I Read What?!

For some reason, finishing Legacy of the Sword has inspired me to go checking up on the second most dysfunctional sibling relationship in the series that I've reviewed. (At least Lysaer isn't in his right mind when he starts fucking over HIS younger sibling, DONAL.)

It's also possible that I just really miss the purple prose.

So that means I'm going to be starting the THIRD book in the "Wars of Light and Shadow" series: Warhost of Vastmark.

As I said in my Ships of Merior review, originally (and in hardcover), Ships of Merior and Warhost of Vastmark were written as a single obscenely large novel. This may explain why some of the storylines in that book seemed to slip to the backburner. I THINK we're going to see at least some of them addressed in this book.

I remember finding Vastmark pretty entertaining, so I have reasonably high hopes for this review.

But first, let's make fun of the old cover!



I mock only because I love. And because it is actually really cool that Ms. Wurts paints her own covers. Arithon gets to be a bit manlier in this one, though his facial expression is very amusing. The boring new covers just don't compare.



So, if you recall, we left off with a pretty explosive confrontation between Lysaer and Arithon. Kaboom. Jieret and Arithon had a pretty emotionally fraught time, in which Jieret had to resort to some pretty harsh tactics to keep Arithon's curse from getting them all killed.

So of course we're not starting with them. Oh no. We're starting with Sethvir.

Worse, we're starting with Sethvir in a nude bathing scene. Ugh. But if I have to suffer, then so do you:

Sethvir of Althain soaked in his hip bath those rare times when he suffered glum spirits. Lapped like a carp in warm water, his hair frizzled over the sculptured bones of thin shoulders, he sulked with his chin in his fists while the steam whorled up through the hanks of his beard and dripped off the white combs of his brows. Misted and half-closed with melancholy, his eyes seemed to cast their brooding focus on his gnarled toes, now perched in a row on the tub's rim.

The nails curled in neglected need of trimming.

Ewwww.

Sethvir is busy musing about Arithon's strike at Minderl Bay. It served its purpose in dismantling the war host, but "Lysaer s'Ilessid's misled following had not awakened to perceive the stark truth: that what had destroyed their sea fleet at Werpoint had been less a bloody ploy of the Shadow Master's than the mishandled force of Lysaer's own gift of light, maligned by Desh-thiere's curse."

I mean...you could try to TELL them that?

Normal people generally don't understand much by way of sorcery in this setting. So you could maybe, just maybe, try to explain it to them?

We're told that the poor ship captain who was "lent the insight to know differently" is dead in an alley, thanks to Diegan's machinations. And he got killed off so he couldn't spread doubt. Now his ship's been re-manned and will be sailing south for Alestron with Lysaer and his pick of officers on board.

I wonder how Lysaer's whole justice thing will rationalize that. The last he'd known, the ship's captain was vehemently opposed to giving his ship to Lysaer's service. The ship's captain is conveniently murdered, so now his ship can be co-opted for the one use that the captain adamantly didn't want.

Thank god, Sethvir senses SOMETHING and bolts out of the tub to get dressed. Thank god. I don't hate him as much as I hate Asandir, but I don't need the nude scene. Anyway, the "upset" he sensed has to do with Kharadmon, the discorporate Fellowship sorcerer who had gone to scout the Mistwraith's origin point: the worlds beyond the South Gate.

He summons the others with a cry of distress, and we get a "Thundercats, ho" style glimpse of what each are doing. Luhaine was dealing with ghosts that had been summoned and abandoned by a rogue necromancer. Asandir (ugh) had been reconsecrating some old ruins that "held and warded the earthforce". Traithe is busy testing fault lines in Vastmark (oo, partial title drop!).

I have to admit though, I do like that bit. The Fellowship are so often annoying and completely useless that it's hard to appreciate why we should care about their existence at all. But apparently they do actually do some good, helpful things.

Luhaine shows up to help, the others are too distant and corporeal. We get reminded of his rivalry with Kharadmon with a pretty great line:

'It's Kharadmon, coming home,' Sethvir explained. His attention stayed pinned on the white points of stars, strung between flying scraps of cloud. 'Before you ask, he's brought trouble along with him.'

'That's his born nature,' Luhaine snapped. 'Like the dissonance in a cracked crystal, some things in life never sweeten.'

Because it isn't enough that I had to SEE a Sethvir nude scene, Wurts has to remind me by having Sethvir wring soapy water out of his beard.

So now we get to the metaphysical stuff. I don't understand much of it, but it certainly sounds dramatic. Interestingly, when Luhaine starts raising "powers" from the land, he has the easiest time with Jaelot. Apparently having a death bard trash the whole city is good for the magical environment.

I'm not entirely sure what's going on, except that there's apparently a white-orange fireball chasing Kharadmon to Athera. The Fellowship sorcerers are calling the awareness of the earth to guard the planet. That's kind of cool. They do other shit too that gets the attention of the Koriani enchantresses and are disturbing mariners with the effect that the magic is having on the wind and weather.

Oh, hey, Asandir does do something useful perhaps: discharging a "purple corona of wild power" that makes the brick walls of Avenor moan. Kinky.

So anyway, they do their fancy magic and it's very dramatic. And presumably it succeeds, as Luhaine and Sethvir spare a moment to talk. Luhaine doesn't approve of the whole "lead malevolent entities back to Athera" thing, but Sethvir explains that's actually his and Asandir's fault. The beacon they sent last book (you know, instead of bothering to save Maenalle) actually fucked him over.

Apparently (Sethvir knows this because of the mindlink) Kharadmon had heard them calling, but was basically stuck in battle with "hostile entities" that recognized what he was and wanted to assimilate his power and knowledge of "grand conjury".

Apparently the beacon "held the signature map of all Athera", whatever the fuck that means. Bad shit, I guess. And worse, because if there's a renewed conflict with the Mistwraith, they might need the princes' powers again.

Oh really???

a) MAYBE you should have thought about that before sacrificing one of them to get possessed.

b) Also, I mean, technically Arithon's a king isn't he? He had a partial coronation, after all. He's a deposed king in exile, not a prince.

c) It's nice to know that the Fellowship also manages to fuck over each other, rather than just Arithon for once.

But hey, Kharadmon shows up to needle Luhaine and be cryptic and ominous. He IS being chased after all, and he's not sure the earth wards are going to hold up. And indeed, it seems like the tower is under attack.

There's more metaphysics and magic that I'm not going to recap. It's cool to read actually, but not so cool to try to summarize. Just trust me when I say it's pretty impressive.

We do learn a bit about Sethvir's unique talents though during the battle, and what it means to be "Warden of Althain". Basically, he's the "earth's tried link", and therefore "through him flowed all events to influence the fate of Athera". He can split his mind into multiple awarenesses, et al.

So it'd be a very bad thing if the wraiths possessed him. At some point they breach his defenses across time, which sounds bad, but Kharadmon is able to use their dislike of the smell of sulfur to buy time. (Luhaine is a bitch about it.)

Luhaine then does his own thing with a container? But there is something interesting here:

The wraiths winnowed through like floss caught in current, bent once again on Althain's Warden. Their caustic contempt rang in dissonance against mage-tuned awareness. Prolonged years of battle against Kharadmon had taught these enemies too well. They understood the limitations of their prey: provoke how they might, twist life as they would, no Fellowship mage would spurn Ath's trust and the Law of the Major Balance to fling spells of unmaking against them.

I'm intrigued by the acknowledgement that the Fellowship "twists life as they would". Because yeah. They do that, don't they.

I like this line too:

The Sorcerers who protected Athera were guardians. Their strength of constraint could be used against them as a weapon to breach their steadfast self-command and turn moral force into weakness.

"moral force" Hmph.

Eventually, Sethvir uses himself as bait and somehow manages to "split his consciousness" into...some rocks? I have no idea. But anyway, it diverts and divides the wraiths, and Luhaine, Kharadmon and Sethvir are able to trap them all into Luhaine's container.

There is some suspense left because Sethvir appears to be trapped in the container WITH the wraiths. Oops. But well, the sorcerers can't obsess about a prophecy that restores them to full strength if one of them are dead, so Sethvir does manage to escape.

I admit, I am almost moved by the other two's worry. I do believe these are characters who have known each other for a very long time. And this subchapter IS well written in the sense that while I have no idea what's ACTUALLY happening, I do feel a sense of tension and suspense.

I just really hate the fucking Fellowship at this point.

Anyway, Sethvir didn't come back empty handed: he's got the true names of these wraiths and they may be able to unbind them and give them peace.

We skip ahead to noon, after Sethvir's had tea and a catnap. Apparently they DID manage to redeem and release the enchanted spirits. They've also cleaned up quite a bit. Kharadmon gets a belated description here:

Luhaine's groomed image inhabited the apron by the hearth, unstirred by the draughts from the chimney. Kharadmon appeared as a wan, slender form perched on the stuffing of a chair. His posture was all dapper angles and elegant, attenuated bones. His spade point beard and piebald hair and narrow nose appeared as foxy as ever, but his green cloak with its ruddy orange lining tended to drift through intervals of transparency. Despite a clear outline, the force of him seemed washed and faded.

He seems tired. Also humble. He's realizing now what their colleague Traithe had faced when he sealed off the South Gate and lost most of his powers in the process. Kharadmon believes now that in doing so, Traithe saved all life on Thera.

So we get some background on the South Gate. The land on the other side is Marak, and that's where the Fellowship used to exile folk who sought knowledge that was against the compact between the humans and Paravians. But apparently something went wroung there, because the place is now an ice-ridden, desolate wasteland with nothing alive anymore.

Oops.

Kharadmon gives us some background on the Mistwraith:

'I narrowed my search in the gutted shells of the libraries,' Kharadmon resumed. 'I found records there, fearful maps of what was done.' His image chafed its thin fingers as if to bring warmth to lost flesh. 'As we guessed, Desh-thiere was created by frightened minds as a weapon of mass destruction. A faction on Marak built on the laws of physical science, then meddled in theories that came to unbalance the axis of prime life force. The intent was to interweave spirit with machine. These men desired to create the ultimate synergy between the human mind and a physical construct, and transcend the limits of the flesh. Well, their works went wrong. The ionized fields of mists that contained the captive spirits over time drifted their awareness out of self-alignment. The experiment turned on its creators. I can only conclude that those sorry entities tied outside of Daelion's Wheel became warped and vicious and insane.'

The result laid two entire worlds to white waste, then the hundreds of thousands of dead from that carnage, subverted and entrapped in brutal turn.

Oops.

But this whole thing about linking spirit and machine intrigues me. Is the Mistwraith a cyborg? A nanocloud?

Kharadmon sees his mission as a failure though, because he couldn't find any Names for the original wraiths that made up the Mistwraith's "first sentience". (I should note that the Fellowship exclusively uses the name Desh-thiere when speaking about it, almost like a proper name.)

So, what can they do?

Sethvir tapped the knuckle of his thumb against his teeth. 'We'll need the aid of the Paravians,' he ventured.

'Their resonance with prime power could perhaps turn those lost entities to recall their forgotten humanity.'

'A masterbard's talents might do the same, had we the means to isolate each individual victim from the pull of collective consciousness,' Luhaine said.

Huh, I wonder where you can find one of those.

Interestingly, vacuum seems to have an effect on the mistwraith(s), stripping away the "mist" and leaving scattered "free wraiths" instead.

Downside, if the wraiths on Marak figure out the beacon, they'll probably use it to invade.

Seriously, the Fellowship really does manage tos crew over everyone. But they've realized something relevant to us:

Silence ate the seconds as the three mages pondered. The quandary of the Mistwraith had expanded to fearful dimensions. Its threat would not end with the creatures mewed up under wards in Rockfell Pit. Indeed, Athera would never be safe from predation until the trapped, damned spirits from both worlds beyond South Gate could be drawn under bindings, then redeemed.

The royal half-brothers already set in jeopardy by the curse might yet be needed to right the balance.

Recent events at Minderl Bay had effectively shown that Lysaer held no vestige of control over Desh-thiere's aberrant geas.

Which left Arithon once again at the critical crux of responsibility.

Congratulations, Arithon, the folks who screw you over at literally every turn need your help again.

And hey, it's not like they'll try to violate your autonomy or force you into anything this time! Surely these wizards who are incredibly obsessed with consent learned their lesson, right?

Sethvir sighed, his crown tipped back against the tower's chisel-cut window. In tones hammered blank by a burden just extended through trials enough to stop the heart, he said, 'Asandir will reach the focus at Caith-al-Caen by the advent of tonight's sundown. He can transfer to Athir's ruin on the east shore and flag down the sloop Talliarthe. He will treat with the Shadow Master there and charge him, for the world's sake, to stay alive. At any cost, by whaever means, the Prince of Rathain must survive until this threat beyond South Gate can be resolved.'

Beside the table, thinned to wan imprint against the varnished tiers of the bookshelves, Kharadmon blinked like a cat. 'Not enough,' he said in his old, stinging curtness. 'Have Asandir bind our crown prince to his promise by blood oath.'

...SIGH.

To their credit, both Luhaine and Sethvir do protest. Not so much because it's a dick move, but because Arithon's built in gift is "compassion", and that's always been enough to manipulate the members of his family. But Kharadmon's been beyond the South Gate, and he knows how dire the situation actually is.

Okay, but you could TALK to the guy first?

Fucking Fellowship.

--

The subchapter here is called "Tharrick".

We rejoin Dakar! Hi, Dakar! I've missed you!

Dakar is laying aboard Arithon's sloop, the Talliarthe. Arithon's here too! Hi, boys! It's been too long. They bicker a bit about Arithon's dissonant whistling (meant to keep iyats, or gremlin like prankster spirits, at bay), which doesn't suit Dakar's hangover.

So does Arithon still have the power of purple prose?

Arithon nodded. His screeling measures stayed unbroken. He had seen iyats in the waves at the turn of the tide and preferred to keep his rigging unmolested. He had yet to change the ripped shirt he had worn through the affray at Minderl Bay. Bathed in the ruddy gold light that washed the misted shoreline at Athir, where his little sloop lay at anchor, he twisted the cork from the neck of another flask, then upended it over the stem rail.

HE DOES.

Sadly, Dakar isn't in a position to appreciate Arithon's ripped shirt hotness, because of the whole pouring Dakar's alcohol into the sea thing. Their exchange is actually really interesting here:

Dakar screamed and shot upright as a stream of neat whisky splashed with a gurgle into the brine. The nightmare that had wakened him had been no prank of imagination, after all. 'Dharkaron rip off your cursed bollocks!' he howled, and added a damning string of epithets that curdled the quiet of new morning. 'You're dumping my last stock of spirits into the Ath-forsaken sea!'

Arithon never paused in his pursuit. 'I wondered how long you'd take to notice.' That icy note of warning in his tone was unmistakable to anyone who knew him.

Dakar paused in the companionway to catch his breath, take stock, and indulge in a long, thoughtful scratch at his crotch. 'What's changed?'

For all Dakar's dislike, he isn't stupid or unobservant.

And indeed, Arithon's got a reason for what he's doing. They're off to visit the forges of Perdith, and he needs Dakar sober. Dakar understands Arithon's subtext better than I do and he realizes that this means Arithon is planning to arm the brigatines.

Fascinatingly, Dakar really does seem betrayed by this. Despite all the accusations he'd made in the last book. Wurts is a good enough writer, that I think this is actually intentional. Dakar has grown, subconsciously, to trust Arithon more than he realizes.

'Complain, if you like, to Asandir,' said the Master of Shadow, succinct. 'If I thought it would help, I'd back you.'

I believe he would.

And remember, for all that Dakar is generally a slovenly, drunk hedonist, who is very much proud of all three traits, he is also the apprentice of a Fellowship sorcerer:

The Mad Prophet opened his mouth to speak, then poised, still agape. He swelled in a gargantuan breath of disbelief, and stopped again, jabbed back to furious thought by the stained strip of linen tied over his adversary's left wrist. 'Ath Creator!' His eyes bulged as he exhaled a near-soundless whistle. 'Asandir was here. Whatever have you done to require a blood oath before the almighty Fellowship of Seven? No such strong binding has ever been asked, and you a sanctioned crown prince!'

Arithon shot back a glare like a rapier, hooked the last crock by his feet, and ripped the cork from the neck.

Dakar turned desperate. 'Have a care for your health! At least save one flask. It might be helpful, for need, in case that knife wound turns septic.'

Is it just me or does Dakar seem OFFENDED on Arithon's behalf. And then fussing. I still ship it.

Later on, Dakar's both seasick and hungover, while Arithon is in a mood, and expressing it through aggressive whistling.

No really.

At the helm, far from cheerful, Arithon s'Ffalenn whistled a ballad about a wicked stepson who murdered to steal an inheritance. The time held a dissonance to unravel thought. By the arrowed force behind each bar and note, Dakar resigned himself: he had no case left to argue. The renowned royal temper already burned fierce enough to singe any man in close quarters. To cross a s'Ffalenn prince in that sort of mood was to invite a retaliation in bloodshed.

See?

Anyway, he's conducted his business, and now they're heading back. Arithon has moved from aggressive whistling to aggressive sailing, and now sleeps in oilskins beside his tiller. He wins the purple prose contest again, but for angst rather than glamour:

Arithon by then was a scarecrow figure, sea-beaten and haunted hollow around the eyes. Too much wetting had infected his cut wrist. The gash scabbed and peeled, saltwater sores caused by the chafe of linen dressings swelled sullen purple underneath. Shirtless, driven, pressured sleepless by some tie to conscience that involved his recent oath to Asandir, the Shadow Master leaned on the weather shroud, a silhouette against thin, morning sunlight, his hand at his brow to cut the glare.

I do appreciate that you've made him shirtless while he looks all injured and broken, Ms. Wurts. Thank you.

There's a problem though. If you recall, Arithon left a thriving shipyard. He's been gone, apparently, for three months. So where are the half constructed ships?

Actually, if you paid attention to that last bit of sneak peek in Ships of Merior, you'll know the answer to this.

Arithon's having a very bad day. And so is Dakar:

Busy with his trouser points, Dakar looked up and realized that the coast of Scimlade Tip loomed off the bow. The sloop would be moored at Merior by noon, and he could get blissfully drunk. A sigh of content eased from him, cut short by the prickling awareness that the Shadow Master glared at his back.

'No.' Clear as a glass edge, a masterbard's voice, like a blade through the calls of white gulls and the softer susurrance of the sloop's wake. 'You will not indulge yourself senseless.'

Dakar's jerk of outrage mistimed with a gust; he swore as he almost wet his knuckles. Stuffing himself back into his trousers, hands shaking as he hurried the lacing, he spun toward the cockpit in a rage. 'Since when are you appointed as guardian of my fate?'

Back at the sloop's tiller, Arithon threw her helm down. His apparent attention stayed fixed on the heading as her bow bore up and all manner of tackle slatted loose to a rattle of blocks that defied all attempt at speech. As the headsails caught aback and pressed the Talliarthe's painted bow past the eye of the wind, the gaff-rigged main slammed taut on the opposite tack. Arithon freed the jib sheets from their cleats. The thunder as thrashed canvas bellied to the breeze finally muted to a driving sheet of spray as he hardened the lines alee.

'I am master of nothing,' he answered then on a queer, wrung note of exhaustion. 'My own fate least of all.'

(It's worth noting that Arithon does get cleaned, shaved and changes clothes before actually arriving. Because a bard still knows how to dress for the occasion.)

So...what did happen to the shipyard:

Of the brigantine which should have been launched and by now rigged to completion, nothing remained but a straggle of crooked ribs, scabbed to black charcoal by fire. The planked-over hull that lay adjacent gaped like a cave, her stem and forequarter burned away. The stacks of new lumber for her finishing were all charred to ash in the sand. The ropewalk was gone, a snarl of gutted boards amid the puddled runoff shed by dimes tarnished dark with rinsed carbon.

Aghast, his face white and his frame racked to shivers, Arithon looked stricken by a deathblow as he regarded the ruin of his hope to make clean escape to blue water.

Ah.

Arithon is greeted by a somber set of twins, who tell him that Jinesse invited him to come home with them. She's made fish soup. Fiark offers to let Arithon borrow his blanket. Aw. They love him so much.

Arithon thanks them and waves them off. He needs to stand and brood. (Dakar: " Are we just going to stand here until we grow roots in the damp? I really do love his complete immunity to melodramatic angst.)

So now it's time to find out what happened. Basically, one dude did it. A dude who knows exactly who Arithon is. Oops. (There's an darkly amusing exchange where the shipwright, who learned Arithon's identity from the prisoner's raving reassures him his secret's safe with him, and Arithon points out that the entire north knows exactly where he is AND his ships are burned to ashes.")

So yeah, they've got the prisoner tied up and locked in the boiler shed. And of course we shift to the prisoner's point of view, so we can appreciate what Arithon looks like, yet again:

Through vision impaired to slits by bruises and swelling, the prisoner saw him fully, centred beneath the yellow glow. Thin and well-knit, he looked like a wraith in dark breeches, his white shirt slathered to his shoulders by the rain. His hair was black. Wet strands stuck like ink to his temples and jaw. The features they framed were pale granite, all chipped angles and fury, the eyes now shadowed by lamplight.

Wind riffled through the portal at his back. The lantern flame wavered and failed to a spark, then leaped back in dazzling recovery. Swept by a chill that chattered his teeth, the prisoner shrank into his cranny.

The man spun toward the noise like a predator. He could not miss the lashed pair of ankles that protruded from the wood stores, livid and blackened with scabs.

It occurs to me that there's an interesting thread here: in which both brothers, with their inborn compulsion to a particular trait, are put to a test. Lysaer, and his sense of justice, is presented with an obviously murdered man who, Lysaer knows for a fact, never intended to give his ship over to Lysaer's charge.

And now Arithon, whose built in sense of compassion, is face to face with the man who has just destroyed his last best hope for survival. And he's sick and injured. (Per the shipwright, he'd been "hazed" thoroughly for information he refused to give.)

So...what happens:

'Merciful Ath!' He lilted a fast phrase in the old tongue that resounded with appalled shock. Then in a rage to freeze the falling rain itself, he changed language and commanded, 'Strike his bonds.'

'But, my lord,' protested the master joiner through the sizzle as the leak let fall another droplet on the boiler. 'The wretch came intending to murder y—'

In fearful speed, the man in authority cut him off. 'Do it now! Are you deaf or a fool, to defy me?'

While the joiner entered, chastened to cowering, the black-haired man sank to his knees and laid his own icy hands over the prisoner's roped ankles. 'Give me the knife. I'll do this myself. Then send for a litter and some sort of tarp to cut the rain.' In the same distilled tone of venom he added, 'Dakar and I will serve as bearers.'

Of course.

As they're getting the guy free, he starts raving. He recognizes Arithon as the "dread sorcerer" who "enspelled" his lord's armory. So this guy is from Alestron. In fact, if you go back through the sneak peeks of Merior, we saw a lot of this guy. A guard captain who was blamed for negligence. He's the one who had been whipped before Asandir came over with his history lesson. He was cast out, post torture.

Which means, when you think about it, all this can be laid at the Fellowship's feet! The Alestron inquiry was DAKAR's mission, but Dakar roped Arithon into helping. (Which the Fellowship KNEW and REMARKED ON.) Dakar wants to kill Arithon because no one tells him anything useful. Dakar is only with Arithon to begin with because Asandir wanted it that way. And ASANDIR had known about this guy's torture and, despite wiping the s'Brydions of their knowledge of gunpowder, was perfectly happy leaving an innocent man to their torture.

You know, guys, maybe a blood oath would not be necessary if you wouldn't keep screwing him over!!!

Anyway, Dakar asks if Arithon really wants this guy freed, on account of how he's raving about his oath to kill him. Arithon, on the other hand, thinks the guy is pretty much out of his mind with pain and fever and a breeze could knock him over.

(I notice that Arithon doesn't actually deny the man wants to kill him. He just thinks the man can't do it.)

Anyway, at some point after the raving, the prisoner passes out.

The next bit is the poor guy going in and out of consciousness, filled with fever dreams. He hears a woman and man talking. We get glimpses of his whipping at the hands of Duke Bransian's master at arms. There's mention of music, and of COURSE the purity of song leaves him "chilled like white rain" and "threatened to break his laboured heart".

Of course.

Anyway, eventually he does wake up lucid. Interestingly, Jinesse is there, though Arithon asks her to leave. She's been helping with the prisoner's care, which makes sense as Elaira's skipped off. We learn the prisoner's name is Tharrick. Like the title of the subchapter.

Tharrick is understandably uneasy about his fate, having set fire to a sorcerer's ships, but he's brave too. He asks why Arithon's helped him. And I'm reminded of that scene with Elaira in Ships of Merior, when she asks him about what really happened in Strakewood. This is Arithon's chance to talk about what exactly went wrong in Alestron:

A faint frown tucked his upswept brows as the Master of Shadow weighed his answer. The lacings at his cuffs hung still as pen strokes, unmoved by the draught that teased the candleflame. 'When a man has been handled like an animal, it should come as no surprise when, from mistreatment, he's finally driven to desperation. What happened at Alestron was no fault of yours. The spell that brought the keep's destruction was not mine, but your duke's, that I was sent in by the Fellowship to help disarm. The plan went sadly wrong, for all of us. But I am not as Lord Bransian of Alestron, to hold you to blame out of temper.'

Tharrick, being a sane man, says that he'd wanted to put a sword in Arithon's heart. Oh Tharrick. You don't know Arithon very well, but that's practically courtship for him.

Anyway, Tharrick is overwhelmed and weeps, while Arithon gives him his sentence so to speak. Basically Jinesse will shelter him in her cottage while he heals, then, he's free to go back to his loved ones.

We close out the subchapter with Tharrick realizing that he really doesn't have anywhere to go. He'd lived for his job, then later for revenge. Now, he has nothing.

Aw.

--

The third subchapter is Duke and Prince.

So the Savrid pulls into Alestron. Lysaer requests an audience. And I rather like the contrast set up between the boisterous Duke and Lysaer's dignified seneschal.

Anyway, he takes the news that Arithon burned the fleet with irritation. They'd planned to attack earlier, after all, but had been persuaded to wait.

It's maybe not the best atmosphere for Lysaer to ask Bransian to muster troops for his cause. Which he does, as they all hunt together. (There's an interesting side note on s'Brydion hunting customs. If you recall, the s'Brydion are clanborn. The only clanborn not to be deposed, and the customs are part of that.)

Bransian wants to know if the loss of ships was due to incompetence. (Yes, actually, but Lysaer either doesn't realize or won't admit it.) Lysaer starts working his magic:

Lysaer met the duke's glare, his back straight, and his hands square and steady on his reins. 'Let me tell you how a pirate who works sorcery and shadow goes about butchering the innocent.'

Keldmar snorted and scuffed a gob of dirt off the steel-studded knuckles of his gauntlet. 'The trade fleet was anchored off Werpoint for the purpose of moving your war host. A fool might call that innocent. Your s'Ffalenn enemy's proved he's not stupid, that's all.'

Parrien glared at the brother near enough in looks to be his birth twin. 'You jabber like a woman at her laundry tub.'

Keldmar returned a smile rowed with teeth. 'Say that again across my sword. Words are for ninnies. Let's determine who's a woman with bare steel.'

I feel like I said this in the Merior reviews, but the s'Brydions are great because they are completely immune to Lysaer's social strength. They're all loud, over the top personalities, so they're less likely to be drawn in by his personal charisma. They're brash and straightforward, say-it-like-you-see-it types who have no patience for eloquent verbal side-steps. And they're clan, with everything that entails. They're not part of Lysaer's cause because of fear, but because Arithon specifically wronged them.

Anyway, Bransian is a bit cartoonish, but he has intelligent objections to continuing the alliance with Lysaer: it's winter. The ships are snug, the mercenary on leave. People get sick, die and desert.

But Lysaer has a point too: Arithon will be pulling out of Merior, since he knows that Lysaer knows his intentions. So this is their best chance to close in on him.

Lysaer also has a good retort for the charge of incompetence:

Lysaer matched that dagger steel gaze. 'You're quick to ask of incompetence. Tell me straight, and mean what you say, that on the day your armoury went to ashes and smoke at the hand of Arithon s'Ffalenn, you never felt duped, or a fool.'

It's actually a more valid comparison than either of them know. The armory blew up as much because of the s'Brydion's actions (and poor storage of gunpowder) as Arithon's, just as Lysaer was the one who burned most of the ships.

But it works. Where honeyed words fail, "unvarnished honesty" works. At least two of Bransian's brothers are openly admiring. And Bransian himself admits Lysaer's point: if Lysaer was incompetent in Werpoint, so was he in the armory. He'll muster the troops that Lysaer is asking for.

Never let it be said that Lysaer isn't a very clever man. He recognized that his usual tactics wouldn't work here, and he regrouped nicely.

--

So the sneak peek section is Lane Imprints:

1. Morriel is brooding over some image spheres. One shows the flare of wards concealing a momentous event at Althain. The other shows Arithon kneeling to swear a blood oath.

2. Luhaine's caught up with Traithe in Vastmark, to fill him in.

3. Erlien, caithdein of Shand, has ordered his clansmen to strip every farmstead of cattle and horses, and try to hinder the advance of the army as best they can.

--

I forgot how fucking long these reviews can be. Fun, but egads. I'm going to bed.