The Briar King

by Greg Keyes

  Desmond switched languages, to Old Vadhiian, and Stephen was suddenly riveted. His mind translated so swiftly it was like hearing his native tongue.

  One to open the way, dread power, and one to walk the way. A path of blood for the changeling, a soul to work the change.

  Spendlove drew something from his robes, something that glittered so sharply it brought an ache to Stephen's eyes. Brother Desmond moved to the prone man, who tried to shriek but could not. Desmond knelt over the bound man, and Stephen realized with a dull shock that the terrible thing in his hand was some sort of knife, as the monk split the man open from sternum to groin and begin pulling out his innards. The struggling quickly diminished to twitching.

  Stephen's morning meal rose to his throat, but he kept it there, tightening his will, concentrating on the details of what was happening, trying to abstract them, to pretend it wasn't the end of a human life he was watching, that those weren't intestines Spendlove and his men were spreading in strange patterns around the still-writhing figure.

  After a time, seemingly satisfied, Spendlove beckoned one of the bare-chested monks—Seigereik—to step forward. Seigereik did so, face grim, straddling over the still-twitching, disemboweled figure.

  “Are you ready, Brother?” Spendlove asked softly.

  “I am, Brother Spendlove,” Seigereik said, his voice tight with determination.

  “Be strong,” Spendlove bade him. “There will be a moment of disorientation. There will be pain, but you must bear it. And you must succeed. There can be no more failure.”

  “I will not fail, Brother Spendlove.”

  “I know you won't, Brother Seigereik, my warrior.”

  Seigereik lifted his arms and closed his eyes.

  “A soul to work the change,” Spendlove intoned, and struck Seigereik in the heart with the glittering knife. Stephen choked back a gasp as the monk's legs folded and he dropped lifeless. The air around the sedos seemed to darken, and something like a high keening of wind whipping black smoke soughed off through the treetops.

  What have I just seen? Stephen wondered. Two sacrifices, one willing, one not. And Seigereik was supposed to complete a task after he was dead? It didn't make any sense. Unless …

  Would the corpse rise again? Had Desmond done the unthinkable and broken the law of death?

  But the monk's body remained where it had fallen. No, it was the soul that had been sent away, wrapped in dark magic.

  He shook himself away from his suppositions. The Sefry and two of the remaining monks were mounting their horses.

  “He'd better succeed,” one of the Sefry—by his eye patch, probably Fend—remarked.

  “Your way is prepared,” Spendlove assured him. “It might even be over by the time you get there.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “One more will make it certain,” Spendlove replied. He knelt over the disemboweled man on the ground. “There's still life in him. I can probably use him again. Brother Ash-ern, prepare yourself.”

  The other painted monk nodded.

  “Why take chances?” Fend asked, waving at the disemboweled captive. “Use the girl.”

  “I thought you wanted to kill her in front of the holter,” Spendlove said. “After all, you brought her all this way.”

  “I had that whim,” Fend said. “It has passed. Just leave her where he'll find her.”

  Desmond glanced at the dying man.

  “You may be right,” he allowed. “If he pops off in the middle, Ashern's sending will go awry.”

  Fend and his Sefry rode off. A few moments later Spend-love chopped his head at one of the men, and said, “Bring her out.” A struggling woman was led from one of the tents.

  Holter, where are you? Stephen wondered frantically. As-par White was nowhere to be seen.

  If the holter noticed Fend riding off—and of course he would—he would probably follow in hopes of killing him. Stephen realized he could no longer count on Aspar White; the man's obsession with the one-eyed Sefry was obvious, though he had never deigned to explain why.

  Stephen thought he knew what Spendlove was up to, now, though it seemed incredible. If he didn't act very soon, the young woman below was going to be murdered in a very unpleasant way.

  He'd just seen one man die that way. He would die himself before he watched it happen again. Steeling himself, he began moving toward the camp as quickly as he could.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  THE PLAIN OF TERROR

  A SAINT'S BREATH OF WIND sighed along the battlements of Cal Azroth as Neil gazed past the queen to the sun melting on the distant green horizon. The plain of Mey Ghorn was open and still, the only motion in sight the occasional whirl of swallows overhead. The triple ring of canals around the fortress was already in shadow, and soon their waters would hold stars. Off to his right he heard soldiers talking in the garrison, connected to the inner keep by a causeway.

  The queen often stood like this at evening, facing Eslen.

  Laughter bubbled up from the gap between keep and garrison. Elseny, by the sound of it. Neil glanced behind and down and saw her there. From above, the circle of her yellow dress and her dark hair made her resemble a sunflower. She was in the citadel's narrow, high-walled horz, on the big flat rock that was at the center of it, putting flowers in the wickerwork feinglest two of the old serving women had built earlier that day. Neil had never seen one exactly like this, vaguely human in shape. In Liery it was considered ill luck to build one so, though he had never heard why.

  A movement to the side caught his eye, and with a start he realized he could see the edge of a second dress, peeking from beneath the canopy of an ash tree, this one blue and less noticeable in the fading light. Then came the flash of a white face looking up, and Fastia's gaze touching his own. She quickly looked back down, while Neil bit his lip, a blush creeping up his face. Fastia often had avoided him in the two ninedays that had passed since that evening in Glenchest. He didn't know if she hated him or …

  Nor does it matter, he told himself. Remember what Erren said. He couldn't control what he felt, but he could certainly control what he did. With one exception, that was what he had been doing all of his life.

  Once was enough, though. The unfamiliar feel of failure rested heavy in his heart.

  “Ten thousand men and women died on this plain,” the queen said softly.

  Neil started and turned his gaze guiltily from the horz, but the queen wasn't looking at him. He wasn't even sure she was talking to him.

  “Is it so, Your Majesty?” he asked, not certain how to respond. “Was it in battle against Hansa?”

  “Hansa?” the queen said. “No. Hansa wasn't even a dream in those days. Nor was Crotheny. In those days, the houses of men weren't divided. The ancestors of Marcomir fought beside the Dares.”

  “It was the war against the Skasloi, then?”

  She nodded. “They had loosed their shackles and burned the citadels in the east, but that was nothing if they did not reach Ulheqelesh and win there.” She turned to him, and with a shock he saw tears in her eyes. “Ulheqelesh was where Eslen now stands.”

  “I never knew its name in the demon's tongue,” Neil replied. He felt profoundly ignorant.

  “We don't speak it often. Most do not know it. It is one of the burdens of royalty that we must read the oldest histories.”

  “And the battle here, at Mey Ghorn?”

  “The name has become corrupted over time. In the old tongue it was Magos Gorgon, the Plain of Terror.”

  “And the battle—it was a great one?”

  “There was no battle,” the queen said. “They marched and they died, their flesh stripped from their bones, their bones burned into dust. And yet they marched on.”

  “They never saw their enemy? There was never a foe to lift arms against?”

  The queen shook her head. “They marched and they died,” she repeated. “Because they knew they must. Because the only other choice was to live as slaves.”

  Nei
l stared out at the darkening plain, a strange tickle of awe working in him.

  “Every footstep on that plain must fall on the remains of those warriors.”

  The queen nodded.

  “It is a terrible story,” Neil offered. “Warriors should die in battle.”

  “Warriors should die in bed,” the queen countered, her voice suddenly edged with anger. “Didn't you hear me? Ten thousand ghosts are bound in the soil of Mey Ghorn. Ten thousand brothers and sisters, the fathers and mothers of Hansa, Crotheny, Saltmark, Tero Gallé, Virgenya—every nation of Everon has bones in this dirt. They were noble, and they were proud, and their only real weapon was the hope that their sons and daughters would see a better day, know a better world.

  “And see what we have done with it. What do we fight about now? Fishing disputes. Trade tariffs. Bickering over borders. Our whole race has become petty and vicious. We fight for nothing.” She waved her hand to encompass the land around. “We denigrate their memory. How ashamed they must be of us.”

  Neil stood silent for a few moments, until the queen turned to face him.

  “Sir Neil?” she said softly. “You have something to say?”

  He kept his gaze on hers, on those eyes so like her daughter's.

  “I know little of trade tariffs or politics,” he admitted. “I know little of the deep histories.”

  “But you know something,” she said.

  “I knew my grandfather, Dovel MeqFinden. He was a good man. He made little ships of wood for me when I was a boy, and he trooped across the rocky fields of Skern with me on his shoulders. He showed me the sea, and told me of the beautiful Fier de Meur and the terrible draugs who dwell in its depths.”

  “Go on.”

  “Skern is a small place, Majesty. You may not know that in those days our overlord was a duke from Hansa, and it had been thus for six generations. Our own language was forbidden us, and one half of our crops and cattle were forfeit to that man and his house. When that brought us to starvation, we must needs borrow from the duke, and to pay him back we must go into his service. We are a proud people, Majesty, but not so proud as to let our children starve.”

  “Your grandfather?”

  “A plague came and killed the most of his cattle, and he could not pay what he had borrowed. He was forced to work in the stables of our lord, the duke. One day a daughter of that lord sat a horse too wild for her. My grandfather warned her against it, but she ignored him. She was thrown.”

  “She was killed?”

  “She was not. Ten men were present to bear witness. My grandfather reached her and pulled her from beneath the hooves of the horse, taking a hard blow. He saved her life. But in so doing, he touched her, the great lady of a Hanzish house. For that he was hanged.”

  Sympathy softened the queen's face. “I'm sorry,” she said.

  Neil shrugged. “It is one story of many,” he said. “Many times we tried to rise against our Hanzish masters. Always we failed, until the day Fail de Liery came over the sea with his boats and brought us arms, and fought beside us, and drove the duke and all of his men back to their homeland. Perhaps Liery fought for Skern due to some petty dispute—I do not know. I only know that now my people can feed and clothe themselves and are not hanged for speaking their native tongue. I know we can live now like men and not like Hanzish lapdogs. This is a small thing, perhaps, compared to what happened on this plain. But in my heart, Majesty, I know tyranny did not end with the Skasloi, and the fight for what is right did not end with the men who marched across Mey Ghorn. I know my opinion lacks education—” He felt suddenly as if he had said far too much. Who was he to contradict the queen?

  “No,” she said, a small smile brightening her face. “The only thing your opinion lacks is the jaded view from the towers of the highborn. Thank the saints for you, Neil MeqVren. You put me in my place.”

  “Majesty, I never meant to—”

  “Hush. I'm done brooding, thanks to you. Let's speak of this no more, but go down and make merry. It's the eve of Fiussanal, you know.”

  Memory flashed, of a blue dress and a face glancing up at him, and eagerness and trepidation exchanged blows on the battlefield of his heart.

  But when they reached the horz, Fastia was nowhere to be seen.

  Night gentled upon the fortress, and by the toll of the eighth bell the preparations for Fiussanal were done and even the excited Elseny was quiet in her chambers awaiting sleep.

  Sleep eluded Neil, however. The memory of Fastia by moonlight haunted him, but something besides that nagged him. Perhaps it was the queen's talk of the host of ancient dead around Cal Azroth that drew him back outside, to the rampart of the tower in which she had her apartments. From there he would notice any who might come and go into the royal residence, and so prosecute his duty. But he could also gaze over the haunted, moonlit plain, studying it for any wisps of mist or light that might remark some sign of ghosts.

  After the tenth bell tolled, his eyelids were finally drooping and the moon was setting on the horizon. Neil was considering a return to his quarters when, with a faint thrill, at the corner of his eye he detected motion.

  Staring straight on, he saw nothing at first, but from the periphery of his vision he made out several figures moving swiftly toward the castle.

  He did not think they were ghosts.

  He descended the tower as far as the battlements, hoping for a better view and to alert the watch. What he had seen could have been anything—a pack of wild dogs, a Sefry band, messengers from the court—but his watchword was suspicion.

  He saw no better from the battlements, but in the courtyard below them he noticed something that raised his hackles. Two human figures lay there unmoving. The moon was not yet risen, so he couldn't make out who they were, but the positions in which they lay made him doubt they were merely asleep from too much drink.

  He hesitated only long enough to wonder if he should put on the rest of his armor. He wore his leather gambeson and a light chain hauberk, and donning the plate would take far too long. Grimly, heart pounding, he started toward the stair, keeping his steps light.

  Down in the courtyard, he found his worst fears realized; the massive double gate stood open, and he could see stars beyond. Now, too, he could see the insignia of the Royal Footguard on the fallen men, and the pools of blood that pronounced them dead.

  A man he hadn't seen from above lay crumpled against the base of the stairs. He was still alive, though his breath wheezed strangely. Neil approached carefully, gaze sweeping the compound. To the right of the open gate stood a second portal, still closed, beyond which lay the causeway leading to the garrison. To his left was the queen's tower. When he detected no one, and no movement in either direction, he turned his attention to the injured man.

  With a start, he saw it was Sir James Cathmayl. His throat was cut, and he was trying futilely to stop the flow of his life's blood with his own two hands. His eyes fastened on Neil, and he tried to say something. No sound emerged, only more blood, but the downed knight gestured at something behind Neil, and his dying eyes glittered bright warning.

  Neil flung himself to the right, and steel smote the cobbles where he'd knelt. He turned and brought Crow to guard.

  A man stood there, a fully armored knight. “Death has found you,” the knight told him.

  “Death has found me many times,” Neil replied. “I've always sent her away hungry.” Then, raising his voice, he shouted, “Alarm! The gate is breached, and enemies are within!”

  The knight laughed and stepped closer, but didn't raise his weapon, and with a thrill of astonishment, Neil saw it was Vargus Farre.

  “Traitor,” Neil rasped, leaping forward, scything Crow in a hard blow down.

  The knight merely retreated, now bringing his weapon to guard.

  “Don't you feel it, Sir Knight?” Vargus asked. There was something wrong with his accent, with the way he spoke, and despite the fact that the man wore Sir Vargus' face, Neil suddenly doubted it w
as really the man he knew at all.

  “Don't you?” Sir Vargus repeated. “Death arriving in you?”

  “What is this, Sir Vargus, or whatever you be? For whom have you opened the gate?”

  “You'll feel it soon.”

  And suddenly, Neil did. Something struck him like flame between the eyes, but a flame that ate out from within. He heard a voice that wasn't his, inside his ears, felt a will not his own scratching within his skull. With a shriek he fell to his knees, Crow clattering beside him.

  The knight who could not be Sir Vargus laughed again, and something behind Neil's lips bubbled a sardonic reply.

  CHAPTER NINE

  NIGHT VISITORS

  “WELL, THAT WAS RATHER DULL,” Anne muttered, lighting a taper to illuminate the tower room she shared with Austra.

  “Really?” Austra said, her voice somehow faraway sounding. “I found it entertaining enough.”

  “I would go so far as to call it quaint,” Anne replied.

  “Quaint,” Austra repeated, nodding. She went to the window and looked out at the night. Anne sighed and began changing out of her dress.

  “It was nice to wear a gown again, at least,” she said, “even one in such questionable taste.” She held the empty dress up before her, then, shrugging, folded it carefully. She pulled her coarse sleeping shift over her head.

  “It's back to lessons tomorrow,” she said, trying to distract herself from the lingering disappointment that Cazio hadn't been Roderick, and the uneasy feelings the shameless Vitellian had stirred in her. “We're learning the uses of alvwort, I hear, which I'm much looking forward to.”

  “Uh-huh,” Austra murmured.

  Anne turned a suspicious glance on her friend.

  “We're also having a lesson on changing babies into puppies, and the reverse.”

  “Good,” Austra said, nodding. “That will be interesting.”

  “Saints, what's wrong with you?” Anne demanded of her friend. “You aren't even listening to me.”