by Anthony Ryan
His grin widened, revealing blackened and half-rotted teeth, his eyeless face turning to Vaelin. “They were a remarkable people, brother. Centuries spent living apart from all vestige of what we term civilisation, yet they had laws, art and wisdom enough to survive in the harshest place on earth. But they had no notion of a god, until I taught it to them, and how quickly they succumbed to the idea. After all, what else would you call a man who comes back to life after a spear-hawk rips the eyes from his skull?”
The cracked lips lost their smile, the face turning to Wise Bear once more. “It could all have been avoided, old friend. If you had but opened your heart to my message, my great mission for the ice people. The southern lands would have fallen to us, and the great forest beyond. Now your people are a wasted remnant and mine nothing but bones.”
The sound of breaking ice heralded Iron Claw’s arrival as he clambered over the surrounding wall, moving to Wise Bear’s side, nostrils flaring at the scent of flesh. The eyeless man stiffened at the sound of the bear’s approach but his voice remained free of fear. “You cannot threaten me, little man. Your beast holds no horrors for me. Ask my brother, he killed me once before and yet here I am. As I am elsewhere. I have waited here these long years for you to come. Pity my cats proved unequal to the task, but I am patient and I suspect you still have far to go.”
“So you wait,” Wise Bear said, moving forward in a rush, his hand flashing out to clamp onto the eyeless man’s bald scalp. “Wait longer.”
The eyeless man’s mouth gaped, foul air rushing forth as he voiced a soundless scream, jerking spasmodically on his bone chair. He tried to claw at Wise Bear’s arm but his fingers lacked any strength, fluttering like feathers over his sleeve as he convulsed.
Finally the shaman released him, stepping back as the eyeless man sagged, his face a mask of confusion and pain. “What did you do?” he asked in a faint rasp, his hands flailing at his own chest and face, the nails leaving shallow scars on his flesh.
“You wait,” Wise Bear said again, turning his back. “Then you die. Forever.”
“This is…” The thing tried to rise from the bone chair, reaching out to Wise Bear as he began to walk away. “This is impossible.”
Wise Bear didn’t turn, striding towards the crack in the ice wall with Iron Claw lumbering along behind.
“Brother!” It slid from the bone chair, reaching out to Vaelin as it crawled towards him, imploring. “Brother! Make him free me!”
Vaelin watched the thing crawl, seeing how little strength remained in its limbs, a twisted collection of skin and bone destined to perish when night brought a deadly chill. He gave no reply, turning to follow Wise Bear.
“You loved Barkus!” the thing called, voice cracking. “I am Barkus! I am your brother!”
Vaelin kept walking.
“I have knowledge! I know the Ally’s design.”
Vaelin stopped.
“I know…” The thing’s voice faltered as he dragged air into ruined lungs. “I know what he wants.”
“So do I,” Vaelin said, glancing over his shoulder, seeing a dying man flailing amidst rotting flesh. “He wants to make an end. And we will.”
“Did you kill all of it?”
Wise Bear gave a regretful smile and shook his head. They had encamped in the shadow of the great rock amidst the shelter offered by the jagged ice, the Lonak raising their shelters at an even greater remove than usual, disconcerted by the five war-cats that sat around the shaman in unnerving silence. Vaelin turned to watch as Cara cautiously held a morsel of seal meat out to one of the cats, the beast ignoring her until Wise Bear glanced in its direction whereupon it snapped the treat from her fingers in a lightning bob of its head.
“Only part,” he said turning back and extending his hand, splaying the stubby fingers. “Take one, can still use,” he went on, miming the amputation of his thumb and making a fist. “But weaker now.”
“If we find other parts of it,” Vaelin said, “can you do the same to them?”
Wise Bear nodded. “If we find.”
Vaelin looked at the looming rock spike wondering if the Witch’s Bastard still somehow clung to life. I suspect you still have far to go, it had said. It knew we were coming, but not why. “Oh, I’ve little doubt they’ll find us.”
CHAPTER NINE
Lyrna
Tower Lord Al Bera’s health had improved greatly since the liberation of Varinshold, his skin notably less pale and his hands free of any tremors. However, he still had difficulty standing for long periods and Lyrna had been quick to usher him into a chair. She had summoned him to her father’s old rooms adjoining the council chamber. Once richly adorned with various treasures it was now, of course, stripped of all but a few paintings and tapestries, former possessions of the late Lord Darnel no doubt looted from murdered nobility. She had been scrupulous in cataloguing every item found in the palace, distributing the list so that their true owners could reclaim them, but no more than a handful of beggared lords and merchants had so far come forward.
“I recall my father naming you the Smuggler’s Scourge, my lord,” she told Al Bera. “A hard-won title, no doubt.”
Al Bera gave a stiff nod. She had noted before his discomfort in her presence, a wariness presumably born of the low station from which he had been raised. “The smuggling gangs were greater in number in my youth, Highness,” he replied. “I was a captain in the Realm Guard before King Janus ordered me to take charge of his excisemen, a slovenly lot, given to graft and drunkenness. Forging them into an effective arm of the Crown took time, and more than a little blood.”
“And yet you did it, breaking the strangle-hold the smugglers had on the southern shore and doubling the port revenue in the process.”
Al Bera gave a cautious smile. “With a little help from the Sixth Order.”
“Nevertheless, the sword my father gave you was well earned.” She reached for the small wooden chest on the desk. “Sadly, I do not have another to give you. As you might expect, the Volarians stole the entire royal collection. But I did find an old trinket of mine in the ruin of what was once my own rooms.” She extracted the item from the box. The chain was new, fashioned from finely crafted silver but attached to an ancient amulet, a plain disc of bronze inlaid with a single bluestone.
“It’s said this was worn by the mother of King Nahris,” she continued. “The first to claim overlordship of all four fiefs of the Realm. Sadly, he was prone to bouts of madness and so the business of ruling his dominion fell to his formidable mother, Bellaris, the first to be named Chamberlain and Regent of the Unified Realm. A title I myself held briefly towards the end of the Alpiran war, and this”—she placed the amulet on the desk and slid it towards him—“was my badge of office.”
The right choice, she decided, seeing the way he eyed the amulet, like a child regarding a snake for the first time.
“I…” he began, face reddening a little. “I am to be left behind, Highness?”
“You are to serve this Realm as ordered by your queen.”
“If it is a question of my fitness for battle…”
“It is a question as to whom I can safely entrust governance of these lands in my absence. Nothing more. Lord Chamberlain Al Bera, please put on your badge of office.”
He fingered the silver chain for a moment, jaws clenched and striving to conceal a faint tremble in his hand. “Did King Janus ever tell you why I was so good at catching smugglers, Highness?”
She smiled blandly and shook her head.
“Because my father was a smuggler. A man of great kindness at home but vicious temperament in business, a business that would have been mine had I not fled to join the Realm Guard at thirteen. By then I had come to understand what manner of man he was, how he was steeped in deceit and murder, and I wanted no part of it.” He removed his hand from the chain. “And I want no part of this.”
She maintained her smile, taking the chain and amulet from the desk and standing to move behind him. She felt him sag as s
he lifted the chain over his head and laid it on his shoulders, although it weighed no more than a few ounces. “Exactly, my lord.” She leaned down and planted a soft kiss on his cheek, choosing to ignore his flinch as she moved back and he rose unsteadily to his feet.
“I will leave you twenty thousand Realm Guard,” she told him. “They are to crush every remaining vestige of criminality within Asraelin borders, all miscreants to be executed without exception under the Queen’s Word. I feel we have been too lenient of late. You will, however, steer clear of Cumbraelin lands unless in dire emergency or called upon by Lady Veliss. I will provide a list of other priorities, Aspect Dendrish’s legal reforms and the reconstruction of this city being the most pressing.”
She angled her head, studying the way the amulet hung around his neck, finding that his stoop had worsened a trifle. “It suits you very well, my lord.”
He gave the most shallow of bows, his reply tense and clipped to remove all expression. “Thank you, Highness.”
Orena liked to dance in the afternoons, moving among the barren palace gardens with a joyful grace, sometimes catching hold of Murel’s hands and pulling her into a whirl, laughing her girlish laugh. Today she wore winter-blooms in her hair, pale petals shining like stars in the dark mass as she spun and spun.
“Sit with me,” Lyrna said as her dance finally came to a halt, Orena’s skirts blossoming as she whirled to the ground with an exhausted but happy giggle. “I have cakes.”
They were in the remnants of her former hidden garden, Lyrna arranging cakes alongside a porcelain tea-set on the bench next to her. Orena was very fond of cakes but continually lacking in manners, cramming one into her mouth the moment she sat down, fingers sticky with icing and cream. “Yum,” she said, one of the few words she consented to speak these days, although it transpired this new Orena had little need of speech. Lyrna’s head momentarily flooded with the sensation of enjoyment, the texture of the cake on her tongue, the softness of the cream. She had to concentrate to clear the images, a skill learned from Aspect Caenis, who advised repeating a numerical sequence as the best means of blocking Orena’s wayward thoughts.
“Brother Innis tells me you have not been attentive at lessons recently,” Lyrna told her.
Orena’s thoughts took on a bored weariness, swallowing the last of the cake and rolling her eyes.
“Learning is important,” Lyrna persisted. “Don’t you want to read again?”
Orena shrugged and her thoughts shifted: joy and sunshine, the whirl of the dance.
“You can’t dance forever, my lady.” Lyrna reached out to take her hand. “I have to tell you something.”
A sudden wariness at the gravity in her voice, a swelling fear.
“I have to go away for a time.”
The fear surged and Orena’s gaze went to Murel, standing nearby, hands clasped tight and forcing a comforting smile. She found being in Orena’s company a painful trial, the weight of her unconstrained gift hard to bear, especially when it chose to share memories dreadfully reminiscent of those Murel fought to suppress.
“Yes,” Lyrna said. “Murel too. And Iltis and Benten.”
More fear, bordering on terror, a jarring sense of abandonment. Orena’s hands clutched at Lyrna’s, a desperate plea filling her gaze.
“No.” Lyrna forced a note of command into her tone. “No, you cannot come with us.”
Anger mingled with churlish reproach as Orena snatched her hands away, averting her gaze, her face a mirror of her thoughts.
“It is my hope,” Lyrna said, voice soft as she traced her fingers through Orena’s dark curls, “to return with a man who I think can heal you. I was selfish to let him go, but when he looked at me, looked at this face, I knew he saw that his gift had failed. I am beyond healing, but I think you are not, for your soul is so bright.”
Orena’s features softened, her face suddenly losing all vestige of the woman-sized child she appeared to be. She met Lyrna’s gaze, brow furrowing … and the memories flooded forth.
Lyrna tried to summon a calculation to suppress the inrush of image and sensation, but the torrent was too great, overwhelming the trickle of numbers with an ease that told her Orena had been exercising much more control over her gift than they knew. The smell came first, brine, sweat and excrement. Then the sounds, the clink of chains, the muffled sobs of despairing souls. Vision and pain arrived together, the shackles chafing wrist and ankle, the dim outline of huddled captives. She was back in the hold, a slave once more. Her panic flared then receded as she saw the view differed from her own memory, the steps leading to the upper deck now seen from a less acute angle, and chained next to them a young woman in a blue dress, her face shadowed but the play of light on her hairless scalp revealing dreadful burns. Nevertheless, she knew this profile, she had seen it outlined against a campfire on a distant mountainside a few months before. Exhilaration mixed with malicious satisfaction in her breast … along with heady anticipation of the Ally’s reward.
The memory blurred, fracturing and re?forming into a scene of terror, the hull splintered by the shark’s ramming, screaming desperation on all sides. She saw the burnt woman standing next to the steps, key dangling from her grasp. The moment of hesitation was brief, barely noticeable but these eyes had centuries of practice in discerning weakness and she knew in a rush of grim understanding that this newly risen queen was about to abandon her subjects to their fate.
It had been a long time since she felt anything close to wonder, but the sensation that gripped her as she watched the burnt woman return to free first the brutish brother, then the outlaw, and then, incredibly, herself, was the closest she had come for many lifetimes. The babble of thanks she offered the burnt woman as she struggled towards the steps surprised her further, for it was completely genuine.
The images blurred into another memory, Harvin’s scarred face poised above hers, breath mingling as their lips touched. “I’ll never hurt you,” he whispered. “And nor will anyone else.”
“You can’t promise that,” she whispered back. “No one can.”
His fingers played over the bruises on her neck, faded but still dark enough to spoil the pleasing smoothness of this shell’s skin. “I promise I’ll visit bloody murder on every Volarian shit we find, just on the off-chance he was the one who did this.”
She felt something then, something more than familiar lust, and it irked her. “Enough talking,” she said, pushing him onto his back and straddling his waist. “And try to keep quiet this time.”
The final shift was more abrupt, as if Orena sensed her discomfort. The deck of the Sea Sabre pitched continually that day, the seas around the Wensel Isle were rarely calm. She looked up at the burnt woman and the ring she offered, wondering why the tears came so easily. Normally she had to force them, but that day they streamed unbidden from her eyes. “I think such trivia is beyond us now, my lady,” the burnt woman said and a thing that had long forgotten its own name knew then she had found a queen.
Lyrna gasped as the final memory slipped away, finding herself staring into Orena’s apologetic eyes, an uncertain smile on her lips.
“Highness?” Murel hovered at her side, touching a tentative hand to her shoulder.
Lyrna stood and pulled them both into an embrace, Orena clutching her waist as Murel rested her head on her shoulder. “I only ever had ladies,” Lyrna told them. “Never friends.”
Orena’s thoughts gave a final pulse, heavy with a sense of regretful necessity; a lesson she barely understood but needed to share: they can change.
They thronged the docks to watch her go, drowning her in a tumult of cheers and exhortations as she ascended the gangplank to the deck of the Queen Lyrna, all those not chosen to sail the ocean and finish her great crusade; the old, the young and the skilled. Many were weeping, some openly decrying their shame and begging to be allowed to join her. A cordon of Realm Guard kept them back, preventing the more ardent from jumping into the harbour and attempting to swim for the s
hip.
“Fleet Lord Ell-Nestra,” she greeted the Shield as he performed a precisely formal bow.
“Highness,” he said in the neutral tone she found ever more grating. “The ships from South Tower and Warnsclave approach. We will rendezvous ten miles from shore, weather permitting.”
She ignored the final jibe, softly spoken though it had been. He and several of his captains had voiced objections to her decision to sail so early in the year, advising the winter storms would still be raging on the high seas. He was unmoved by Brother Harlick’s carefully prepared tables of historical weather patterns, indicating the northern Boraelin underwent a five-week period of relative calm during the months of Illnasur and Onasur. “Just marks on paper, Highness,” the Shield had said, casting a dismissive eye over the librarian’s papers. “Udonor doesn’t read.”
“He may not, but I do,” Lyrna replied. “Our enemies do not expect us until the spring and I will not pass up an opportunity to surprise them. Our fleet will be complete within the month whereupon we will sail, with or without you.”
Her gaze went to the King Malcius, unfurling sail as she cleared the mole. Beyond her a long line of equally huge vessels ploughed towards the horizon. At the end of the mole she could see a figure seated before a vast canvas perched precariously on an easel. Master Benril, come to capture the scene, though the slate-grey sky and misted horizon made for a gloomy spectacle.
The Shield bowed again and began calling out the orders that would see them away from the docks, the crew running to detach lines and heave the beams into place to push them from the wharf.
“Wait!” Lyrna ordered as her gaze found a diminutive figure at the prow. Alornis didn’t look up from the contraption as Lyrna approached, gently tapping a small hammer to some piping on its underside. “My lady,” Lyrna said.
“Highness.” Alornis gave the pipe a final tap, smiling in satisfaction at the sound it produced.
“If your work here is complete,” Lyrna went on, “I would ask that you go ashore.”