by David Estes
They rode on, until Sai finally commanded a furia to drag one of the villagers from the stone hut she was hiding in. The narrow-eyed Phanecian woman kicked and shouted the whole way, but didn’t look scared when facing Sai Loren. In fact, she spat at his feet and made a rude gesture.
“When did the army depart the city?” Sai said flatly.
“Rut you!” she said.
Sai gestured to one of his furia, who swiftly backhanded the woman across the face. Her head snapped to the side and when it flopped back blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. But the furia wasn’t finished. She drew a knife, placing the tip at the woman’s throat. Still, she didn’t balk. “You can slice me from head to feet and I won’t answer your questions.”
Ore. Perhaps we underestimated these people, Gareth thought.
Sai said, “As you wish,” and made a slashing motion across his own throat.
“Wait!” The shout came from the same door she’d just been pulled from, and a young boy, perhaps thirteen, emerged at a sprint.
He skidded to a stop before the woman, who growled, “Get back inside.” She shifted slightly, just enough for the blade at her throat to draw blood.
“I won’t,” the boy said, sticking out his chin. “I won’t let you die, Maata.”
“Don’t you say a wor—” the woman tried to shout, but was quickly cut off when a rag was stuffed in her mouth and tied around the back of her head.
“They rode out at midday, when the sun was at its hottest,” the boy said. His skin was tan, his hair jet-black. He wore a high-necked shirt and no sleeves, which struck Gareth as an odd combination. In truth, he’d never really studied the culture of the southern empires of Calyp and Phanes. He and his brothers’ focus had always been on the military tactics of their desert-dwelling enemies.
“Three, maybe four, hours ago,” Sai said, confirming it with one of his men, who was responsible for coordinating timed attacks.
It was a decent head start, but if the strength of the rebellion wasn’t overstated in the streams they’d received, Bane’s army would face heavy resistance, slowing their pace south. There was still time to catch up.
“They marched through the Bloody Canyons?” Sai asked. Again, the woman tried to shout through the rag, but all that could be heard was a muffled, wordless groan.
The boy nodded. “And before you ask, they were seven-thousand strong, at the least. The entire strength of the four border cities combined. Perhaps one thousand mounted.”
“Do you know if they had a prisoner with them?” Gareth blurted out. “A woman with a scarred face.”
The boy’s eyebrows rose. “How did you know? She marched next to the commander himself, the Kings’ Bane. But she was a prisoner, her ankles and wrists tied.”
Gareth’s eyes met Ennis’s once more, but the man who had rescued him gave nothing away with his expression. Rhea was alive. That was all that mattered right now.
“You’ve done well, boy,” Sai said.
“Come, Mother,” he said, reaching for the woman’s hand.
“Kill her,” Sai said coldly, and before Gareth could even consider intervening, the furia’s blade had opened her throat. Her eyes widened and her legs crumpled. The boy fell on top of her, tears already leaking from his eyes.
“You didn’t have to do that,” Gareth said. “You already learned everything you needed.”
“These people are barbarians. They own slaves. They treat the Terans like possessions. I am merely carrying out Wrath’s will.”
Gareth looked to Ennis for support, but the man merely shook his head and pulled on the reins, turning his horse away. Soon Sai did the same, leaving Gareth to watch a woman die and her son grieve.
What have I gotten myself into? Why did I think things could ever change?
Roan is a fool. Peace wasn’t possible. And even if it was, these people didn’t deserve it.
Behind him, one of his legionnaires, an Orian woman with bright purple eyes, said, “Do we follow?”
Already, the western army was departing the city, spreading out as they entered the wide expanse of the desert.
Gareth wanted to turn back, to break the alliance. But…
She’s Roan’s sister. He didn’t know if Rhea was worthy of his help, but she’d pursued the eastern alliance. She’d stopped Darkspell. If there was a chance she’d changed, or begun to change, he had to try to find her.
For Roan.
“Yes,” he said. “We ride on.”
Fourth Interlude
The Crimean Sea
THE HORDE
There is always a choice, Klar-Ggra thought as the first of his ships charged toward the shoreline.
As a child, he didn’t realize that by running away he was making one, shaping his own destiny. He thought he was escaping, leaving a world that hated him. Little did he know he was creating a new world.
His choice now was where to unleash his Horde on the Four Kingdoms first. There was something to be said for drawing out his vengeance, relishing it, savoring it like a fine piece of meat.
He could start in the south and work his way northward to his destiny, killing and pillaging as they went. Destroying a land he’d hated for many years, invading Castle Hill last of all, the crowning achievement of his life.
He considered it as his ships slid into the shallows, the wind at his back, filling the sails to bursting. There was no stopping their momentum now, nor did he want to. They wouldn’t need these ships again, and he didn’t want his enemies to be able to use them to escape.
He clutched the railing as the ship jolted, a raucous screeching sound rising from the depths as they scraped along the bottom. Several of the Horde were unprepared for the impact and fell overboard. No matter—most likely they would swim to shore. If they didn’t freeze to death from exposure, they would fall in with their brothers and sisters.
The long piers once used for merchant vessels shattered as their ships plowed through them, sending debris to either side. Planks were crushed in half. Iron fittings strung with thick ropes crushed through their hulls, water rushing in behind. Mortal wounds that would eventually cause each vessel to sink.
The Lost Son clutched the railing harder, his hands beginning to ache, a thrill running through him. Long had he waited for this moment of triumphant return. He spotted a boy carrying a fishing rod staring at him with wide eyes. He turned tail and ran, heading past the arrow-like pylons that announced the sprawling city of Blackstone. He would alert others in the city, but they would not believe him. And anyway, men and women could be hunted.
The final impact was jarring, the ship running aground, splintering wood, shearing nail, smashing rock and rending earth.
Yes. Klar-Ggra could’ve taken his Horde south first.
But that wasn’t the choice he wanted to make.
“Now we feast!” he shouted. The Horde poured from the ships.
PART V
Roan Annise Lisbeth
Sir Dietrich Gwendolyn Goggin
Raven
“My poetry has been called dark, a cry for help by a troubled man.
But I am not troubled; I only write the truth as I see it.
Nor do I need help—no, it’s the rest of them that need help.”
Japarti, famous Calypsian poet
Sixty-Six
The Southern Empire, The Burning Sea
Roan Loren
The voyage had been long and arduous. By the end, Roan was tired of fish and more tired of Windy’s thick tea, which she insisted they drink each day. “To prevent seasickness,” she said.
The worst part had been not knowing what had happened to Gwen, or Gareth, or even Rhea. He wondered about them all as soon as he woke up and until he fell asleep at night. Had he abandoned them? Was this all a fool’s errand? Was Bane right about everything?
The best part of each day had been studying books with Yela, though even that had grown tiresome when each new revelation seemed to create countless more questions.
<
br /> “Got something,” she said now. They sat in one of the four cabins on the small private vessel, one that would usually be considered an office, but which they’d transformed into a study, much to the captain’s chagrin. The man had quickly learned not to argue with Windy Sandes, dutifully collecting his coin and keeping the boat on a southwesterly trajectory.
Roan looked up from the book he’d been flipping through: The Death of Absence: A Story of Woe. It was the book the Western Oracle had written, the very same that Bear Blackboots had scrawled a message in, and Roan had already read it cover to cover a half a dozen times. The Terans had worshipped a great hole, which they believed descended forever, never reaching a bottom. The most righteous of them, those called the Seven, who had achieved all seven of their virtues, generally became priests and gained the opportunity to commune with their god, Absence, by descending via rope into the hole. It was said that spending too long in the darkness of the pit would drive one to madness. But if one spent the right about of time…
Enlightenment.
Then one day the Terans found the hole with no bottom filled in with dirt. It had crushed them and their faith, making them ripe for the picking when the Phanecian slave ships arrived on their shores.
There must be more to it, Roan thought, staring at the worn leather cover.
“Roan?”
Gods, he’d done it again. It was happening more and more, his getting lost in his thoughts. “Sorry,” he said. “What did you find?”
Yela’s small face furrowed with concern, her dark skin turning orange in the lanternlight. It was late; they should be sleeping. But Roan didn’t sleep much anymore.
“I’m fine,” Roan said. “Really.” He realized he’d said it without her even having to ask the question.
She blinked, her ink-dark eyes vanishing and then appearing once more. Their stare was intense as she moved her chair closer, pushing a book in front of him. Her finger showed him where to start reading.
The Peacemaker cannot bring peace alone. Yes, he will be a central cog in the wheel of fate, but what is light without dark? What is peace without war? What is life without death?
Roan’s heart beat a little faster. The quote was attributed to Recovered Writings by the Western Oracle. It was so similar to the things Bane had said to him that it was eerie.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” he said.
Yela said nothing. She never seemed to have a problem with long silences, and she only spoke when she had something important to say. She merely shrugged and flipped the book closed to show him the title.
Lost Prophecies, a Compendium
“How did we miss this before?” he asked, frowning at the unfamiliar cover, which was entirely white.
Yela squirmed, looking uncomfortable. “Well…”
“Because I kept this book hidden from you,” a voice said from the doorway. Lady Windy stood just inside the cabin, a teacup pinched between two fingers.
“Why?” Roan’s voice had darkened. Was it his imagination, or had the lanternlight suddenly grown less bright?
“You make decisions based on emotions. I couldn’t have you make the wrong one.” Roan opened his mouth to object, but she continued. “I don’t mean offense. You are human, and humans are emotional beings. But scholars know how to cut through the emotion, or even ignore it completely, making decisions based on logic and wisdom. That is why people from across the Four Kingdoms come to me to learn how to study, how to learn.”
“Because you’re unemotional?”
“Because I’m right,” she said, allowing a wry smile to curl her lips.
Roan knew not to be offended, nor surprised. This wasn’t the first time the lady of Citadel had kept something from him. But he still didn’t understand why. “You know I’ve been agonizing about Bane for days,” he said. “This information would’ve helped clear the confusion from my head.”
Windy cocked an eyebrow. “Would it?”
“Of course, this is exactly the information I sought.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. You won’t have a clear picture until we speak to Bear Blackboots. Until we get the full truth.”
Roan was growing frustrated now, another emotion he knew Windy wouldn’t approve of. “Which is why we are sailing to Teragon. But what does that have to do with this book?”
Windy stepped forward into the small cabin, placing her half-empty teacup on the table. She leaned over the book, her thick, gray curls brushing against the page. “What would you have done if you’d read this back in Citadel, before we departed Calyp?”
“I would’ve…” He trailed off, realizing he was about to speak untrue. He wanted to think it wouldn’t have changed anything, that he would still be sitting in this cabin, more than halfway across the Burning Sea. But that would be a lie and he knew it. I would’ve tried to find Bane. I would’ve tried to understand him more. “Maybe I should’ve made another decision,” he finished lamely.
Windy shook her head, leaning back again. “No. Seek wisdom first, and then answers,” she said. “Going to Bane would’ve only confused the matter more.” It annoyed him that she was so easily able to predict what he would’ve done. “You aren’t ready to face him again.”
“And going to Teragon will change that? If I could speak to Bane, I could discern the truth. Maybe he is fooling me somehow. Maybe the words in this book”—he jabbed his finger against the cover—“are taken out of context. It can’t be true. We can’t be two parts of the same solution.”
“Why not?”
Roan sighed because he didn’t have an answer. “What are you saying? That you believe what he showed me?”
She shrugged, dragging a hand through her thick hair. “Maybe. But just because he painted a picture doesn’t mean he painted the whole thing. There’s lying and there’s lying by omission. Don’t confuse the two.”
Roan chewed on that for a moment. “You still should’ve shown me this book earlier.”
“Perhaps. Time will tell. Now get some rest. You can read the whole book tomorrow if you wish. Come Yela.”
The girl stood, an apology flashing in her eyes before she followed Windy out.
She knew about this book the whole time, Roan thought.
“Scholars,” he muttered.
He finally fell asleep with his face on the pages of the book.
The next day, he finished the book, slamming it shut in frustration, not caring that it was an emotional response. Dust flew from the old tome, which had contained no other references to the teachings of the Western Oracle.
Yela said, “Told you.”
“Don’t even start. I’m still cross with you.” She’d already apologized several times.
“You know how Lady Windy is.”
He did. Unfortunately. “Aye, she is in dire need of a hairbrush and a proper lesson on making tea.”
“I’m not joking. She swore me to silence.”
It wasn’t Yela’s fault, not truly. Windy was a tyrant when it came to the scholars under her tutelage. “Fine. But I still can’t believe she kept this book from me all because of a couple of lousy lines that mean nothing.” They mean everything, he thought. If both Bane and I are truly integral to achieving peace…
If so, the Western Oracle was the author of death as much as she was the foreteller of peace.
He jammed his fingers into his tired eyes, trying to think. Yela stayed silent, though soon he heard the scrape of pages being turned.
The boat rocked. The sound of gentle waves lapped against the sides. A gull screeched.
A gull! Roan’s eyes burst open and met Yela’s, whose had widened in response. They seemed to realize the same thing at the same moment, scrambling from the cabin and mounting the dozen steps to the decks. They skidded to a stop in front of Windy, who stood wearing a broad smile on her face.
A large white bird with a yellow beak sat atop her head, nibbling crumbs from her palm.
“Teragon,” she said, gesturing grandly to the starboard si
de.
Sand-speckled beaches gave way to rocky, crescent-shaped hills. Though it was the end of their journey, to Roan it felt like just the beginning.
Sixty-Seven
The Northern Kingdom, Castle Hill
Annise Gäric
Every day, Annise expected the sun to fail to rise, or for the moons to hang lower than they used to.
But each morn the sun rose, and each night the moons appeared, climbing the sky.
Every day, the world looked much the same as it used to. But it wasn’t, her world changed forever when Archer died on a voyage she’d brought him on. Oh Archer, she thought now. How I miss you.
They’d buried him in the royal cemetery, right next to their father, their mother. Despite everything her father had done, something about it still felt right.
It was only the second day since their return, and Annise knew they would have to leave again soon, perhaps as early as the morrow. The Four Kingdoms faced a danger graver than ever before, and she needed to ensure the rest of its inhabitants were prepared.
She’d already tried sending streams to Knight’s End, Ferria, Calypso, and Phanea, but so far had received no response. The last message received had been weeks earlier, from Rhea, who’d said her armies were marching on Phanes. Since then it was as if the north didn’t exist.
It won’t, if we don’t stop the Horde.
The Horde. She could still scarcely believe it, though Zelda had been persuasive. Annise’s eldest uncle, Helmuth Gäric, had been missing since before she was born. Some said he’d gotten lost and fallen into a pit and died. Others said he was murdered by one of his brothers. Still others believed he was alive, disguised somewhere in Blackstone, just another crippled beggar on the streets.