at your service.”
“Very well,” Tess said, now striding toward them as if she were gliding on air, the wolves in her train.
She marched to the front of the formation, then turned to face them. Once again the wolves took up their places behind and at her side. When she spoke, her voice was clear and strong, a bell ringing in the soul itself.
“I am she who was foretold,” Tess said. While she loathed the words and what they meant, she knew their truth. She could not hide from herself any longer. “Believe, or disbelieve. But disbelief will be your doom, for you will disbelieve that which you now see for yourselves. Topmark Tuzza stands at my service. Where stand you?”
For long moments, the host stood frozen. Tuzza stepped forward and ranged himself beside the lady. Now, perhaps, he could quell the unrest in his ranks and refashion from them an army. He spoke quietly, yet pitching his voice to reach even the most distant of ears among his men. “The days we learned about as children, the days we thought were mere tales fashioned for our amusement, have arrived. While we may have to fight our brethren, our purpose is not to bring about the fall of Bozandar, but her salvation. For the Enemy we fight would bring the death of all.
“Stand with me, my men, for the sake of your families, for the sake of your children yet unborn. For if we do not stand now, we shall face the fate of the Firstborn, and never shall our names be heard again.”
He could see his men wavering, uncertain in their loyalties. Outside the walls of the compound, however, the Anari guards bent their knees and made signs of fealty toward the Lady Tess. Then the wolves began to keen, a sound that made the hair on the back of a man’s neck rise, that sent a tingle running along even the bravest spine.
With a simple movement of her hand, the lady silenced the wolves, a sight so shocking that many doubtful hearts were swayed.
“Brave men of Bozandar,” she said, “declare yourselves now, for your entire future is writ in this moment.”
A ripple of movement ran through the ranks, and when stillness again returned, every soldier had knelt.
The lady opened her arms and turned her face heavenward. To those with eyes to see, she almost seemed to glow a pale blue, an aura that enveloped the wolves at her feet. Then snow began to fall, gently, sparkling in the rising dawn light, looking almost like blood. Above, gray clouds churned, marked red here and there as the sun rose above the mountains.
“He brings the snow,” the lady said. “He seeks to destroy you with cold and hunger. He would murder your brothers and leave barren the wombs of your sisters. He would strike from the fabric of time your very existence. I will not let this be.”
Reaching up with one hand, she appeared to grasp something in the air and twist it. A sudden wind sprang up, strong enough to make men lean. As it blew, it drove the clouds away, clearing the sky until it was the perfect blue of dawn.
The lady lowered her arm and looked at all the men kneeling before her. “Rise,” she said. “You have chosen wisely this day. I will arrange better accommodations for you as swiftly as I can. May Elanor bless you and your families.”
Then she turned and exited the compound, the wolves a protective phalanx around her.
In the Bozandari compound, the murmuring and even arguments continued throughout the day. Some refused to believe what they had seen. The vast majority, however, believed their own senses, and eventually argued the dissenters into silence.
The strongest voices among them were the voices who had seen Tess on the battlefield, those who had seen or experienced her healing and that of her sisters.
Such magicks had long vanished from the world, and had long been thought to be silly tales. Now those who had seen with their own eyes no longer could deny the truth of the stories.
Tuzza chose to remain mostly out of sight this day, while the discussions raged outside his tent. His men had elected to offer fealty to the lady, and he never doubted that they would keep that oath. Honor was held in the highest esteem by the Bozandari army, and these men would not go back on their words. Yet still they might argue about what they had seen and what it meant.
Toward evening, as the sky reddened again to the west and the camp began to settle for another cold night, Archer Blackcloak, he who was Annuvil, came to the prison camp to speak with Tuzza.
The first thing Tuzza noted was that Master Archer, as he preferred to be called, seemed to have grown somehow since last they spoke. It was as if in shouldering the burdens left to him by his heritage, as if in announcing his true identity, Archer had grown physically as well as figuratively. The lines of care and suffering still carved his face deeply, but they only enhanced the sense of power about him.
Tuzza offered him wine, and the two of them sat at the wooden camp table, the map of the Bozandari world between them.
“I heard,” Archer said, “that the lady paid you a visit early this morning.”
“Aye, she did. With eight white wolves.”
Archer’s mouth lifted in a smile. “That must have commanded attention.”
“I am not certain what commanded the most attention—the wolves or when she stopped the snow and drove away the clouds.” Tuzza, who had believed himself to be the most unsurprisable of men, nevertheless sounded awed as he spoke of the lady banishing the storm.
Archer nodded and sipped his wine. “She is full of surprises, that one. Nor does she yet know all she can do.”
“A wild talent?”
“At times. For some reason, the gods deprived her of all memory when they brought her to me and my friends. Whatever she may have known before, all is lost. She knows only what she learns with each passing day.”
“Then she has learned a great deal.”
Archer nodded. “Quite a bit in such a short time.”
“I hear the Anari guards referring to her as the Weaver. Do they mean the one foretold?”
There was a glint in Archer’s eye. “What think you, Tuzza? Did she reach out and cast away a storm?”
“I saw it with my own eyes.” He looked down into his wine and breathed, “The Weaver. I never thought to see such a thing.”
“Few of us did. I do not mind saying that living in the times foretold by prophecy will bring little joy to most of us.”
“No. These will be hard times.”
“The hardest. We will all be sorely tested. Sorely indeed.” He caught Tuzza’s gaze and held it. “All we will have, brother, is trust in one another. I cannot tell you how important that will be.”
“You call me brother?”
“Aye, for you are about to share my burden. And no joyous road it will be.”
“I am honored, my lord.”
“Speak to me of honor when we have passed through this shadow and can clasp hands on the other side.” Archer shook his head. “I have known for centuries that this time approached, yet I am no more ready to face it than I ever was.
