by Anthony Ryan
Vaelin studied Derla’s face closely, seeing no artifice in her lack of expression. “Fifty or so, Highness.” She gave Vaelin a wink. “Wanted to beat me to death and fuck my corpse.”
“Yes, a perverted wretch indeed,” the king conceded. “But a rich one, and a popular figure at court. Once I’d recognised how useful you might be it took considerable expense to arrange your supposed suicide and actual release.”
“For which I shall always be grateful, Highness.”
“As you should be. You see, Vaelin, it is a king’s duty to seek out the talented among his subjects so that he might put them to useful service. I have a few like Derla secreted around the four fiefs, all reporting directly to me. They get a good deal of gold and the satisfaction of knowing their efforts preserve the security of this Realm.” The king seemed suddenly weary, resting his chin on his palm, rubbing at his hooded eyes. “Your report from last week,” he said to Derla, “repeat it to Lord Vaelin.”
She nodded and began speaking in formal, practised tones. “On the seventh day of Prensur I was in the alley behind the Rampant Lion tavern, observing a house I know to be frequented by deniers of the Ascendant sect. Close on midnight a number of people entered the house, including a tall man, a woman and a girl of about fifteen years who arrived together. After they had entered the house I gained access to the premises via the coal chute into the cellar. Whilst in the cellar I was able to hear the heretical rites being conducted in the room above. After roughly two hours I deduced the meeting was about to end and left the cellar, returning to the alley where I observed the same three people leaving together. Something about the tall man seemed familiar so I resolved to follow them. They proceeded to the northern quarter where they entered a large house over-looking the mill at Watcher’s Bend. As the man entered the house the light from the lamps inside illuminated his face and I was able to confirm his identity as Lord Kralyk Al Sorna, former Battle Lord and First Sword of the Realm.”
She regarded Vaelin with an incurious gaze, void of fear or concern. The king scratched idly at the grey stubble on his chin. “It wasn’t always this way, you know?” he said. “With the deniers. When I was a boy they lived among us, wary but tolerated. My first tutor in swordplay was a Quester, and a fine man he was. The Orders warned against them but never advocated forbidding their practices, we are a land of exiles after all, driven to these shores centuries ago by those who would kill us for our Faith and our gods. The Faith was always dominant, of course, first in the rank of beliefs, but others lived alongside it, and whilst there were many amongst the Faithful who didn’t like it, most folk didn’t seem to care that much. Then came the Red Hand.”
The king’s hand shifted to the pattern of livid red marks on his neck, his eyes distant with the memory. “They called it the Red Hand for the mark it leaves, like a claw scarring the flesh on your neck. Once the marks appeared you knew you were as good as dead. Imagine it Vaelin, a land laid waste in a few months. Think of everyone you know, man, woman, child, rich or poor, it doesn’t matter. Think of them all then imagine half of them gone. Imagine them dead from a wasting illness that makes them rave and thrash and scream as they vomit out their own insides. The bodies were piled like chaff, no one was safe, fear became the only faith. It couldn’t just be another plague, not this. This had to be Dark work. And so our eyes shifted to the deniers. They suffered as we did but because they were fewer in number it seemed they suffered less. Mobs roamed the cities and the fields, hunting, murdering. Some sects were wiped out and their beliefs lost for all time, the rest driven into the shadows. By the time the Red Hand faded all that was left was the Faith and the Cumbraelin god. The others were hidden, worshipping in the dark, ever fearful of discovery.”
The focus returned to the king's eyes, fixing Vaelin with cold calculation. “Your father appears to have developed unhealthy interests, Young Hawk.”
The blood-song returned, loud and harsh, as strong as he had ever known it, its meaning more clear than he could remember. There was great danger in this room. Danger from the knowledge this spying whore possessed. Danger from the king’s design. But most of all the danger of the blood-song telling him to kill them both.
“I have no father,” he grated.
“Perhaps. But you do have a sister. Bit young to be hung from the walls with her tongue ripped out, after receiving the Fourth Order’s ministrations in the Blackhold. Her mother too I shouldn’t wonder, caged side by side, gabbling nonsense at each other until starvation weakens them and the crows come to peck at their flesh whilst they still live. You wanted a better reason. Now you have one.”
Dark eyes, like his own, small hands clutching winterblooms. Mumma said you would come and live in our house and be my brother…
The blood-song howled. His hands twitched. Never killed a woman before, he thought. Or a king. Watching the old man yawn and rub at his pained knees he saw how easy it would be to take his fragile neck and snap it like a twig. How satisfying it would be…
He clenched his fists, stilling the twitch, sitting down heavily at the table.
And the blood-song died.
“Actually,” the king said, levering himself upright. “I don’t think I’ll stay for the cakes after all. Please enjoy them with my compliments.” He placed a bony hand on Vaelin’s shoulder. An owl’s talon. “I assume I don’t have to coach you in what to say when Aspect Arlyn seeks your counsel.”
Vaelin refused to look at him, worried the blood-song would return, nodding stiffly.
“Excellent. Derla, please linger a while. I’m sure Lord Vaelin has more questions.”
“Of course, Highness.” She gave another perfect bow as he left. Vaelin remained seated.
“May I sit, my lord?” Derla asked him.
He said nothing so she took the seat opposite. “Quite a treat for me to meet so distinguished a Lordship as yourself,” she went on. “Done business with lords aplenty of course. His Highness is always interested in their habits, the more beastly the better.”
Vaelin said nothing.
“Are all the stories about you true, I wonder?” she continued. “Seeing you now I think they might be.” She waited for him to speak and fidgeted in discomfort when he gave no reply. “The baking widow is taking her time with those cakes.”
“The cakes aren’t coming,” Vaelin told her. “And I don’t have any questions. He left you here so I would kill you.”
He met her eyes, seeing genuine emotion there for the first time: fear.
“The widow Nornah is no doubt skilled in the quiet disposal of corpses,” he elaborated. “I expect he's led quite a few unsuspecting fools here over the years. Fools like the two of us.”
Her eyes flicked to the door then back to his. Her mouth twisted, biting back challenges and provocation. She knew she couldn’t brawl with him. “I am not defenceless.”
“You keep a knife in your bodice and another at the small of your back. I assume the pin in your hair is fairly sharp too.”
“I have served King Janus loyally and well for five years - ”
“He doesn’t care. The knowledge you possess is too dangerous.”
“I have money…”
“I have no need of riches.” The bag holding the bluestone was heavy on his belt. “No need at all.”
“Well.” She leaned back from the table, letting her hands fall to her side, lifting her skirts to show her parted knees, another half-smile playing on her lips, no more genuine than the first. “At least show me the courtesy of fucking me before rather than after.”
A laugh died on his lips. He looked away, clasping his hands together on the table top. “You’re safe from me but not from him. You should leave the city, the Realm if you can. Don’t ever come back.”
She rose slowly, moving cautiously to the door, reaching for the handle, her other hand behind her back, no doubt clutching her knife. Turning the handle, she paused, “Your father is fortunate in his son, my lord.” And she was gone, the door swinging c
losed on poorly oiled hinges.
“I have no father,” he said softly to the empty room.
Chapter 3
Away from the Alpiran coast scrubland gave way to broad trackless desert, swept by a stiff southerly wind that stirred the sands into funnels of dust, drifting over the dunes like wraiths. The army kept to the fringes of the desert, advancing towards Untesh in a column more than two miles long. Watching the army Vaelin was reminded of a great snake he had once seen slip from a cage on a ship from the Far West, it had stretched across the width of the deck, scales glittering in the sun like the spears of the Realm Guard now.
He was perched on a rock studded rise a few miles ahead of the main column, drinking from his canteen whilst Spit chewed at the meagre leaves of a desert shrub nearby. Frentis and his scout troop, what was left of them after the battle near the beach, were encamped about the rise, keeping watch on the eastern horizon.
He thought of the battle two days ago, of the white-clad man and the party that came to ask for his body, four stern faced men of the Imperial Guard who appeared out of the desert and demanded to see the Battle Lord. Al Hestian rode out to greet them with the luminaries of the army in tow, making a show of formal etiquette which the Alpirans ignored by staying in their saddles. He was reading out the king’s proclamation of formal annexation of the three cities of Untesh, Linesh and Marbellis when one of the guardsmen cut him off in mid-sentence, a well-built man with ash-grey hair, speaking near perfect Realm tongue: “Save your prattle, Northman. We come for the Eruhin’s body. Give it to us or kill us, we won’t leave without it.”
Al Hestian’s composure faltered, his face flushing with anger. “What is this Eruhin?”
“The man in white,” Vaelin said. He hadn’t been asked to join the parley but had reined in on the fringes anyway, knowing the Battle Lord wouldn’t wish to make a scene by sending him away, not at such an auspicious moment as his first meeting with the enemy. “The Eruhin, yes?” he asked the guardsman.
The guardsman’s eyes locked on to him, scanning him from head to toe, searching his face. “It was you? You slew him?”
Vaelin nodded. Snarling, one of the other guardsmen half-drew his sabre before the grey-haired man restrained him with a harsh order.
“Who was he?” Vaelin asked.
“His name was Seliesen Maxtor Aluran,” the guardsman replied. “The Eruhin, the Hope in your language. Chosen heir of the Emperor.”
“Our commiserations to your Emperor,” the Battle Lord broke in smoothly. “Such a grievous loss is to be regretted but we come only for what it rightfully…”
“You come for conquest and plunder, Northman,” the grey haired man told him. “You will find only death in these lands. There will be no further parleys, no more talk, we will kill you all as you have killed our Hope. Expect no quarter. Now give us his body.”
Lord Darnel drank from a flask and swilled wine around his mouth before spitting it on the hooves of the guardsman’s horse. “He breaks the rules of parley with his discourtesies, my lord,” he observed to Al Hestian. “His life is clearly forfeit.”
“No it isn’t.” Vaelin spurred between the two parties, addressing the guardsman. “I’ll escort you to the body.”
He could feel the Battle Lord’s fury as they rode over to the corpse, sensing Lord Darnel’s hate, remembering something Aspect Arlyn had told him, Men who love themselves hate those who would dim their glory.
The guardsmen dismounted and lifted the body of their Hope onto a pack-horse. The grey haired guardsman tightened the straps securing the body to the horse and turned to Vaelin, his eyes shining with tears. “What is your name?” he demanded hoarsely.
He could think of no reason not to tell him. “Vaelin Al Sorna.”
“Your consideration does not dim my hate, Vaelin Al Sorna, Eruhin Mahktar, Hope Killer. My honour tells me I should take my own life, but my hate will keep me alive. From now on my every breath will be drawn with but one purpose, to see your end. My name is Neliesen Nester Hevren, Captain of the Tenth Cohort of the Imperial Guard. Do not forget it.”
With that he and his comrades had mounted and ridden away.
Sometimes the Faith requires all we have. The Aspect’s words again, spoken that day last winter when he walked with Vaelin on the snow covered practice field listening to what he had to say about the king’s plans. It had been cold that day, colder than usual even for Weslin, the novice brothers stumbling in the snow as they ran and fought and bore the sting of their masters’ canes.
“This will be a war unlike any we have known,” the Aspect had said, his breath steaming the air. “A great sacrifice will be made. Many of our brothers will not return. You understand this?”
Vaelin nodded, he had listened to the Aspect for a long time and found he had no more words.
“But you must return, Vaelin. Fight as hard as you have to, kill as much as you have to. No matter how many of your men and your brothers fall, you will return to this Realm.”
Vaelin nodded again and the Aspect smiled, the only time Vaelin had seen him do so since that first day at the Order House gate all those years ago. Somehow it made him seem old, the way it creased the lines around his eyes and his thin lips. He had never seemed old before.
“Sometimes, you remind me so much of your mother,” the Aspect said sadly, then turned and walked away, his tall form moving through the snow without the slightest misstep.
Scratch came loping up the rise, a cloud of dust ascending in his wake, a hare dangling from his mouth. Large, wide-footed hares seemed to proliferate in the scrub lands and, like Scratch, the Realm Guard had been quick to take advantage of easy game. The slave-dog dropped the hare at Vaelin’s feet and gave one of his short, rasping barks.
“Thanks, daft dog,” Vaelin scratched at his neck. “But you can have it.” He lifted the hare and threw it down the hill, Scratch scampering after with a joyful yelp.
“You usually leave him behind when we go on campaign,” Frentis said, sitting down and unstoppering his flask.
“Thought he would appreciate a new hunting ground.”
“So he was their emperor’s son, was he?” Frentis asked. “The man in the white armour.”
“His chosen heir. It seems the emperor chooses his successor from amongst his subjects.”
Frentis frowned. “How’s he do that then?”
“Something to do with their gods, I believe.”
“Think he would’ve chosen someone who could fight better. The silly sod couldn’t even sit on his horse right.” Despite his young brother’s levity he could sense his concern. “Had no business being there really.”
“Do not worry over me, brother.” He gave Frentis a grin. “My heart does not weigh so heavily.”
Frentis nodded and turned his gaze on the vast expanse of desert to the south. “Not really sure why the king wants this place so bad. It’s all dust and scrub. Haven’t seen a tree since we landed.”
“We come in search of what is rightfully ours by ancient treaty, and to avenge the wrongs done us by the Denier Empire.”
“Yeh, been wondering about that. Y’know, the only Alpirans I ever saw were sailors and merchants around the docks. They dressed funny but they didn’t seem no different from all the other sailors and merchants, chasing whores and money the way such folk do, bit more polite about it than most though. Can’t remember any of my fellow no-good urchins getting abducted and tortured in Dark rites, ‘cept me o’ course, and One Eye wasn’t no Alpiran.”
“You question the king’s word brother?”
Frentis’s hands moved inside his cloak, no doubt once again exploring the pattern of scars. “His and everyone else’s, if I think I have to.”
Vaelin laughed. “Good, keep doing that.”
“My lord!” one of the scouts called to him, standing and pointing to the eastern horizon.
Vaelin moved to the other side of the rise and peered into the distance, seeing a faint shimmer in the heat haze rising from
the sun-warmed sands. “What am I looking for?”
“I see it,” Frentis had his spy-glass at his eye. It was an expensive item, brass tubes and a shark-skin cover. Vaelin thought it best not to enquire where he got it although he remembered the captain of the Meldenean galley that brought them to these shores had possessed a similar item. Like Barkus, Frentis’s thieving instincts had never completely faded.
“How many?”
“Not good with figurin’, brother, as you know. But I’ll be buggered if there ain’t at least our number and a third more besides.”
“I know you know where he is.” The Battle Lord’s gaze was dark with boundless enmity.
“My lord?” Vaelin was distracted by the spectacle on the plain before them, thousands of Alpiran soldiers drawn up in offensive formation, advancing at a steady march towards the rise where they stood. The Battle Lord had ordered Vaelin to bring his full regiment to the rise and put his standard on as tall a pole as could be found. On the western slope, out of sight of the Alpirans, were five thousand Cumbraelin archers. Officially the archers were Fief Lord Mustor’s contribution to the campaign, a show of allegiance after what had become known as the Usurper’s Revolt, but in fact they were mercenaries selling their bow skills to the King and no Cumbraelin noble was counted among their number. On either side of the rise the Realm Guard infantry was arrayed in regiments, four ranks deep. To the rear the Nilsaelin contingent of five thousand light infantry waited, flanked by the ten thousand horse of the Realm Guard cavalry on the right and the Renfaelin knights on the left. Behind them stood four mounted companies from the Sixth Order alongside Prince Malcius commanding three companies of the King’s Mounted Guard. It was the largest army ever fielded by the Unified Realm and was about to fight its first major engagement, something which seemed to concern the Battle Lord hardly at all.