by Brent Weeks
What he couldn’t accomplish with the blade, he accomplished with magic: he was a Maker, after all. Wood chips flew as the sun rose.
But he had skylined himself like a fool, standing right at the edge of the mountain so that his figure was clearly visible for miles. The sa’ceurai saw him before he saw them. They had dismounted and were walking on top of the snow with broad woven bamboo shoes strapped to their feet. The gait they had to assume to keep from tripping over the snowshoes was comical—until Feir realized how fast it let them travel. They would cover in a few minutes what had taken Feir half an hour lumbering through the snow.
He worked faster. He almost forgot to turn up the front tip of each long, narrow sled. He shook his head. He’d caught that mistake, what else had he missed? He didn’t have time to fashion proper fasteners, so he wove a web of magic around his shoes and feet and bound them directly to the wood planks. He stood—
—and immediately caught an edge and fell.
Damn, why’d I square the edges? He should have left them curving like a boat’s hull.
Standing was embarrassingly difficult. Feir cursed as the Ceurans came closer. He was a Second Echelon Blade Master—and he was this clumsy? This was madness. He should have just run downhill.
He rolled over onto his butt and finally used the length of the planks to lever himself into a squat. He stood and tried to step forward. The schlusses, which he had smoothed and polished, did exactly what they were supposed to do: they slid back and forth, and Feir barely moved.
Feir looked over his shoulder. The sa’ceurai were a bare hundred paces back now. If it came to a fight, the schlusses would doom him. He stumbled, caught an edge, and threw his foot to the side to catch himself. He staggered—and slid forward.
The joy was as great as he’d felt when he’d been named a Maker in the Brotherhood. He turned each schluss outward and pushed forward.
It worked until he got to the edge and started moving downhill faster than he could step. Each schluss went the way he had pointed it: out. His legs stretched until they could stretch no more and he pitched forward on his face.
The mountain was steep and the snow mercifully deep. Air was scarce as Feir flipped over and over through the powder. He was dimly aware that he needed to point the schlusses downhill. After six or seven rolls, it happened.
Suddenly Feir burst out of the omnipresent snow. The snow was at least three feet deep, but he was on top of it.
His heart was a thunder in his chest. He was headed straight downhill at incredible speed. In moments he was going faster than the fastest horse, and then faster and faster still. Controlling the two schlusses independently was almost impossible, so he quickly lashed them together with magic, both front and back, giving each a little leeway.
There were more crashes, and sometimes the snow wasn’t as forgiving. Finally, Feir learned how to steer. He steered around a rocky death and looked downhill for the first time, squinting against the white. He blinked. What is that line in the snow?
He shot over the precipice. For two seconds, there was no schluss of sleds on snow. The world was silent except for the blast of wind in his ears.
Then he landed. He crashed through a world of white powder, flipping, arms and legs pulled every which way. Then the miracle happened again and he popped out of the snow to fly downhill once more. His heart hammered. He laughed.
He had Curoch. He was safe. The Ceurans wouldn’t follow him down the mountain. Doing so would put them in Cenaria. He’d escaped!
“Incredible,” Lantano Garuwashi said. He was a big man for a Ceuran. His red hair hung thick and long with dozens of narrow sections of differently colored hair bound in. In Ceura, it was said that you could read a man’s life in his hair. At a boy’s clan initiation, his head was shaved bald except for one forelock. When the forelock had grown the length of three fingers, it was bound with a tiny ring and the boy declared a man. When he killed his first warrior, the forelock was bound again at the scalp and he became sa’ceurai. The shorter the span between the two rings on their forelocks, the better. Thereafter, when the sa’ceurai killed an enemy, he bound the slain man’s forelock to his own hair.
At first, a few warriors had thought Lantano only had one ring, because his first two were right on top of each other. He killed his first opponent at thirteen. In the seventeen years since, he’d added fifty-nine locks to his own hair. Had he been born a little higher, all of Ceura would have followed him. But a sa’ceurai’s soul was his sword, and nothing could change that Lantano had been born with an iron sword, a peasant sword. Lantano was a warlord because Ceuran tradition allowed any man of excellence to lead armies, but for Lantano it had become a trap. As soon as he stopped fighting, his power ended. He’d begun fighting for Ceura’s regent, Hideo Watanabe. Then, when the regent ordered him to disband, he became a mercenary instead. Desperate men flocked to his banners for one reason: he never lost.
The giant was becoming a speck in the distance.
“War Master, do you wish us follow?” a stump of a man with a score of locks tied in his balding hair asked.
“We’ll try the caves,” Lantano said.
“Into Cenaria?”
“Just a hundred sa’ceurai. It’ll be a cold winter. Killing this giant will give us a tale to keep us warm.”
57
Momma K wanted Agon and his army to take Logan to the rebel camp. If he were to be king, he needed an army. Kylar refused to leave his friend, at least until Logan was conscious. When Kylar fainted, Agon asked Momma K if they should load Logan into the wagon. Momma K cursed and railed but said no.
They never asked Vi’s opinion. She was content. She wanted to atone for what she’d done, but she didn’t want to think.
Even as she sat with Kylar and Momma K and Agon, a part of her urged her to kill them. The Godking rewarded those who served him well. She could wipe out all the greatest threats to the Godking’s rule in one minute.
She didn’t obey that thought. She’d been judged innocent. She’d come completely clean.
Almost. She’d realized only lately that perhaps the most damaging thing she’d done to Kylar was something that had seemed trivial at the time, a small gesture of contempt. She’d pocketed the note and pair of earrings Kylar had left for Elene.
It was only today that she’d learned they were wedding rings. Drissa and Tevor had explained the custom at length. Between taking those and the note, Vi had left Elene with nothing.
She hadn’t been brave enough to tell Kylar about that, had she?
It was just too much truth. She could have accepted Kylar killing her, but she didn’t know what to do if Kylar despised her. If he knew her, he would despise her. There was no way love could overcome so much.
Love? What am I thinking? Limit yourself to fighting and fucking, Vi. You’re good at those.
The door to a patient room opened and Kylar came in. Logan stepped in from another.
For the first time, Vi saw Kylar smile. It did something strange inside her when he smiled like that—and he wasn’t even looking at her. He bowed deeply. “Your Majesty,” Kylar said.
“My friend,” Logan said. He was achingly thin, his bones poking at his skin. Despite that, he had an unmistakable aura of rallying health. Dressed richly once more, he was handsome despite his ordeal. He crossed the distance quickly and hugged Kylar.
“I’m sorry,” Kylar said. “I came too late that night. I found blood and I thought …I’m so sorry.”
Logan squeezed Kylar silently, heaving great breaths until the emotions died down. Finally, he stepped back and held onto Kylar’s shoulders.
“You’ve done so well, my friend. I’m the one who’s sorry. I’m sorry I ever doubted you. Someday soon we will have to talk. You—you did some things down there that …” Logan looked around, aware of the others. “That I’m really curious about. And I seem to have some holes in my memory, like how I got this.”
He pulled back his sleeve and Vi and Momma K gasped.
Sunken into his arm was something like a glowing silvery-green tattoo. He didn’t show the whole thing, but to Vi the lines looked stylized and abstract, not random.
“Your Majesty,” Drissa Nile said. “I would be …very cautious about showing that.”
“I’m sorry to press you,” Momma K said, “but we have to make some decisions.”
“You mean I have to make some decisions,” Logan said, his tone whimsical.
“Yes, Your Majesty, pardon me.”
Logan addressed Kylar first. “You have done us greater service than we could demand or hope for. I won’t order you, but we deem it most mete for …” He got a faraway look and let the sentence trail off.
“Sire?” Kylar asked.
Logan snapped back into the present. “Odd. I’ve been cursing with the worst of the Holers for months, and now I’m back to ‘deeming’ and judging what is ‘mete.’ ” He shook his head and smirked ruefully. “Kylar, it comes down to this. If you can kill the Godking before our armies close for battle, we might avert battle altogether. I ask you to do this, but I won’t order it. You’ve already made enormous sacrifices to save me. And I know that you don’t trust this woman, but if she can help, use her help. Her surrender when she could have killed us is proof enough of her good intentions for me. Vi is as much a weapon as you are, and I can let none of the weapons in my small arsenal lie idle.”
“You think that’s the right thing to do?” Kylar asked.
Logan gave him a measured look. “Yes.”
“Then it’s done,” Kylar said. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to ask Terah Graesin for my army. Then I’m going to take back our country.”
“It won’t be that simple,” Momma K said.
Logan smiled a wan, distant smile. “It never is.”
58
Elene woke with a blinding headache. She couldn’t move her arms or legs; when she tried, her feet and hands tingled. Opening her eyes, she saw three other captives, bound hand and foot as she was. Another rope bound them to each other. They lay in the darkness, their forms lit only by the flickering light of the Khalidorans’ fire. Elene lay nearest to the six Khalidorans, who were laughing and drinking, slipping between words Elene understood and what she guessed must be Khalidoran.
She didn’t dare move too much and alert them, so all she could see of them was the young man who’d captured her. From the conversation, she picked up that his name was Ghorran. The others mocked him for getting hurt by some woman.
For a moment, the gravity of Elene’s situation threatened to overwhelm her. Kylar didn’t know she was here. No one knew she was here. No one was going to come save her. These men could do anything they wanted to her, and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Her chest tightened with fear and she couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.
Then she started praying, reminding herself that the God knew she was here. It was a small thing for the God to save her. Eventually, she calmed. By that time, several of the soldiers had gone to their blankets to sleep, leaving Ghorran and someone she couldn’t see talking in hushed tones.
“I don’t think Vürdmeister Dada has even told His Holiness what we’re doing,” Ghorran said. “There’s a reason Black Barrow is forbidden ground. If His Holiness finds out, what happens to us?”
“Neph Dada is a great man, and most zealous in his service of Khali. If he serves her, and His Holiness does not, whose side would you rather be on?” the other asked.
“I heard he wants to raise a Titan, is that what you’re saying?”
The other man laughed quietly. “The Vürdmeister wants to do a hundred things. Of course he wants a Titan, but that isn’t why he needs untouched young women, is it?”
“Khalivos ras en me,” Ghorran said, awed. “Khali come live in me.”
“Indeed.”
“Is it possible?”
“The Vürdmeister thinks so.”
Ghorran breathed a curse. “Then what about the boy? What’s he for?”
“Mm, not that important. They’ll kill him and see what they can raise from his body. The meisters just want the corpse fresh.”
Elene had heard of Black Barrow; it was an ancient, dead battlefield. It was said nothing grew there to this day. But she couldn’t understand any of the rest of it, except that Vürdmeister Neph Dada had something planned for her that was worse than slavery. She lay her head back down and saw that the captive nearest her was awake. He was a young boy. He looked terrified.
59
Momma K had saved Logan’s life today.
His little army, consisting of Lord General Agon, Momma K, and Agon’s Dogs, was riding into the rebel camp to cheers. It would have been much different if Momma K hadn’t planted rumors that Logan was returning after triumphing over the worst horrors of the Maw. Without the rumors as forerunners, the band would have been greeted as an unknown army, and Terah Graesin could have had Logan killed. Doubtless, many tears would have been shed afterward about the terrible mistake.
The old, naive Logan wouldn’t have believed that Terah Graesin would do such a thing. Logan the Holer knew differently. He was a changed man, quieter, sobered. He knew all too well what people would do when they were threatened.
And Terah Graesin had to see Logan as a threat. She’d rallied support for the last three months. She’d survived assassination attempts and lost family members. She’d assembled an army and had brought it to the eve of battle. All to be queen.
Logan’s appearance threatened to make her ambition implode on the eve of her triumph. His legitimacy was unquestionable: he’d come from the nation’s leading family, he’d been declared the Gunder’s heir, and he’d married into the Gunder family. Numerous families had sworn fealty to Terah Graesin only because they had thought they were free of their earlier oaths to the Gyres.
Any other time, Logan would have gone to Havermere and sent missives to all the families in the realm, including the Graesins. He would have given Terah a chance to see her coalition falling apart, and then offered her a suitable position.
This wasn’t any other time. The rebel army was assembled less than a mile from the Godking’s. The Cenarians outnumbered the Khalidoran army two to one. The Khalidorans had meisters and Vürdmeisters, but it still looked like a sure victory.
To Logan, Agon, and Momma K, it looked like a Cenarian massacre in the offing. So here he was, riding at the head of his tiny army of a hundred into the heart of the rebel camp.
He was lucky it was an overcast day, because after three months in the Hole, his eyes couldn’t handle full daylight. Squinting didn’t lend itself to a particularly regal look.
They were nearing the cluster of the nobles’ pavilions when a group of a dozen horsemen rode out to meet them. They were led by an officer carrying an unstrung Alitaeran longbow like a staff. Logan and his army came to a stop.
“Declare yourself,” Sergeant Gamble said.
“This,” Agon said loudly enough for the man and the bystanders to hear, “is King Logan Gyre, by law and tradition heir to the throne and now king of our great land. The king is dead, long live the king.”
It was a declaration of war, and the word would blaze through the camp within minutes. Momma K had already sent word to Logan’s steward, and the Gyre men-at-arms were already positioned nearest the noble pavilions. They cheered.
“The queen will see you now, my lord,” Sergeant Gamble said.
Logan dismounted in front of Terah Graesin’s pavilion. When Momma K and Agon Brant made to follow him, the guards stopped them. “Only you, sir,” one of them said.
Logan stared at the man. He said nothing. For a moment, he let the beast rise within. He had not lived through hell to be stopped by a guard. The feeling flew past determination to rage. He felt his forearm tingle.
The guard stepped back and swallowed. “My lord,” he said weakly, “only nobles are—”
Logan stared at him and the words dried up. Momma K and Agon followed him inside.
The queen’s pavilion was huge. Tables and maps and nobles were scattered liberally around the interior. Some of the men looked positively comical, their fat squashed into armor they hadn’t donned in twenty years. Black and white tiles sat in two bowls on one of the tables. By the gods, they’re voting on their battle plan. Beside Momma K, Brant Agon made a strangled sound of outrage.
Momma K was looking around the room as quickly as she could, counting allies, potential allies, and sure enemies. She knew she could give Logan a crown if he gave her two weeks to work her special brand of truth. With only one day until a major battle against the one enemy everyone hated, the odds changed drastically. Her only hope was that someone disposable would attack her or Logan or Brant Agon first. Then she could ruin him, and making an implacable foe of him wouldn’t hurt Logan too much.
“Why Logan Gyre, how the mighty have fallen,” Terah Graesin said, emerging from behind several taller lords, sashaying across the luxurious rugs. “Who would have expected you to appear in the company of whores and has-beens? Or is it cripples and cunts?”
The nobles snickered.
“Looking to get into the business?” Momma K asked.
You could have heard a feather drop in the sudden silence. Momma K couldn’t care less about their shock. Terah Graesin had greeted Logan with claws out. That wasn’t good.
A young man pushed forward from the crowd. “If you speak like that again, I’ll kill you myself,” Luc Graesin said. He was Terah’s brother, seventeen years old, handsome, and a damned fool.
Oh, Luc, you have no idea. I know your secret. I could end you right now.
Except that she couldn’t. Here, now, wild truths delivered without prelude wouldn’t be believed. Terah Graesin would only dig in her heels. “Pardon me,” Momma K said, “Titles are switching hands so fast recently, I’d forgotten I was speaking to a duchess.”