Relieved and grateful, Ka’en inclined her head. “Thank you, my lord.”
“Is this all that you required of me?”
“Yes.”
Joktan watched her in silence for a long moment. Then, “I am glad that you stand with him,” he said. “He is stronger for your presence.”
And he faded into the night.
51
Jonwood rubbed at the stump of his right arm with his good hand, staring out over the darkening plains with its hundreds of fires, where the almost eleven thousand men of Duridia and Lamont were settling in for the night. He grinned savagely as he turned to Wamlak.
“Let them come, now – or let us go out to meet them. We are not small anymore, and we are not without hope.”
But Wamlak was looking the other way, at the severe profile of his Prince. Aram was standing at the parapet of the new fortress with Findaen, Boman, and Edwar. He was gazing out upon those same fires as Jonwood, but Wamlak knew that the Prince was not seeing simply thousands of men, but rather a tool with which to strike at his enemy. Jon was right; they were no longer a small force of inexperienced farmers. Most of the men spread across the plains, while not tried in battle, were nonetheless properly trained and well-equipped.
Wamlak suspected, however, that even if Aram yet stood alone, with no army at his heels, he would nonetheless strike at the grim lord again. And from Wamlak’s experience, he would do so with an excellent chance of winning the day.
Aram was truly, as stated in surreptitious conversations, a “strange man”. Wamlak often thought about his lord, and puzzled over him. The Prince was highly intelligent, there was no question as to that point, but he not overtly clever. Certainly he was not as clever as Jame, the Hay of Lamont, or even as Wamlak himself, and he did not hesitate to defer to such men on points of tactical interest. Lord Aram seemed remarkably uninterested in guarding his own authority.
Yet there was something about him, something mysterious that felt of ancient knowledge and of an iron will that rendered him a thing more than that which was seen by the eye. Aram seemed to stride the world with a purpose known only to him, but it was a purpose that he perceived unambiguously. And because that purpose was so clear to him, being the man that he was, men like Wamlak were willing to follow him almost without question.
Wamlak thought back to the first time that Lord Aram had come within his view, on the field of battle, driving the enemy army single-handedly from before the walls of Derosa. Something had come to that battle with him. Something strange, ancient, and unknown. There was an unseen power that went with him everywhere, creatures, perhaps, that answered to him, or a power that he alone controlled and unleashed at will.
Beyond that, there was the sword. It, also, seemed to answer to his will, slaying his enemies with ease, and even wounding the earth at his behest.
So, then, was Aram a man – or a god?
Wamlak considered the duel with the monster in the wilderness. For much of that terrible day’s events, Aram had exhibited the desperation of a mere mortal. He had been as always a fierce warrior, yes, but dependent upon the great horse, Thaniel, to get him into the breach between the beast and the terrified group clustered upon the hill behind him. It had seemed endless, and toward the end, hopeless.
Then something had happened to the Prince. Aram had seemed to abruptly grow in stature, and become something more. He strode directly toward his enemy, leaving the horse behind, and calling upon the sword once again, destroyed the massive creature with ease.
How were these things to be explained, or even understood?
Wamlak had long ago decided that he did not believe the story of Aram having been born as a slave. He did not think him a god – as did Mallet – but he did not think him a mere man. He had considered the oft-told story of Lord Florm, ten thousand years ago, taking a mother and small boy away from the scene of slaughter at Rigar Pyrannis. He’d thought on this long and hard and had decided that it was no mere coincidence that when Aram arrived upon the scene, Florm had been there as well.
Aram, Wamlak had decided, was in fact that child. For whatever reason, he had come to maturity in the wilderness, and through all the wild ages of the earth had remained hidden, revealing himself only now.
Pondering that belief, and what it portended for him and the future of his people, he smiled and gave his answer.
“Jon, my old friend,” he said. “We were never without hope.”
End Book Three
Kelven's Riddle Book Three Page 56