by Ellyn, Court
It was with a small tingle of satisfaction that Kethlyn watched his prideful brother struggle to catch his breath. His regal steed stood outside the red silk pavilion, saddled and stamping in boredom.
“Kingshield was right!” Alyster’s declaration carried a new sort of urgency. “Bogles on our tail. Banner. A spear on fire.”
Kethlyn surged from his camp chair, nearly overturning a small trestle table set with his breakfast. Uncle Thorn had reported that this very banner belonged to the ogres who had been razing Evaronna. As soon as Lothiar realized Kethlyn was on the march, he must’ve sent the same regiments chasing after him. “Are they close?”
“Within a mile. They know where we are. Coming right for us.”
Having stopped the table from flipping, Commander Leng swore and strode from the pavilion bellowing orders. Sergeants ran into the village, knocked door to door, warning the townsfolk. They had suffered attacks before. People fled their houses and shops, running east toward some shelter they had prepared.
The camp deflated in moments. The column reformed. Kethlyn hoisted himself into the saddle, and without needing to be told, Alyster wheeled his mount and cantered to take up position with the rearguard.
Red banners slashed with the diagonal silver arrow rippled in the hands of heralds. Pikes rattled on shoulders. Horses pawed the soil. Commander Leng trotted to Kethlyn’s side. “Will you follow your uncle’s orders, m’ lord?”
Stand or flee? Eight miles to safety. Could the column possibly outrun an army of giant monsters? Could they outfight an invisible foe? There was a moment of dreamlike silence in which the world and everything in it seemed to spin around Kethlyn’s decision.
“We make haste for Tírandon. Anyone who falls behind gets left behind.”
“Who is to stay and cover our flight?” asked Leng. “A company would do. If they barricade themselves in the village, they might hold out a while.”
You must choose, Kethlyn told himself. Choose the men who will die, the men who will be hailed as heroes. Would the decision trouble his father as deeply as it troubled him? “Blue Company.” With that, he dug in his heels, setting the pace.
The vanguard thundered ahead. A horn blasted. As one, ranks of soldiers double-timed it along the narrow road, the cadence of their feet as steady as a war drum. The moors sloped down toward the plain, and Tírandon’s towers reared up from the horizon, as forbidding as a judge’s gavel.
When only a couple miles of road remained, Kethlyn found the companies slowing and stringing out. He turned back to goad them along. Soldiers jogging in full gear under a high summer sun sucked air like fish out of water. A few glanced over their shoulders, as if expecting Blue Company to catch up. “Almost there,” Kethlyn said, bolstering them. “Keep moving. Don’t look back. Battle for you lies ahead.”
Sooner than he realized. One of his outriders came galloping back with a report. “Trenches, my lord. Filled with them monsters, by the look of it.”
Leng had ridden along to hear the news. “Between us and Tírandon’s gate?”
“Yessir. Dug in across the highway to Bramoran. Our current path will take us directly past the tail end of the fortifications. We’ll be seen.”
Kethlyn looked to Leng for a plan. “Bear west and go around?”
Leng shook his head. “Might give the ogres trailing us time to catch up and flank us. You know what I want to do, m’ lord, but I’ll defer to your wishes.”
“You want to take the trenches from the rear?”
Leng grinned. “Might be a grave error, but it would send the War Commander the right message. I don’t care to hang.”
Kethlyn laughed darkly. “You won’t hang, Leng. You won’t hang.” He gauged the nearness of the motley-colored towers. A vigilant sentry would’ve seen his banners by now and announced his arrival. Enemies behind, and Goddess knew what lay ahead. “Shall we send in archers?”
“They’re our strength, m’ lord, but they have no cover on the plain.”
“Right. Cavalry then. Give the infantry a chance to make for the gate. Maybe they won’t be overrun. No horns. Maintain the element of surprise as long as we can. On my command.”
Here it was at last. The kind of battle he’d been training for all his life. No clandestine crossing of borders, this, to raid a countryside and secure prisoners. The melee to come played out in Kethlyn’s head like lines on paper, like children charging dummies in a training yard.
But these dummies moved. The ogres heard the rumble of approaching horses, and like dark beetles crawling out of rotten wood they scrambled up the sides of the broken earth. Shields and axes shaped a dire wall, and every lecture on engagement fled Kethlyn’s head like paper tossed into the wind. Suddenly all that mattered was where he planted his weapon, if his guard was up, if his wounded hand gripped his shield firmly enough, if there was a friend at his back.
It came in a rush so fast that, later, he couldn’t recall how long it lasted, how many ogres fell to his blade. But details seared themselves in bright relief behind his eyes, unforgettable. The color of an ogre’s eyes in the instant the blade struck the life from them. The moment of weightlessness as his horse leapt the trench. Alyster stretched out across the air as he vaulted from the saddle, hatchets trailing red streamers. The dull ping his sword made as the blade shattered.
Kethlyn stared at the jagged, twisted end, only six inches above the crossguard. The ogre, upon whose breastplate the blade had broken, bellowed in triumph and ran at Kethlyn with arms wide open.
Kethlyn jerked the reins, turning the warhorse fast; his knees tightened, and he pressed the reins down hard and even across the animal’s neck. The horse kicked with his hind legs. Bone crunched. Remarkable armor did little good against a hoof to the jaw.
Close at hand, the shaft of a spear stood up from a man’s corpse. Kethlyn tore it free and used it like a lance, jabbing for throats and armpits and groins. Ogres crumpled to the ground, but the trench seemed to birth an endless supply of them. They spewed out as if from a yawning mouth and spread wide in an attempt to surround the humans.
“Reform!” Leng was shouting. “M’ lord! Get out of there!”
Kethlyn planted the spear in an ogre’s exposed thigh, then wheeled his warhorse for the gathering lines of cavalry. An ogre sprawled on the ground reached up with his claws and raked the warhorse’s belly. The animal screamed and somersaulted, spilling entrails. Kethlyn spat dirt from his mouth. A roar went up from the brigade; the ground rumbled with hooves as Kethlyn’s people charged past to keep the flood of ogres from sweeping over him.
A horn he didn’t recognize blared a ululating note. From around the western curve in Tírandon’s wall hurtled a shimmering wall of air. It ate the ground like a heatwave, rippling, rolling, reflecting sky and tower and grass.
Was this some device of Lothiar’s, to take the Evaronnans by surprise? Kethlyn scrambled to his feet, casting around for a new weapon, a horse with an empty saddle.
From the trenches came a different kind of outcry. The ogres shoved and climbed over each other. Their efforts to extricate themselves from the ditch evolved into panic. To Kethlyn’s astonishment, they raced away along the highway, bound for Bramoran. The ogres making a stand against the human cavalry dissolved too, until the trench was empty of all but the dead.
The onrushing heatwave birthed a flight of arrows. White fletching sprouted from ogres’ backs. Bodies toppled on the highway.
Kethlyn braced himself. The wall of shimmering air swept over him. Hot, desiccated wind blasted his cheek; sand stung his eyes. He ducked as golden horses and riders in gilded armor galloped past. Behind this strange cavalry, several hundred dwarves charged on foot, their short legs pumping, their mouths open with brutal war cries. These too had no interest in Kethlyn, but raced by and fell upon the wounded ogres struggling to flee.
“Miraji,” someone said.
Kethlyn turned and found Alyster approaching. Blood streaked his face, and he grinned as he pointed a hat
chet at the golden warriors. Yes, Kethlyn remembered Carah’s account of these foreign allies, but seeing was believing.
The arrival of reinforcements meant that the War Commander was up on the battlements, aware and watching. “Alyster, I need a favor. It must be you.”
“Me what?”
“Best if I don’t step foot inside until...” Kethlyn gestured at the battlements. “Will you tell the War Commander that … that…?” He concluded with a shrug.
Alyster nodded gravely. “Right.” He sheathed his hatchets and stepped over bodies, bound for Tírandon’s gate.
“Make sure they look sharp,” Kethlyn told Leng.
The commander ordered the infantry into tight phalanxes, and the cavalry into smart parade ground formation, tired and bloodied though they were. Nearly four thousand total, they spread out in impressive array. The casualties were gathered. Orderlies with stretchers ran onto the field to bear them away into the castle.
Kethlyn claimed a riderless horse whose shoulder was slick with its former owner’s blood. He sat in the saddle some distance ahead of his troops, facing the vast wall of bedrock that stretched from the outer moat, across the highway, and out into the plain. He’d had a difficult time believing Carah when she excitedly told him that she had raised the earth itself. But there was no denying it now.
Leng joined him, as did a herald wielding a rustling red banner. None spoke.
The dwarves and the golden warriors returned from their pursuit of the ogres and marched past, bearing trophies of dark steel. It was the dwarves who glared Kethlyn’s direction. Two or three spat. He raised his eyes after that. Faces crowded the battlements. They were too high for Kethlyn to recognize anyone. Was his mother there? He couldn’t tell.
Time dragged past like hours, yet it was all too fleeting. Four riders appeared around the wall of bedrock. A herald on a squire’s racer carried a black banner blazoned with a red version of Ilswythe’s sword-wielding falcon. Behind him rode the War Commander. He wore plate and scales of that strange dark steel, and glanced neither left nor right as he approached. Kethlyn might be alone amid the plain.
Flanking him, like witnesses to a duel, were Laral and Eliad. The latter leaned in the saddle and whispered council. The War Commander ignored him.
Alyster and four Miraji followed on foot. Bodyguards?
To dismount was proper, but as Kethlyn did so, he felt his legs going limp. Show no weakness. Sharks swarm the wounded seal. He stood at attention, holding the reins in an open, upturned hand, a sign of offering. Look them in the eye, he told himself, but for the life of him he could not peer higher than the chest of his father’s horse.
The animal stopped, and the War Commander dismounted. In three bold steps he approached. His hands clenched Kethlyn’s shoulders, dealt him a shake, forcing Kethlyn to meet his eye. Da was smiling. Tears welled. Then his arms pulled Kethlyn into an embrace.
For an instant, he was too astonished to move. All the fear, the dread, the self-loathing came bursting out of Kethlyn in a single sob. He swallowed the urge to beg forgiveness; it wasn’t needed. He returned the embrace, holding onto his father with teeth-gritting desperation. The dark armor bit his chin, but pain didn’t matter. Thousands of people looked on, and they were suddenly immaterial.
The storm that had been churning inside him settled, and Kethlyn knew he could face anything.
Da released him, drew himself up, and eased back a full step. The joy on his face waned too quickly. Sorrow knitted his brow. Softly, he said, “You know what I must do, son.” His voice cracked. “In the name of the Duchess of Liraness, I arrest you for high treason.”
Kethlyn suppressed a groan. No escape after all. You knew it was coming. This is what you expected. Swallow it. Feel nothing.
An outcry came from Commander Leng. “But, my lord! Please…”
The four Miraji marched forward on silent feet to surround Kethlyn. A pair of hands patted him down, looking for weapons.
“I have no sword, sir,” he said. “It broke on the body of my enemy.”
It was now his father who had trouble making eye contact. Kethlyn offered him a nod, to show him that he blamed only himself, that this was as it should be.
The Miraji tried to restrain him, but he shrugged off their hands and led them at a quick pace toward Tírandon’s gate.
~~~~
Kelyn beat on the chamber door. Rhoslyn had locked it against him. As soon as she learned of Kethlyn’s arrival, she had fled to their suite. For hours she had admitted no one, not even her handmaid. “Rhoz? Open the door, damn it.” He tried the knob, though he knew it hadn’t unlocked itself in the past several seconds. “Kethlyn has done exactly as we hoped. Will you not speak with him?”
Intolerable silence replied.
“You can pardon him, Rhoz. Don’t do this to him. Don’t do this to us.” Didn’t she understand that if she executed their son, Kelyn would never speak to her again? How could she not care about that? In twenty years had she not loved him for one hour, one moment? Kelyn had never known her heart to be so cold. Could nothing thaw it?
“Rhoz?” The door’s thick wooden planks seemed to swallow his voice. “Can you hear me? Carah is gone. Lothiar has her.”
When Saffron told him that Carah was riding to Windhaven, that Thorn himself was to accompany her, Kelyn had been furious. He’d kicked chair legs muttering things like ‘irresponsible,’ ‘hopeless,’ ‘foolish’, and ‘I’ll kill them both.’ In the many days since, he never expected his worst nightmare to come true.
Alyster had given him the news. Kelyn had pulled him aside, requesting to hear every detail of the journey, but a host of people barged into the hall, interrupting them. Seemed everyone had an opinion about what should be done with Kethlyn, and the cell had been locked for barely ten minutes. Eliad, he who had been raised alongside Kethlyn like a brother, had been most strident of all, insisting they string him up from the nearest lamppost. Queen Briéllyn had quelled tears, demanding he be put on trial immediately, as if Kethlyn might be made to answer for her own son’s crimes. Laral had worn a sick, pallid expression, no doubt thinking of his two dead sons, and wishing, wishing they could come back to him. Beside him, King Arryk had leveled a chilly, narrow-eyed glare, as if certain the War Commander and the duchess would spare their son and deny him justice.
But Alyster’s was the only voice that Kelyn cared to hear. “What happened? How did Carah convince him?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t included in that brawl. He was drunk on guilt and scared shitless is the impression I got. But he’s here, it’s done. And there’s something more important you ought to know.”
The room had fallen silent at the news. Carah? Taken?
A small jagged sound escaped the White Falcon, as if he’d been stabbed, and he fled the room with Laral on his heels.
To regain one child, only to lose the other? It was too cruel. My little girl. The strength slowly seeped from Kelyn’s knees, and he found himself perched on the edge of a chair, fingers squeezing Alyster’s wrist, as if he could save Kelyn from drowning.
And what consolation for Rhoslyn? Kelyn laid his palms flat to the door. “Will you lose them both?”
After a silent interval, the serrated notes of weeping struck the door, but Rhoslyn refused to unlock it.
~~~~
Kethlyn knew he’d be shown no special favor when the Miraji escorted him to the old dungeon beneath the inner gatehouse instead of a room high in the keep. He had hoped, since he was who he was, that his mother would afford him the courtesy of a highborn’s incarceration.
The cell was small and dark and bare. Drier than he expected and relatively clean. Rushes had been strewn on the floor, and recently. Had Mum been expecting him?
The Miraji confiscated his armor, even his surcoat, leaving him in a sweat-drenched undershirt and riding leathers. He was soon chilled. Mercifully, a guard returned with a bucket of clean water so he could bathe the ogre blood from his skin. The guards, invariabl
y, were Elarion. Seemed Mum didn’t trust the humans to rein in their urge for vengeance. Or was this Da’s precaution?
The bunk was nothing more than a wooden bench held aloft by chains. It was too short for him, so he propped his feet on the wall, crossed at the ankles, an arm under his head. There was neither mattress nor straw to cushion him. Regardless, Kethlyn slept. And he slept soundly, cocooned in rest for the first time in weeks. The waiting was over; he had done the right thing; he was where he belonged. The next chapter was out of his hands entirely.
A small sound woke him. The shuffle of a foot? The jangle of a key? Had dawn arrived with a guard who had come to drag him off to the block? Or did the deeps of night bring with it someone unwilling to wait for justice?
Kethlyn’s hand twitched painfully at the memory of the assassin looming over him. If someone snuck into his cell to kill him while he slept, the assassin would now be someone he knew. Maybe someone he loved. He watched the door intently, every muscle taut, but it remained closed.
Carefully, one limb at a time, he uncurled from the bench and sat up. Beyond the small barred window high on the iron door, the light from a single lamp cast drunken shadows on the stone wall.
The sound came again. The scuff of a heel. The rustle of paper. Probably just a sleepy guard. Knowing who kept him company might settle his mind. In two steps he crossed the cell and peered through the little window. A small mildewed table hunched beside the iron door, providing a perch for the lantern and someone’s elbow. Long legs stretched out across the narrow corridor, crossed at the ankle, and hands rifled through a short stack of papers. Kethlyn recognized the hands, because they resembled his own. “Da?”
The paper shuffling stopped; the long legs retracted. Kelyn leaned forward in the chair and peered up at the small window.