And there was something achingly familiar about the way she spoke, her voice dark, musical. “My blade thirsts,” she said, eyes on Nail. Then she produced a black dagger from the folds of her cloak. A smile played at the corners of her mouth. Not quite a smile, but something fierce. In fact, there were things not at all human about the way this thin-faced woman moved. It was something ethereal, almost akin to the mermaid who’d nearly drowned him. And there were her perfect narrow ears, pointed, just visible through the strands of lustrous blond hair.
She was no human, but a creature, a fey, a Vallè!
Nail had never seen one of the Vallè up close, only from ashore when the occasional Vallè trading ship docked in Gallows Bay. Two things were certain, though: her bearing was commanding, and the dagger in her hand seemed to swallow all light.
Her eyes were locked on his, large, almond-shaped pupils more brilliantly green than anything he’d ever seen. They tugged at him, drew him in, as if she were searching, pulling something, his thoughts, from his mind, as if she wanted to devour his very soul.
“You are not of my blood.” Her smile disappeared as she slipped the knife back into the folds of her cloak. “Still, they will be coming for you.”
And with a rustle of leaves, the frightening black mare and ghostly Vallè woman vanished into the thick green bracken above the trail.
Stefan let down his bow. “She had an ill-favored look,” he said, pale-faced.
“Let’s go before she comes back,” Nail said, heart pounding. He gathered his drawing supplies and satchel.
“She seemed to know you.” Ava Shay was looking at him. “Who was she?”
“A Sør Sevier spy,” Stefan offered. “An emissary of the White Prince, scouting our lands, I wager.”
Nail was too haunted by long-forgotten dreams to say any different.
* * *
In life, as in war, more is lost when hope dies, than by a cold steel and slaughter.
—THE CHIVALRIC ILLUMINATIONS OF RAIJAEL
* * *
CHAPTER FOUR
GAULT AULBREK
15TH DAY OF THE SHROUDED MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON
AELATHIA PLAINS, WYN DARRÉ
Gault Aulbrek had walked among the dead for so many years he had grown hardened to the horror. The enemy blood that coated his chain mail had also splattered his face. He could feel it stiffening on his bald head in the frigid air.
As his gaze ranged over the landscape, dusk leached daylight from the foggy air, adding a measure of unwanted difficulty to his search for the body of the rival Wyn Darrè king. Gault led his white destrier, Spirit, by the reins, the stallion’s dark eyes wide and aflame. In the sullen mist that hung over the battle, the ground was boggy with horse entrails, vomit, and blood. And the stench was gathering strength. No Wyn Darrè fighter had escaped the massacre this time. Even those who attempted surrender had been slaughtered without mercy. Over five thousand Wyn Darrè knights and half as many warhorses were strewn across the Aelathia Plains.
What few still moaned, Gault silenced with his sword.
He considered himself a hard man born of a harsh and lonely land. Still, his body begged for respite. How long ago was it he could run like a silver-wolf and scarcely feel his heart race? Perhaps not since before he last saw his stepdaughter, Krista. Maybe not even since before her mother, Avril, had died. Where is that hard-earned stamina I once possessed? Gone with his youth, he reckoned. After years of endless soldiering, it was a wonder he could walk at all. And I daresay I’ve done more killing than most. But to be so bone-weary and tired, now, after his lord’s greatest triumph, was a disgrace.
Gault was one of the five Knights Archaic of Sør Sevier. A vaulted member of the Angel Prince’s personal guard. Weakness was not an option.
As he and Spirit picked their way through the corpse-strewn gauntlet of blood-splashed boulders, through the leaning thickets of shattered spear and halberd shafts, Gault focused on the faces of the dead. A stick-thin boy scarcely old enough to wield a weapon lay legless in the mud. A grizzled Wyn Darrè veteran listed awkward and broken against the split belly of his roan destrier, beard befouled with grime, helm cocked sideways over bulging dead eyes, rusted links of a chain still wrapped around his neck. Evidence of one of the many lonely struggles that had played out in this swarming morass of screaming humanity, this crazed havoc of slash and parry. The ground was a-littered with the drift and crimson carnage of a human storm. Amongst this stillness and destruction, Gault and Spirit searched for the enemy king.
They made their way up a grassy slope toward a patch of yellow atop a standing-stone, both man and horse wary of the treacherous footing. The blood-soaked ground was slicker even than wet clay. The standing-stone, its lichen-covered carvings weathered and crumbling, was shoulder high. A yellow Wyn Darrè banner with a black serpent crest was draped over it, damp to the touch. When Gault stepped around the stone, he let go Spirit’s reins. He had found the adversary the Angel Prince had tracked these last five years.
Torrence Raybourne, king of Wyn Darrè, lay on his back, legs crushed beneath the bulk of his dead warhorse. One arm twisted awkwardly. The splintered bone, showing through a joint in his armor, was shockingly white against the stain of war. Clutched in Torrence’s gauntleted fist was the hilt of a broken sword. His other hand, smeared with blood, gripped the tattered corner of the yellow banner. An ox-horned helm, burnished bronze with intricate gold and silver inlays, rested in the grass near his head. It sparkled despite the surrounding fog.
Something about the helm struck Gault as odd. It was the two horns sprouting from it. Not oxen at all, but something else entirely, something . . . unrecognizable.
The king’s eyes were closed, face blackened with blood. Many Sør Sevier barb-tipped arrows and crossbow bolts lay scattered around his body. Two thick quarrels jutted from the ridged steel cuirass over his sternum; two more pierced the ring mail covering his stomach. Gault turned and yelled for his prince.
Aeros Raijael, scarcely visible in the fog and searching the battlefield not more than a hundred paces away, came running. His white cloak billowed behind, revealing a sheathed longsword at his belt, holding the blue shimmering blade of Raijael lineage named Sky Reaver. So fine was the pearl-colored chain mail of the Angel Prince that it rippled like water as he ran. There was not a spot of blood upon him.
As his prince approached, apprehension gnawed at Gault. The vague, unsettling feeling struck him more frequently now than it used to, and only around Aeros. In Wyn Darrè and Gul Kana, they called Aeros the White Prince. It was meant as an insult. But in Sør Sevier, he was the Angel Prince—for he was King Aevrett’s son, the heir of Raijael.
Upon Aeros’ arrival, Gault sheathed his sword, bent his knee, and bowed to his lord. The Angel Prince was only twenty-eight, ten years younger than Gault. He always appeared ghostlike, with bright blond locks of shoulder-length hair, skin as pale as a walrus tusk, and bloodshot eyes with irises and pupils as black as obsidian.
“You’ve a knack for sniffing out fallen kings,” the Angel Prince said, motioning for him to stand. Indeed, Gault had also found King Borden Bronachell of Gul Kana buried amid the carnage after the Battle of Oksana.
Aeros bent down and snapped the yellow banner from King Torrence’s clenched fist. “He must have it with him,” he said, pulling at Torrence’s ribbed steel cuirass and the boiled-leather vestments and ring mail underneath. But the armor was battened down, effectively nailed to the king’s body by stout quarrels. “Help me pull him from under his horse.”
Before Gault could move to help, the king of Wyn Darrè sucked in a deep gasp of air. Frothy blood welled from his mouth. The Angel Prince grabbed the king by the shoulders. “Where is it?” Aeros shook him. Torrence stared blankly up into the fog. “Where is it, you goddess-worshipping fool?” Aeros latched onto one of the quarrels lodged in the king’s sternum. “Speak, damn you.”
Torrence reached out with his uninjured arm and grabbed Aeros’ wrist
with a strength seeming impossible in one so near death. “You killed them, my wife . . . the daughter I’d”—blood bubbled between his lips—“promised to King Jovan.”
“Karowyn was as ugly as you.” Aeros jerked away from the man’s grip. “I did Jovan a favor ending her life. Now where is it?”
“It will do you no good,” Torrence choked. “A useless trinket . . . nothing more.”
“Then where is he?” Aeros demanded. “The boy your brother stole from us?”
“A ghost you chase, that one. You don’t even know what you’ve brought upon yourself.” Torrence’s voice trailed off. “You will never destroy . . . the Brethren . . . of Mia.” A bloody wet hiss escaped the king’s throat, and his eyes rolled up.
“He may not know where the boy is.” Aeros stood. “But he has it with him.”
The Angel Prince bent over the king’s dead warhorse, rummaging through the leather saddlebag, throwing the king’s possessions to the ground with a barely suppressed hunger. Finally Aeros pulled forth his prize—a smallish object, wrapped in black silk.
“A distrustful lot, the Brethren of Mia,” Aeros said to Gault. “Torrence didn’t even trust it with his own Wyn Darrè countrymen who fought and died at his side. He’d sooner place his faith in goddess-worshipping traitors and demented dwarves.”
Aeros slowly unfolded the cloth. Buried within was a green stone of curious make. It was somewhat flat and oval with polished round edges. It rested graceful and perfect in his hand. By some trick of light, smoky waves of changing green color passed over the stone’s smooth surface, and its translucent innards appeared to dance and glow.
“Tell no one of this, Gault.” With that, Aeros Raijael covered the stone with the black silk and slipped it into the folds of his cloak. He picked up Torrence’s horned helm, cradled it in the crook of his right arm, and walked past Gault’s stallion and into the fog.
Gault was left alone among the dead. He stared into the swirl of vapor beyond his stallion where the prince had disappeared, and tried to catch his breath, not even aware he had been holding it in. The stone’s brilliant radiance . . . that was no trick of light! After all, the world around him was shrouded in an ever-darkening mist. But the stone had glowed. The Chivalric Illuminations spoke sparingly of the stones, vague hints that they were cursed, but that they—along with the weapons of the Five Warrior Angels—would find their way into the hands of the last heir of Raijael before Fiery Absolution. And the helm! Could it be? Lonesome Crown!
Gault hearkened back to his youth. Born into royalty, he’d had a blessed childhood, for a time. As a youngster, he had imagined myth and legend were part of his destiny. Whereas most in the Five Isles believed the angel stones had been translated into heaven at the time of Laijon’s death, Gault’s mother, Princess Evalyn Van Hester of Saint Only, had taught him different. Before her marriage to Agus Aulbrek, lord of the Sør Sevier Nordland Highlands, Gault’s mother had lived on the isle of Adin Wyte among the worshippers of Mother Mia, a religious faction who believed the five angel stones still existed. Before her death, Gault’s mother had told him stories of the angel stones and their powers. Daydreams of quests to find lost stones had filled Gault’s head as a boy.
He was born in Stone Loring of the Sør Sevier Nordland Highlands in 961. Ten years after his birth, after a series of savage winters, the great Spyke famine struck, and the landscape of his childhood soon became a hollow and haunted place. The countryside was so crushed with cold and starvation it was said that in places such as Rwn and Tumult, once the sheep, cattle, and horses were gone, some women cooked their own babies, scooped the steaming vitals from their bellies, and ate. After that, Adin Wyte raiders continually attacked and pillaged the northeastern shores of Sør Sevier. Most claimed it was the unholy union of Gault’s parents, Agus, a believer in Raijael, and Evalyn, a worshipper of Mia, that had brought on the famine and merciless Adin Wyte attacks.
During that time, myth and legend seemed to wither away for Gault. Within the span of three short years, his entire family was dead. Hunger took his three younger sisters. Assassins claimed his parents. At the tender age of fourteen he was left completely alone. But over the years, Gault had rid himself of what youthful tenderness assailed him.
Now, here he was, standing triumphant on the Aelathia Plains, a mere few miles from the five famed Laijon Towers, on this, the last battlefield for Wyn Darrè. His homeland, Sør Sevier, had finally retaken another one of the lands stolen from her so long ago, conquered another one of the kingdoms that had plagued the northeastern shores of Sør Sevier with continuous, vicious raids for ages.
“And what was that all about?”
In one fluid motion Gault pulled his sword, whirled, ready.
It was Enna Spades. She sat high and regal astride her own white stallion, Slaughter. Cursing himself for woolgathering, Gault sheathed his blade and looked down at King Torrence and the crossbow bolts bristling from his body.
“Well, Gault, have you no tongue?” Spades wore a silver cuirass over a long tunic of sparkling chain mail, and leather greaves also studded with silver. The dark blue cloak and pure white stallion she rode marked her, like Gault, as one of Aeros’ five Knights Archaic. A wooden crossbow and a quiver of quarrels were strapped to her back. Her battle helm dangled from her left hand, and she gripped a bloodied longsword in her right. Spades was a tall, thin woman whose flowing hair hung in damp red curls around her face and shoulders. Her ivory skin bore a dusting of freckles about her straight nose and high cheekbones. Though she had fooled many a foe with her innocent looks, Spades was a deadly warrior.
She now held her head high and proud as if she were looking down her nose at Gault. “Are you like the Bloodwood?” she asked, her voice filled with contempt. “Has our Angel Prince taken you into his secret councils?”
Gault felt himself grow rigid. He didn’t want to be goaded by her now, or reminded of the Bloodwood. He remained silent under her withering stare.
Spades looked past him to Torrence. “Or perhaps the dying Wyn Darrè king keeps council with our blessed Lord Aeros.” She planted her helm on the pommel of Slaughter’s saddle and dismounted, sheathing her sword. She drifted toward the king’s dead warhorse and, finding the saddlebag, discovered its emptiness and the scattered contents strewn about. “Someone’s already been at this.” She tossed the bag casually aside, eyeing Gault as she reached down and pulled one of the quarrels from the belly of the king.
“This could very well be mine,” she said, flipping chunks of flesh from the bolt’s barbed tip. “Bears a certain familiarity. Their fickle flight in battle. Could strike anyone.” She yanked all the quarrels from the king’s midsection save one lodged in his sternum, which broke off in her hand. “A shame.” Her gaze slid from the king to Gault. “I believe Lady Death has finally taken another of her followers.” She swiped the ropy-red flesh from the quarrels, keeping her eyes fixed on Gault. She tucked the bolts into her own saddlebag and remounted Slaughter. “Shall we make a deal, Gault?”
He remained quiet, stoic, as she took up the reins of her charger. “I’ll let you into my tent again,” she said, “if you tell me what Aeros found in that saddlebag.”
Continuing his blank stare, Gault refused to show any trace of emotion. “I care little for your deals, your games. They always end poorly.”
Spades glowered down on him a moment, then whirled her mount. Gault wasn’t cold, but he shivered as he watched her ride away. Sometimes the flinty look in her eyes could freeze his blood. He watched as Spades pulled a copper coin—a trinket she kept with her always—from her leather greaves. She flipped the coin up, caught it, then made it dance lithely between her gloved fingers. Before she disappeared into the gloomy mist, Gault saw her turn in her saddle and throw him a coy, curling little smile.
Somewhere in the distance came the lone shriek of a crow. Gault’s gaze followed a few lazy flakes of snow as they floated to the ground, melting as they landed gently on the dead king at his feet. G
ault dipped his head to the rising wind. He blinked against snow that now blew into his eyes, took Spirit by the reins, and followed Spades.
His mind was consumed by thoughts of a small green stone.
* * *
Soon men found that others dwelt upon the Five Isles: half-men, stout and hardy; fey creatures, cunning and cruel; oghul and merfolk, monsters of both land and sea, ferocious and bloodthirsty. But ’twas the tremor of the winged demons’ fiery cry that rang like a hammered anvil upon the Five Isles. Primeval they ruled the skies, flame and power wreathed in iniquity. Man could naught but flounder before them.
—THE WAY AND TRUTH OF LAIJON
* * *
CHAPTER FIVE
TALA BRONACHELL
15TH DAY OF THE SHROUDED MOON, 999TH YEAR OF LAIJON
AMADON, GUL KANA
Tala Bronachell and Lawri Le Graven stole through the silence that shrouded the forgotten corridor of Amadon Castle. The passage was hung with tapestries, decorative shields, and crossed swords. Empty sconces hung high on the walls. Glowing light warped through a stained-glass window far above, and from it, a web of color danced on the floor. Swathed in soft leather boots, their feet made scarcely a sound as they ran, hair rippling behind. Tala, sixteen, had long straight locks of midnight. Lawri, seventeen, was tawny-haired with sharp bangs that grazed her brows. Both wore tunics over black silken shirts and brown woolen leggings.
They slid to a stop at the end of the hall under the last velvet tapestry. Tala brushed strands of hair from her face and pulled a small dagger from her leather belt. Its jeweled hilt was bone-thin and fit snug in her fingers. “No danger here. I’ve this to keep me safe.” She flipped the dagger up. It spun. She snatched it out of the air by the hilt and slipped it smoothly back into her belt—a trick the dwarf, Roguemoore, had taught her.
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