by Sandell Wall
Remus tried to take a step and almost fell flat on his face. Through the gauntlet, he was watching himself over his own shoulder. He had to tell himself what to do, and then consciously act out the command. Tethana rushed to his side, offering her support.
“Thanks,” he whispered. He looked at Promost Lister and Pikon. “Gather all of your soldiers and prepare to defend the city. I have to find Goregash.”
With Tethana’s help, he staggered out the door.
Chapter 13
AVENTINE, HOLMGRIM, AND SAFFRIN marched out of Prancet Province under the banners of House Ramath. Traveling through the countryside in force, Sir Ignatius saw no reason to continue disguising his presence. Set on a white background with a golden border, the golden bear crest of House Ramath ensured that any who saw them would think twice about approaching.
Sir Ignatius refused to accommodate Lady Saffrin despite her being a noblewoman of high standing. The Lord of House Ramath wanted to keep Umgragon’s presence a secret for as long as possible. The only concession Sir Ignatius allowed was to give Saffrin and her retainers permission to walk apart from the soldiers, sparing them dust and affording them privacy so long as they kept his grueling pace.
“Sir Ignatius talked with you for hours,” Aventine said. “What does he intend to do?”
“His plan is to use me as a bargaining chip,” Saffrin said. “Umgragon controls the wealth of the empire. Sir Ignatius believes that when the other houses hear of an alliance between Umgragon and House Ramath, they will follow him instead of Sir Lorent. I’m his proof.”
“But you can bring no aid from Umgragon. How long will the deception hold?”
“He never asked for my consent. It was made quite clear to me that I should go along with his plan. He doesn’t need an actual alliance with Umgragon, only the appearance of one, and my presence gives that.”
“Which means he’ll be watching you.”
“Without a doubt. I don’t think we’ll be able to escape on the road.”
“So we march into the lair of the enemy,” Holmgrim said. “That’s becoming a habit with you two.”
“It’s how I make friends,” Aventine said.
Both Holmgrim and Saffrin laughed.
The journey to the imperial province took four days of hard travel. Sir Ignatius had hurried from Prancet Province with only his shock troops, two hundred soldiers and half as many rune casters. The rest of House Ramath’s forces would soon follow behind them, escorting the great supply wagons that carried the trappings and equipment of House Ramath’s infantry.
Pushed hard by Sir Ignatius, there was scant opportunity for talking. Aventine hiked twenty-five miles a day and collapsed in exhaustion for six hours at night. Holmgrim could have covered twice the ground in the same time, but Saffrin struggled. Once, when Sir Ignatius stood beside the road waiting for the column to pass him by, Aventine approached the lord praetor.
“My lord,” she said. “The Lady Saffrin is not accustomed to the pace of a forced march. Might we break from the soldiers and travel behind at a slower pace? We’ll only be a day or two late, and my lady will arrive in much better spirits.”
“The Lady Saffrin is integral to my plans,” Sir Ignatius said. “If she cannot walk, she will be carried. Attend to your duty.”
Aventine returned to Saffrin’s side. “He won’t leave you behind. He’ll carry you over his shoulder if he has to.”
“Holmgrim would get jealous,” Saffrin said with a weary smile. “I’ll manage. It’s only another day to the palace.”
The closer they came to the seat of the empire, the more ravaged the countryside became. The aftermath of rune combat scarred the land in every direction. They passed a village that was little more than a smoking hole in the ground. Entire forests had been leveled, armored corpses pinned between the fallen trees. Great boulders covered in gore littered the fields where they had been hurled at massed infantry. Huge swaths of farmland were black and desolate where rune-sparked fire had raged out of control.
Aventine did not see a single living creature.
“Nothing is worth this,” Aventine said. “This land was beautiful, the people kind and hard-working. I trained here as a Rune Guard recruit. Now it’s nothing but ashes and corpses, and for what?”
“Some men consider a gutted province a small price to pay for their ambition,” Holmgrim said.
“Brax once asked me if I would condone assassination to prevent tragedy. If murdering Sir Lorent in his sleep would have prevented this, I would have opened his throat myself.”
“That’s easy to say now, faced with the destruction he wrought, but we always find the answers for the problems of the present hidden in the past. Doing wrong to prevent a wrong doesn’t make a right.”
Her mouth set in a grim line, Aventine did not respond. She knew Holmgrim was right, but in her righteous fury she did not want to admit it.
Two hours later they crested the last hill. The imperial palace and its grounds stretched out before them across the valley. Functional and plain, the seat of the emperor’s power was not an architectural marvel. Compared to the grandiose citadels that the empire had claimed from long-dead civilizations, the palace looked disappointingly mundane, but it was one of the few fortresses the empire had built for itself. The first few emperors had ruled the empire from Castle Solis in the coastal city of Amalt, but soon the kings of the unified provinces demanded that the capital be moved to the center of the empire. No matter how impractical or ill-advised, the imperial palace was the result.
Crafted from simple, solid stone, the palace lacked ostentation. A few towers scratched the sky, and a crude obelisk marked the center of the empire, but little else of note drew the eye. What the palace lacked in grandeur, it made up for in size. It was as big as a city. In better times it housed the emperor and his entire government, the Rune Guard, and the Legion.
With its rightful owners deposed, the palace was now the headquarters of the revolt. Thousands of soldiers were camped in the plains around the fortress. Gardens had been trampled, parade grounds turned into military camps, and the emperor’s vineyards churned into mud by countless feet. Banners flew above every camp, proudly displaying the crest of each house. From her vantage on the hill, Aventine could identify at least eight crests of houses she recognized. Great animals and mythical beasts out of legend rippled in the wind, brazen in their bold colors. To her surprise, there were many crests she did not recognize.
“Half the empire must be camped down there,” Aventine said.
“Your estimate may not be far off,” Saffrin said. “I had no idea so many houses were ready to rise up against Emperor Pontius.”
“The small fry have to follow the current,” Holmgrim said.
Aventine and Saffrin gave him quizzical looks.
“If one or two large houses oppose the emperor,” Holmgrim said, “their smaller neighbors have to follow suit, or risk being gobbled up by the bigger fish. If Emperor Pontius has really abandoned the throne, no one can rely on the Legion coming to their aid. I’d wager that most of the minor houses camped down there are here as a matter of survival.”
Which serves the empire best: a house of traitors, or of corpses?
Sir Ignatius summoned Saffrin to the head of the column as they descended into the valley. Aventine and Holmgrim followed, still playing the role of bodyguards under Ramath’s watchful eye.
Soon, they were marching through the tents and camps set up around the palace. All activity stopped as the champions of House Ramath passed by. Sir Ignatius strode forth in open defiance. None would confuse his coming as an act of peace. His rune casters walked behind him, powering his runes and igniting the fearsome bears carved into his shoulders. Weapons in hand, the lord praetor stalked through the tents, looking neither left nor right.
“The news of him killing Lorent’s man will have preceded us,” Saffrin said quietly. “He’s daring someone to challenge him.”
Aventine did not reply. She was focu
sed on trying to identify and remember the many crests that were flying in the valley. They were all traitors, and she would not forget. A peculiar tent caught her eye. Where the rest of the blocky tents were sewn leather, this one was made of clean white cloth and clung to the earth with the grace of a cloud. On closer inspection, she could find no crest or markings identifying the house it belonged to. Aventine’s eyes dropped to the two armored soldiers standing guard at the door—recognition sent adrenaline surging through her. She almost tripped. The silver plate armor and closed-faced helmets were an exact match of the raiders she and Holmgrim had fought off on the road to Umgragon.
“Holmgrim,” Aventine hissed, nodding toward the strange tent.
Holmgrim looked and said, “You were right. Lorent must be in league with the foreign invaders.”
Saffrin shushed them as they neared an outer courtyard of the palace. Aventine was saddened to recognize the Rune Guard staging grounds. Two months ago she had departed from here with an expedition sent to investigate a border disturbance. This was not how she had expected to return.
Sir Ignatius called a halt and ordered all but his rune casters and Reginaldus to stay in the courtyard. He looked at Saffrin and said, “Come with me. We will find Sir Lorent within.”
Saffrin walked with Sir Ignatius into the palace, Aventine and Holmgrim trailing behind. The place had been ransacked. Doors were smashed, entire rooms torn apart for no apparent reason. Broken furniture and filth littered the halls. Every window they passed was shattered.
“Sir Lorent’s men looted the place,” Sir Ignatius said, the tone of his voice communicating his disgust. “When they found the emperor gone, they tore the palace apart in an act of petty vengeance.”
Sir Ignatius made straight for the throne room. The last time Aventine had been here, Emperor Pontius himself had welcomed her into his Rune Guard. She remembered the overwhelming majesty of the imperial throne room with awe. When they stepped through the broken double doors, she found it beyond recognition. A pile of ash in the middle of the room was all that remained of the royal tapestries bearing the emperor’s family crest. Stonework had been shattered, the inlaid rune stones pillaged from the walls. The great map of the empire embedded in the floor was defaced beyond recognition. Without rune light, the room was dark and gray, devoid of color.
Absent the usual crowd of nobles and officials, the space was a vast, echoing emptiness. High-backed chairs had been set up on the floor beneath the throne and seated there were a handful of nobles from the most powerful houses allied with House Lome. Bodyguards and champions loitered next to their lords. Sir Ignatius did not hesitate. He started out across the huge floor. His metal-shod feet echoed sharply off the stone. All activity at the far end of the room ceased, and the assembled lords watched the Lord of Ramath come in silence.
Sir Ignatius brought fire. In the dark cavern of a room, his blazing runes cast back the shadows like the light of day. Alarmed by the burning runes, the soldiers on the opposite side of the room moved to stand in front of their seated lords. When they were near enough to recognize who they faced, Aventine’s heart sank. Front and center stood a giant warrior clad in garish green armor. There was no mistaking the praetor of House Morn: her father.
They halted ten paces from the line of soldiers. Sir Ignatius stared them down for a heartbeat, and then spoke, his commanding voice ringing out in the huge space. “Where is Sir Lorent? Does he cower before my coming?”
There was a pause, and then a much quieter voice answered from one of the high-backed chairs. The man was hidden by the wall of soldiers. “Sir Lorent is not here. He leads his troops against the forces of Pontius to the west. This is more than can be said of House Ramath. You enter like a conquering hero, but we all know you’ve been hiding in Prancet Province for weeks while we fight the war for independence.”
“Stand when you speak to me!” Sir Ignatius roared. He extended the war gauntlet on his left hand, the serrated fingers hungry for flesh to rend. “I am the Golden Bear of Ramath!”
The soldiers between Sir Ignatius and the seated lords drew their weapons.
“The time of great houses is past,” the quiet voice of the seated lord said. “Such distinctions are meaningless without an emperor on the throne. You cast in your lot with us, and now you must ride out the storm. Pontius will never take you back.”
“House Ramath’s ascendancy is not the work of petty politics and imperial benevolence,” Sir Ignatius said, his voice growing louder as he talked. “I forged my family’s legacy in the fires of war. I took what was mine, and those that challenged me died for their foolishness.”
Behind Sir Ignatius, all three of his casters powered runestones, and the rune fire that smoldered on the praetor’s armor suddenly blazed into an inferno. He dropped into a combat stance, war gauntlet open and waiting, his war pick held low at his side.
“If you wish to join the dead,” he snarled, “deny me again.”
Aventine saw her father heft his siege hammer, ready for battle. He scanned the lesser threats behind Sir Ignatius, and she watched his eyes widen as they landed on her. His mouth dropped open. She gave her father a tight smile and a nod, praying to the gods that Sir Ignatius was merely posturing and did not intend to spill blood here.
“No one challenges your legacy, lord praetor,” another voice said. The man rose from his chair as he spoke, moving to stand in front of the line of warriors that protected him. It was Mornthal, Lord of House Morn. “Come, put away your weapons. There has been too much bloodshed in these troubled times. Let us work together to find an amicable solution that benefits us all.”
Sir Ignatius relaxed. The rune fire on his armor faded. “Yours has always been the voice of wisdom, Lord Mornthal. If Sir Lorent is unable to join us, I request an audience with the lords who are present. I have with me the Lady of the Black Citadel, Lady Saffrin of Umgragon. She has crossed the mountains seeking an alliance, and House Ramath stands ready to join forces with Governor Wranger.”
The first lord who had spoken stepped forward. His rich clothing bore the red lion crest of House Lome. Rigid with rage, his entire body trembled as he pointed at Sir Ignatius. “You think you can undermine years of work and unseat House Lome from its position with the threat of an Umgragon alliance? The lion does not fear the bear. We will not be moved by your ridiculous ambitions. We—”
“Lord Vispanius,” Lord Mornthal interjected. “No one has crowned you emperor. You don’t speak for me or my house.”
“Nor mine,” a voice said from the seated lords.
“Aye,” another voice echoed.
Lord Vispanius whirled around, directing his fury at Lord Mornthal. “You would be swayed by the mere scent of the empire’s treasury, after all that I’ve promised? After all that I’ve delivered?”
Lord Mornthal looked uncomfortable. “None here will deny House Lome’s commitment to seeing their plans realized. Many of us have profited from your endeavours, but you never told us that you intended to wage war on the emperor. My province is suffering, as are those of my neighbors. If we march on Amalt to finish what we started, many more will die. Perhaps there is a better way.”
“There is no other way!” Lord Vispanius shouted. “Do you think Pontius will ignore your role in this? It was House Morn’s hammers as much as House Lome’s that shattered these doors. And now here you are, an usurper in the throne room of the emperor. Don’t be a fool.”
Before Lord Mornthal could respond, a powerful, deep voice rumbled from the seated lords. “We will hear what the lord praetor has to say. Be seated, Vispanius, or remove yourself.”
Lord Vispanius’s mouth opened and closed—his hands clenched into fists. After several heartbeats, he mastered himself. “If you wish to pander to this preening imbecile, so be it. I want no part of it.”
The Lord of House Lome stormed off. His rune warrior champions followed. So large was the room that hundreds of his angry footfalls echoed in the massive space before he made his e
xit. Sir Ignatius and the other lords stood in awkward silence while they waited for Lord Vispanius to disappear through the ruined doors.
When the last echo faded away, Lord Mornthal spoke. “I believe we all desire progress here. Real discussion cannot be had under threat of bloodshed. May I suggest that we dismiss our warriors?”
Sir Ignatius and the other lords gave their consent. Aventine found herself following in Lord Vispanius’s footsteps, removing herself from the throne room with the other warriors and soldiers. As soon as they stepped into the hall, a giant green gauntlet grabbed Aventine’s shoulder. “I’ll show you where you can wait for your lady,” the voice of Aventine’s father said from behind her.
Aventine’s father directed her and Holmgrim to a small room across the hall. With its door still intact, the room offered them a modicum of privacy. When they were alone, Aventine’s father scooped her up in a huge hug. Even with her armor on, he lifted her like she was a child. He did not speak, only held her. Aventine returned the embrace, but she did not feel the same sense of protection and security she had once found in her father’s arms. Too much had happened, she realized. She would never again be the innocent child who hid in her father’s shadow.
Her father sensed the change in her. He stepped back and held her at arm's length, peering into her eyes. “You’ve changed,” he said. “You’re stronger. You’re a warrior in truth, and not just in training.”
Aventine’s face broke into a smile. She might have matured beyond needing to rely on her father’s strength, but his praise would always make her heart sing.
“Aye,” Aventine said. “I’ve used everything you ever taught me.”
“And you cut your hair. I could never get you to do that.”
Remembering where they were, Aventine sobered. “I couldn’t risk being recognized. Lorent was hunting me. A man who you now appear to be fighting for.”