Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands

by DAVID B. COE

  She wore a coat of mail and carried a sword in a simple leather scabbard that hung from her belt. Her golden hair was pulled back from her face, and her cheeks were flushed. She looked small atop her white mount, but she sat confidently. If she feared the coming battle, she hid it well. Aindreas didn’t think that he had ever seen her looking more lovely.

  “As you wish, my dear,” the duke said. “That should make this far more pleasant. It’s not often that a duke gets to parley with such an enchanting foe.”

  “Tread lightly, Kentigern!” Hagan said. “That’s the queen you’re addressing.”

  Shonah lifted a hand. “It’s all right, Hagan.” Her eyes were fixed on Aindreas’s face, as green as emeralds in the twilight. “You asked for this meeting,” she said. “What is it you want?”

  “I may have offered the first flag, but it’s you and your men who march on my castle. I’d ask you the same.”

  The duchess didn’t hesitate for a moment. “Very well. I want my husband, his first minister, the MarCullet boy, and the rest of their company released from your prison immediately. If you refuse, we’ll wipe out your army and take your castle.”

  It was well said. Aindreas was forced to wonder if he and Shurik had taken her too lightly. Of course, he kept these thoughts to himself, laughing and shaking his head.

  “It’s an empty threat, Shonah. A more experienced warrior would know that. Kentigern hasn’t fallen in centuries, and it’s not about to fall to you.”

  “No? How many of your men remain there, Aindreas? Perhaps five hundred? My force is at least as large as yours, and we hold the plain. If we defeat you here, who’s to stop us when we reach your castle?”

  No doubt Hagan’s spies had told her all she needed to know about Aindreas’s strength, both here and in Kentigern. Still, the duke found it disquieting to hear her speaking with such certainty on these matters.

  “This is foolish, Shonah,” he said, fighting to keep his temper. “Your entire premise is wrong. Javan and his men are not prisoners in my castle. They’re my guests. Do you honestly think they’d choose to leave before your son was found and his fate decided?”

  Hagan leveled a finger at him as if it were a blade. “You’re a liar!”

  “Now it’s you who should tread lightly, swordmaster. I am duke of Kentigern, and I expect to be treated as such.”

  “You’re a traitor, who has imprisoned his king!”

  “That’s enough!” Shonah said, glaring at both of them.

  Hagan looked away, though he fingered the hilt of his sword. Aindreas continued to stare at the man, but he was aware of Shonah watching him.

  “You say my husband is a guest,” she said, her voice even. “His letters say something else. He’s in the prison tower, as are the others in his company. He cannot leave, he cannot speak with his men. Are all your guests treated so?”

  “Not all, my lady. Only those whose heirs murder my children.” He swung his gaze to her, not caring anymore who held the plain or whose army had more men. He would crush them all, the duchess as well as the swordmaster. “If he was a prisoner, he’d be in my dungeon, as your son was until he managed to escape. I should have hanged them all the day Brienne died. That was my great mistake, and it’s one I intend to correct as soon as I finish destroying you and your army.

  He didn’t wait for a reply. He didn’t even glance at Shurik or Villyd. He merely wheeled his horse away and started back toward the wood, spurring the beast to a run. He sensed that the Qirsi and his swordmaster were just behind him, but his mind was already on the coming battle. The position of Shonah’s army posed problems, but they could be overcome. Tavis had escaped him, and he had spared Javan, though he suddenly couldn’t say why. But with dawn he would finally have his revenge.

  The duchess was silent as they rode slowly back to the encampment. Hagan watched her closely, trying to gauge her thoughts, but she was as skilled as the duke at keeping her features from revealing anything of her feelings.

  “That went as well as one could expect, my lady,” the second minister said, riding on her other side. “Lord Kentigern wasn’t interested in preventing this war. I think it far more likely that he was trying to determine whether you were committed to attacking him.”

  Hagan didn’t like the minister, but he couldn’t help but agree with him in this instance.

  “Danior is right, my lady. There was nothing you could say that would have resolved this matter without bloodshed.”

  “What?” Shonah said at last, looking from one of them to the other. Then she waved her hand impatiently, as if their words had finally reached her. “Oh, I know all that. Stop treating me like a dullard. Aindreas wanted to see if I was afraid of war. That’s why he offered the flag.” She shook her head, her expression softening. “But I find him sad. He’s so desperate to avenge his daughter that he barely knows what he’s doing.”

  Hagan and the minister exchanged a look. “My lady,” the swordmaster said, “he’s imprisoned the duke. He just said that he means to kill him. This is not a man deserving of pity.”

  “Of course he is, Hagan. You think me soft because I’m a woman. But right now you’re the fool. Both of you are,” she added, glancing at the Qirsi. “I have no intention of sparing him or his army. If Aindreas is bent on war, then I’ll give him war, and more than he can handle. But don’t mistake, he does deserve our pity and more. He’s lost a child, and you, swordmaster—who have lost a wife and now fear losing a son—you of all people, should understand his grief. More than that though, you should know that to defeat an enemy, you must first understand him.”

  She was indeed a formidable woman, worthy of being Eibithar’s queen. In that moment Hagan wondered if Aindreas truly understood what he faced in the coming battle.

  “What is there to understand?” Danior asked. “That he’s a madman?”

  Hagan shook his head, though his eyes remained fixed on the duchess. “That he fights out of grief and rage. That he’s not interested in conquering the House of Curgh, but rather in hurting it. At this moment I would guess that he’d gladly trade the lives of all his men just to kill the duchess with his own blade.”

  Shonah gave a thin smile. “I suppose I should be flattered.”

  Hagan laughed, struck once more by how much she shared with her husband.

  “Well, if that’s what he has in mind, my lady,” the minister said, sounding alarmed, “you’ll have to keep to the rear of the army. Our first concern must be your safety.”

  “Again, he’s right,” Hagan said.

  “No, he’s not, swordmaster, and you should know this as well. A man who fights out of rage makes mistakes. As long as he can see me and direct his hatred at me, he’ll be guided by his passions rather than by reason.”

  “A man who fights from rage may make mistakes, but he’s also far more dangerous than any other foe. He’s erratic. He follows none of the accepted rules of warfare. We can’t risk your life in the hope that Aindreas will stumble.”

  “That’s not your decision to make, swordmaster!” the duchess said.

  Hagan looked away. “No, my lady.”

  Reaching the camp, the duchess swung herself down from her horse and tossed the reins to one of her servants.

  “Tell the men to prepare for battle,” she said, looking up at Hagan. “I want the army ready at first light. And double the watch, particularly on our flanks. I don’t want Aindreas thinking he can surprise us.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  She started away, then stopped herself, heaving a big sigh and facing him once more. “Forgive me, Hagan. I have every confidence in you and your men. But this is my first battle.”

  “There would be no shame in letting me lead the charge, my lady. The army is yours, but so is the dukedom, some would say the entire kingdom. We can’t lose you.”

  “And you won’t. But if I don’t lead us into this battle, Aindreas will think he’s won already and that will only embolden him.”

  “Wi
ll you at least allow me to assign some men to guard you?”

  She shook her head. “We need every man fighting Kentigern. Besides,” she added, smiling now, “I don’t plan to stray from your side. That should be all the protection I need.”

  The swordmaster felt his color rising. “Very well,” he said, quickly, steering his horse away. At times she reminded him too much of Daria.

  “Swordmaster.”

  He glanced back, frowning for just an instant at the sight of Danior riding after him.

  “Yes, Second Minister.”

  “Do you still think you’ll need my mists?”

  Hagan shrugged. “I can’t say right now. We’ll have to see what the morning brings.”

  “I see,” the Qirsi said.

  “Is something troubling you?”

  Before the minister could answer, one of the men called to Hagan. Several of his soldiers were standing, their eyes fixed on Kentigern Wood.

  Following the direction of their gazes, Hagan saw a long line of torches spreading in either direction along the fringe of the wood.

  “What are they doing?” Danior asked.

  What, indeed? The torchlight didn’t appear to be drawing nearer to their position, but Aindreas’s army was definitely on the move.

  “Swordmaster!” he heard the duchess call.

  “Yes, my lady,” he answered, his eyes still on Kentigern’s men. “I see them.”

  A few moments later the duchess was beside him again, watching the torches as well. “Are they already on the attack?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what?”

  He shook his head, and for some time they merely stood there, watching. Hagan sensed that his entire army had ceased doing anything else, that all of them were staring to the south much as he, Shonah, and the second minister were doing.

  After a while, a pattern emerged. It seemed only some of them were on the move. Aindreas had split his army into thirds, positioning one cluster of men to the west and another to the east, while keeping the rest where they had been.

  “Damn him,” the swordmaster said quietly.

  Shonah frowned. “What is it?”

  “It’s as if he knew the minister had the power of mists. By dividing his army this way, he makes it dangerous for us to shroud the battlefield. We won’t be able to keep watch on all three groups of men.”

  “Can we split our army as well?”

  “We can, but we don’t know how their numbers are divided. All we can see are the torches. He may be trying to trick us into doing just that. Damn,” he said again. “Say what you will about the man, but he is clever.”

  “So what do we do?” Danior asked.

  Hagan thought for several moments, rubbing a hand across his face as his eyes continued to scan the plain. “Nothing for now,” he finally said. “We’ll keep watching them and see what the morning brings. If he had an ally in this, another army to throw at us, I’d worry about our flanks. But I’d guess that he still has only as many men as we, in which case we should be able to guard the east and west without weakening our center too much.”

  “Very well,” the duchess said. She remained there for several minutes more, her gaze still fixed on the distant torchlight. “Wake me if anything changes,” she said at last.

  “Yes, my lady.”

  She walked away, leaving Hagan and the second minister.

  Danior cleared his throat. “If there’s nothing else, swordmaster, I think I’ll get some sleep as well.”

  “Actually, there is, Minister.” Hagan faced the Qirsi. He still didn’t like him, he wasn’t even certain that he trusted him completely. But he had nowhere else to turn under the circumstances. “I’ve promised the duchess that I would remain by her side when the fighting begins, and I intend to. But I want you to be there, too. If something happens to me, or if I’m too occupied by the battle to guard her and you judge her to be in danger, I want you to raise a mist and get her away.”

  The minister regarded him with unconcealed surprise, his yellow eyes gleaming with the light of Curgh torches, his thin face looking almost hawklike.

  “Is there something wrong?”

  The man shook his head. “No, nothing. I just never imagined you would trust me with any task at all, much less guarding the lady’s life.”

  Hagan hesitated, uncertain of what to say. “I’m sure the duchess will be safe with you.”

  “Thank you, swordmaster. I’ll do my best to justify your faith in me.”

  Hagan watched the Qirsi ride toward the back of the camp before turning his attention once more to Kentigern’s army and assigning the watches for the night. He didn’t expect to get much sleep, but neither did he trust himself to keep watch on Aindreas and his men until dawn. And this gave him something to do. The swordmaster would never have admitted this to the duchess, particularly now, but he had never led an army to war before. He had been training the men of Curgh for more than ten years, and he had led small parties into the Moorlands and the coastal hills to capture bands of brigands. But Curgh’s army hadn’t been in a full battle in over a century.

  His reputation as a warrior, which had spread throughout much of the Forelands, was founded almost entirely on the success he had enjoyed in sword tournaments at castles in Eibithar, Wethyrn, and Caerisse. He had studied military tactics nearly all his life. He knew what to do with an army. But unlike Aindreas and his swordmaster, Villyd Temsten, who had at least fought skirmishes with the Aneirans, Hagan had almost no experience with true warfare.

  He tried to tell himself that it wouldn’t matter, that Aindreas and Villyd hadn’t been to war in years and the soldiers of both armies were new to combat. He knew better, though. At that moment he would have given up half his men to have Javan there with him. Not that the duke had been in battle any more than he, but Hagan would have felt far more comfortable relying on Javan’s instincts than his own.

  After taking his own watch, and then riding among the men with one eye still on Kentigern Wood, Hagan finally lay down on his damp bedroll and tried to sleep. He had seen no further movement by Aindreas’s army, nor did he expect any more. Reluctant as he was to give himself over to sleep, he knew that he should, that he and his men would be better off in the morning’s battle if he did.

  He had expected to lie awake for much of the night, but almost immediately fell into a deep slumber, only awaking when the first pale glimmerings of day had started to touch the eastern horizon. Many of his men were already up, as was the duchess, who rode among the soldiers, greeting them with a confident smile and soft words of encouragement.

  She’s better suited to this than I, Hagan thought, feeling a surge of fear. I should have been doing that.

  He rose, and looked toward the wood. There was already a good deal of movement in Aindreas’s three camps, and the swordmaster cursed himself for sleeping so long.

  “Swordmaster!”

  “Yes, my lady,” he said, tearing his gaze from the torches of Kentigern’s army.

  The duchess looked tired, as though she hadn’t slept, and in spite of the smile she had offered the men, she looked pale and afraid in the faint light of the coming dawn.

  “Have you thought of a way to position the men that will counter what Aindreas has done with his army?”

  He nodded. This much, at least, he had done. “We should divide our bowmen as they’ve divided their army, positioning enough of the archers on each of our flanks to keep Aindreas’s men from getting around behind us. We’ll lead with our third group of archers. I want to try to thin their numbers somewhat before the close fighting begins. Aindreas has come this far to meet us, so I doubt he’ll wait for us to attack first. He can’t allow us to get past them or his castle is lost. We, on the other hand, can afford to take a more defensive posture. As long as our lines hold, we should be fine.”

  She gave a wan smile. “I’ll have to trust you, Hagan. I understand so little of this.”

  The swordmaster nodded, say
ing nothing, but wondering if he really deserved the faith she had placed in him.

  The duchess watched him expectantly for several moments. “Should we ready the men?” she finally asked.

  “Yes, of course. Forgive me, my lady. I’m … I’m still shaking the sleep from my head.”

  “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’m fine.” His horse stood nearby, and he walked to the beast now, swinging himself into his saddle and riding with the duchess back to where the men awaited them. As quickly as they could, Hagan and his lieutenants arranged the men in a broad curving formation, the archers set as he had described to the duchess, and the pikemen and swordsmen arrayed around them.

  The sky remained grey and the air misty. They couldn’t see the sun as it rose behind them, but there could be no mistaking the brightening of the plain, or the strains of “Orlagh’s March” drifting toward them from Aindreas’s army.

  Aindreas’s men had arranged themselves in tight formations, the center one led by the duke himself, high upon his great horse. Villyd and Kentigern’s Qirsi led the other two. The singing of Aindreas’s men had grown louder, but still they hadn’t started toward the center of the plain. Hagan wasn’t certain why.

  He glanced back at his men, only to find that nearly every one of them was watching him. Most of them looked so terribly young, barely older than Xaver, that the swordmaster felt his chest tighten at the sight of them. How many would survive this battle? They knew how to fight; he had trained them well. But seeing the fear in their eyes, he suddenly doubted that would be enough.

  It took him a moment to realize that they were waiting for him to speak. Abruptly feeling self-conscious, he looked toward the duchess and Danior and found that they were eyeing him as well. This was the last thing he needed just then. He had never been good with words. Inspiring an army was the province of a duke, and though he had been born a noble, he had spent his life as a warrior.

  He cleared his throat. “We fight for Curgh,” he said.

  The men gave a cheer, though not one that was likely to strike fear into the hearts of Aindreas’s army.