“I… am Aryllia’s heir,” said Josen, though his voice faltered over words he didn’t want to say. “The Throne of Air is mine by blood. I will not betray that charge.”
“Then you leave me no choice,” Castar said. He nodded at the man holding Vera Falloway. “Carry out the sentence.”
The knife drew a red line across her neck.
Shona screamed as her mother fell to her knees.
Josen couldn’t move, couldn’t look away from the duchess’ face, her wide eyes, the silent shriek of her mouth. Blood gushed between the fingers clasped over her throat, staining the ground in front of her.
And then Vera Falloway slumped face down against the road, and moved no more.
“Loose quarrels!” Shona shouted in a shrill voice that sounded near to hysteria. She jabbed a finger at Castar. “He dies!”
“Wait! Shona, your father is still down there!” Josen grasped her arm and raised his other hand toward the wingbowmen; they held their bolts at his signal.
Shona’s head snapped towards him. Her eyes still glistened, but there was ice in them now, as if the tears had frozen there. “My father is dead either way. I mean to hurt the man who killed him.” She lifted her hand and swept it down once more. “I said loose quarrels!”
And this time, Josen did nothing to stop it. At Shona’s command, a volley of bolts lanced toward the men below. Castar’s guardsmen stepped in front of him and raised their shields.
The bolts never reached them.
Behind Castar, Eroh’s grandfather waved his hand lazily, and the bolts parted in the air, pulled in two different directions like a fork in a river. On either side of the pass, they pelted against the cliff with a noise like hail against a clay roof.
Along the wall, men gasped and swore and stared. Some few fumbled to reload their wingbows; most didn’t bother. Castar and his men were already retreating down the road, dragging Duke Falloway along. There was little point in giving chase. They would be out of reach before Josen’s men could raise the portcullis and open the gates.
But before they moved beyond earshot, Josen heard Castar’s voice, one last time, and it sent a chill of pain through his wounded side.
“I offered you a chance for peace! What comes next is on your heads!”
Lenoden
Lenoden stalked toward his tent, his hands clenched into fists. In the darkness beneath the mist, a hundred different sources of firelight flickered at the corners of his eyes, illuminating the camp at the base of the Queensmount. All around him, his forces—not the full extent of his army, but all he could gather from the inner duchies pledged to him in the time he’d had—were strapping on swords and shields and armor. Raised voices pushed back the silence of the Swamp—officers directing their men, soldiers shouting encouragement to their comrades.
Readying themselves for war.
The sight of it fouled Lenoden’s mood further still. He’d expected this, of course. The moment Josen had reached the Plateaus and opened his idiot mouth, whatever chance there was for a peaceful resolution had all but evaporated. But still, he’d hoped that sending Benedern might make a difference, do something to sway Rudol’s decision. Up until the last moment, he’d hoped.
And now there was no hope left.
The bloodless coup he’d imagined was a rapidly fading dream now, and the Peaks would suffer for it. When he finally sat the throne, after paying for it with blood and gold and steel, his kingdom would be fragmented and broken. But what choice was there? Not surrender. He would end his own life before offering it to one of Gerod’s sons. Peace with the swamplings? Madness. The Peaks would crumble. He couldn’t allow that. The waste of it was too much to countenance. He had to press forward.
Auren walked behind him, and Cer Horte, leading Grantley Falloway by the arm. As they neared the tent, Lenoden half-turned and beckoned to Auren. “Inside.” To Horte, he said, “We need to speak privately. Wait here.”
He thrust aside the flap of his tent and ducked inside, placing his lantern atop a table nearby. Auren entered just behind him.
Lenoden turned to the old man, and scowled at the little smile beneath that damned blindfold. “Damn him!” he said, and then again, “Damn him! And Shona, and all the rest! Why are they all so eager to follow a man who has no interest in leading them? It didn’t have to be this way!”
“But it is, all the same,” Auren said. “So what will you do?”
“Don’t look so smug. I know what you want from me.”
“And will you give it?”
“I… I cannot have people say that I gained the throne through witchcraft. Bad enough that so many saw you turn aside those quarrels.”
“When you sit the throne, people will tell the story of the miracle that saved you, and whatever befalls your enemies they will call the Sky God’s justice. A king can make truth of whatever lie suits him best. But that kind of power does not come without sacrifice. So I ask again: will you give me what I require?”
Lenoden already knew his answer, but he didn’t want to give Auren the satisfaction, not yet. He’d imagined a peaceful path to the throne, and instead he was left with this. Dark magick and sacrifice. Windwalker blood, and a man who claimed he could use it.
Suddenly, it felt like there wasn’t enough air in the tent for the two of them. Lenoden ducked his head under that eyeless gaze and shouldered past, pushing the tent flap aside once more.
Cer Horte was still waiting outside, holding the duke of Goldstone by the arm.
“Leave us,” said Lenoden. “I would like to speak with Grantley alone.”
With a nervous glance at the tent where Auren waited, Cer Horte saluted and hurried away.
Grantley’s eyes were downcast, glazed with confusion. He’d had a moment of lucidity as they’d fled down the mountain, and wept for his wife; the dirt on his face was streaked with tears. But it had only been a moment. The moisture hadn’t yet dried on his cheeks before he’d lost his place in time and started asking when Vera would be back. And every time he asked, Lenoden saw the woman fall again, clutching at her throat. I had to do it, or else prove to everyone in the Peaks that I have no stomach for following through on a promise. They left me no choice.
Even in his own head, it sounded like an excuse. He didn’t want this. It was beneath him.
But so was failure. He’d already come too far to let it end here.
“Come with me,” Lenoden said, and took Grantley gently by the wrist.
Grantley looked down at the hand on his arm and then back up to Lenoden’s face, but he followed without objection.
Auren said nothing when Lenoden led the duke of Greenwall into the tent, but that self-satisfied smile played across his lips. He knew what was coming. Maybe he’d known since they’d first met—he’d smiled in the same way, even then.
The thought made Lenoden shiver.
It didn’t matter. There was no other way. Now, there was only this.
Only blood.
Maybe it would be a mercy, at this point. “Grantley,” said Lenoden. “Your wife is waiting. Would you like to go to her?”
As lost as he was, Grantley Falloway wasn’t fooled. “I… I remember. Why she went away. There is only one way for us to meet again.” He looked up at Lenoden, and for that moment, his eyes were clear. There was enough left of his old sharpness to meet the end as the man he’d once been. “This will all come to nothing. My daughter is going to stop you. I want you to know that.”
“If anyone could, I suppose it would be her. But not just yet, I’m afraid.” A melancholy he hadn’t expected pressed against Lenoden’s chest. “I’m… sorry it has to end like this for you. Truly. You governed wisely and well. Not many in the Peaks can say as much. You deserve better.”
“What I deserve makes no difference now.” There was no question in Grantley’s voice.
“No,” Lenoden said sadly. “I suppose it doesn’t”
There was no other way. They hadn’t left him one.
Le
noden turned to Auren, and paid the price he had to pay.
“Take him.”
44. Out of the Mist
Josen
In the shadow of the wall, Josen waited.
The sun had long since sunk below the top of the Mad Duke’s Gate, but he could tell by the deepening blue of the sky that it hadn’t set just yet. Very soon, but not yet.
He wasn’t alone. Shona sat quietly beside Eroh, staring into the small fire they’d started to stave off the evening chill; Verik and Azra stood side-by-side across the flames, casting uneasy glances up the road.
It wasn’t hard to guess what was making the swamplings so nervous: more than a thousand men of the Peaks, filling every available space around the gate, stretching up into the pass and out of sight. A half-dozen heralds and adjutants clustered nearby, waiting for whatever order Josen might give, and a collection of knights assigned to his personal guard surrounded the fire in a watchful half-circle. Farther back, five companies of two hundred apiece stretched up the road, soldiers of the standing army mixed with greater numbers of volunteer militia and led by Storm Knight officers.
Leaning back against the wall, Josen surveyed his forces. Their orderly ranks had lost some cohesion in the hours since the failed parley; men mingled and talked among one another, lit fires here and there to heat their meals and warm themselves. Cer Falyn had advised against the lapse, but Josen wasn’t going to force an army of volunteers to maintain strict discipline. For the most part he was happy to let Morne make any military decisions, but on that one thing, he’d been firm. They aren’t soldiers, not really. How many of them are only here because they saw Eroh hand me Aryllia’s Crown? Keeping them awake and alert was more important than keeping them arranged in straight lines. There was no way of knowing how long they’d be waiting. All through the night, if necessary.
Until Castar attacked.
“Maybe… maybe he was bluffing about having a way in,” said Josen, though he didn’t really believe it. He’d seen what the deepcraft could do, seen the way the old man had scattered dozens of quarrels with a wave of his hand. “It’s been hours. Maybe he’s not coming. If he can’t get by the gates—”
“He’s coming.” Shona didn’t look up from the flames. “If it was a bluff, my mother would still be alive. He wouldn’t have gone that far unless he was certain.”
“You know you could… be with her,” said Josen. “At the Eyrie.” That was where the body had been taken; there hadn’t been time for any sort of ceremony yet. “Cer Falyn will make sure I don’t do anything too stupid here. You really don’t have to stay.” It wasn’t the first time he’d offered. She’d refused every time, and Josen was worried that it was because of him. Because she’d promised not to make him do this alone. He didn’t want her to go, not really—as long as Aryllia’s Crown sat on his brow, he didn’t want her out of earshot for a single instant. But it didn’t matter what he wanted, not now. Not after they’d watched her mother die.
Not after he’d let her mother die.
Shona finally looked up at him then, but firelight still gleamed in her eyes. “Yes I do.”
“I only meant… You don’t have to stay just because I forced a promise out of you. If you need to go—”
“Stop.” Shona’s jaw trembled. “I know you’re trying to help, Josen, but… stop. This has nothing to do with you. I can’t… I just can’t. Not yet. I don’t know what good I’ll be, but I can’t run from this. I need to be here when it ends.” Her gaze fell back to the fire, and then, “I need to be here when he dies.”
That, Josen could understand. “You will be,” he said, and placed a hand on her shoulder. “We both will.” He didn’t know if he believed that, but he wanted it. After everything Lenoden Castar had done to him, he wanted it very badly.
“Will we? I’m not so certain.”
“We just have to hold until Aunt Alma comes with Whitelake’s men,” said Josen. “That will give us the advantage in numbers.”
“They’ll be near a turn, at the very least. A long time to hold these walls, if that old man can do half of what I fear he can do.”
“We don’t know what he can do. Maybe nothing.” Josen didn’t know why he was fighting so hard; she was only saying the same things he’d been thinking. It just felt like the thing to do. Throwing empty words at a problem, like always. “After that trick with the quarrels… maybe he’s exhausted his power.” He cast a hopeful glance at Verik.
“Maybe,” was Verik’s answer, and not for the first time. Shona had sent for the swamplings in the hopes that they would have some insight into whatever Eroh’s grandfather might try, but so far neither Verik nor Azra had been able to offer any particularly confident predictions. “Already told you, if I do same, nothing left.” He paused, frowned. “But… maybe blood-bonded. Didn’t think, before. Forbidden to Makers.”
“Zerill said something about that,” Josen said. “He might have taken blood from Deeplings and let them live?”
Verik nodded. “Makers use dead blood only. Delvers… might take blood, leave Deepling alive. Bond to it. Power grows as Deepling feeds. How many this man bonds, how much power… don’t know. But… felt different when I touched Benedern. Too strong.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” said Josen. “If they can do that, why haven’t we seen it before? A Delver this powerful? I didn’t even know they existed until not long ago.”
“Madness grows too, with power. Most don’t live long, mad and alone in Swamp. This man…” Verik shrugged, and again he said, “Different. Done things beyond what Makers know.”
“I don’t know what to do against that kind of power,” said Shona. “I’m sorry, Josen. I… I should have a plan. I told you I would. I said I’d tell you what to do. But how do you plan against deepcraft?” She was quiet a moment, and then, “My father always told me I would study at Orim’s Tower one day, like he did. Maybe then… if I was better, cleverer… maybe I’d be able to find a way out of this. But after he took ill, there was never a good time to leave. I suppose now that he’s gone, there never will be.”
“He was alive when we saw him last,” said Josen. “You don’t know he’s dead.”
“Yes I do,” she said again, without a hint of doubt. “We wouldn’t bargain for him, which means there’s no reason to keep him alive anymore. He can only be a threat to Castar’s power now.”
Josen leaned back against the wall and tried to push his fingers through his hair, cursing silently when they scraped against the golden sunburst at the head of his crown. “God Above, I should never have pulled you into this.” He looked to Azra and Verik, standing across the fire from him. “Any of you.”
Azra scowled at him, and signed something at Eroh.
“She says they didn’t come here for you at all,” Eroh said, and then, sheepishly, “and she called you a stupid highlander.”
“Of course she did.” Josen was surprised to hear himself chuckle at that; he didn’t feel much like laughing. But it was oddly comforting, just then, to be dismissed so utterly. “Thank you for that, Azra.”
The swampling girl tilted her head at him like she was looking at a madman, but didn’t move her hand again. For a long time after that, they fell into a tense silence; there wasn’t much left to say that hadn’t been said a hundred times already, and a shared sense of dread did little to inspire conversation.
It came as a relief to Josen when he saw Falyn Morne approaching the fire—she’d have something to report, at least. She’d been walking among the men for the last hour, judging their readiness, though Knight-Commander Farrel ostensibly had the command. Traditionally the commander of the Royal Swords led the army in defense of the Plateaus, but no man had yet been chosen to replace Byron Ephred, so Josen had—at Shona’s urging—put Farrel in charge. But he’d asked Morne to act as his personal advisor and liason to the knight-commander. If he was going to act on anyone’s advice, it would be hers. Eian had always relied on her, and as far as Josen was concerned, that
meant he could too.
Josen raised a hand in greeting, and she saluted in return. “Cer Falyn. How fares our little army?”
“Not as well as I might have hoped,” said Morne. “The Knights of the Storm and the army men bear the wait better than the recruits, but none of them like it. And the longer we’re here, the more anticipation grows into fear. It’s no secret that our wingbowmen had their bolts turned aside. Some are saying Castar must have the Sky God’s blessing, just as he claims. If it’s only soldiers and weapons when the attack comes, we’ll hold this wall against whatever numbers Castar has. If it’s… something more, I can’t say how the men will react.”
And it will be something more. “You know, for a moment there I was happy to see you.” Josen forced a rueful half-grin, more out of habit than anything. “What do we do, then? We can’t just let them think Castar has divine miracles on his side.”
“You have to tell them the truth,” Shona said, and pushed herself up from her spot by the fire. “Hiding what we know about the deepcraft might have helped keep morale high before anyone had seen it at work, but if we don’t say something now, they’ll imagine worse.” She gestured to the top of the wall. “From there, with Eroh beside you, before we lose the sun.”
“The light will be behind us,” Josen pointed out. “No one is going to be able to see his eyes.”
Shona just shrugged; her voice was tired, flat. “They know what he is, and they’ll see the eagle on his shoulder. The symbol is what matters. They’ll be afraid when you tell them that Castar is using… some kind of dark magick. We need them to remember that the last Windwalker stands with us.”
The last thing Josen wanted was to make another speech, but he nodded all the same. “Let’s go, then.”
The Swampling King (The Windwalker Legacy Book 1) Page 78