They called it ‘The Sun-Eater’s Eye:’ a ring of light, hanging overhead, as hollow and dark in the center as the heart of a daemon. It sounds so impossible as to be dismissed out of hand, and yet every single contemporary account agrees: for seven days or more, the sun disappeared from the sky, and plunged the entire world into the darkness of a winter night.
* François du Lutetia, A History of Narvonne
☀
13th Day of New Summer’s Moon, 297 AC
When the charges of the enemy upon the ramparts had slackened for the night, and given way only to the pounding of missiles upon the walls, and Sir Gareth had sent most of the men to get what rest they could find, Trist had gone to the keep at the insistence of his wife’s messengers.
As she had promised, Clarisant had made certain there was a warm bath prepared, and Trist had to admit that it had felt good to wash the salt from his hair and skin. After, wrapped in a robe, he had sat with her and eaten his fill of salt-pork, along with a thin soup of white wine, sliced turnips and clams, with crushed garlic and chopped parsley. There had been some of the morning’s bread, too, and though it had dried and hardened it soaked up the broth well.
It was only with the first bite of food that Trist realized he had not eaten since dawn, and then he did not stop until there was nothing left, while Claire sat with him and listened to his worries about the number of men remaining to guard the wall.
“Hush, Husband,” she said, and took his hand in hers to pull him toward her bed, where the curtains hung open only on one side. “Let my brother worry about the numbers - it is his command, not yours. Gareth will tell you what he needs, when he needs it. And we have only two more days to hold - three at most. You’ve done your part in driving back the daemons, and you need to rest.”
Clarisant pulled back the summer sheets of finely woven linen, slipped the robe from his shoulders, and drew him into the bed. It had been two days since they’d made love in the grass at the edge of the forest, and every moment of Trist’s waking thought had been bent upon the siege since then. It was not until the curtains were drawn closed around the bed, closing the two of them in their own entire world, and her hands kneaded his weary muscles, that he realized just how exhausted he was. When they had both finished, Trist fell into a dreamless sleep, and did not wake until the voice of Baroness Blasine cut through the darkness.
“Daughter,” the older woman called into the bedchamber, “you need to rise, and your husband, as well. Your brother needs to take council with his knights.”
Clarisant groaned, and nestled into Trist’s arm. “It is still dark, Mother,” she complained. “Can it not wait until dawn?”
“It is past dawn,” Blasine said. “Or should be. And yet, the sun does not rise.” The level of light in the bed-chamber increased in fits and starts; Trist concluded, from the scrape of slippers on stone, that the Baroness was lighting candles around the room.
At that, Trist went from half in a doze, to completely awake. “What did you say?” he called out from within the curtains.
“The roosters have crowed,” his mother-in-law answered. “And the moon set, and the low tide come. It should be nearly terce, by the tides, and yet the sun does not rise.” Trist did not know the woman well, but he thought there was more than a trace of panic in her voice.
“We will dress and be out presently,” Trist assured her. “What is the word from the walls?”
“The siege engines do not halt,” Baroness Blasine said. “But no attack, as of yet. We will be in the great hall.”
Once they had heard the sound of the chamber door closing, Claire rolled to face him. “The Sun Eater,” she said. “It was at Falais, you said.”
“Aye,” Trist confirmed. “I saw it fly south over the pass myself, and the king would have died there if Ismet had not driven the monster off. How long did the darkness last, during the Cataclysm?”
“Titus Nasica said a week straight, on their march to Vellatesia,” Claire answered, then sat up, pulled the curtains back, and stepped out of bed. “And the church says it only stopped because the Sun Eater was attacked by three Angelus.”
“Only one of which survived,” Trist recalled, rolling out of the bed and following her into the candlelight. “It must exhaust even that monster to do it, though,” he mused, finding where a clean set of clothes had been laid out for him, and drawing on breeches. Not three steps distant, Claire pulled a fresh shift on, and then sat down to roll her stockings over her feet without calling for a maid. “I know how draining it is to keep a few spirits at my side in battle, and blotting out the sun is far beyond that.”
“Don’t forget husband,” Claire pointed out. “You have been an Exarch for only a few moons. The Great Cataclysm has had three hundred years to grow in power, wherever it’s been hiding.”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.
Trist shivered, as much from her words as from the cold.
A fire had been built in the hearth of the great hall, to drive away the morning chill. The kitchens had prepared not only fresh bread, but also great heaps of eggs, spiced with parsley, sage and galingale, beaten into fluffy clumps as they were cooked, and topped with grated cheese. Around the high table, where Sir Gareth had spread a map of the city, Trist and Claire found Dame Etoile, cousin Lucan, and Baroness Blasine. Lucan and Gareth’s wives were not present. Claire had brought out the copy of the Marian Codex she had taken from the Cathedral of Rahab, and opened it to the pages which contained an entry on Sammāʾēl.
“There is a good deal of speculation, here,” she remarked, in between mouthfuls of eggs.
“Anything you can tell us will be better than being forced to act in ignorance,” Gareth insisted. “I need to say something to the men soon, before they lose their heart.”
“Which is precisely what Sir Moriaen must be planning,” Trist remarked, as it came together in his head. “He tried to slip people behind the walls, and that failed; he has pounded us with rocks and burned half the city, and destroyed the docks, but we are still here. His men have not taken the walls after two days of trying, and he must feel the losses near as sorely as we do. He also knows the king’s army is coming, and his time is limited, so now he strikes at the morale of our men.” He shook his head in grudging admiration. “He tries one tactic, and then another when it doesn’t work, and then a third. How long can he keep this up? How many tricks has he prepared?”
“All he needs is one more trick than we can handle,” Sir Lucan pointed out.
“There is a passage here,” Claire spoke up, “Allegedly transcribed from Saint Madiel, before the Angelus assaulted the Sun Eater. It says that the sun is still present - it doesn’t actually go anywhere - but that the daemon is somehow consuming the heat and the light before they can reach us. That it is feeding on it, like we would eat a meal.”
“How do we stop it?” Gareth asked.
Clarisant shrugged, then shook her head. “At the time, they decided that a fight for its life would be enough to distract the daemon, make it lose its concentration. It worked, but two Angelus were slain in the process.”
“Which would explain why the monster hasn’t done this since,” Gareth mused, obviously talking through the implications. “The moment it did, the seven Exarchs gathered at Cheverny, and their Angelus as well, would have tracked it down.”
“But now five of those Exarchs are dead,” Trist recalled. “Bors and Masheth were not there, in the first place, and Guiron escaped with Penarys. That is why they struck the capital - to decapitate the greatest threat to Sammāʾēl, and free the daemon to do this. They waited to actually make use of the Sun Eater until they wanted to shake our men, but they have had the capability for a moon now, simply holding it in reserve.”
“When the king’s army arrives,” Gareth said, “We will have four Exarchs. At that point, you all need to track down the Sun Eater and strike.” Everyone looked to Trist.
“We do not know where it is,” Trist said. “It will not be a quick thing to track it down and corner it.”
“Which means everything that happened before will happen again,” Claire broke in. “The crops will wither and die in the fields. There will be famine.”
Gareth shook his head. “Focus on what we can do now, sister,” he said. “Even if we had all the Exarchs here already, we do not know where to send them. No, the most important thing is to hold, just like it was yesterday. Hold until they arrive, and our four Exarchs can join up into a single force.”
“If that is our best plan,” Trist pointed out, “They will do everything they can to prevent it. To keep us apart.”
Before anyone could respond, the doors of the great hall swung open, and Sir Erec entered, taking a knee in the central aisle before the high table. “Sir Gareth!” He cried out. “A parley flag, below the north gate.”
“It appears they wish to speak.” Gareth rose from his seat at the table, and Trist and Lucan followed suit. “Let us see what Sir Moriaen has to say.”
Instead of meeting in no man's land, this time Sir Moriaen, without his Kimmerian officer, rode nearly to the foot of the walls, surrounded by half a dozen guards carrying lit torches, making a circle of firelight. From the parapet, Trist stood with Sir Gareth, Sir Florent, Sir Lucan, and Sir Erec, looking down. Tired men shivered in the chill dark to either side of them, in the light of the braziers used for night watch. Overhead, a white ring in the sky marked the place where the sun should have been, and the air was unseasonably cool.
“I see you, and your flag of parley,” Gareth shouted down. “What have you to say, Sir Moriaen? Ready to admit defeat, turn tail and run your entire host back to Cheverny?”
“Come rather to extend one last hand of mercy,” Moriaen yelled back from below. “We’ve burned half your city, destroyed your docks. Your Exarch failed to kill Forneus, which means our blockade stands. You will have no food from outside this city until you surrender, and no wood, either.”
“Wood?” Sir Erec muttered, with a frown. “What is he on about.”
“Yes, wood!” Moriaen shouted, scanning the walls from west to east, and pointing at the men who stood there. “You feel the cold, yes, you men? No summer sun to warm your skin or light your days. This darkness is the doing of your new Emperor, Avitus, Exarch of Sammāʾēl the Sun Eater!”
“I notice he does not mind throwing around the names of daemons,” Florent remarked to Trist.
“Of course not,” Trist said, with a sigh. “He serves them.”
“As it was during the Cataclysm, so it will be again!” Moriaen thundered. He had the voice of a battlefield commander, Trist had to admit, if not the honor to go with it. “Your crops will die in the fields. You will burn every scrap of wood in your city, only to cower by the firelight! And when you’ve burned your stables, your homes, your tables and chairs and beds and books, we will still be out here, warm by our fires, carving our own light out of the forest!”
“You will be dead!” Gareth called back. “When the true king comes with his host!”
“That is your answer, then?” Moriaen asked. “Do you speak for all your men? I tell you now, folk of Rocher de la Garde, throw your lord over this wall and open your gate, and you will have mercy. I will give the word, and the sun will return.”
“Enough of this.” Sir Florent grabbed a crossbow from a nearby man, aimed it, and pulled the trigger. The bolt hit the ground in front of Moriaen with a thud audible from atop the wall, buried in the earth nearly to the hilt. “There’s our answer, you traitorous dog!” He shouted down.
Destrier dancing back, Moriaen made a cutting motion with his arm, and the enemy siege engines loosed a new volley of missiles at the wall.
“If that is all they have,” Gareth shouted to his men, “They will spend themselves against our walls in vain! We’ve held for two days, lads, now hold a few more!” There were scattered cheers, though not as strong as Trist would have expected.
“Cousin,” Lucan said, grasping Trist by the arm. “Look at the bay.”
Trist turned south, looked across the dark city, and saw dozens of torches out on the water, coming in fast toward the beach.