The Ember Blade

by Chris Wooding

  He took a shuddering breath. Aren was shocked to see how his tale wracked him. He survived. That’s what’s killing him. That’s why he couldn’t speak of my father. Because if I knew the truth of that, he’d have to tell me all of this. That he was a Dawnwarden. That he failed in his duty. That he lived while the others died.

  When Garric had steadied himself, he spoke again. ‘I woke in the care of a druidess. She found me, healed me, brought me back from the brink. She said the Aspects still had a task for me, and they were not willing to let me go just yet. When I was healed, she sent me back into the world again.’ His troubled brow eased as he remembered her. ‘Her name was Agalie-Sings-The-Dark.’

  He lowered his head then, and shadow covered his face. ‘Your father changed his name and hid, took on a new life paid for with Ossian freedom and Krodan riches. No doubt he heard that I’d survived, and knew I’d swear to kill him, but I never found him and he’d put the Ember Blade far beyond my reach. I did what I could to fight for Ossia, as the Dawnwardens’ oath compelled me. Then I got word that the Ember Blade was coming back and was to be placed in a Krodan hand. That set me on the course that brought us both here.’

  He raised his head and squared his shoulders, and Aren thought he looked taller somehow.

  ‘So now you know, Aren. Who I am, and who your father was.’

  So now I know. The man he’d loved and worshipped was also a cut-throat and a coward, who’d given up Ossia’s greatest treasure and tried to murder his best friend. It sounded impossible, and yet there was no lie in Garric’s voice, and it made sense of everything where there had been no sense before.

  Answers will come in their own time, Vika had told him once, and when they do, you may wish you’d never asked.

  ‘You see now why I kept it from you?’ Garric asked.

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘And why you despise me. You see my father in me.’

  ‘More than you know,’ said Garric. ‘The good and the bad. For I loved him well, before I hated him utterly.’

  ‘I was never highborn,’ Aren said. His mouth tasted like ashes. ‘All I had was given me by the Krodans, for what my father did to you …’ He looked up at Garric with amazement dawning on his face. ‘And yet after all that you still came to my aid when I was in danger.’

  ‘I swore an oath. I keep my promises.’

  As simple as that. As if it hadn’t been torment.

  ‘And … the other Dawnwardens? Did any of the others …?’

  ‘I am the last of them,’ he said. ‘For more than a thousand years they have guarded Ossia and kept watch over the Ember Blade, but they will die with me. Perhaps it is for the best. Too long the people of this land have relied on others to fight their battles. They wait for heroes to save them, when they ought to be saving themselves.’

  ‘No!’ Aren cried, louder than he’d intended. Garric made an irate gesture to hush him. ‘No,’ Aren said again, more quietly but with no less force. ‘This land needs heroes. It took Jessa Wolf’s-Heart to lead the uprising against the urds. Our people have the will to fight, I know they do, but they need someone to show them how! If we had the Ember Blade … if you had it …’

  Aren trailed off as he realised what he was saying. Garric’s eyes were dark beneath his brows, his gaze penetrating.

  ‘Aye, well,’ he said at length. ‘There’s a long road to if, and we still have business tonight. Enough talk. Yarin’s house is just down the way.’

  With one last glance at the pile of bodies, Garric slipped out of the square and down another alleyway. Aren almost reached out to stop him, but he hesitated and the chance was gone. He followed instead, plunging back into the tight brick passageways, where Tantera’s nightmarish light only penetrated at slanted angles. Garric was moving at speed now and Aren could barely keep up.

  Stop him. Take it back. Tell him.

  But he couldn’t. To do so would cost him Cade. Even his best friend would shun him when he knew what he’d done. Aren would be cast out at the very least, if he wasn’t killed by Garric in his rage. He’d lose it all.

  All he had to do was nothing. So much easier to do nothing than something. And then he and Cade would be free, and all would be as it had been. Except that Garric would be caught and tortured and killed. The last Dawnwarden of Ossia, Vika’s champion, shown to her in a vision by the servants of the Aspects themselves.

  Garric was a hero. Maybe Ossia’s only hero. Blinded by his anger and resentment, he hadn’t seen it till now.

  So what did that make Aren?

  ‘Down this way,’ said Garric, disappearing into a gap between buildings. He paused outside a narrow wooden door, hardly visible in one of the walls. ‘That’s Yarin’s place.’

  Aren’s chest tightened. There was no more time to deliberate. The Iron Hand were beyond that door. Garric had survived one act of treachery, but he wouldn’t survive this one. It would take two generations of betrayal to lay him low.

  Like father, like son.

  Garric put his hand to the door.

  Stop him!

  His throat had closed up. He couldn’t bring the words of warning to his mouth, couldn’t condemn himself to that disgrace, that pain.

  Quietly, Garric turned the handle. The door wasn’t locked.

  Stop him!

  He dared not. It would mean the ruin of him.

  Stop him!

  ‘Are you ready?’ Garric asked, and he pushed the door.

  Aren’s hand clamped around his forearm. The door stopped moving, a finger’s width from the jamb. Aren was white-faced and sweating, but his eyes were steely.

  ‘Close the door,’ he whispered.

  Slowly Garric closed the door, slowly released the handle. Never once did he break Aren’s gaze. When he spoke, his voice was a wolf’s growl. ‘What’s in there, boy?’

  Aren let him go and swallowed down the urge to be sick. ‘Krodans,’ he said. It was all he could manage.

  Garric loomed over him in the dark, filling the passageway. His eyes were cold as coal in the red shadow, his hand on the hilt of his dagger. ‘You made a deal,’ he said.

  It took every ounce of Aren’s willpower not to turn and run for his life. ‘They caught me,’ he said. ‘I had to … I did it for Cade, I … I didn’t want anyone else to be hurt …’ But they were weak excuses, and he knew it. He lowered his gaze. ‘I made a deal.’

  ‘Small wonder you were so eager to come with me tonight. Fool that I am, I told you exactly where we were going. Were I to step through that door, I’d find a dozen Iron Guardsmen with crossbows ready, is that it?’

  ‘I … I suppose …’

  ‘Then perhaps they’ll find you a better target!’ Garric snarled. With that, he seized Aren by the front of his jacket, pulled open the door and shoved him into the dark room beyond.

  Aren stumbled inside with a shocked cry, his arms reflexively thrown up in front of his face, instincts screaming in expectation of the volley of bolts punching into his torso. But he only staggered to a halt, and nothing struck him. When he lowered his arms, the room was empty but for a few pieces of furniture tipped on their sides against the wall. He stared in bewilderment.

  ‘In thirty years I’ve seen a lot of traitors and turncoats, boy,’ said Garric from the doorway. ‘You’re not half as subtle as you think.’

  ‘You knew?’ Aren gasped.

  ‘Suspected. Enough not to credit your sudden desire for atonement this evening. I thought it wise to give you a false address for Yarin’s place. Had you memorised the map as I told you, you’d have known we were nowhere near the spot I pointed to.’

  He stepped into the room, pulling his dagger from its sheath, and closed the door behind him. ‘It’s just you and me now. I knew you’d show your true colours sooner or later, Aren son of Eckard.’

  Aren’s eyes went to the blade in Garric’s hand. Every fibre of his body urged him to flee or draw steel to defend himself. He did neither. He’d dreamed of being a man of honour, but he’d shamed himsel
f instead. For all his airs, he was a wretch lower than Grub. The least he could do was face his end like a man. Wild with fear though he was, he lifted his chin and put his arms down by his sides.

  Garric approached until they were face to face, the dagger point between them. ‘Well,’ said Garric. ‘There’s courage in you after all.’

  ‘I … I was wrong,’ said Aren. He was trying not to cry, but tears gathered anyway: the final humiliation. ‘As my father was wrong before me. I didn’t understand. Please keep Cade safe. He had no part in this.’

  A handful of heartbeats passed, each one an agony, until Aren could have screamed for the thrust to end it. Then Garric seized his left hand and drew the blade across it in one quick, searing stroke.

  Aren hissed with pain, staring in confusion as a line of blood welled in his palm. Garric slowly, deliberately drew the dagger across his own left palm, then sheathed it.

  ‘In thirty years I’ve seen a lot of traitors and turncoats,’ Garric said again. ‘And I’ve seen a lot of people make mistakes, and make up for them. You were tempted, but at the last you stayed strong. You could’ve let me step through that door, but you didn’t. That’s who you are, Aren. You’re a better man than your father was. And I reckon you won’t make a mistake like that again.’

  He clapped his bloodied hand into Aren’s, and gripped it there.

  ‘Swear to me!’ he said fiercely. ‘Swear you’ll fight for Ossia for the rest of your days, that you’ll never rest till this land is free. Swear, as I give your life back to you, that you will give it for Ossia when the time comes! Swear!’

  Tears rolled down Aren’s cheeks. At last he recognised the purpose he was meant for. The pain of his stinging hand was nothing in the white heat of that. ‘I swear,’ he whispered. ‘I swear it!’

  Garric clasped his other hand round the nape of Aren’s neck and pulled him into a rough embrace. Aren clutched him and sobbed, and Garric held him like a father as all the spite and hate and anger came tumbling out of him, carried on scalding tears.

  When his crying had calmed, he felt emptied and pathetic, raw and new.

  ‘Reckon the others don’t need to hear about any of this, do you?’ Garric said. ‘Wouldn’t serve our cause any.’

  Aren nodded mutely. Garric let him go and he stepped away, wiping his nose with the back of his hand.

  ‘Well, then,’ said Garric, gruff again. ‘Let’s get to it.’

  Aren followed him up a creaking set of stairs, walking in a haze of unreality and disbelief. He’d believed Garric would kill him; instead he found acceptance. He understood in some dim way that Garric’s loathing of him had been waning since he beat him on the slopes of the Ostenbergs, but he’d never expected this.

  Garric had tested him. Had he failed, he would have been slain. But Garric would rather have his loyalty than his blood, and Aren was bound to the cause now, by ties which no promise from the Iron Hand could break.

  This is the man I was about to betray, he thought.

  They came to a tiny bedroom. Garric pulled aside a wooden pallet bed and searched the floor beneath. With a grunt of satisfaction, he found a loose board and lifted it. From the hole beneath he drew out a large tin, which he opened with his thumbs and looked inside. Aren saw his shoulders slacken, but whether it was relief or disappointment he couldn’t tell.

  ‘Is it there?’ Aren asked from the doorway, his voice still thick with the memory of tears.

  Garric turned to him with the face of a man who’d stumbled upon treasure beyond his wildest dreams. ‘It’s all here,’ he said. He put his hand into the tin, turning over papers. ‘Plans, schedules …’ He tugged out a ring of keys and held it up in amazement. ‘Godspit, Yarin. You did it!’

  He gathered the papers together, shut the tin and slipped it in his pack. When he got to his feet, there was fire in his eyes.

  ‘That’s the final piece, Aren! We need nothing else. Before the sun has risen thrice more, we will deal the Krodans such a blow that the bards will sing of it till the death of days! Back to the others, quickly! There are preparations to be made!’

  He strode to the doorway, where Aren was standing, and stopped before him. ‘Are you with me, Aren?’

  Aren straightened, firmed with fresh conviction. No more uncertainty, no more questioning. He knew his answer now.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m with you.’

  76

  When Aren woke, the sun was already bright beyond the curtains. He’d slept late, having gone to bed at dawn, and he lay there for a while, his eyes tracing the pattern on the curtains, thinking of nothing. His mind was at ease, more so than it had been for a very long time. Today, he knew exactly who he was.

  He turned in his bed, soft sheets rustling, and found that a cold breakfast of ham and hard-boiled eggs, pastries and fruit had been left for him on a side table. The sight of it made him ravenous, and he wolfed it down before heading to the door to seek Garric out. He had to know if the change he felt was real, if the oath he’d sworn last night meant as much to Garric as it did to him.

  He found him with Mara in her study, poring over the plans they’d obtained last night. The door was open and Aren could hear them as he approached.

  ‘Incredible,’ Mara was saying. ‘They’ve only just begun to explore what’s down there. Look, that’s where they broke through!’

  ‘It was the urds’ seat of power in the First Empire. Their greatest fortress.’

  ‘I know that, Garric,’ she said testily. ‘And the new one was built on its foundations. But urds build underground more than they do over it. I’d give anything for a map of that.’

  ‘There’s an engineer’s diagram here. Is that what you’re looking for?’

  ‘No. That’s a cave system. It comes off a mountain lake, I think. Maybe how they get their water in? But look at the mark – this must be two hundred years old! How did Yarin obtain all this?’

  ‘Perhaps one day you’ll get the chance to ask him.’

  Garric saw Aren in the doorway and beckoned him in. ‘Come and see,’ he said. ‘It’s only right, as you had a hand in finding them.’

  Aren glowed with pleasure. Where before he’d found secrecy, now he was included. He saw the slightest look of puzzlement in Mara’s eyes, but she said nothing.

  The amount of information was bewildering. He saw timetables, accounts ledgers and strange diagrams which Mara explained were floorplans. Some were original documents, some laboriously hand-copied, others little more than scrawled notes. It was a muddle to Aren, but Mara had made some sense of it. She only had to read something once to remember it verbatim, and Aren marvelled at her ability to connect the details in her mind. Having studied the papers, she knew when and where feasts were to be held, and who was attending, and what was to be served; she knew the schedules of cleaning staff, and the names of the various valets, butlers and mistresses who ran each division of the complex network of staff. Krodans were notorious organisers, and for an event as important as a royal wedding, everything had been planned out on paper far in advance.

  ‘This is where the cart will be unloaded once we enter the keep,’ said Garric, pointing to a courtyard inside the main wall. ‘The barrels of Amberlyne will be taken to a storeroom. We suspect it will be this one, near the kitchens and just below the feasting halls, where it will be convenient to serve the prince. But even with all the information we have, some things are far from certain.’

  ‘Why do you care where the wine is going? Where is the Ember Blade?’ Aren asked impatiently.

  ‘Every detail is important, Aren,’ said Mara.

  ‘I’ll slip out in servants’ livery during the unloading,’ Garric said. He pointed to a room on another map. ‘Then I’ll head to the vault, and the Ember Blade.’

  ‘So how will you get there?’ Aren asked. He didn’t fully under­stand how the floorplans fitted together, but he knew enough to realise that there were many chambers and levels between the vault and the courtyard.

 
‘That’s what we’re working out,’ said Mara. ‘Come back later, and it may be we have an answer for you.’

  Aren took the hint. His curiosity was slowing them down, and it was best not to outstay his welcome, when welcome had come so rarely till now. He thanked them both and headed downstairs, looking for Cade.

  Last night in the ghetto, Overwatchman Klyssen and his men had lain in wait for a fugitive who never arrived. At some point, Klyssen must have realised that his gamble hadn’t paid off, that the boy he’d released wasn’t going to bring him Garric. He’d have been made to look foolish in front of his men, and he’d be murderously angry.

  Aren took no satisfaction in humiliating the man. He’d made a mortal and powerful enemy last night, who’d show no more mercy or compromise to him, or to any of the others. Klyssen wouldn’t rest until he had his revenge.

  If you betray me, I will catch you, and I will take the price of your treachery out of your friend’s hide.

  There were many reasons he’d made that deal with Klyssen, but foremost among them was Cade. His desire to save their friendship, to save him, had almost caused him to make a tragic mistake.

  This time, he was determined to do it the right way.

  Aren found him out in the garden, sitting with Fen in one of its many nooks, whittling. Orica’s voice drifted up through the autumnal trees as Aren made his way towards them.

  Said the king, ‘For this heresy, I’ll see you burn.

  I say destiny’s charge is not easy to turn.’

  But the seer shook his head. ‘Sire, you have much to learn,

  For the urds said the same in their day.’

  Now the king stands at his window and watches the sea

  And he knows that his castle’s no sanctuary

  As he waits for the truth of the seer’s prophecy

  And the storm that will sweep him away.

  Occupied with their work, they didn’t see him approach. Cade made a noise of frustration as he hacked at the piece of wood in his hands; Fen looked over at it and stifled a laugh.