by S E Wendel
He pulled his hand back slowly, dramatically, so Manek would clearly see Rising, the Lowland capital and Manek’s home, sitting precariously under Larn’s hand.
“I merely meant that you don’t want to be spread too thin, my lord.”
“We lost fewer than expected.”
“Good, because I’m thinking Highcrest has much more to offer than its treasure.”
“We already have the women!” Dorran, Larn’s seneschal, joked, and the others laughed.
But Larn said nothing; neither did he laugh. Larn wasn’t stupid, and he watched Manek with an assessing gaze, listening.
“Highcrest has a thriving fish trade and valuable iron mines in the nearby mountains. If we kill or take everyone, who’ll be left to keep these alive?”
This drew grumbles from the warlords, for it sounded to them suspiciously like Manek wanted them to give up their gifts for the sake of industry. That wasn’t the way of things; just as the sea god Balan gave up three of his prized possessions to his father, Themin, so too did a sacked city give up three highborn women to each conquering warlord. At least, that’s what Midlanders claimed. Larn had promised treasure, supplies, and slaves, and now this boy from the Lowlands suggested they give up their spoils. Manek was unpopular for a reason.
But Manek saw what the other warlords wouldn’t take the time to notice; that their leader was beginning to think, deeply, about what could be done with such a rich city as Highcrest. They had conquered plenty of land and numerous villages—but Highcrest was Larn’s first great city, a statement sure to get the attention of the rest of the Highlands.
“And what do you suggest?” asked Larn.
Manek sucked in a breath, knowing full well that Larn would never agree to his idea. “We leave as many people as you think allowable—”
A chorus of shouts went up from the other warlords.
“Most of the common-people should be left, along with several highborns. One from each three gifts should be enough.”
More cries of outrage. He was asking far too much. Larn himself looked displeased, especially when hearing Manek’s next suggestion.
“And at least one Courtnay girl should be left, to organize and lead them, or at least for symbolic value.”
The great hall went silent. Larn’s lips twisted into a smile again, but his eyes danced with malice. Everyone knew he wouldn’t give up his Courtnay girl.
“Give up your own!” cried another warlord.
“Very well,” said Manek quietly, looking back to Larn. “I think all of my gifts should be returned to Highcrest. They could reinvigorate the city—with someone of your choice overseeing them, of course.”
Larn turned an acid look on Manek, and he knew then that nothing of the sort would happen. Both knew which Courtnay daughters Manek kept. If he were to agree to Manek’s proposal, the only one Larn would consider leaving behind was the youngest, barely a woman in the eyes of Ceralia the Mother, and not a threat. He certainly wouldn’t think of leaving behind the two eldest, the two strongest, and the two of the best marriageable age.
“I’ve a better plan.”
Stooping over the map, Larn considered the surrounding landscape. Manek’s heart dropped from his chest down onto the ground.
“I believe the villages we’ve taken in the southern Westerlands have good stock,” said Larn, drawing a laugh of agreement from his other warlords.
As the others praised Larn for this piece of diplomacy, Manek shut his eyes for a long moment, realizing what he’d done. It wasn’t enough that he’d helped destroy Highcrest; now he set in motion the ravaging of the surrounding land and people.
He understood this fit rather well into Larn’s greater ploy as the leader looked about his men and boomed, “Highcrest is ours—what say you to more?”
They cried out their approval in unison.
“Excellent,” he said, turning to Manek, “then we’ll raze all of the Highlands!”
Manek’s gut clenched.
“What say you, Manek—can you open the Highland House to me?”
“Perhaps,” he said carefully, “come spring.”
This sobered the other men, and as Larn’s face dropped into an angry scowl, the others realized just how soon Larn meant to start his new campaign.
Placing both hands on the map, Larn leaned over it towards Manek, growling, “I mean to take it now.”
This caused murmurings throughout the warlords as each thought of the homes they had intended to return to for winter. Seeing their hesitation, Larn threw a venomous look at Manek before walking slowly around the table, silencing everyone as they waited for his word.
“We take the Courtnay ships and we sail the De’lan. We could be upon Ells in a fortnight. I say Dunstan is due for a good siege—too long he’s sat in his Highland House trying to ignore me!”
“You could perhaps make it in that time, if you didn’t have the Winwoods, Arics, and Morns standing between you and Ells,” argued Manek. To think they could defeat all three of the greatest remaining noble houses of the Highlands and then show up on King Dunstan’s door battle-ready was fantasy.
Larn grumbled. “From the south, then!”
“Again, you’ll be spread too thin. The Morns would waylay us before we crossed the De’lan. All the Highland clans, no matter their history, are more loyal to Adren Dunstan than they ever would be to you—”
Slamming his fist on the table, Larn shouted, “Enough!” He shook with rage, but ever a showman, he composed himself in a few breaths before continuing. “I will take the Highlands. I will sack Dunstan’s Ells. And then I’ll rule Mithria herself.”
“Do as you will, but I won’t condemn my men to a frozen death before the Highland Gate. Marching east is a death sentence with the numbers we have and winter coming.”
“Manek, you will stay and fight when and where I say!”
“Yes, of course, come spring. That’s the deal.” And before he could choke on his bold words, Manek left.
Argument erupted in his wake, and Manek knew he’d have a few moments to return to his camp before someone was dispatched to bring him back. First Larn would have to rein in his other warlords.
Manek returned to his own men without incident, glad to be welcomed into the mass of two thousand Lowlanders gathered in the streets. Waurin, at the head of his own two hundred, walked towards him.
“And you think I don’t know how to keep quiet,” he joked as Manek reached him, his eyes flicking over Manek’s shoulder to the Keep.
Grinning crookedly, Manek asked, “Are the men ready?”
“All they need is you to lead them.”
He nodded, and as Waurin headed off to his horse, Manek stepped over to the three captured women. He was relieved that rather than boring a hole into his head, Ennis Courtnay looked more curious than vengeful.
“We’ll be leaving soon,” he informed them, squatting down, balanced on the balls of his feet.
They were silent, as if the news wasn’t news at all.
“There’s nothing left for you here,” he found himself saying. “It’s best to leave this behind.”
“And there’s something for us where we’re going?” said Ennis, her eyes dark and doubtful.
Manek had no answer to that.
Before he could stand, Ennis asked, “Our sisters—please, where are they? Can we see them?”
This reinvigorated Irina; she lifted her face from her knees to look at him. He hated it when eyes looked like hers, great pools of grief that sucked him in. But he had to shake his head.
“I don’t know where the youngest is, but the other is with Larn. He won’t allow it.”
Irina’s head slumped into her already damp palms. She sobbed, “We’ll never see her again.”
Manek couldn’t deny it.
Ennis’s eyes told him to leave and he did so without hesitation. He couldn’t understand how the other men found such pleasure in sacking a city.
To clear his mind of the eyes and fac
es of Highcrest’s surviving people, Manek set about gathering up the last of his men and camp. Oren shook his mane as he followed behind, anxious to be rid of this stone city encircled by cavernous pools.
The Lowlanders would have made their exodus from Highcrest that afternoon were it not for the Midland rider thundering down the cobblestone to them.
Manek sighed.
Four
For his wife Themin chose Mithria; beautiful and green, everywhere she stepped flowers, trees, and meadows sprouted. But upon their wedding day, Themin discovered that he could not touch his bride, for the King of the Sky could not bring his Earthly Queen to the Heavens. Devastated, Mithria laid down upon the earth, and everywhere there did spring life. And so Themin placed his new creations, the mortals, upon his beloved Mithria, and she did love them as her own.
—Mithrian creation myth
She hadn’t known him long, but Manek’s predilection for rising with the sun didn’t endear him to Ennis. Waking to the sounds of men, horses, and carts moving about in every direction, Ennis saw through heavy-lidded eyes that Manek’s camp had been almost completely packed in the small hours of the morning.
Rolling her shoulders to stretch her tired, stiff muscles, Ennis looked up the crumbling street towards the Keep, and her lower lip began to quiver. They truly were leaving Highcrest.
Manek had been thwarted in his plan the previous afternoon, Larn’s messenger, on behalf of the Lord of the Midlands, threatening anything and everything he could think of. Ennis had watched Manek’s impassive face, unable to read what was going on behind such a deeply sunk brow. He’d finally agreed he would still be in Highcrest when the next sun rose.
Ennis could admire his sidestep.
Golden shafts of morning sunlight cut through the dark city, and with the light, Manek and his men began to decamp. Tents, blankets, rugs, and all other manner of cloth were gathered and folded hurriedly, packed with provisions, treasures, and the wounded into carts. The sun had barely crested the burned out rooves of Highcrest by the time Manek and his men were ready to leave, but it had risen nevertheless.
His last task was to make ready the women.
Ennis bit her lip to keep from cringing when that great beast of a horse stopped a few paces away. The rumbling hooves woke Lora and Irina, and they both sat up as Manek walked to them.
“We head for the Lowlands now,” he told them, eyes weary, as if he hadn’t slept in a long while.
“Will it be a long journey?” whispered Lora, her face still smudged with battle grime.
Manek nodded. “It’s a long road, but if we leave now, we’ll be there before winter sets in.”
Lora and Ennis wore matching, unconvinced expressions. Ennis wrinkled her nose, her feet already aching at the prospect of walking all the way to the Lowlands.
Ennis jumped to her feet, bringing Irina’s arms up with her. She demanded, “Are we to go like this?” and thrust her hands, and Irina’s too, at him for effect.
Seeing the immediate predicament, he seemed to finally look over his gifts. Tattered and dirty as they were. Ennis scowled, watching Manek realize they were in no ready shape to venture across Mithria with only their bare feet and nightgowns.
Manek dispatched two men to the Keep to see if there was anything to be salvaged from the Courtnay daughters’ bedchambers, shoes and cloaks in particular.
“For the time being,” said Manek, striding over to a nearby cart, “these will have to do.”
He covered each of them in a heavy man’s cloak with thick fur lining the neck. Drowning in cloth, Ennis pulled it around herself, feeling warm for the first time in days. Next, he freed them from the rope linking them together, though he left their hands bound.
“When my men return, we’ll take our leave,” he said. With that he mounted his horse again and left them.
They watched Manek give orders in silence, waiting until he was out of sight to speak. Lora whispered in her friend’s ear, “Oh, Ennis, the Lowlands—what could be worse?”
Ennis’s blood chilled at Lora’s words. There were such stories about the untamed southern lands of Mithria; travelers spoke of the barbarity and crudeness of the Lowland clans. Full of young men vying for power, there were no cities, no order or peace. Then Ennis looked around her, at the charred buildings and crumbling walls, and bit the inside of her cheek. Things weren’t so much better in Highcrest. Those of the north had seen their share of barbarity in the Highland Wars, and had it not been for Adren Dunstan, with the help of her father, finally making peace between the remaining houses and clans, there likely wouldn’t have been anything for Larn to conquer.
“It’s better than the Midlands,” she hissed. “One could disappear in the Lowlands much easier.”
Lora opened her mouth in shock, but it was Irina who spoke. “Escape to what? What do we have left?”
“We have our lives. That’ll have to do for now.”
“And what about our sisters? What do they have?” Irina demanded. She lifted her unkempt head to give Ennis a watery glare.
Ennis sucked in a breath and tried to calm her racing heart. She understood Irina’s pain, understood why she lashed out. But what did Irina think they could do now? “Do you think I’m not terrified for them, too? Do you think I think only of myself?” The look Irina shot her was answer enough.
Her chest hurt when she thought of her younger sisters. Essa was somewhere in this camp; innocent, dainty, ethereal Essa could even now be under some southern barbarian, crying for help and it was all—
No, she couldn’t think of it without bile bubbling up her throat.
Thinking of Adena was no easier. She was Larn’s now, and even as Ennis searched her mind for a plan, she didn’t know how she would ever recover Adena. Not in time. Back in spring, after months of Adena’s coughing and fainting spells, their father had called on the best physicians in the province. All of them concurred: Adena had contracted consumption. She had, at best, two years left.
Sweet, quiet Adena, with nimble hands that liked to create art with her thread. Gowns and needlepoint and even tapestries; Adena had set her needle to most anything she could poke it through, with marvelous results. Though quiet to the point of shyness, Adena lit up when working on her creations, and Ennis had always adored to see it. It had been unthinkable that her masterful sister would be taken from them so early.
All of this had been unimaginable mere days before.
Her macabre string of thoughts broke apart when the men Manek had sent to the Keep returned. Each woman was handed a pair of riding boots, and Ennis received the wad of linens they’d made off with as well.
Looking at the clothing that would make the coming journey bearable, Lora thanked the men.
The elder man gruffly shrugged his shoulders, but the younger, who looked more a boy than a man, blushed before returning to his fellows.
“Don’t be kind to them,” growled Irina. “They won’t return the favor.”
Lora’s face dropped, her smile staling. Ennis bit her cheek again to keep from hissing at Irina. They all bore the same pain, and they would need each other in the sennights to come.
The three of them traded boots, Ennis getting her own pair from Lora, Irina receiving Essa’s from Ennis, and Lora exchanging for Adena’s, who was closest to her size.
Ennis breathed a small sigh as she slipped her feet into her own boots. The familiar leather cradled her feet, her toes falling into their indentations, and suddenly the Lowlands wasn’t as far as it had been a moment ago.
The linens were merely a mix of shifts, chemises, and another nightgown. These were divvied amongst them, stuffed into pockets of the heavy cloaks to await nightfall when there would be fewer wandering eyes.
Standing, Ennis’s lip curled in distaste at the strange Lowland cloak; rather than one seamless piece of heavy cloth, long slits were cut a few inches below the shoulder, making elongated arm holes. She scowled at the slits, her bound hands making them superfluous.
&nbs
p; With the women as ready as they could be, Manek had his standard, the rising sun, raised in signal. Men marching made such terrible noise, and Ennis grimaced as the Lowland invaders began to file through the mangled Mountain Gate, feet stomping, horses pawing, carts scraping.
Manek fell into step close to the head of the exodus, with his three highborn gifts on his right. With such numbers of men, treasure, and wounded, Ennis knew they pace south would be a crawl.
From the right flank came another Lowland warlord atop his horse to meet Manek as they passed through the Mountain Gate. Ennis’s heart lurched into her throat; sitting behind the warrior rode a familiar golden-haired young woman with a messy braid.
“Essa!” Ennis cried. “Essa!”
Essa’s head jerked to behold her sisters and she let out a loud, happy cry. Before the young warlord could grab her, she jumped from the horse into the waiting arms of her sisters.
The men walking behind them grumbled and pushed them forwards, and though the reunion was bittersweet and drew tears, the women fell back into step with the progression.
From his horse, Ennis heard Manek say to the warrior, “You didn’t tell me you had the other Courtnay girl.”
“I didn’t know it myself. She wouldn’t speak to me.”
“Are you all right?” Ennis whispered as Irina desperately ran her hands over Essa. “He hasn’t…”
“No, nothing. He’s called Waurin,” Essa whispered back. “He’s from Carmetheon, on the coast.”
“Manek’s from Rising, wherever that is. Do you think it’s very far from this Carmetheon…?” Ennis said, her mind a map of the expanse between the two Lowland towns.
Essa opened her mouth to answer, but let out a scream instead, her eyes huge when she saw the new fixtures of the Mountain Gate. Quickly shielding her sister’s eyes from the sight, Ennis couldn’t rip her own gaze away from her father’s head mounted on a tall iron spike. Despite the thick cloak wrapped round her shoulders, Ennis felt herself going cold, like layers of snow blanketing a mountainside. She turned her head away.