He scans the battlefield. His brother’s cavalry is all but spent, shattered against the wall of enemy pikes, but there is no turning back now. The armies continue to flow into one another, two glimmering rivers of steel pouring into a boiling cauldron of men and horseflesh. Chaos, but a readable one, the cold and inexorable geometry of failure. Tom can see their defeat unfolding before him as clearly as if he were a playwright watching his own work brought to life. The realisation brings no discernible emotion. He’s been expecting it for too long. Whatever he might once have felt—dread, rage, despair—those feelings have long since been exhausted. All that remains is a kind of white noise, the roar of blood in his ears.
The White banner is nowhere to be seen. The king, his brother, is lost amid the tumult. Perhaps he has already fallen. You should have listened to me, Erik. I told you it would come to this. It could only ever have come to this.
His destrier inches backward, whether of her own accord or in response to some unconscious signal of her rider, Tom isn’t sure. His limbs feel numb. Everything feels numb. Still the White Wolves hold their position, waiting on their prince’s command. If he doesn’t order the charge soon, it will be too late.
“Your Highness!”
He doesn’t turn at first, transfixed by the grim scene playing out below. But the scout won’t be ignored; he scrambles along the edge of the bluff until he stands directly in Tom’s line of sight.
“Your Highness, the signal! The enemy is in position. It’s time!” He’s a small man, ash blond, green eyes wide with fear. There’s something almost pleading in his gaze, as though he can read the indecision in his prince’s soul. Don’t do this, those eyes say. Please don’t do this.
Tom scowls and looks away. He’s being foolish. The scout has no special powers of perception. He cannot possibly know what’s going through his prince’s mind, cannot understand that the precipice they’re standing on is not this bluff, but something much more significant.
Movement on the far side of the valley. Arran Green’s men are pouring down the eastern slope, driving like a spear into the enemy’s side. The crimson flank opens up, and for a moment, Tom can’t help but feel a flare of triumph. The Kingswords’ attack has caught the enemy off guard. There’s still time for the plan to work, for Tom and the Wolves to mirror the attack from the west.
Strike, a voice inside him urges. Do it now and we may yet survive this.
Survive it, perhaps, but to what end? They will only find themselves on another battlefield, facing another defeat. Erik will never stand down. He would rather sacrifice his kingdom on the altar of his principles than break an oath. Tom is sure of that. He’s been sure of it since they were children.
It could only ever have come to this.
Autumn, 411 PE
“You’ll get us both whipped,” Tom said.
Erik rolled his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous, nobody whips a prince. Father just threatens you with that because he knows it scares you.” He tried another key on the ring, and another after that, but none of them fit. The door to the Red Tower remained firmly, stubbornly locked.
Tom threw an anxious glance behind him, painfully aware of how crowded the palace courtyard was. So far, nobody had taken any notice of the boys, too absorbed in their duties to wonder whether the young princes had any business being there. But if one of the guards should come along . . . “Whipping or no, Father will be furious.”
Erik ignored him, moving systematically through the keys he’d filched from the steward until at last one of them slid into the lock and clicked. He grinned over his shoulder, blue eyes flashing with mischief. “Here we go,” he said, and opened the door.
Tom hesitated on the threshold. “I don’t want to.”
Erik eyed his little brother shrewdly. “Is it Father you’re afraid of, or the tower?” He didn’t wait for an answer, slipping into the darkness within.
Tom wasn’t stupid. He knew his brother was baiting him. But if he didn’t follow, he’d never hear the end of it, and besides—he really did want to know what was inside the Red Tower. How could he not, when it was the only part of the palace expressly forbidden to them? With a final furtive look over his shoulder, he screwed up his courage and plunged inside.
“It stinks in here.” Erik’s voice echoed strangely in the darkness.
Tom knuckled his eyes and blinked, but he could see nothing in the sudden gloom. He had the unsettling impression of something vast looming over him—vast and vaguely sinister, though that was probably his imagination. Even so, he was grateful when his brother struck a flint and lit a table lamp.
The room was smaller than Tom had expected, and colder. It was awfully barren too, boasting nothing more interesting than a table and a few chairs for the guards. “Are you sure there’s a dungeon in here?” he asked sceptically. He didn’t know if he was disappointed or relieved. Both, maybe.
“It must be up there,” Erik said, pointing.
Tom craned his neck. The lamplight didn’t reach very far, but he could make out the first few loops of a stairway receding into blackness. “How will we find our way up in the dark?”
“With our hands, if we have to.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Afraid of the dark? You’re eight years old, for pity’s sake.”
Tom scowled. “I’m not afraid of the dark, Erik. I just don’t want to fall and break my neck because I can’t see where I’m going.”
Erik hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe you’re right. Let’s look around—there must be something we can use . . .”
A brief search turned up the remains of an old torch. Tom watched in amazement as his brother tore a strip of fabric from his own shirt and doused it in lamp oil. Father will kill him when he sees that, Tom thought, but he held his tongue; he’d had enough of being called a coward for one day.
They mounted the steps cautiously, Erik leading the way with the torch. Tom kept his hand braced against the wall as they climbed, its cool, sturdy surface making him feel a little steadier. He knew better than to look down.
“The Erromanians kept the worst prisoners here,” Erik said. “Spies and assassins and such.”
Tom swallowed. “Are you sure there’s nobody here now?”
His brother nodded confidently, but that wasn’t very reassuring. Erik was confident about everything, even when he was wrong.
“If it’s empty, then why aren’t we allowed to see it?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out. There must be something interesting or Father wouldn’t mind if we played here.”
Unless he’s just worried we’ll tumble to our deaths from these stairs. Tom kept that to himself too, pretending not to notice how the lamplight below had dwindled into a faint glow.
They came to a landing marked by a thick door banded in iron. “Look at that,” his brother whispered. “You could keep a dragon locked behind a door like that!”
“There’s no such thing,” Tom said, earning another eye roll.
Erik heaved on the door. He managed to force it open a crack, but it got stuck on the uneven floor and wouldn’t budge farther. “Help me.”
Tom hesitated, but he’d come too far to back out now; he put his shoulder against the rough wood and leaned into it. The door barked open, spilling the boys inside. Erik lost his footing and dropped the torch; it clattered to the floor in a shower of sparks. The flame snuffed out.
Blackness swallowed them.
Tom froze. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face. He listened, heart pounding, but all he could hear was their breathing.
“Smell that?”
Tom sniffed. A sharp, metallic scent bit at his nose.
“Blood,” Erik said dramatically.
“Iron,” Tom retorted, mainly for his own benefit.
Erik sighed. “You have no imagination.” He struck his flint, and with a little encouragement the torch flared back to life.
Strange figures leapt out of the dar
kness. For a terrifying instant the room seemed to be filled with glowing eyes and wicked claws, a crowd of fiery demons reaching for them from the walls, the floor, the ceiling . . . Tom sucked in a breath, and even Erik took an involuntary step back. But then Tom recognised what looked like manacles dangling from the ceiling, and behind them, the unmistakable outline of a cage. Gradually, the supernatural horrors around them began to assume vaguely familiar shapes. Flaming claws faded into dull iron spikes; a gaping maw full of teeth proved to be a spring-loaded trap. What he’d taken for eyes were actually small iron spheres piled neatly on top of one another.
“What in the Virtues . . . ?” Erik waved the torch in a slow arc, revealing a clutter of strange instruments. Tom recognised some of them—hammers, chisels, chains. The spheres looked like oversized versions of the lead weights Lord Ashford placed on the scales during Tom’s lessons. But the bed—that was unlike anything Tom had ever seen.
“Let me have that a moment,” he said, reaching for the torch. Erik looked surprised, but he handed it over.
Tom approached the bed warily. It was barely big enough for a grown man, and obviously not designed for sleeping, for it was studded with spikes. Torchlight picked out row after row of cruel points, some of them bent slightly at the tips as though they’d met with a powerful blow. In each of the four corners, an iron shackle sat open on its hinge, awaiting wrist or ankle. Down the centre of the bed ran a seam, and on the right side stood a large crank. Tom wondered if the crank made the bedframe longer, the way a tanner stretches a hide.
No wonder Father didn’t want us in here. This place is the stuff of nightmares.
“Is that what I think it is?” Erik looked pale, but maybe that was just the torchlight. “This must be where the Erromanians tortured dissidents.”
“What’s a dissident?”
“Someone who doesn’t support the emperor.”
“Oh,” Tom said. “You mean a traitor.”
Erik shuddered. “Barbaric, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know. It’s strict, maybe, but treason is treason.”
There was a stretch of silence; Tom glanced over to find his brother giving him a strange look. “What?”
Erik pointed at the spike bed. “Can you imagine what it’s like to be pinned to that thing?”
Tom couldn’t, at least not if he planned on sleeping tonight. But that wasn’t the point. “A traitor is the worst thing in the world.”
“Nobody deserves that.”
“You don’t think Father punishes his enemies?”
“Father doesn’t have enemies.”
Now it was Tom’s turn to roll his eyes. “Everyone has enemies.”
“I don’t.”
Tom opened his mouth to deny it, but he couldn’t. Everyone adored Erik, at least as far as Tom could tell. “You will one day, though, when you’re king.”
“If I do, I won’t deal with them like this.”
“How, then?”
Erik made a dismissive gesture. “I don’t know. I’ll throw them in the dungeons, or banish them, or—”
“Exiles can come back. Prisoners can escape.” Tom shook his head firmly. “You have to execute them, at least.”
“If I executed someone, I’d do it quickly. Mercifully.” Erik put on his Crown Prince Face, the one he always wore when he was quoting Father, and said, gravely, “Vengeance is not a Holy Virtue.”
Tom frowned. Was his brother being deliberately stoneheaded? “It’s not about vengeance, it’s about sending a message. Like with the servants. If one of them steals something, you make an example of him. That way, you don’t have to worry about the rest; they’ll remember what happened to the thief and know better than to make the same mistake.” Surely Erik understood that? He was two years older, and besides, he was going to be king someday.
But Erik just stared at him, brow creased, bathed in torchlight and the glow of his own righteousness. “Let’s go,” he said. “I’ve seen enough.”
You haven’t seen anything.
Tom kept that thought, like so many others, to himself.
Midsummer, 415 PE
“Will there be much blood?” Erik asked as they approached the smithy.
Tom gave his brother a wry look. “Not worried about a little blood, are you?”
“Enough,” Father admonished them in an undertone. “You are nearly men now, and princes of the realm. You must conduct yourselves with dignity, especially in public.” His footfalls echoed coldly off the stone walls, more than compensating for the soft tone.
Tom felt himself flush, knowing the rebuke was meant for him. “Apologies, Father—” he began, but Osrik wasn’t listening; his attention was all Erik’s. As usual.
“To answer your question, there will be quite a bit of blood. You may feel faint, but it will pass. It is perfectly normal and nothing to be ashamed of.” His glance slid to his younger son, reproaching Tom for a remark he hadn’t even made. Tom didn’t bother pointing out the injustice of that; he’d learned from experience that it would only earn him further reproof.
The royal bloodbinder was waiting for them by the forge. “Welcome, Your Majesty, Your Highnesses.” He bestowed a benevolent smile on Erik. “Your first bloodforged weapon, Highness. An important rite of passage for a young man.”
Erik grinned, unable to conceal his excitement. Tom felt an instinctive twinge of envy. It would be another two years before he held a bloodblade of his own—an eternity to a twelve-year-old.
“Please take a seat,” Cavell said.
Erik eyed the bloodbinder’s implements warily: a shallow silver bowl, clean white bandages, needle and thread for stitching. Most ominously, a curved silver dagger etched with runes. Tom cut a sympathetic glance at his brother, regretting his earlier remark.
“How long will it take?” Erik asked.
“The bleeding itself will not take long, Highness,” Cavell said. “The forging is a separate process. It will be a few days before the sword is ready, but don’t worry—your patience will be rewarded. It will be a work of art, I promise you.”
Erik flashed him a winning smile. “I have no doubt, Cavell. I only hope to prove worthy of the weapon.”
It was a bit over the top in Tom’s estimation, but the bloodbinder lapped it up. “Why, thank you, Highness.”
“Speaking of art.” Father reached into his pocket and withdrew a huge gemstone, a garnet the size of a peach pit. “What do you think of that, my son? Splendid, isn’t it?” He and Erik beamed at each other. It was as if Tom wasn’t even there.
“For the pommel or the crossguard?” Cavell asked.
“The pommel, I think. It’s traditional.”
“How does it work?” Tom asked. “The bloodbinding, I mean?”
Cavell sighed, as if he’d been asked this question many times before and did not much enjoy discussing it. “It’s a difficult process to explain, Highness. It is a matter of preparing the blood properly and blending it with liquid metal.”
It was about as evasive an answer as Tom had ever heard. “But what is the bloodbond, really? How does melting your blood into a sword make it magical? It’s only blood.”
Cavell raised his eyebrows. “Only blood? Dear me . . .”
“Blood is everything, my son,” the king said gravely. “It is the very essence of who you are, the wellspring of your strength and the river of your soul. There is nothing more powerful in this world.”
Cavell inclined his head solemnly. “I could not have said it better, sire.”
“Remember that, both of you,” Osrik told his sons, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “Your blood is mine, the same blood that has run through our family since Aldrich the White founded this kingdom. It is what defines us. You will grow into different men, but you will always be bound to each other at the most elemental level. Let that be your anchor in all things, now and forever.”
“Yes, Father,” the boys intoned together.
Cavell motioned for his assistant to a
pproach. “And now, Highness, if you will kindly roll up your sleeve . . .”
Erik stared at the floor as the curved blade glided across the back of his forearm, unleashing a ribbon of blood. It dripped noisily into Cavell’s silver bowl, ran in spidery veins along the runes etched into its surface. Tom watched, fascinated, as Cavell slowly pivoted the bowl, taking care to cover each symbol with Erik’s blood. There really was a lot of it, enough to fill a flagon, but Erik never flinched, his golden head bowed in determination. Tom was proud of him.
When the bowl was full, Cavell poured the blood out carefully into the mould. The molten metal hissed, filling the smithy with a foul smell. Tom’s eyes watered, but he leaned in closer all the same, unable to tear his gaze away from the searing glow that would become his brother’s bloodblade. By the time he turned around, Erik was getting stitches. Now he did flinch, but he was grinning too, in between grimaces of pain.
“I can’t wait to hold it,” Erik said as they headed back to the keep.
Tom sighed. “Another two years for me.”
“Soon enough, my little raven,” Father said, tousling Tom’s black hair. “You will be a man grown before you know it, and then you will have your fill of swords.”
The brothers exchanged a glance, and Tom knew they shared the same thought: How could any man possibly have his fill of swords?
Autumn, 417 PE
The blade sang through its target, cleaving the melon in two at precisely the midpoint. Tom leaned right in the saddle until he’d cleared the dummy, then left as he neared the next target, guiding the horse through a winding S until he’d split the fruity skulls of every enemy in his path. He was about to swing round for another pass when he spied the king observing from the rails. He drew up in surprise. Osrik had never come to see him train before.
Slipping his bloodblade into its scabbard, Tom dismounted. “Did you see, Father? I got them all.”
Unfettered II: New Tales By Masters of Fantasy Page 38