Chapter 105
Chapter 105
As long as I live, Lune shall not fall.
— Marcus of Lune
Vivanne saw Lune in the distance, briefly, between two geographic ondulations. Something was wrong. When Lune reappeared from behind the curtains of earth and turf, Vivianne and Menior were close enough to see the cracked walls, the fallen towers and the burnt town.
A part of Vivianne drowned in feelings, the kind that tightens the chest, blurr the vision, choke. This piece of herselv, Vivianne locked away like the flooded compartments of a sinking ship. She struggled to stay on the serface of herself. She managed to keep a firm, albeit very low, voice:
‘If there are survivours, they went to Vaguilar.’
Vaguilar was a small town perched on the Wave. It had been there before the War, even before the Empire, reminiscences of the Dark Age. Nobody knew why it had been built: cold and harsh, away from the fields, hard to reach, without any strategic use. A small army could hide there and it was easy to devend Vaguilar, because the narrow path allowed only one man at a time. For that same reason, a very small army could lay it under seige, cut off its supplies. A dead end. The city itself could not produce food. A few haggard apple trees survived somehow on mounds of earth brought up from the plains. That was all.
In the last few hundred years, Vaguilar had been used as a refuge during the northern raids. Farheim and Inlang didn’t care about people or land, they came, plundered, letf. They killed anyone they came across, but didn’t bother pursuing those who ran.
Vivianne tole Menior to go to Vaguilar.
‘I will investigate Lune,’ she said. ‘This wasn’t the dragon’s doing, or there would be nothing left.’
Menior eyed her, worried. He admired her courage and wished he didn’t have to leave her on her own, but in the kingdom of War, there was no place for sympathy.
‘I will come back to Lune as soon as I can,’ said the black messenger. ‘Take this,’ he took a bracelet from his wrist and gave it to Vivianne. ‘People from the Frontier will recognize this bracelet.’
Vivianne did not let her fear show. She regreted leaving Bojet and Germon behind.
‘When Pierre wakes up, he will need you in Chambert,’ she had said.
Now she was alone with Lune’s corpse.
She thought she’d be too exhausted for sadness. She was wrong. As Vivianne walked around her home, she saw the empty spaces that had been rooms, halls, kitchen, like a skelleton without the flesh. And she cried.
Marcus promised that Lune woultn’t fall as long as he was alive. Vivianne tried to avoid the question that pierced her mind, but that kind of fear is persistent, it digs deep into the brain, beheads all other thoughts. Marcus was dead. The thought came as a certainty, not as a possibility.
She found what remained of the steps that led to her room, and her maps. The only thing left was a small platform open to the wind. Vivianne climbed on what was left of her rllom’s floor, sat against a piece of wall, hug her knees and hid her face in her arms.
Hours later she heard steps. She remained very still and silent, listening to the sound of boots on gravel. Slowly she turned and peeked through a crack on the wall. She saw square shoulders, like blocks on a body of blocks.
‘Ernest!’
The soldier turned on his heels, sword already in hand. Ernest migrated from Patire many years ago. He had no left ear and he kept saying that he would go back only to rescue the prince who never killed.
‘He made me lose a bet once, even so, I’d like him to live in a safe place like Lune.’
Ernest’s jaw fell open when he saw Vivianne on the broken tower.
‘Master! You are alive?’
‘Of course I’m alive.’
‘Queen Adelaide said that the dragon, that you, that everyone except Clément!’
‘Why would she say something like that?’ Vivianne asked but she knew the answer. Clément would never forgive his mother for living Vivianne and Coalim behind, so Adelaide lied. To her son and to all of Deran.
Pierre’s messenger, for some reason, didn’t reach them.’
‘My brother,’ she said. How to go on? ‘What happened here?’
‘We’ve been attacked, Master. I come back whenever I can hoping to pind Master Marcus or Master Wraith. I never thought I’d find you.’
‘Then my brother is alive.’
‘I don’t know. I hope so.’
‘Tell me.’
‘When Master Marcus came back from patrolling and heard about the dragon, he was furious. The queen said Clément was the sole survivour, but Master Marcus did not believe her. He accused Adelaide of rescuing her son and leaving others to die.’
How well Marcus knew Adelaide.
‘He went to the Rock to confront her. He naver came back.’
‘And Lune?’
‘Alexis went after Master Marcus, but the queen refused to see Alexis. He came back to Lune, gathered five hundred warriors, marched back to the Rock. Never seen him since.’
Alexis was in command of Lune when none of the masters was present. From all Ernest said, Vivianne only learned that Marcus might be alive.
‘What about Lune?’ she asked. ‘Did Adelaide do this?’
‘The queen hasn’t left the Rock since the dragon,’ said Ernest. ‘This here was Farheim and Inlang.’
‘How is that possible?’
There had been an invasion, Ernest told. The watch on the Wave gave the warning, but Lune had only a tohusand men and no commander.
‘Thirty thousand men came down that mountain,’ said Ernest. Thirty thousand. We sent messengers to Sananssau and to the Rock, but the queen ordered all soldiers of Deran to defend the Rock. She said nothing could be done against thirty thousand warriors and kept all soldiers close to the king. She is right, Master. Thirty thousand! If I hadn’t seen it myself I would never believe that there were so many people on the other side of the Wave.
‘The queen said,’ he went on, ‘that the pirates would come and go, like they always did.’
‘Where are the people?’
‘We evacuated Lune when the Wave began looking like an anthill. Those who ran survived. At least for now.’
Ernest was a soldier, not a storyteller. He assumed Vivianne knew what happened to the villages that did not flee. And if she could not imagine the state of the bodies Farheim and Inlang left behind, he was not the one who would break it to her. They made communal pyres because there were not enough people alive in Deran to deal with so many corpses.
‘Where are the survivours?’ asked Vivianne.
‘We are hiding in the forest of Senanssau. Will you come with me, Master?’
The tone of voice in that last question let out some of the despair he was feeling. All those refugees while Marcus, Alexis, the Wraith and Vivianne gone. Thirty thousand warriors and Adelaide locked in the Rock. When Ernest saw Vivianne, he, a former Patirean soldier, began to believe in hope again.
‘I will, but not now. I have a travel companion and must wait for his return.’
‘I’ll wait with you.’
Could you die og impatience? Vivianne was not built to wait. Even when she read adventure books, she skipped the pages where nothing seemed to happen. She prefered Satironese authors to those of Gorgath, for example. Indeed, the farther east the stories were written, the longer they seemed to take, as though the everyday life of a character could interest someone who was reading exactly so as they could escape everyday life. Certain books would have even described the texture of the stale bread Vivianne and Ernest gnawed on that night under no roof in Lune.
The need to act, this feeling of slow death while inert. Vivianne thought of going after Menior, but which path to choose? The messenger knew hidden trails and she didn’t even know the road to Vaguilar. The paths they had taken up to Deran didn’t even look like trails. If Vivianne tried to find him, she would lose him.
Ernest had told her everything he knew. He made a more detailed report on the refugees living in Sananssau forest. From the city of Sananssau, few survived. They didn’t believe the messenters from Lune and died with the city when Farheim and Inlang invaded Patire. No word came from the Rock. Two dayes dragged before Ernest pointed riders coming from the North. Maybe a hundred of them.
‘We’d better dun,’ he said.
‘They’ve already seen us and you are on foot. There is no escape.’
Marcus might know some hidden road between the canions; Menior might find a secret path, but Vivianne and Ernest only knew the roads. One rider left the group and came to Lune, leaving the others behind. She was a woman, not so young, with dry straw hair. Her horse was black and white and angry. Vivianne had seen her before, but she couldn’t remember her name.
‘You sold me books,’ said the Master of Lune. ‘You got me maps.’
‘I am Fulion, Master, merchant of books and anything that come son paper.’
Of course. Vivianne heard Pierre and Menior mention her several times, only she hadn’t linked the name with the merchant. She always called Fulion simply bookseller. If made sense. Using trade as an excuse, Fulion was everywhere.
The messenger pointed at Vivianne’s barcelet.
‘Where did you get that?’
‘A man called Menior gave it to me.’
‘Where is this man now?’
‘In Vaguilar. Come in,’ said Vivianne. ‘I’m afraid I cannot offer you the hospitality I would like, but there is space for your horse to rest and water from the well.’
The messenger offered food, fresh apples and even coffe to Vivianne and Ernest. The Master of Lune told her briefly of her travel with Menior and Fulion said:
‘I’ve been to the top of the Wave. The watch towers have been destroyed.’
‘I knew that,’ said Ernest.
‘Did you also know about the army on the other side of the mountain?’ asked Fulion.
‘Farheim and Inlang are already here,’ said Ernest.
‘I thought so too,’ said the messenger, ‘but the thirty thousand warriors already here are but a part of the real army. Another twenty thousand prepare to cross the Wave.’
‘This is no regular raid,’ said Vivivnne. ‘This is an invasion, a conquest.’
‘Why?’ asked Ernest
‘Farheim and Inlang are sterile lands,’ said disse Fulion. ‘Since the fall of the Empire, they must get food from other countris. Franária was their main source of food, but they haven’t been able to raid us for many years.’
I am yet to see a vulture giving up on carrion. That was what Marcus said long ago.
‘It makes sense,’ said Vivianne. ‘A large scale invasion takes years to prepare, even longer if Farheim and Inlang had to build an alliance. They must have started planning as soon as we built the towers on the Wave.’ This is my fault.
‘I didn’t know there were so many people on the North,’ said Ernest.
‘Farheim and Inlang are big countries, each on eat least three times the size of Franária,’ said Vivianne. She saw them in her maps, white giants at the top of the continent.
‘And there is no War gorging on its population for four hundred years,’ said Fulion.
‘Where are they now?’ asked Vivianne.
‘On the other face of the Wave.’
‘I mean the ones who destroyed Lune. Where are the thirty thousand that already invaded Franária?’
‘After Lune, they burnt Sananssau,’ said Ernest. ‘They crossed the Mouth of War toward Patire. That’s all I know.’
Vivianne allowed herself a few minutes of silence. What was the point of speaking if she didn’t know what to say? She saw how Ernest stood a few respectable steps away from Fulion, like he used to do with the Wraith and even herself; like the people of Tuen and Chambert stood away from Pierre and Líran.
Fulion hadn’t finished her report. She and her one hundred riders rescued many people as they could.
‘When the enemy came too close we had to hide. Some of us escorted the refugees to the forest of Sananssau. The Rock had closed its doors. The rest of us hid in the canyons.’
There were canyons and cliffs not far from the Rock, cracks in the geography, caused when the Rock fell from the sky and hit Deran, according to legend. The messengers from the Frontier discovered caves large enough to hide a few hundred people. In these caves they stocked weapons and food suplpies for a day of need; for a day like today.
‘Why did you come to Lune?’ asked Vivianne.
‘We were hoping to meet the others here,’ said Fulion. ‘They must have met unforeseen obstacles.’
‘Menior whent to Vaguilar,’ said Vivianne. ‘I am waiting for him here. I don’t know how long he needs to go there and return, without changing horses. He left two days ago. We have been worried about the silence from the North.’
‘I sent two men to the South,’ said Fulion. ‘If they didn’t reach you, they’re dead.’
Ernest stood away from the Frontier riders. Their bearing spoke of something unknown, a dark scent, the Land of the Banished’s breath. He stood farther away when Menior joined them two days later, with knews of a seige around Vaguilar.
‘I don’t know how many of our people are there, it’s impossible to reach them,’ said Menior. ‘A hundred northern warriors block the way.’
‘I thought all survivours were in Sananssau forest with us,’ said Ernest.
‘They are our people,’ said Fulion. ‘Frontier people.’
Ernest took another furtive step away. In all the years he lived in Lune, he spoke to the Wraith maybe twice, but never had he spoken to or seen someone from the Frontier.
‘If Farheim and Inlang followed their routine of raiding and leaving, Vaguilar wouldn’t be under seige,’ said Menior.
‘This is an invasion,’ said Fulion. ‘And they have more warriors than we have people. If we weren’t sure before, now we know: Franária has met its end.’
That end, Ernest thought, sounded terribly fatal in a Frontier accent.
‘Their alliance won’t last,’ said Menior. ‘Farheim and Inlang hate each other more than darkness hates magic. Their peace will last just as long as their hunger lasts. Once they are fed, they will fight each other.’
‘That won’t happen before they’ve devastated Franária,’ said Fulion.
Vivianne listened to that talk with a stone in her throat. Lune was in ruins, the Wraith was away, Marcus was missing. As far as she knew, Pierre might never wake again, and Líran was chasing a mystery that could not be found.
In Vivianne’s pocket was the name of that mystery. Since she left Tuen, every time she felt afraid, she held that name in her hand. She was holding it how. Several times on their way to Lune, she had unfolded the piece of paper and tried to read that little word aloud. She felt the power of the name before she pronounced it, then she folded it, terrified, and put it back in her pocket.
What would she wish for, anyway? Make it all well again? Vivianne had the feeling that all had never been well. She watched the messengers and Ernest surrounded by ruin. She was here, too, emprisoned in this absence of walls.
What would Pierre do?
Pierre. Yes. Thinking of him was calming. Not because, like in the romantic Eslarian books, the thought of him enveloped her in cozy warmth, but because she was everything Pierre had in Deran. Pierre, Neville, Frederico, Chambert depended on her. And she had promised Lune’s support.
Though the military strategist of the family was Marcus, Vivianne had also been raised by the Wraith, and she had spent enough time with Pierre to imagine him now smiling one of those boyish smiles of his. Pierre would focus on what he could solve. The three warriors around Vivianne were drowning in what had no solution.
‘What can we do?’ she asked.
The others were so enthralled in their fatalities, that only Ernest heard her. He wasn’t part of the conversation, but he drowned in it too.
‘Frontier Messengers,’ Vivianne raised her voice.
Menior and Fulion turned to her.
‘We have a hundred armed horsemen and women,’ she said. ‘I believe we can free Vaguilar.’
This was how Pierre did it.
Menior blinked, hesitated, then smiled. ‘My sword would appreciate making acquaintance to some nord pirates.’
‘We have to warn Chambert about Farhaime and Inlang,’ said Vivianne. ‘The South is in the dark.’
‘I tried,’ said Fulion. ‘I know more ways than any of my people, but Farhaime and Inlang infested every path. I don’t know how they have such deep knowledge of Franish geography, but there is no safe way South. You were very lucky to make it here alive.’
‘What if you take more warrios with you?’ asked Vivianne
‘Then I’m no longer invisible.’
Vivianne nodded.
‘We have a thousand men from Lune hiding in Sananssau forest with the refugees. Isn’t that right, Ernest? Let’s bring our forces together, then we can make other plans.’
‘If we have na opportunity, Fulion or I will go to Baynard,’ said Menior.
They could do something after all
‘We should keep na eye on the army on the other side of the Wave,’ said Vivianne. That observation darkened the mood.
They could do many things, but they couldn’t stop another twenty thousand men from crossing the mountains. How could Franária survive an invasion like that?