by Court Ellyn
Briéllyn shook her head in denial, then grief crumpled her composure. She hid it behind a small gloved hand. Hundreds of eyes looked on. From atop the wall, a few jeers descended. Laral waved them to silence.
“But he does not act alone.” Kelyn added. “My son stands with him.”
Briéllyn looked up, horrified. A tear rolled down her cheek. “Is Rhoslyn here with you?” A carefully worded question.
He nodded. “She has not betrayed us, ma’am.”
The relief on her face was profound. “Must I beg you before you believe me?”
Kelyn considered the signs of the skirmish in the fields across the river, and finally shook his head. “You’re not the assassin type, Your Majesty. But Valryk will always be first in your regard.”
“That does not absolve him of his crimes.” Her voice broke on the last word.
With that, Kelyn offered her a bow and secured her hand upon his arm. “Open the gate,” he called. They were running out of time. The iron-spiked doors swung open and the portcullis rattled up. Kelyn whisked the queen into the courtyard. The escort and carriage rumbled after them. Knees struck the cobbles; heads bowed. There was reluctance in the gesture, from a people who had once adored their queen.
“Lord Mithlan!” cried Briéllyn, hurrying ahead.
Rhogan climbed to his feet amid the crowd.
“When I’d heard your castle burned, I’d feared the worst.”
“I have my granddaughter, Your Majesty. I am content.”
“Queen Da’era will be most pleased to hear it.”
Rhogan ducked his head, and for a moment he was unable to speak. “Thorn Kingshield told her we lost them both, then? Her father and her brother?”
Briéllyn nodded, grave. “I received an announcement from Graynor. Da’era was crowned as soon as the council decided Kingshield’s falcon was credible. Her first act was to send orders for every holding to rally to her banner. Militias are gathering across Leania. She sent a regiment with me, determined to aid her neighbors.”
A full regiment? If only there was time to move them across the river and into the castle. Kelyn feared, however, that the ogres were nearly upon them.
Rhogan shook his head mournfully. “She is so young to begin her reign with war.”
Briéllyn agreed. “Who else of her lords survived?”
“Of those who entered Bramoran, ma’am? I alone came out again.”
Briéllyn gulped hard, but otherwise went stone-faced.
“Rhogan,” Kelyn said, “I need you to ride across the river, report to the commander of Her Majesty’s host, and detail the trouble marching from the south. And explain who has been attacking them.”
“Am I to bring them the rest of the way?”
“No, regrettably. They must maintain position, no closer than half a mile from the ford.”
“But, Kelyn—?” the queen began.
“We have drawn inside the walls for a reason, ma’am. Only this morning we received word that our enemy marches upon us, and we are as well-defended as we can be. If we need reinforcements, we will light a fire in the tower and Rhogan will bring your host. But your people won’t be able to see who they’re fighting. Magics conceal them, and we must rely on the dwarves’ eyes. Ogres may be picking off your men, but I hope to save them from wholesale slaughter.”
Briéllyn clenched his hand and nodded. “I know better than to mistrust your judgment, War Commander. What can I do?”
“Rest. Stay inside the keep. If we need to flee, stay close to Rhoslyn. She knows where to go.”
Rhogan departed for the stables. Kelyn guided Briéllyn up the steps and into the keep. The Great Corridor ran dark and drab into the distance, a far cry from the festive color and music Briéllyn was accustomed to during Assembly. The feeble light of common lanterns fell on the flowing cloaks of a half-dozen White Mantles advancing from the main stair. They escorted the Duchess of Liraness and the King of Fiera. Rhoslyn greeted the queen with a deep curtsy.
“Cousin,” Briéllyn said, approaching with open arms.
Rhoslyn’s shoulders did not yield to the embrace. Broken trust, resentment were plain in her coolness.
Hurt, Briéllyn turned quickly, shakily to greet Arryk. He took her hand and kissed it. “Welcomed into Ilswythe by the White Falcon,” she said. “I never dreamed such a thing could happen. The circumstances grieve me. I … I cannot express …”
“It’s not necessary,” he said.
“It is. You must understand…”
“I do.”
Yes, he must, Kelyn thought. This gentle man had had a monster for a brother, a monster rumored to have murdered his aunt and youngest sibling. But Arryk was tactful not to mention it. Instead, he escorted Briéllyn into the nearest parlor. The furnishings were sparse and mismatched, but they were enough to accommodate the three of them. Kelyn had no time to sit. He posted himself at the window to ensure his orders were being carried out. At any moment, a horn might sound, announcing enemies on the horizon. The next step, he decided, was to have the dwarves build catapults.
One of Eliad’s highland maidservants arrived with a tea service. How civilized it all seemed, how absurd.
“There are no cakes, I’m afraid,” Rhoslyn said. “Your son’s ogres ransacked the place. We’re on strict rations. Apparently ogres don’t know what to do with tea. We have plenty of tea.”
Kelyn shook his head at her, but she ignored him, reached for the teapot and began to pour. Briéllyn’s hand lay atop hers. The tea stopped cascading. “They were always close. Valryk counted Kethlyn his only friend. Did you know that? I discouraged him from trusting anyone else. That’s my fault.” Rhoslyn’s chin trembled; she glared hard at the silver tray. Briéllyn went on, “When Valryk sent me back to Rhyverdane, I thought he merely wanted independence. He was ready, I told myself. He had to be ready. He learned every lesson I ever taught him and hid his plans behind that rare, rare smile. I don’t think I’ll ever know everything he hid from me.” She glanced toward the window. “Kelyn, do you remember Lady Bysana?”
How could he forget? Her ghost, it was said, haunted the prison tower. As much as he hated to admit it, he’d seen strange lights in the windows himself and smelled traces of smoke rising from the chimneys, long after the tower was closed and slated for demolition.
“On the day my son was born,” Briéllyn said, “she shouted a curse upon him, then sealed it with her death.”
“My queen, Bysana was mad,” Kelyn said. “The words she spoke were only words.”
She offered him a sad, appreciative smile. “I don’t think so. There can be a strange wisdom in madness. Perhaps her curse was merely foresight.” Briéllyn’s fingers knotted white in her lap. “I did everything I knew to keep him safe. But I think it would have been better … better if my legacy to the world had never been born.”
Rhoslyn covered her sobs with her hands.
“And who will follow my son now?” Briéllyn asked, voice flat with more grief than she could express. “He has no heir, and I haven’t the heart to rule alone. After everything Aralorr has suffered and must suffer still, the last thing it can afford is a war over a crown. Promise me, Kelyn, that you will do everything you can to keep the peace among our people.”
“Of course,” he said. “Let us discuss these things at a more appropriate time.” Preferably when Arryk was not in attendance. As much as Kelyn liked the White Falcon, he did not trust Arryk’s long-term ambitions toward Aralorr. “And if Her Majesty will forgive me, we have more immediate—”
A blast from a bronze horn shook the windowpane.
~~~~
10
I won’t fall down. I won’t fall down. Andryn chanted. If you fall down, they will eat you. His legs felt like the workings of a mill: once the water got the gears moving, they just kept moving. The narrow, rocky road climbed the mountainside hour after hour, and his feet shuffled onward. Lush evergreen forests and heather thickets blanketed the slopes beneath snow-capped peaks,
but Andryn didn’t care about the scenery. One step at a time. Step, pull, he ordered his legs. Cramps screamed in his thighs. Step, pull. He lived for the moments when the road leveled out or descended into some green valley. But there was always another climb ahead. And another cough to choke down. To cough was to be heard, to be noticed. Be quiet. Don’t cough. Don’t fall down. Step, pull.
A boulder seemed have grown inside his chest. A furry boulder. The relentless tickle was more than he could bear. Why had he resented his mother babying him all the time? Why had he ever complained? He would gladly go to bed if she told him to, drink elixir and hot chicken soup and endure the sticky heat of a compress on his chest. He longed for the warmth of that compress and peppermint fumes burning his eyes. Don’t cough! But he had to, just one more time. He indulged in a loud, dry wheezing fit, determined that it would scratch the itch and be the last. The spasm sent cramps through the muscles of his belly, his ribs, his shoulder blades. It forced his eyes shut, so that he didn’t see the stone jutting from the road. He went tripping sideways. The side of the road plummeted into a gorge. White water churned far below. Andryn squawked in terror. The ropes pinched raw wrists and tugged him back into line.
“Andy?” Lesha whispered, peering over her shoulder.
I won’t fall down, I won’t fall down. He tried to tell his sister, but there wasn’t enough breath in his lungs for words. Without Arvold bound behind him, there was no one to keep nudging him forward, to tell him to keep his eyes focused on the next step. There was only the relentless pull of the rope in front of him. At least his new boots fit. His toes had stopped bleeding and the blisters were turning hard. They were sturdy boots, nothing fancy about them, the kind that belonged to boys who worked with their hands. Andryn tried not to wonder if he had known the boy who had worn them. He was too tired to think much at all.
Did knights grow tired? Da told him once that a man couldn’t fight long in full armor. But Andy bet that he was more exhausted than any knight ever imagined being. He wanted to rest so badly that he nearly sobbed. Wasn’t it midday yet? Once the train of captives had passed the towers of Locmar, the terrain grew unbearably wild. The naenis allowed their prisoners a rest and a meal twice a day. The crackers they ate were barely enough to sustain them, but the gesture proved that the naenis wanted them alive. Naenish babble hinted that they needed miners but couldn’t trust Baerdwin to mine for them, whoever Baerdwin was.
Whips cracked; their report echoed across the cliffs. The naenis tried to convince the humans to move faster, but the threat had lost its edge. The captives climbed as fast as they could and no more.
The road leveled out, Blessed Mother, and the naenis called a halt. The captives collapsed like felled trees, groaning and panting and begging for water.
Andy fell to all fours and gave in to a long, throbbing cough. He expected his mother’s hands to raise him up any moment, at least Lesha’s, but neither came to help him. When the spasm passed, he found Lesha huddling over Mum instead. Bethyn curled up in a tight ball. One hand squeezed Lesha’s fingers until they turned white; the other made a cage to protect the side of her face. It took Andy a while to realize that the strangled keening sounds he heard were rising from his mother’s throat. He scrambled to her side and saw Mum’s jaw swollen and black with bruises. Dried blood crusted her lips and streaked her chin.
First thing that morning, the naenis had roused their captives with gruff shouts and cracks of the whip like they always did, and the long lines of humans stirred, swallowing groans of pain instead of bread. A woman bound to the rope ahead of Mum had pushed herself to her knees and sobbed, “How much farther? Ah, Goddess.” Andy recognized her as one of the citizens of Brengarra Town.
Mum must have felt responsible for her. “Don’t give up,” Bethyn had soothed, helping the woman to her feet.
But the woman fought her. “Evacuate, I said, but you wouldn’t listen!”
“There wasn’t enough time. Please, be silent. They’ll hear you.”
“I won’t! I can’t.” The woman gripped the sides of her hair and shrieked into her skirts. “I can’t walk another step. We have to stop. Isn’t this far enough? Oh, Goddess, how far before they’re sick of us? Let us go, please let us go!” Just as Mum feared, the shouting brought the naenis. Whips gashed the morning air. The woman screamed in agony. Blood bloomed in lines across her shoulders. Mum pled for the whipmaster to stop. He turned with his elbow cocked, and Mum struck the ground like a stone. It happened so fast that Andy didn’t realized the whipmaster had hit her until she didn’t get up again. But Lesha had seen. She dived down atop her mother, but the naeni was satisfied and moved on. Bethyn regained consciousness just as the train was trudging on. Lesha lifted her under the arms and half carried her for a mile or two before Mum could walk on her own. Up ahead, the woman who started it all bled through cuts in her bodice, and Andy hated her. It wasn’t fair. Mum was trying to convince that stupid woman to do what the naenis wanted. That bastard shouldn’t have hurt her.
Mum’s strangled moans tapered off, and she lay amid the road breathing fast and deep through the pain.
“Mum?” Lesha cried. “Please, what can I do?”
Bethyn’s head gave a tiny shake, and Lesha smoothed the tangles of brown hair that blew across Mum’s face.
The kettle of crackers made its rounds. The food was foul enough at night when it was warm and fresh, but hours later the grease in the leftovers was cold, the meal stale, sometimes mushy, and the sunlight showed all the stray bits of dirt, naeni hair, and insect parts carelessly cooked in.
Lesha picked one of the cakes out of the dust and pressed it into Bethyn’s fingers. She gave that tiny shake of her head again, refusing the food.
“That son of a bitch broke your jaw, didn’t he?” Andy exclaimed. “I’ll stab out his eyes!”
“Andy, that’s not helping,” Lesha insisted.
Slowly, Bethyn pushed herself up, leaned against the jagged rock-face that shaped the mountainside, and lifted the cake for Lesha to take.
“No, Mum!” cried Lesha.
“Mum, you have to,” Andy said.
With great effort she said, “You. Chew.” A beckoning gesture of her hand finished the instructions.
Lesha stared aghast. “You want me to chew it up for you?”
The act of nodding appeared to cause Mum as much pain as speaking.
For a long while, Lesha stared at the cracker. Andy thought she would just start crying again, and though a tear rolled through the dust on her cheek, she shoved part of the cracker into her mouth and chewed. When it was soft enough, she wadded the mush into a ball, and Bethyn carefully pressed it between her front teeth.
The water wagon rolled ponderously, pulled by a pair of naenis. A third ladled water into each captive’s cupped hands. Lesha spat part of her portion onto the hem of her dress and dabbed the dried blood off Bethyn’s chin. A smile eased into Mum’s eyes.
It took a while for hundreds of captives to receive food and water. Enough time for Andy’s legs to turn wobbly, enough time for him to catch his breath, which took longer than for most. The wind sighed in the spruce trees. The river roared in the canyon. The Ristbrooke, somebody said. Though how could anyone know for sure? Zeldanor lay near the Ristbrooke, but Andy hadn’t seen a town or castle in days. Yesterday, when the road curved just right, Andy could still see the Brenlach shimmering on the horizon, but not today. Fiera lay far away now, and mountains reared up all around them. Once, he had liked mountains, thought them grand and beautiful. Now he hated them. They went on and on forever, and one looked like all the others, going forever up and up, plaguing the captives with cold as sharp as blades and air as dry as sand. Often in the afternoon, rain pelted them, merciless and frigid. The naenis made them take shelter against the mountain or under the trees. Much good it did. As tired as the captives were, to stop and rest in the rain meant catching a chill. At least today was sunny. Some people still shook, however, despite the warmth on their backs
. Andy wondered how many days would pass before they collapsed and ended up in the meat wagon.
That mustn’t happen to Mum. Andy held Lesha’s cake while she helped Mum eat. He couldn’t stand the whimpers that escaped her when she moved her jaw too much.
Da had to come soon. For many miles after leaving the lakeside, Andy wondered if Arvold had found Da yet. The wondering had kept him busy while he trudged up and up. Then he had convinced himself that Da was on his way. Only days behind, then hours. He would soon come charging up the mountain, leading an army to cut down these naenis.
But when night approached, darker possibilities set in. Arvold might have drowned. He was old, and a steward. Had he the strength to swim across an inland sea? Even if he had found the bridge to Aralorr, he might be lost somewhere. Had he ever been to Aralorr? Did he know where to look? Da might never find out his family was missing. Da might never come at all.
“Andy? How do you feel?” Lesha leaned close, laid a hand to his forehead. “You have rings under your eyes.”
“Aye? Well, you’re sunburned.” He shoved her hand away. He wasn’t a weakling. A cough erupted from his throat before he could stop it. The spasm was so deep it doubled him over, scored his throat raw, and forced tears from his eyes. He hugged his cramping stomach.
“Oh, Andy,” Lesha sobbed. She could help Mum eat, but she couldn’t help her brother stop coughing.
When the spasm passed and the tears cleared, he found himself staring at two enormous feet studded with hooked, yellow claws.
Lesha squealed and crab-crawled away. Andryn scrambled to his feet. “I didn’t fall down!” he shouted.
Lohg’s heavy brow drew down over piggish red eyes. His hand gripped Andy’s jaw, forcing him to stand still and look up at those long scarred tusks. Don’t bite off my head! Andy tried to pry the naeni’s fingers loose, but they were as immovable as iron rods. He had no choice but to glare into the blood-blister eyes and dare Lohg to do his worst.