Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  Though, he had to admit, there was something oddly hilarious about watching Carro, with all his bulk, heaving and hoing and going red in the face under Arro’s mass.

  Piling the heavy pelts under and atop the atherian’s freshly bandaged body, they hitched the cart to Carro’s saddle before retrieving all of Arro’s gear from one of the horses tied down nearby. Next, they heaved Ahna out from where she’d been stowed between the wheels of the cart itself, and tucked her in beside her master. This done, they finally set off at a steady pace, careful not to jostle the slumbering man any more than necessary. After a time, Atler split off from them, searching out a patrol of Ystréd’s city guard, prepared with a well-rehearsed tale about how men had broken into the home of one of their faithful, and how she and some of her Laorin had been forced to subdue them.

  Eva assured them all she would be able to find Sven in time to get the story straight with him, too.

  When they arrived back at the temple, Talo enlisted the help of a half-dozen of the strongest Priests and Priestess who’d come out to greet them, giving quiet orders even as he accepted Carro’s help in dismounting his horse. Together the men and women lifted Arro, still hidden under the furs, and carried him into the temple proper. Once inside, Talo had several of the acolytes close the wide double doors behind them.

  Any witnesses on the street would assume the Laorin were prepping some poor unfortunate for the pyre, or something like that.

  “Doren.” Talo caught the arm of a passing Priest he recognized—the man Atler had asked to fetch her staff for her earlier in the day—as Arro’s still-covered form was set down carefully on the floor of the common hall. “Have a room prepared, preferably on the bottom floor, with a fireplace if possible. Also, see how well the kitchens are stocked with meat. Anything will do.”

  If the Priest found either of the requests odd, he didn’t say. Instead he nodded, then set off at a trot to see to the arrangements.

  “How’s he doing?” Talo asked Carro as the big man bent down to pull the topmost furs off Arro’s face. There was a collective gasp from the gathered Laorin as the Monster of Karth was revealed—if not in all his glory. Talo ignored them.

  “Better, I think,” Carro said, placing a big hand on the atherian’s head, between his spined ears. “He’s cooler than he was, but I don’t know what fever would look like with him, or when it would break.” He looked around at Eva. “Any thoughts?”

  The Southerner shook her head. “Atherian are slaves in the lands past the fringe cities, in Perce and the Seven Cities, but in the South we rarely see them. I wouldn’t know any better than you.”

  Carro sighed, but nodded, getting to his feet again and glancing at Talo. “Nothing to do but wait and pray and hope for the best, love.”

  Talo nodded, then motioned for Carro to follow him. Stepping away from crowd and leaving Eva to tend to Arro, the pair ducked into the relative solitude of a far corner, bending their heads together.

  “Carro…” Talo started, glancing back at the atherian. “Where are the children? Where are Arrun and Lueski?”

  Carro frowned, then looked back at the atherian as though expecting to see the Koyts standing over him worriedly. “I… don’t know,” he said slowly, his face suddenly dark. “He wouldn’t have left them, would he?”

  “To fend for themselves? No.” Talo shook his head.

  “Maybe he had no choice. Those men brought him here, which implies he was on the road heading to Ystréd, and well on the way or they’d have gone to Azbar.”

  “Maybe…” Talo said with a frown. “I don’t like it. Something’s off. Something’s wrong.”

  Sadly, all Carro could do was nod in agreement.

  VI

  “They called her ‘the White Witch,’ which must have seemed fitting enough in the eyes of the masses. Amongst the wild tribes of the Northern mountains, those of sickly and infirm birth are often given to the elements, left for the cold and wind to swallow and forget, sacrifices to the Stone Gods in a plea to keep their people strong. An albino moving among them, a woman grown and powerful in her own right, must have seemed near blasphemy to many. One could almost imagine the sight as a spit in the face of the divine, a literal act of defiance in the refusal to bow to the weakness that bleached her body, a refusal to accept fate and die.”

  — THE ATHERIAN, BY JÛN FI’SURR

  “WHAT ARE we going to do?”

  “They’re coming here? Here?”

  “Damn savages, all of them.”

  “We can’t be sure. No one can be sure. They can’t be coming here, can they?

  “Why can’t they leave us be?”

  From her place at the end of one of the eight long tables that took up the great width of the dining hall, Syrah Brahnt let out a frustrated sigh, shoving her plate of peppered venison, black beans, and spiced potatoes away from her. It had been three days since Jofrey told the Citadel’s council of their suspicions, and in that time rumors had spread like wildfire. Voices whispered and gossiped all around, reaching Syrah even in her secluded corner, as distant from the main body of late evening diners as she had managed to get.

  Told him not to include Petrük, Syrah thought bitterly, resting her elbows on the table and leaning forward to rub her temples with pale fingers. The old bitch can’t help but cause a stir.

  It hadn’t been Jofrey’s intention to hide the truth from the Laorin, of course. He would have told the residents of the Citadel eventually, or at least would have had the other members of the council spread the news. The plan, however, had been to first verify what they could, and perhaps avoid needless panic. Instead, a loose tongue—one Syrah was quite sure belonged to an insufferable old hag of a woman—had let slip the news.

  Gûlraht Baoill, the self-proclaimed Kayle of nearly all the northern range clans, was marching on Cyurgi’ Di at the head of twenty-five thousand strong.

  Small wonder people are frightened.

  Syrah glanced over her shoulder into the packed table behind her. Most of the faces she could see were intent on their conversation, men and women of all ranks trading rumors and theories over the table like fast flowing currency. Not for the first time—despite Jofrey’s placations—she cursed her former Priest-Mentor for his foolish amble south, leaving the High Citadel to deal with the newly rising Arenas in some of the lower valley towns.

  If Talo had stayed, he would have known what to do. If he had acted befittingly of his post as High Priest, he would have been here to deal with this crisis.

  Instead, he’d left Jofrey and Syrah to handle the mess.

  Syrah sighed again, forcing the anger to wane. It wasn’t really Talo’s fault he was gone, as Jofrey reminded her over and over again every time she brought it up. No one could have expected Baoill’s meteoric rise to power, nor the violent path he would carve across the base of the Vietalis ranges as he razed the valley cities of Metcaf and Harond. The situation in Azbar might be minute in the face of the eminent threat of the Kayle’s new army, but at the time the plea sent by Kal Yu’ri—the High Priest of Azbar’s small temple—had certainly seemed worth addressing. Even Syrah had ended up giving Talo her blessing to go, wanting him to recover a little of the peace of mind she’d seen the man lose the moment he’d received Yu’ri’s letter.

  She knew well what it was like to see the victories of hard years and even harder labor ripped away and trampled on.

  “Mistress Brahnt?”

  Syrah sat up, turning to look around as the voice spoke from over her shoulder. Behind her, a young girl stood in acolyte’s robes, extra furs pulled around her collar to ward off the chill that always managed to seep into the halls of the Citadel despite the heated steam that ran through pipes in the walls and floors around them.

  “Yes?” Syrah replied, eyeing the girl. She didn’t recognize her, though that was hardly surprising. The Citadel was the largest of Laor’s temples, home to thousands of all ages. Dozens more arrived every summer, some converts and some born to the faith, d
elivered by parents or travelling Priests and Priestess, or else arriving on foot, managing the harrowing climb up the mountain path all on their own.

  The girl flushed as she met Syrah’s pink eyes. “Priest al’Sen wishes you to join him in the High Priest’s quarters,” she managed to get out, speaking in a rush. “He thought I might find you here and… here you are.” She let the hesitant finish trail awkwardly.

  “Here I am, yes,” Syrah said with a forced smile, waving at the plate of food she’d pushed aside. “And, as you can see, I haven’t finished eating yet. Please tell Jofrey I’ll attend him in the morning.”

  She liked the man plenty, but the throb between her temples the rumormongers had left her with was rapidly draining any will she might have had to deal with anything else that evening.

  Maybe I’ll drag Reyn away from the practice chambers early, she thought privately, a different sort of hunger suddenly filling the void left by her lost appetite as she thought of the man’s broad shoulders and muscled arms. There’s more than one way to cure a headache…

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am,” the girl squeaked, cutting across Syrah’s daydreaming, “but he made it seem very, very important.”

  That got Syrah to pause. “How do you mean?” she asked with a frown.

  “He told me to find you, and told me that if I didn’t to ‘knock on every bloody door in the Citadel’ until I did.”

  Another pause.

  “Shit,” Syrah muttered finally under her breath, not liking the possible implications of such pressing summons.

  “S-Sorry?” the girl asked nervously.

  “Nothing worth repeating,” Syrah told her, pushing herself away from the table and standing up. “Are you hungry?”

  The acolyte hesitated, then nodded.

  “Good, then that’s yours,” Syrah told her, heating her abandoned dinner with a wave of her hand and a flash of magic before stepping over the bench she’d been sitting on. “I get the feeling I won’t have time to come back for it tonight.”

  Not waiting for the girl to respond, she brushed past her, heading for the hall’s arched entryway.

  Despite the urgency in her step, Syrah couldn’t help but feel relieved as she left the brightness and noise of the dining hall, the ache behind her sensitive eyes fading a little in the dimmer lights of the High Citadel’s tunnel halls. Candles and oil lamps stood in little alcoves dug into the brick and earthen walls, or else hung from old chains above her head, flickering weird shadows about as she passed. There was a comfort to the space, a sense of home and safety that all the adventures she’d had couldn’t really compensate for. She’d loved travelling the Northern lands, and had her doubts she was ready to settle down just yet, but there was certainly something about the rough-hewn brick around her and the smoothed stone beneath her feet that drew her in, making her eternally question any notion that she would ever want to leave.

  This place, this vast, titanic keep crafted by ancient men for a war that never seemed to have come, was more a home to her than any place she could fathom actually existed out there in the great vastness of the world.

  Syrah nodded to the men and women she passed as she walked, briefly greeting the Priests and Priestesses she knew and bestowing quick smiles on the acolytes who gave her small bows, moving aside to let her by. She was a known face in these halls, the former acolyte of the High Priest of Cyurgi’ Di himself, the youngest member of the Citadel’s council, and the woman who had brought some peace to the endless war between the valley towns and the mountain tribes.

  A peace that seemed to have vanished even before the inked signatures had a chance to dry on the parchment of the treaties.

  Reaching the plain wooden door of the High Priest’s quarters, Syrah didn’t even bother knocking. Lifting the handle, she let herself into the circular room, closing the door again behind her as she slid inside, looking around.

  When Talo had departed for Azbar, taking Carro with him, he’d left Jofrey al’Sen empowered with the responsibilities of the High Priest’s mantle, and the man had adapted well to the weight of the position. He still slept in his own quarters a few halls down, but had taken to using Talo’s chambers as his study and place of meeting, putting the wide L-shaped escritoire in the middle of the room to good use. The shelves and shelves of books that lined almost every inch of the rounded walls not occupied by arched windows or the headboard of the room’s wide bed had proven invaluable as well, as some of the tomes—which Syrah suspected were Carro’s, given his bastard’s curiosity for his father culture—had helped to fill in gaps in the Laorin’s knowledge of the mountain tribes that Syrah herself hadn’t been able to.

  Three men stood by the desk in the center of the room, pausing in their discussion when they heard the door open behind them. One was Jofrey, a small man in his fifties, sporting a greying beard that reached the top of his chest, blue eyes crinkled around the edges from laughing and smiling and squinting through his crystal spectacles at too many letters into the darker hours of too many nights. He wore stained grey pants and a loose cotton shirt—a far sight different from the usual refinement he cut in the crisp white of his Priest’s robes—and Syrah felt an involuntary chill run down her spine as she realized he’d been roused from his bed.

  Whatever had happened, it had been important enough to wake him from what rare sleep he got these days…

  Of the other two, Syrah only recognized them vaguely. They were men of the cloth, residents of the High Citadel, but you wouldn’t have thought so given the image they cut now. Bedecked from head to toe in pelts and thick wool overcoats and pants, the men looked like they would have fit more at home with the mountain men that were causing such a stir than among the faithful of the keep. The fur stuck to them in clumps, thick and drenched with what she assumed was melted snow, and they had the miserable air about them of men stuck too long in out in the freeze.

  “Syrah,” Jofrey greeted her with a tired smile as she approached them. “Good. Sona managed to find you then. I hoped she would.”

  “You seemed to have made it very clear that it was in everyone’s best interest she did,” Syrah told him with a nod, coming to stand opposite him, between the two nameless Priests.

  “I did indeed,” he mumbled, half listening as he glanced to the man on Syrah’s right. “Have you met Priest Loben? Or,” he waved to the man on Syrah’s left, “Priest Derro?”

  “We haven’t had the pleasure, no,” Syrah replied, nodding to each of the Priests in turn. “We’ve come across each other in passing, I’m sure, but nothing more.”

  “Always busy running around, eh?” Loben, the one on her right, jested with a strained grin. He had a pinched, ungraciously framed face, but his smile was friendly, if stressed. “I remember you as a girl, much the same. Always running around with Reyn Hartlet and the rest of your little friends. My son, Bellen, was in some of your classes, in fact.”

  “I remember Bellen.” Syrah perked up. “He helped me get through arithmetics! I never had much of a mind for numbers, sadly.”

  “And you never had much of a mind for company either, it seems,” the other man, Priest Derro, grumbled from her left. “What in the Lifegiver’s name possessed you to get involved with the savages, woman? I would think someone cut from Brahnt’s cloth would never have been so foolhardy.”

  There was a thick silence as Syrah turned slowly to look Derro in the face. He was a short, rotund man, barely an inch taller than she, with beady eyes that glared at her with zealous confidence and foolish judgment. His pudgy face looked as though it were usually clean-shaven, but had taken on the shadow of several days of stubble, now sprouting in patches around his flabby neck, weak chin, and thin lips like dying grass on dry soil.

  “What ‘possessed me’”—she rolled the phrase pointedly as she replied—“were the vows we made to do what we can for all people, sir. Not just those whose accessibility happens to be within stone’s throw of a well-laden table.”

  The remark struck
the fat man as intended, and he flushed, opening his mouth to respond.

  Jofrey, however, beat him to it.

  “Derro, keep your opinions to yourself,” he said sharply, the tired man replaced suddenly by the striking presence of the interim High Priest. “The news you both bring is enough to swallow tonight, and I need none of your ugly comments to spice my meal, thank you very much.”

  “What news?” Syrah asked quickly, deciding to do her part in bringing the conversation back to the subject at hand as she looked between Jofrey and Priest Loben.

  “Mountain men,” Loben said in mumbled answer. “At the base of the pass.”

  In response to this, Derro snorted. “So Loben thinks,” he grumbled. “Six days we’ve camped at the bottom of those damn stairs, with this one”—he waved an impatient hand at the taller Priest—“jumping at every stray flutter of leaves and flick in the shadows. Spends most of his time shaking in his boots, muttering about wolves and ursali. Now it’s the damn Kayle himself.”

  “Camped?” Syrah repeated, confused.

  “Loben and Derro are two of ten,” Jofrey told her with a nod. “I sent a group of our more experienced through the storms, to guard the mountain pass, with provisions for two weeks. If the Kayle is indeed coming here, the progress of the bulk of his army will be slow. It was my hope, though, that eyes and ears in the Woods might be able to warn us of any scouting parties he may have sent ahead.”

  “Wise,” Syrah said with a nod before looking back at Loben. “And?”

  Loben bit his lip nervously, giving a sidelong look at Derro, who opened his mouth to say something more.

  He hadn’t quite gotten it out before Syrah lifted an angry finger, not even turning to look at him.