Uathach would have been, more subtle in his malice.
It didn’t matter, Dave thought, sitting tall and stern in his saddle, oblivious to the diffident glances he was drawing from all who passed near to him. It didn’t matter at all who led Rakoth’s army, who they sent against him: wolves, or svart alfar, or urgach, or mutant swans. Or anything else, or however many. Let them come. He would drive them back or leave them dead before him.
He was not fire. The fire had been last night, when Diarmuid burned. He was ice now, absolutely in control of himself and ready for war. He would do what had to be done, whatever had to be done. For Diarmuid, and for Kevin Lane. For the babies he’d guarded in the wood. For Sharra’s grief. For Guinevere and Arthur and Lancelot. For Ivor and Levon and Tore. For the dimensions of sorrow within himself. For all those who would die before this day was done.
For Josef Martyniuk.
“There is something I would ask,” said Matt Sören. “Though I will understand if you choose to deny me.” Kim saw Aileron turn to him. There was winter in the High King’s eyes. He waited and did not speak. Matt said, “The Dwarves have a price to pay and atonement to make, insofar as we ever can. Will you give us leave to take the center today, my lord, that we may bear the main shock of whatever may befall?”
There was a murmur from the captains gathered there. The pale sun had just risen in the east beyond Gwynir.
Aileron was silent a moment longer; then he said, very clearly, so it carried, “In every single record I have ever found of the Bael Rangat—and I have read all such writings there are, I think—one common thread prevails. Even in the company of Conary and Colan, of Ra-Termaine and fierce Angirad from what was not yet Cathal, of Revor of the Plain and those who rode with him… even in such glittering company, the records of those days all tell that no contingent of the army of Light was so deadly as were Seithr and the Dwarves. There is nothing you might think to ask of me that I could find it within me to deny, Matt, but I intended to request this of you in any case. Let your people follow their King and take pride of place in our ranks. Let them draw honor from his own bright honor and courage from their past.”
“Let it be so,” said Ivor quietly. “Where would you have the Dalrei, High King?”
“With the lios alfar, as you were by the Adein. Ra-Tenniel, can you and the Aven hold our right flank between the two of you?”
“If we cannot,” said the Lord of the lios alfar, with a thread of laughter in his silvery voice, “then I know not who can. We will ride with the Riders.”
He was mounted on one of the glorious raithen, and so too, behind him, were Brendel and Galen and Lydan, leaders of their marks. There was a fifth raithen, riderless, standing beside the others.
Ra-Tenniel gestured toward it. He turned to Arthur Pendragon, but he did not speak. It was Loren Silvercloak, no longer harnessing a mage’s powers but still bearing a mage’s knowledge, who broke the waiting silence.
“My lord Arthur,” he said, “you have told us you never survive to see the last battle of your wars. Today, it seems, you shall. Although this place was once called Camlann, it carries that name no longer, nor has it for a thousand years, since laid waste by war. Shall we seek to find good in that evil? Hope in the cycle of years?”
And Arthur said, “Against all that I have been forced through pain to know, let us try.” He stepped down from his horse and took the King Spear in his hand, and he walked over to the last of the gold and silver raithen of Daniloth. When he mounted up, the spear blazed for a moment with light.
“Come, my lord,” Aileron said, “and my lord Lancelot, if you will. I bid you welcome into the numbers of Brennin and Cathal. We will take the left side of this fight. Let us seek to meet the Dalrei and the lios before the end of day, having curved our ranks inward over the bodies of our foes.”
Arthur nodded, and so, too, did Lancelot. They moved over to where Mabon of Rhoden was waiting, with Niavin,