomere knew only how to speak the truth. Never a lie from them. "Why would he speak thus? What does he intend?"

The mist drew back, bemused. Like most of her kin, it was not her way to ask why or what was to come. She was of the petty Inyomere: minor spirits of forest and meadow, stream and pool, the thickets, and the summer rain. Such concepts as time and purpose troubled only a few among the greater Inyomere.

The mist stooped lower, peering now at Lanyon's son. The little boy clung to his mother, as silent and still as a wild thing hiding in the grass, but his wide eyes did not turn away from the mist's soft gaze. She smiled at him. "When I look on him I remember his far mother, the Snow Chanter. His blood remembers her. She has given to him the will of the Inyomere."

"He is so much like his father," Lanyon whispered.

"Heed me, little sister. Do not go to Édan. He does not want you."

"That is something he must tell me himself, Blessed One. I beg you to relent. Unveil the sun and let us ride on."

"Come what may?" she asked softly.

Fear clutched at Lanyon's heart, but she agreed, "Come what may."

So the mist, in her rich voice, called for a wind to come, a breeze that hissed through the grass, and under its caress she turned and twisted, and slowly faded from Lanyon's sight.

◆

Within minutes, the cloud-wrapped peaks of the Tiyat-kel stood revealed. Jahallon ordered the tents packed up again, and the company set out, this time with Siddél's rumbling thunder where it should be, on their right hand, as they made their way north.

Before long, they found the trail—a narrow track passing through meadow and grove on its way to the Citadel of the Snow Chanter—and for the rest of that day, they made good time. But Lanyon, who had not yet fully recovered from the birth, endured a long, wearying afternoon. And as she brooded over the words of the mist, her dread only grew.

At last Jahallon called a halt and the tents were set up again. The company knew to speak softly as they shared a simple meal of trail rations—unleavened nut bread, dried fish, and pemmican—while Lanyon mixed a cold gruel for her son.

She shared a tent with the other women, though she slept little, and when she did, the mist's warning continued to haunt her, re-echoing in her dreams: He does not want you.

At first light, one of the riders who had been on watch came through the camp, quietly waking the rest of the company. Lanyon arose, not eager for the day, but eager to be done with it. She sat cross-legged on a blanket, nursing her daughter in the predawn cold, while her sleepy-eyed boy huddled in Jahallon's lap, chewing on a biscuit. All around them, soft conversation, as the riders worked to stow the tents—still wet with the night's dew—and to saddle the horses.

"This will be another long day," Jahallon warned her. "I mean to reach the Citadel by evening."

Defying her misgivings, Lanyon assured him, "I am ready for it. I am ready to know the truth."

They set out before sunrise, under a clear sky, resting at intervals as the day passed. In the midafternoon, they came to a long valley, filled with green meadow grasses nodding at the touch of a light breeze. The baby in her carrier began to fuss, so Lanyon sang to her softly, hoping to comfort her. But she broke off her song at the sound of a distant cacophony of yips and wails. Raising her chin, she held her breath to listen.

The baby heard it too—the hue and cry of a hunting arowl pack. Even so young, she knew her peril, and began to mew in fear. Lanyon cradled her with an arm, whispering, "Hush, hush."

Down the line came a command, passed quietly from rider to rider: "Make ready." Lanyon turned, relaying the order in turn, though it was not necessary. Those warriors behind her already held their bows with arrows nocked, preparing for yet another battle in the Long War that had been fought generation by generation, almost since the people first set foot on the Wild's southern shore.

No one went unarmed. Lanyon uncased her own bow, setting an arrow to the string as she resumed her quiet song, striving to offer what solace she could to her daughter while she watched the distant trees for any sign of movement.

Arowl were mad beasts, abominations, conjured into life by the wrathful magic of the Inyomere Siddél, made by him to prey on the people.

Siddél believed the people had come to the Wild by treachery, and that it was the will of the One who wakened the Inyomere that they should be destroyed or driven back into the sea. The Long War would not end until Siddél was made to leave the world, but he was one of the great Inyomere, and Lanyon did not know if that could even be.

The chorus of mad howls grew swiftly louder, overwhelming Lanyon's song. The baby gave voice to her terror with a plaintive wail, while Lanyon's mare pranced and snorted, a sheen of nervous sweat shining on her neck. From Jahallon, a sharp command that cut past the clamor, "Form up!" Warriors rode in from either end of the column to form defensive wings.

The baby's crying played hard against Lanyon's nerves. When the courier who was caring for her son brought him up beside her, Lanyon saw that he cried too, but silently.

"Courage, my love," she told him. He turned his little face away from her, hiding against the breast of his caretaker.

"There!" someone called. "Motion. In that line of trees."

Lanyon looked, and saw a shadow moving, but only for a moment before it withdrew. And after another moment, the arowl pack's low, bloodthirsty baying transformed into a chorus of high-pitched, fear-filled howls.

Sensing a new presence, Lanyon held her breath to listen. And low beneath the wailing pack, she heard a rumble of galloping hooves.

The warriors around her heard it too. Seven or eight youths, inspired by that sound, set heel to horse, lunging toward the trees. But Jahallon bellowed at them to stop and get back into line.

Bestial screeching erupted within the forest, panicked barking too, abruptly cut off. Very soon, the sound of hoofbeats faded, along with the last cries of the pack.

Lanyon shivered and put her bow away. Then she let her daughter nurse there in the saddle, to calm her as Jahallon ordered the company to move on.

◆

They had gone another two miles or more, when Édan came. Lanyon reined in her mare to watch as he rode out of the forest with a hundred or more of his warriors around him, the tips of their spears bloody in the sunlight.

The Habaddon company cheered, calling out to their Samokeän allies in raucous greeting while Jahallon rode out to meet Édan. The two clasped hands and clapped shoulders, and Édan spoke for all to hear, "You have long been welcome in my home, Far Father. At last you have come."

Jahallon turned to look at Lanyon. "Go to her," he urged, his voice low but audible in a sudden lull of wind. "She has brought you a great gift."

Lanyon strove to steady herself, to present a calm face as Édan approached. She climbed down from the mare and took her daughter from the chest carrier, laying the baby against her shoulder and patting her gently.

Édan went first to his son and hugged him. "Ah, how you've grown."

The boy looked confused. It had been so long since he'd last seen his father, he did not truly remember. Édan handed him back to the woman who watched him. Then he slipped from the saddle and, leading his horse, he walked to meet Lanyon.

He looked more gaunt than she remembered, more careworn. Dressed in a simple tunic and trousers, worn boots, and a dark gray riding coat, there was nothing overt to distinguish him from any one of his men. Like them, he carried his sword on his back, and he kept his black hair confined in a heavy braid in the Samokeän way.

Lanyon had expected to see some cold expression on his comely face. Anger maybe, or contempt in his dark eyes. What she saw instead was a strange mingling of joy and grief. She wondered what it meant, and she wondered too at his silence.

But if he would not speak, then she must.

Holding the infant out to him, she said, "I have brought our daughter home."

Édan smiled and took her. The baby started to cry, but he spoke to her softly, soothingly, and she quieted. He kissed her forehead. Then he looked to Lanyon and said, "Let us go home."

◆

Édan wanted her to ride with him on his horse. So she climbed up first, with the baby safe again in the carrier, and he sat behind her.

His people had not approved of their marriage. They mistrusted Lanyon's affinity with the Inyomere. A strange irony, given that all the Samokeäns were descended from one or another of the many children of the Inyomere Tayeraisa, who was called the Snow Chanter.

Long ago, when the people had first begun to explore the northern lands, Tayeraisa had met the warrior Samoket, the last of Jahallon's sons. Tayeraisa the Snow Chanter had been unique among the Inyomere. Curious and willful, it had pleased her to change herself to be as a woman of the people, and to take Samoket as her husband. Together they built the Citadel and brought forty-two children into the world before death finally took Samoket away—and from the hour of his passing the Snow Chanter was not seen again.

Among their descendants many shared somewhat in the magic of the Inyomere. So it was with Édan. He was the sorcerer-chieftain of Samokea, armed with a magic far greater than any Lanyon could command. And still his people complained she had too much of the Inyomere in her, and this was why the spirits sought her out when they scorned other people. Yet this affinity was the root of Édan's affection. It fascinated him that he could speak with her mind-to-mind, as the Inyomere spoke to one another. It was a connection that had captivated him from the first hour they met, when he was seventeen and she only eleven.

Many times Jahallon had warned her that such a fascination was no substitute for love, but at sixteen it had seemed enough. She seduced Édan and by the time Jahallon allowed them to marry she was three months pregnant. Now she was nineteen, and the time for making choices was long past.

For some time they rode in silence. Édan held her close, and the baby slept. But Lanyon could not pretend there was peace between them, and at last she asked what was foremost in her mind. "Were you so angry? That you hoped I would not come home?"

"I was never angry."

"No?" His denial provoked her temper. She quoted to him the words of the mist. "Do not let her come home to me. Better for her if she is lost in the Wild."

His breathing quickened. She felt the hammering of his heart. Finally, he said, "I would not have tried to stop you, if you had taken our children away south to the safety of Hallah."

"Édan!" She twisted around to face him, the baby protesting in soft bleats. "How could you think such a thing? That I would abandon the Long War and yield what my father and my brothers—all my family, and yours—have died to defend? If this is what you think of me—"

"Hush, hush." He kissed her at the corner of her mouth. "Say no more on it. I am chastened."

She turned away from him, facing forward again. Her lips brushed her daughter's warm, sweet-smelling scalp, a kiss of comfort for both of them. "Did you want me to take them away?"

He answered with a catch in his voice. "It was for you to decide."

"It was never a choice."

"Then you are braver than I am."

She heard grief in his voice. It made her fearful. Édan had grown up on the battlefield; he was not easily shaken. "Édan, what has happened to you? Was it this last campaign? Jahallon said it was hard-fought, that many of your warriors fell."

His arms tightened around her. "It was the last battle. It almost broke us. It was the worst I've ever seen. Worse than the winter your father and your brothers were killed."

"Tell me. I am not afraid."

He sighed. His voice grew softer. "We were at Nendaganon. We had come to the very rim of a great arowl pit and it came to us we should set it afire—set all the pits ablaze!—and put an end to Siddél's stronghold. But that was a mistake.

"The fire drove forth the half-formed arowl ... thousands of them. Lanyon, they were horrible to look on, skinless, ravening, mad as are all their kind for the blood of the people, but with no fear of death. I could not instill any fear in them, or beguile them, or confuse them in any way. They refused to hear my voice and accepted no command.

"The beasts carried none of their usual weapons. They came armed with only teeth and claws. And still, two hundred twelve men were lost to them and it would have been more, but these arowl were flawed and unfinished. Their lives withered quickly. Those we did not slay soon died on their own."

She turned again to look at him, too stunned at first to speak. Then she whispered, "Jahallon said nothing of this horror. I did not know."

"He doesn't understand how strong you are."

"I'm sorry I wasn't there when you returned."

Again he kissed her. "I knew you would come home." He looked east, to the cloud-shrouded peaks of the Tiyat-kel where the taunting voice of Siddél rumbled in tired threat. "All that we do, you and I, we do for the good of the people, no matter the cost."

No matter the cost?

"Is there something you're not telling me? Some deeper meaning behind your words? Say it now, so I don't have to be afraid."

"No," he said softly, soothingly. "There's nothing more to say. We are born to war, but for this hour at least, let us be at peace."

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