Peril’s Gate. Janny Wurts

shoulder a perilous mission and deliver two messages en route.

      The first drove him southeast through the snowbound wastes of Atainia, then across the wind-thrashed, ebon waters that sheared rip currents down Instrell Bay. Beyond, rimed in ice, the bare crowns of Halwythwood’s oaks sheltered the free-running wolf packs. As well hidden, and equally guarded in cunning, the camps of the feal clanborn sworn to Rathain nestled into the landscape. They had gathered in numbers, Luhaine observed. Through the cold of deep winter, they kept no set fires. Light on the land as the foraging deer, they adhered to strict practice, both to honor the wilds that were their pledged charge and to evade the relentless patrols dispersed by the towns’ scalping headhunters.

      Yet no trail-wise subterfuge could shadow the vision of a Sorcerer’s upstepped awareness. The man Luhaine sought in his need stood out from the candleflame glow of his fellows as a firebrand, lashed into flaring, hot dissidence.

      Left no time for manners, and less for fair warning, Luhaine of the Fellowship dropped into the lodge tent of the chieftain who bore title as caithdein of Rathain. There, Earl Jieret stood his strapping, full height, his arms folded, immersed in fierce argument with his only daughter, just turned a headstrong seventeen.

      The infant girl that Asandir had Named Jeynsa had grown tall and resilient as willow. Her face was a study of cut angles, and her bearing, a young deer’s for quick reflex. The mane of dark brown hair that licked down her back ran wild as curling bindweed. Fists set on her hips, her leathers belted with a carved antler buckle, and a baldric that hung three styles of knife and a sharpened longsword, she was a sight to give pause to any man living.

      Not the father, a half a hand taller than she, and a red-bearded lion in all matters that touched on the welfare of clan and close family. His bellowed reply shook the poles of the lodge and hide walls too close to contain the bristling pair of them. ‘Girl, you aren’t going! Accept and be done.’

      Flushed to high passion, young Jeynsa gave back no quarter. ‘What do you fear, that I must stay behind?’ Foot tapping, chin lifted, she surveyed his creased face with aventurine eyes that mirrored his own for sharp insight. ‘Are you hiding a dream, that this time you won’t come back?’

      If that truth struck a nerve, Earl Jieret had faced death too many times to bow to intimidation. Clad in tanned wolfhide sewn skin side out, and bearing edged weapons with more ease than most men wore clothing, he could rival old oak for tenacity. ‘My gift of Sight has nothing to do with the exercise of common sense. You are my heir, girl, and Fellowship chosen. You stay for the weal of the realm.’

      ‘And Barach? He stays to safeguard our bloodline?’ Jeynsa cut back, but unwisely.

      Her father’s hazel eyes assumed the glint of sheared iron. Scarred on hands and forearms by enemy steel in too many deadly skirmishes, he said, very softly, ‘For shame, girl. Beware how you mock.’ His baleful glance shifted, as though to acknowledge someone unseen at her back. ‘You never know who might be listening.’

      ‘If it’s mother,’ Jeynsa ripped in retort, ‘she can’t claim I’m not just as good with a bow as the scout you took on your last foray.’ Spun on her heel, prepared to do battle on two fronts like a tigress, Jeynsa found herself nose to nose with the image of a portly stranger who wore loomed gray robes, and whose presence shed the immovable chill of an iceberg.

      ‘Welcome to my lodge tent, Luhaine,’ Earl Jieret greeted the Fellowship Sorcerer. Vindication that fought not to show as a smile flashed white teeth through his beard as he delivered the traditional words of respect. ‘How may we serve the land?’

      Jolted to gaping embarrassment, Jeynsa swept to one knee. Her gesture affected no woman’s curtsey, but the humility a future caithdein must show to acknowledge the given hierarchy of old law, that the authority of a Fellowship charter granted her s’Ffalenn liege his right to crown rule in Rathain.

      Luhaine accepted her act as apology, his reproof tart enough to ease the sting to young pride. ‘I’m not Asandir, lady. He’s far more likely than me to sanction your hour of heirship.’

      Behind her, Earl Jieret jammed his closed knuckles to his mouth, aware as his daughter surged erect that such tactful reprieve was misplaced.

      ‘Then you’re here as a messenger from Althain’s Warden to send father to Prince Arithon’s side?’ Jeynsa flung back the hair that no one, not even her mother, could convince her to bind in a clan braid. ‘Say I can go.’ Eager, unscarred, she was not yet touched by the grievous sorrows her parents had known at an age even younger than she. ‘I’ve never seen the Teir’s’Ffalenn I’ve been pledged to serve for a lifetime.’

      ‘Better pray that you don’t meet his Grace for a good many years yet to come!’ Portly and stern, Luhaine shook a schoolmasterish finger. ‘Young lady, take heed. On the hour you swear fealty to Arithon s’Ffalenn, the caithdein, your father, will lie past Fate’s Wheel. That day his duties become yours to shoulder. The tradition has lasted for centuries, unbroken. The heir to the title must never take risks that might leave the high kingdom stewardless.’

      ‘You stay, Jeynsa,’ said Earl Jieret with granite finality. ‘Barach holds the s’Valerient chieftaincy in my absence. Nor will you cross your older brother’s good sense until you reach your majority.’

      ‘Well he won’t be twenty for at least one more year,’ Jeynsa lashed back, unmollified. Then the heat that sustained her brash fight bled away. ‘Just come back.’ She clasped her father’s broad shoulders, her embrace as ferocious as her brangling penchant for argument. When she left, straight with prideful clan dignity, she shed no tears. Nor did she glance behind, though she ached for sure knowledge that Sorcerer and caithdein would share their ill tidings without calling her mother in counsel.

      After the door flap slapped shut on her heels, Earl Jieret folded his rangy height onto the split log he used for a camp stool. ‘Ath bless that girl’s spirit, Asandir chose her well. Jeynsa’s the only one of my brood with the nerve to withstand s’Ffalenn temper.’ Head cocked, his steady gaze wary in the flare of the pine torch that blazed in a staked iron sconce, he showed no trepidation, even now. ‘Since you’re here, Sorcerer, certain trouble rides the wind. Better say what you came for.’

      Luhaine minced no words. ‘You’ve already mustered your clansmen to arms. Had you not, we would face a disaster.’

      Jieret yanked out the worn main gauche that, long years in the past, he had blooded to avenge his slain sisters. While his too-steady finger checked the blade’s edge, and the relentless wind mingled the perfume of winter balsam with the brute tang of oiled steel, he addressed his worries with the same headlong brevity. ‘I dreamed with Sight. This month’s full moon will find sunwheel forces on the march across Daon Ramon Barrens. Sometime before thaws, the prey they course will be a lone rider on a flagging horse. The man I saw inthe saddle was my oathsworn prince.’

      ‘Let things not reach that pass.’ As though a swift plea could stem fate, Luhaine added, ‘I go east across the Skyshiels to give timely warning. Your liege will be urged to seek sanctuary at Ithamon. He will meet you in the East Tower, the black one, whose warding virtue is endurance, and whose binding is held by the Paravian’s concept of true honor. There, guard your liege against Lysaer’s forces. Prepare for a siege. We know as fact the tower’s wards can stem the onslaught of Desh-thiere’s influence. Sethvir believes the oldest defenses may mitigate the madness of the curse. If that hope fails, then his Grace’s life will be yours to secure in any manner you can.’

      ‘Just how long must my scouts stand down an army?’ Earl Jieret placed the question with the same hammered courage that had been his father’s before him.

      The Sorcerer’s image seemed cast from dyed glass, an uncanny contrast to the earthbound man, who listened with unvarnished practicality. ‘The tower will hold, and the weather will stand as your ally. Lay in provisions to last many months. You will suffer a winter such as you have never seen, nor any of your grandfathers before you. Cold and ice will break the Alliance supply lines. You must hold fast until then.’