Something niggled her, though, and it took her a heartbeat to chase the worry down.
She felt her guts twist.
Because if the Cross was over there, the body of the dead dragon would be there too. Which meant the carcass couldn’t also be behind her now.
Her thoughts were interrupted by a slithering sound at her back, a low growl, then the splash and drip of something rising from the water. A wave cuffed the boat and carried it away from shore. But not far enough to Castella’s mind. She could feel the chill of the dragon’s breath against her neck, sense the weight of its regard.
She exchanged a look with Araline. Her friend was glaring at her like this was all Castella’s fault, and this once she might even be right.
“Shit,” Araline whispered.
That about summed it up, but this was hardly the time to get philosophical.
Castella’s response was hushed but urgent. “Go, go, go!”
JOHN GWYNNE
THIS STORY IS SET IN THE BANISHED LANDS, TAKING PLACE SOME FORTY years before the events that occur in my series the Faithful and the Fallen. The protagonist in this short story is a young woman named Rhin, daughter to a dying king. She is intelligent and ambitious, and craves the praise of her father.
If you have read the Faithful and the Fallen, you will remember Rhin at a different stage in her life. She’s a character who seems to have stood out to many of my readers. I thought it would be fun to write about an earlier, formative moment for her, a moment where she takes the first steps along a path that will lead her to greatness and fame, or perhaps the right word is infamy.
I’m honoured to be asked to contribute a story to Unfettered III. I love the ethos and heart behind the genesis of these anthologies, a coming together of creative people determined to help and support one another. It’s a rare and precious thing in this world of cutthroat ambition.
Whether you are returning to the Banished Lands, or this is your first step into those dark, mist-shrouded lands, I hope that you enjoy this story.
Welcome to the Banished Lands . . .
John Gwynne
The Heir Apparent
John Gwynne
Rhin contemplated the wooden board before her, the lattice-carved pattern upon it dotted with bone figures. They were polished and smooth from use. She pursed her lips, absently brushing a stray strand of her jet-black hair behind an ear as she leaned forward and placed a finger and thumb upon one of the figures. Then, deliberately, she raised her eyes to look at her opponent.
Gair. A giant of the Benothi Clan.
He was sat upon a stool on the far side of the board, a mass of meat and bone towering head and shoulders over Rhin like a granite cliff, small black eyes shadowed by his darkly brooding brows. A tattoo of vine and thorn curled around one wrist, spiralling up his muscle-slabbed arm. One hand tugged thoughtfully at his long, drooping moustache, black as the iron chains that bound his wrists and ankles.
Rhin moved her Brandub piece, a scrape of wood across bone.
“Do bhogadh,” she said to the giant.
He sat there, his eyes shifting around the board, though the rest of him stayed still as stone, as if carved from the rock wall he was chained to.
“Your move,” Rhin repeated to him, in Common Tongue this time, starting to doubt her Giantish.
“I know what you said, child,” Gair rumbled, voice grating like grinding rocks.
I did say it true, then. And if I’d said it wrong, it would have been Gair’s fault, not mine, for he is the one teaching me.
“Then you should make your move,” Rhin said. “Agus níl aon leanbh agam,” she pronounced slowly, the words still strange to her, feeling like she had porridge in her mouth.
And I am no child.
“You are a child—” Gair rumbled, “you are like a spring flower, fresh-opened to the sun.”
I am a woman grown, twenty-two summers I have drawn breath, learning all that this world has to offer.
“And what does that make you, then?” Rhin asked the giant.
He looked up from the Brandub board, intelligent eyes meeting hers.
“An oak,” he said, “weathered and bowed by the unkind years.” He reached out, moving his Chieftan a space from the safety of the board’s centre towards the warrior Rhin had just moved.
Rhin arched an eyebrow.
“Moving towards danger,” she said.
“What use is running,” Gair replied.
“Your kin ran from here.”
Gair raised his fists, a mass of hard-boned knuckles, and jangled the chains about them. Rhin heard the shifting of feet behind her, her shieldman moving closer, the rasp of a sword half-drawn.
Rhin raised a hand.
“Easy, Fallon,” she breathed, knowing that her shieldman would take Gair’s head off if he deemed the giant looked at her the wrong way, but knowing just as assuredly that he would obey her every word unthinkingly.
Her lips twitched in a satisfied smile as she heard Fallon’s blade slip back into its scabbard, the whisper of his feet as he moved back into his normal stance.
“I did not run,” Gair said, looking at the chains about his wrists. His knuckles and the backs of his hands were notched and latticed with scars, evidence of how he had been put to the question when first taken prisoner after the Battle of Dun Vaner.
“Aye, and look where that got you,” Rhin said, staring pointedly from his scars to the stone walls around them, the gaol that was Gair’s home. Had been his home for five years.
The giant shrugged.
“Most of your kin ran, though. Fled, once they saw which way the battle was going.”
Gair was silent a few moments, contemplating the board again.
“Ruad did not run,” Gair’s voice cracked the growing silence.
“No. But that is because he could not. My father slew your King.” Rhin moved another warrior-figure, blocking Gair’s Chieftan. He had five figures, one the Chieftan and four shieldmen. They began each game at the centre of the Brandub board, the goal of the game for the Chieftan to reach one of the edges. But first he had to find a way past Rhin’s eight warriors that were arrayed around the board’s rim.
“Ruad was not our King,” Gair said as he moved one of his shieldmen to stand between his Chieftan and Rhin’s warrior.
Rhin blinked and took her eyes from the board to stare at Gair. This was news to her. Enormous news, so great that she was not sure she believed the giant. Five years Gair had languished in this cell deep within the roots of Dun Vaner, the fortress of Rhin’s father, Cambros the Bull, King of Cambren. He had taken this fortress from the Benothi giants, invaded their realm with his warband of heroes, and carved a bloody road to Dun Vaner. It was on the slopes before this very fortress that the last battle had been fought, ending when Cambros had fought and slain Ruad, King of the Benothi. Or so all had believed Ruad to be.
“You lie,” Rhin said, arching one eyebrow.
Gair made a rumbling sound, much like the growl of a bear.
“I do not lie,” he said. Raised his eyes to meet her. “I may hold on to the truth, let it seep out like the water that leaks between rocks into my cell, but I do not lie.”
Rhin drew in a deep breath, trying to keep the excitement she felt fluttering in her belly from showing in her voice.
“If not your King, who was Ruad?” Rhin said, masking the eagerness she felt for this new knowledge.
Knowledge is power, her father had told her many times. Most battles are won here. He had put a finger to his temple. Long before a single blade is drawn. Knowledge is power, as is the wisdom and cunning to use it. Your brothers Ard and Cadlas are mighty warriors, skilled in battle, but you, my precious Rhin, you are the thinker.
Rhin’s heart swelled at the memory of her father’s praise. She pushed it away, focusing on the giant in front of her, a swell of excitement rippling through her veins at the hint of what he had just said.
New knowledge. New power.
She had been visiting Gair in his gaol for many years, at first drawn by her inquisitive nature, just wanting to see and talk with a living, breathing giant. Most of the ones she had seen had lain dead upon battlefields. But somewhere along the way she had come to enjoy Gair’s company. She believed him when he said he did not lie; she saw no falsity in him, a truth in him that was rare to see. At least, in her experience as daughter of Cambros, princess and heir to the throne of Cambren, most who spoke to her did not speak so plainly, and all had their own agenda. Gair was not like that, or so she judged, and she felt herself a good judge of people, had always found it easy to see to their hearts, their dreams and desires writ plain in their unsaid words. But that did not mean that Gair told her everything.
What other truths do you hold secret in that head of yours?
“I have been a friend to you. Treated you with kindness.” Rhin looked at the Brandub board between them, a gift from her to Gair.
“Aye. You gave a great gift, but you also received one in return.”
They had bargained truths before.
Rhin had quickly suspected that Gair was a deep vein of knowledge, one that she wanted to tap and mine. With kindness and companionship she had coaxed many secrets from Gair. The greatest one had been in return for this Brandub board. Gair had lived in Dun Vaner for many years before the coming of her father, and so he knew more about it than anyone else. He had told Rhin of hidden passages that threaded through the fortress, a secret tapestry that Rhin had used to great advantage, sitting and listening to her father’s council meetings, to her brothers’ hopes and dreams when they visited Dun Vaner.
And in those passages she had found something. Her hand drifted to a pocket inside her sable-trimmed cloak.
Not yet.
Gair’s eyes shifted to Fallon behind Rhin’s shoulder.
“You can speak plainly to me,” Rhin said. “Fallon is my man, loyal unto death. He will speak nothing of what you say here. Will you, Fallon?”
“Not a word, my lady,” Fallon said behind her.
Gair shrugged, a rippling of muscle. “Ruad was my Chieftan,” he said. “The Lord of Dun Vaner, and the lands for many leagues around this fortress.”
“But not King of the Benothi giants?”
“No.”
“Who is your King, then?” Rhin asked, almost holding her breath with anticipation, desperate to have this knowledge, this token of power that she could take and gift to her father, once more proving her worth.
“Not King. Queen,” Gair said.
Queen. Rhin felt her breath hitch in her chest. A Queen, as I will be one day.
“And this Queen’s name?”
Gair lifted one of his carved bone shieldmen from the board and swept one of Rhin’s figures from the table, opening a route to the board’s edge, a glimpse of victory.
“Nemain,” the giant breathed.
“Nemain,” Rhin whispered. Frowned. “Not . . .”
“Aye. Nemain, once-wife of Skald, the First-King,” Gair growled.
Rhin laughed. “You play with me. That was over a thousand years ago. I know you giants are long-lived, but . . .”
“Closer to two thousand years,” Gair said.
“Do not treat me as a fool,” Rhin snapped, a hint of iron creeping into her voice. “You may think me a fresh-faced spring flower, but I am no one’s fool.”
“I do not think you are,” Gair said.
He is telling the truth, or what he thinks to be the truth, Rhin thought as she studied Gair’s face, his eyes. Nemain, Queen and wife to Skald, the first giant King. Two thousand years . . .
She felt a thrill in her chest at that thought, her father’s face filling her mind, once so strong, but now lined and stooped with age. Could I save him? Help him live a thousand years? Two thousand? And for me. Old age, weakness, frailty, and wrinkles. Ugh. I do not want that to happen to me. To stay young and strong forever, now that would be something wonderful. Two thousand years . . .
“How?” she said.
“I can see this is something you would like to know more of,” Gair said, the hint of a smile twitching his long moustache.
Bollocks, Rhin thought, scowling in her mind. I must learn to hide my emotions.
“I feel that I am giving without receiving,” Gair continued.
“You are in no position to bargain with me,” Rhin said, looking at his chains.
“Not bargaining. Exchanging. A trade. We all want . . .”
“And what is it that you want?” Rhin asked, too quickly she knew, revealing her eagerness.
“To see the sky again.”
Rhin let the silence grow, moved a warrior on the Brandub board, flanking Gair’s Chieftan.
“I could do that for you,” she said. “If . . .”
“Ask your questions,” Gair rumbled, failing to hide the hint of longing in his voice.
Rhin made sure the glow of satisfaction she felt in her chest did not touch her face.
“How is Nemain still alive?”
“She drank from the Starstone Cup,” Gair said.
“A faery tale,” Rhin said dismissively with a wave of her hand.
“No. The Starstone was no faery tale. Why else did the Giants sunder into Clans? It was the Starstone, forged into treasures, that set us at each other’s throats.”
Rhin had heard these tales before, of the Starstone that fell from the heavens, of the Seven Treasures forged from them, of the following wars. One of the treasures had been a cup, fabled to have given health and long life to all those that drank from it. She had never thought of them as real before. Not until now.
Nemain, two thousand years . . .
“Where is this Starstone Cup?” Rhin asked.
“Ah, for that, I would need more than to just see the sky.”
This is the real Brandub game, played with flesh and blood.
Rhin regarded the giant, delight coursing through her at the thrill of the game made real.
He wants his freedom.
And now I make my move.
“I remember my friends,” Rhin said, holding Gair’s gaze, the Brandub board forgotten. “If I were Queen and you were to tell me where I could find this Starstone Cup, help me make it mine, I would set you free.”
She saw it in his eyes, a brief moment of hope, quickly masked, and she knew that she had him.
“If.” Gair rumbled. “So much imagined and so little realised within that small word.”
Ha, he still seeks to play this game, as if he can change the inevitable.
“When I am Queen,” Rhin said.
“If you are Queen, if these chains are gone, with the sky above me and grass beneath my boots,” Gair said, “then I will tell you where the Starstone Cup is to be found.”
Rhin blew out a long breath. “You have a deal,” she said.
Gair smiled, lines in his face deep as old leather. Another flare of the emotion that was his weakness. Hope.
“When,” he agreed.
Rhin thought on that, felt a swell of pleasure at her victory, but at the same time a sadness. That would mean that Father would be dead, that I had not saved him. The thought of that settled into her, sinking deep, emotions swirling. But I would be his legacy, would rule this realm for two thousand years. More. The thought was intoxicating, and she imagined the day when her father named her heir apparent, the future ruler of Cambren when he was gone.
That is the key. The day my life will change.
She smiled. Then remembered what she had originally intended to talk with Gair about today.
“Until then, there is something else,” Rhin said, reaching within her cloak. “I found something,” she lowered her voice to a whisper, not that anyone was listening; Fallon always made sure of that. “Inside the tunnels.”
“What?” Gair said, a flare of interest in his eyes.
“This,” Rhin said, pulling a rolled sheaf of parchments from her cloak, tied with rotting linen. She untied it, carefully unrolling the parchmen
t and angling it for Gair to see. It was covered with thick-scrawled runes. “I can read some of it,” Rhin said, “after the Giantish you have taught me, but I cannot read it all.”
Most of it.
Gair must have been reading from the parchment, for his lips were moving. He hissed, tugged at his moustache.
“What is it?” Rhin asked him.
Gair was silent.
“Remember, I am the one who will set you free,” Rhin reminded him.
He looked up at her, then back at the parchments.
“A part-copy of an ancient book,” Gair said. “Telling of our history, the Sundering, our Clans, and . . .”
“Yes?” Rhin prompted.
“The Earth Power,” Gair breathed.
The Earth Power. I knew there was more to these parchments than cold history. What a day this is turning out to be.
The Earth Power was another faery tale, Rhin had thought. From the old sagas where some had learned how to control the elements: wind, water, fire, and earth. And sometimes even people, with the help of some blood and hair . . .
“Teach me,” she said, almost a snarl.
Rhin strode along the corridor, Fallon’s ever-present footsteps echoing behind her. She tutted at warriors who crowded the corridor, slowing her way. Many wore cloaks of red, men and women from Narvon, her brother Cadlas’s realm, and others wore grey, marking their allegiance to Rhin’s brother Ard of Ardan.
My beloved brothers and their retinues, gathered here like carrion-birds swooping above a battlefield, waiting to feast on the dead.
Because my father is dying.
Rhin turned and marched up a stairwell, moving swiftly up the large, giant-built steps. Her father, Cambros, King of Cambren, had sent for her, and something in the trembling in her blood told her that this meeting was important.
He is going to announce to my brothers that I am his heir.
Excitement gave her feet wings, and before she knew it she was marching along the corridor that led to her father’s chambers.
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