“ Your sword, brother,” Hentes Mustor said in his soft voice.
There should have been rage, desperate, bloody rage sending a throwing knife into Mustor’s arm and a sword cleaving deep into his neck. But something choked it off as it rose in his breast. It wasn’t just caution, although the man was quick, far quicker than Gallis the climber had been all those years ago, it was something more. For a second he was lost in confusion then it came to him: the blood-song’s tune hadn’t changed. The same soft, steady murmur still sang in his head, devoid of the warning or wrongness he knew so well.
His sword landed with a clatter at Mustor’s feet, the sound mingling with Sherin’s muffled sob of despair.
“ And so,” Mustor kicked the sword away into the shadows, his tone heavy with reverence. “The truth of His word is shown again.” His eyes fixed on Vaelin. “Your other weapons, throw them away. Slowly.”
Vaelin did as he was bid, his knives and the dagger in his boot tossed into the shadows. “Now I am disarmed,” he said. “Is there any reason to threaten my sister so?”
Mustor glanced at Sherin’s reddened face, as if remembering she was there. “Your sister. He told me that’s not how you think of her. She is your love, is she not? The key by which your faith can be unlocked.”
“ My faith cannot be unlocked, my lord. I’ve given you my sword, that’s all.”
“ Yes.” Mustor nodded, his voice flat with certainty. “As He said you would.”
Is he mad? Vaelin wondered. The man was a patent fanatic but did that make him insane? He recalled Sentes Mustor’s story of his brother’s conversion. He claimed the World Father had spoken to him… “Your god? He told you I would come here?”
“ He is not my god! He is the World Father who created all and knows all in His love, even heretics like you. And I am blessed by His voice. He warned me of your coming and that your Dark skill with the blade would undo me, though in my sinful pride I longed to face you without this trickery. He guided me to the mission where this woman could be found. And it was all as He foretold.”
“ Did he foretell that you would kill your father?”
“ My father…” The certainty faded from Mustor’s eyes and he blinked, his expression guarded. “My father lost his way. He turned away from the World Father's love.”
“ He didn’t turn away from you. He gave you this keep did he not? Gave you letters of safe passage to ensure you could travel here unmolested. He even told you the most cherished secret of your family: the passage through the mountain. He did all this to ensure you would be safe. You are to be envied to have been so loved. And you repaid him with a blade in his heart.”
“ He strayed from the law of the Ten Books. His toleration of your heretic dominion could not be borne forever. I had no choice but to act…”
“ A strange god that loves you so much he makes you murder your own father.”
“ SHUT UP!” Mustor screamed in a voice that almost sobbed with sorrow, flinging Sherin away as he advanced on Vaelin, sword levelled. “Shut your mouth! I know what you are. Don’t think He did not tell me. You are a practitioner of the Dark. You shun the Father’s love. You know nothing.”
Still the blood-song’s tune failed to change, even as the usurper’s blade came within a hand’s breadth of his chest. “Are you ready?” Mustor asked. “Are you ready to die, Darkblade?”
Vaelin noted the way Mustor’s sword-tip trembled, the moist redness of his eyes and the hard clench of his jaw. “Are you ready to kill me?”
“ I will do what I must.” His voice was grating now, forced out through clenched teeth. His whole body appeared to tremble, his chest heaving, seeming to Vaelin like a man at war with himself. The sword tip wavered but did not move, neither forward nor back.
“ Forgive me, my lord,” he said. “But I doubt you have any killing left in you.”
“ Just one more,” Mustor whispered. “Just one more, He told me. Then at last I could rest. The Eternal Fields would finally be opened to me where I was denied before.”
From beyond the door came the first sounds of battle, many voices raised in alarm soon drowned in the clatter of iron-shod hooves and the hard ring of clashing steel.
“ What?” Mustor seemed bewildered, his gaze flicking continually between Vaelin and the door. “What is this? Do you seek to distract me with some Dark illusion?”
Vaelin shook his head. “My men are storming the keep.”
“ Your men?” His face took on an expression of deep confusion. “But you came alone. He said you would come alone.” His sword fell to his side as he stumbled back a few steps, his gaze distant, unfocused. “He said you would come alone…”
Kill him now! A voice shouted in Vaelin’s mind, a voice he had thought lost in the Martishe, the voice that had endlessly mocked his preparations for Al Hestian’s murder. He’s within reach, take his sword away and break his neck!
The voice was right, it would be an easy kill. Whatever madness or disturbance clouded Mustor’s thoughts had left him defenceless. But the blood-song’s tune was unchanged… And his words raised so many questions.
“ You have been deceived, my lord,” Vaelin told Mustor softly. “Whatever voice speaks in your mind has played you false. I came here with a full regiment of foot and a company of mounted brothers. And I doubt my death, or any death, would buy you a place in the Beyond.”
Mustor staggered, almost falling to the floor. He froze, only for a moment, but it was a moment of complete stillness, standing as if carved from ice. When he moved again the depth of confusion marring his features had vanished, replaced by the face of a man in full possession of his faculties, one eyebrow raised in amused consternation, but the eyes cold with hatred. A voice Vaelin had heard before issued from Mustor’s lips in a tone of calm certainty. “You do continue to surprise me, brother. But this ends nothing. ”
Then it was gone, Mustor’s face once again the mask of confusion from a second before. It was clear to Vaelin that Mustor had no knowledge of what had just transpired. Something lives in his mind, he realised. Something that can speak with his voice. And he doesn’t know.
“ Hentes Mustor,” he said. “You are called by the King’s word to answer charges of treason and murder.” He held out his hand. “Your sword, my lord.”
Mustor looked down at the sword in his hand, turning the blade so it gleamed in the torch light. “I washed it and washed it. Ground the blade on the stone for hours. But I can still see it, the blood…”
“ Your sword, my lord,” Vaelin repeated, stepping closer, hand outstretched.
“ Yes…” Mustor said faintly. “Yes. Best if you take it…” He reversed his hold on the hilt and lifted the sword towards Vaelin’s hand.
There was a sound like the beating of a hawk’s wing, a soft rush of air on Vaelin’s cheek and a blur of spinning steel. The blood-song roared, full of wrong and warning, making him stagger with the force of it. He found himself instinctively reaching for the empty scabbard on his back and felt and instant of complete and utter helplessness as Hentes Mustor took the axe full in the chest. The impact lifted him off his feet, laying him arms outstretched on the chamber floor.
“ Got the bastard!” Barkus exclaimed, advancing from the shadows. “A fine throw, if I say so-”
Vaelin’s blow caught him on the jaw, spinning him to the floor. “He was giving up!” Anger boiled in him, stoked by the blood-song, making his hands itch for his weapons. “He was surrendering, you stupid bloody oaf!”
“ Thought-” Barkus coughed red spit on the floor. “Thought he was going to kill you… Had a sword, you didn’t… Saw the sister lying there. I didn’t know.” He seemed more bewildered than angry.
The certain, awful truth that Vaelin had been entirely willing to kill Barkus in that moment shocked the anger from him. He reached down, offering his hand. “Here.”
Barkus stared up at him for a moment, a red swelling already forming on his jawline. “That really hurt, you know.”
“ I’m sorry.”
Barkus took his hand, hauling himself upright. Vaelin looked over at Mustor’s body and the dark pool now spreading out from it. “See to our sister,” he told Barkus, moving to the body, Barkus’s hateful axe still buried in his chest. Is this why I couldn’t touch it? Did the song know this is what it would be used for?
He had hoped there would be some vestige of life lingering in Mustor’s breast, enough breath to impart a final answer to the mystery of his murderous and deceitful god. But there was no light in Mustor’s eyes, no movement in his slack features. Barkus’s axe had done its work all too well.
He knelt next to the body recalling the man’s fevered words: the Eternal Fields would finally be opened to me where I was denied before. He laid his hand on Mustor’s chest, reciting softly, “What is death? Death is but a gateway to the Beyond. It is both ending and beginning. Fear it and welcome it.”
“ I hardly think that’s appropriate.” Sentes Mustor, undisputed Fief Lord of Cumbrael, was looking down at his brother’s body with a mixture of anger and distaste. A naked, untarnished sword dangled from his hand and his chest heaved with unaccustomed exertion. Vaelin was impressed he had made his way here so quickly, apparently by failing to trouble himself with any part of the battle. “He would want the Prayer of Leaving from the Tenth Book,” Lord Mustor said. “The words of World Father…”
“ A god is a lie,” Vaelin quoted harshly. He rose, offering the Fief Lord the most cursory of bows. “I think your brother knew that.”
“ How many?”
“ Eighty-nine in all.” Caenis nodded at the bodies laid out in the courtyard below. “No quarter asked and none given. Just like the Martishe.” He turned back to Vaelin, his expression sombre. “We lost nine men. Another ten injured. Sister Gilma’s seeing to them.”
“ Impressive,” Prince Malcius commented. He had his fur trimmed cloak tight about his shoulders, his red hair fluttered in the chill wind sweeping the battlements. “To lose so few against so many.”
“ Between our pole-axes and Brother Nortah’s archers on the walls…” Caenis shrugged. “They had little chance, Highness.”
“ Does the Fief Lord have any instructions regarding the Cumbraelin dead?” Vaelin asked the prince. Lord Mustor had been notably absent since the conclusion of the battle, apparently busying himself with a close inspection of the keep’s wine cellar.
“ Burn them or throw them from the walls. I doubt he’s sober enough to care much either way.” There was a hard edge to the prince’s voice this morning. Vaelin knew he had been at the forefront of the charge through the gate, Alucius Al Hestian close behind him. There had been a brief but frenzied defence of the courtyard by twenty or so of the usurper’s followers, Alucius tumbling from his horse and disappearing under the crush. After the battle he was pulled from beneath a pile of bodies, alive but unconscious, his short sword dark with dried blood and a large lump on his head. He was in Sister Gilma’s care now and still hadn’t woken.
Make him play with a sword for ten days and lie to him that he’s a warrior, Vaelin thought heavily. Better if I’d tied him to his saddle on the first day and set the horse on the road back to the city. Vaelin pushed the guilt away and turned to Caenis.
“ Do you know anything about how the Cumbraelins treat their dead?”
“ Burial, usually. Sinners are dismembered and left in the open to rot.”
“ Sounds fair,” Prince Malcius grunted.
“ Form a party,” Vaelin told Caenis. “Cart them to the base of the mountain and have them buried. The map shows a village five miles to the south of the pass. Send a rider for the local priest. He can say the appropriate words.”
Caenis cast an uncertain glance at the prince. “The usurper too?”
“ Him too.”
“ The men won’t like it…”
“ I could give a dog’s fart for what they like!” Vaelin flushed, fighting down the anger he knew came from his guilt over Alucius. “Ask for volunteers,” he told Caenis with a sigh. “Double rum ration and a silver for the first twenty to step forward.” He bowed to Prince Malcius. “With your permission, Highness. I have other business…”
“ You dispatched your best riders I take it?” the prince asked.
“ Brother Nortah and Brother Dentos. With a fair wind the King’s command will be in the Battle Lord’s hands within two days.”
“ Good. I should hate for all of this to be have been for nothing.”
Vaelin thought of Alucius’s earnest face, red from exertion after another clumsy hour attempting to master the blade. “And I Highness.”
His skin was pallid and clammy to the touch, black hair clinging to his sweat-damp scalp. The regular, untroubled rise and fall of his chest did nothing to assuage Vaelin’s guilt.
“ He will be well again soon enough.” Sister Sherin placed a hand on Alucius’s forehead. “The fever broke quickly, the lump on his head is already diminished and see.” She gestured at his closed eyes and Vaelin saw the impression of his pupils moving beneath the lids.
“ What does it mean?”
“ He’s dreaming, so his brain is likely undamaged. He’ll wake in a few hours, feeling awful. But he will wake.” She met his eyes, her smile bright and warm. “It’s very good to see you again, Vaelin.”
“ And you, sister.”
“ It seems ever your curse to be my rescuer.”
“ If not for me you would never have been in danger.” He glanced around the meal hall Sister Gilma had converted to a temporary hospital. She was by the fireplace laughing heartily at Janril Norin, the one-time apprentice minstrel, stitching a wound on his arm as he regaled her with one of his more ribald pieces of doggerel.
“ Can we talk?” Vaelin asked Sherin. “I would know more of your time as a captive.”
Her smile faded a little, but she nodded. “Of course.”
He led her to the battlements, away from curious ears. In the courtyard below men were busy loading the Cumbraelin bodies onto carts, exchanging forced but lively humour amidst the drying blood and stiffening limbs. From the uncertain gait of some he surmised Caenis had been somewhat free with the extra rum ration already.
“ You’re burying them?” Sherin asked. He was surprised at the absence of shock or disgust in her voice but realised life as a healer made her no stranger to the sight of death.
“ It seemed right.”
“ I doubt even their own people would do that. They are sinners against their god, are they not?”
“ They didn’t think so.” He shrugged. “Besides, it’s not for them. News of what happened here will spread across the fief. Many Cumbraelin fanatics will be quick to call it a massacre. If it becomes known that we showed respect for their customs in caring for the dead it may dull the hatred they wish to stir.”
“ You almost sound like an Aspect.” Her smile was so bright, so open, stirring an old, familiar ache in his chest. She was different; the guarded, severe girl he had met near five years ago was now a confident young woman. But the core of her remained, he had seen it the way she laid her hand on Alucius’s forehead and her frantic pleading behind the gag when she thought he was giving up his life for her. Compassion, it burned in her.
“ We always seem to be at different ends of the Realm,” she went on. “I had the fortune to meet Princess Lyrna last year. She said you were friends, I asked her to send my regards.”
Friends. The woman lies like others breath. “She did that.” It was clear that she didn’t know, Aspect Elera had never told her why they were always so far apart. Abruptly he decided she would never know.
“ Did he hurt you?” he asked. “Mustor. Did he…?”
“ A bruise here and there when I was captured.” She showed him the marks of the shackles on her wrists. “But otherwise I am unharmed.”
“ When did he take you?”
“ Seven, eight weeks ago. Maybe longer. I’ve lost track of time within the walls of this keep. I had finally been called back to the Order House from Warnsclave, looking forward to taking up my old post but Aspect Elera put me to work on researching new curatives. It’s a deadly dull task, Vaelin. Endless grinding of herbs and mixing concoctions, most of which smell quite appallingly. I even complained to the Aspect but she told me I needed to gain a broader grasp of the workings of the Order. In any case I was actually glad when a messenger arrived from my former mission with word of an outbreak of the Red Hand. I had been working on a compound which may offer some hope of a cure, or at least relief from the symptoms. So the local master sent for me.”
The Red Hand. The plague that had swept through the four fiefs before the king forged the Realm, claiming the lives of thousands in the two hellish years of its reign. No family had escaped untouched and no other sickness was more feared. But the sickness had not been seen in the Realm for nearly fifty years.
“ It was a trap,” he said.
She nodded. “I went alone for fear the sickness had taken hold. But there was no sickness, only death. The mission was quiet, empty I thought. Inside there were only corpses, but not taken by the Red Hand. Hacked and slashed, even the sick in their beds. Mustor’s followers were waiting, and they had spared no one. I tried to run but they caught me of course. I was shackled and taken here.”
“ I’m sorry.”
“ There is no blame for you in this. It would hurt me to think that you thought so.”
Their eyes met again and the ache in his chest lurched once more. “Did Mustor say anything to you? Anything that might explain his actions?”
“ He would come to my cell most days. At first he seemed concerned for my welfare, making sure I had sufficient food and water, even bringing me books and parchment when I asked. But always he would talk, as if driven to it, but his words rarely made sense. He rambled on about his god, quoting whole passages from the ten books the Cumbraelins revere so much. I thought at first he was trying to convert me but I came to realise that he wasn’t really talking to me, he cared nothing for my opinion. He merely needed to speak words he couldn’t speak to his followers.”
“ What words?”
“ Words of doubt. Hentes Mustor doubted his god. Not its existence but its reasoning, its intention. I didn’t know then that he had murdered his father, apparently at his god’s behest. Perhaps the guilt had driven him mad. I told him as much. I told him if he thought he could use me to kill you then he was truly mad. I told him you would kill him in an instant. It appears I was wrong.” She looked at him intently. “ Was he mad, Vaelin? Is that what drove him? Or was it… something else? I sense you know more than you tell.”
He wanted to tell her, the compulsion burned in his breast, the need to share it all with someone. The wolf in the Urlish and the Martishe, his meeting with Nersus Sil Nin, the one who waits, and the voice, the same voice he had heard from the lips of two dead men. But something held it back. It wasn’t the blood-song this time, it was something more easily understood. Such knowledge is dangerous. And she has seen enough danger on my account.
“ I am but a brother with a sword, sister,” he told her. “As the years pass I realise I know very little.”
“ You knew enough to save my life. You knew Mustor had no more stomach for killing. I was so sure you would cut him down when you saw he had me… I was proud of you, proud you didn’t. Mad or not, murderer or not, I could sense no evil in him. Only grief, and guilt.”
From below came the sound of a commotion. Vaelin glanced down to see Fief Lord Mustor upbraiding Caenis, the bottle in his hand sloshing wine onto the cobbled courtyard. The Fief Lord was dishevelled, unshaven and, judging from the slur of his words, considerably more drunk than usual. “Let them rot! You hear me, brother! Sinnersh are not buried in Cumbrael, oh no! Hack off their heads and leave them for the crowsh-” He staggered onto a patch of still slick blood and slipped heavily to the cobbles, dousing himself in wine. He swore extravagantly, slapping Caenis’s helping hands away. “Let those sinners rot, I say! This is my keep. Prince Malsiush? Lord Vaelin? This is my keep!”
“ Who is that man?” Sherin asked. “He seems… troubled.”
“ The Cumbraelins’ rightful Fief Lord, Faith help them.” He gave her a smile of apology. “I should go. My regiment will remain here awaiting orders from the king. I’ll have Brother Commander Makril provide an escort to take you back to your Order.”
“ I would prefer to wait here for a while. I think Sister Gilma would be glad of the help. Besides, we’ve barely had time to exchange news. I have much to share.”
The same open smile, the same ache in his chest. Send her away, his inner voice commanded. Only pain can result if you keep her here.
“ Lord Vaelin!” Fief Lord Mustor’s cry dragged his attention back to the courtyard. “Where are you? Shtop these men!”
“ I have much to share also,” he said before turning away.
At first Fief Lord Mustor raged at Vaelin’s refusal to stop the burial of the bodies, loudly restating his ownership of the keep and the primacy of his authority in his own lands. When Vaelin replied simply that he was a servant of the Faith and therefore not bound the word of a Fief Lord, Mustor’s mood degenerated into a baleful sulk. After his appeals to Prince Malcius earned only a stern look of disapproval he took himself off to his dead brother’s quarters where he had amassed a large proportion of the keep’s wine cellar.
They remained at the High Keep for another eight days, anxiously awaiting word of the war’s end. Vaelin occupied the men with constant training and patrols into the mountains. There was little grumbling, morale was high, boosted by triumph and the shared spoils of the keep and the dead which, though meagre, fulfilled a basic soldierly desire for loot. “Give ‘em victory, gold in their pockets and a woman every now and again,” Sergeant Krelnik told Vaelin one evening, “and they’ll follow you forever.”
As Sister Sherin had promised Alucius Al Hestian recovered quickly, waking on the third day and passing the basic tests that showed his brain was not permanently damaged, although he could remember nothing of the battle or how he came by his wound.
“ So he’s dead?” he asked Vaelin. They were in the courtyard, watching the men at evening drill. “The Usurper.”
“ Yes.”
“ Do you think he gave Black Arrow the letters of free passage?”
“ I can’t see how else they could have fallen into his hands. It seems the old Fief Lord went to great lengths to protect his son.”
Alucius wrapped his cloak tightly around his shoulders, his hollowed eyes making him seem an old man peering out from behind a young man’s face. “All of this blood spilt over a couple of letters.” He shook his head. “Linden would have wept to see it.” He reached inside his cloak and unhitched Vaelin’s short sword from his belt. “Here,” he said, offering the hilt. “I won’t need this anymore.”
“ Keep it. A gift from me. You should have a souvenir of your time as a soldier.”
“ I can’t. The King gave you this…”
“ And now I’m giving it to you”
“ I don’t… It shouldn’t be given to one such as I.”
Seeing the way the boy gripped the sword-hilt, the tremble of his fingers, Vaelin recalled the red slick that covered the blade when he had been pulled from beneath the pile of corpses near the gate. The face of battle is always most ugly when seen for the first time. “Who better to give it to?” he said, putting his hand over the hilt, gently pushing it away. “Put it on your wall when you get home. Leave it there. I will not take it back.”
The boy seemed about to say more but restrained himself, returning the sword to his belt. “As you wish, my lord.”
“ Will you write about this? Is it worth a poem, do you think?”
“ It’s worth a hundred, I’m sure, but I doubt I’ll write any of them. Since my awakening, words don’t seem to come to me as they once did. I’ve tried, I sit with pen and parchment but nothing comes.”
“ It takes a while for a man to return to himself after a wound. Rest and eat well. I’m sure your talent will return.”
“ I hope so.” The boy gave a faint smile. “Perhaps I’ll write to Lyrna. I’m sure I can find some words for her.”
Vaelin, who had plenty of words of his own for the princess, nodded and turned back to the drill, venting his sudden anger at a man who held his pole-axe too high in the defensive formation. “Lower it, lackwit! How are you supposed to gut a horse with your weapon stuck up in the air? Sergeant, an extra hour’s drill for this man.”
Each evening was spent in Sherin’s company. They would sit in the lord’s chamber exchanging stories about their experiences over the last few years. He discovered she had travelled far more widely than he, visiting Fifth Order missions in all four fiefs of the Realm, even taking a ship to the enclave in the Northern Reaches where Tower Lord Vanos Al Myrna ruled in the King’s name.
“ A lively place, despite the cold,” she told him. “And home to so many different people. Most of the farming folk are in fact exiles from the southern Alpiran Empire. Tall, handsome people with black skin. Apparently they angered the emperor and had to take ship or face extermination, fetching up in the Northern Reaches more than fifty years hence. Most of the Tower Lord’s Guard is made up of exiles, they have a fearsome reputation.”
“ I met the Tower Lord once, and his daughter. I don’t think she liked me much.”
“ The famous Lonak foundling? She was absent when I visited, away in the forest with the Seordah. They seem to revere her and her father greatly. Something to do with the great battle against the Ice Horde.”
He told her of his months in the Martishe, sharing the painful memory of Al Hestian’s passing, feeling like a coward and a liar for leaving out his murderous scheming.
“ It was a mercy, Vaelin,” she said, taking his hand, reading the guilt in his face. “Leaving him to suffer would have been wrong, against the Faith.”
“ I have done much in the name of the Faith.” He looked at the scarred flesh of his hand next to the pale smoothness of her own. Killer’s hands, healer’s hands. Faith, why does she feel so warm?
“ All any of us can ask of ourselves is have we done wrong in the name of the Faith,” Sherin said. “Have you Vaelin?”
“ I’ve killed men, men I didn’t know. Some were criminals, some assassins, scum really. But some, like the deluded fanatics who dwelt here, were men who simply followed another belief. Men who may have been my friends if we’d met in a different time or place.”
“ The men who dwelt here were murderers. They slaughtered an entire mission of my Order merely to take me captive. Could you ever do the same?”
She doesn’t see it, he realised. Doesn’t see the killer in me. “No,” he said, for some reason again feeling like a liar. “No. I couldn’t.”
As the days passed he began to indulge in the dream that the King and the Order might allow them to remain here, a permanent garrison in Cumbraelin lands. He would be master of the keep, a reminder to any Cumbraelin fanatics of the price of rebellion. Sherin could establish a mission to administer to the sick in this remote and bitter land and they could serve the Faith and the Realm in happy isolation for years. Although he recognised its impossibility the dream lingered in his mind, a bright and enticing hope that grew with every deluded imagining. Caenis would take over the keep’s library, establish a school for local children, teaching them letters and the truth of the Faith. Barkus would occupy the smithy, Nortah the stables, Dentos would become Huntmaster. He would bring Scratch and Frentis from the Order House to join them. He knew it was a delusion, a lie he told himself after every evening spent in Sherin’s company. Because he didn’t want it to end, because he wanted the peace he felt in her presence to last for as long as he could make it. He even began to compose a formal proposal to Aspect Arlyn in his head, rephrasing it over and over but putting off the moment when he would ask Caenis to pen it for him. Speaking it aloud would reveal the absurdity of it, and he preferred the dream.
The scale of his delusion became apparent on the morning of the ninth day. He had woken early, briefly inspected the guard on the gate and was taking a tour of the sentries on the battlements before going to find some breakfast. The sentries were chilled but cheerful enough, making him suspect they had been indulging in a tot or two of Brother’s Friend whilst on duty. He paused for a moment before descending to the courtyard, taking in the brooding majesty of the view. A forbidding place to serve out the rest of your days. But quiet, blessedly quiet.
For years to come he would remember it clearly, the brightness of the morning sun shimmering blue-silver on the fresh snowfall that covered the surrounding mountain tops, the clear blue of the sky, the sharp wind on his face. He never forgot it, the moment before everything changed.
He was about to turn away when his gaze was drawn to the long narrow road ascending from the valley floor: a rider, making haste. Even from this distance he could see the bright plume of the horse’s breath as it laboured up the road at the gallop. Dentos, he realised as the rider drew nearer. Dentos without Nortah.
Dentos’s face was grey with fatigue as he dismounted in the courtyard, a livid bruise discolouring his cheek. “Brother,” he greeted Vaelin in a voice heavy with sorrow and exhaustion. “I must talk to you.” He staggered a little and Vaelin reached out to steady him.
“ What it is?” Vaelin demanded. “Where’s Nortah?”
Dentos gave an entirely humourless grin. “Many miles away I reckon.” His face clouded and he looked down, as if fearing to meet Vaelin’s eye. “Our brother tried to kill the Battle Lord. He’s a fugitive with half the Realm Guard on his tail.”
“ There was a battle,” Dentos said, a cup of brandy-laced warm milk clutched in his hands as he sat by the fire in the meal hall. Vaelin had called Barkus and Caenis to hear his story along with Prince Malcius and Sister Sherin who had applied a balm to his bruise. “The Cumbraelins had gotten together about five thousand men to oppose the Realm Guard at Greenwater Ford. Not much’ve a force to stand against so many but I guess they were trying to buy time for their city to muster its defences. Could’ve cut down many guardsmen as they forded the river but the Battle Lord was too wily for ’em. Drew up all his cavalry on the south bank to fix their sight and sent half his infantry downstream to ford in deep water in the early hours of the morning, lost fifty men to the current doing it but they got across. Fell on the Cumbraelin right flank whilst they were still unwrapping their arrows. It was all but over by the time me and Nortah got there, place looked like a charnel house, the river was red with it.”
Dentos paused to sip some milk, his face more sombre than Vaelin had ever seen it. “They’d captured a few hundred in the final rout,” he went on. “We found the Battle Lord reading sentence of death over them. Don’t think he was pleased to hear our news.”
“ You gave him the King’s signed order?” Prince Malcius asked.
“ That we did, Highness. He looked at the seal then called us into his tent. When he read it he wanted to know if we’d seen the usurper’s body ourselves, was his death certain and such. Nortah assured him it was but the Battle Lord cut him off. ‘The words of a traitor’s son mean no more than pig shit to me,’ he said.”
“ Nortah tried to kill him for that?” Barkus asked.
Dentos shook his head. “Nortah was angry right enough, looked ready to kill the bastard right there, but he didn’t. Just gritted his teeth and said ‘I’m no-one’s son, my lord. The King’s Word is given to you that this war is over. Will you abide by it?’” Dentos fell silent, his eyes distant.
“ Brother?” Caenis prompted. “What is it?”
“ The Battle Lord said he needed no advice in how to serve the King. Before he marched the Realm Guard home across this Faithless land he had justice to administer to those who had risen in arms against the crown.”
“ He meant to continue with the execution of the prisoners,” Vaelin said. He recalled Nortah after their return from the Martishe, the weary despair in his eyes as he drank to dull the pain in his heart. We’ll bring the Faith to them all, the Denier bastards.
“ Yeh,” Dentos sighed. “Nortah told him he couldn’t. Told him it was against the King’s word. The Battle Lord laughed and said the King’s message said nothing about how best to deal with captured Denier scum. Told Nortah to take himself off or he’d send him to the Beyond along with his traitor father, brother or not.”
Vaelin closed his eyes, forcing himself to ask. “How badly was the Battle Lord injured?”
“ Well,” said Dentos. “He’ll have to wipe his arse with his left hand from now on.”
“ Faith!” breathed Caenis.
“ Shit!” said Barkus.
“ Why didn’t he finish him?” Vaelin asked.
“ Stopped him, didn’t I?” Dentos replied. “Managed to block his next swing. I was pleading with him, begging him to give up his sword. I don’t think he even heard me. Nortah was out of his mind, I could see it in his eyes, like a dog gone rabid, desperate to get at the Battle Lord. That bugger was on his knees, just staring at the stump where his hand used to be, watching the blood spurt. Nortah and me fought.” He rubbed at the bruise on his cheek. “I lost. Lucky for the Battle Lord his guards came in to see about the ruckus. Nortah killed two and wounded the others. More came running. He killed a couple more and ran for his horse. Managed to ride through the whole of the Realm Guard encampment, after all who’d think a brother had just hacked off the Battle Lord’s hand? I snuck off in the confusion. Didn’t think I’d be too popular when the dust settled. Spent a day or so hiding in woodland then struck out for the keep. I heard rumours on the road about the mad brother, how half the Realm Guard was hunting him. Last seen heading west, so they said.”
“ Which means he’ll really be heading anywhere else,” Barkus said. “They’ll never catch him.”
“ This is a bad business, brother,” Prince Malcius said to Vaelin, his face grave. “The Order affords great protection to its brothers but this…” He shook his head. “The King will have no choice but to issue a death warrant.”
“ Then let’s hope our brother finds his way quickly to safer lands,” Caenis said. “He’s possibly the finest rider in the Order, and has great skill in the wild. He won’t be easily caught by the Realm Guard…”
“ He won’t be caught by the Realm Guard at all,” Vaelin said. He went to the table where his sword rested and buckled it on quickly, tugging the straps tight before pulling his cloak over his shoulders. He could feel Sherin’s eyes following him but found himself unable to look at her. “Brother Caenis, the regiment is yours. You will send a messenger to Aspect Arlyn informing him I am in pursuit of Brother Nortah and will bring him to justice. The regiment will wait here for orders from the King.”
“ You’re going after him?” Barkus seemed astonished. “You heard the prince. If you bring him back they’ll hang him. He’s our brother…”
“ He’s a fugitive from the King’s justice and a disgrace to the Order. And I doubt he’ll give me the chance to bring him back.” He forced himself to look at Sherin, searching for some words of farewell but nothing came. Her eyes were bright and he could tell she was close to tears. I’m sorry, he wanted to say, but couldn’t, the weight of what he had to do pressed down too heavily.
“ What makes you think you could hunt him down anyway?” Barkus demanded. “He’s a better rider than you by far, better in the wild too.”
He doesn’t have a blood-song to guide him. It had begun as soon as Dentos began his story, a flat tone flaring whenever Vaelin’s thoughts turned to the north. “I’ll find him.”
He turned and bowed to Prince Malcius. “By your leave, Highness.”
“ You’re not going alone?” the Prince asked.
“ I’m afraid I must insist on it.” He looked in turn at his brothers. Barkus angry, Caenis confused, Dentos sorrowful, and wondered if they would ever forgive him. “Take care of the men,” he said and walked from the chamber.