‘Because they failed,’ replied Baldwin. ‘They failed to take this castle.’
Hardly, thought Farred. He doubted it had much to do with the siege. Hour by hour, the Drobax had been gaining the upper hand.
‘Whatever the reason,’ he said, thinking aloud, ‘the Isharites didn’t lose this war. I fear that they will return.’
The Jalakh Bow
Book Three of The Weapon Takers Saga
For Dad
Prologue
ERKINDRIX IS DEAD,’ Shira said, keeping her voice steady. ‘Arioc and the other members of the Council are at each other’s throats. Now is the perfect time.’
The men in the hall didn’t look convinced. Many of the most powerful noblemen in Haskany had made the journey to Shira’s estate. She had fed them all and plied them with arak to drink. But evidently, none of that meant that they were going to commit to her cause.
These were hard looking men. Wrapped in furs that made them look twice as big as they were, they had agreed to come despite a cold snap that signalled late autumn was turning to winter.
They had served Arioc since he had become king. They would continue to serve him if necessary. But Shira knew, at the same time, that their country’s servitude to Ishari chafed at each and every one of them. They were proud Haskans, who would see their country become independent. But they were careful. A failed rebellion could see them and their families destroyed.
‘Together we could raise a reasonably strong and well provisioned army,’ suggested Etan, a widely respected figure. ‘I have no doubts over your leadership of it, or that of your uncle,’ he said, nodding at Koren, who was standing to one side of Shira, arms folded. ‘But Ishari have magi. They have the Drobax. While that remains the case, we are not in a position to act against them.’
‘They are not in a position to act against us,’ she retorted, not willing to give in. ‘Arioc, Ardashir and Siavash all fight each other to succeed Erkindrix. Not one of them has the resources to take on a united Haskany, and who knows how long their conflict may take? Even if one of them should emerge victorious, how likely is it that they will have the same power and reach as Erkindrix did? Would you cower in your halls, year after year, waiting until the Isharites return to claim our throne?’
There was anger at that—murmurs and whispers filled the hall. Maybe she had pushed them too far. But she knew that she needed to win these men over now. Should they drift aimlessly into the spring and summer months, divided and purposeless, a year would go by and they would have done nothing.
She looked at the faces in front of her. As many were against her as with her. And most weren’t in either camp, unpersuaded and reluctant to commit to any path.
A knock at the door to the hall. Koren walked over to investigate. A whispered conversation followed. The attention of Shira’s guests shifted in that direction. Uncertain, Shira turned to look.
Koren pulled the door wide open.
‘Lord Pentas,’ he announced in a strong voice, that gripped the attention of those in the hall.
Pentas sauntered in. It was the first time that Shira had ever been pleased to see him. He surveyed the hall, his red eyes fixing on the key figures in the room, making eye contact, a half-smile playing on his lips.
The atmosphere in the hall switched instantly. Pentas possessed powers that none of these men could understand or measure. Shira was their Queen, a member of the Council of Seven, yet Pentas exuded an authority she could never possess. It galled her, and yet she knew it might make the difference between success and failure.
‘So,’ Pentas said, drawing out the syllable, and raising his arms to encompass everyone who had gathered in the hall. ‘Here are the new rulers of Haskany.’
And that, Shira said to herself, as she observed her countrymen, is that.
1
Cold Comfort
WINTER HAD SMOTHERED THE NORTH of Dalriya.
Belwynn, raised in the temperate south, had never seen anything like it.
She thought that the city of Heractus, capital of Kalinth, was made for winter. Here the snow that fell in the streets turned to a dirty slush, complementing the grey walls of the city and its castle. The citizens of Heractus stoically endured the freezing conditions.
These people love being miserable, Belwynn told her brother. Cold days and winter rations make them happy as pigs in shit.
It was a slow time of the year. The Kalinthians had worked hard from spring to autumn, brought in their harvest, and most people had full enough larders to see them through comfortably enough. They flocked to the inns of the city, drank strong beer, told tall stories and sang old songs. For all she tried to resist it, Belwynn found herself liking the people here a little bit more each day.
Travel seemed to be virtually non-existent. On the occasions she ventured out beyond the city limits, accompanied by Theron, or sometimes Gyrmund, she never tired of the spectacle of a land blanketed in white. Thick snow crunched underfoot. Streams and lakes were frozen, some hard enough to walk across, others dangerous, with quick flowing, icy water beneath a thin top layer.
Otherwise, she spent her time in Heractus. She helped Elana with her work. She slept; she ate; she drank. She talked with her brother and her friends. It was a slow time of the year, and that was exactly what they all needed.
Belwynn and Gyrmund stood before Dirk’s grave.
It was easy to find, since it was the only plot in a brand-new cemetery in Heractus. It was connected to the new Church of Madria, where Elana performed her healing. The land had been paid for by Elana’s many supporters. The rich and powerful men of Heractus had contributed: Theron and Sebastian, and many other Knights of Kalinth—even Prince Dorian, second son of King Jonas, had supported the project. But so too had the ordinary men and women of the city. Elana’s reputation had followed her from the High Tower, the seat of the Knights of Kalinth, where her earliest miracles had been witnessed. She had accompanied the Kalinthian army into Haskany, and there, word of her powers grew further.
Now everyone knew about her. She was visited daily, with ailments from the most serious to the most petty, to the purely imaginary. The Church of Madria had become the most visited in the city, and a source of envy from the other temples who had seen their congregations diminish. But with powerful protectors like Sebastian, the new Grand Master of the Knights, whose army still occupied Heractus, there was little they could do.
‘I am sorry I wasn’t able to speak with him before he died,’ Gyrmund murmured, staring down at the tombstone. ‘He helped to rescue me from Coldeberg prison. I never thanked him properly for that.’
‘He died at peace, Gyrmund,’ Belwynn said. ‘With no regrets. You should have none too.’
Gyrmund nodded, looking up at her. ‘And how are you and Soren?’
Both twins had been in a bad way for a while, not that Belwynn herself had known much about it. The wizard, Pentas, had spirited them out of Samir Durg, all the way to the Kalinthian army and Elana. Belwynn had been knocked unconscious by Rostam in the Throne Room of Samir Durg, shortly before the assassination of Erkindrix and their miraculous escape. She had remained in and out of consciousness for some time.
‘I’m fully recovered,’ she assured him. ‘Soren isn’t, though.’
Her brother had been tortured in Samir Durg, in ways she did not fully understand. Moreover, the Isharites had kept him in a box, never letting him out until Gyrmund and Moneva had found him. Never physically strong, his body seemed irreparably damaged from the ordeal.
‘His back still troubles him, and he tires easily from physical exertion. His eyesight hasn’t recovered, either. Elana thinks it never will. He clutches that staff all the time now, it’s the only way he can see properly—he’s virtually blind without it.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Well, don’t be too sorry. I thought I would never see him again. And you and Moneva rescued him. So, for the thousandth time, thank you. And I remind myself of how desperate I was to see
him again, every time he moans at me, which is at least half a dozen times a day.’
Gyrmund smiled at that, something he rarely did these days.
‘How is Moneva?’ she asked, already knowing the answer, but knowing that it was a subject that Gyrmund needed to talk about. Moneva had been remote and uncommunicative ever since their return from Samir Durg, and it was Gyrmund who suffered the most from it.
‘No change,’ he said. ‘She won’t speak to me properly. I know that she suffers, but she won’t share it with me. I was wondering if you could try talking with her?’
Yet again? thought Belwynn. She and Moneva had built a friendship during their weeks together. But since Moneva, Soren and the others had been captured in Edeleny, and taken to Samir Durg, while Belwynn had escaped to Kalinth, their paths had been very different. There didn’t seem to be much of that friendship left.
‘Yes. I’ll try,’ Belwynn found herself saying. She knew that she should.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Gyrmund said, ‘of what I should do once this snow melts. I’ve been treated well here, and I get on with Theron. He has asked me to stay for a while, help to train new soldiers, that kind of thing. But I don’t think that’s me. I can’t stop thinking of Herin and Clarin. I bear a huge guilt that I left them to their fate. I feel like I should go back.’
Belwynn nodded. She had spoken with Gyrmund a number of times about the two brothers. Once they had broken out of the slave pits in Samir Durg, Gyrmund and Moneva had gone to find Soren, while Herin and Clarin had remained behind, occupying a tower of the fortress along with a ragtag band of escaped prisoners. Anything could have happened. Clearly, the most likely outcome was that they had all been slaughtered. But the chaos engendered by Erkindrix’s assassination may have given them a chance of escape. And she knew that the two of them weren’t easy to kill and there was a chance, however slim, that they lived.
‘I will talk with Soren about Herin and Clarin. Though I’m not sure what we can achieve without Pentas. And I will talk with Moneva, too.’
‘Thank you,’ said Gyrmund, and he smiled ruefully. ‘I’m sorry I’ve passed on all my problems to you.’
Eudora’s Tavern was a small place, centrally located in Heractus; not too rough and not too expensive, either. It was where Moneva had chosen to spend her time.
The brief hours of daylight were already disappearing, and the inside of the establishment was dim, meaning Belwynn had to search before she saw her, sitting at a table by herself. A plate of food sat in the middle of the table, seemingly untouched, while Moneva had clearly begun drinking. As Belwynn sat down next to her, Moneva gripped both handles of her cup and tipped it back, guzzling it down.
‘Hello, Belwynn,’ she said when she was done, her breath strong with alcohol.
‘Hello. How are you?’
Belwynn refused to play the role of mother, asking Moneva how much she had drunk, or similar interrogation. That was her business.
‘Fairly bored. But there will be music later.’
Moneva gestured over a serving girl.
‘Same again for both of us,’ she said, indicating herself and Belwynn. Turning to her side, she said, ‘I’m still sober if it’s something important you’ve come to discuss. It’s taking me longer to get drunk now I’m doing it regularly.’
‘Why are you doing it so regularly?’
Moneva shrugged. ‘It’s fun. And what else is there to do around here?’
Belwynn studied her friend, the woman who had killed the dread Lord Erkindrix. She knew if it had been someone like Theron he would have become a legend by now. It would have been all too easy for him to capitalise on it, turn himself into a hero. And to be fair, everyone had been perfectly ready to treat Moneva in the same way at first. The Knights; the citizens of Heractus; even the royal family had acclaimed her in their own ways. When they first got back from Haskany, Moneva couldn’t walk the streets without people buying her drinks, asking her about the events in Samir Durg. But she wasn’t interested in that. She was tight-lipped, suspicious—almost contemptuous of the accolades. And so, people had backed off. Moneva had built a wall around herself that no-one, not even Gyrmund, was allowed to get through.
The serving girl brought them their drinks. Belwynn took a sip. The wine was watered down. Someone had put some food on Moneva’s table. Maybe people hadn’t completely backed off after all.
‘Gyrmund asked me to talk to you,’ Belwynn said tentatively.
Moneva sighed. ‘Can’t he just leave me alone?’
‘No. He cares about you too much to do that.’
Moneva sneered at that, taking a swig of drink, before looking Belwynn in the eye.
‘Do you know what happened to me in Samir Durg, Belwynn?’
Belwynn didn’t know, not for sure. But she could guess.
‘What happened?’
‘He raped me. Not just once. Over and over again.’
Belwynn knew that he was Arioc, King of Haskany—the man who had captured Moneva and Soren, in Edeleny. Their escape from Samir Durg felt miraculous and had depended on the intervention of the wizard, Pentas. What would have become of them if they hadn’t been rescued, she wondered? As it was, Soren and Moneva were still suffering.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘Have you told anyone else?’
‘No. And I don’t want you to tell anyone. Especially not Gyrmund.’
‘Whatever you say. Though I would suggest that you speak with Elana about it.’
‘Why? What’s she going to do?’
‘I don’t know, but you won’t know either until you talk to her.’
Moneva shrugged. She turned her attention back to her drink, knocking it back, her need for it all too clear.
Belwynn knew about that well enough. She had watched her father descend into the same kind of addiction after the death of her mother. The alcohol had taken the edge off the raw emotions. But it had made him less of a man in the end. She didn’t want to see Moneva do the same thing to herself.
‘You know we’re all here for you,’ she persevered. ‘We all care for you. Gyrmund most of all.’
Moneva curled her lips into a cruel smile.
‘He cares about getting into my pants.’
‘That’s not fair.’
Moneva turned to her, face red, eyes red. ‘I know, Belwynn,’ she said, her voice raised, struggling to keep her emotions in check. ‘I know I’m not being fair. That’s why I don’t want to see him.’
Belwynn nodded. She actually felt pleased. She had got more out of Moneva than their previous conversations.
‘I have something for you,’ she said, producing an intricately made leather scabbard and belt, the cross-guard and hilt of a dagger exposed.
Moneva took the weapon, pulling it free from the scabbard.
‘Toric’s Dagger?’
‘When Dirk died he entrusted it to me. I think you should have it.’
‘I thought we were supposed to return it to Magnia?’
‘I think things have changed since then. Theron had the scabbard and belt made for you.’
Moneva twisted the weapon around in her hand, staring into the blade, seemingly lost in thought.
‘Thank you,’ she said at last, as if awakening from a stupor. She reached for her drink, hesitated, then pushed it away, before grabbing her plate of food.
Belwynn left the tavern and took the street that led up to Heractus Castle. Evening had arrived. The sun had departed the scene and the temperature had dropped, Belwynn’s breath hanging mistily in the air. Most people out and about were heading in the opposite direction to her, small groups going down to the taverns and inns in the city centre, where there would be a welcoming fire, plenty of ale and wine, and the stories and songs would continue deep into the night.
For a city that seemed so peaceful and happy, there were still plenty of soldiers on duty at the gatehouse and on the walls. That was Theron’s doing, since he always insisted on strict routines and discipline. But Bel
wynn also knew that beneath the surface all was not so calm in Heractus. Sebastian and Theron had occupied the capital with their army in the summer, drawn from those Knights of Kalinth who had switched their loyalty to Sebastian as the new Grand Master of the Order. But King Jonas of Kalinth also resided here, not imprisoned by Sebastian, but kept under close watch. His wife, the Queen Irina, and his sons Straton and Dorian, were here also. All of them, except perhaps Dorian, wanted the Knights gone and their freedom to rule restored. In the city and out in the wider kingdom, their supporters would be plotting just such a restoration. This winter, with its harmony and its merriment, would not last forever.
Not that Belwynn had any trouble with gaining access to the castle.
The Lady of the Knights they called her. Since her performance at the High Tower, she had become a figurehead of sorts for the movement, much to her own embarrassment. All of them now believed that she brought luck, confirmed by their victory in the Battle of Masada, the culmination of the Kalinthian invasion of Haskany. Outnumbered by the Drobax, Haskans and other forces of Ishari, she had blessed the swords of each knight before the battle. And, with no small help from their Krykker allies, they had won a seemingly miraculous victory. If any had doubts before, they had now evaporated. And so it was that if Moneva had become the mysterious, enigmatic killer of Erkindrix, Belwynn had become the angelic saviour of the Knights of Kalinth. It was bullshit, but nonetheless, it was a role that now felt impossible to escape.
The guards waved Belwynn through into the castle, and she took the winding steps up to her tower room, that she now shared with Soren. Inside, she found her brother lying face down on the floor, with Elana knelt by his side. She had her hands on his back, doing her best to heal his twisted spine and torn muscles.
‘How is it going?’ she asked them.
‘His muscles are getting more relaxed,’ commented Elana, a look of concentration on her face. Belwynn had some small experience of receiving Elana’s healing powers, the warm sensation that repaired damaged tissue. It didn’t always completely heal an injury, but she had already noticed Soren’s movement improving.
The Weapon Takers Saga Box Set Page 70