Winter's King

by Bryce O'Connor

  On the other hand, he had expected the false-prophets might retreat behind the relative safety of their walls, not prepare to meet his army in open battle. Unless he was misinformed, there couldn’t be more than two or three thousand within the keep, and only a fraction of them men and women capable of defending the place.

  “Perhaps they seek to meet us along the path?” Elrös asked, falling in behind Gûlraht as they started up a narrow set of carved stairs. “They hope to gain the tactical advantage, assuming we will only be able to launch our attack from the steps.”

  Gûlraht shook his head, his brow creasing as he thought. “Were that true, then they would send their men as far down the mountain as they could, so as they were pressed back they would still hold the advantage. Meeting us at the top defies that purpose…”

  He considered the possibilities, for a time, shifting his ax to his other hand so he could balance himself against the wall to his right as the stairs grew slick.

  This struck him with a thought.

  “Elrös,” he said sharply, looking back at the man as soon as he was on sure footing. “Tell me of the terrain. What sort of place is it that they wait for us?”

  The Gähs’ sharp eyes peered up at him from beneath his wolf-skull helm. “A plateau, my Kayle. An outer courtyard, like a flattened half-circle, clearly carved out of the mountain by man. It is the space before the walls of the fortress itself, one edge—the north’s—walled in by stone, the other sheer as a cliff.”

  “How large is it? Is it snow-covered, or has it been cleared?”

  Elrös squinted as he made to recall.

  “It is of great width, and what little snow covered the stone seems to have built up since a recent clearing. In fact—” he sounded suddenly surprised “—several of the men were set about doing exactly that…”

  Gûlraht nodded, but said nothing more, thinking. After a minute or so of further contemplation he dismissed the man with a word, listening to the Gähs scamper back along the path to where the rest of his pack likely waited.

  Agor joined him again almost at once.

  “What news?” the older man asked under his breath, as though he didn’t want the others to hear. Gûlraht rather thought it was Rako’s ear he was avoiding, and didn’t disapprove.

  Despite this, as he answered, he kept his private thoughts to himself. “They wait for us at the top,” he told the man truthfully. “Tell the men to prepare for an ambush, but do not attack without my command. If it is words they wish to share, I would hear them.”

  Agor looked surprised at this.

  “Words?” he asked in a tone that bordered on frustration. “What words could blasphemers have that would sway your judgment?”

  “None,” Gûlraht told him, fixing the man with a burning glare to put him back in his place. “But we can ill afford to risk spending the next few months wasting time on a siege while the valley towns strengthen their defenses and bolster their armies. If words allow me even a few minutes more to surround the fortress without resistance, then I. Will. Have. Words.”

  He injected every enunciation of this last statement with a fierce promise meant to tell Agor all too clearly that he was toeing a line with his questioning. In truth, Gûlraht cared little and less what terms the Laorin might present him, because he had other suspicions as to why he was being met at the fortress gates. If he shared them, though, he suspected his generals would do their best to convince him of the folly falling for such a trap could mean, and he was in no mood to be hounded as the Citadel became more and more distinct with each passing step.

  Agor, for his part, did as he was commanded, falling back to relay the orders. As the general did this, Gûlraht reached into the side of his leather breastplate—like he had every few hours for the last four days—and wrapped his gloved fingers around the silky bundle of braids he kept there, close to his heart.

  He smiled, fingering the hair in anticipation, feeling the bloodlust begin to rise within him. Not long after, Gûlraht couldn’t help but allow a shiver of pure excitement work its way up his spine, because he’d taken a bend in the path and found himself looking up, towards a flat edge not far above.

  With rising exhilaration, he started up the last of the path’s steps.

  L

  THE HIGH CITADEL, to the eyes of a man of the mountains, was nothing short of a wonder worthy even of Them of Stone. It was a castle carved from the living rock of the cliffs, suspended in many parts—by what Gûlraht could only imagine was both man’s ingenuity and the devilish magics of the place’s current residents—over open air and slick bluffs. Towers and walls jutted from the mountain in layers, until the fortress looked almost a city lost among the peaks. Gûlraht had been—to his chagrin—impressed by the mass and breadth of the valley towns he had descended on over the first weeks of his campaign, taken aback by the truth of their size as he saw them up close for the first time. In comparison, the home of the Laorin was a small thing.

  And all the more magnificent for it.

  It existed, like some great beast, almost untouched by the endless assault of winter and wind. Here and there light could be seen against the grey and white of the carved granite and mortared slate, peeking through narrow arrow slits like dozens of fiery eyes. Its mouth lay below these, directly across from where Gûlraht and his generals stood at the top of the stairs, a gaping entrance to a long tunnel, flanked by paired bastion towers that loomed almost like arms overhead. For a moment the crenellations of the walls seemed claws, and the Kayle could just imagine the Citadel as a whole rising up to crush him like he were nothing more than a flake of snow amid ten-thousand others beneath its paws.

  When the fleeting vision left, Gûlraht found himself swearing by his life, his army, and the Stone Gods themselves that he would have this place for his own.

  The figure that awaited the Kayle was, in comparison, a disappointing sight. Gûlraht had anticipated a regal reception, likely the richly dressed form of whatever master this fortress might currently suffer, or perhaps even the White Witch, come to goad him within safe reach of her friends. After a moment he realized that the Witch was indeed present, but stood some twenty yards away, glaring at him with one pink eye from the front of a group of some two hundred men and women all armed with silver staffs, their white robes whipping about them in the wind.

  Gûlraht stared the woman down as she met his gaze, turning to the figure before him only after the Witch had paled and looked away.

  The man standing no more than ten feet in front of them was a strange sight. He carried no staff, and his robes were grey and ratty. One sleeve was loose and flapping, and by the bulge along his chest the arm looked to be strapped about his torso, like a healing break. A dark cloth covered the lower half of his face, hiding his nose and mouth, and a wide hood billowed and cut low over his forehead, almost blocking his eyes from view.

  When Gûlraht finally made them out, though, he knew there was more to this man than his worn clothes let on. These were eyes that did not fear him—or at least not nearly as much as they should—their clear blue shining against the somberness of the cloth about them. They took the Kayle in with something less than respect, but more than hate. They took him in with confidence, despite having to look up into his face to meet his gaze, and did not flinch away even as the Kayle took a step forward.

  “My Kayle—” Rako the Calm started from behind Gûlraht at this motion, his voice almost lost to the growing wind, but Gûlraht stopped him with an aggravated wave of his hand, not looking over his shoulder. He had eyes only for the man before him, and was peering down at him carefully, trying to make out the detail that had made him curious enough to approach even a little.

  Then he saw it again. An odd scar, formed by two smooth, straight lines crisscrossing over the man’s right eye, disappearing beneath the hood and mouth cloth. Gûlraht had no idea how such a wound could be suffered, and had only enough time to gauge that the lines were far too perfect to be made by any blade, when th
e man spoke. His voice thundered out in practiced mountain tongue from behind his wrappings.

  “I seek audience with he who is Kayle of the mountain clans!”

  Gûlraht snarled, then replied in the rough Common he had had his slave girls instruct him in every night over the last few months.

  “Cease butchery of mountain language, little man. Befouling the tongue of the Gods, you are.”

  The figure before him—who by any accounts but Gûlraht’s was not at all “little”—looked surprised, then almost impressed.

  “I seek an audience with the Kayle of the mountain clans,” the man repeated, reverting to his own speech. “Are you Gûlraht Baoill, of the Sigûrth tribes of the Vietalis Ranges?”

  At that, Gûlraht smiled wickedly.

  Then he looked over the stranger’s shoulder. Syrah Brahnt had gathered courage from somewhere to meet his stare now, and her scowl did not flinch away this time even as his eyes settled on her.

  “Better to trust one of your own to tell you, you would like?” he asked in a playful tone. “Bring the Wyth within my reach and ask her who stands before you, you should.”

  The man didn’t bother acknowledging the words, only repeating his question. “Are you Gûlraht Baoill?”

  Gûlraht frowned, seeing that this was a character unwilling to play his game. He set his face into a searing glare that would have withered any of his own men to nothing.

  “Gûlraht Baoill, I am,” he said fiercely, taking another step forward so that he was practically towering over the man. “Chieftain of the Sigûrth, conqueror of the Gähs, the Kregoan, the Amreht, and the pitiful tribes of your own mountains. Slayer of Emreht Grahst, who was chieftain before me. Son of Tarruk Baoill, who was chieftain before Emreht. Born of Them of Stone, carved of the winter storms, and your end, bringing behind me.”

  At this he stepped partially aside, indicating the mountains east of him with his ax, along the path he had been climbing since that morning. Like a black flood his army overran the cliffs, blotting out the snow and ridges as they moved to surround the Citadel. The drums continued their endless beat, their hammering echoing ten-fold with every strike.

  The grey-robed man before him didn’t so much as blink.

  “You seek to bring war down upon the faith,” he said calmly, his eyes following the dark mass of the army edging its way north and west, surrounding them. “The Laorin are a people of peace, of sincerity. By seeking their destruction, you move against those that have never sought you ill will.”

  “Seeking their destruction, I move to wipe false-god from the stories of past and future,” the Kayle snapped back, flexing his powerful arms as he stood looking down upon the stranger. “Your ilk are blasphemers, heretics and prophets of wickedness. Your Wyth alone—” he raised a hand to point a finger at the woman near the back of the courtyard “—spits on old ways and tramples tradition under boot.”

  “She sought only to save your people,” the man said, still eerily calm. “She sought only to better your lives through peace, to strengthen your weak and allow your children to grow old.”

  “No place amongst the mountains for the weak, there is!” Gûlraht thundered. “No place for children not strong enough to survive the storms on their own. You and your kind are frail kind, dependent on vile sorceries and strength of others to survive. Blight on this world, you are.”

  The man’s scarred face twisted into a grimace. “Then you will not parley for peace?” he demanded. “You will not allow us to seek terms, that we might avoid the madness that is this war you so desperately seek?”

  At this, Gûlraht began to laugh. It was a heavy, fierce laugh, thick with amusement at the man’s offered prospects. Truth be told, Gûlraht was impressed. Had this stranger been one of his own men, he didn’t know whether he would have sought to flay him for his cheek or promote him for his gall.

  “No,” he finally said, looking back down and hefting his great ax with one arm, thrusting it forward, under the man’s nose. “No parley. No seek terms. Your time you waste, and mine. Declare yourself, and end foolishness of yours.”

  “I AM A MAN WHO WOULD SEEK TO CHALLENGE YOU, GÛLRAHT BAOILL, IN FORMAL COMBAT!”

  The words, shouted out in perfect, practiced mountain tongue, rang clear over the wind, echoing across the mountainside. Though the army around them and in the distance might not have made it out as they marched, the challenge was audible enough to Gûlraht, his generals, and the entourage that had followed behind them. In an instant the rumbling of a hundred voices could be heard, building up second by second as more and more men caught and spread the words. Behind him the Kayle made out Agor and Erek snort in derision, and Rako gasp in surprise.

  Gûlraht, though, only grinned.

  It was as he had suspected, and his heart quickened with excitement.

  “Arrogant dog!” Agor’s voice suddenly shouted out from behind him, apparently meant for the grey-robed man. “Is this your plan? You have been blinded by your own hope. Only a man of the clans may call for a—!”

  Agor’s voice faltered and cut short as the stranger reached up with his one hand and pulled free the cloth about his mouth. As it flew off, whipped away by the wind, he reached up and pulled down his hood.

  Gûlraht felt his heart sing.

  He saw now the extent of the scar. It extended without end, a perfect X over the man’s right eye, marring his skin in an almost surreal fashion. He looked to be of an age, older than Agor but not quite of Rako’s years, and there was a graveness to his face that spoke of sadness, will, and an understanding of the cruel realities of life. Gûlraht, though, registered all of this in an instant, his attention fixed more on the other details, the ones that made him want to roar in pleasure.

  Blond, braided hair danced wildly about the man’s head, wooden beads clacking together and metal rings glinting in the dim glare of the sun through the thick clouds above. His beard whipped about, plated and decorated in similar fashion, his mouth a tight line behind the yellowed hairs.

  Were it not for the robes, the stranger could have practically counted himself among the ranks of the Kayle’s armies and none would have been the wiser.

  “I am Carro al’Dor, of clan blood by my father’s seed,” the man said once more in the rehearsed tongue of the tribes, still loud enough for all nearby to hear. “I am as much a son of the Stone Gods as any of you might claim to be. I therefore claim my birthright and challenge you, Gûlraht Baoill, to formal combat.”

  The rumbling of men’s raised voices redoubled as Carro al’Dor’s claims were repeated again and again and again, passed back and upwards through the ranks pouring about the Citadel. Gûlraht knew, even if he had wanted to, that it was too late to refuse now, and he took a moment to appreciate how well this robed stranger had played the game, forcing his hand. The challenge had been made, and whether or not al’Dor’s declarations were true or merely some last-ditch effort to grant the Laorin even the barest sliver of hope, it didn’t matter.

  If Gûlraht refused on grounds he could not disprove, he would shame himself.

  And more importantly, the Kayle thought, meeting the man’s queer, scarred eyes levelly, here is an opportunity to break the Laorin’s spirit in an instant…

  “I accept your challenge, Carro al’Dor of clan blood, and will grant you the duel you seek.”

  And like that, the deed was done. A stillness settled over the mountain, spreading like water poured over dry stone. The Kayle of the tribes had acknowledged this strange man’s claim, and had accepted the challenge

  Carro al’Dor inclined his head.

  Then for the first time, he asked something Gûlraht had not anticipated.

  “Will you be selecting a champion, Kayle of the tribes?”

  Gûlraht stared at him for several seconds, finding himself somewhere between infuriated and amused. al’Dor had the right to the question, of course, but any who had ever seen Gûlraht Baoill stand beside even the next greatest of his warriors would have kno
wn it was a foolish inquiry.

  Gûlraht was about to laugh and mock the man—had even opened his mouth to retort—when he paused, realizing what the man was after.

  Right then, Gûlraht’s excitement became almost intolerable. He had assumed this man before him, who stood tall and strong despite his age and apparent injuries, would be the one he would fight. He didn’t dress in the manner of a Priest, so perhaps he was precluded from the ridiculous rule the Laorin held regarding the taking of a life. If he was skilled in wielding the black powers of their corrupt deity, then he might just prove a worthy opponent, one whose death would garner great glory for both Gûlraht and the Gods. Gûlraht had never had the chance to battle magic before, and the sweet taste of the opportunity was almost palpable.

  But if there was a stronger warrior among the false-prophets that the faith would allow to fight…

  And then, all of a sudden, Gûlraht felt a dead hope flame up within him. A word came to his mind, one that had spread like fire throughout his men, whispered in hushed tones or else only spoken of around the evening fires, in the comforting presence of companions. He could barely contain himself as he finally answered al’Dor.

  “No champion will I claim, old man,” he said, smiling widely and bending down until he was practically nose-to-nose with the former Priest. “And you?”

  al’Dor did not move for a long time. He didn’t flinch away from Gûlraht’s gaze—though it looked as though he might want to—nor did he speak. After several seconds, though, he took a step back, then another, then turned and made his slow return towards the group near the mouth of the Citadel, his boots leaving distinct prints in the thin layer of snow that had gathered in the time they had been speaking.

  Then, as al’Dor joined the ranks of the Laorin, a different figure rose, stepping out from where it had been hidden behind the White Witch, and began to move towards the Kayle.