“Why, Ardenas?” A new voice rang from behind Aravon: Prince Toran’s.
Lord Eidan flinched, his eyes sliding past Aravon. Heavy bootsteps echoed on the roof as the Prince came to stand beside Aravon, with Captain Lingram and a handful of hard-eyed Legionnaires at his side.
Steel edged Prince Toran’s voice. “Why are you doing this, Ardenas? What do you hope to—”
“Don’t you see?!” Lord Eidan’s eyes blazed with the wild light of fear and panic. “There’s no stopping him! He is too strong, his forces too many for us to defeat. Everything we’re doing, it’s just buying time. Time for him to grow stronger, to summon his true strength. And in the end, we will die.” Finality echoed in his voice. “Nothing we do will stop him now!”
“So you join him?” The Prince demanded. “You turn against the Princelands?”
“To save it!” Lord Eidan fairly shrieked. “Men like you and Duke Dyrund care only about titles, lands, and wealth, and doing everything in your power to conserve it. How many men have you sent to die for the sake of this war, mighty Prince?” He thrust a slim finger at Prince Toran. “In the name of saving your kingdom, you’ve condemned tens of thousands of Fehlans, Princelanders, and Einari to death.”
Aravon’s eyebrows shot up. Of all the things he’d expected the traitorous nobleman to say, he couldn’t have anticipated this.
“But that was ever the way with Denever Toran’s descendants,” Lord Eidan spat. “Back when the Einari first came to Fehl, it was my forefather who sued for peace with the Fehlans, while yours chose to invade. Denever Toran convinced House Eidan to serve his bloodthirsty ends. Out of love for his brother-at-arms, Lysekel Eidan did serve. And in doing so, turned a blind eye to the suffering caused by House Toran for centuries.” A growl twisted his lips and his eyes blazed. “No longer! No longer will we ignore the anguish caused because Princelanders are too greedy and stubborn to sue for peace.”
“There can be no peace with the Eirdkilrs!” Aravon shook his head. “If there was, don’t you think that would have been Duke Dyrund’s first choice, rather than fighting?”
“For a century, we have tried for peace. My father’s father, my father, and I have all tried to negotiate a truce with the Eirdkilrs.” Prince Toran’s expression grew grave. “But the Eirdkilrs will not listen.”
“So you say,” Lord Eidan sneered. “But when Tyr Farbjodr heard my terms, he agreed without hesitation.”
“Terms?” Aravon’s eyes narrowed. “What terms?”
“An end to the war.” Lord Eidan drew himself up. “A cessation of hostilities between the Princelands and the Eirdkilrs once and for all.”
“And what of the Fehlans?” Colborn thundered. “They are simply to be left at the mercy of the Eirdkilrs?”
“Peace will always come at a cost.” Lord Eidan actually appeared pained by the words. “But that is their way, the way of war and violence. Since before the first Einari came to Fehl, this land was awash in blood and death. The sacrifice of prisoners of war, women, even infants. Dark magics and evil rituals. The remnants of their ancient savagery remain to this day!”
Aravon grimaced at the memory of the Hefjakumbl—the Deid’s Sacred Tomb—in which they’d spent the night after fleeing the Eirdkilrs.
“And let me guess,” Colborn continued, “Tyr Farbjodr promised that he would stay south of the Chain. Would limit his slaughter and plunder to the Fehlans alone.”
“Yes!” A glimmer of hope shone in Lord Eidan’s eyes. “And with the garrisons empty, the Legions returned home—to the Princelands and back to the mainland from whence they came—no more need die. No more need lose their sons, fathers…” His voice dropped to a harsh whisper. “Their brothers.”
Aravon’s eyes narrowed at those words.
“This is about Enthrak?” Surprise flashed across Prince Toran’s face. “About what happened to him at Highcliff Motte?”
“He was my brother!” Lord Eidan screamed. “My brother, and he was killed because of your family’s war!” His expression darkened, hardened. “But no longer. Your greed will lead to no more deaths!”
“Except the thousands dying tonight.” Aravon spoke in a quiet voice. “Look around you, Lord Eidan.” He gestured to the burning Mains and the inferno raging among the Outwards. “Does this look like the actions of a man willing to make peace?”
“Yes!” Lord Eidan rounded on him, eyes blazing. “Because only through the utter defeat of an enemy can peace be achieved.” He turned his glare on the Prince. “Your father taught me that, Cedenas! Just as he taught me the true cost of battle when he sent my brother to die at Highcliff Motte!”
Prince Toran shook his head. “Your brother gave his life to protect the Princelands and Fehlans.”
“And what was his reward?” Lord Eidan bared his teeth. “No grand ceremonial funeral as befitted a true hero of the realm. No elaborate procession or commemoration like you gave Duke Dyrund and General Traighan.” Sorrow and bitterness twisted his narrow features. “Instead, a secret, unmarked grave.”
“In a place of honor!” Prince Toran shouted. “Your brother, and all of House Eidan, lies buried beneath our very feet, in the Crypt of Kings, reserved only for the greatest men of the Princelands.”
“A charade!” the nobleman snarled. “A pretense to cover up the shame of House Toran.”
Movement flashed in the corner of Aravon’s eye. Noll and Skathi edged slowly to the right, fingering the arrows nocked to their bows.
“No you don’t!” Lord Eidan raised the lantern and swung the naked flame over the oil-soaked wall. “Tell your men to stand down, or you watch your family burn to ash!”
Aravon whirled. “Stand down,” he called to his men. With his right hand shielded by his body, he signed, “First chance you get, take him down.”
Acknowledgement flashed in Skathi’s eyes even as she lowered her bow. She couldn’t shoot the lantern from his hand for fear of setting the oil ablaze, but when the moment came, she’d be ready.
Suddenly, two Eirdkilrs emerged from behind the wooden structure. Each dragged a struggling, thrashing Fehlan—one with a wrinkled, age-lined face and long white hair, the other still a flaxen-haired girl with strong cheeks, heavy nose, and bushy brows nearly a match for Eirik Throrsson, Hilmir of the Fjall.
Ice slithered down Aravon’s spine. Even without the Wraithfever to weaken her limbs, Branda Eiriksdottir could never escape the Eirdkilrs’ grip or the ropes that bound her wrists and ankles. Eira, healer of Saerheim, would have hurled curses in her native Deid tongue had her mouth not been gagged with a filthy cloth.
“No!” Colborn’s shout echoed loud in the night. He took an instinctive half-step forward, but Lord Eidan swung the lantern over the oil once more.
“Do not move!” the nobleman called. “A single step and I set this kennel ablaze!”
“Ghoststriker!”
Colborn froze at Aravon’s barked order, every muscle stiff. His eyes were cold, hard behind his mask, his fingers locked in a white-knuckled grip around the hilt of his Fehlan longsword. Yet he made no move as the Eirdkilrs hauled his grandmother toward the Palace’s northeastern edge, where a heavy rope had been anchored to a stake driven deep into the rooftop.
Understanding dawned on Aravon at the sight of Eirdkilrs. “That’s your escape plan?” He swept a hand toward the two massive barbarians. “You think because you turn over the Hilmir’s daughter, they will let you live?”
Lord Eidan’s eyes narrowed. “With her, the Eirdkilrs will have all they need to convince Eirik Throrsson to surrender. The Fjall are all but destroyed—this will seal their fate. And with their downfall, the rest of the Fehlan clans. It is only a matter of time before Tyr Farbjodr and his warriors reclaim everything south of the Chain.” He turned a glare on the Prince. “I can only hope you are wise enough to pull the Legions back from the garrisons. No more Princelanders need die.”
“And what of the Fehlan clans the Princelands has sworn to protect?” Prince Toran de
manded. “I cannot abandon them.”
“Then you are as blind and stubborn as your father, and every man of House Toran before you!” Lord Eidan’s lip curled up into a sneer. “And every death is a stain on your soul!”
Aravon’s eyes darted toward the Eirdkilrs. The two huge barbarians had dragged the struggling Eira and Branda half the distance to the roof’s edge. Doubtless they had a boat hidden somewhere in the shadows around Palace Isle, and with Portside under Eirdkilr control, they had a safe harbor to land. From there, it would be a short journey through the Soldier’s Gate to their ships docked in the Legion’s Harbor.
The first Eirdkilr reached the rope, and Aravon knew he had to act.
“Take them down,” he signed to Skathi and Noll.
His fingers hadn’t formed the last word before the two archers drew and loosed. So fast Lord Eidan didn’t have time to blink, to even glance toward the arrows hissing through the night. Noll’s took one in the chest, just above Branda’s head, and the Eirdkilr dropped. Skathi’s punched into the eye of the barbarian holding Eira. The man staggered once, his fingers reflexively releasing their grip on the Deid healer, and plummeted off the edge of the roof.
Lord Eidan’s head snapped around, glanced at the two Eirdkilrs and the Fehlan captives. In that moment of inattention, Aravon broke into a mad dash. Raced toward the nobleman, spear ready to knock the lamp from his hand, away from the wooden building.
He’d barely taken two steps when Lord Eidan whirled. The nobleman’s eyes flew wide at the sight of the charging Aravon. “Stop!” he shrieked and raised the lantern above a patch of oil. “Stop, or watch them burn alive!”
Aravon slid to a halt just out of striking range of the nobleman. “No!”
Lord Eidan snarled and swung the lantern toward the wall.
“Please!” Aravon called. “Please, don’t do this! They are innocent of—”
“They are innocent!” Lord Eidan rounded on Aravon. “Yet, like my brother, they pay for another man’s crimes. For the guilt of their father, they—”
A dark shape flashed past Aravon’s heads. Wings outstretched, fangs bared, Snarl slammed into the nobleman’s face. Razor-sharp talons gouged deep furrows across the nobleman’s forehead, nose, and eyes. Screaming, Lord Eidan stumbled backward, swinging the lantern at the creature attacking its face.
“No!” Aravon threw himself forward. Too late.
The lantern missed Snarl but slammed into the door of the building with a crash of shattering glass. In an instant, flames leapt from the burning wick to catch the wood ablaze, fingers of brilliant heat spreading outward along the lines of lamp oil Lord Eidan had splashed across the building.
Aravon slammed into Lord Eidan and bore him to the ground. The nobleman fell hard, head striking the stone rooftop, Snarl’s talons still raking at his face. Aravon released Lord Eidan and spun toward the flames, but before he could leap to his feet, Endyn thundered past. The huge Legionnaire seized the burning door in his hands and, with a violent wrench, tore it from its hinges. Iron snapped and wood splintered a heartbeat before the rest of the building caught fire. With a snarl, Endyn hurled the burning door twenty feet away, far from Lord Eidan’s oil.
For a moment, Aravon couldn’t move, frozen in place by terror at the knowledge that his family had come within a heartbeat of death. And by the sight of his wife and sons peering through the now-open doorway.
Fury twisted Mylena’s face, a stark contrast to the sorrow that had stained it when last Aravon saw her. Though fear and panic filled both his sons’ eyes, they stood together, Rolyn crouched over his younger brother, shielding Adilon’s body with his own. In the space between heartbeats, Aravon almost went to them. Almost took his wife in his arms and scooped up his sons to whisper words of comfort and reassurance in their ears. They were so close…just a few steps, and he could reunite with the family that believed him dead. The family he’d come so far and fought so hard to save.
“Don’t let him escape!”
The Prince’s shout shattered the moment. Shattered Aravon’s heart. His family was safe, but he couldn’t be with them. Not yet, not until the mission was done.
He was on his feet and racing across the rooftop before he realized it. Colborn and Zaharis ran at his side, thundering after Lord Eidan, who had fled toward the rope anchored into the rooftop. A trail of blood glistened in the blue light of the Icespire, but panic lent wings to Lord Eidan’s feet. He ran with a speed not even Aravon could match, his costly robes flapping in the wind rolling off Icespire Bay. Behind him, the Eirdkilr ships sat silent and waiting beyond the Deepshackle—his faint hope of escape.
Colborn’s flying tackle brought the nobleman down ten feet from the roof’s edge. Lord Eidan struggled in Colborn’s grip, striking out with an elbow that slammed into the Lieutenant’s helmet. But the blow had no effect—Colborn seemed to shrug it off, answered it with a punch of his own, straight to Lord Eidan’s mangled face. The nobleman’s struggles stopped, just long enough for Zaharis to seize his other wrist.
By the time Aravon reached them, the two Grim Reavers had wrestled the nobleman into submission. “Get him up!” he snarled
Colborn and Zaharis stood, lifting the nobleman to his feet.
“It’s over, Lord Eidan.” Aravon fixed the man with a stern gaze. “All you can do now is tell us what you know about Tyr Farbjodr’s plans, and pray the Prince has mercy for a traitor like you.”
The skin of Lord Eidan’s forehead and right cheek hung in three bleeding flaps, and the tip of his nose had been torn away by Snarl’s raking claws. But, as he lifted his head, fire blazed in his eyes and a sneering snarl twisted his mangled upper lip. “Rot in hell!”
He twisted, thrashing his arms so violently he slipped free of Colborn and Zaharis’ grip. But instead of lashing out, he turned, took three long steps, and leapt off the Palace rooftop.
No!
Aravon threw himself toward the edge of the roof, arm outstretched. Too late. Lord Eidan’s robe slipped through his finger and the nobleman plummeted. Two long seconds passed before his body crunched wetly on the stone walkways below. Blood sprayed in a grisly halo around his shattered skull, his neck, arms, and legs twisted at a terrible angle.
The gruesome sight sent a grim satisfaction through Aravon. The bastard deserved no less. Yet dismay mingled with his triumph. Lord Eidan’s secrets and his knowledge of the Eirdkilrs’ intentions went to the grave with him.
Armor clanked behind Aravon, and he turned to find Colborn kneeling beside the white-haired Eira, pulling the gag from her mouth and sawing at her bonds with his knife. “What are you doing up here?” the Lieutenant asked in Fehlan, albeit taking care to accent his voice with a gravelly timbre to prevent being recognized by his grandmother.
“The girl!” Eira’s eyes darted toward Branda, who lay bound and gagged nearby. “Is she—”
Zaharis, who had knelt over the Hilmir’s daughter, nodded.
“She is well.” Colborn met the old healer’s gaze. “Now tell me, why are you in Icespire, and here in the Palace?”
“The Hilmirsdottir.” Eira thrust her chin at the flaxen-haired girl. “We could not stay at the garrison, but even after she received the cure sent by your Duke Dyrund, the girl was in need of rest. Lord Virinus insisted that she travel to Icespire, where the Prince offered her a place of honor.” Distaste twisted her face. “I would never have gone with that loathsome fool were it not for the Legion Captain.” Her eyes darted to Captain Lingram, who stood beside the Prince. “The handsome one.”
Aravon grinned—for all the years he’d known Lingram, the man had always had that effect on people. More so after earning the name Blacksword and his reputation as a hero of the Princelands.
“Come, girl.” Eira pushed aside Colborn’s hands and reached for the flaxen-haired girl. “The sun is rising, and we must get you inside before…”
Aravon heard no more. His gaze slid past his Grim Reavers toward the wooden building Lord Eidan had nearly
set on fire, and his feet moved toward it of their own accord. Even as he closed the distance, his eyes locked on the figures of his family.
Mylena clutched Rolyn and Adilon to her side, whispering words of comfort in their ears. Her gaze roamed the rooftop, as if searching the shadows for threats. For the briefest of instants—half a heartbeat, no more—her eyes rested on him. A faint hope bloomed within Aravon as he met his wife’s eyes.
Mylena’s gaze slid past him without pause, without recognition. It felt as if someone had just torn his heart from his chest. She hadn’t seen him; she’d simply looked through him. He was as unimportant to her as Captain Lingram, Endyn, or the Ebonguard that had accompanied the Prince. He, like all the others, had saved her life, but she didn’t know him from any other face in the crowd.
Logic tried to assert itself. Of course she wouldn’t recognize him, clad in that strange armor. No rational person would think to look for a dead man beneath the mask concealing his face.
Yet for a gut-wrenching moment, reason failed beneath the torrent of emotions. The twisting, biting, piercing ache in his heart. His steps stuttered to a stumbling halt five paces away from his wife and sons. Every fiber of Aravon’s being ached to go to them, but he couldn’t. He dared not.
They couldn’t know he still lived, that he stood so close that he could almost reach out and touch them. Though he wanted nothing more than to embrace them, to be reunited with the family he believed he’d never see again, his time as Captain Snarl had not yet come to an end.
A lump rose in his throat, and tears burned in his eyes. He turned away as the Prince laid a comforting hand on Mylena’s shoulder. That should be him reassuring his wife and sons, but until his mission was completed, he could not yet return to life and home.
Two gleaming yellow eyes greeted him from the shadows of the doorway into the wooden building. Snarl gave a happy, yipping bark and leapt toward Aravon, wings flapping. Aravon knelt and pulled Snarl into an embrace, and as he did, he caught sight of the building’s interior.
Steel and Valor: An Epic Military Fantasy Novel (The Silent Champions Book 3) Page 83