The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series)

by Hal Emerson

  “The walls are surely defensible,” said Gates, now looking at the maps as well. The Prince felt his heart begin to beat faster – the General looked like he was seriously considering Leah’s plan. “With enough supplies I could hold those walls against the Empress herself.”

  “And how in all the seven hells would you manage to get to the other side of those walls?” Perci interjected, finally finding a place to break into the conversation. “No army has ever breached the Black Wall. If you think a siege outside Tibour would take months, how long do you think it would take to bring down the only impregnable city in the entire Empire!”

  “Banelyn has no standing army,” Leah began, but Perci had his stride now and wouldn’t be deterred.

  “It has no standing army because it doesn’t need one!” He roared, filling the tent with the huge sound of his voice. “We will break our backs on those city walls. There is no way through them, no way under them, and certainly no way over them. We can’t –”

  “There is a way over them,” said the Prince. His voice was low and quiet but the sudden excitement in it was enough to cut through the mounting speech.

  “We found one,” Leah said, continuing on for him. “There is a secret passageway, used only by the Seekers, that goes through an abandoned guardhouse, right over the Black Wall.”

  A huge silence greeted this as the sudden real plausibility of this plan began to manifest itself in each of their minds.

  “You lie,” said Henri Perci to Leah. “If you speak more untruths, I will hurl you from this tent.”

  “Be very very careful about what you say next,” rumbled Tomaz, stepping forward and rolling his massive shoulders.

  All of them, even the Prince, had forgotten the giant was in the tent with them, but at the sound of his deep, cavernous voice, the air seemed to gel and all of them froze, waiting to see if Perci would be so bold as to even provoke the wrath of Tomaz.

  For a long moment it looked as if he would. Perci’s face had turned a deep red and he had pulled himself up to his full, considerable height.

  But Tomaz stood head and shoulders above him, huge and menacing like a force of nature, a Daemon in his own right. Slowly a change came over Perci, and the air seemed to go out of him. One did not argue with a mountain.

  “I admit,” Perci said slowly, choosing his words with care for perhaps the first time since the Prince had known him, “it would be a mighty blow if we could manage it. But I also find it highly impractical.”

  “We have to take the gamble!” Leah protested.

  “Do you have anything else to add Tomaz?” Asked Autmaran, before the conversation could get carried away any further. “I’ve often found your council useful in the past; are we forgetting anything here? Is there anything we haven’t considered?”

  “He is only an Ashandel,” Perci grumbled, only half as dismissive as he’d have been toward anyone else. “He doesn’t belong in this tent in the first place.”

  “I would hear him speak,” said the Prince. “There isn’t a single man I trust more to give solid council.”

  “I would hear him speak as well,” said General Dunhold.

  Perci looked about to respond, but bit back whatever he’d been about to say.

  “I think that the plan is sound,” Tomaz said. “It is daring and dangerous, but I think such action is also necessary. The only thing I would add, the only real thing I see … is that someone needs to get the dagger.”

  “The dagger?” Asked Commander Wyck, confused. “Did the Fox steal a dagger of yours? I hardly think now is the time for a revenge quest my friend.”

  “The Fox has one of the Elder’s daggers,” said Tomaz, clarifying, “the dagger known as Socratin, the sambolin that belongs to the Elder of State.”

  Wyck turned bright red at the misassumption he’d made and tried to apologize but Tomaz waved him down before continuing.

  “For this to work, as I understand it at least, we need to know that Vale is safe. We are the only Kindred army in the entire Empire – if we move to Banelyn, Dysuna may move to Vale. She is a savage creature … and we cannot let her go for our home.”

  Leah and Autmaran nodded thoughtfully, and General Gates, the consummate defender, empathically murmured his agreement, his thick black-gray mustache bristling.

  “Is there any guarantee that getting the dagger back will restore the illusions?” Asked the Prince to the tent at large.

  “I think we can speak to that,” said Elder Spader.

  Everyone turned to see him, flanked by the shadowy, slight figure of Ishmael, and the beautiful, motherly face of Keri.

  “The daggers are the Elders’ responsibility,” said Spader. “And with three of us, we can restore the dagger to its original purpose. To be honest … Crane sent us in the hope that such a thing would be possible. I didn’t think we’d ever get around to it, but … well, it looks like, once again, the Wise Elder saw things the rest of us didn’t. In any case, we will soon need a new Elder to anchor the dagger to or the enchantment will truly die, not simply lie dormant, but if it is retrieved, then it will be a simple matter for us to reactivate the illusions and keep the Kindred lands at least somewhat safe until we can return the dagger to the Capitol and redo the enchantments.”

  “How?” Asked Davydd.

  “What the – is this a command tent or a town drinking house?”

  “Elder Ishmael summoned us,” Davydd said, “not my fault you didn’t hear us come in.”

  Davydd and Lorna had made their way into the tent, and were standing just outside the circle of Generals looking at the map table.

  “And I summoned him because I thought that this eventuality might come up,” Ishmael said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. “If someone is to retrieve the dagger, I thought it would best for that person to be skilled in retrieving things of a … delicate … nature. Who better than Eshendai Goldwyn and Ashandel Lamas?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Davydd said irreverently, coming up and threading his way through the crowd to the front, so he had a great view of the map. Fortunately, Commander Wyck and Elder Spader, both of whom he’d shouldered out of the way, made no complaints.

  “So how are you going to reactivate the dagger and find a suitable replacement Elder?” Davydd said, tone serious but with a glint of mischief in his eye.

  “That is none of your business,” said Ishmael, black eyes locking on the younger man. Such a stare would surely have cowed anyone else, but Davydd just smiled and shrugged as if he hadn’t really wanted to know anyway.

  “So we need to split our forces,” the Prince concluded, eyeing them all closely. There was a small silence here, as the realization sunk in that he was right, and the humor of Davydd’s arrival died away.

  “That’s suicide,” Herni Perci said stubbornly.

  “To hear you talk,” Spader quipped, “getting out of bed in the morning would be suicide if you weren’t there to manage it. What’s it like having such a high opinion of yourself? Can you actually see out of that thick skull of yours or does your own fabulousness cloud those darling baby blues?”

  “We are already smaller than the Imperial forces,” Perci growled out, trying to ignore Spader. “There is no chance of us bringing Banelyn to its knees without our full strength. The Black Wall has held for centuries – no army has ever breached it, though many, Children no less, have tried and paid for such folly with the lives of thousands. Even if you claim to have found a way over them, how do you know that the way will be clear? Perhaps they close it as soon as they see out army approaching. Without our full force, we could be killed outright if Dysuna realizes what we’re doing and follows us.”

  “You sound scared Perce,” said Davydd, needling him. For once, the Prince felt a kind of twisted pleasure at the young man’s irreverence – it may beneath the Prince to rib Perci so openly, but Davydd could do so. That man got away with everything, just like …

  Tiffenal.

  “Not scared,” Perci wa
s saying, “I have no greater desire than to lay down my life in battle, fighting for the Kindred cause. But this would be a meaningless sacrifice, we’d be simply throwing lives away –”

  “No more so than if we marched into a desert,” said Leah, eyeing him contemptuously. “Do you have any brains in that head of yours? I’m starting to think you’re really just a pretty face after all.”

  “We only need a small force,” the Prince said, breaking into the conversation. Everyone quieted immediately, listening intently to what he had to say, though Perci was staring merciless daggers at Leah. “Formaux is where the dagger is, I’m sure of it – Tiffenal is covetous. He wouldn’t have let it out of his sight unless Mother Herself commanded it. He’ll consider it a prize – a spoil of war. This actually plays in our favor because.…”

  He trailed off as he realized the silence in the tent had deepened to something much more sinister than the rapt attention of a moment before.

  What?” The Prince asked, confused. “What is it?”

  “Formaux,” rumbled Tomaz. The rest of the Kindred shifted nervously.

  “No member of the Exiled Kindred would go there intentionally,” said Davydd after a long pause. “No one who has gone in has ever come back out.”

  The young man’s red eyes seemed to have gathered the light of the candles that lit the inside of the tent; he looked excited, leaning forward, nostrils wide and pupils dilated. The implication seemed clear: he would walk through even the hell of Formaux to have a chance at the man who’d killed his father.

  “None have ever returned? There has been no infiltration at all?” Asked the Prince, astounded. Even the city of Lucien, the capital of the entire Empire, had been infiltrated by the Kindred. In fact, Relkin, the Prince’s father, had been one of the ones to do it.

  “None,” rumbled Tomaz, his deep voice making the word seem suddenly more final than it had just a second before. “Any who pass beyond its walls are considered dead.”

  A long moment passed, and the Prince thought about his brother, the Prince of Foxes. The Fox Talisman connected him to what Geofred called fate and what Tiffenal called luck. In either case, he could unconsciously bend and change the world around him to suit his will. There was no move the Fox made that would not, in some way, benefit him in the end. Every roll of the dice played in his favor, every setback only revealed a perfect silver lining. Geofred held the Talisman in contempt – it was the one way to never need to think about anything in your entire life. It was based entirely on instincts, on reaction and base desire.

  No wonder none of the Kindred have ever come out alive, the Prince thought to himself. Likely every move they make once they enter the city has played in Tiffenal’s favor.

  The Prince thought also of the way Tiffenal preferred to pass the time … the terrible things he did to men and women who displeased him. Formaux was not a good place to be a member of the Commons, to say the least, but, as was the case with all the capital cities, if you were born there, then you would die there.

  The only way to circumvent the Fox is to get close enough that the Raven Talisman protects me and those nearby.

  The thought was hard and unpleasant. The Talismans for some reason did not work well around each other – Symanta had a harder time reading the Children than she did the Commons or even the Most High; Rikard could not command one of the Children using the Lion Talisman; Geofred had to concentrate twice as hard to see the future of the Children because so many threads connected them with so many possible futures.

  And Tiffenal’s luck was slippery around them, as had been proved again to the Prince when he’d chased the Fox through the mountains – if it had been anyone else but the Prince following him, both he and Leah would likely be dead, simply by ill luck.

  “I will lead the force that heads for Formaux,” said the Prince. He looked up at the gathered room.

  “The Talismans negate each other,” he said, speaking quietly but with purpose and intent; the Kindred watched in rapt silence. “If I can get close enough to Tiffenal, the Fox Talisman will no longer grant him protection.”

  “And if you kill him,” said Davydd bluntly, speaking what was also on the Prince’s mind, “you may gain the Fox Talisman, just as we gained the Ox.”

  There was another silence here. All of them knew that the Ox Talisman had been stolen from Ramael and given to Tomaz – such had been made clear after the events of Elder Goldwyn’s death.

  “It is a possibility,” the Prince said quietly, his face a calm, dispassionate mask, though inwardly he was recoiling from the idea of killing another of the Children … another of his siblings.

  “Then it’s decided,” he said, pushing the thoughts away. “We part ways – for Formaux and Banelyn.”

  One by one the generals nodded, and so did the Elders. Perci was last, looking around him as if he were the only sane man in the tent.

  “Fine!” Perci cried before rounding on the Prince. “But I swear to you that if this fails and the army is broken, I will hunt you down and spit in your face for betraying us.”

  “I think that if the army is broken a little spittle will be the least of his worries,” said Commander Autmaran with a touch of grim humor.

  The Prince let himself breath a small sigh of relief, and looked to Leah.

  She was staring at him with a force that was almost palpable; her face was stony and her eyes spoke of fury and rage, and under the onslaught the Prince almost took a step back and dropped a hand to his sword. What was this?

  “We have preparations to make,” Perci said, and he left the tent, Oleander nodding and following thoughtfully behind him.

  At this cue, the rest of the generals, commanders, and so forth, made their exits as well, but before everyone had left the Prince spoke:

  “Leah,” he said, “please stay, we need to talk.”

  “Shut up and stay away from me.”

  Everybody still left in the tent froze and dead silence rang through the space as if somehow the sound of the world had been muted. For a long moment nobody moved; Autmaran stood, half out of the tent’s entrance flap, mouth comically agape, looking between Leah and the Prince; Tomaz, who had just begun to stand, was looking only at Leah, and from his expression the Prince knew he was ready to move into action and restrain her if the need arose. Elder Spader and Commander Wyck were both staring wide-eyed at them, quite obviously unsure what was happening.

  Slowly the reverberations of the words faded, and the Prince took a step forward into the center of the tent.

  “You will stay,” he said, “and we will speak.”

  She stared defiantly back at him from where she stood by the map table, but made no motion to leave.

  “The rest of you are dismissed,” he said politely to the rest of the gathered men and women.

  Immediately, they fled, all except Tomaz, Davydd and Lorna, who stayed a moment longer, eyeing the two distrustfully.

  “I have to ask for privacy,” the Prince said, still trying to be civil, though his nerves were on edge and he could feel his whole body tensing, readying for a fight. Leah was looking at him as if contemplating killing him outright, and the idea of being alone with her was suddenly starting to feel like a bad idea.

  They left, though he was certain Tomaz would be waiting just outside in case he cried for help. As soon as they were gone, Leah began to pace around the tent, not looking at him.

  “What do you want?” she asked, her back to him.

  “To talk,” he said simply. “Something happened just now. I thought that after we’d come up with the plan to invade Banelyn, we were back to how we were before. But then when I spoke of Formaux, you –”

  Leah was across the room in the next second, her hand on her daggers. The movement took him by complete surprise, but even so his hand went immediately to his own dagger, but he wasn’t quick enough – the girl was already there, blade pressed against his throat. His mind was blank, wiped clean by shock. He knew things were going badly betw
een them, but this?

  “Leah,” he whispered slowly. “Why are you doing this?”

  The corners of her mouth curved down, then snapped back into a straight, thin line of anger.

  “Leah,” he whispered again. “Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

  Her eyes flashed.

  “What’s wrong? My father’s dead, the Kindred are at war, and now not only are you Prince of the Veil, you go on suicide missions against Daemons and volunteer to lead a one-way expedition into the one place all Kindred go to die. What’s wrong is you continually put yourself in the way of death, continually act as though your life doesn’t matter to anyone. Well, if you’re determined to die, why don’t I just do it for you, right here? Right now?”