As they drew nearer, Revik could see the edges of the peasant camp. The people were packed close together, one family’s cart or camp pressed against the space of the next. They did not stop until they were mere yards from the edges of the camp.
The nearest commoners looked on, fearful and timid. The entire mass of them could in no way be gathered to hear Revik, but if he could do what he thought he could, it would not matter. All of them would hear him. He sought the chill in his mind, the gossamer touch at the base of his skull. He was surprised how easily he found it this time and wondered why he had never felt it before. The power flowed in him, as if he had been holding his breath all his life, and now could let himself breathe.
He found the power pushing against him and released his restraint, feeling the mass of people, seeing their minds. It was as if he could see all of them, each one a point of weak, pale light in the darkness. Hundreds, thousands of minds, arrayed all around him and around the fortress. Some were nearly a mile away. He did not feel he could control them—but he knew he could make them all hear.
People of the Northmarch, he said. His voice was a knife, a spike that he drove into their consciousness. Those that he could see, flinched. Some gasped, some cried out. He felt fear flood the rest. Revik was giddy, overwhelmed. I am the heir of your king. I am Revik Lasivar. Cunabrel’s reign is over. You are no longer his subjects. Leave this place, and you will know your king’s mercy. Stay, and you will know his wrath. Go.
Some of the peasants began to break camp. Others argued and shouted. Some just ran away. He felt their confusion, their terror. He knew some would stay, unsure of what else to do. They had been warned.
Revik left the column of archers and pikemen. Their commanders knew their orders. He and Draden, accompanied by Draden’s knights, approached the gate. As they drew nearer, one of the men on the wall shouted for them to halt. Draden raised his hand and the group of knights stopped. Revik rode a step further and looked up at the top of the wall.
“What is your purpose here, Halkoriv’s slave?” a soldier called down. In the torchlight, Revik could discern the clean-shaven features of a young warrior. He was flanked by a pair of archers, their bows stretched, their arrows trained on Revik. Other soldiers watched from their places along the wall.
“Address your king’s heir with respect, cur,” Draden shouted. Revik said nothing, watching the archers and the soldier.
“Ah, excuse my insolence,” the soldier replied to the amusement of his men. “Welcome, great pet of Halkoriv! Have you come to willingly return to Lord Cunabrel’s shackles? Have the old king’s appetites driven you away?” The men cackled, but the archers did not so much as smile.
Revik heard grumbles and threats behind him but raised his hand for silence. He smiled and replied, “Tell your snake of a master to come out from his hole. I would speak for the king, who does not deign to converse with vermin, so I must do so in his stead.”
There were cries from above and the soldier who had first spoken called for silence. Cunabrel’s men were incensed. “Enough!” roared one of the archers. “Die, you scum!” He loosed his arrow.
Revik registered only his own surprise and sudden terror as the bowstring twanged. He later recalled only two things: the surety that he was about to die, and the touch of ice and gossamer in his mind.
There was a ring of steel and a snap. Years of training came to the fore, propelled by the icy tide in Revik’s mind. The next moment, Revik realized that the arrow was gone, shattered, his sword was in his hand, and the previous moment’s panic had been replaced with a terrible silence from Cunabrel’s men as well as his own.
Tendrils of utter blackness, like ribbons of starless night, writhed around Revik. The fires flanking the gates diminished and guttered as if under a heavy wind. The arrow lay on the ground in rotten splinters.
Revik seized his unexpected advantage. He pointed up at the wall with his blade. “I tire of this, but I will overlook this slight. Open the gate, or I will tear it asunder!”
They gaped as the black tendrils faded and the fires rose again. Some of the soldiers above backed away from the edge of the wall. The young soldier stared in fear. Regaining his senses, he turned away and disappeared from the wall without a word. Revik heard whispers from above, but nothing else over the crackling fires flanking the gate.
Draden moved closer. “So Halkoriv gifted you with power already.” he hissed. “Your plan may work after all. You could kill them all yourself.”
“This is… something else,” Revik whispered. “Not Halkoriv’s power, but my gift. He told me my parents were sorcerers. I must have awakened it.”
“Of course,” Draden said. “I’d heard stories of the elder Lasivars. They must’ve passed it to you.”
Minutes passed before the gate opened and Revik saw Cunabrel, mounted and arrayed in fine armor, wearing a long sword with a garnet set in the pommel on his back. At least eighty men at arms stood around him. All were hard-eyed and scarred from battles past. Revik saw amongst them the soldier from the gate.
Before the gates finished grinding open, Cunabrel spoke. “If you would speak, boy, it will be behind my walls and on foot. Leave your mounts if you would enter.” Revik’s anger surged upon seeing him, but he restrained his emotions. Cunabrel looked almost as Revik remembered him, tall and broad, his black beard now shot through with silver. A shining helm, inlaid with bronze and garnet, crowned his head, but no visor obscured his hateful eyes.
“We will enter,” Revik said, “but my men will remain beside your gate. I have come to talk, not to fight.” His voice was bolstered by confidence from his newfound gift. With a gesture, he and the men with him dismounted and entered the gate. Draden and the rest stopped once inside, the knight and his men silent as they took stock of their surroundings. Revik advanced, halting before Cunabrel.
“Back to your posts,” Cunabrel commanded, looking over his warriors. “But guard these scum from the South carefully. Inform me of any movement from outside.”
“My lord,” a soldier called from the wall. “The people are breaking camp. They’re leaving!”
Cunabrel did not answer. He turned his wrathful gaze to Revik, who smiled. “Let them go,” Cunabrel said. “Keep watch on the southerners.”
Cunabrel turned to a group of warriors on foot close by, armored and bearing shields and axes. “You four, come with me. Stay close to the whelp.” He spurred his mount across the courtyard, toward the great fortress. The four men approached Revik, who did his best to ignore them and followed Cunabrel. He means to insult me, to anger me, Revik thought. He still thinks of me as that weak, helpless child. His smile remained even as the guards surrounded him and herded him across the courtyard.
A few moments later Revik stood in Cunabrel’s audience hall, a room fifteen paces wide and twice as long. Stone fireplaces flanked a lushly carpeted walkway and torches burned in sconces. Their light could not banish the deep shadows in the corners of the hall. At one end of the room stood Cunabrel’s throne. Rich tapestries, decorated with the flowing script of the High Tongue, described legends and heroes of Cunabrel’s ancestry. The ceiling nearly vanished in darkness overhead, thick beams and rafters barely visible in the glow of the fires and torches.
Revik waited with his guards. They did not speak to him, nor he to them. In the firelight, their helms cast shadows across their eyes. They looked to Revik almost inhuman. He waited, calculating. A few minutes more.
Cunabrel entered alone, coming through a set of carved oaken doors behind the throne. He was still wearing his armor, but no longer wore his helm or riding cloak. He strode up to Revik, dispensing with the traditional greetings and customs observed during wartime.
“So your surrogate father has sent you to oversee my destruction? He has become even more overconfident and arrogant than before.”
“You have no chance in your little rebellion, you must see that,” Revik said. “King Halkoriv has sent thousands of troops, a fraction of the army
, against your few hundred, and—”
“And he has sent you to mock me,” Cunabrel interrupted, stepping close to Revik. “Ever since I captured you, on his orders, I have been maligned and mistreated by Halkoriv. This may surprise you, boy, but I had no interest in you or your family. It was only when I began to hear the rumors that it occurred to me that something about you was strange, and only after Halkoriv ‘liberated’ you that I realized that I was being deceived and used!”
“What are you talking about?” Revik asked, snorting.
“Halkoriv used me,” Cunabrel said. “He used me to I know not what end. To create you, that much is clear, but in the intervening time I became expendable to him. I suppose you think I started this conflict with Halkoriv. I did not. This is merely a reaction to years of mistreatment at his hands, ever since he took you away from my dungeons. I do not take persecution lightly.”
“That is ridiculous.” Revik jabbed a finger at Cunabrel. “You think me a fool. You will not turn my head with lies and stories. Save that for the children and simpletons you used to wall your fortress. You are a traitor, and you will die here unless you declare allegiance to your rightful king once again.”
Cunabrel’s face twisted into a snarl. “If I must die here, then go tell your king that others will follow me, that his lust for power and his pursuit of the dreams of his mad ancestor will lead to his own fall.” He turned to go, dismissing Revik with a gesture. “There will be no terms. I am resolved to fight as long as I live. Go, lead your fighters, and pray you do not meet me on the field. Take him away.”
The guards turned to lead Revik out. The nearest two reached for his arms. Revik breathed deeply once; to them it may have sounded like a sigh. He felt pressure in his mind, his power, waiting, straining to be released. This is it. Move.
Revik drew his sword and a chill flooded through him, starting in the base of his skull and rushing over his body. The guards started at the sound of the steel leaving its scabbard, but Revik struck before they knew what was happening. His sword pierced the nearest guard’s chest and the man clutched ineffectively at the blade before he fell. Revik spun, ripping the blade from him and arcing it into the next guard. He was still unprepared and it crashed into his neck, shearing through his armor and splintering his spine.
Revik had time to wonder why they were not fighting back, and it occurred to him just how effective his training had been. Power pulsed through him, only increasing the speed with which he moved. His mind moved even faster than his body, recounting hours of training each day for years—a routine of study and practice that would have broken him had he not been anticipating this moment the entire time.
Revik did not see, but felt, the remaining guards swing their axes. He heard Cunabrel’s footsteps approaching and heard his sword. He spun again, whirling out of the reach of one of the guards and ducking beneath the other’s axe blow. Too hard, he thought. The guard’s swing had put him off balance. Revik lashed out with a kick, sending the guard reeling and stumbling into his compatriot, bowling him over. Revik lunged, his thrust catching the guard in the chest and punching through the chain covering it. He kicked again, pushing the man off of his blade. The last remaining guard regained his feet and rushed forward, swinging wildly. Revik dipped back, avoiding the blow, and swung. The guard raised his shield, but it obscured his vision. Revik pivoted, spinning to the man’s side, his movements a blur. He encircled the guard’s throat with his arm and wrenched, a chill wave of power rushing through him. There was a crack and the soldier’s head lolled grotesquely. He went limp, dropping to the floor.
Cunabrel hesitated, aghast, and rushed forward, swinging his own blade. Despite his reputation as a soldier and a duelist, he appeared shaken, frightened. Even having witnessed it himself, he seemed unprepared for Revik’s speed. Cunabrel swung once, twice, cutting only air; he parried and dodged, but Revik unleashed a cloud of shadow to obscure his vision. He spun his sword with speed he had not known until now that he possessed. Revik watched as Cunabrel swung again, unaware he had been struck—until his legs crumpled with their tendons cut.
Revik stood over his fallen foe and grinned as Cunabrel screamed in agony, his useless legs gushing blood. He wanted to savor the moment, to gloat, to humiliate him, but he sprang back into action. There was little time, with Cunabrel’s racket.
He ran to the doors and shoved his sword through the elaborate handles as a makeshift bar, hoping it would be enough to hinder any pursuit. He heard voices already on the other side, but still some distance from the door. He ran back and kicked Cunabrel sharply in the jaw, cutting his screams down to agonized groans as his mouth snapped shut and he spat out a shattered tooth. Cunabrel growled something incomprehensible through his ruined mouth, but Revik paid him no heed. He grabbed the lord by his armor and began to drag him toward the rear doors of the room, stopping only to pick up Cunabrel’s forgotten sword.
He made his way to a rooftop doorway over a balcony. It was odd, Revik reflected, straining under Cunabrel’s weight, how easy he had been to dispatch but how difficult to drag around.
He kicked open the door to the balcony and pulled Cunabrel, now weakly but comprehensibly cursing, out into the damp spring night. While Revik had been inside, it had begun to drizzle. “I’ll see you dead yet, you worm,” Cunabrel rasped, blood running from his mouth as he spoke. “I should have killed you when I had the chance, but now I’ll see you torn apart first!” He spat on Revik’s armor.
“Unlikely.” Revik said, taking stock of the scene below. He allowed himself the brief satisfaction of kneeing Cunabrel in the jaw, finally breaking it and reducing him again to painful gurgles.
He looked around the courtyard beneath them—it appeared he had not been noticed yet. He caught sight of Draden, standing with the others by the gate, surrounded by a group of Cunabrel’s soldiers.
There was a sudden cry from outside the walls, followed by the sharp whistling of arrows in flight. Cunabrel’s men began to shout and point. “Archers! They’re firing on the peasants!” one yelled. “You, go get Lord Cunabrel immediately!” another said. A third bolted for the fortress door.
Revik lunged to the edge of the balcony, hauling Cunabrel to his feet. “Cunabrel is here!” Revik roared. He positioned Cunabrel in front of himself. More shouting from below followed, and all heads turned and peered through the rain. Draden smiled grimly at Revik, nodded, and edged away from the other knights. “Behold your mighty lord, broken before the fighting even began.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “Look, lord,” he hissed, “Watch your people, watching you die.”
He continued, addressing the soldiers below. “This is what awaits those who oppose me, King Halkoriv, or the Kingdom of Feriven. Traitors will be killed. They will be broken. They will be destroyed, and all they hold dear will be ripped from under them. You now have a choice.” Revik paused as Cunabrel struggled, trying once again to speak. Revik raised the sword in his hand and brought it down, striking the garnet-studded pommel against Cunabrel’s face. The battered lord let out a strangled yelp. Revik nearly laughed with joy, his power over his enemy almost tangible. He let Cunabrel drop to his knees, holding him upright by a clump of bloody hair.
“Your choice,” he said, “is to pledge yourselves once again to your true king, or die in the mud here tonight. To die secure in the knowledge that your families will share your fate, your lands will be forfeit, your names forgotten. This one,” he yanked back Cunabrel’s head and exposed his pale throat, “has made his decision!”
The moment seemed frozen. Cunabrel on his knees with his head wrenched back; Revik, standing over him, droplets of blood and water running down his black armor; Cunabrel’s own sword, bathed red and orange in the firelight, poised to strike, then racing down, down, the arc of its blade plummeting toward Cunabrel’s throat. Steel met flesh, and Cunabrel lurched.
Below, Draden wrenched open the gate and drew his sword. His men followed suit, cutting into the nearest soldiers without warning. Befor
e Cunabrel’s men could react, a hail of arrows whistled into the top of the wall, cutting down most of those upon it. Horsemen charged through the gate. Chaos and panic overtook the castle. Revik barely saw it, his attention focused instead on Cunabrel’s lifeless form.
Many of the defenders surrendered. Against the force from Ferihold, the few soldiers who attempted to fight were overwhelmed and killed.
The drizzle became a downpour. Hranel and the others handled the remainder of the assault. Revik did not join in the battle. He stood on the balcony, oblivious to the rain. It had all been so easy. He had toyed with the guards, even with Cunabrel—a vaunted and renowned swordsman. They had been like children, like he had been years ago in the practice circle. They moved without grace, and Cunabrel’s powerful but clumsy technique could have been outthought by a novice. Revik gloried in his destruction—and his enemy’s death left a chasm inside of him. He had lived to see Cunabrel die, and now it was over. Something had to fill it. More enemies. More power. More foes to crush, more lives to take.
And the sorcery—the power that had coursed through him—Revik tried not to think that his victory was only through magic, but he wondered if that were such a bad thing. He wanted to feel that power again, the dark, cold touch like a blade’s edge. And he would feel it again, having passed the king’s test. He would grow even stronger, as Halkoriv had bid him do all those years ago, in this very place.
Revik stood in the storm, watching Cunabrel’s blood thin and disperse and wash away with the rain. The air chilled around him. Light faded and the touch of water felt far away. Revik felt the king’s presence, heard his voice as if he were close. You have crushed your enemy, and your power has been revealed, Halkoriv’s voice said, a razor in his mind. Your purpose, your destiny, has become clear. You will lead our forces to exterminate the plainsfolk and their northern allies. You will oversee Feriven’s unification. And our enemies in the North shall know: Revik Lasivar has come to end them.
Ours Is the Storm Page 5