Hence, even though news borne by a messenger bird takes but days, any response can take months in the making, for plans must be conceived, and resources gathered, and distances must be traveled—on foot, or by horse, or wind-driven ship, or combinations thereof.
Yet Arkov laid more plans, their execution delayed by the slowness of means to carry them out.
And in what the Alliance knew to be the lad’s fifteenth year, a bird from the port city of Roadsend in Wellen arrived at Challerain Keep. It bore a message telling of the seaborne attempt upon the true heir’s life. It also spoke of an intended rade of the heir easterly along the Crossland Road to the Boskydells, and then northerly to the Keep.
Not a day had passed at Challerain ere another bird winged south from the Mont toward the halls of Caer Pendwyr. . . .
. . . and when that bird arrived . . .
• • •
“DAMN, DAMN, ALBANERS!” hissed Arkov, reading the coded slip. He shoved the missive at his counselor. “Davich promised me that he would get the task done, but they proved no better than those Nizari pigs. I am surrounded by incompetent fools.”
“Though I hate to admit it, we could have used the Rovers,” said Baloff, unrolling the flimsy scroll.
“Did you not hear me? I said Nizari pigs were worthless, and that includes their Kistanian kin. Besides, ever since Abu’s failure, I do not and did not trust his replacement, that dark bastard Aziz, to properly carry out my wishes.”
“Then, my lord, mayhap we should not allow a Chabbain army to—”
“Silence, Baloff. When the day comes, you know we will need them to face the Northern Alliance. Besides, many are already asail. Some of the ships should be here within a fortnight, ere returning to Chabba to transport others. Then we’ll march on those upstarts ere the snow flies.”
Baloff read the pigeon-borne tissue-thin strip. “Fjordlanders and Jutes . . . Dragonships allied? No wonder the Albaners lost. Who could have anticipated—?”
“I told you we needed agents at the mad king’s court,” snarled Arkov, “but, oh, no, you said, the demented whims of the mad king himself are better than a hundred spies. Imbecile!”
Arkov stalked to an opening overlooking the Avagon Sea. He stood for long minutes peering out at distant sails and muttering. “Ships. Sailors. I never should have trusted those bunglers. Give me a good strong army, instead. And horses. Yes, horses.”
“What will we do, my lord?” asked Baloff. “I mean, given the date of his birth, if he is the true pretender, the boy is fifteen. And if he reaches Challerain Keep—”
“I know, Baloff. No need to remind me. Fear not, for other plans are afoot.”
• • •
NOT LONG AFTER THE bird-borne news of the Albaner defeat arrived at Caer Pendwyr, from the embassy towers of Kaleem bin Aziz a Grimwall Corvus winged north and a black seagull winged south.
32
Fury
Among the birds of Mithgar there are many members of the Corvidae family, in particular the Corvus. They are clever and trainable for the most part, but only if one begins when they are young—that is, from nest onward. One must beware these Mithgarian birds when encountered in the wild, for they are raptors all, with claws that snatch and beaks that shred.
They come in many forms:
The raven is the largest of all, and black as midnight itself, its voice consisting of knocks and creaks and harsh calls, and its manner a blend of curiosity and cleverness and savagery.
The gorcrow is an atrocious bird—a seeker of carrion and a lurker of battlefields, picking among the slain and severely wounded, choosing the choicest of meat.
Then there is the grey crow, with its ebon head and wings and tail, and a splash of black on its breast, but the bulk of its body is a ghostly grey; it is said to be a harbinger of death, for it haunts battlefields as well, rising up wraithlike from the blood-soaked soil if disturbed, only to return.
Rooks gather in mobs—called “buildings”—and fill the air with their calls, as if each is trying to outshout the other. At times on radiant days they preen and strut as if showing off to all, with their black feathers casting an overlying sheen of bluish-purple in the bright rays of the sun.
Jackdaws are the smallest of all, but are raptors still. A gathering of these Corvuses is called a “clattering,” for they seemingly chatter incessantly. And, like others of the Corvus family, they oft steal shiny things and gather the plunder in their nests.
There are many other members of this extended family, the common crow being one, yet perhaps the most predatory of all and the most difficult to train is the Grimwall Corvus, a vicious raptor nearly as large as a raven and more brutal than a gorcrow.
And in a dark tower hidden among the Grimwalls, there is a cote of these hostile birds. They are trained as messengers, sent forth from the tower by a whispered word of a Black Mage and bearing a small capsule with a tissue-thin strip on which coded words are laid. They take the messages to the places commanded, where they wait for a reply—sometimes for weeks, sometimes for days, sometimes immediately. Being vicious hunters and carrion eaters, they can feed along the way, yet the Dark Mage has embedded them with an urgency to make haste.
In the hutches at either end of their flight, there are trained cote-masters, who tend to the care and feeding of these rapacious birds—tend them cautiously, that is, for they are savage. . . .
. . . and in that dark tower well-hidden in the Grimwalls . . .
Slekk was awakened by the clang of the gong announcing the setting of the sun. Pushing, jostling, elbowing, cursing, he shoved his way among the flood of other pushing, cursing Drik—Rûcks all—lunging toward feeding troughs filled, as usual, with a thick slurry of meal, enriched with gobbets and shreds of grey meat floating throughout, some of it yet oozing. As usual, after gulping down his fill, he scurried with others toward the defecation chamber—food in, feces out, was a morning rite. Among Drik he squatted astraddle the common sluice in the floor and emptied his bowels and bladder. And as he did so, though he did not have deep thoughts, still he wondered about two things: was it true that upon Neddra—that haven upon the Low Plane—there was rutting all day long? And was he the only Drik who actually had a name? Not that either question really mattered, for—rutting or no—he was trapped here on Mithgar, unless of course the Master or someone else with power took him across in the night. And as far as his so-called name—Slekk—he had made that up himself. Even so, he didn’t know anyone else who had a name—among Driks, that is. But for some inexplicable reason, Slekk wanted a name of his own. After all, the Ghok and Gûk—Hlôks and Ghûls—had names: the Ghok simply to self-style themselves after their own masters, the Gûk—besides the Ghok needed to have names so that a Drik would know whose squad he was assigned to, or who to go to with a message. Like the Drik, the Oghi—the Trolls—behemoths that they are, didn’t seem to have names. Perhaps that was because they never ran things, but were around to simply do the heavy lifting, or to crush the enemy, and to follow orders, just like the Drik.
But the Mages—oh, Gyphon—they had dreadful names, names to strike fear and terror, to stab deep into the very heart of anyone.
Though Slekk’s thoughts and desires were quite primitive, animalistic at best, still he knew about rutting and names . . . and he knew dread.
It took only moments to dump his bowels and bladder, and, fearing the lash of the overseeing Ghok, he fled the defecation chamber and made his way toward the stairs. He stopped long enough to pick up two buckets of putrefying hacked-off arms and sawn-off legs and split viscera—there being no shortage of such in Nunde’s tower. And then he headed up the stone spiral toward the cote high above.
Huffing and wheezing, he at last reached the top, where the hostile black birds awaited, rawking and gracking at Slekk’s appearance, demanding to be fed.
Slekk chopped up the severed limbs and ropy
lengths of intestines and threw the rotting bits into the cages, where the Grimwall Corvuses shredded and ripped at the grey meat and gulped it down.
Slekk watched them rend and tear, and his mouth watered at the sight of frenzied feeding. He had often thought of reaching into a cage and snatching up one of the birds and biting off its head and crunching it to pulp and gulping it down. That would be followed by eating the rest of the fowl—bones, feathers, all—and he wondered what it might taste like—certainly it would be fresh. But dread of the Master stayed his hand, for the birds were more valuable to him than any Drik alive.
And as he turned to take up the scraper to clean away the steaming piles below the cages, a glimmer caught his eye.
A capsule.
Tied to the leg of a feeding Corvus.
Taking great care to avoid sharp claws and rending beak, Slekk managed to get the capsule free, and he bolted from the cote and scrambled down the stairs.
As always, Radok would reward him with a ration of fresh meat.
But as Slekk entered the lower corridors—Nunde! Master Nunde!
Blubbering in fear, Slekk fell groveling to the floor.
Nunde peered down at the Drik’s outstretched, trembling hand. Then he stooped over and took up the capsule.
He did not give Slekk his ration of meat.
Instead, he opened the capsule and read the coded words within, his face turning black with fury.
“Fool!” he shouted, and he ground his teeth, his jaw clenching and sawing. And then he burst forth: “Damned fool! With my plan nearing fulfillment, that imbecile sends ships to slay the heir! He could have ruined everything!”
Nunde swung about, glaring, looking for someone, anyone to—
But only a Drik lay blubbering and groveling upon the cold stone corridor floor.
Nunde muttered a word and reached out a clawed hand and slowly squeezed it shut, as if crushing a still-beating heart.
Thus was slain the only Drik with a name in the dark depths of that well-hidden tower.
33
Thornwalkers
Being a small folk, of Warrows it is said that they make the finest of scouts, stepping lighter than an Elf and blending into the ’scape. And they are cat quick when faced with danger, especially when cornered. Yet list: in times of strife Warrows are not given to swords and spears and shields and bucklers and other such accoutrements of war. No, they are missileers: slings and bows and arrows being more suited to their kind. Oh, some have mastered the art of knife throwing, and a few can shy a rock with deadly accuracy, but in the main, it’s slings and bows that make them deadly in battle. Other folk might cast arrows and bullets farther than Warrows can, yet in all of Mithgar one would be hard-pressed to find better archers and slingsters.
They come by these skills through tradition and hard practice, for most young buccen—that age between twenty and thirty—train to become Thornwalkers, guardians of the Seven Dells. They are called Thornwalkers because among their other duties they patrol the bounds of the Bosky, there where the Thornwall lies, though in times of peace only few are needed. Still, now was not a time of peace, though as of yet neither was it a time of war. Even so, war was coming, but whether the Thornwalkers would join the Northern Alliance or merely defend their own borders . . . well, that debate was not yet settled. Regardless, the ways through the Thornwall were now plugged, and Warrows guarded these entrances.
And then one day on a steel-grey horse a rider wearing the scarlet and gold tabard and bearing a Gjeenian penny showed up at the western bound. . . .
• • •
THE MAN HELD UP a coin on a thong and looked up at the small archers atop a stand just beyond the barricade of thorns obstructing his way ahead.
“He’s come from the west, not south,” whispered Banley.
“So as he ain’t one of Arkov’s lackeys,” added Graden.
“We’ll see,” said Norv, and he turned toward the rider and called down, “It’s true then, what the Red-Coach drivers said?”
“Aye,” replied the man. “King Reyer will be here in a sixday.”
“That’s what they said, they did,” hissed Graden. “Told us flat out that Valen’s boy was on his way.”
Banley nodded his agreement. “They did at that.”
Graden turned to Norv, who seemed to be the Warrow in charge. “Do we open the barrier?”
“Of course, you jobbernowl,” growled Norv. “Can’t you see he’s got the penny?”
“A penny from the true heir, too,” said Banley, “’stead o’ that Arkov Usurper.”
“Well, hop to,” ordered Norv, “we can’t keep the King’s herald waitin’.”
Warrows scrambled down from the stand and swung the barricade aside.
“Better take a torch,” Norv called down to the rider. “You’ll need it to see.”
As they moved the wall out of the way, the man warily looked at the gloomy tunnel through the Spindlethorn barrier. “How far to the other side?”
“It’s half a league to the river and then another half league beyond.”
“Then perhaps I’d better take two torches,” said the herald.
“Nah. One’ll do. You can fetch another at the river ward, and it’ll last the rest of the way. Banley!”
The Warrow named Banley took up one of the oil- and pitch-soaked brands and lit it and handed it up to the man.
“Hup, Steel,” said the rider, urging his mount forward. And he took the torch and called, “King Reyer,” and then rode into the shadows beyond.
• • •
“REMEMBER, REYER, YOU DO not expect Warrows to kneel. King Blaine gave them leave to acknowledge all of royalty, no matter the realm, by nothing more than a simple bow.”
Reyer nodded at Driu’s words. “I remember. ’Twas a promise made to Sir Tipperton Thistledown.”
“And to all Warrows everywhere,” added Alric. “Not that it’ll mean aught to me.”
Gretta raised an eyebrow, but said naught.
Driu merely smiled.
• • •
A DAY OR SO LATER, Reyer scowled and shaded his eyes and peered easterly. “Looks to be a storm coming.”
“What?” said Alric, who had been rapt in a conversation with Riessa.
Reyer pointed. “There. Low on the horizon. Dark clouds gather.”
Alric looked ahead and then groaned. “I hate riding in the rain.”
“’Tis not storm clouds,” said Riessa, her sharp-eyed Dylvana gaze taking in the view.
Alric frowned at her, an unspoken question on his lips.
“’Tis the Thornwall.”
“Looks like clouds to me,” said Reyer, Alric nodding his agreement.
“Besides,” said Alric, “for that to be a wall of thorns, it must be—”
“I believe here it’s something like fifty, sixty feet high,” said Conal, riding on the opposite side from Riessa.
“Adon!” exclaimed Alric.
• • •
THE PASSAGE THROUGH THE thorns was open when the entourage reached it, and as the rade passed the ward, Warrows stood agog at the sight of Dylvana Elves riding among the Big Folk. And all the buccen bowed when the lean-limbed High King rode past, though neither Norv nor any of his squad mates knew which of the two lads might be him.
And as the torchlight faded away easterly, the west ward closed the barrier once more, and immediately began arguing as to which was the young King and which his youthful companion.
• • •
THEY STOPPED AT THE River Wenden to stretch their legs and let the horses drink. A slash of blue sky shone above, light filtering down between the great walls of thorn on either side of the waterway.
Alric breathed deeply, as if glad to be clear of the tunnel behind, though it seemed he was not looking forward to passing through the one
ahead.
Reyer, on the other hand, marveled at the massive tangle, great-girthed plants twisting and twining out from the soil, the thorns themselves ranging from dagger to long-knife length.
“I say, one would be quite bloodied were he to attempt that maze,” said Reyer. “It looks to be better than the best of moats.”
“Moats don’t burn,” said Alric. “And though it might take a long, long while, were it mine to breach, I would simply set it on fire.”
“Flame cannot seem to get purchase,” said Driu.
“It doesn’t burn?”
“One might set a blaze to going, yet it cannot sustain itself. Hence your plan is doomed to fail.”
Reyer laughed and said, “See: better than a moat.”
They stood without speaking for a moment, then Driu said, “We’ll stay at the Cliffs this eve.”
“The Cliffs?”
“’Tis a series of dwellings, Reyer, carved into the face of a limestone bluff rising up from the surround just beyond the Thornwall. A village of Warrow scholars, I am told.”
“Scholars?”
Driu nodded. “Keepers of a great library. I am looking forward to visiting its halls.”
Reyer frowned and peered at the squad of buccen across on the opposite bank, waiting for them to fare onward. “It’s hard to think of this wondrous small folk being other than the salt of the earth.”
“Nevertheless, they are,” said Driu. “—Scholars, I mean. And I was told by one of my mentors that if events unfold as he has seen, sometime in the distant future the ones who will be living here at that time will have a significant role to play. What it might be, he did not say.”
Nearby, Riessa laughed, and when Alric glanced at her, she said, “Mages—always speaking in mysteries and riddles and hints.”
“Indeed,” said Alric and he and Reyer both laughed.
Driu smiled and said, “How else would you have us be?”
Reyer looked at her and grinned and said, “I, for one, wouldn’t change a thing.”
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