The palanquin’s curtain shifted again, and again the gold-masked Sultana uttered something to her attending minister, who nodded, smoothed out his robes, and turned. “My Esteemed Lady, Sultana of Narmeer, Bride of Vizan the Summer Lord, Mistress of the Scorching Throne, Herald—”
“Ask your question,” barked Lastleaf, his long ears quivering impatiently.
The druins, Clay knew, possessed something Vespian had referred to as “the prescience,” which gave them insight into the very near future. It meant they often knew your mind a moment before you spoke it, and made even the kindest druin seem impatient, since they sometimes replied to something you hadn’t quite finished saying.
And of course it made them real nasty fuckers in a fight.
The Narmeeri minister, caught between a rock and the very hardest of places, gave his mistress an inquiring glance. The mask dipped in acquiescence, and the man sighed, obviously relieved. “The Sultana would have me ask: Why summon us to council if not to negotiate? What is it you hope to achieve? Or have you come simply to gloat?”
Lastleaf raised his chin and wet his lips. His ears shivered, and his fingers opened and closed as though longing for the grasp of a sword. He appeared profoundly uncomfortable, and Clay wondered how long it had been since the druin had dealt with something other than a monster.
“I have a—” Lastleaf paused, as if rummaging his archaic vocabulary in search of a suitable word “—request of my own.”
“And that is?” asked Matrick wearily.
Lastleaf spread his hands. His smile might have been charming were it not full of daggers. “Do nothing,” he said.
No one spoke. The wind picked up; Clay could smell smoke on the evening breeze. Below, a few people had already begun trickling toward the river, where boatmen would be waiting by the dozen to ferry them across before dark.
Eager to be first back to Brycliffe with this story, Clay figured, his eyes drawn to the pale Duke and his great black wyvern. But is it over yet?
It was Etna Doshi who broke the silence at last. “You wanna clarify that?” she asked.
“I am aware that you plan on sending an army to Castia,” said Lastleaf. “I am telling you to reconsider.”
“Requesting, you mean.” This from Obolon Han, who had not so casually placed the palm of one hand on the pommel of his sabre.
Clay saw Gabriel steal a nervous glance toward Matrick’s back. Matty had explained on the way here that the courts were, in fact, marshalling an army with the aim of liberating Castia, or at least eradicating whatever monsters inhabited the city by the time it arrived. Endland was a fair and fertile land, shielded from the Heartwyld by a range of daunting mountains. The Castian Republic, which had been founded by the fleeing remnants of Grandual’s short-lived Empire, had thrived there for more than three hundred years. Several prominent members of Castia’s ruling senate had fled their city and found asylum in Fivecourt before the siege began. They had promised great rewards to whichever of Grandual’s monarchs delivered their city from the Horde’s clutches.
“Think of the cost,” said Lastleaf, “to equip this army of yours, to feed them, to pay them wages worth facing a Horde for. The Heartwyld, even by the straightest path, is more than a thousand miles across. And beyond the forest lies the Emperor’s Mantle.”
A modest name for a wall of ice-clad stone infested with as many horrible creatures as the forest it borders, Clay mused.
“It will take several months for an army to reach Castia. How many soldiers will you lose along the way? The woods remain home to terrible things—things even I dare not approach. How many of your people will fall prey to the flesheater tribes, or to the hungry mouths of the trees themselves? How many will succumb to the rot, I wonder?”
Moog stirred at that. He glanced sidelong at Matrick, who they hadn’t yet told of the wizard’s condition. Condition, of course, being a gracious term for inevitable and exquisitely painful death.
“By the time your army reaches Endland, weary and depleted, Castia will have fallen. My Horde, whose size even now would beggar your imagination, will have grown larger still, swollen with scavengers come to feast on the city’s corpse. If you challenge us, you will not win. I defeated the Republic’s army, bolstered though it was by a legion of your famed mercenaries, and I would defeat you as well. Next time, however, there will be no more walls to hide behind, nowhere to run. If you face me on the battlefield, you risk annihilation.”
The sun had dropped behind the druin, throwing his shadow like a spear through the heart of the assembled delegates. There was a cold bite to the wind now. The Agrian guardsmen were growing visibly anxious, and Clay abruptly remembered what Matrick had said earlier about the wights that flocked to the Isle after dark.
“How many could each of you send? Five thousand? Ten? Even still, it will not be enough.”
That may be true, Clay thought. The Heartwyld Horde might lack the cohesion of a professional army, but it was rumoured to be a hundred thousand strong. By the time Grandual’s forces reached Endland they would be tired and footsore, battered from the months-long trek across the forest, over the mountains. They would be outnumbered, he knew, and likely outmatched. Common soldiers—even the rugged warriors of Kaskar—weren’t the same breed as mercenaries. Mercs spent their whole careers hunting and killing monsters. A soldier’s life, especially since the courts had been at peace for decades, consisted primarily of marching, standing, sleeping, and occasionally throwing dice or playing cards against other soldiers who weren’t busy marching, standing, or sleeping.
A court soldier might know one end of a sword from the other—hells, there may even be a few handy fighters among them—but they weren’t likely to know that a cockatrice’s gaze could turn flesh to stone, or that bugbears, for whatever reason, couldn’t see the colour yellow. Knowledge like that could be exploited. It could save your life. No, Clay reasoned, pitting regular troops against a Heartwyld Horde was likely to result in disaster, as it had for the Republic.
The council knew this, and so did Lastleaf.
“All those precious lives,” he said blithely, “will vanish, like smoke. Who among you can afford to lose so many soldiers?”
“It tastes like a mouthful of seawater,” said Etna Doshi, “but the ‘Duke’ here has a point. Castia may be far from here, but it’s a damn sight farther from Aldea. My queen won’t likely see the sense in sending so many west with little to no chance they’d ever come back.”
Clay saw Gabriel flinch as though struck.
Matrick, his hands balled into fists, whirled on her. “We can’t just let all those people die!”
“Of course we can,” snapped Lilith. “Be practical, Matrick.”
“I’m with the king on this,” said Maladan Pike. “A lot of good mercs went west. I’m not of a mind to give up on them. And besides, any one of my warriors is worth ten bloody goblins. A hundred, even. I’d bet my horse on it.”
At the rate the man wagered horses, Clay was surprised the First Shield had found a mount to carry him to Lindmoor.
The High Han was shaking his head at Matrick. “It hurts like a horse’s cock to say it, but I stand with Old King Matrick as well. If Agria goes west, Cartea rides with ’em.”
Lastleaf turned on Maladan Pike, a sneer pulling at his mouth. “And who will remain to defend the north should the yethiks emerge in force from their winter caves?” The First Shield glowered, and looked poised to voice an angry retort, but the druin wheeled on Doshi first. “Who will be left to guard your coasts if saig raiders storm ashore by the thousand? Who will keep the serpent kin from despoiling your precious oases and cutting off trade with the north?” he asked the Narmeeri ministers, who began clucking to one another behind raised, ring-adorned hands.
These aren’t probabilities, Clay thought, they’re threats. His gaze roved among the assembled delegates, who were wringing their hands and muttering worriedly.
Lastleaf said to Matrick, “Your borders are plagued by
centaurs, yes? Stealing children, killing farmers here and there? Let us hope they do not grow emboldened while your soldiers are away in the west. They might start wiping out whole villages, putting entire towns on the spit.” At last he looked to Obolon Han.
“Oh, fuck off,” said the Cartean. “I get it. We attack you, you attack us. I can see the clouds without you telling me rain is on the way.”
“And if we leave you alone?” inquired Lilith, no longer content to use Matrick as her mouthpiece. “If we shun the Republic and abandon Castia?”
Another grin from Lastleaf, autumnal this time—all light and no warmth.
He has what he came here for, Clay thought. Compliance. Capitulation.
“Then the distant Republic becomes the Duchy of Endland,” the druin explained, almost cheerfully. “And perhaps, someday, an ally to the courts of Grandual—”
“You can’t be serious!”
All eyes turned to Gabriel, but none quicker than Lastleaf’s, whose gaze flooded with hateful recognition. “You!” he hissed, ears trembling with rage, his mask of civility shattering in an instant. He didn’t reach for a sword—not yet—but Clay didn’t need a druin’s prescience to see violence brewing.
Even so, what happened next surprised him.
Sensing an opportunity, Obolon Han surged forward, bare sabre bloodied by the setting sun. Lastleaf, his focus nailed to Gabriel, didn’t see the Cartean coming until it was too late, and even then he’d barely begun to turn when the Han’s sword came chopping down—
Something dark eclipsed the sun; a sound like the sky tearing split the dusk.
The Han’s blade went spinning away, missing Lastleaf by mere inches, and Obolon’s feet scissored madly as the wyvern’s jaws snapped shut over his head. For just a moment Clay could hear the Han’s screams echo down the monster’s throat, until, with a wet crunch, Obolon’s torso was ripped free from his legs. The wyvern spread her wings and tipped her head back. Clay would have sworn he saw her throat bulge as the Cartean (well, half of him anyway) was forced down her gullet.
There was shouting—the din of general panic—among the gathered delegates, but no one actually moved. Even the Han’s Ravenguard seemed rooted to the spot, too afraid to draw their bows lest the wyvern single them out next.
Lastleaf was on his rump, apparently dazed, likely grappling with the fact that all his careful schemes had, for the space of a heartbeat, seemed as fragile as a spider’s web at the mercy of the wind. His long ears had gone limp. He raked red-gold hair from his eyes as he scrambled to his feet, then reached back and withdrew the topmost sword from its scabbard. The blade looked as though it were made of sun-baked stone laced with igneous cracks. The air around it shimmered with searing heat.
By now, however, most everyone on the hill had recovered from the shock of Obolon’s death. The druin spared a snarl for Gabriel before he turned, coat whirling at his knees, and stalked beneath the wyvern’s outstretched wing.
He shouted, “Ashatan!” and the creature stooped so Lastleaf could grasp hold of a spine and haul himself onto her back.
The wyvern’s powerful legs propelled her upward. Her wings thrashed the air as she soared out of bowshot, and Clay could smell her stink in his nostrils, a scent like carrion bloating in still water.
The Isle, meanwhile, dissolved into pandemonium. Pike’s warriors were scuffling with a number of Doshi’s pirates. The Han’s men scattered, racing toward their shrieking mounts. The Sultana’s Kaskars ushered her palanquin away; the storm-wracked sails of her skyship crackled and the tidal engines whirred to life. Crossbow turrets along its rails were aimed at the darkening sky.
Clay looked to his friends. “We should probably … what?” he asked. “Moog, what is it?”
Gabe’s eyes were skyward still, but the wizard was gawping downhill. Clay followed his gaze, and at first didn’t know what exactly he was seeing. Lights like blue-white candles were flickering all across Lindmoor, coalescing into the shape of …
Men. Or the ghosts of men. There were hundreds of them, and hundreds more sparking to life among the shadowed eaves to the east.
Clay decided now was a good time to conclude his earlier thought. “We should go,” he said.
“Matrick!” screeched Lilith, clinging tightly to her bodyguard’s arm.
The king, in a vain attempt to keep the peace, had wedged himself between a Kaskar twice his height and a Phantran with anchor-shaped tears tattooed on her cheek. “Yes, dear?” he asked, before catching sight of the wights glowing in the fen below. “Oh.”
He managed to extricate himself and ordered his guardsmen escort them, with haste, to the river. As their party rushed down the southern slope, Matrick fell in step with his bandmates. “I may be stabbing at spectres here, but I’d say the Council was a spectacular fucking failure.”
“Speaking of spectres …” Clay cast a wary eye at the iridescent figures plodding past them on either side, converging slowly on the Isle. “Should we be worried?”
“Nah,” Matrick waved a hand. “They won’t hurt us. Probably. Hopefully.” He whistled at the captain of his guard. “Let’s pick up the pace a bit, shall we?”
When Lilith swooned, overcome by exhaustion, Lokan hoisted her gallantly in his arms. When Matrick, wheezing, tripped over his own weary feet, Clay and Gabriel propped him up between them.
“Moog,” whispered the king, “do me a favour?”
“Anything,” said the wizard, drawing near.
“Kill me. Tonight.”
Chapter Fourteen
Farewell to the King
Matrick was found dead the next morning. Two physicians were summoned to the scene. The first declared that the king had drunk himself to death, while the second insisted he’d been poisoned. Shortly after a breakfast prepared by Lilith’s personal chefs, the second physician fell ill and died. The first physician wisely ruled his associate’s death a complete and utter mystery.
Clay and the others were permitted to remain in the palace, though it was made clear the queen’s hospitality would extend only until Matrick was buried. Lilith seemed eager to get the funeral under way, so the following morning they joined the royal procession as it moved in silence through the near-empty streets of Brycliffe.
A baker clapped her flour-dusted hands as the grave parade went by, and a pair of mummers paused their rehearsal to watch it pass. One of them had dyed his hair bright orange and donned a pair of ears that were likely meant to look druin but were obviously part of a rabbit costume. The other was draped in a black sheet and had rickety wings strapped to his arms.
“I thought there would be more people,” muttered Gabriel. “I’d heard he made a pretty good king.”
“Lilith didn’t tell them,” said Moog. “I heard she locked the servants up overnight and threatened to kill them if word got out the king was dead.”
“Why?” Clay asked.
“She said the crowd would slow us down, and that people would throw flowers, and that it was hard to clean flowers off cobblestone.”
“Seriously?” Clay glanced over his shoulder at the queen, sitting high and regal on her horse and laughing at something Lokan had said. “Gods, Matty sure can pick ’em, eh?”
They passed beneath a postern and followed a winding, switch-back trail through the steep forest behind Brycliffe Castle. At last the procession skirted the stony shore of the river until they came to a stretch of sandy beach. Clay’s first clue that Moog’s not-so-elaborate plan to fake Matrick’s death and dig him up afterward was maybe not such a great idea after all was when the sombre march stopped at a pier and not, as was customary, in a graveyard.
A small cluster of nobility waited by the shore, and Clay sidled up to the nearest of them. “Isn’t there a … royal tomb or something?” he asked.
The man, who was holding a pristine white kerchief but seemed reluctant to tarnish it by dabbing his dripping nose, nodded. “There is—in the catacombs below the castle—but Her Grace has recently been fas
cinated by all things—” his eyes darted to Lokan and back “—um, northern.”
“And how do they bury kings up north?”
The nobleman looked out over the river. “I don’t think they do.”
A beautifully crafted boat was carried to the shore by a dozen strong men. Matrick’s body was laid to rest inside, rendered deathlike by a potion Moog had cooked up in the palace kitchen after the Council. His skin had gone white as bone—a perfectly natural side effect of something called shaderoot, the wizard assured them. The king’s sparse hair had been oiled back. His clothes were immaculate, and he was draped in so much gold—rings, chains, torcs, and a great gaudy crown set with precious gemstones—that Clay feared the boat might sink the moment they set it adrift. Roxy and Grace, his beloved knives, were crossed over his breast.
A wreath of red nettles had been placed on Matrick’s brow as an offering to the Autumn Son. Without it (or so Vail’s priests alleged), the Heathen would betray the king’s soul to the Frost Mother and so condemn it to eternity in the icy halls of hell.
The royal children were dressed all in black, their grief as varied as their parentage. The twins cried (which Clay was beginning to think was their natural emotional state) while Lillian stood with crossed arms, glaring with those fierce blue eyes at any who dared console her. Kerrick’s fat face was a mess of tears and running snot. Whenever he thought no one was looking he stole a handful of what Clay hoped were raisins from his pocket and jammed them into his mouth. Only the oldest, Danigan, remained composed. He actually looked bored as the priest droned on, commending Matrick’s achievements not only as a king, but as a doting father, and a loving, beloved husband.
Lilith, for her part, played the role of grieving widow so well that Clay half-expected the crowd to start tossing roses at her feet as she took her bows. The act was belied only by the way she clung to Lokan’s arm, as though she were adrift at sea and he the last spar of a sunken ship. The broad-shouldered Kaskar had found some ornate black armour for the occasion, and he wore an expression of grim austerity that looked somehow fraudulent on the face of one so young.
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