The River King's Road

by Merciel, Liane

  She expected nothing better from Willowfield.

  As they came up the road toward the village gate, the first of the crows startled away from their horses. More followed, and for a moment the sky was black and noisy with wings. They did not go far, though. This feast was too rich for them to be frightened from it that easily. The crows alighted on the empty houses’ rafters—the ones that were not too charred to bear their weight—and watched from there, eyeing the intruders warily.

  Bloated bodies lay piled up at the gate, hacked by blades and quilled with broken arrows. She saw men and women, a solaros in a yellow robe stiff with dried blood and soft with putrefaction, a fly-specked gray horse with its front legs shattered and splintered wood plunged into its chest. Maggots crawled through the crow-torn flesh of the dead, fat as grains of boiled barley. Flies swarmed around them in buzzing clouds, so thick that some of the bodies looked as though they had been rolled in coarse black sand. There were no good arrows left in them, she noted; the killers had retrieved those.

  Bitharn wrapped a scarf around her face to keep the flies away as they rode through the broken, corpse-crowded gate. Her jennet tossed its head back and whickered at the smell, tail flicking at the insects. Kelland’s seal-brown courser, bred for the battlefield, laid its ears back but kept walking.

  She stole a glance at Kelland. His face was utterly expressionless. He sat his saddle as stiffly as a statue carved from dark vehrwood, and he did not look down at the dead, but every time his charger came near to stepping on one of their outflung hands or the hems of their clothes, the knight nudged the horse aside.

  There were no flies in the center of the village. No crows, either. Carrion-eaters they might be, but flies and crows were creatures of the natural world, and there was nothing but poison for them here. Corpses aplenty, but no food.

  The main dirt road was dark and gritty. It looked like a clay bed the week after a storm; once soaked through, it had dried in a hard crust that crunched as it broke beneath the horses’ hooves. It wasn’t water that had drenched the road, though. The sunbaked grit stank of blood.

  The thatch on the half-burned roofs was stained red and had a shellacked stain under the afternoon sun. It, too, reeked of death. The whole village did.

  More bodies lay between the houses. Children. Chickens. A mother cat, in the shadow of a scorched smithy, still gripping the wrinkled corpse of her kitten by the scruff of its neck, running for a safety they’d never reached. The bodies were shriveled and painted with a fine mist of blood that had been sucked from their veins and rained back down.

  Kelland swung down from his saddle. He took a handful of dirt and crunched it in his fist, letting the bloodied grains trickle through his gloved fingers. “So it is true,” he said, and there was a hardness in his voice Bitharn had never heard before. “The Thorns have come west.”

  She nodded. She didn’t dismount; she did not want to set foot on that tainted earth. “Should we burn them?”

  He struggled with that answer for a while, but in the end Kelland shook his head. “I wish we could. It would be right. But we don’t have time to do honor to all the dead. Nor do I want to signal our pursuit to the Thorns. I expect they will learn we are coming, if they do not already know, but there’s no need to light signals for them every step of the way.”

  Bitharn nodded again, silently relieved, but they did not leave at once. Kelland wanted to pray over the dead. While he did that, Bitharn wandered through the village to assess the rest of the damage.

  The carnage in the chapel was even worse than that by the gate; but here the killing had been done by sword and axe, not the Thorns’ foul magic. The air was thick with flies and decay. Ordinary things. Things she could stomach.

  Bitharn dismounted and went in.

  A few minutes later she came back out, clambering over the corpses piled at the door. She took three long strides from the chapel and then she leaned forward with her hands on her knees and gulped air to clear the stench from her lungs. Her eyes watered from the reek and she knew that she would never be able to get it out of her boots, but that didn’t matter just now. She wiped the back of a hand over her lips—she hadn’t vomited, but wanted to—and got back into the saddle to look for Kelland.

  He was praying on his knees beside a pair of small, withered bodies. A boy and a girl, she guessed by the clothes. The bodies were in no condition to offer further clues. Shiny, blood-lacquered grains circled the boy’s head like droplets that would never dry. Bitharn waited until Kelland finished his prayers, made a sun sign over the children, and stood; then she coughed discreetly to draw his attention.

  “What is it?” he asked, shading his eyes against the low sun as he looked up at her.

  “Who did Lord Eduin say died here? The murders we’re investigating, I mean.”

  “They’re all the same in Celestia’s eyes. But Lord Inguilar worried about Sir Galefrid, his wife, and his son.”

  “And the son’s an infant?”

  “In swaddling.”

  “I don’t think he died here.” Bitharn nodded toward the chapel. The crows had already returned to its doorway, squabbling over the best pickings. “I found Galefrid and his wife. A lot of liegemen, too. But there aren’t any children among the dead, much less a baby in blankets.”

  “Where could he be?”

  “Maybe the killers took him.” She shrugged, doubtful. “Do we look for the child or chase after the Thorn?”

  “The Thorn,” Kelland said, without any hesitation this time. “Our charge is to find the killers, not recover a missing heir. I fear for the child, and pity him if he has fallen into enemy hands, but we have no business entangling ourselves with his succession. Our first duty is to deal with Ang’arta’s evil.”

  “How do you plan to find him?” The stories said Thorns could walk through shadows and disguise themselves behind the faces of the dead. Finding one wasn’t likely to be as easy as asking villagers if any hideously scarred bloodmages had passed by recently.

  Kelland bent to the ground and pried up three of the crimson-coated grains that had fallen by the dead boy’s head. He gazed at them in his gloved palm, then wrapped them in a scrap of cloth and tucked them into a pocket. “The Bright Lady will guide me. But we should go. It’s near dusk, and I have no wish to linger here after dark.”

  “Neither do I,” Bitharn said fervently.

  They made camp a league out of Willowfield, moving against the wind so that the smell of decay wouldn’t follow them into their sleep. While Kelland meditated in the last of the afternoon light, Bitharn saw to the horses, set up their tent, and laid a small, guarded fire. She didn’t think there would be much game this close to the dead village—or, if she was honest with herself, perhaps she simply didn’t want to wander off too far in the woods alone—so instead of hunting, she went into the stores of food that Lord Eduin’s people had packed for them.

  They’d been generous. There were bags of dried beans and tough cured sausages and twice-baked bread flavored with garlic and small black seeds that Bitharn did not know. They even had small packets of salt and pepper, rare luxuries this far inland. She started a pot of yellow lentils boiling with onions and garlic, and cut up a sausage to add to her own meal once Kelland had taken his share.

  Then, her immediate campsite chores done, she joined in Kelland’s prayer. There was music in his prayer, a sonorous solemnity that she could never match. The Sun Knight prayed with such devotion, such fervent love, that Bitharn imagined she could feel the warmth of Celestia’s presence touch them with the rays of fading light. He prayed until twilight came, and only when the last glimmer of sun was gone did he stop.

  After the prayer they ate the soup with pieces of hard crunchy bread. Bitharn let Kelland eat in silence. She knew it took him a while to recover his thoughts after a seeking-prayer, and anyway she was content to watch him by the firelight. The white shells in his hair glowed with reflected warmth, and the fire burnished his skin to the color of deepest mah
ogany.

  He was a beautiful man. Strange that no one else seemed to see it, blinded as they were by his exoticism and the insignia of his faith. Bitharn envied them, a little; maybe it would have been better not to notice at all, instead of longing for something she couldn’t have. But it was past helping, so she watched him by the fire and ached for what she couldn’t say.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked her, smiling curiously.

  Bitharn blinked. “I’m wondering what your visions showed,” she lied.

  “We should go east.” Kelland’s smile faded. He picked up a piece of bark, turned it in his fingers, and tossed it into the flames. His eyes were dark and hooded in the fire’s glow. “The vision was … tangled, but that much was clear. They rode toward the rising sun. East, toward a castle where a green boy sits on an old gnarled chair, with white wolves defending him against his own dogs.”

  “A green boy sitting an old throne could be any of half a hundred castles,” Bitharn said. “Heirs come young in this part of the world. What else did you see?”

  “Little that makes sense to me,” Kelland said moodily. He took another chunk of bark from the dirt. “The boy dancing over a pool of blood that pulled away from his feet with each step but surged back to swallow him if he slowed. A bright blue crystal, colder than frost, that gleamed behind a mask made of dead skin. A black cat with an ebon unicorn’s horn and fierce green eyes, and a girl trying to ride it with two babies balanced in a scale, one to each side. Other things, dimmer, that I could barely see. And you, crying.” He held her gaze unblinking, his features stoic, but he broke the bark into tiny jagged pieces as he spoke. “You knelt in the snow, and you were holding my sword, and there were thorns in the hilt that drew blood from your hands. They rose up and made a chain around your wrists.”

  His words chilled her, but Bitharn managed a nonchalant shrug. “Well, better my hands than my throat. Anyway, the visions don’t mean what they show you, you know that. The light of the Lady’s pure truth would blind us, isn’t that what the priests say? The goddess shows us what our minds can grasp, and sometimes we can’t follow her perfectly. I’m sure my hands will be fine.”

  “I won’t lead you to harm.” A furrow appeared between Kelland’s brows. She longed to reach forward and smooth it away, and laced her fingers to keep them still.

  “I’ll be fine. I was fine in Silverpool, and this is no worse.”

  “This is different.”

  “Why?” She raised an eyebrow. “This had better not be about protecting a delicate flower of womanhood. I’ll throw a rock at your head. You know better.”

  “I still have the bruises from the last time to remind me.” A smile began in his eyes, but soon faltered and failed. “It’s the Thorns, Bitharn.” For once his gravity slipped and the knight sounded as young as he was. “I’m afraid for you. Not for myself. This is my duty. I knew what it meant when I swore my oaths. But you—”

  “—swore the same ones,” Bitharn said firmly, cutting him off. “Or do my oaths not matter, because the goddess doesn’t speak through me?”

  That was a low shot, and she felt a flicker of guilt for taking it, but her words struck the mark. Pain flickered on Kelland’s face before his mask of stoicism returned. “Very well. If you insist.”

  “I do. You’re hopeless without me.”

  “I am.” He tried the smile again, with even less success, and looked anywhere but at her. “That’s why I’m afraid. It isn’t about being Blessed, or not. I can’t lose you to the Thorns.”

  “Oh,” Bitharn said. Brilliantly. “Well.”

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

  “No.” She shook her head, her braid swinging across her back. All the words seemed to have evaporated from her mind. She stood, circled the fire to come to his side, and knelt so that she could press a finger to his lips. He flinched as if she’d burned him, then relaxed into her touch. “Please. Don’t ever be sorry about that.”

  “I have to be. I’m bound by my oaths.”

  Honesty, chivalry, chastity; Bitharn knew them well. The Knights of the Sun could take no lovers and no wives, for they were required to be as pure in body as they were in soul. Those who broke their oaths lost the goddess’ favor, tarnished the honor of their order, and were cast out from the ranks of the Blessed. Mortal love was impossible for those who enjoyed the favor of the divine.

  “I know. I’m not asking you to break them,” she said. It was only half a lie. Wanting wasn’t asking.

  “Thank you,” he said, and the words were almost a sigh.

  She leaned against him, shoulder to shoulder, and wished that she might never have to move. An unseen wolf howled in the distance. Another answered its cry. Leaves rustled in the wind; one fell into their fire and curled bright-edged into ash. Kelland was warm beside her, and her hand stole down to find his. He stiffened slightly, but took her hand; their fingers circled together, a clasp that reassured where words could not.

  “What do we know about the Thorns?” Bitharn asked softly. She didn’t want the moment to end, but if they were to succeed—and have more moments like this in the future—they needed to be prepared.

  “Very little,” he admitted. She could feel the words reverberating in his chest. Without thinking, Bitharn nestled closer, resting her head against his shoulder. Again Kelland stiffened, but after a heartbeat he continued. “Only two of my teachers at the Dome of the Sun ever faced them: Khierien Solenar and Isleyn Silverlock. Both fought at Thelyand Ford, and Sir Isleyn was at Asen Falls too. Other than those two, and a handful of mentions in manuscripts that go back almost to Calantyr’s founding, we know nothing. Eltanir Teglessin has been working tirelessly to sort through the old lore and recover the arts we’ve forgotten, but these things take time, and in the meantime we’re hobbled. They’re so new.”

  “Or so old,” Bitharn said. She’d pried the rest of their history from Kelland during their ride, and what she’d learned was not comforting.

  Kliasta, the Pale Maiden who commanded pain, had once been worshipped in the west as well as the east. Her followers had never been numerous; there were not many who felt compelled to spend their lives seeking and cultivating agony. The truly mad went to Maol, while those who sought pure power and were willing to pay for it in blood gravitated toward Anvhad or Baoz, depending on their taste for subtlety. Kliasta drew very few worshippers, and still fewer Blessed, so her faith had been easily stamped out when the Celestians came to power in the west. They had been sadists and bloodmages, all of them, and no one mourned their passing.

  The Kliastan faith had never died in the east, though. There, past the ruins of dwindling Ardashir and the blistering wastes of the Black Sands, the emperors of the Nightingale Court kept Kliastans in high honor as imperial inquisitors and torturers. The Pale Maiden’s temples stood openly there: palaces of carved ivory where coils of incense burned to complement, not hide, the stench of blood and hot iron from her dungeons.

  Ten years ago, the man who was now Lord Commander of Ang’arta traveled to the distant east, seeking power at the edge of the world. Back then he was no one, just another Baozite soldier who had survived the breaking pits long enough to earn his brand and sword. He’d had nothing but his own savagery and vaulting ambition.

  Eight years ago, he returned with one of those eastern witches. Avele diar Aurellyn, the Spider. His wife. Whether he had captured her, or she him, was wholly unclear; what was soon apparent, however, was that she made a formidable weapon. Within a few short seasons all his enemies were dead or broken, and Aedhras the Golden was Lord Commander of Ang’arta. Soon after that, the Spider took up residence in the Tower of Thorns and began gathering disciples in her bloody arts.

  It was then that the Sunfallen Kingdoms began to realize the true danger on their borders. Ang’arta had been a menace for centuries; the Baozites took war for worship, and attacked any vulnerable target near their borders. But for a generation or more, they had not seriously marched beyond
those borders.

  That changed when Aedhras the Golden took the Whispering Throne. The man who had gone to Kai Amur to find a sorceress was not one to be content with holding the same land his predecessors had claimed centuries ago. He wanted more, and he had the strength and cunning to take it. The Baozites were a terrible force in themselves, but with Aedhras as their general and the Thorns adding their magic, they seemed unstoppable. They’d crushed King Merovas’ armies at Thelyand Ford, seized the territory up to the riverbanks, and would no doubt look for new victims as soon as they’d pacified the conquered lands.

  “They must have some weakness,” Bitharn murmured.

  “The Thorns? The same as any other Blessed,” Kelland said. “Their vows and their lives. If they have others, neither Sir Khierien nor Sir Isleyn saw them.”

  “How did we stop them the first time?”

  “We killed them.” His thumb traced along the inside of her wrist, idly, as if he wasn’t fully aware of what he was doing. Bitharn held her breath, afraid that if she moved he might stop. “They might have magic, but they are men, and they

  can die.”

  She nodded, unconvinced but willing to take the offered comfort. The Knights of the Sun were a different order in that age. As their enemies failed and died off, and the commonfolk’s needs grew more pressing, their training had shifted from the purely martial to adopt more and more of the Illuminers’ healing and divinatory arts. Centuries later, she didn’t know how well Celestia’s champions would match Kliasta’s. The Kliastans, Bitharn surmised, would have had little interest in diluting their own deadliness to help the commonfolk in their lands.

  Still, Kelland thought he could prevail, and he knew his own gifts better than she did. Her skin tingled where he had touched her. “What can they do?”

  “Bloodmist. You saw what it did to Willowfield. It kills anything living in its reach—man or beast, friend or foe. That’s only one of their spells. They can shatter victims’ bones in their bodies without shedding blood or needing a touch; they can inflict wracking pain from a distance. Sir Solenar said he saw one of them turn arrows aside on the battlefield, using shadows to deflect them instead of sunlight to burn them as we do. Sir Isleyn said they sent an inquisitor to Asen Falls, and that inquisitor could wrench the deepest fears and truths out of a man’s mind without saying a word.”