by S J Hartland
Yet his youth, his beauty, his unaffected assurance, did not explain why Cathmor tensed, why resentment boiled behind the king’s cool eyes as Vraymorg elegantly fell to one knee.
“You seem much recovered.” Cathmor did not permit the newcomer to rise. “Given they found you in a pool of blood after the ghoul attack.”
“My strength returns, Your Grace.”
Cathmor knuckled the table. “Report to my physician later so he can treat your wounds. Now, how many men did you bring?”
“Only 500 more Your Grace, many untrained. With this attack on top of those lost near Thom and most of the garrison already with Your Majesty’s forces—” He shrugged.
“Fortunate most of your men already joined my host,” Cathmor said, his tone sharp. “Or they’d lie dead too, slaughtered by those ghouls who overran the fortress.”
“As you say, Your Grace.”
The king at last, curtly, waved him up.
Vraymorg straightened, grimacing as he fought down pain through what Heath guessed was a sheer act of will. What would it take to break a man like this? What might such a man be worth in the slavers’ caverns? Unbroken, of course.
His fire dancer’s gaze took in the long legs and broad shoulders, the play of tight muscle beneath the newcomer’s tunic. A slaver, though, might nibble his lip at that seductive mouth, that perfect moulding of bone and flesh into a shockingly lovely face.
“How did these cursed fiends breach the castle, Vraymorg?”
“Sorcery, Your Grace. This is what I must tell you—”
“Sorcery?” Cael-Carren echoed, startled.
Heath inwardly scoffed. Why did that surprise the old fool? Magic rippled through Telor’s history, infused with the legends of its more infamous kings.
“Is this your secret news?” Cathmor tapped fingers on his belt. “Out with it. I have a siege to plan. Unless Aric Caelan loses his nerve and surrenders.”
Heath chuckled.
Cathmor whipped about. “You assured me moments ago you knew only of Aric’s skill with a fishing line. Now you laugh at the idea he’ll surrender?”
“Who’s he?” Vraymorg’s hard gaze fell on Heath.
The king impatiently swept his arm. “Surely you noticed the Ice warriors in camp, Vraymorg? This is Heath Damadar.”
“Damadar?” The man spat the word like poison.
Heath offered an insolent smile. “That sounds vaguely threatening, my lord.” His hand slipped to his empty scabbard. He liked Vraymorg already; the man bristled with tight-held menace. A little prod and he might explode.
“My lords, really,” Cathmor cut in. “Take your posturing outside. Vraymorg, speak. Why did ghouls attack and how?”
The Mountains lord tore off a glove with one sharp tug. Its slap, slap, slap against his thigh tolled in Heath’s skull. The man’s breath laboured. In a voice stripped of everything, he said, “The ghouls hunted Kaell.”
A shiver rolled down Heath’s spine. Kaell. Khir’s bonded warrior. A dead warrior.
“Impossible.” Cathmor bunted air with a fist. “The boy is dead. Along with his men. And some of mine, curse his recklessness. Why attack hundreds of ghouls with only thirty warriors?”
“Not dead.” Vraymorg’s voice shattered. “But by the gods, he should be.”
The air in the tent surely thickened. The silence bristled uncomfortably, broken only by a creak of wood as Cathmor pressed his hands into the table.
“Not—dead?” He spaced the words. “Then where is he?”
“My guess is the Isles. Kaell wanted Azenor Caelan safe.”
“By Kutron. By Khir. She is alive?” Cael-Carren said.
Cathmor stiffened. “Azenor Caelan found?” His voice simmered with fury. “And you didn’t send word at once?”
“That news, surely, is too dangerous for a messenger,” Vraymorg said quietly.
“Where is she?” Cathmor hammered. “Do you have her?”
Vraymorg dropped his head as though unable to face the question.
Heath could not drag his eyes from him. This man possessed an intense, contained physicality. From the moment he pushed into the tent every one of them watched only him.
He must meet Vraymorg with steel in a fire dance. This man would not yield, surely. No, not at all. He would fight for his life with every strained breath. How thrilling to take that life from him.
“Do—you—have—her?” Cathmor said.
Slowly the man lifted his head. “No. By now, I hope she is safe in the Isles.”
“Be very careful,” the king said. “Your words border on treason. Surely you didn’t let her go? Need I remind you, we’re at war with her father?”
“No.”
“Then what? Quickly now, Vraymorg. You test my patience.”
Vraymorg forced another breath. “I told the girl I must send her to you. I imprisoned Kaell, intending to execute him the next dawn.”
Heath stilled in surprise. Execute? For leading his men into an ambush? Was Vraymorg that harsh? That unforgiving? He knew nothing of Kaell or what sat between him and this Mountains lord. But there must be more to this.
Cathmor gripped the edge of the table, his stare fixed on Vraymorg.
“Ghouls attacked, led by their god, this so-called Lord of Blood,” Vraymorg said. “He came for Kaell. Perhaps the girl, too. Kaell and Azenor escaped. To the Isles, I assume.”
“Who,” asked Heath, “is this blood lord?”
“A myth,” muttered Cael-Carren. Yet fear flitted behind his blink.
“Archanin is a fallen god,” Vraymorg said, his voice flat. Detached. “He stabbed me, left me for dead. He did not care that he took the castle. He only wanted Kaell.”
Bewildered, Heath spread his arms. “Go back. Why execute the boy? Because he failed? Because he recklessly attacked so many ghouls?”
Vraymorg ripped his fingers through sweat-glistened hair. “Kaell was not reckless. The villagers of Thom deliberately sent him and his men into an ambush.”
“Then it makes even less sense to execute him. Or did he lie about the villagers?”
“Kaell does not lie.”
“Then why?”
“Indeed.” The king’s baleful gaze dwelled on the dark-haired lord. “Why?”
For a long moment Vraymorg said nothing. Then he clawed his cheeks.
“Kaell’s eyes.” His voice crept out as a disbelieving whisper. “No longer green, but black. This ghoul god took his blood. And yet Kaell lives. Gods, help him, he lives.”
All sound drained from the tent. In its place, a shocked hush scourged. Caught in its web, Heath struggled to understand. He knew little of ghouls but surely their bite killed.
At last, his voice low, Cathmor said, “Khir’s bonded warrior is turned. He is turned. He has Azenor, and he is with my enemies in the Isles.”
Aric
Aric leaned his elbows on sun-warmed battlements. Across a muddy field of white-tipped grass and daffodils, tents rimmed the forest. Figures bustled about the encampment, too far off to interest Isles archers. An occasional stone crashed well short of Tide’s End as the king’s engineers tested mangonels.
From planted poles, from pavilions, pennons and flags fluttered, the standards of three hundred Telorian houses seeking to tear down his walls. Great lords and some not so great.
The Lord of the Plains’ hoe and horse banner rippled beside the black axe and plough of the Downs. At least with Nate Caelmarsh against him, he need not watch his back.
But at the sight of one wind-streamed, blue banner, Aric dug his nails into a chipped merlon. Why should Rolland Damadar take up arms against the distant Isles?
Aric remembered that summer when he and Rolland’s son Heath traded sword strokes in the ward and wild stories as they dangled their legs off rocks and fished for coral trout.
I liked him. His sarcastic wit. His audacious charm. I hope I don’t cross swords with him. Kill him.
Aiden Saltman stomped onto the wall walk. “It appea
rs most of Telor wants to take us down.” He brushed dust from his tunic. “The Icelands among them.”
The Icelands. The Falls, the Plains, the Downs.
The Mountains.
Strangeness traced Aric’s backbone. Azenor’s story could not be true. But if it were? What did that make Vraymorg? No, it was too incredible. He didn’t want to believe it.
“Not to mention the Henge,” Aiden said. “If I meet Sherrin Cross in battle, I’ll bring you his head.”
“Better to take him alive, put him in chains and force the Henge to submit. Are the scouts back? Any prisoners in the king’s camp? Pairas?”
His new captain shook his head.
Dead then. Aric pushed sadness away. He’d mourn others soon. Too many.
“I’m sorry.” Aiden covered Aric’s hand with his own. “What can I do? Will I come to you, tonight? I would comfort you any way I can.”
“I know. You always do.”
“My lord.” A sentry shouted from a corner tower. “Messenger, my lord.”
A rider crossed the grassland between the king’s camp and Tide’s End, his pace unhurried, an orange ribbon streaming from his horse’s bridle.
The game’s first move: listening to Cathmor’s tedious, predictable threats.
Aric flattened his palms on stone as he studied the messenger. Sunlight glistened on the man’s glossy, ebony hair and on a gold clasp fastening a grey and black cloak.
A man of worth. From the bulky shoulders, a warrior.
“Aric Caelan.” The stranger called up. “Open your gates.”
Aric showed himself. “To whom?”
“The king’s messenger.”
“You can deliver your nonsense from there.”
A hush fell. Soldiers on the wall paused, listening.
“My words are for the castle lord only.”
Aric frowned. He expected a demand to surrender the castle or the king’s forces overwhelmed them. Or unacceptable terms he must refuse. New rules to the game? Ah well; he could adapt.
“Open the gates.”
He took the steps to the ward, Aiden at his heels. The stranger dismounted and passed his horse to a groom. Stubble shadowed the man’s jaw. A generous mouth curved as though to smile, but his dark eyes held an unfriendly shimmer.
“Search him carefully, Aiden,” Aric said.
The messenger’s deceptively soft lips parted in a sneer. “You think I’m an assassin?” He raised arms heavy with muscle so Aiden could pat him down. The captain shook his head.
“Who are you and what do you want?”
The stranger’s unyielding stare fell hard on Aric. A king’s man might well assess him, but he caught an odd note of censure, even anger, in that look.
“I bring the king’s words,” the messenger said. “Then mine.”
Who did think he was? Aric usually laughed at arrogance, but this man’s confidence had a dangerous edge.
“As to who I am? I suppose there has been no reason for us to meet.” A pause. Again that flicker of distaste as this man considered him. “I am Vraymorg.”
Vraymorg. Just a name but it filled the silence.
Aric clasped his hands together so he did not fidget. A turmoil exploded in his mind.
The Mountains lord. Kaell’s lord. A man who must hate him. Now he understood that judging look. But was Vraymorg here to exact revenge, or did he just bring a message?
“My father is in the hall,” Aric said with rigid courtesy. “If you’d come with me—my lord.”
Val Arques
He followed Aric to the great hall, his steps brisk and regimented. As if that act of control could banish his disquiet.
Familiar sounds, scents—half forgotten—tugged at him with bittersweet memory. Lavender, brine and seaweed, a wind perfumed of summer, cawing, languid birds, the tide’s rumble—all plucked from his childhood.
Vraymorg was born here, on a grey, heavy day; my winter son, his mother called him.
In these wards he wielded his first sword. If he paused, surely he’d hear an echo of his mother’s cry when he fell and cut his head; feel his father’s calloused hand help him rise.
In this hall he wed a girl betrothed to him since birth. Her face forgotten.
Too long ago. Someone else’s life.
At their intrusion, two men rose from behind a table. A clerk gathered up papers and scurried off. Aric shut the doors behind him. “Father. The king’s messenger.”
The older man glanced at Vraymorg. “Whoever you are, state your business then go. Thanks to your king, we have work to do.”
“Very well.” Vraymorg quietened his tapping fingers. Unsettling to be in this hall again. “The king’s words—then my own.”
Aric leaned to whisper. The Isles lord’s face creased in surprise. “I’ve heard of you, Vraymorg,” he said. “Until now, you kept apart from the distractions of Telorian politics.”
“The Silent Mountains are too dangerous for distractions. Ghouls, the Varee, Cahirean raiders even, all leave little time to worry about matters beyond my lands.”
“Why then involve yourself in this business?”
“It was forced upon me.”
The younger man poked his chin up with contempt. “You would have us believe you are not our enemy?”
“Who are you?” Vraymorg matched the insolent tone.
Hatton waved a hand. “My son and heir, Gendrick. Say your words, Vraymorg, so we may send this loathsome invader our defiance.”
“Then I shall say the king’s words, the words you expect and will answer as expected. The king says: Your city is invested. Surrender or Cathmor takes it by force.”
“Not quite invested,” Aric said. “The sea is ours. So what terms? Unconditional?”
“There are terms.” Cathmor preferred to win the Isles without a fight. “Surrender Tide’s End and the king promises fair treatment to all within. No building will burn. His soldiers will hurt no one who does not resist.”
“My cousin wants Tide’s End intact.” Aric nodded. “What else?”
Vraymorg pressed his tongue to teeth. The rest was less palatable. “The self-proclaimed ‘king’ of the Isles, his brother, his son Gendrick and daughter Azenor will surrender to the king’s captains. An escort will take them to Mazen-da castle. No harm will come to them.”
“And my son, Aric?”
“Aric will remain here.”
“It is reasonable.” Aric turned to his father. “You, Azenor and Gendrick will be safe.”
“We will reject my nephew’s terms.” Hatton whipped up a hand to silence Aric’s objection. He faced Vraymorg. “What do you say, Vraymorg? You’ve been direct so far. What will my nephew do with Aric?”
“Cathmor is a proud man. Your son struck down a warrior under his protection. He escaped the king’s custody and now holds this castle against him. Cathmor will force Aric to kneel before your men. Before you. Then—” He wet his lips. “The king will execute him.”
A silence fell. Their expressions revealed nothing. “There is more,” Vraymorg said. “Another is within these walls. The king desires you also give him up.”
“And who is that?”
“His name is Kaell.”
“Kaell.” Hatton wandered to the windows. His sons watched him uneasily as he rested his hands on a sill. “And your message?” he said at length.
“It is about Kaell.”
“Of course. He is yours.” Aric brightened.
Yours. Vraymorg brushed off a stab of loss. “I raised him, if that’s what you mean. I ask you: Surrender him to me.”
Let him determine the boy’s fate. If Kaell fell into the king’s cruel hands, he’d die slowly.
“He is not here,” Hatton said.
“That’s what you came for?” Gendrick twisted a snide smile. “This fool of a king is about to rip Telor apart and you want that ghoul brat?”
Vraymorg turned with a withering glare. “No, boy. My message is this: Do not foolishly shelter Kaell. Deliv
er him up. Or he’ll bring trouble down upon your heads.”
“What do you mean?” Hatton said sharply.
“Ghouls followed Kaell to Vraymorg. Attacked the fortress. Do not think you are safe. Surrender him. He belongs, as your son rightly says, to me.”
Hatton tapped his fingers on the window edge. Fast, fast, slow. “He is not here.”
“I followed his trail. He is here.”
“He is no longer within the walls of Tide’s End.”
“Then I will have to be content with that,” Vraymorg said.
Aric
Aric escorted Vraymorg to the gates, his mind awhirl with questions. Azenor’s story about this man, hastily shared in the long hall, could not be true.
He considered the Mountains lord’s stiff back. Anyone immortal would seem different. With an aura of the otherworld cloaking him, perhaps.
Not that Vraymorg wasn’t extraordinary. He was.
Disturbingly so.
Physically imposing, he possessed not only a bladesman’s grace but an intangible quality of excellence, a curious detachment Aric mistakenly first dismissed as arrogance. It was as though this man stepped back from the world even as he moved through it.
What did it hide? Deep-held pain, surely. Aric could not help but see the scars on the Mountains lord’s wrists and wonder at them.
“Not that way, Vraymorg.” He blocked the stairwell. “This way.”
“I have no time for games. It is quicker to reach the gates through the inner ward.”
Aric almost stumbled, a drumming in his skull. No Mountains lord had ever visited Tide’s End as far as he knew. He scrunched a fistful of his tunic. “You know this castle?”
Vraymorg’s pause was so indistinct Aric nearly missed it.
“How could I?” the man said. “But I know castle design and we should go this way.”
“Nevertheless.” Aric gestured away from the stairs. Intriguing or not, this lord remained the king’s man. The less he glimpsed of Tide’s End’s defences the better.
Vraymorg shrugged. “It hardly matters if I count your soldiers or mangonels. This castle will not withstand the assault. Not this time. You must know that.”