Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands

by DAVID B. COE

  Javan’s face stretched into a grin. “Let’s find out, shall we? I think you’ll find that it will do the opposite. They’ll fight like Bian’s demons, for you’ll not only have killed their duke, but also their king.”

  “You’re no one’s king!” Aindreas said, his hand flying to the hilt of his sword.

  “Aren’t I? Didn’t I hear bells ringing in the streets of your city three days ago? Didn’t I hear your people crying for Aylyn?”

  “That doesn’t make you king!”

  “The Rules of Ascension say otherwise.”

  “The Rules of Ascension be damned! They mean nothing without the consent of Eibithar’s dukes! And as long as I draw breath, I will not honor Curgh’s claim to the throne! You will never be king, Javan! I swear it to you before all the gods! I swear it to you on Brienne’s memory!”

  “Tavis will be proven innocent,” Javan said. “And when he is, every house in the land will recognize me as their king. If you refuse to do the same, you will be branded a traitor and executed, and your house will be removed from the Order of Ascension for a hundred years. Think of it, Aindreas. You know the law. As things stand now, your boy might someday be king. Continue with this folly, however, and he will inherit nothing from you but a shamed house.”

  “Don’t you dare to speak to me of shame! You continue to defend your son, though all the land knows him to be a drunkard, a murderer, and a coward! You shame the entire kingdom! And you doom your wife to a bloody death!”

  He turned on his heel and started toward the stairs.

  “Aindreas!” Javan called. “Don’t do this! You can still stop this wear!”

  The duke paused at the top of the stairwell, but only for an instant. He didn’t even turn.

  “Aindreas!” Javan cried again, as the large duke disappeared down the steps. “Aindreas!” Curgh’s duke closed his eyes and rested his forehead against the bars of his door. “Ean forgive me,” he whispered. “I’ve killed her.”

  “No, my lord,” Fotir said. “The duchess leads the army by her own choice and, I’m certain, over the objections of Lord MarCullet. Your men will give their lives to guard her, just as she has chosen to risk hers to win your freedom. Take pride in her, my lord. She is an extraordinary woman. I expect the duke of Kentigern will find that she is a more formidable foe than he anticipates.”

  “Perhaps,” the duke said. “She is extraordinary. But she’s no warrior. Leading the army to war is one thing, leading them into battle is quite another.”

  “My father knows that, my lord,” Xaver said. “He won’t allow her to ride into the fighting.”

  The duke managed a smile. “You’re still young, Master MarCullet, and so have yet to learn that women like the duchess, and your own mother for that matter, rarely ask permission to do anything. If my wife decides to lead the charge, there will be nothing your father can do about it. I just hope she has sense enough to stay back when the battles begin.”

  “I find it strange that the duke is riding to battle at all,” Fotir said. “Why would he leave the castle when Kentigern is renowned for its ability to withstand any siege?”

  “He must believe there’s an advantage to be gained by meeting the Curgh army,” Xaver said. “Perhaps he means to use the wood.”

  The Qirsi nodded. “Or the Heneagh. If the Curgh army left only four days ago, he still has time to beat them to the river.”

  Javan took a long breath. “That may be it,” he said. “It’s also possible that he’s so desperate to leave this castle that he’s making poor decisions.”

  Fotir frowned. “My Lord?”

  “He’s been searching for Tavis for half a turn, with no success. As much as he talks of killing me and denying me the crown, he can’t hurt me. It would appear that he was trying to win the throne for himself. He’d risk war with all the other houses. This is his best chance to strike a blow against the House of Curgh. He may be so eager for war that his judgment is clouded.”

  “Good,” Xaver said. “That should work to our advantage.”

  The duke shook his head. “Desperate men make for dangerous opponents, Master MarCullet. I’d have thought your father had taught you that.”

  He had, of course, though only in the context of single combat. It hadn’t occurred to Xaver to apply the lesson to a conflict with the commander of an entire army. He could only hope that his father wouldn’t make the same mistake.

  Even before his meeting with Kentigern’s duke, Shurik had ordered Villyd and the quartermaster to prepare for the march to the Heneagh River, so certain had he been that Aindreas would follow his counsel. On his best days, the duke could be steered one way or another with little effort. When he was drunk, it became laughably easy. If anything, the minister had been too successful. He had hoped to leave with first light the following morning, not this same day. He had a task to complete before they marched from the castle, and it promised to be far more difficult in daylight than it would have been at night. But having convinced the duke that they should try to beat Curgh’s army to the Heneagh, he couldn’t very well argue for a delay until dawn.

  The minister made his way back to the castle’s inner ward to check on the quartermaster’s progress. Two of the carts needed repairs, but the castle’s wheelwright was already working on them. They weren’t likely to cause any delays. On the other hand, the kitchenmaster had been stingy with some of the food, particularly the cheese and dried meats. The quartermaster had been forced to send some of his workers to the marketplace to buy some supplies, slowing his preparations considerably. Apparently food stores in the castle were dwindling, though they weren’t yet as low as Shurik had made it seem when he spoke with Aindreas.

  Leaving the quartermaster, the Qirsi walked to where Villyd was shouting orders to Kentigern’s soldiers.

  Seeing the minister approach, Kentigern’s swordmaster raised a hand as if to beckon him over, his brow furrowed with concern.

  Villyd was a compact man. He was actually a bit taller than Shurik, but because of the swordmaster’s broad chest and shoulders and his muscular limbs, he looked shorter than he really was. He had a round face and small blue eyes, and he always appeared to be squinting. Despite his appearance, he was a skilled swordsman who had earned the complete respect and loyalty of his men. For a man of war, he was also surprisingly tolerant of the Qirsi who served in Kentigern Castle. Shurik actually liked him.

  “First Minister,” he said as the minister stopped in front of him. “Did the duke tell you how many men he wished to keep here in the castle?”

  Perhaps he could have lied, telling the man to take more soldiers to the Heneagh than was necessary. But such a lie carried great risks; it was too obvious, too easily traced.

  “No, swordmaster. He didn’t tell me anything. I believe he was leaving this to your discretion.”

  Villyd nodded. “He often does. In that case, I intend to leave seven hundred men here and take the rest. That’s a thousand men. I can’t imagine Hagan will have any more.”

  Shurik frowned. Seven hundred men to defend the castle and city. He wondered if Yaella and the duke of Mertesse would be expecting that many.

  “You think I should take more?” the swordmaster asked, looking concerned. “I hate to leave the castle undermanned. The Aneirans will know we’ve gone. They might use this opportunity to attack.”

  “I suppose they might,” Shurik said. “I’m sure a thousand men will be enough. And if the Curgh army manages to break through our lines, there’ll be plenty of men here to hold them off.”

  “So you do think I should take more.”

  “I’m just a minister, swordmaster. I know very little of such things.”

  “But you know the duke. You know what he wants.”

  Shurik grinned. “He wants to win this war, swordmaster. He wants to avenge the murder of Lady Brienne. All of us do.”

  Villyd nodded. “Yes. Yes, of course.” He stood there for a moment, appearing to consider the minister’s words. “
Perhaps we can spare another two hundred men,” he said at last.

  “Whatever you think best,” Shurik said, suppressing a smile.

  “Five hundred should be enough to defend Kentigern,” he went on, as though still trying to convince himself. “And with twelve hundred men marching against the Curgh army, we shouldn’t be away from the castle for very long.”

  “That strikes me as sound reasoning, swordmaster.” Shurik glanced up at the sun. He hadn’t much time before the prior’s bells. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters to which to attend before we leave.”

  “What? Oh, of course, First Minister. Please forgive me.”

  Shurik was already walking away. “Think nothing of it, swordmaster.”

  “And thank you,” the man called.

  The Qirsi raised a hand, but didn’t bother to look back. The man would have kept him talking all day long.

  He made his way out of the inner ward through the south gate, then entered the nearest tower of the outer wall and followed the tight, dark corridors to the castle’s western gate, the Tarbin gate as it was called. Unlike the city gate, which was kept open during the day except in times of war, the Tarbin gate almost always remained closed, even the wicket gate. The gate faced Aneira. Indeed, since no structure in all of Eibithar stood closer to the Aneiran border than Kentigern Castle, one could argue that the Tarbin gate was the kingdom’s first defense against an Aneiran invasion.

  Standing at the entrance to the gate, Shurik could not help but admire its sheer power. Each of the four portcullises was as thick as a man’s thigh, and constructed of oak from Kentigern Wood and iron from the city’s forges. Beyond the portcullises stood an equally dense door, also made of oak and locked with massive iron bolts. And beyond that lay a drawbridge, raised, of course, which could be lowered to provide passage across the deep pit separating the barbican from the road leading up the tor from the river. There were arrow loops on both sides of the gate, with chambers behind them for the duke’s archers, and murder holes in the ceiling, from which soldiers could attack intruders. But so strong were the defenses at this entrance that the only guards stationed here stood outside, manning the wall between the towers on either side of the gate and the smaller spires at the outer edge of the Tarbin barbican. Within the gate, Shurik was completely alone.

  For years he had been telling people that he possessed three magics: gleaning power, the power of fire, and the language of beasts. He told Fotir as much the first night they spoke in the Silver Bear. Like so much else he told his duke and others, however, this was only partially true. He did have all those powers. But unlike most Qirsi, he had a fourth as well. He was a shaper. He decided long ago to keep this a secret. Many Qirsi became first ministers possessing only three magics; he didn’t need to reveal the full extent of his power to gain a position of influence. And he had learned long ago that it could be helpful to know more about his adversaries than they knew about him.

  For obvious reasons he didn’t use his shaping power very often, and he knew that he would tire quickly using it this day. But he didn’t have to destroy the door or the portcullises, he merely had to weaken them.

  He started with the iron hinges of the door, closing his eyes and pushing the power out from his mind as if it were a bad memory. Almost immediately he felt a dull, throbbing pain building behind his eyes. He was going to be in sorry shape before this was over. He wondered if he’d be able to ride with the duke. He could hear the metal creaking under the strain of what he was doing to it, and he made certain to stop before the hinges failed entirely.

  He only weakened two of the door’s four hinges, leaving the others for Mertesse and his men. There was nothing he could do about the drawbridge, either, but the Aneirans would find a way around that. The Qirsi was most concerned with the portcullises, and, once he was done with the door, he directed his magic at them, attacking the wooden crossbeams on all four of the immense lattices. He worked as quickly as he could, wiping the sweat from his face, and fighting the nausea that seemed to grow with each pulse in his aching head. He felt the magic flowing through him, as he had in times past. But he was older now—he hadn’t exerted himself like this in years—and he could almost feel the life pouring out of his body. For a moment he feared that he would fail before the castle’s defenses.

  Again, he didn’t weaken all of the beams. It would have been too apparent if every one of them failed at the same time. But he worked on enough of them, stretching and thinning the wood in certain places so that it would be far easier for the rams of the Aneiran army to break the portcullises down.

  When he finished, he staggered to the nearest wall and fell back against it, struggling to catch his breath. His hair and clothes were damp with sweat and there was a pounding in his head that made the ground seem to pitch and roll like a ship at sea.

  He had known that it would be this way, though perhaps not quite this severe, and he knew what he would tell the duke. He could even guess how Aindreas and his men would respond, and while he was not looking forward to their taunts, that seemed a very small price to pay. Pushing away from the wall, he stepped unsteadily back into the narrow corridors and returned to the inner ward the same way he had come from it, taking care once more that he wasn’t seen until he was a good distance from the gate.

  Stepping into the ward, Shurik immediately spotted the duke sitting atop his great mount, his blue and silver cape soaked with the rain that continued to fall. The minister’s smaller horse stood nearby, and Shurik hurried to it.

  “We were looking for you, First Minister,” Aindreas called to him as he approached.

  “I was … walking, my lord.”

  “You don’t look well. Are you ill?”

  Shurik glanced toward the soldiers, making himself appear embarrassed. “It’s … it’s been some time since I rode to war, my lord,” he said, lowering his voice.

  Aindreas stared at him a moment before starting to laugh. The Qirsi also heard a few snickers from the men who stood nearby.

  “You have battle sickness, First Minister,” the duke said, still laughing. “All of us have had it at one time or another. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’ve seen many a fine swordsman reduced to little more than a quivering babe by the prospect of an actual war.” He gestured toward Shurik’s mount. “You’ll feel better once you start riding.”

  “Yes, my lord,” the minister said, swinging himself onto the horse. His head spun as he did, but the pain had started to ebb.

  A moment later Aindreas shouted an order to the men and kicked at the flanks of his stallion. The soldiers of Kentigern gave an earsplitting cheer and started to march out of the ward. There would be people lining the streets of the city, Shurik knew, cheering as well, sending their heroes off to war, none of them knowing that war would be coming to them long before these men saw battle.

  As they rode slowly ahead of the soldiers, the duke looked at him, shaking his head and laughing again. “Battle sickness,” he said. “I wouldn’t have expected that from you, Shurik.”

  Laugh all you want, you fat fool. Because of me, the famed walls of Kentigern are finally about to fall. “I didn’t expect it either, my lord,” the Qirsi said. “But as you say, I should be feeling better soon.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Mertesse, Aneira

  It seemed to Yaella that she had been asleep only a few moments when the dream began. She recognized it immediately, her stomach turning sour, and her hands starting to tremble. Even in her sleep, even as she began to feel her way across the familiar terrain of this vision, she wondered how the Weaver could know when she slept and when she was awake.

  She walked carefully, stepping among the strewn boulders and clumps of tall grasses toward the high mound where she knew he expected her to go. During earlier dreams, Yaella had tried to figure out where she was, though without any success. Land of this sort could be found throughout the Forelands, in the southern plains of Aneira, the moorlands of western Eibith
ar, the northern steppe country of Caerisse, or the highlands of Glyndwr and Wethyrn. Had she been able to see beyond the nearest rocks and grasses, she might have been able to determine at least which kingdom she was in. But in these dreams the sky was always dark and starless. Even the moons did not shine here. It was as if the Weaver had mastered Elined and Morna, Qirsar and Amon, shaping the earth and sky to match his desires. In this realm, he was greater than the gods.

  Yaella felt herself beginning an ascent and knew she had come to the Weaver’s mound. Her heart began to pound in her chest, and not simply owing to the effort of climbing this rise. She had been first minister to the duke of Mertesse for nearly nine years. Twice she had met Aneira’s king. In her first year of service to Rouel, she had ridden with him into battle against the men of Kentigern. And for more than three years, she had been a part of the Qirsi movement to win control of the Forelands, living a lie every day, her life constantly in danger. Yet nothing else filled her with the cold, bone-deep dread that came with these dreams. No one but the Weaver could make her shiver simply with the sound of his voice.

  She continued up the rise, her legs growing heavy and her breathing labored, until at last the ground began to flatten out, telling her that she had reached the summit. She stopped to wait, staring into the darkness in what she knew would be a vain attempt to catch a glimpse of the Weaver’s face.

  The light blazed so suddenly that Yaella had to raise a hand to shield her eyes. It was as bright as the sun and as white as Panya’s glow, and it appeared to flow from the earth itself, like steam rising from the heat springs of Wethyrn’s Grey Hills. An instant later she saw the Weaver walking toward her, as if emerging from the brilliant light. Framed as he was against the radiance, a cape draped over him, he appeared as little more than a living shadow, faceless and formless. She could tell that he was tall and that he walked with long, confident strides. But that was all. Even his hair, which had to be as white as hers, looked black and wild, like the mane of some beast from the underrealm.