Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  As Carro spoke, Raz examined the faces of the men and women before him. He felt an increasing unease as he studied them once, twice, and finally a third time, assuring himself that he was not incorrect. He knew he wasn’t, of course. Raz was loath to admit it to himself, but his hope of seeing the woman with the white hair once again had led him to seek her out the moment the council had entered the room.

  Syrah Brahnt, though, was nowhere to be found.

  The unease turned into a prickle of something like fear, rising in Raz’s chest as he forced himself to take in more about the men and women before him. Apart from Cullen Brern, Jofrey, the insufferable pair of Valaria Petrük and Behn Argo, and Carro himself, there were five strangers. Two women—one perhaps as old as Petrük and the other in her thirties—and three men—one wizened old Priest who looked to be defying death in his age, one who Raz thought had half-a-dozen years on Carro and Brern, and one perhaps in his late forties who shared not a few distinctive features with the master-at-arms, leading Raz to guess the two men were at the very least cousins, likely brothers. Each after another Raz studied with professional detachment, distracting himself from Syrah’s absence by trying to make out what sort of characters the council of the Laorin’s greatest temple was crafted from.

  He was relieved, based on the reactions to Carro’s story, that Petrük and Argo looked to be the only true bad apples of the bunch.

  For nearly a quarter-hour the Priest spoke, pausing only on occasion to answer questions when they were posed, and to look to Raz for confirmation or assistance in the details. When he got to the evening of the wolves’ attack he began to falter, and Raz feared he would fall apart again. Carro held himself together, though, and went on to explain in detail how they had fended off the pack together only to be assaulted by the ursalus not long after, and how Talo had been struck down shortly before Raz’s slaughtering of the bear.

  It was here, for the first time, that Raz was puzzled to hear Carro deviate from the story. As he recounted Talo’s demise, there under the faint light of the Moon as he tried desperately to heal his lover, Carro made it sound as though Talo had passed on of his own accord, succumbing to his broken body peacefully, as though in his sleep.

  He said nothing of the merciful death Raz had granted him, delivered in steel.

  Raz didn’t really understand why Carro had changed the story, but it was an important enough detail to omit that the Priest would lie about it, and so he kept his mouth shut. Eventually Carro completed retelling of their breaking through the sentries at the bottom of the stairs, catching up to where they’d met Brern along the mountain path.

  “In retrospect, I should have assumed we would cross a ward,” he said with a frown, “but my mind was preoccupied by other things as we climbed. Reyn went first for Raz, who’d taken watch.” Carro allowed himself a small smile, the only one since he’d started speaking. “It wasn’t a long fight.”

  “Apparently.” One of the council spoke up—the man Raz thought to be a bit older than Carro and Brern—looking to the master-at-arms. “I said it was a bad idea to bring Hartlet, Cullen.”

  Brern grimaced, waving the comment away. “Aye, Elber, you did, and you weren’t wrong. In light of everything else, though, I suggest we not waste time on my moment of folly.”

  Jofrey, sitting front and center in front of Carro, nodded his agreement.

  “Indeed,” he said slowly. “It wasn’t Cullen’s folly alone, to be sure, and we have other matters to attend to. Talo’s death leaves the Laorin in a precarious position. It grieves me that we can’t afford the time to mourn, much less retrieve his body for the Giving Grounds, but if we can no longer expect assistance from the valley towns then we have a great many things to consider.”

  “What options are left to us, if we can no longer rely on aid from the towns?” the bent elder sitting behind Jofrey asked in a frail, soft voice. “Our stores are limited, we have no High Priest, and we haven’t the numbers to defeat the Kayle on our own.”

  “No High Priest?” Cullen Brern demanded incredulously, sounding almost angry. “Jofrey was left with the mantle by Talo himself. Jofrey is our High Priest.”

  Raz watched Jofrey look suddenly uncomfortable but—before the man could say anything either way—Valaria Petrük leapt to her feet to his left.

  “Jofrey was cast as interim High Priest until Talo’s return,” she said haughtily. “He was never given the mantle officially. It is the responsibility of the council, therefore—”

  “To vote in Talo’s successor,” the younger man Raz was nearly positive now had to be Cullen Brern’s younger brother drawled sarcastically from over Jofrey’s right shoulder. “Aye, we know, Petrük. And—as I agree with Cullen that we don’t have time to waste on frivolous matters—I’ll take the shortest route to ensuring your poisonous tongue doesn’t fill a second more than needs be. Esteemed members of the council—” he said this with a dramatic roll of his eyes “—cast if you are not in favor of Jofrey retaining the High Priest’s mantle.”

  Petrük glowered at the Priest, but raised her hand at once. After a moment’s hesitation, Behn Argo followed suit.

  There was an ugly pause as every eye in the room fell on them, waiting, not a single other motion breaking the stillness of the chamber. After several seconds the man who’d called for the vote chuckled, reaching an arm down to clasp Jofrey on the shoulder.

  “Congratulations are in order, High Priest al’Sen.”

  Jofrey’s face was flushed—though not quite to the extent of Petrük’s, who was sitting down in seething silence once again—and he patted the man’s hand.

  “Thank you, Kallet,” he said with a strained smile. “I hardly think we can call that a fair vote, though. I imagine Talo would have liked Carro to take his place if—”

  “No.”

  Every face in the room turned to Carro, who had almost shouted the word, and Raz watched as the Priest’s face grew suddenly sickly, like the implications of becoming High Priest did nothing short of terrorize him.

  Jofrey frowned, looking surprised. “The only reason I was asked to oversee the Citadel in Talo’s absence was because you were leaving with him, Carro. I know he would tell you the same thing, if he were here…”

  Carro turned sad at the man’s words, but Raz noticed something else in his bearing as he stood over him on the dais. The hand of Carro’s broken arm was clenched into a hard fist, half-hidden in its sling, and the one grasping his staff before him was gripped so tight that the steel was starting to shake against the black stone at his feet

  Why is he angry? Raz wondered, perplexed at what about taking on the High Priest’s mantle could possibly have thrown Carro al’Dor—the calm, level-headed right hand of Talo Brahnt—into such a quiet ire.

  Eventually, whatever had taken hold of Carro passed, and he calmed.

  “I have no interest in being High Priest, Jofrey,” he said evenly. “Not now, not ever. I would appreciate it if you accepted the mantle, and allow us to move on.”

  Jofrey, too, Raz saw, seemed to have noticed Carro’s momentary change. He was watching his old friend with genuine worry now.

  Still, after a time, he nodded.

  Carro sighed, and the last of the tension left him as the rest of the council—with the exception of Petrük and Argo—either exclaimed their enthusiasm and support or else reached out to extend Jofrey their compliments and felicitations. Jofrey, though, raised a hand for silence.

  It fell at once, all eyes on the new High Priest of Cyurgi’ Di.

  “My thanks, all,” he said in a tired voice. “We will revisit this, in time, but for the moment the Kayle knocks on our door and we’ve minimal means by which to defend our home. As things are, we are only condemning ourselves and every inhabitant of the Citadel to a slow demise if we do not devise a way to deal with Gûlraht Baoill.”

  “Baoill isn’t at the pass,” Cullen Brern said, shifting his weight more comfortably against the dark stone beneath him. “Not yet, a
t least.”

  Jofrey frowned and—to Raz’s surprise—looked right at him. “So we’ve heard. You’re certain of this? There are no more than a thousand men in the encampment you saw?”

  Raz nodded at once, taking the opportunity to make himself of value. “At most, though I can’t speak to if they are expecting reinforcements. If you’re thinking of launching a counter-assault, I would highly recommend you do so soon, before—“

  “A ‘counter-assault?’” Behn Argo raised his voice scornfully, staring down his nose at Raz. “What do you take us for, lizard? Some sort of military outpost?”

  Raz saw Carro bristle and turn to face the man out of the corner of his eye, but he reached a clawed hand up to stop him, grabbing him gently on his arm.

  “Your infantile attempt to goad me aside, Priest,” Raz said coolly, narrowing his eyes at Argo in the seat above, “I have no delusions as to the purpose and mission of your faith. Despite the poor example you seem intent on setting, I have seen the good this faith attempts with my own eyes, have witnessed the warmth and hope you spread. No, I don’t take you for any kind of army or war-band or anything of the sort, but I think you would be foolish to discount that there are warriors among you, given your situation.” He gestured at the form of Reyn Hartlet on the stone beside a—for once—quiet Dolt Avonair. “The only mistake your man made last night was picking a fight with me. I’ve spent the better part of the last decade of my life with a sword in hand, and have been in the company of Priests for long enough now to be familiar with the magics and skills you possess. The mountain men are battleworn and blooded, I’ll grant you that, but they are also overconfident, ignorant, and superstitious, characteristics I have witnessed with my own eyes. They may have you under siege, may have claimed control of your only way on or off this mountain, but you still have advantages you could press. If you play the game right you could break the control they have on the mountain path and make for the relative shelter of the Woods.”

  “But how would we manage that, without killing?” the man Jofrey had called Kallet asked warily. “Because we of the faith are honor bound not to—”

  “Not to take a life,” Carro interrupted in an impatient huff. “Yes, yes, he knows. I’ve drilled it into him enough at this point.”

  “Then the beast is telling us to abandon our home!” Petrük voiced in disdain. “As if we would leave the High Citadel to the violations of tribal cretins like the Kayle and his men.”

  “The beast,” Raz told her in an angry hiss, enunciating the word so the woman might know the line she was toeing, “is demanding nothing of you, nor suggesting that anyone should be ready to cast their vows aside. He is merely attempting to enlighten you on your options: relinquish your halls and fight for a chance at freedom and life, or stay and die a slow, stubborn death of starvation until you’re all too weak to stop Baoill from marching right through the front gate and finishing the job at his leisure.”

  There was a long, leaden pause after Raz’s words as everyone gaped at him. Even Petrük and Argo looked shaken, as though the ultimatum he had just presented was putting things into perspective all too painfully.

  Eventually, Carro coughed and broke the silence.

  “What does Syrah think of all of this?” he asked, looking to Jofrey. “I’m surprised she isn’t here. Was no one able to find her?”

  The effect his words had was immediate and terrible.

  Like some invisible executioner’s ax that had been hovering over the group was suddenly falling, the council seemed to shrink into themselves as one, drawing away from Carro’s question as though they could keep it from reaching them. In an instant the seed of fear that had wedged itself in Raz’s heart took root, and his eyes snapped to Jofrey.

  The High Priest was staring up at Carro, mouth open and face white, and this time it was he who seemed unable to get the words out.

  “What happened?” Raz demanded, rising to his feet like a boiling, furious storm, towering over them all. “Where is Syrah?”

  Jofrey’s blue eyes shifted to his. There was no fear there, as most men’s eyes might have held if the Monster of Karth descended on them, horrible in his need to have his questions answered. Instead, there was only pain.

  Pain, and unbearable, immeasurable sadness.

  “Where is she?” Raz asked again, his voice rising rapidly. “Where. Is. Syrah?”

  Still, though, Jofrey seemed unable to formulate a response.

  It was Cullen Brern, in the end, who answered.

  “Syrah Brahnt was killed at the base of the mountain path,” the master-at-arms said softly while Raz whirled on him. “It was nearly two weeks past, now. She was part of a delegation, a group of Priests and Priestesses who went to seek terms from the mountain men.” Brern swallowed painfully, but looked up to meet Raz’s burning gaze. “I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you on the path, but…”

  As the man’s words trailed away, Raz recalled suddenly the odd hesitation the Priest had displayed during their conversation in the sheltering alcove. He had thought at the time it had to do with Reyn Hartlet’s attack.

  He understood, now, that that was not the case.

  “How do you know?”

  It was Carro who voiced the question, and Raz turned to see the man staring at Cullen Brern with livid intensity, body rigid, face tense and strained.

  Brern blinked, surprised at the question. “What do you—?”

  “How do you know?” Carro roared. “Did you see her? Did you see her body?”

  Brern’s features became suddenly ashen. “They sent up the heads of the delegation. They brought them to the gates, before we’d cast the wards. We couldn’t even recognize some of them…”

  An image, vivid and horrible, flashed across Raz’s mind. A basket, bloody and frosted with snow, whose contents were hidden from view. He refused to look over the edge of it, refused to peer inside, but all the same he couldn’t help but stare at the thing, taking it in with terrible fascination.

  Especially the strands of white hair that tumbled out between the wicker weaving, fluttering over the ground, sad and limp in death.

  Suddenly, for the first time in what seemed like years, Raz felt himself start to lose control.

  “Syrah wasn’t with them.”

  For a long moment Raz wasn’t sure he had actually heard Jofrey speak the words. It seemed that they were part of some far-off dream, some fantasy. As he looked to the man, though, he saw that the newly appointed High Priest was gazing up at him intently, almost desperately.

  “Wh-what do you mean?” Carro croaked, staring at Jofrey as well.

  The High Priest hesitated, and Raz noted that most of the other council members were averting their eyes from him, clearly uncomfortable with his admission.

  “Syrah’s head,” he said at last. “It wasn’t among the others. They sent every single one, except hers. I don’t—” He paused, looking pained.

  When he spoke again, it was with confused, hopeful terror.

  “I don’t think she’s dead.”

  The revelation of his words rocked Raz like a tidal wave, cracking his consciousness further as his mind ripped something else from his memory. The Woods. The light of fires and the sounds of men. The maddening, nerve-racking route they had taken along the outskirts of the camp.

  The cruel decision they had been forced to make, there beneath the icy blue-green canopy of the Arocklen.

  Slowly Raz turned, seeking Carro’s eyes. He wondered if the man was thinking the same thing, wondered if the Priest was putting the same pieces together he was, forming an identical, horrifying picture.

  The aged man’s stricken, petrified stare, told him he was.

  “Jofrey is the only one who continues to suffer from the delusion that Syrah Brahnt hasn’t returned to the Lifegiver’s embrace,” Valaria Petrük chimed in, taking advantage. “If anything, I think it should be grounds to reconsider him as—”

  “The woman,” Raz hissed, punctuating the Priestess�
� vain prattling. “The woman from the tent.”

  Carro’s face was bloodless, his eyes wide in horror.

  “No…” he whispered. “Laor’s mercy… No…”

  “We heard her, Carro,” Raz said, feeling something terrible start to crawl its way out of the deepest corners of his mind. “We heard her, and we did nothing.”

  “What are you talking about?” Brern’s voice seemed to come from far off, trying to break into their conversation. “What woman?”

  Raz ignored him. Before him Carro could do nothing, his sight far off, as though fighting the understanding now crashing down.

  “We left her, Carro,” Raz snarled, feeling the black descend, feeling the rage and fire boil upward. “We left her, and did nothing.”

  “It was a camp slave,” the Priest choked out, sounding as though he were trying and failing to convince himself. “It had to—It was a slave!”

  “It. Was. HER!”

  Raz’s roar ripped through the room, ringing high and cold against the warmth of the air. As it faded it left only silence, like the words had swallowed all other sound, leaving a ringing heaviness to the place. Raz sensed the tension shift at his back as the council began to fear him once more, his sudden fury palpable even to them.

  “Raz…?” Carro began hesitantly, seeing the signs and taking a tentative step closer. “Raz… wait.”

  But Raz was already fading by the time the Priest spoke the words. The world seemed to twist around him, changing before his very eyes as he remembered the woman’s muffled screams, remembered the men’s laughter through the leather and canvas.

  As he recalled the vile sounds of pleasure, Raz felt the cold rise up to swallow his mind.

  His last thought was the final blow of some cruel hammer, shattering the last remnants of his control.

  I did nothing.

  “Raz…?” Carro started as he saw the change come over his friend, taking a cautious step forward. “Raz… wait.”