by Ellyn, Court
Kelyn lauded her with something that sounded like, “Well done!” then called a halt to the sparring. “Gather round, men! Stop tickling each other, damn it! You think ogres are going to play around? Start kicking some ass or go home! Lady Athmar, pick your next man.”
She jabbed a finger down into the crowd. “You! Front and center.”
Wide-eyed, Laral said, “I’m dreaming.”
Grinning ear to ear, Arryk shook his head. “Wish you had seen it. When those two old enemies shook hands and agreed to terms…” He glanced aside at Thorn, then lowered his voice. “For one instant I thought that maybe my father’s vision isn’t so farfetched after all. Westervael could be, Laral. It was a moment I will not forget, though I’m probably a fool to hope.”
This was a subject they had dared not talk about over the years. Peace between the Brother Realms, yes, certainly, but not unification. That was taboo, because it could not happen without war or marriage. Arryk wouldn’t stand for the one, and neither he nor Valryk had daughters.
“But never mind,” Arryk said. “You have too many questions that need answering.” He led the way into the comforts of the lodge. Thorn shut the door to the bear lounge, poured Laral a brandy, and invited him to take his ease in one of the deep armchairs. Laral gladly indulged, and then his ears began to burn with the words Thorn spoke to him.
When they emerged that evening, Laral was so overwhelmed and sick at heart that he longed only to sit in the dark and think and mourn, but by then news of his arrival had made the rounds. Kelyn and Eliad hurried from a parlor across the corridor to greet him. “What kind of defense do you have in mind?” he asked his former foster-lord.
“Can we discuss it over dinner?” Eliad asked, rubbing his gut. “We’ve nearly starved waiting on the likes of you.”
“I don’t think I can eat, Eliad. It’s just too much. If I hadn’t been sick…” It would’ve been him bleeding out on a marble floor, because those murdering bastards would have had to climb over his corpse to reach his father. Andy would have been there. Laral dared not send for his son now. He was safer where he was.
Kelyn nudged him. “Come sit with us then.”
In the dining hall, someone put a glass of wine in Laral’s hand. A highlander boy, it was, with blue and gray woolen twine binding his copper-colored plaits. Why would Eliad take a highlander for a squire? They didn’t knight their sons. Truth be told, he was probably one of Eliad’s unclaimed bastards.
All around him, polite conversation and laughter had a strained quality to it. People who didn’t like each other tried to get along. Lady Drona and her nephew slipped by him without a word. At least they didn’t try to hide their loathing of him. Her Grace asked him about his grape harvest. The smile on her face said she wanted to hear only the good news, so Laral replied with the generic pleasantries. Arryk talked philosophy with Etivva, and neither avedra made an appearance. Carah and a raven-haired girl arrived, fussing with pins in each other’s fancy coifs, as the first course was being set. The highlander boy and a footman pulled their chairs out for them. That was when Laral felt that something was missing. There was an empty hole in the room and no one to fill it.
“Kelyn, where’s Jaedren?”
The chatter ceased. Faces looked from one to another. Kelyn cleared his throat, opened his mouth to speak, but Rhoslyn laid a hand to his arm. “I’ll tell him. It’s my fault.”
~~~~
33
Kelyn ordered the highlanders to the training ground shortly before dawn. They were fierce fighters but preferred a mug of ale and a hand on a woman’s tit to training for battle. Boggles, they called those monsters that went bump in the night. Boggles, those monsters they invoked to scare unruly children. The highlanders, however, had long understood that something real stole their cattle and murdered unwary travelers. A few even claimed to have seen these boggles or heard the thunder of their feet.
The highlanders slept soundly for all that. Far better than Kelyn did, at any rate. He had to kick and shout to rouse them from their furs. By the time the sky began to pale, they had finished their jawing, and the training yard rang with the song of steel. Because Drenéleth was never meant to be used a fortress, Eliad’s armory was small, supplied mostly with hunting bows and skinning knives, so the men trained with real swords. Maybe that’s why they held back. Maybe that’s why they appeared to be having fun, instead of swinging to win the sparring matches.
Panic threatened to choke Kelyn worse than dry toast in the morning with no tea to wash it down. He was wasting his time. And theirs. What good was training going to do them?
The aromas of bacon and baking bread soon drifted from the kitchens. Eliad and Daxon ventured from the lodge, working on their gloves, belting on their swords. Drona’s nephew tried to emulate her hard hand—he was a knight, after all—but a young bull with red and yellow plaits knocked him off his mound and onto his arse. Laral’s squire showed up, too, and was given one of the few practice swords from the armory. Given his youthful resilience, the long journey sloughed off him after only a short night’s sleep, and he fared well against a highlander twice his size.
Eliad seemed to wear his sword this morning for show. He stood nearby gnawing on a slice of bacon. “Don’t worry, Kelyn. When it comes to a fight, they won’t back down. You’ll see.”
Kelyn shook his head, skeptical. “Your highlanders are known for guerilla tactics, not facing an enemy in formation.”
“So why change that?”
Kelyn glanced around at his former squire and decided Eliad had some sense after all. Who was the old dog here? It was Kelyn who needed to learn new tricks, not the highlanders. His chuckle clouded in the cold morning air. “I just wish there were five thousand more of them.” Good fighters or not, these hundred highlanders wouldn’t last long against the size of the army Thorn predicted. “Ogres breed young, they breed fast,” he’d said. “Expect something like a million bats in a cave.”
“People will come,” Eliad said. “Laral did. Others will too.”
What would Kelyn give for such faith? The bloodletting at Bramoran seemed to have shattered anything in him that resembled trust.
Maybe Eliad was right. He saw Laral on the veranda, leaning on the bannister and glaring toward the southern horizon. Thinking of home, maybe. Or wishing for revenge.
“I don’t think he slept much either,” Eliad said, following Kelyn’s gaze.
“Would you?”
Eliad shrugged. Rhorek the Younger, no doubt about it.
“Take over for me.” Kelyn trudged up the path to the lodge, even though he suspected Laral wanted nothing to do with him. “I trusted my son with you!” he’d accused. “I knew better than to leave him here. You couldn’t keep your word to Leshan either!” Having that old wound torn open stung worst of all. Had Laral held a grudge all these years? Kelyn suspected not. “He didn’t mean those things he said,” he told Rhoslyn. Didn’t matter. She blamed herself and cried till she fell asleep.
She would feel better once Kethlyn arrived.
Kelyn climbed the steps to the veranda.
“You don’t mean to train my men?” Laral bit.
Sighing, Kelyn prepared himself to take another bruising. The Brengarra militia still slept in their tents beside the river. “They traveled hard. I thought it wise to let them rest another day. Rest may be in short supply for all of us soon.”
A long, taut silence stretched out. Jaedren’s ghost hovered between them. Kelyn expected Laral to stomp off, but he lingered, and Kelyn took that for forgiveness. “Where in hell are they going?” he grumbled at last.
Kelyn followed his glare toward the stable yard. Thorn and Rhian wore robes and sword belts and saddled their horses hastily. The Elaran blacks stamped their hooves, eager to break divots. “Shall we ask?”
Thorn saw them coming but pretended not to. If he wanted his departure to go unnoticed, he should have left hours ago.
“Leaving?” Kelyn asked, casual.
&nb
sp; “I told you,” Thorn said, tying his staff to his saddle.
“Told me what?”
“Before I find you an ally, I have business to attend to.”
“What kind of business?”
“Nothing you need to know about. Stay here.” He mounted up. “I mean it, Kelyn. For your own good, stay here. If you don’t see us in a few days, make for Avidan Wood, ask for Laniel Falconeye, and tell him I sent you.” Without further explanation, he wheeled Záradel for the gate. Rhian galloped after him.
“Hnh,” Kelyn grunted, watching them go. Half a glance at Laral gave him the distinct suspicion that his former squire was contemplating the same thing he was. “We wouldn’t be able to keep up with them anyway,” he said, trying to talk himself out of it. It didn’t work. He and Laral saddled up two of Eliad’s gray geldings.
“You know where they’re headed?” Laral asked.
“I have a good idea. If I’m wrong we’ll come straight back.” They tore off in pursuit. The bridge spanning the roaring rapids of the Avidan steered them onto the southwest road that led to Ilswythe. Each time Kelyn caught sight of the avedrin galloping up a hill or across a long stretch of meadow, they had pulled farther and farther ahead. At last they were little more than puffs of dust, then they fell from sight altogether. Did Thorn really think that two avedrin could stand up against an untold number of ogres? Kelyn supposed his brother wanted his library back. And he mustn’t forget that the road that ran through Ilswythe Village was the grave of a hundred Zhianese warriors. Kelyn hoped Thorn didn’t mean to open the earth and swallow Ilswythe entirely. If his fortress still stood, Kelyn hoped it would remain largely intact.
Near noon, Laral reined in atop a hill that overlooked what appeared to be quiet meadowland. A stony ford crossed a stream that meandered east toward the river. But a trampled mess of ground surrounded the ford, as if a herd of cattle had been let loose to graze there. “Avoid bridges and roads,” he said and turned his gelding into open country. Kelyn trusted his judgment and raced after him.
The closer to Ilswythe they rode, the more villages they encountered. Some had been burned to lifeless shells. Others appeared to have been abandoned. Windows and doors were boarded shut. Weeds grew in garden plots. Paddocks were empty of sheep and horses. Silence replaced the laughter of children and shouts of merchants.
Shortly before sunset, a twinge of unbidden rage tightened Kelyn’s belly. Fear settled across his shoulders, so palpable that he reined in and searched the pastures for approaching danger. He discerned no cause for either the rage or the fear. “Brother,” he muttered, the realization taking the wind from the word. Thorn had arrived home, and he didn’t like what he encountered.
“You all right?” Laral asked.
Kelyn gritted his teeth against the rush of foreign emotions and cantered ahead.
Twilight descended. Forath reared up over the Drakhans like a tyrant upon a throne. The darker it got, the slower they rode. “I hope that storm doesn’t catch up to us,” Laral said, searching the sky.
“Storm, what storm?”
“I heard thunder a while back. Didn’t you?”
Kelyn swore and dug in his heels. The gelding raced up the next hill. He reined in and listened. Yes, there it was, the distant growl of thunder. A white spark flashed in the middle of the dark flow of land below; a few seconds later another grumble echoed past.
“They could use our help.” Laral’s suggestion sounded less confident than perhaps he meant it to.
“No. We should have done as Thorn said. We don’t belong here.” From this distance, Ilswythe’s walls and towers easily fit in the palm of his hand. Close enough. He dismounted under a stand of young andyr trees and tethered the gelding. A space between knotted roots provided a comfortable seat while he watched the light show.
Laral paced, however. “Maybe someone down there knows what happened to my boy. I hope one of them finds us. I’ll cut the answer out of him. You think somebody down there knows? Somebody has to.” It wasn’t like him to lose his quiet composure.
“Two nights without sleep, Laral? Get some shut-eye. War Commander’s order. I might need you lucid tomorrow.”
It took some convincing, but eventually Laral settled down. Kelyn dozed occasionally, too, head pillowed against the bark of the andyr, ears filled with the drone and snap of thunder. Each time he woke, he glanced eastward for the dawn. But Forath’s scared face rolled damnably slow across the sky. His ruddy light turned the Avidan into a bleeding gash on the black breast of the benighted hills.
Just as the sky began to pale, the air grew still. A long silence drew out, more terrifying than the thunder ever was. Kelyn felt for the tension in his belly. The fear was gone, but the rage remained. Fainter now, but present. His brother still lived.
Kelyn nudged Laral’s shoulder and woke him. “I think it’s over. Be watching for them. If all is well, we ought to see them riding along the road there.” He pointed at the north gatehouse where the Drenéleth road ended. In the gray light, little appeared to be amiss. Ilswythe’s towers still stood, roofs intact. Across the river, Kelyn saw little but a blackened ruin.
They waited and watched. Waited and watched. Neither Thorn nor Rhian appeared on the roadway. Midmorning, Laral asked, “Think they’ve been captured?”
Kelyn’s greatest concern. How to sneak in and find out? He had done well to keep trees and shrubs from growing close to the fortress. Highwaymen, spies, thieves, and assassins had not a scrap of cover within a hundred yards of the walls. Why couldn’t he have been the slightest bit neglectful? A few trees shaded the western end of the racetrack to provide shade for spectators. “We’ll shelter the horses there, then stick close to the shadows under the west wall. Maybe a sentry will be looking farther afield and miss us.”
“We’ll be seen before we reach the racetrack,” Laral argued.
Kelyn rounded on him. “You have a better idea? We could use the tunnel, but the entrance is in Bransdon, a couple miles back, and Rhoslyn said that end had collapsed completely. If you think you can find the tree that marks the place where she climbed out, do so.”
“Ilswythe has tunnels?” Laral looked confused. Rhoslyn hadn’t bothered with that part of the story.
“Forget it. Those trees are out of bowshot. If we hear an alarm we’ll turn tail and race for Bransdon.”
They mounted up and urged their horses to a quick trot. Soft ground and wind in the grass muffled the sound of their approach. They kept an eye on the battlements. Kelyn glimpsed not one sentry. An eerie silence resonated from the towers, but a strange banner flew from the roof of his keep. A red-orange axe flapped on the pale canvas.
They reached the stand of trees unchallenged. The north gate appeared to have been bashed in. Rubble that looked suspiciously like furniture and roof beams shored it up. Kelyn suspected the main gate looked much the same, unless the avedrin had blasted their way through.
“Where are these terrifying ogres?” Laral asked, walking up the hill. There seemed to be no need to hurry or to hide.
“Maybe it’s lunchtime. Don’t get cocky.” Kelyn pressed his back to the cool stones of the western wall and inched ahead, keeping to the shadows.
They encountered the first corpse as they rounded the barracks tower. Crumpled and twisted, the ogre appeared to have fallen from the battlements. The mottled green skin faded to gray in death. A warted muzzle drooped open, revealing rotting teeth and long yellow tusks. Red eyes rolled back in deep sockets. An axe lay in the beast’s broken fist, but the blade was clean. Laral examined the body and covered his nose against the reek.
“Terrified yet?”
“But, Kelyn, it’s huge!”
“Did you think we were exaggerating? Keep moving.”
The number of bodies mounted as they neared the main gate. Many had tell-tale holes seared through their armor. Others appeared to have been tossed and broken like toys made of sticks. The confines of the gatehouse had provided a bottleneck. Kelyn had no choice b
ut to climb over the heaps of bodies. The courtyard was little different. Swaths of gray-green corpses covered the cobbles, contorted by avedra lightning, burned by blasts of fire. The stench of rotting meat, scorched flesh, blood and shit made Kelyn’s stomach turn. He threw a forearm across his mouth to block the worst of it.
He couldn’t find a path between the twisted limbs and puddles of gore to reach the doors of the keep. Just like in a nightmare. That’s what this was, and there was no waking from it.
He searched for signs of movement in the bailey, in the windows. Some of the glass had shattered. Most of the workshops and barns under the east wall had been torn down. Their beams and timbers, then, were what shored up the broken gates.
“Look,” Laral said pointing at the roof of the keep.
The foreign banner was gone.
“Thorn?” cried Kelyn. He weaved across the courtyard faster now, not allowing himself to care what he stepped on.
One of the bronze doors lurched open. Rhian stumbled from the keep, as pale-faced and glassy-eyed as the dead. He took no note of Kelyn or Laral, but hurried down the steps, found an obscure corner by the barracks, and threw up.
Kelyn scrambled over corpses to reach him. “Are you wounded?”
Rhian managed a shake of the head. “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t see…”
“Is my brother inside?”
The avedra nodded. Kelyn turned to go, but Rhian seized his arm. “Don’t go in, m’ lord.”
Kelyn blinked in astonishment, both at being accosted by a pearl fisher and what he implied. What could possibly be worse than the carnage here in the courtyard? He turned to consider the bronze doors and found his brother standing on the threshold. Fury transformed Thorn’s face into something that could barely be called human. A feral creature raged free inside his skin. The gentle brother who liked a good laugh had been locked up behind eyes gone cold. Slowly, Thorn raised his arms, and the bodies in the courtyard began to steam, seethe, smolder. Gray skin bubbled and strings of saliva boiled. Rhian grabbed Kelyn and hauled him into the barracks. Laral had sense enough to duck inside the gatehouse.