The cursed towers 263
Bạn đang xem bản rút gọn của tài liệu. Xem và tải ngay bản đầy đủ của tài liệu tại đây (3.21 KB, 1 trang )
Iseult stood at the doorway to the royal pavilion, looking out across the army camp to the curtain of mist
that hung at the far edge of the paddock. She had to resist the urge to turn back into the tent, lie down
behind her still, cold husband and pull the blankets over her head. It was nine months since Lachlan had
fallen and broken his back and his wing, nine months since his restless vitality had been smothered
beneath this unnatural sleep.
Nine months, spent arguing with the lairds, trying to raise funds from the merchants, and gathering
together an army to march on Arran. They had suffered such losses at Lochsithe and Ardencaple that it
had taken this long to recruit enough new soldiers and train them up. Worst of all, many of the lairds were
reluctant to invade the fenlands, having heard so many stories about Margrit of Arran's sorcerous powers
and the dangers of the marshes. With Lachlan still lying asleep, unresponsive to all their pleading and
shaking and pricking with pins, the lairds were quick to find excuses to withdraw their men.
Although the three divisions of the army had been under the command of the MacSeinn, the MacCuinn
and the MacThanach clans, the majority of the foot soldiers owed fealty directly to their own lairds. This
meant that if the lairds withdrew their support and went home to their own lands, the majority of the foot
soldiers would leave too. Although the lairds all admitted Iseult was a skilled warrior and witch, it was
quite a different thing to put themselves and their men completely under her command.
"A whistling maid and a crowing hen is fit for none," they said to each other with a grin and a shrug.
Lachlan had refused from the very beginning to use any kind of forcible conscription, since that had been
one of the most hated tactics of Maya and her Red Guards. So they had to rely on volunteers and the
support of the lairds to swell their numbers, and after more than three years of constant warfare, both
wells were running dry.
Only the fear that more Tirsoilleirean would come creeping through the marshes kept the lairds and
prionn-sachan faithful to Iseult and the Coven, and so the young Banrigh was conscious that they needed
a swift victory in Arran if they were to hold the army together. Luckily Anghus MacRuraich had marched
to her assistance with close on three thousand men, and his loyal support had stiffened the resolve of the
MacSeinn and the MacAhern.
Iain had advised them that the best time to attack Arran was in the winter. If it was cold enough, parts of
the marsh would freeze over, making it easier to move large numbers of men through its twisting, tortuous
paths. Most importantly, in the winter months the golden goddess lay dormant and the Mesmerdean were
in hibernation, removing two of Arran's biggest dangers.
But the stags had begun to bellow in the woods and pigs to hunt for fallen nuts before new agreements
between the Crown and the lairds were drawn up, and the snow was already beginning to melt by the
time the Righ's army reached the borders of Arran.
They had made camp along the edge of the marsh, no one able to help feeling a shudder of apprehension
at the wall of whiteness which hid the fenlands from their view. It was so uncanny the way the mist just
hung there, never dispersing, never blowing over into Blessem, marking the exact border of the two lands
like a curtain between adjoining rooms. Those soldiers with imagination found it constantly preying on
their minds, as if it were forming into spectral fingers reaching out toward them. Even those of a more
pragmatic nature could not help wondering what it hid.
Iseult had tried to cast her witch senses into the fog but it baffled her extrasensory perceptions as
completely as it did her eyesight and so she too felt her apprehension mounting as the time to venture
