The Complete Rhenwars Saga: An Epic Fantasy Pentalogy

by M. L. Spencer

  Swain barked a laugh. “That’s just the city guard, son. They go wherever the Queen goes, and right now she’s coming to see us off. The real army is waiting outside the walls. Now, let’s go, before the men get hostile.”

  Kyel nodded. He tried to resist taking one last glance back at his bow as he mounted up and rode away from it, but he just couldn’t help himself. It was hard to part from it. But it was better this way.

  And, in the end, he was even thankful.

  34

  Orien’s Finger

  He was vulnerable.

  It was a loathsome, despicable feeling Darien had suffered for two and a half days. His very skin crawled as if infested with a thousand writhing maggots. No matter how many times he raked his ragged nails across the surface of his flesh, still the feeling persisted. His main source of solace was gone, the rapturous song of the magic field silenced in his head. That was the worst. Walled away from the raging torrent of Orien’s Vortex, he could take no comfort in what had become his only source of solace.

  The field’s absence darkened his mood and fouled his temper. Those who dared come close enough to see the raging intensity that seethed in his eyes turned and shied away, often with great haste. The day before, he had almost taken Wellingford’s head off for no greater crime than startling him.

  Which was another problem entirely. The anxiety inspired by the field’s absence was becoming too much of a distraction. He was starting to lose focus. A blundering fool like Wellingford should never have been able to catch him by surprise, even if the boy had sneaked up behind him intentionally. Within the turbulent fury of a vortex, such distraction could easily prove fatal. If the King even suspected he was so helpless, Faukravar would not hesitate to move against him. Fortunately, the King had never taken an interest in magic or mages, or the man would have schooled himself enough to know what a vortex meant for him.

  And Faukravar was really the least of Darien’s worries. If Renquist and his demons knew he was alive, then this would be the place they would try to take him. Not with the strength of their power; they were just as helpless within a vortex as he was. But their pets were as darkly potent within the torrent of a vortex as they were without.

  If Arden Hannah suspected he’d survived her fire, he might find himself confronted with such a fate. But Darien didn’t think she had any reason to believe he was still alive. By the time Craig’s charge had driven her away, he’d been hanging over that blaze for minutes, slowly searing like meat on a spit.

  What a surprise he had in store for her. Darien sincerely hoped Arden would be traveling with her army. He had read about Bryn Calazar’s Battlemages lending their support in the theater of war. If Arden showed herself at Orien’s Finger, Darien had prepared something special with her in mind. Like a solicitous suitor, he’d put a great deal of thought and effort into selecting the perfect little something, a gift personalized just for her. He hoped she would find it just as stunning as he thought she would. If she didn’t, then he would just have to keep trying until he got it right.

  He was glad now that he’d sent Naia back home. The coming battle was going to be terrible. It would be no place for a priestess and certainly no place for a lover. Darien couldn’t guarantee her safety, just as he couldn’t guarantee his own. But it was more than that. He was glad she wasn’t there to see him, to see the black, festering place where he had once kept his heart. He’d noticed the look on her face in Auberdale, when she’d seen him covered in the blood his sword had so eagerly spilled. The sight of him had repulsed her, but she had quickly forgiven him.

  Naia would not be so quick with her forgiveness if she could see him now. There was little blood on his hands yet, but he felt as though he had already bathed in a river of it. He might as well have. Over the course of the past week, he had rehearsed his part in the coming battle hundreds of times in his head. At first, he had quailed. But then he’d forced himself to go over it one small step at a time, visualizing every graphic image again and again in increasing detail, until at last he felt numb enough to actually go through with it.

  Which was another reason for his foul temper. Already that day, he’d killed hundreds of his own men scores of times in his head. He made himself visualize each dying face, hear every scream of anguish. Each time, it got a little easier. And it was still early in the day.

  He rode in the middle of the drawn-out column, eyes focused on the backs of the men ahead. He’d let Faukravar take the van, and not out of deference to Chamsbrey’s King. Because of his vulnerability while within the vortex, Darien felt reassured only with a ring of armored men around him. He had even moved his tent. The first week of the march he’d pitched it out away from the encampment, prizing his solitude above all else. Already, too many eyes were growing too wary, fixing him with questions he had no intention of answering. But the last two nights they had spent within the vortex, and he had positioned his tent in the center of camp.

  Still, he’d had a hard time getting to sleep. The crawling feeling of his skin bothered him, and his heart kept beating a thundering tempo in his chest, not wanting to slow its pace even for sleep. He lay there for hours staring up at the roof of his tent, feeling more isolated and alone than ever before in his life.

  More than anything, he missed Naia. But he was glad she was gone. So very, very glad.

  Up ahead, the sharp ridge of a mountain groped upward from the snow-covered plain. They had made good time. He could scarcely believe they had made it all the way from Auberdale to the Cerulean Plains in only eight days, even if it was according to his own plan. He’d calculated the pace of the march himself from scaled charts in the command tent. It was a harsh pace, yet the well-disciplined soldiers had handled it well.

  Even Wellingford was proving true. The youth had a small but laudable charisma that went over well with the men. He was still far from a great commander, but the boy did seem effective at getting things done.

  Darien saw him riding up now, his young general’s horse working its way back from the front of the column. Wellingford’s eyes scanned over the faces of the men, a frown of concentration on his face. When he spotted Darien, the frown intensified. Directing his horse into a gap between ranks, he turned his mount to ride beside him.

  “The King is wondering why you’re not inclined to accompany us,” Wellingford said. He added, “I’m wondering also. It is not the Prime Warden’s place to breathe the dust kicked up by an army of men and their horses. People are starting to ask questions.”

  “Let them ask,” Darien growled, not willing to address the reasoning behind his choice of position. “But if anyone has the temerity to openly speak out, then send that man to me. I will not have my judgment questioned the day before the battle.”

  “But, Prime Warden, it would be wise to keep up appearances—”

  “What did I just say? Now, go back and tell that pathetic wretch of a King that if he really desired my company, then he shouldn’t have conspired to have me killed. Go! Or I’ll make you my first example.”

  Wellingford paled. Darien watched him depart, silently seething. He didn’t notice the gap that widened between himself and the men that marched at his side, or the looks of dismay in the eyes of the soldiers within hearing distance of his outburst. Instead, he summoned yet another image to mind, an image as grisly and appalling as it was comforting.

  To the men around him, the new Prime Warden they had sworn to follow seemed to be riding in a kind of trance. He sat slumped on his horse with eyes closed and arms slack as his face, gloved fingers maintaining only a flaccid grip on the reins. His long, unbound hair stirred in a breeze, playing forward into his face, unnoticed. Once in a while, he would give a slight flinch, as if in the throes of a bad dream. Perhaps he really was asleep and dreaming.

  Or perhaps, more likely, he was mad.

  It was late afternoon when they had their first glimpse of Orien’s Finger. It rose slowly up from behind a jagged ridge, a narrow column of dark gray rock. I
ts surface was strangely textured, cracked and age-worn, with lighter patches of lichen speckling its sides. About a quarter of the way from the top, a wide, diagonal crack had the appearance of running all the way through the stone. The summit looked in danger of slipping off at any time, given but a chance breath of air, or even a whim.

  To Darien, the crag had the ominous portent of destiny. It looked much as he had imagined. Subtly different: taller, darker. Eminently more sinister. The shadow it cast fell across the horseshoe-shaped valley behind it, the angle of the shadow bending across the smooth face of the surrounding cliffs, where its tip touched a carved, numeric rune. Orien’s Finger was an enormous natural sundial, and the ancients had taken advantage of it. Only, Darien had no idea how that sundial was meant to be read.

  Darien left the center of the column and sent his horse toward the edge. From there, he kicked the animal forward at a lope, his pulse quickening as he closed the distance between himself and the slender pillar of rock. He rode past the head of the column, right up to the King’s entourage and beyond.

  At the base of the dark tower, he came to a halt and climbed down from the saddle. Confident that he stood within the eye of the vortex itself, Darien opened his mind and groped for the magic field like a blind man tantalized with the promise of sight.

  It was rapturous. Darien gasped, collapsing to his knees in consummate relief as he immersed himself in the field’s soothing intensity. Here in the eye, where the lines converged together, the sweet savor of the field was like no other.

  Darien filled himself with it, saturating his body completely. He drew on the field, soaking it in, like a man dying of thirst trying to drown himself in a pool of water. He pulled in more, until agony blended with ecstasy. The sweet song in his head became an anguished scream.

  Reluctantly, Darien released his hold on the wild energies, letting the power drain out of him and slip away. He held just a little back to hoard jealously, unable to distance himself from the field completely. His head ached, and his body trembled with weak spasms, but he paid them both no mind. Wondrously complete again, he rose, shaking, to his feet.

  And saw an army of men gaping at him in dismay. Faukravar was staring with eyes wide and full of disgust, his face a pallid shade of gray. At his side, Wellingford looked crestfallen and bitterly ashamed.

  Darien turned his back on them. What had they seen? Something they never should have. What had he looked like, there in the cold shadow of the spire, writhing in the field’s anguished ecstasy? Probably mad.

  He should have never succumbed to the temptation of the magic field. Now, he had much to atone for. From the looks on their faces the damage was extensive, and there was simply not enough time to fully repair it. Solstice was only a dawn away. In his moment of weakness, he had just lost the respect of every last man that followed him.

  Worse, they probably thought him dangerously insane.

  Ignoring the fatigue that yet lingered from his struggle with the field, Darien turned and forced himself to face his men. They must see him as strong. If he played this right, he might be able to convince them that he was some kind of troubled martyr, casting himself in Orien’s image. It was not a persona he would wish to emulate if he had a choice. He didn’t see himself as even approaching the nobility of Orien’s legend. He was creating an altogether different legend for himself, one trenched in infamy.

  But if the men needed to see him as Orien, then he would have to play the role.

  Taking his horse by the reins, Darien led the gelding back toward the column, testing the field as he went. Later, he would need to make certain he knew where the eye of the vortex ended, and the cyclone of power began. But for now, he was satisfied with the feeling of contentment brought to him by the eye, the calm within the storm.

  He stopped in front of Faukravar. Pretending that he didn’t notice the disgusted look on the King’s face, Darien dredged forth a somber smile.

  “It’s a good day,” he told the King. “Tomorrow will see the dawn of a better one. The banners of Chamsbrey shall wave triumphant over the field.”

  To Wellingford, he ordered, “Set up camp on the south side of the ridge. No fires. The smoke will give away our presence. Use up as many rations as it takes to make certain every man has a good meal.”

  “Aye, Prime Warden,” his general responded. His face looked perhaps a bit less pale, but he was still gazing at Darien with an expression of doubt.

  Darien thought of the character of Orien they so desperately needed for him to imitate. With that in mind, he decided to elaborate with a little added mystery.

  “I’ll be up there.” He nodded his head in the direction of the crag. “Allow no one to disturb me. I’ll need to prepare myself, and I must do so alone.”

  Darien dropped the reins of his horse as he turned away, noting in satisfaction that the looks on their faces had once again changed. His strategy had worked, it seemed. The doubt and dismay were gone, absent even from Faukravar’s eyes. Instead, he left them staring at his back, eyes wide in wonderment.

  Darien hid a grimace as he walked away, feeling disgusted by the lie. He felt ashamed that he’d brought himself to stoop so low, forced to win back their trust with a vulgar display. But if that was what it took to win the battle ahead, it was just another sin to add to the long list of them he was already accruing.

  He wouldn’t need the closing of the gateway to condemn his soul to hell. He was getting there just fine on his own.

  Stone steps wrapped around the face of the dark column, a narrow and winding stair. It had broken and collapsed in many places. In other spots, the steps had been worn down to nothing more than a ramp. Darien took his time, picking his way carefully. It wouldn’t do if he slipped and fell to his death on the eve before the battle. And eve it was. Already, the sun was beginning to slip behind the snow-clad mountains in the west. Tomorrow was Solstice, the shortest day of the year.

  Darien kept his eyes averted from the edge. Once, heights had never bothered him. Now they did. The memory of his fall from Aerysius was kept fresh in his mind by the constant nightmares that plagued him almost every night. As he moved up the treacherous steps, he kept one hand braced against the rock face at his side, the other extended in front of him.

  He slipped once, his fingers raking over the stone until they caught on a crack in the rocks, the only thing that saved him. Trembling, Darien pressed forward on legs that seemed suddenly less stable.

  Before his fall, he could have skipped up this path. He had the balance taught to him by a blademaster, but it did him little good when his vision reeled, and his knees turned to jelly. He tried to will the path ahead to stabilize, but he could do nothing about the sweat that glazed his palms and ran trickling into his eyes.

  More than once he came to a place where the steps had crumbled away completely. There, he was forced to gather his courage before making a staggering step across the break. Fortunately, it was never more than just a few feet. He tripped attempting the last gap, roughening his palms on the stone. But he drew himself up, feeling the bite of a cold breeze inspired by the height.

  He was almost there, hundreds of feet above the horseshoe-shaped valley. It was getting dark. Darien shivered as he staggered up the last few steps, hands groping at the rock wall for stability. The stairs made a quick turn then leveled out.

  Darien paused, closing his eyes and bracing himself. Then he stepped cautiously out over the snow-traced markings of the Circle of Convergence. He crossed the Circle, stirring the slight dusting of snow that covered one of the lines with the toe of his boot. Walking across to the far side, Darien stepped off and moved toward the cliff’s harrowing edge. There, he drew up, still yet paces away, but unable to move another step.

  The view was awe-inspiring. And it was also terrifying. The sun had set completely, its light only the palest gray on the horizon. The snow-covered plains swept out away from him, glowing in the soft light of the rising moon. Above, the stars were strung across t
he heavens like innumerable glittering crystals. Their myriad glows were cast in red reflection below, slightly to the north, where the campfires of the Enemy seemed to outnumber even the light of the stars.

  A breeze reached out, whipping his hair and chasing his cloak. The feel of it was brisk and chill, stimulating. Slowly, he lowered himself to the flat summit of the crag, pulling his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

  Once, as a boy, he had tried counting the stars. He’d given up not long into the endeavor after reaching several hundred in just a trace amount of sky. The remainder of the heavens lay yet unnumbered above him. He had come to realize that such a task would probably take him the rest of his life.

  This time he was determined to number them all, no matter how long the chore would take. It was imperative he know their total. Darien stared down at the red-orange lights below that twinkled brighter than the stars and started counting.

  He knew Wellingford was behind him. He’d heard the scraping of his travel-worn boots crest the summit. The boy hadn’t startled him this time, which was good. Darien hadn’t moved from where he’d been sitting, gazing down at the fires below. He’d finished counting some time ago but was unwilling to leave his perch.

  Staring out across the plains, his thoughts had drifted to Naia. He’d let the hours wear away, quietly savoring the image of her in his mind. It was very late, or perhaps very early; he wasn’t sure. Whichever the case, Wellingford had no business being there. The boy should have been asleep hours ago.

  His new general said, “I know you wanted to be left alone, but you did give the order that every man must have a good meal.”

  “So I did.” Darien turned to glance over his shoulder.

  Wellingford approached cautiously, a small sack in his hand. Remembering his own trouble with the broken and nerve-wracking stair, Darien found himself looking at Wellingford with new respect.