скачать книгу бесплатно
Stormed Fortress: Fifth Book of The Alliance of Light
Janny Wurts
The spellbinding final instalment of The Alliance of Light.Though Athera may be free, the fight is far from over…The heartstopping conclusion to the Alliance of Light series brings Lysaer's army of Light to besiege the great citadel of Alestron. Master of Shadow, Arithon, with barely a moment's recuperation from his victory over the necromancers, has discovered that young Jeynsa s'Valerient whom he has sworn to protect, has joined the ranks of his disowned allies within the threatened citadel. Worse, following a failed rescue attempt, his beloved Elaira, his double, Fionn Areth, and the spellbinder Dakar are also trapped within Alestron's walls. The chancy wiles of Davien the betrayer must spirit Arithon across the enemy lines to attempt a bold and perilous rescue mission.Arithon must seek the heartcore of his talent, even while embroiled in a savage battle against those he has vowed to protect. But treachery strikes from deep within the duke's ranks. Lysaer's fanatics will be unleashed to claim their bloody revenge. With the Fellowship Sorcerers in mortal danger, and all under threat from a collapsing grimward, Davien the betrayer is unable to intercede to save his colleagues and so will be forced to invoke the dire terms of an ancient and most secretive bargain.Arithon stands alone at the hour of reckoning as the true purpose of the Koriani enchantresses becomes, at long last fully, unveiled – with the covetous Prime Matriarch now poised to snatch a prize, a prize beyond that of merely integrity and life…
Janny Wurts
STORMED FORTRESS
The Wars of Light and Shadow
VOLUME 8
FIFTH BOOK OF
THE ALLIANCE OF LIGHT
Copyright (#u8ec8796a-3072-508d-b257-ef1f8b89d444)
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperVoyager An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2007
Copyright © Janny Wurts 2007
Janny Wurts asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks
HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007217816
Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007318094
Version: 2018-04-27
Dedication (#u8ec8796a-3072-508d-b257-ef1f8b89d444)
For three, whose enduring commitmentto the literature of the fantastic has enriched so many.
Betty Ballantine
Ellen Datlow
Terri Windling
Contents
Fifth Book
Cover Page (#u34bff44e-ac3f-5fe6-93f4-0443d6f4af22)
Title Page (#ud6c58046-b36f-56cd-9a98-fcdea91b7589)
Copyright (#uc857e507-e565-59aa-9312-d7f45eb976da)
Maps (#u4ad0d013-681d-5099-be8e-da871cb30266)
Story Time-line (#ulink_6ce80a86-d8a5-5c71-842a-5a795f4a1b2e)
I. Binding Ties (#u2a647220-ecc0-5ddd-bff1-ce883fd74e3a)
II. Recoil (#ub6cb9a7b-695f-5f40-8c6b-f31414ff265c)
III. Obligations (#uce8bb308-f0a4-58ed-a17e-05e3161ef71b)
IV. Feint and Assaul (#u7131bd4d-7b32-5c00-9403-fd080a0d63a1)
V. Blood Debt (#u421da9b6-dbe1-562b-aeeb-e8f60a200e67)
VI. Counterstrokes (#u8a35eeaa-70c6-57ca-90d3-f47b1fd1840c)
VII. Siege (#u5b76e320-9bd0-5205-b7b1-8417740ba121)
VIII. First Turning (#u09f9498d-563a-5609-88b2-bbee78ee1245)
IX. Schism (#uc3d2df17-f9cf-5a49-9e8c-b866c10eb37b)
X. Hammer and Anvil (#u2449cf2b-42be-50f5-b238-40be47964e4d)
XI. Second Turning (#ubf8c6d81-a3f8-5ac5-b09b-1add5b06b246)
XII. Third Turning (#u17ecea3a-1a52-58d9-9bae-77e9eea4012f)
XIII. Stormed Fortress (#u2098ff63-4d55-5fe5-83db-49e87cba3189)
XIV. Sortie (#u3212e6d8-b201-522f-93fb-abee36be9848)
XV. Athir (#u763bbe60-b097-5847-875e-10c55cf3f4e2)
XVI. Scarpdale (#u755f0f76-da25-5d6b-9f5d-e4fa5614fdaf)
Keep Reading (#uf7291408-e691-50aa-8684-57416808c01d)
Glossary (#ub458f805-c01d-5a08-a3b4-e25f22f73e4e)
Appendix (#uf3d98e39-fd3a-5df7-92a4-e29fa3f7a2bc)
Acknowledgements (#ua2cee5fb-0acb-5de1-b1c1-5b60b50aaf5a)
About the Author (#u5a3f5796-bb06-505b-8b3b-cc505777d5c0)
Also by the Author (#uc775de4d-b539-52ab-b3cd-0e8aa9554fa6)
About the Publisher (#u29c739c4-3db9-5f80-93db-28c3d1aac2fb)
Maps (#u8ec8796a-3072-508d-b257-ef1f8b89d444)
Story Time-line What Has Gone Before (#u8ec8796a-3072-508d-b257-ef1f8b89d444)
Third Age Year
5637—The half-brothers Arithon s’Ffalenn, Master of Shadow, and Lysaer s’Ilessid, gifted with Light, exiled through West Gate, are met as they arrive on Athera by the Fellowship Sorcerer Asandir and Dakar, the Mad Prophet, whose West Gate Prophecy forecast the defeat of the Mistwraith, Desh-thiere, and return of the sunlight that had been lost to Athera for five hundred years.
Arithon meets his beloved, Elaira, who is under a life vow of service to the celibate order of the enchantresses of the Koriathain.
5638—The Mistwraith is contained at Ithamon by Lysaer and Arithon and driven into captivity through their combined powers of Light and Shadow.
The Fellowship Sorcerers’ effort to crown Arithon as High King, and reinstate Rathain’s monarchy fails when the Mistwraith places the half-brothers under its curse: they will be enemies, bent upon each other’s destruction until one or the other lies dead.
War follows. Lysaer, whose cardinal virtue is the s’Ilessid gift of justice, leads a war host ten thousand strong from Etarra against Arithon, who is backed by the clansmen in Strakewood Forest. Lysaer and Etarra lose eight thousand men, and the clans suffer the Massacre at Tal Quorin, when Etarran head-hunters destroy their women and children to draw the fighting men into the open. To spare his allies, Arithon is forced to use his mage talent to kill. And in the aftermath of this massive insult to his royal gift of compassion, he loses access to all facets of his trained mastery. Survivors of the debacle made possible by his sacrifice include fourteen young boys, named as Companions, and Earl Jieret, twelve years of age, who becomes Arithon’s ‘shadow behind the throne’ – or caithdein.
Lysaer returns to Etarra to begin the alliance of town forces against Arithon and court his beloved, Talith.
Arithon apprentices himself to the Masterbard, Halliron, and takes on the disguised persona of Medlir to deny his half-brother, and the directive of the curse, a fixed target.
5643—The Fellowship Sorcerers reinstate crown rule in Havish, under High King Eldir. In redress for irresponsible conduct, Dakar the Mad Prophet is assigned to Arithon’s protection.
5644—Dakar tries to escape his charge and links up with Halliron and ‘Medlir’ on the eastshore, whereupon his scapegrace behaviour with town authorities in Jaelot leads to Halliron’s death and Arithon’s breaking his disguise, then achieving the title of Masterbard of Athera.
Arithon relocates down the eastshore en route to the southcoast, with Dakar’s escapades earning him the enmity of the powerful clan family of Duke Bransian s’Brydion of Alestron.
Elaira receives her longevity from the Koriani Order for the purpose of keeping track of Arithon, since the sisterhood considers him a danger.
Lysaer solidifies his alliance of town interests, rebuilds the ruined citadel at Avenor, marries Talith, and begins his manoeuvres to claim ancestral title to rulership of Tysan.
Against the climate of building war, Arithon founds a shipyard in the fishing village of Merior, where he constructs blue-water sailing vessels with intent to escape to sea. He meets and befriends two fatherless twin children, Fiark and Feylind. He encounters Elaira, under orders from her Prime to involve herself in Arithon’s affairs. Their affection deepens when a joint attempt to heal an injured fisherman creates an empathic link between them.
5645—Lysaer leads a war host to Rathain, with intent to sail south and crush Arithon in the fishing village of Merior. But Arithon hears, and uses wiles and Shadow to trigger the Mistwraith’s curse beforetime. Inflamed to insane rage, Lysaer burns the fleet he intended to transport his war host, leaving his campaign stranded and delaying his assault through the winter.
Arithon’s escape plan suffers a set-back when a rancorous, displaced field-captain from Alestron burns his shipyard at Merior, with only one vessel left fit to be salvaged.
5646—On the run as war builds, Arithon takes refuge in the strategically difficult terrain in Vastmark. Faced by a war host and impossible odds, he takes Lysaer’s wife Talith as a captive to stall the onset of open war.
5647—Talith is ransomed by Lysaer, under auspice of the Fellowship Sorcerers and High King Eldir. Although she is safely returned, the experience leaves an irreparable rift in her marriage.
Lysaer masses his war host, thirty-five thousand strong, and marches on Arithon’s smaller force in Vastmark. Arithon resorts to desperate measures to turn them, including the Massacre at the Havens, in which five hundred of Lysaer’s men are killed outright. The tactic fails, and is followed by the main engagement at Dier Kenton Vale, in which twenty thousand Alliance troops die in one day in a shale slide.
The campaign collapses at the onset of winter, with Duke Bransian s’Brydion of Alestron changing sides and forging a covert alliance with Arithon.
Faced with a ruinous defeat, Lysaer decides to create a faith-based following and cast Arithon as evil incarnate.
Arithon escapes to sea to search for the lost Paravian races, who, as Ath’s gift to redeem the world, offer hope he might break the Mistwraith’s curse. Feylind sails as his navigator, and Fiark is apprenticed with a merchant-factor in the town of Innish.
The Prime Matriarch of the Koriani Order casts an augury showing that Arithon will cause her downfall. Since she is aging and has only one flawed candidate in line for her succession, and her death will cause an irreparable loss of the sisterhood’s knowledge, she becomes Arithon’s inveterate enemy.
Still in love with Arithon, Elaira saves the life of an infant during childbirth in the grass-lands of Araethura. Named Fionn Areth, he owes her a life debt, and a prophecy entangles him with Arithon’s fate.
Back at Avenor to rebuild his following, Lysaer sets the clanborn who refuse to join his alliance to eradicate the Master of Shadow under a decree of slavery. His estrangement with Talith leads to her incarceration.
5648–9—For endorsing slave labour, Lysaer is cast out of the Fellowship’s compact, which allows Mankind the right to inhabit Athera.
5649—The Prime Matriarch of the Koriathain confronts the Fellowship Sorcerers to lift restrictions imposed on her sisterhood and the use of their grand focus in their Great Waystone. The petition meets with refusal, sealing her determination to take Arithon captive and use him as leverage to force the Sorcerers to accede to her order’s demands.
5652—Arithon fails in his search for the Paravians. He returns to the continent and discovers Lysaer is enslaving the clanborn. This leads him to infiltrate Lysaer’s shipyard at Riverton, to steal vessels and assist the clansmen in their effort to escape the persecution of Lysaer’s Alliance by fleeing to sanctuary in Havish.
5652–3—The Prime Matriarch of the Koriathain sets a trap to take Arithon by suborning his covert colleagues at the Riverton shipworks, only to have her grand plan undone by ambitious meddling on the part of her sole candidate for succession, Lirenda. The trap springs, but Arithon escapes into a grimward, chased by a company of men allied with Lysaer, under the captaincy of Sulfin Evend.
5653—Lysaer’s wife Talith is murdered by a conspiracy in his own council, with her death made to appear as a suicide. Sulfin Evend survives the grimward and is appointed to the rank of Alliance Commander at Arms.
The Koriathain fail to forge an alliance with Lysaer against Arithon, and in disgrace for her meddling, Lirenda decides to claim the life debt owed by Fionn Areth to Elaira. The child is shapechanged to mature as Arithon’s double, to be used as bait in a second, more elaborate trap to achieve his capture.
5654—Of their own accord, the s’Brydion duke’s brothers decide to avenge the mishap at Riverton, against Arithon’s better judgement. When an argument with Parrien leads to injury, Arithon is awarded the service of two trusted s’Brydion retainers, Vhandon and Talvish.
5654—Lysaer marries Lady Ellaine as a political expedient. On the day of the wedding, the s’Brydion vengeance plan destroys Lysaer’s fleet and his shipyard at Riverton. Sulfin Evend’s uncle, Raiett Raven, joins Alliance service as Lysaer’s advisor and is eventually appointed as High Chancellor of Etarra.
5655—Lysaer and Ellaine’s child, Prince Kevor, is born.
5667—Ellaine learns that her predecessor, Princess Talith, died as a victim of murder, arranged by Lysaer’s council at Avenor.
5669—The Koriani plot to trap Arithon using Fionn Areth sends the boy into the town of Jaelot, where he is taken and condemned, mistaken for the Master of Shadow. Arithon is drawn ashore to prevent the death of an innocent accused in his stead. On winter solstice day, Fionn Areth is snatched from the scaffold. The Koriani conspiracy fails, with Lirenda disgraced and Elaira exonerated.
Now desperate and dying, with no available successor, the Prime Matriarch seizes her moment and distracts the Fellowship Sorcerers by inciting a sweeping upset of the energetic balance of the world. Although she fails to take Arithon captive, she successfully resolves her predicament by taking over a younger candidate, Selidie, in possession. As ‘Selidie’ assumes the mantle of Prime power, the Sorcerers’ hands are tied. The upset has left the Mistwraith itself on the verge of escaping from containment, and other, equally dangerous predators left by the absent Paravian races pose further perils.
As the terrifying portents unleashed by Morriel’s meddling cause sweeping panic, young Prince Kevor settles the riot that erupts in Lysaer’s absence at Avenor. The brilliant statesmanship earns the young prince the love of the populace and the undying enmity of Lysaer’s High Priest, Cerebeld.
5670—Fionn Areth’s idealistic belief that Arithon is a criminal spoils the free escape from Jaelot. Alone, under pursuit by Alliance troops and Koriathain, Arithon is set to flight over the mountains and into Daon Ramon Barrens.
Young Prince Kevor is entrapped by the machinations of High Priest Cerebeld, and although he survives to become an adept of Ath’s Brotherhood, his presumed death sends his mother Ellaine into flight to escape Lysaer’s corrupt council at Avenor.
While Dakar and Fionn Areth are diverted to Rockfell Peak to assist the short-handed Fellowship Sorcerers’ recontainment of the Mistwraith, the clans of Rathain, under Jieret, are left to face the combined Alliance war host, under command of Lysaer and Sulfin Evend. With their help, Arithon escapes the troop cordon that has closed to take him, but at cost of seven Companions’ lives and Jieret’s execution by Lysaer.
To evade capture, Arithon is driven into the dread maze under Kewar cavern, built by the Sorcerer Davien the Betrayer, whose hand originally caused the uprising that unseated the high kings and heated the conflict between town and clanborn. Arithon survives the arduous challenge of the maze, achieves mastery over the Mistwraith’s curse, and recovers his mage talent. He takes sanctuary there, under guest welcome of Davien.
