Work Text:
I’m back in Brightmouth on the tenth anniversary of Victory Day, interviewing the Copperhills family about the events of those days. Lord Falkirk, Lady Ysabel, Aurum, thank you for agreeing to this.
You’re welcome Charles. Is that a Shezaille memorial crystal?
Yes milord. Made last month. I wanted your voices as well as your words.
Very well. Carry on. Where do you want to start?
The Radiant Night.
Oh that is not a happy place to begin.
I agree milady, but it’s a good point to work from. We’ll start low and rise. Lord Falkirk, please outline for us the situation of this city at that point, and how you felt that night.
Grim. No, desperate. Brightmouth had been my family’s care for six generations when the Twisted War broke out, and I was pretty certain that I’d be the last of the Copperhills to rule it. At that point, we’d lost the Lions and the Stags and the Wolves to the oncoming hordes of Twisted. There always seemed to be too many of them, wherever we tried to stand. Battle after battle, grinding retreat and rout. My peers had led the armies of Calla, and died doing so. And from the forges of Brightmouth I’d shipped out weapons and supplies to all I could. I’m not a fighter.
Not in that way, Father.
Thank you. The Copperhills have always been tinkerers and builders, not warriors. But by the handful, the proud knights had died. And the Twisted had advanced.
Kingsford had fallen weeks before, and you couldn’t know that the Samancers had hidden deep while the Ossienes still held out in Highreach.
Correct. We knew that poor King Brand was dead when they took the walls, and with no news of any of the others, we were fairly sure that we were the last noble family, holding the last city of Calla. With the Twisted screaming and howling and gibbering through the countryside. Growing closer.
And we were all pretty much trapped here. No traders had come into port for months. Our back to the sea, watching the horizon. Falkirk had gathered pretty much everything into Brightmouth, so we were in no danger of starving… it looked as if we’d die beneath Twisted claws before we ran out of food. Well, most foods.
And then came what would be known as the Radiant Night.
An accident caused by displacement activity, that they’ll never let me forget.
It deserves to not be forgotten! It was brilliant!
You’re not helping, young lady. It was a panic reaction.
Best bit of panicking you’ve done before or since.
Nevertheless. We’d had reports from our stupidly brave scouts that a huge mob of Twisted were headed in our direction. We had perhaps hours, perhaps days before they arrived in force. And I’d…. done it all already.
What was ALL in this context?
The walls were reinforced. The supplies were laid in. The cannon were in place. Weapons issued. Our little bands of militia were trained and briefed.
The Iron Boars?
The Iron Boars. Volunteers, reservists, a handful of surviving veterans from the Wolves who’d somehow made it out of the fall of Kingsford…. We couldn’t hold the walls and we knew it. But it was all done, you see. There was nothing else I could do, and I could not sleep….
He started pacing. It was driving him crazy. It was driving me crazy. And of course him being stressed was also keeping Aurum awake. So eventually I suggested he worked on something. He said there was nothing left, and I reminded him….
“There’s always the lighthouse”
“There’s always the lighthouse.”
This being the Radiant Light, which we’re renaming the Laurelin tomorrow? Tell us a bit of its history.
Oh by Pelor. That thing was an unending project for years. Grandfather started it, and it was always the thing Father then I worked on when we ran out of other stuff to tinker with. Marble from Cataz, crystal from the Shadowhome, resin-treated copper from our old estates, on and on, year after year. Yard after yard, floor after floor, a huge sink for all our time and spare money. Always something else to do on it.
Is it true it never had a design?
Ha! True enough. We were mostly building on instinct, what felt right, embellishing and enhancing and growing it. Shortly after Aurum was born I thought that the main structure might be tall enough. Just before the Twisted came I’d spent… heh…. Too much on a capstone crystal from the Zenith peaks…. And whenever another tranch of bad news came in, I’d send off what aid I could, and go up to work on it some more. Laying in the silver wires, aligning the reflectors, fitting in the last bits of stonework….
So it was nearly finished?
All but. And when Ysabel suggested it, I thought I might as well finish the thing. So I kissed them both, grabbed my tools, and went up to see what I could do.
Lady Ysabel, what happened then?
Aurum was still restive, so I thought I’d make her a treat for the night.
This is going to be the orange juice isn’t it?
Yes. You and that orange juice were important.
I was six years old!
You were amazing. Still are. Hush. We had a couple of oranges left. We couldn’t get them often, they were shipped from the orchards of Samara, and… we wouldn’t be getting any more. Aurum loved them even at six, and I’d saved these for a Midsummer cake for her. But we weren’t going to see another Midsummer. I didn’t know if we’d see another sunset…
Oh Mother….
I juiced them to pulp, and mixed them with filtered water for bulk, in a corked flask. And gave that to Aurum, and told her to make it last. It might have been the last thing she ever drank….. Yes dear. Thank you.
I never realised that it was quite that grim, Mother.
That was rather the idea, honey. No need for you to be living in fear. Have a kerchief.
Well you succeeded there. I remember thinking only that it was a funny night and that Father was off building and I had orange juice.
And then what?
Shall I tell this bit?
Go ahead.
I remember snuggling down next to Mother on the back patio, and trying to sleep to the sounds of the sea, and Mother fell asleep. But I did not. And then Father turned on the lighthouse.
I did. I’d been working away, and realised there was little left to do. Crystal installed, lightstones connected and charged, focative mirrors in place…. I remember putting the last reflectors into the sockets and reaching for something else and finding nothing. I remember looking out over the few lights still burning in Brightmouth and thinking that I’d set this thing burning for one night at least. So I set it for six hours of activation, enough to see till dawn, and pulled the switch I’d installed before I even met Ysabel….
And it was AWESOME! A glowing flare that settled to a silvery light, steady and warm and beckoning. It was visible for miles and miles, I just knew. But it was…
Peaceful.
Yes! It was a lullaby, a rippling stream, a hug….
You’ve thought about how to describe this more than me, I think.
The light from the Laurelin Beacon was, and still is, a whole bundle of things, in light form. It was the smell of fresh baked bread, and a warm hug on a cold day, and the ease of a favourite chair after a long walk. And that’s just how it felt to me at the time.
It sent me to sleep.
Really?
Oh yes. The task was done, and the light was watching over my city. It felt that I could rest for a bit.
And he did. I ran up to the lighthouse, and up to the top, and Father was there, snoring gently, propped up against the wall.
A flattering picture you paint.
And so I snuggled up to him, and looked at the light for a bit, and drank some orange juice, and must have dozed off as well. And then some time later….
Six hours later, that timer was precise.
I woke up as something went clunk, and the light slowly died, and it was the first hour or so of a summer morning. And so I remember looking down and all around, and there were a lot of big rafts bumping into the harbour wall.
Do you recall what they looked like to you then?
Not in detail. There were more than I could count, and some had sails and small houses on, and they looked like really bad rafts. Impressions of a little girl, of course.
And what did you do then?
Father was still sleeping, and I remember feeling very smug that he and Mother should have a rest, and I would go down and say hello to our guests.
So I ran down and along the harbour wall, still clutching my orange juice. And when I got there, one of the rafts had got to the second steps, and there were people aboard it.
I remember thinking that they were really big and black and maybe they were giants or something, but they were still people, and they looked really sick. And one of them had made it to the stairs, and was pulling himself up on the rope, and as I got to him he sat down on the top and looked across at Brightmouth and just gawped.
And I thought, “He looks thirsty.” And I remembered Mother and Father offering drinks to visitors to the city, so I pulled the cork and passed him my orange juice. And he blinked, and took it, and sloshed it in the flask, and took a sniff, and then a long drink. And then he looked at me, and bowed his head, and said:
“Ruwa na ƙasa. Allahnki ya albarkace ki, ƙaramar yarinya mai launin fari.”
I didn’t remember it perfectly. And I didn’t understand it at all. But it sounded like thank you.
That was how you met Oroun of the Dreyni?
Of course, we didn’t know his name then, and enter Father, stage left….
I’d woken up atop the Lighthouse, and see this sprawling fleet of weatherbeaten rafts like a huge drift against the harbour wall! And then looking down, I saw Aurum running along the wall towards them. Crazy girl.
“If it’s crazy and it works, it’s not crazy”
Ha bloody ha. I ran down myself, to find her sitting on the wall with this monster of a man, if a man he was….
Falkirk!
It’s what I thought at the time! Oroun is half my height again, outweighs me three times over, and can lift me in one hand! I would trust him with the lives of my wife and child….
And have!
And have, but at that time, we were all rather tightly wound and he was flaming scary! But he was just sitting there, and saw me running up, and he got up onto one knee, where we were eye to eye.
Oh, can I tell this part?
You may not. He made an encircling motion at Brightmouth. The lighthouse, walls, forges, the lot. And pointed at me, and cocked his head. He was also saying some things, but he realised quite soon we had no shared language, and kept it to gestures.
I nodded. He reached for his belt, and took off a leather waterskin. He uncapped it, and emptied it onto the wall. There was barely two drops left. He waved at his fleet of ramshackle rafts, on which hundreds if not thousands of big black bodies were lying, some stirring in the light. Then he got down on both knees, and held up the empty waterskin to me, in both hands.
There’s a time and a place for sublety, and that wasn’t it.
Indeed. This changed it into a problem I well understood. Hellfires, with the Twisted coming, one I was glad to deal with.
You dumped it on me!
I did not! I sketched out some directions for the flotilla to get inside the harbour, roused the tug galleys, and was making sure the harbour market square was cleared….
Leaving me to rechannel the filtration works so we had a strong water supply on the seafront fountains! By the time I found out what you needed it for and got to the seafront myself, they were landing!
What did that look like to you?
The harbour was packed. Rank after rank of battered ramshackle rafts. And from them, from huts and under sailcloth and from every deck, there was shuffling a dark tide of exhaustion.
Poetic.
I saw the way they walked, and how many fell when they got to the piers. I saw how tired they all looked. And by the time I got close enough to see how big they were, they’d already settled in my head as shipwrecked sailors in need of help.
I opened the spigots on the seafront fountains, filling the wide troughs there. I grabbed one of the cups, filled it, drank, passed it to their leader. He drank, and smiled, and finished the cup. Oroun had had a few of his men follow him, and he turned and took a spear and shield off one behind him. You’ve seen the traditional weapons of the Dreyni?
Yes. Leaf-bladed spear, long oval hide shield?
Those. He pulls them forwards, and I had a moment to wonder if I’d made a terrible mistake, and then he raises them high, gives a short declaration, loud enough to carry, and lays them at my feet.
“We came as beggars, and you gave us aid freely. I cannot pay with more than the strength of my arms, but that is yours!”
But of course he said it in Dreyni.
“Mun zo mabarata ne, kuma ka ba mu taimako kyauta, ba zan iya biya fiye da ƙarfin hannuna ba, amma naka ne!”
Oh you little show off. But yes. Dramatic stuff. I suspected that it was some sort of declaration of fealty at the time. There was an awkward pause. I picked up the weapons, noted the reasonably good workmanship, and passed them back to him with a deep nod, which seemed to be acceptable. And while the talk of this was rustling down his heavy-drinking people on the sea-side, and the various Brightmouths on the landward side…. Things got even stranger…
Lady Ysabel, would you mind describing what happened next?
Oh my. The harbour square ringed with people. Falkirk and Oroun passing weapons around. And then the air rippled. There was a nasty smell, like an old room that had been sealed up with something rotting in it. And then in the centre of the square, a hole opened in the air. It looked forced, like someone was ripping a hole in cloth. No. Imagine you have a skim of wet clay or mud over stone, and you’re pushing it back enough to place a mould down on the stone…. Frantic pushing in all directions, then stabilised, with a swirling lilac mist within, and a man staggered out onto the paved stones of the square.
He was tall, and my first stupid thought was that everyone we met today would be taller than me. He was wearing long robes, carrying some sort of long staff, and looking around in desperation. He was waving his staff around, shouting something back through the hole in the air, and then he just sagged in place, gasping.
Faendol mercilessly recorded what he said at that point. I have it here translated. “We’re through, and He’s…. He’s not following. He’s not following! We’re clear! Everyone through! We’re clear!”
Although of course we didn’t understand a word of that….
The Gate opened mid-air, and I was more than a little startled. When someone fell through, I noticed that Oroun was already on my left, shield up, spear ready. And then after him came a running column of like people, tall, carrying bundles and small children, flowing clothing, all running through. And they spilled out into the square, hundreds and hundreds of them, and we all just stared in amazement. They looked a mess in a different way from the Dreyni, but just as desperate.
And with a breath to look at them, they were different from either of the other peoples around the square. Taller than the Callans, but slender. Skin more pale than us, let alone the Dreyni. Their hair was in shades of blues and greens, often under hoods or scarves. And they looked scared and tired. Not weatherbeaten or thirsty, but scared. As someone who has been running for a long time from something they cannot face. Men and women and children. They were unarmed, but for staffs and staves and long rods with embedded crystals.
And while all the adults were standing around going “wut”, I wandered into the middle with my orange juice again…..
That you did, darling.
I remember heaving a big dramatic sigh, and thinking that they just weren’t doing this right, and pushed through to the first man, who looked so tired, and offered him a drink. He looked at me, and took it, and had a swig, and said:
“Lhaus sîl. Ú-aníron edh! Hannon, gwaen, aníron anath nîn.”
Aurum, you’re showing off. Just because you learned Sindarin in school…. Translate?
Fruit juice. It’s been a while. Thank you child, I accept your hospitality.
And then he took a deep breath, and turned to the Gate. The last couple of his people came through, and gave him a nod, and he waved his staff, and it sort of fell in on itself. Leaving him and his collapsed all over our harbour square.
And that was how we met Faendol of the Shezaille. He looked about, spotted Oroun and I, and held out an open hand. Walked towards us, and said something that I was fairly sure was “Anyone speak my language?” We looked at each other and shrugged. He sighed, and lights flared up and down his staff, and then he said, “Can you understand me now?”
And Oroun replied “How under the sun do you speak Hausa, blue-hair?”
And I was looking at these two wondering how they suddenly spoke fluent Callan. Until Faendol explained that he’d done a magic working to translate everyone, as long as we all stood nearby. And that was a relief, let me tell you. We had a round of introductions, I welcomed them to the city as guests, there was some joking over our tiny welcoming committee…
I regret nothing!
…and then I saw that Faendol was gawping at the Lighthouse. It is, I think the only time I’ve ever seen him taken aback.
Normally the model of control and poise, there he was, staring at it like someone had hit him in in the face with a fish! To be fair, he’d had quite a day….
And he was staring at it and asked, “What under the stars is that?”
“It’s the lighthouse my fathers and I spent decades building.”
“You BUILT a Laurelin Beacon?”
“A what?”
And it turned out that what I’d built was a beacon of sanctuary, shining across multiple realms and dimensions and whatever. A signal of hope and home to desperate fleeing people. Which also worked as a lighthouse. Which is why the Dreyni had washed up on our shore, and the Shezaille had followed it through…. Well, to wash up on our shore from a different direction.
I decided to not light it up again for a while. In case it attracted lost voyagers from ships of crystal through the clouds, or burrowing rat-men from under the earth, or for all I knew mermaids out of the Silver Sea…. To whom Aurum would probably keep feeding orange juice….
There are worse ways of making friends.
And so many ways to make enemies. Can’t complain. But after we’d dealt with immediate needs of food/water/shelter for the Dreyni and the Shezaille, I had to sit them down and explain the trap they’d walked into. The Twisted were still coming. Their sanctuary was a city facing attack. They grew quite quiet at that, and looked at each other, and at me.
“Can you hold this city?” asked Oroun,
And I had to confess that no, probably not. We just didn’t have the numbers, the Twisted were bigger and stronger than any Callan…. And I looked at him, eyes wide.
“Can you hold this city, if I and my soldiers stand by you?”
That….changed things.
Faendol leaned in and added quietly “Can you hold this city, if my Sentinels and I stand also at your side….?”
There’s a word for that moment in Sindarin. It translates as “when the clouds part and a single star shines through.”
My hands were trembling, and my eyes filled, and I looked up at these two men, strangers this morning, and I said. That maybe we could. Maybe we could….
Handkerchief.
Thank you darling. Anyway, the first scouting mob of Twisted was expected to sight the walls late afternoon. We had time for some meetings, and calling in the last few gatherers and herdmen within the walls, and to ostentatiously stroll around the city together, demonstrating we were going to stand together. They learnt of the fall of Calla, and I of the Curse of Mihr and the ravages of Draughlin, that had sent them each a-running with all their kin. Frankly, I preferred the Twisted….
And that afternoon?
Oh yes. I took to the walls, with fifty of the Iron Boars, and Faendol, and Oroun had brought a dozen of his more hale men with him, armed for battle. Well I say men, but of course the Dreyni happily have their women fighting by their sides….
And then the Twisted came?
A few. An outlying mob, as we’d seen before. A big pack of them, maybe a score, some on all fours, some lumbering along, hooting and cackling and randomly gnawing on hedges and gates, until they saw the walls. At which point they rushed at us, as usual. Pale skinned bodies leaping and writhing and scuttling towards us at speed. We had a good light yet, and when the first of them got close, I directed the cannon crews to fire at will. I’d warned our guests, but still they jumped when the cannons roared, sending scatter-shot into the advancing but scattered pack! Hah!
It didn’t get them all or even most, spread out as they were, but there were a dozen pale figures dead or wounded as the rest rushed the walls…. The Iron Boars stepped up, and the Dreyni stepped up with us, and the first of the Twisted coming over the walls met big spears powered by Dreyni muscle, and they were NOT happy.
My men, I must say, were scared. Even out numbering the Twisted three to one, it would be hard, with them howling and flailing around with their claws, fast and strong and tough. With the long story of massacres and defeats haunting their efforts.
But the Dreyni were with us, and they went toe to claw with them, and we jumped in alongside! One of the Twisted was knocked back off the walls by a blow from Oroun, then another died screaming beneath Dreyni spears, and I saw one of them grab Duncan and throw him back down into the mob…. And then he stopped there, flailing around in mid-air, dripping his own blood from a nasty injury…. And Faendol said “got him”, and Duncan flew back over the ramparts, and down behind to where we had physicks ready. And the last few Twisted were coming up, claws digging into the wall, and Faendol snatched one away from the wall to hold it screaming in mid-air! And he looked at it closely, while the others died under our blades.
We all know far too well what they look like, but it was the first of them he’d seen. So he twisted it round, and looked at it through crystal lenses he’d brought out, and eventually nodded.
“They are self-replicating magical constructs! Aggression and feeding and nothing else. No restraint or intelligence or control….”
“What does that mean?”
Faendol looked to me with a smile. “In terms of fighting them, little you did not already know. In terms of their origin, someone built these and set them loose. Or lost control.”
And then he waved a hand and the mid-air Twisted flew up and away from the walls, in a long screaming arc that came to an abrupt crunching splat against the road a hundred yards out.
(He told me some years later that he’d been showing off a little in that moment. He’d felt he needed to demonstrate utility to me and Oroun)
“I cannot give you an immediate solution, Lord Copperhill, but I think me and mine can be of great use to you in this.”
And I looked at Oroun, who hefted a spear dripping with the slime the Twisted had for blood, And he grinned his big white grin and nodded at Faendol. “What he said, for my people as well.”
And that night, we had Faendol and Oroun round for dinner. I never thought I’d be hosting another formal dinner, and with such guests!
It was as formal as it needed to be, which was not very.
Indeed. They were both grateful to be able to sit and feast and rest and talk. We discussed families and traditional foods and kept things light over the meal, and then Falkirk got serious over the brandy afterwards.
We’d managed to get all the Dreyin and the Shezaille under cover, fed and watered for that night. Our scouts had tracked back the Twisted to where their main force was rolling gently towards us…. And we expected them tomorrow late afternoon. We knew their speed and abilities very well by that point.
And so you laid your plans.
What we could. The Dreyin were reviving well, and Oroun could promise hundreds to stand by us. Faendol was fairly sure that he’d be able to supply at least three-score of his Sentinels, and we had several long talks about what they could do. What not how. I still don’t understand the magic they do.
Don’t look at me!
Not going to pull another posy from your purse?
Father, I can do the language. Not the spells.
And thank Pelor for that.
And so after all your planning that night?
We found our beds late, but slept very well. For the first time, all of us, for far too long…. We had hope.
The next day was full of preparations. Falkirk was dashing around trying to brief the Iron Boars and mark out places on the walls, the Dreyin were unloading what little they’d brought, and inspecting the Twisted corpses, and the Shezaille…..
Were being, to my eyes, very boring.
Oh yes, you went to pester them that day, didn’t you?
As I recall my reasoning at the time, the Dreyin were big black sailors, but the Shezaille were far more interesting. They’d fallen through a hole in the air! So I went to say hello, and found them… very quiet.
How so?
A lot of them were still sleeping. Some small groups were sitting quietly outside, looking at Brightmouth and the sky and the sea… hungrily. As if they were drinking it in. Some of them were crying, or holding each other. And a lot of them were pretending to sleep while cuddling their glowstones.
Look, that’s what it looked like to me at the time. Meditation is boring to watch at best. Even focative channeling exercises. There’s nothing to see.
I’d been gifted a Stone of Tongues from Faendol, and gone around them all, and so at noon, I had our servants walk the streets, ringing handbells.
We knew how far the Twisted were, and when they’d scent the city and advance at speed towards it, so we were able to get all our people and our new friends into cover. Which in this case was the Copperhills manor, some of the more fortifiable warehouses, the Bracegirdle cellars…. Places where if one or two Twisted got past the walls, we could hold them.
And so by mid-afternoon, when the first Twisted came into over the hills, I was on the manor roof with the big telescope set up, and a few guests up there with me. We watched the three contingents of our combined peoples taking their places on the walls. We saw the last scouts, riding hell-for-leather, coming back across the fields and round to the far gates.
And then the Twisted came. And Falkirk had, I suspect, the horribly better view….
I did. There on the walls, staring out, as the Twisted poured over the hills like a pale tide of death. The swarming, gibbering, howling hooting horde that had eaten three armies and my nation besides. Coming for me.
Oroun told me afterwards he saw me start to shake then, and he put a big hand on my shoulder and said simply, “We have your back.” And on my other side Faendol nudged me with his staff and responded “You stand not alone.”
And I looked at them gratefully, and at the cleared fields before the walls, with red and white painted stones studded in the middle-distance, and grinned. Hope springs from small words. Alas the situation called for more of them, so for all our sakes, I had to speak up a good bit.
I stepped forwards and climbed onto a merlon, turned to see the walls, raised my sword and called out,
“Iron Boars! Stand ready!” And my scratch-built army of tramautised veterans, gunners and dockside bruisers and militia, they cheered as one, and I was damn proud of them. But we stood not alone.
“Starlight Hawks! Stand ready!” And the Shezaille, those who could join us there, raised their staffs and called back.
“Earth Serpents! Stand ready!” And the Dreyin men and women on the walls with us clashed their spears and shields together and roared!
“This day we hold! This day we fight! For our families behind us! We! Hold! This! Wall!”
And I was feeling damn good as I turned back to the onrushing Twisted, now minutes from the walls, raised my hideously expensive hand-cannon, and fired at them. It was way out of range, but it was for the theatrics of the moment. And I howled down at them “Twisted! Come closer so we can kill you!” And then with some relief, I hopped down out of everyones view.
Short, to the point, effective. Did the job it was meant to. Nothing to be ashamed of there Father.
Indeed. After that we were watching the battle from afar, and may have had a good overall view of it. May I?
Tell all.
As the Twisted got closer, Faendol sent up a flare of red light from his staff, and all along the walls the Starlight Hawks raised their implements and started chanting. And centered on the white stones, shimmering pillars of something distorted the air, short but very wide. And the Twisted ran into them and, well, bounced off. And so they were funnelled and directed into the spaces between the force-pillars, and that took them right over the red stones.
And the Iron Boars had been preparing, aiming and testing for this all day. And the cannons of Calla spoke again, fire focussed on where the Twisted had been forced to concentrate, and they died in fire by the score! We were cheering on the roof back then as we saw this, but the Twisted were still coming, hundreds dying as the Hawks funnelled them together and the Boars kept up the fire, but hundreds got through to the walls. Incensced by our presence, by the challenge of our roaring at them, they came clawing and climbing over each other and for a moment my heart sank as they crested the walls,,, and then the Dreyin struck! With a wordless roar the Serpents stepped forward and slammed the first of the Twisted back, some toppling with spear gashes, others just pushed back off the walls by shield slam! And with the Iron Boars jabbing in with sword and spear at their sides, the Earth Serpents killed and howled and stood their ground.
We lost men. Of course we did. Some clawed apart, some injured too badly. A trio of Faendols Sentinels fell when the Twisted breached the line at one point, still holding their magics to the last. There were a score of my Boars died being thrown back over the walls by the Twisted, not to mention those clawed and bitten as they held their ground. But the Serpents saved us that day. Dreyin courage and strength held the Twisted at the walls, though they bled to do so.
There was a report from the opening engagements of the Twisted War, I think it was General Daemon of the Golden Lions, who claimed that the Twisted could be beaten if we could hold a line against them for ten minutes. Of course, as he died discovering, that’s really difficult. But that day… we held.
For ten minutes?
And longer. For those of us watching from the city, it seemed forever, till all but a few stragglers had passed the stone markers. Then there was a chiming noise like a great bell, another signal from Faendol, and the force-pillars collapsed as the Shezaille stood down, many of them collapsing or carrying each other off the walls. And then a few more breaths of screams and howls and struggle that we could see, before the cannons were reloaded and turned to fire down and along the walls, into the press of Twisted gathered there.
It was carnage. The Twisted had packed in before the walls, and they hadn’t managed to reach the gunnery emplacements, and the Serpents were STILL holding the walls…. And they died by the score. Three volleys of scatter-shot into them, and then the guns fell silent, and there was a Twisted dying on Orouns spear in front of me, and a few more howls and screams along the wall, and then… it was quiet.
I looked up and along the wall. Twisted bodies across the parapets. Blood and ichor on the ramparts. Gasping, crying men of three peoples looking around, eyes wide. Below the wall, a shattered drift of Twisted bodies, some still clinging to the stone, some still twitching. Beyond that, broken pale forms stretching out to where our cannon had left them smeared into paste across the fields, in neat clusters. Unmoving. Quiet. Stopped.
We’d stopped them. We’d killed them all. We had held the wall. And as we stood there, dazed and slightly stunned, we heard a cheer rising from the city behind us.
Started by me.
Started by you. And we joined in and waved our weapons and screamed and howled and broke down in tears on the bloody stones. We’d won.
And then we had the big party. It’s been grandly named things like the Victory Feast, or the Three Goblets, or the Lights after Darkness…. But really it was just a big party. As we all celebrated being still alive, and not having to run away.
Always a solid reason to celebrate. But that was the feast at which I formally welcomed our new friends, to the acclamation of the city, they accepted and returned our pledge of alliance and brotherhood, and so on. Those speeches have been written down and analysed enough. But you could summarize the lot as “Let us always be friends.”
I notice the braid you’re wearing, Aurum?
Yes, it’s been a style since that night. One strand dyed black for the Dreyni, one pale blue for the Shezaille, and my usual copper for the third. Three colours of hair, three colours of peoples, braided together. And the genius of it is that all of us can wear it, each needing two different colours.
One of my better ideas there. Unity in a hair style.
Genius, Ysabel, genius. We wore that braid all that next year, as our three little warbands, braided into one army, marched out beyond the walls. We were wearing that and singing when we relieved Highreach….
Is it true that Lady Ossiene broke down and wept on your shoulder when you finally broke them out?
It is true, and I blame her not the slightest. She held her family and her people together through half a year of confinement and utterly hopeless siege. Courage you could bounce cannonballs off.
But so we went onwards. With the Ossienes in tow, and a few others we found hiding along the way, we were wearing those braids and singing when we broke the Twisted swarm that was still feeding on the remains of Kingsford.
And that Midsummer, we had oranges from Samara for Aurum’s cake….
Handkerchief.
And now, ten years later, the Unity braids are coming out again. We held onto each other in our darkest moment, and we’ll still be holding together in the light.
Will you be relighting the lighthouse?
I will. We shall stock the city well, man the sentry posts in all directions, and light the Laurelin Beacon through the night.
It’s entirely possible nothing will happen.
Hah! Then we shall have a grand party. But if something does happen, if we call more desperate and fleeing folk out of the darkness as they follow our light…. Well, you cannot have too many friends.
I hope we have enough orange juice.
Thank you Lord, Lady and Aurum Copperhill, we shall end this here.