Ours Is the Storm

by D. Thourson Palmer

  Upon his arrival, Revik was immediately taken to Halkoriv’s palace, a walled, towering place of beauty, strength, and grandeur. He was dressed in fine, soft clothes and his hair was cut short, like a soldier’s, as was the style for a noble’s son. Within weeks he was in fine health and physically recovered from his imprisonment. Halkoriv saw him frequently at first, personally ministering to his ills and pains. It was then that Revik first learned of sorcery. Halkoriv told Revik that his touch could heal wounds. Revik had laughed until the king put his hand to one of Revik’s scars and it vanished. His muscles, weak from disuse, were healed and strengthened overnight.

  Halkoriv spent a great deal of time arranging and even administering Revik’s instruction. Revik, driven by a desire to avenge himself on Cunabrel as well as the belief in the right of his strength, sought to become better in every way. He was taught language and swordplay, politics and art. He learned battlefield tactics, history, and all he would need to one day become Halkoriv’s heir.

  As the years passed, Revik grew stronger and faster. He never was as tall or muscular as some of his sparring partners, knights in training and career soldiers, but he came to outmatch them all with the sword. His gray eyes never missed a detail and his lithe frame suggested a speed and precision he was more than happy to demonstrate.

  He was an ardent pupil, though he asked few questions of his tutors. He preferred study to play, more so as he grew older. He formed few strong friendships, using his free time to read or practice his swordsmanship.

  Through it all, however, dreams of revenge upon Cunabrel remained in the forefront of his mind. He imagined having Halkoriv’s powers of sorcery, powers which he saw displayed more and more often. He heard the king’s voice become a razor blade, forcing obedience from its listeners. He saw his movements become lightning when he demonstrated his swordsmanship. He heard stories from other nobles’ sons, stories of more terrible powers, of weather commanded with words, of wounds opened with a thought. He craved all of it.

  —

  Revik felt the wind knocked out of him and his head strike the ground. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, he was thankful for the sawdust covering the large, square flagstones of the practice circle. When his vision stopped swimming, he focused first on a hand hovering above his face, then the concerned face beyond it. He reached up and clasped the hand, and Draden pulled him to his feet as if he weighed nothing at all.

  “You alright?” The older boy’s dark eyes looked out with genuine concern from under sable hair lank with sweat.

  Revik nodded, angry with himself. He had seen the blow coming, but had moved too slowly to stop it. He picked up the weighted wooden sword from the ground and cursed, wiping sweat and sawdust from his face.

  “You were close,” Draden said. “I saw you getting ready to parry. Your arms are too stiff—push from the floor, and move fast and fluid.” He demonstrated, holding his own practice sword to one side and whipping it first one way, then the other. Revik watched and indeed, the movement built from Draden’s feet and stance and traveled all through his body, but came in a final burst from his wrist.

  The practice circle was at center of a courtyard where other young knights and noblemen’s sons shouted and fought in the sun, learning drills and sparring. It was a fine summer day, but Revik would have been outside even if it had been sleeting. He could not stand to be indoors any more than he had to, and rooms without windows still made him shudder.

  “I did just that.” Revik mimicked Draden’s movements almost perfectly.

  Draden looked up and immediately fell to one knee as a shadow fell over the two boys. “You did not,” a voice said. Revik looked up at the towering figure of Halkoriv standing over them. The king ignored Draden and addressed Revik again. “Employ your entire focus, child. You must capture each aspect of the movement, without thinking of any one aspect individually.”

  Revik nodded. He did not protest again. He knew better. Halkoriv was good and generous, but he gave his displeasure as freely as his kindness. Revik had only spoken against him once, a few months after he had arrived in Ferihold, and his mind had ached for days afterwards.

  “Again.” Halkoriv gestured for Draden to stand. “Focus, Revik.”

  Draden stood and took his stance, wooden sword held high. Revik faced him and, at Halkoriv’s word, they struck. Draden was older than Revik by several years and much larger. Revik struggled to parry and dodge his heavy, powerful blows, his arms shuddering each time their swords met. He focused, as Halkoriv had said, and felt the movements building all through him. When Draden spun and lunged, Revik was ready. He let the parry build from his feet, pushing against the ground and whipping his sword across his torso.

  His arms shook as he knocked aside Draden’s strike. Draden smiled and paused, ready to stop. Revik, however, caught sight of Halkoriv’s face and lunged, driving the hilt of his practice sword into Draden’s stomach. The older boy fell, coughing

  Halkoriv nodded his approval. “Good. Never hesitate if you see an opportunity for a killing blow. That is enough for today. Come.” He turned, striding toward the palace. The courtyard was silent but for Draden’s coughing as the other boys and their trainers remained on their knees, waiting until the king had left to stand.

  Revik started to follow, but paused and looked once at Draden, then after Halkoriv. He put out a hand to Draden’s shoulder and the older boy looked up with a pained smile. “I’m fine,” he whispered. “Go on.”

  Revik smiled back and hurried after the king.

  —

  Halkoriv’s visits grew rarer. He told Revik that he was watching over the kingdom and meditating on his powers. Revik knew that the king had several palaces, but he spent most of his time far to the south of Ferihold, in his fortress in the Stonewood forest. “It is ancient,” the king told him. “My ancestors built it long ago, and, but for one other place, it is there that my connection to our power is strongest.”

  Revik had said that he would like to see it, and Halkoriv had agreed after some thought. They had travelled there in the winter, heading south from Ferihold with a caravan of Halkoriv’s servants, soldiers, and attendants. Revik rode outside the carriage, sitting astride a proud black horse. Gray clouds made the sky as slate, and tiny, hard snowflakes blew around them as they rode. The soldiers left him to himself, and the attendants spoke only when spoken to. The strangest of their traveling companions, and most frightening, were Halkoriv’s Servants.

  He had heard of them, but never seen one. Here there were three. They rode at the head of the group, occasionally spurring their mounts and vanishing in the blowing snow ahead, other times falling back and riding amongst them. No one talked to them, or even looked at them if it could be helped. They spoke with Halkoriv in soft, wet voices. They were cold, lifeless beings with dead eyes and pale skin, wearing fearsome armor. Dread seemed to emanate from them and their presence chilled even the icy winter air. They were the first things Revik had feared since being set free.

  His eyes were torn from them, however, as they drew close to Halkoriv’s fortress. Ahead, the shapes of mountains rose like ghosts, pale and insubstantial in the snowy skies. Below them a great smear of dark resolved itself into bare, high trees. Revik could see no undergrowth, and the forest looked dead. As they passed the outermost trunks, he saw why—each tree was petrified, a rough branching column that looked as if it had been hewn from rock. He touched one as his mount passed, and a flinty piece of bark broke off in his hand.

  He looked up as a shadow fell across them. Ahead, hidden amongst the stone trees, was the fortress. It was black and terrible, and it twisted up like a cancer from the ground, as if had not been built there, but grown. Revik saw no village or guards, and no sound but the hoofbeats of their horses could be heard echoing from the stony skeleton of the forest. He shuddered to look at the fortress and fell back to Halkoriv’s carriage.

  Halkoriv peered at him from the carriage window. “What do you think, Revik? It was construc
ted by my ancestor Sitis—the first to truly master sorcery.”

  “It is very imposing,” Revik said after some thought. It reminds me of Cunabrel’s cell.

  “Indeed.” Halkoriv’s voice had taken on an odd quality that Revik could not identify. He looked at the king, and his eyes seemed darker than usual. “I must go to my sanctum once we arrive. We have much to consider.” Revik nodded. He had hoped to spend more time with Halkoriv if he accompanied him to the fortress. Throughout the stay, however, he felt more alone than ever, and soon longed to return to the capital.

  —

  Revik did not return to the fortress after that visit, electing instead to remain at Ferihold and continue his studies while Halkoriv spent more and more time in the Stonewood. Revik was impatient to confront Cunabrel, and year after year Halkoriv told him that the time was not right, that Revik was not ready. He learned quickly, effortlessly, and year after year he thought of little but going back to Cunabrel’s realm. The thought drove him, and whenever he tired of practicing and learning and laboring, he thought about what he would do to the man who had stolen his life from him.

  —

  When Halkoriv, in one of his increasingly rare visits, told him that there was trouble brewing on the Northmarch, Revik knew before the words were spoken that Cunabrel was at the heart of it. He had revolted and declared himself and his lands independent of the rest of Feriven. His treachery was now undisguised, his disloyalty clear for all to see. Revik had thought of little else for over a decade.

  Revik and Halkoriv sat, alone in the midst of dozens of courtiers, fawning servitors, nobles, and others at a great banquet commemorating the fall of the garrison at Norishe fifteen years past. It had been the last bastion of rebels south of the plains, and its conquest had been an important symbol of a united Feriven.

  “This is your time, Revik,” Halkoriv said. “All of your training has been for this—finally, you shall avenge yourself and your family on Cunabrel, who has shown his true allegiances at last. I am appointing you to ride at the head of the army that I will send to crush him. I am also issuing orders that his head is to be yours alone.”

  “Thank you, Lord Halkoriv.” Revik had desired little else for the last dozen years than to feel that sense of power once again, as he had when he had killed Cunabrel’s guard back in the dungeon.

  “My purpose in this is twofold. Until now, you have trained under my finest scholars and warriors. This campaign will test your abilities, for true skill comes only through experience.” Halkoriv had changed little, if at all, in the years since he had rescued Revik. He was still tall and broad-shouldered, and his beard was still only flecked with gray. “You have become a fine young man, Revik. Your father would have been proud,” Halkoriv said. “There is one last thing you must learn if you are to take up his mantle.”

  “What is it?” Revik thought about what he had seen Halkoriv do, how he bent others to his words and moved like lightning.

  He and Halkoriv were at the head of the banquet hall, their seats raised to look down over the court. Halkoriv’s throne had been bereft of neighbors until Revik had joined his household. Revik savored the envious glances of the nobility as Halkoriv continued to whisper his plans to him.

  “My second purpose in sending you is, quite plainly, to test you.”

  “Then I shall surpass your expectations.”

  “I do not share the secrets of sorcery with just anyone. I have the Servants, to whom I have granted power…”

  Revik nodded, thinking of the cold, dead creatures riding through the snow. He shivered.

  “…but you are different. You have the gift,” Halkoriv continued. “You will not be a servant of my power, but master it yourself. Your parents had it—your father and mother were both sorcerers.” He seemed to search Revik's face. “I sense you have not displayed your power yet only because you have not been shown how.”

  Revik was aware that those others sitting closest had ceased their own conversations and were listening. He did not care.

  “Sorcery is the greatest power of my family, Revik, and I will teach its secrets to you. I told you that my ancestor Sitis was the first to master it. My knowledge exceeds his. Few others can even grasp it. You will, in time, and you will gain unfathomable power. None will best you. The minds of the weak will lay open before you. We will conquer all its secrets. Sitis and others sought immortality.” His eyes glittered beneath his black and gray brows. “And finally, it will be ours.”

  Revik heard Halkoriv’s voice change and saw his eyes become like black pits. His skin grew cold. Halkoriv’s empty eyes locked on his. He felt something, cold and light as gossamer, brush against his arms, his forehead. He could not take his eyes from Halkoriv’s. The touch moved to his neck, then the base of his skull. It intensified in cold and pressure until the touch became a knife’s point. Revik could not cry out, or move, or avert his eyes. Then, as quickly as it began, the feeling was gone.

  Revik felt there had been a pause in the conversation, but could not recall why.

  Revik shrugged off the feeling. “Lord Halkoriv, I would not presume to think I am capable of something like that. I thought all other sorcerers had been stamped out.” He swallowed, desire for the power plain on his features. “Surely this is beyond me.”

  “No, Revik. I have told you before of your parents; patriots, heroes, powerful warriors, and sorcerers. They wanted to aid me in my duty to unite Feriven, and they were killed by Cunabrel who now profits from dissent and chaos.”

  Revik’s fists clenched at the mention of the name. “I wish I could remember them. His dungeons even robbed me of that. I have nothing of them but what you’ve taught me.”

  “It is true, but Cunabrel’s one mistake will be his last. He should have killed you along with them. Instead, you will destroy him.” Halkoriv stood to leave. The assembled nobility quieted their conversations and arose. Revik stood beside Halkoriv while he addressed them:

  “Many of you have journeyed far to be here, and many of you already know why it is I have called you. One of our own, Count Cunabrel of the Northmarch, has rebelled against our great nation.” He paused, gazing around the room. Candles flickered, their light reflecting from silver platters and gilded cups. “This will not stand,” he continued. “In one week’s time, Feriven marches north. We will remind Cunabrel who it is he serves. We will remind him where his loyalties lie.” The king raised his cup, and those listening followed suit. “Death to the traitor!”

  The assembled knights and nobles cheered, raising goblets and fists. Revik smirked, watching them. He could almost see them straining to appear the most eager, the most loyal. All hoped to be given the honor of leading the armies, but all would be disappointed.

  “In one week’s time, Feriven marches north, with Revik Lasivar at its head!” They cheered again, some more convincingly than others, before drinking. The king placed his goblet, still full, back on the table.

  Halkoriv took his leave and the banquet was ended. The nobles broke into groups, discussing what Halkoriv had said and what it meant for their counties and estates. Revik walked amongst them, clasping hands and accepting congratulations from some and receiving dark looks from others.

  “Do you think you’re ready for this?” A grinning, dark-haired man clapped Revik on the shoulder with a hand like a bear’s paw. “You’ve only been training for what, ten years? You’re finally going to be allowed out of this place.”

  “Thank you, Draden.” Revik gripped his friend’s shoulder in return. “It is an honor I do not deserve, but I am pleased to finally have a chance to put our sparring days to the test.”

  “An honor you don’t deserve?” a voice cut in. “A grand understatement, Lord Lasivar.” Revik turned to see the glowering face of Undarten, another of the younger lords.

  “You are displeased, Baron?” Revik smiled without humor. “Perhaps you should take it up with our king. I am sure he will see reason if you should present your case.”

  �
��Go home, Undarten. This isn't the place.” Draden stepped between Revik and the baron.

  “You’re right.” Undarten’s clear blue eyes fixed on Revik’s. “We may discuss it further during the march. My knights and I will meet Cunabrel, led by a spoiled boy or not.” He ignored Draden, stepping closer to Revik. “You may be King Halkoriv’s pet, but you know as well as the rest of us that you are nothing.” Revik stepped back, immediately cursing himself for doing so. Undarten smiled. “In fact, I have heard rumor that your father was, in fact, a traitor, a rebel leader in the North. We’ll see what you really are soon enough.” He turned and swept from the room.

  The warning shook Revik. Baron Undarten was a distinguished warrior, one instrumental in winning at Norishe. His actions there had, in the minds of the nobility, earned him his hereditary title. His father had only recently died, leaving Undarten at the head of a powerful estate in the eastern hills.

  “Don’t let him bother you,” Draden said. “He’s just grandstanding, trying to force a reaction from you. You know,” he turned back to Revik, “if you’re going to be King Halkoriv’s heir, you can’t show fear in front of someone like him.”

  “I’m not afraid of him.” Revik sounded petulant and weak even to himself.

  “Good.” Draden hesitated. “You have a lot to think about, and I have knights to prepare. I’ll see you in a week’s time, Lord.” He bowed, and Revik nodded as his friend took his leave.

  —Four—

  It was bright and cool the morning Revik mounted his horse and, escorted by an honor guard of white-robed knights, rode out of the palace grounds and into Ferihold. Passing beneath the high arched gate and over the bridge, he could not help but to swell with pride at his glorious departure. Members of the nobility, separated from the crowds of commoners arrayed behind them, stood to the sides of the road to wish the king’s heir well as he began his quest to pacify the rebellious Cunabrel. The knights, twenty strong, rode before and behind him and the people bowed and cheered as Revik passed. It was all he could do to avoid acting like a thunderstruck child. He reminded himself of what he was doing, what was at stake, and with that the crowds and pomp receded from his mind.