Lord of the Black Tower: A Mega-Omnibus (5-book epic fantasy box set)

by Jack Conner

  Baleron had longed to see this sight for years—long, grim years.

  The men of Havensrike had departed Clevaris grimly and made their way out of Larenthi with haste. They’d barely escaped the flaming jaws of Grudremorq’s host—this by mere hours—and passed through Felgrad (whose bridges over the Naslym had been rebuilt in the last three years) and finally into Havensrike itself. The month-long journey had taxed everyone, including Baleron, who, unable to help it, spent much of his time brooding on the nature of his Doom. It is wrapped about your very soul, Queen Vilana had told him, and the words haunted him. The prophecy of ul Ravast might be a lie (might be), but his Doom, it seemed, was very real, and as long as it was so was ul Ravast, he who would usher in the Dark Times, the time of Gilgaroth’s supremacy.

  But, seeing Glorifel before him, Baleron began to feel lighter, easier. He prayed that his Doom wouldn’t follow him within the walls of the city, but of course it would. He only hoped that whatever good he could do here in organizing a defense against the Shadow would be enough to outweigh whatever his curse would bring to bear in support of it; that’s why Vilana hadn’t destroyed him (as he’d asked her to), after all.

  “Don’t stop now,” said King Grothgar, just passing on his brown stallion. “We’re not there yet.”

  When the host passed through the Gates, the city gave them a hero’s welcome. Home to some half million people, Glorifel had much welcome to give. The soldiers were greeted with much cheering and music and more. Hot plates of steaming food were thrust at them, and the unmarried girls went around giving kisses on the cheek to weary troops. But even in the faces of the girls and the cheering shopkeepers and peasants was a look of disbelief and dread at the small number of survivors. Nearly forty-five thousand Havensri had left for war: only thirty-five hundred now returned.

  His horse clip-clopping on the cobbled streets, King Grothgar led his ragtag army through the broad avenues, over long bridges and at last into Kings’ Square, which lay before the forbidding peaks and spires of Grothgar Castle, that massive gray structure that reared starkly above the shining city of white and gold and burnished red, of amber and blue and sunset orange. Amidst the warm splendor, it loomed solemn and forbidding.

  Riding at the king’s side, Baleron wondered how Lunir fared. He hadn’t wanted any of the townspeople to attack the glarum thinking it an enemy, so he’d asked the Master of Horse to look out for the great crow-like bird rather than let him fly overhead, where he would surely get shot down. Baleron wished he had been riding Lunir when the Grudremorq broke through the avalanche, but lately he’d been trying to fit in with the Havensri, to become one of them again, and riding a winged steed of the enemy would do more than raise a few eyebrows.

  King Grothgar stopped before the statue of his forefather, King Grothgar I—the source of so much of the tension between the First Men and the Second—and dismounted. He ascended the flight of stairs to the platform where the towering figure of the old king reared on his mount, sword thrust at the heavens, and turned to address the crowd, who waited expectantly, glumly.

  “Thank you for the warm welcome,” he said, nodding to his eldest living son, Prince Rilurn, who stood surrounded by a few guards. “I wish I could receive it with a likewise warm heart, but I cannot.”

  Baleron watched the faces of the townspeople as his father went on to describe the war against Gulrothrog and the unexpected assault of the Omkarog known as Grudremorq, Lord of Flame, of whom Ungier had been custodian. The Glorifelans wept at the news of the holocaust, and they grew ashen when Albrech described the fall of the White Tower of Celievsti and the breaching of the White Shield that had protected Larenthi for more than a thousand years.

  The music had died and so had the happy chatter. All was silence, save for Albrech’s grim, inexorable voice. With every word he uttered, another nail pounded into the people’s collective coffin. They’d surely heard rumors before of what had happened, but until now they’d still fostered some hope.

  After he finished, Albrech added, “These are dark times, my friends, perhaps the Dark Times, and we can only expect them to grow darker. Queen Vilana said that war would come to us here in Glorifel, and that we must prepare. To that end, I need to call more troops into service. I will begin recruiting or drafting from among the populace immediately.”

  One bold merchant declared, “I volunteer! You can enlist me right now, m’lord!

  People cheered, and another hand went up. “Aye! Join me up, too!”

  “And me!”

  “Good,” Albrech said, quieting them. “Very good. For unless Queen Vilana can hold Grudremorq off, Larenthi will fall and the Crescent will be broken. If Havensrike and Larenthi both fall, the Crescent will crumble utterly and the Beast will be loosed upon the world.” He added, “We have much to do. But with spirits like yours, we may just get it done.” He cleared his throat. “Now, if I may address my soldiers.”

  The survivors of the army looked up. They were weary, dirty and gaunt, but there was still a touch of reverence in their eyes when they looked upon their king.

  “You have done well,” he told them. “You have fought the Shadow and survived. We faced some unexpected challenges, and I won’t say that we overcame them, but we endured. We came out the other side. That is well. We have been through a lot together, you and I. Hard days. Hard nights. We have seen many friends die. I will give each of you survivors a special honor in the days to come, a medallion, a medal, so all will know who you are, what you lived through. And I will hold a special event every year for the veterans of Oksil, of Larenthi. But that is only if we make it through the days ahead.

  “I think after what we’ve been through it would be all too easy to wallow in despair, to give up, to surrender to our nightmares, our memories. So I want all of you to bear in mind the trials ahead. Stay sharp. Stay focused. Havensrike needs you now more than ever.” He swept his hard gaze about the assembly, and everywhere his eyes touched, men straightened. “Well done,” he said. “That is all. Go to the barracks, lads. Follow your troop leaders. And troop leaders, let them get some rest. I will have further orders for you shortly. Good day.”

  He stepped down from the stage and the people cheered him, though softly, and there was a current of fear behind the cheers. Albrech mounted his horse beside Baleron, and Baleron noted that his oldest brother Rilurn’s face was not a happy one. The thought that the Heir might fear Baleron taking his place in the king’s favor amused the youngest prince. Baleron had for so long been the lowliest member of the family that he did not think it petty to enjoy his father’s favor while it lasted. Surely it would be a fleeting thing.

  He and Albrech led their horses to the royal stables. The smell of hay and horse dung was comforting, the stables pleasantly musty. After handing his horse over to a groom, Baleron saw that Lunir was given a stall of his own. The glarum squawked and fought, evidently not liking the smell of horse in close quarters. He snapped at his handlers with his long dark beak, and they cringed back. One held his arm where the beak had gotten him, and blood trickled out.

  “Let me,” Baleron said. He patted the Great Crow and eased him into his stall. “Good boy,” he said in Oksilon, the language Lunir had been raised around, and threw some birdfeed onto the floor. Mollified, Lunir pecked at it without much enthusiasm. He wanted meat ... rotten meat.

  Baleron turned to see his father regarding him oddly. “You are a strange one,” Albrech mused. In mild tones, he went on, “A curse. A dark prophecy. An unholy sword. A great crow. Ah, and you’re an Elf-lover, how could I forget?”

  “She’s dead, Father. Don’t speak ill of her, or I will—”

  “You’ll what?”

  “I will leave.”

  Albrech studied him in silence. At last he took Baleron by the shoulder and steered him out of the stables. The fresh air smelled of flowers as father and son walked through the gardens in back of the Castle. Further off, toward the rear of the estate, was the atrium where Queen Anora li
ved. Baleron saw its golden dome, but he dismissed the sadness that came with it. His mind was on other things. The air was warm and laden with pollen and the scents of various floras. Oaks and pines and spruce rose about, casting shade. The walls of the garden muted the sounds of everyday life, but they could still be heard. Merchants hawked their wares. Horse-drawn carriages trampled by. Somewhere a church bell tolled.

  “The Castle will seem dreary without Rolenya,” Albrech mused as he threaded his way between high, flowering bushes. “I remember when she would walk through this very garden, singing to herself, and everything would seem so ... alive ...”

  Baleron didn’t interrupt. He’d rarely ever spoken to his father like this, one-on-one, and to hear him speak of Rolenya ... Ever since her disappearance and supposed death, Baleron had felt numb and hollow. But thinking of his sister-who-was-not-a-sister, remembering her here in this garden, one of her most favorite places, reawakened something warm inside him.

  “I’ll miss her,” Albrech said in a voice almost too low to hear, then turned a glance on his son. “You were the closest to her, Baleron. You were her best friend, and some part of her is still with you, I can feel it. Thus I must content myself with reading her echo in your eyes, pale and dim though it may be.”

  Baleron almost smiled at this slight, though he’d heard it before.

  “That is why I favor you now,” Albrech added.

  “I know.”

  “Good. I want you to have no illusions.”

  “What position of command will you give me? Remember, it’s why I returned with you.”

  Albrech nodded thoughtfully. “You said you wanted a weapon with which to fight the Enemy. I said I would think on it, and so I have. But I have a problem.”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m left with a question.”

  “Tell me.”

  Albrech stopped and faced Baleron, staring unflinching into his son’s eyes. “Will men follow you?”

  Baleron blinked.

  “Think hard on that, son, and you’ll understand my reluctance.” Albrech cast a sad gaze at the atrium. “Now I must go to your mother. She won’t know me, but I would see her.”

  Baleron watched him go sadly. He did not envy his father’s reunion with the queen. At last, still turning over his father’s words, he faced the Castle. It was stark and dreary—even more so without Rolenya, as his father had said—but it was home. Now that he was here, he wondered how long it would stand. Was he really doing the right thing by returning?

  ... wound about your very soul ...

  He entered the castle through a rear door. Here the air lay cold and dusty. Torches blazed along the walls and the smoke stung his eyes as he navigated his way up through the tunnels to his old room. A guard stood at the door, and he saluted Baleron’s royal clothes more than he saluted the prince himself, with a fist over his heart and a perfunctory half-bow. He likely didn’t even recognize Baleron. Baleron didn’t recognize him.

  “Good day, Lord Grothgar,” hailed the soldier.

  Baleron smiled ruefully. “You are my one and only guard, eh? Before I at least ranked three.”

  “No guard has been assigned you yet, my lord. Prince Rilurn just posted me to this station until such time as a guard would be tasked with you.”

  “Tasked?”

  The guard swallowed nervously. “No offense meant, my lord.”

  “No offense taken.” Baleron frowned. “Tell me, has my room truly been kept for me for three years and more?”

  “Indeed it has, my lord.”

  “Surely you all thought me dead.”

  “We all did, my lord—”

  “No more ‘my lords’. I’m the lord of only one thing, and that’s me, and I’m barely lord of that. Go on.”

  “Yes, my—ah—”

  “Baleron.”

  “Yes, my Baleron, as I was saying, we all thought you dead and gone, certainly. None came back from the wedding caravan, and we had no news. The border fortresses sent out parties to follow your trail, but Wegredon beat them all back. Asguilar has grown restless these past few years. He’ll strike at anything.”

  Baleron stretched his lips in a thin smile. “He’ll strike at nothing now.”

  “Pardon, my lord?”

  In his mind’s eye, Baleron remembered hacking the vampire into pieces. Unconsciously, he patted the hilt of his sword, Rondthril, taken from the fiend. “Never mind. Continue. And it’s Baleron.”

  The soldier nodded. He looked sweaty. “Well, so we had no word, an’ when the Naslym bridges were rebuilt and communication resumed with Felgrad we learned you’d never reached the palace—or anywhere. We had to think you’d all been slain, my, ah, Baleron. But the king refused to let either your room or Rolenya’s be changed or used. He kept ‘em for you. Well, until your deaths could be confirmed.”

  Baleron looked at him skeptically. It did not surprise the prince that his father would have held Rolenya’s room, but his?

  “Am I free to—?”

  The guard moved aside. “By all means, Baleron. And welcome back.”

  Baleron entered his suite. Thick fur rugs covered the stone floors and antlered deer heads popped out from the walls. Candelabras crouched about the room, tapers expectant. His stand-alone fireplace dominated the living area, and before it stretched his best rug, the thick dark shag of a bear he’d brought down himself. Many women had loved that rug. Could he ever go back to that life?

  His father’s words echoed in his head, again and again. Each time he heard it differently.

  WOULD anyone follow him? Would anyone FOLLOW him? Would anyone follow HIM?

  He tried to shake it off. As the youngest—the sixteenth—child of the King, he’d never been given any more than token responsibility growing up, never given a chance to prove himself, even though he’d yearned for it, until Rolenya saw a chance to help him by asking him to lead the caravan that would see her to her wedding in Felgrad, and that had led to tragedy. Before that point, he’d long given up on being a respected figure in the family, in the country. He’d fallen into a life of drinking, gambling, carousing, and sleeping with the wrong men’s wives.

  After all he’d been through, he knew he wasn’t that person anymore, for good or bad. That person had been carefree, with no weight on his shoulders other than a bit of notoriety.

  The weight was greater now. Baleron could almost feel it, his Doom, crushing him ... down, down, down. A sliver of ice, of shadow, buried deep inside him. I’m the godsdamned spider of Gilgaroth!

  He poured himself a glass of brandy from his miraculously maintained liquor cabinet. The first sip stung his throat, but he drank another. It had been too long.

  The suite had been kept tidy in his absence—tidier than he’d left it, actually. It almost didn’t seem like home, he thought. He shrugged off his clothes and tossed them on the floor. Better.

  “I’m back,” he said to the empty room. “Gods help me, I’m back.”

  He found his bed and collapsed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow. Despite his doubts and misgivings, it was the best sleep he’d had in years ... until he saw a slim white figure running. Her wide blue eyes were full of fear, and black hair streamed back from her pale face. Rolenya! It was Rolenya, beautiful Rolenya, and she was fleeing from something great and dark, with fire burning in its eyes.

  In the morning, clammy with sweat from his nightmares, Baleron took a long hot bath and cleansed himself of the dirt of the road. He told himself that it was just a dream.

  He went down to the stables and visited Lunir, but first he helped himself to the oldest slab of meat he could find in the kitchens. He brought it to the glarum’s stall, situated as it was at the end of the row. The stall adjacent to the glarum’s was empty, and Baleron didn’t wonder why; he could not imagine that the glarum got on well with the other residents. Lunir would sooner eat a horse than share a stable with one.

  The glarum squawked when he saw the prince and ate heartily when Bal
eron tossed the meat on his floor, even if it was still a bit too fresh for him. Baleron would have to ask the cooks to set a hunk aside every day to age it. Lunir was a carrion bird, after all.

  Baleron brushed his feathers and patted his neck. “Have you missed me?” When the glarum seemed more interested in the food than conversation, Baleron laughed.

  He saddled Lunir and took him for a ride through the skies above Glorifel. Word had gone out about the bird, and no one fired on them even as they swept past the towers along the city wall. The soldiers there regarded the prince and his mount strangely.

  It was an odd decision, flying Lunir, and it troubled Baleron. By doing so he was driving a further wedge between himself and the people of his country. It was simply that he’d come to the conclusion that to avoid such things would be to deny who he had become, and that wasn’t something he was prepared to do.

  Finally, as the sun shone down on him and wind blew through his dark hair, Baleron began to feel like there might be a glimmer of hope, not just for Havensrike and the world, but for himself, too.

  Yet he didn’t like the thought of a dark prince riding a foul winged steed and carrying an unholy sword while a black curse wound about his very soul. Thus he returned Lunir to his stable after a lengthy ride, gave him some more food (birdfeed, this time), brushed him down, then made his way to Logran’s Tower, the largest and tallest of Castle Grothgar’s spires—nowhere near the majesty of Celievsti, of course, but a comforting sight nonetheless.

  Baleron ascended the spiral stairs within the Tower and knocked at the door to the sorcerer’s chambers. He waited anxiously, a knot in his stomach. He did not want to be that dark, cursed figure, not if he could help it. And if anyone could aid him, it was the Archmage.

  Logran opened the door himself. He looked old and befuddled, his brown eyes bleary. Doubtless he still grieved for Elethris, Lord of Celievsti, his mentor. Or perhaps he was merely beginning to look his age at last.

  He smiled, surprised at seeing the prince on his doorstep, and clapped Baleron on the shoulder. “Well, it’s good to see you here. Neither of us has been home for a long time, have we? It does the heart well.”