by Tim Stead
“That is a pity. I would like to have known from one who has seen him. We hear so many stories.”
“I can tell you that those who have seen him fight are more in awe of him than those who have not.”
“A fair answer,” she said. “Perhaps he is truly the god of death then.”
“He does not seem so to me,” Skal said.
“No?” She looked back at the fire and was silent for a while. “Terresh had a theory. After Passerina brought me back from the edge of death he thought that perhaps she was life and he was death. How could we lose if we fought with both life and death on our side?” Her voice was very quiet.
“Queen Hestia, if I intrude upon your grief I will leave at once.”
She looked up sharply. “No. Stay, Lord Skal. I cannot talk to my own people. I must be strong for them. You are the only one, and I owe you my life.”
“I regret that I could not save the king also.”
“Do you? I could see that you did not think much of him, and he could see it, too. You know he wanted your respect, but he could never say so, not even to me.”
“He was a king, Queen Hestia, and his people loved him.” Why would the king have wanted the respect of a minor Avilian nobleman, a colonel?
“A kind thing to say, and true in its way. You are a good man, Lord Skal.”
“I am happy that you think so,” he replied.
She was quiet for a while longer. “She did more, you know.”
She? He supposed that Hestia was speaking of Passerina. “More?” he asked.
“More than heal me.” She touched her hair in the place where a hint of grey was invading her thick, dark locks. “The colour is coming back,” she said. “There was a scar on my hand from when I was a child, and it has gone. The lines on my face are fading. I am younger, Lord Skal.”
“Is that possible?”
“I see it in myself, and I am not deceived,” she replied. “And she takes life without touching those she kills. We saw it in Telas Alt, Seth Yarra dead without a mark, just fallen upon the ground as though…” she struggled for a word. “As though doused, like a fire, smothered like a candle without even a chance to put a hand to the hilt of their swords.”
It was a chilling image. “You saw this?”
“Not with my eyes, but where she passed the Seth Yarra no longer lived.”
Skal considered this for a moment. It seemed unlikely. If the Benetheon could kill in this manner, then why did they not? Remard and others had died in the Great War. Beloff had fallen at Finchbeak Road. It made no sense, unless it was Passerina alone who could do this. Yet he had seen the sparrow heal Hestia with his own eyes, and nowhere in all the stories of his youth was this held to be a Benetheon power. It was unknown.
“But why does she not do this to all Seth Yarra?” he asked.
“I think it hurts her in some way,” Hestia said.
“Hurts?”
“I cannot explain, but it seems so to me. Yet I cannot be sure. I cannot even be sure that I believe what I am saying. It seems quite impossible.”
Skal understood. These were wild words, not the sort of talk a loyal Telan would want to hear from his queen, but Skal was not a loyal Telan. He did not know exactly what he was – a friend, an ally, a stranger? – but he was certainly not a Telan.
“You will not speak of this to anyone else?” he asked.
“I cannot, but the words must be spoken, even if to nothing more than the night air. They burn within me and cannot be denied.”
“Then I am glad to have been of service,” Skal said.
Hestia seemed to shake herself, pull free of her melancholy. She sat forward in her chair and looked keenly at Skal. “Forget what I have said, Lord Skal. It is of no consequence. But now we must speak more seriously. Will you support me?”
“Support you?” He did not understand the question.
“I will claim the throne of Telas,” she said. “The men know that you are a warrior of some renown, and if you stand beside me I will have a better chance of making that claim stick. Many will not like it.”
“They may not see my support as a positive thing, Queen Hestia. I am an Avilian Lordling, and there is no love for Avilian among your People.”
“I judge it differently, Lord Skal, and you will allow that it is my gamble?”
“It is.”
“Besides, I have other lords that are loyal to me. You are not the only card in my hand.” She smiled a thin smile. She looked tired, Skal thought, and it was hardly surprising. She had stood and fought with them. She had seen her husband die, and yet here she was plotting late into the night. He wondered for a moment what was in her mind, if it was simply the power that she wished to wield. It did not seem likely. Good men would have walked away from the challenges she faced.
“What will you do?” he asked.
“I will take Telas Alt as we planned.”
“We have lost the Greenhow Bridge. It will take more time. It will be more difficult.”
“So much greater the glory.”
Skal laughed. “I cannot fault your ambition, Queen Hestia,” he said.
“I must be bold or I shall be nothing at all, and if I am nothing, then the same fate will befall Telas. Will you support me?”
“I will.”
“Then I have one more thing to thank you for, Lord Skal.”
* * * *
The dawn saw the funeral rites of the king of Telas. It was not a lavish affair. Terresh was, compared to his ancestors, a pauper king, driven from his capital, his royal palace a tent, his honour guard a battered phalanx of warriors. Yet they had done what they could.
All night the Telans had been abroad gathering wood, and now a pyre stood on the top of one of the hills that overlooked the spot where the king had fallen. It was fully ten feet high and draped thickly with cloths of blue and gold. Terresh had been placed on the top, dressed in his armour with his sword at his side. The body of one of the Seth Yarra soldiers had been placed beneath his feet to symbolise his mastery over his enemies, and all around him were piled sweet, aromatic herbs. The cloths and the bodies and the wood had been soaked in oil.
Around the pyre the Telan soldiers stood in ranks. There was a parade ground formality about the scene that seemed quite uncharacteristic for the Telans. They stood quite still, and in perfect lines, waiting for their queen. Skal had assembled his Avilians between the pyre and the town. They remained at the ready in case the Seth Yarra should attempt to launch some kind of attack, but he thought it unlikely. Now that their full force could be clearly seen from Greenhow it was clearly quite beyond the enemy’s ambition, and besides that the bridge was gone.
Skal himself waited where he had been asked to wait. He stood with a group of Telan officers and lords close to Hestia’s tent. They were a sombre, black browed bunch. There was no conversation among them. They stood silently, heads bowed, grim.
Hestia emerged from the tent a few minutes after the sun had risen. She was dressed entirely in white. Skal had no idea where she had found such a costume, but it looked stunning amid the glowering greys, browns and blacks of her escort.
“I go to farewell the king,” she said to them. “Will you do likewise?” It was a formal phrase, and the response was muttered by the assembled company.
“We will.”
She led them, straight backed and proud, along the path that led up to the pyre. A way had been left for her, and they all filed through the silent ranks of soldiers until they stood by the small tower of wood and Terresh’s remains.
Hestia stood for a moment, now with her head bowed, facing the pyre. A man stood next to her, bearing a lighted torch that guttered in the breeze. The oil soaked cloth flapped lazily against the wood of the pyre. Somewhere above the grassy hills a skylark was singing an inappropriate song, praising the joys of summer.
Hestia turned and faced her gathered people.
“Today we bring to a close the reign of Terresh, King of Telas, lord of the w
est, lion of the eternal kingdom, emperor of the seas.” Her voice faltered, and she reached out to put a hand upon the cloth, to steady herself. Skal wondered if she was as touched by grief as she seemed.
“Yet we are a kingdom in peril,” she went on. “We are scattered, we are bloody, but we are not defeated. Our enemy is strong, but we are also strong. Our enemy is determined, but we are more determined. Our enemy is confident, but we are certain of victory!” Skal could see movement among the Telan soldiers. This was just what they wanted to hear. They had tasted victory at Fal Verdan, they had tasted it here, and they wanted more. Hestia stepped to the man with the torch, but instead of the flame she took his sword. She raised it above her head.
“I am your queen. I have fought beside you. I have tasted Seth Yarra blood. I claim the throne, by the right of blood I claim it, by the right of presence I claim it, by the right of wisdom I claim it! Who will follow me now to Telas Alt and drive these dogs once and for all time from our city?”
A couple of the nobles exchanged glances. They had not been expecting this, but the soldiery were thumping their lances into the ground, banging swords on shields. Several of the nobles moved to stand at her side, and Skal went with them. Those that remained did so only for a moment, then they, too, stood with her. Hestia drove the sword into the ground and took the flame from its bearer, touched it to Terresh’s funeral pyre and watched as the fire took hold. The wind quickly turned it into a roaring tower of heat and light.
Once this was done the soldiers began to file away, one row at a time they peeled off the back and marched in good order back to the camp. When they had gone the nobility followed them and Emmar, who stood beside Skal indicated that he, too, should leave.
“She will be alone with him until the fire is done,” he said.
So they left, and for hours Hestia stood before the fire and watched her husband burn.
56. A Gift Received
Narak sat back and closed his eyes. He was alone at last, a glass of fine wine in one hand and a good meal in his belly.
It was over. He had won.
There was not enough time now for the Seth Yarra to change the outcome of the war. He knew that the Bren would strike on the last day of spring. On that day Seth Yarra would cease to be a problem for the six kingdoms, for Narak, for anyone at all.
They would land more men. They would build up their forces again during the winter and they would march once more on either the Green Road or the White. It did not matter. In the north he could hold them for the few days of fighting that could be fitted in. Even if they came to the Green Road in winter he could hold them there. He had the men, he had the weapons.
Now he was with the army and moving south with them once more. If Skal had done as Pascha said he might, and marched on Telas Alt with Hestia, then there was even some hope they could follow through and prevent another landing, but even that did not matter.
He had won.
But winning did not bring with it a feeling of triumph. It was supposed to, he knew. The end of the Great War four hundred years ago had been the same. He had felt nothing joyous. Remard had been killed, and his own personal show of savagery on the final day had diminished him in his own eyes. He had not thought himself capable of such rage and brutality. With time he had come to accept it. It was a part of him that was more human than wolf, but mingled the wolf’s lack of sentiment with a very human thirst for revenge. That particular beast had surfaced again when Narala had been killed, quite senselessly, by the Sei Feras Tiar. That ungovernable rage had felt justified at the time, but with a cooler head he did not choose to dwell on it. The memories made him uncomfortable.
Wolfguard would not be the same without Narala and Perlaine. The two of them had been like spice in the daily fare of his life. The thought had occurred to him that he should be abroad in the world more, and perhaps find another Perlaine, another Narala, of maybe some entirely different delight who could be raised up and live forever with him in Wolfguard.
Somehow it seemed unfair to do so. It did not appeal. After all, in the end what had it done for Perlaine and Narala? And there was a point at which life became a habit and not a joy. It was a point that he had passed, though he could not remember when, only that it had been a long time ago.
What joy he had was in the forest, and with the wolves.
He drained the cup of wine, enjoying the taste. He had emptied two bottles, but remained stubbornly sober. He felt tired. He had not slept for over a week, but that was not entirely unusual. He did not want to sleep. If he did he would be plagued by dragon dreams, visions of a path leading north to a mountain with a crooked shoulder and the thing that waited there.
It was remarkable that he had not yet shared the secret of the Bren with another. Nobody but he knew of their hidden army, their promise to deal with Seth Yarra. But what they had told him had been far from the whole truth. He was certain now that the Bren intended to wipe Seth Yarra from the face of the earth. He did not know why, but the thought disturbed him.
He was happy enough to defeat them, to destroy their armies. Those men were sent against him. They sought to destroy him, and it was only reasonable that he should respond in kind. Yet he had seen those images, through Bren eyes, of a city in a strange land, of houses and lights, and behind the houses and lights there were people, men, women and children who worked and loved and played, he supposed, as did the people of the kingdoms. When he thought of what the Bren might do there it did not sit well with him.
Yet what could he do? Wolf Narak could not oppose the Bren, could not changed their collective mind. They had made it plain to him that they did not hold him or any of the Benetheon in high regard. It seemed that Pelion’s law was the only thing that stood between men and total extermination, and he did not even know the words of that law.
His melancholy chain of thought was broken by a slap on the tent canvas. It was late. He had retired. Who would disturb him now?
“Come.”
A guard’s head poked through.
“Deus, there is a messenger.”
“At this hour?”
“He has just arrived, and I saw the lamp was lit…”
“From?”
“From…” the head ducked out again, but was back in a moment. “Latter Fetch, Deus. The messenger is from Latter Fetch.”
The name meant something to him. He struggled to place it for a moment, and then remembered. Tilian Henn and his men had been from Latter Fetch – still were, he supposed. It was Skal Hebberd’s estate. A message from Lord Skal? But he was off somewhere with a bunch of Telans trying to retake Telas Alt.
“Bring them in,” he said, but just in case he reached down and pulled his blade so that it rested against the chair an inch from his right hand, then he sat back. It did not pay to be careless, even a god had to watch for assassins these days.
The guard lifted the tent flap and ushered in a man. He was no soldier, and no assassin. That was obvious at once. A groom, perhaps. He bowed. He bowed again, and kept it up, like a broken branch in a gusty wind. He was a small man, thin, with brown, unwashed hair that flopped as he bowed. His eyes had dared a glance, but now were firmly fixed upon the floor.
“Who sent you?” Narak asked.
“The Lady Sara,” the man said.
Narak was puzzled. He didn’t know anyone by that name. “Stop bowing and stand straight,” he commanded. “Who is Lady Sara?”
The man stood upright, and for a moment met Narak’s eye. “She is blood cousin to Lord Skal of Latter Fetch, Deus,” the man said. “She sends you a gift.”
“A gift?” In a life that brought very few genuine surprises, this was a surprise. Nobody sent him gifts. “What is it?” he asked.
“A book, Deus.” The man took it from under his cloak. It was not especially large, and wrapped carefully in leather. The man held it out to him, and he took it. “There is a letter, also,” the messenger said.
The letter was handed over, a roll of parchment that
crackled in his hand. He held it a moment, scenting it. There was a smell of books, leather, horses, and perhaps a hint of roses. He broke the seal, a simple wax coin with no design, and stretched the paper out on his knee.
To Narak, Benetheon God of Wolves, Lord of the Forest, Master of the hunt, humble greetings.
Well, he liked that. It was the old greeting, from before Afael. He read on.
This gift is sent in the hope that it will please you. It is a fine copy of an ancient book, and scholars say that it is older than the Benetheon itself, though the words have been copied many times. It is a book about the mage lords, the mage emperor, and Pelion himself. Believing that you knew and spoke with Pelion as I have been told, I thought that this book might hold some small interest for you, and that you might one day look kindly upon its sender.