by Peter Fane
But they did not plan for a ritualized armistice, which was what parley was supposed to be.
They planned for battle.
Indeed, most of the discussions so far had focused on the tactics, the tricks, and the defenses that the Tarn stood ready to bring to bear should anything happen to Garen—Great Sisters forbid—as he stood before High Lord Vymon Ruge and his sons tomorrow on the Long Bridge.
And the fact that they kept saying things like that—as if a fight wasn’t imminent, as if they all didn’t want it—was the worst. Everything was prefaced with “should something go wrong . . . .” or “in the event that the terms of parley are breached . . . .” or some other such nonsense. It was as if she was listening to Dorómy’s generals talking through Garen’s little golem again—but from the other side.
There would be blood.
Everyone knew it.
And Michael practically glowed with the thought of it.
At the center of the council hall sat a massive table on which a huge map had been unrolled showing the Tarn, Tarntown, the port, the bay, the edges of the Sea of Ice, the foothills of the Rakbern Mountains, and the other environs. On top of this map rested hundreds of small flags, tokens, and counters—the indicators of various corps, regiments, and other tactical fortifications and objectives. Dozens of oil lamps lit the scene, suspended throughout the hall, mounted on wall sconces. Fires blazed in both the room’s large fireplaces.
Of course, everyone already knew where parley would take place: on top of the Great Seal, in front of the Tarn’s barbican on the opposite side of the Long Bridge, three hundred paces from the Tarn’s Great Door. You could see the Seal right there on the map, a massive Dallanar Sun in silver, embedded in the circular pavement before the barbican’s main gate. It was a sacred place, one of the most sacred on Kon, perhaps. Legend held that during the Founding it was on that very spot that the Great Sister Aaryn had accepted the final surrender of the last of the old Konungur warlords, the dread Dodrák Kelsrader, after she’d destroyed the highlander’s final company of bear riders. Supposedly, the Great Sister Aaryn herself had ordered the High Seal be created as an eternal testament to the power of the Dallanar ruling clan, as a reminder of the peaceful order the Dallanar would establish throughout the Remain. As usual, for Kyla, the ironies were profound.
In the chamber proper, Michael sat at the table’s head, his great black sword, the Vordan, sheathed and leaning against the table’s edge. On Michael’s right sat Garen, Anna, Master Zar and his little dragon, Gregory. Beside Zar sat Master Khondus and several other dragon masters who’d just come through the Gate that morning from Dávanor. On Michael’s left sat Doldon, Kate, Kyla herself, Master Falmon, Master Ness, and Colj—in a large, special-made chair. Three of Colj’s ogre lieutenants stood behind their commander, as did his son, Ponj.
The rest of the various attendees, perhaps two score in all, crowded around the table. Traditionally, only members of the high family would have had a chair at the table, but Michael had felt it important that their key allies be seated at this particular meeting—seated as if they were family. It was a calculated move, and Kyla both appreciated it and agreed with it, even if it was only for show. And it hadn’t been Michael’s idea, of course; it had been Garen’s, prompted by their earlier conversation regarding the nature of their interactions with their closest allies. “The Dark Lord of Kon” was known for his ferocity, not his subtlety. But Michael was still smart enough to take good advice when he heard it, thank the Sisters.
The seating arrangements did highlight one other thing that perhaps Michael did not intend: the notable absence of the High King and High Queen, of Grandpa and Nana.
“Where are they?” Kyla had asked Kate when she’d come into the hall, before council had begun, servants stoking the room’s big fireplaces. “I haven’t seen Nana in a week, at least. Have you seen her?”
“Not yet,” Kate had answered, then she gave her a hug. “Garen says she’s busy with some negotiation. Something about an emissary from Peléa.”
“Isn’t Peléa firmly in Dorómy’s camp? That’s Lessip’s duchy.”
“Dunno.” Kate had shrugged. “That’s what Garen told me. Never underestimate the schemes of the Silver Fox.”
“Or the Silver Vixen, apparently.”
Kate had laughed in her gentle way and had taken her hand. “Don’t worry.”
“It doesn’t feel right.” Kyla shook her head.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re planning this parley—a maneuver that Grandpa and Nana supposedly ordered—and they’re nowhere to be seen.”
“Not so strange, is it? Lots going on. Big duchy, Ky. Bigger kingdom. You know how it is. I remember times when I was younger, I wouldn’t see either of them for months. The High King gives this order.” She gestured at the parley table. “But he need not be present to know his will is done.”
But it was strange to Kyla.
More than strange.
Regardless, the fact that Kate didn’t know where Grandpa and Nana were either had made Kyla feel better, for some reason.
And then Michael and Garen had come up.
“Ladies.” Michael had inclined his head. He looked tired, even more tired than when she’d seen him earlier.
They had both bowed. Then Kate immediately asked, “Where shall I be stationed tomorrow, brother?”
Garen looked at Michael. Michael glanced at Kate and shook his head. “You may arm, of course. But you’re not to be part of my company or to leave the Tarn. You may observe from the Pinnacle with Kyla and the children, if you wish.” He’d cocked his head at Kyla. “Or from the western ramparts with Zar. I don’t want you outside these walls. Especially now.”
“‘Especially now?’ What the blazes does that mean?” Kate asked. Her dark eyes shone. Kate’s temper could run as hot as Michael’s and she wasn’t scared of a fight.
“It means that you will not fight tomorrow, sister—if we fight. That is my command. Are we clear?”
Kate frowned, then nodded—but Kyla could tell that she was having none of it. Michael felt it, too, and quite sensibly pivoted away, turning to Garen. “Has James returned?”
“No,” Garen answered.
Michael frowned. “When he’s back, we’ll need to see him. I want him to take command of our scouts, outriders, and spies in the field, personally.”
Kate laughed. “I’m stuck in here and James is sent out? How’s that work? Where is he, anyways?”
Michael ignored her. “We must find the Pretender’s Gate.”
And then, without looking at either of them, Michael had called the meeting to order.
And now they were getting yet another report from yet another intelligence officer, this time on the situation in the far northern county of Sonerdun, far north of Aaryn’s Cry, where the fighting between loyalist forces and old Konungur rebels had been particularly vicious. Kyla wasn’t sure what this had to do with tomorrow’s action, until the captain summed up his report to Michael.
“Xyo, Tuck, and Botterfeld weren’t able to disengage, my Lord. They can send limited troops within the year, but it’s a long journey to the Tarn from Sonerdun by foot. Too long, perhaps.”
“What about the reinforcements we requested last fall from Tuck’s sister, Alicia?” Michael asked. “Any news there? Those columns should’ve been here months ago.”
The officer nodded. “Yes, my Lord. They didn’t make it. Nothing left by the time they got to Aaryn’s Cry.”
Michael’s eyes shone like black jewels.
He’s totally exhausted, Kyla realized.
“The ‘Mountain King’ again?” Doldon frowned.
The intelligence officer inclined his head.
Murmurs ran through the gathering.
“Very well, Captain,” Michael said. “We thank you. Please do prepare—.”
The council hall’s door swung open without announcement. A gaunt, disheveled soldier entered, accompanied by Doj, Colj’
s largest ogre. Everyone looked up.
The soldier was a tall man, rough-shaven, and almost certainly in a state of shock. Dried blood spattered his armor—and then Kyla realized that he was missing his right hand; his wrist was a white stump wrapped in fresh bandages. His sword sheath was empty. The worn holster under his armpit carried no weapon. There was a line of five precise cuts, recently healed, along his right cheek. His eyes looked glazed. The insignia on his shoulder was torn, but it seemed to mark him as a master sergeant and engineer.
“What’s this?” Michael asked, one eyebrow raised.
“From Lord Jor, my Lord.” The great ogre, Doj, bowed. His slow voice was impossibly deep. “He has just now arrived.”
“Our thanks.” Michael nodded.
“My Lord.” Doj bowed. The great ogre had two enormous fangs on the right side of his mouth.
“You’re Jor’s courier?” Michael asked the sergeant, looking him over head to toe.
“Sergeant Daron Eagleton, my Lord.” The man bowed. Then he stood tall and held his wrapped stump tight to his chest. He cleared his throat. “I was with Lord Jor, my Lord. I was sent—but not by him.”
Michael’s eyebrow went up; he shot a look at Garen. “We’re grateful for your presence, sergeant,” he said. “Please, tell us what has happened. Where is Lord Jor? He is sorely missed. His position is of critical importance for tomorrow’s action.”
“Your servant, my Lord.” Eagleton bowed, stood at attention—but then said nothing. Instead he looked at the floor. He cleared his throat again, clearly trying to stand at attention, holding his wrapped stump to his chest. His lips pressed tightly together.
The man was in shock.
Kyla frowned and glanced at Michael. Michael was appraising the sergeant carefully and had apparently reached an identical conclusion. Michael glanced at Garen, then Anna. Garen frowned. Anna’s cool expression betrayed nothing. Colj and his ogres were impassive, as always. Khondus, Doldon, Kate, Falmon, Zar, and Ness were silent. All the others said nothing. You could have heard a pin drop.
“Sergeant Eagleton,” Michael said softly. “How fares Lord Jor? When can we expect him? You are welcome to speak freely.”
“Speak, Sergeant,” Doldon said, scraping his chair back. He reached for the crystal decanter of mead at the table’s center, grabbing a goblet from the silver tray. “Take some refreshment—.”
“General Jor is dead, my Lords,” Eagleton interrupted. His voice was raw.
Dead silence around the table.
Doldon’s hand was frozen, the decanter held poised above the goblet. The mead’s sloshing seemed to cease.
From his place on Zar’s shoulder, Gregory spread his little blue wings and hissed, showing his fangs.
“Dire news.” Michael inclined his head. His voice was calm, but his eyes burned. At his side, the Vordan moaned softly, but nobody else seemed to hear it. Michael glanced at Falmon, who was already pulling a fresh piece of parchment from the bottom of his stack of missives, dipping quill to ink pot. Doldon nodded, filled the goblet, walked around the table, and placed the mead in front of Eagleton.
The room remained silent.
Kyla understood their disappointment. From the outset, Lord Jor had been one of their most stalwart allies and defenders. Lord Jor was Nana’s first cousin; his armies from Hakonar had been coming through the Tarn’s High Gate since the beginning of the war. For the last year, Jor himself had been active elsewhere on Kon, raising a loyalist army from the southern counties to march overland to the Tarn’s relief. Of course, Kyla had known that Jor had been late in coming and that his force was months overdue. But still, it had been an army, not some simple relief column. Six full brigades, air support from Dávanor, local scouts, and two dozen batteries of iron artillery from the great Konish city of Konordun.
“We’ll need your full report, Sergeant.” Michael gestured for Eagleton to drink. “Your bravery has carried you far. We must ask yet more from you.”
Eagleton glanced at the goblet, looked into Michael’s eyes, and lifted his chin. “I ran, Lord General. I’m not brave. I was captured in flight. He let me live. He let me live to tell you what happened, my Lord—and to give you this.”
“Who is ‘he?’” Michael asked.
In answer, Eagleton reached into his pocket, brought forth a small package of folded oil skin. He placed the package on the table beside his goblet. One of the Davanórian dragon masters took the package, slid it down the table to Master Khondus, who passed it along to Zar, Anna, and Garen, who finally handed it to Michael. Everyone in the room came closer, moving forward around the table for a better look.
Michael opened the oil skin. It contained a folded piece of white parchment. The parchment was wrapped around something. Michael opened the parchment, placed what it contained on the oil skin—from her place at the table’s end, Kyla couldn’t see what it was—and scanned the parchment’s words. Then Michael handed the parchment to Anna, pushed the oil skin toward her, and looked at her while she read. Anna’s eyes flickered with some emotion that Kyla couldn’t read. Then Anna looked at the thing held in the oil skin, frowned, handed the parchment across to Doldon, re-folded the oil skin, and pushed it across the table for inspection. Doldon glanced at the parchment, opened the skin, folded it shut, and pushed the package down to Kate, who looked at it before passing it to Kyla.
Kyla opened it.
The skin contained a long, black thorn. There was a piece of leather thong wrapped around it. The thorn was about the length of her palm—but it wasn’t a thorn at all, she realized. Not from plant, but from animal. A weird claw of some sort, long and black and very sharp. Kyla unwound the leather thong and realized that it was attached to the claw, the thong threaded through a hole drilled in the claw’s base. It was a primitive token of some sort, like something an old Konungur freeholder or trapper might wear around his neck. Filip Toller would know what it was, probably. She felt her face go warm, then looked at the others. All eyes were on Sergeant Eagleton, waiting for him to continue. The wounded sergeant had taken the goblet of mead and now drank from it deeply.
Kyla opened the parchment.
There was no formal message. Just two lines in black ink, written in a brutal hand:
Take one of mine, I take one thousand of yours.
Take two of mine, I take everything else.
~ Hone
Kyla frowned. Hone. She’d heard the name before. One of Dorómy’s oldest friends—Branten Hone, if she remembered correctly. A High General, entirely loyal to her great uncle, who had left royal service many years past. Clearly, he was back in action. She looked again at the claw, held it up on its thong toward the lamp light. It was black and long. Strange. A weird thing. A wrong thing. From what strange beast did it come? Surely, Filip would know. Then Kyla noticed Anna looking at her, at the black claw dangling there from the end of its cord. Kyla wrapped the claw with its thong, placed it back in the skin, and pushed the package back down the table toward Michael. Once more, something flickered in Anna’s eyes.
Like all Dallanar children of rank, Kyla had been trained early in the arts of perception, in the arts of observation, in the arts of high consciousness. And there in Anna’s eyes—in the eyes of one of the most feared and ferocious soldiers of the Realm, in the eyes of one of the Remain’s most ruthless warriors—shone something that looked like the deepest regret. Something that looked like sorrow.
19
“WE WERE ALMOST through the Trange, my Lord,” Sergeant Eagleton began. Fellen Colj frowned and inclined his huge ogre head. He had known Eagleton from several actions. The man was a solid fighter. Very tough. A combat engineer; cool-headed. But Eagleton’s ja was troubled. He was wounded now, of course. But there was something else in his eyes and voice, something twisted by more than injury. For Colj, the sergeant’s ja was like a bird with broken wings.
“Up until that point, it’d been a relatively smooth march. Our outriders had been doing a good job keeping the flanks
clear and our dragons had dealt handily with anything the outriders spotted.” Eagleton nodded toward the Davanórian captains. “There were constant raids on our baggage, our supply lines, of course. But that was expected. All told, very light action. The enemy didn’t have any air power. Too cold up there on the mountain for Tarcerónians, so there was nothing much they could do. Their raiders would come at dusk or dawn, burn some wagons, break up some lines, shoot at the oxen, try to kill some drovers, then they’d withdraw to the forests so our dragons couldn’t hit back. Exactly what you’d expect from guerillas tracking a force our size. We were a little over ten thousand men, mind you. And they knew where we were going, knew we couldn’t waste time tracking them down. They’d take stabs where they could, mostly action of opportunity, no systematic resistance. They never presented a battle line or massed with enough force to give us pause. They never gave Lord Jor good reason to engage beyond the edges.
“Me and my crews, we were up front, of course. Almost every night, the enemy would knock down some big trees to get in our way; we’d just clear them out. Or they’d blow out the bridges, if they could. But we’d use the trees they’d knocked down to rebuild. The big mountain has no shortage of timber. Me and my boys were far enough in front, we’d usually have the road back in shape for the main column by the time Jor was up. We were making good time. Jor was sending out several dragon squads a day to spot and sow a little carnage of our own if they found an enemy camp. Our scouts kept giving us the all clear. As you can imagine, Lord Jor was disciplined with his reporting schedules. He likes to know what’s going on, likes to know where everything is. There was nothing to make us believe we’d see real action until we got through the Trange, past Korfort, at least.” Eagleton shook his head. Colj sensed his ja flutter. “But it was a ruse. They applied just enough pressure to let us know that they were there, just the right kind of sorties to keep us on our toes; no sense of commitment to pitched battle. After a couple of months of marching like that, you get used to it. At least I did. You get into a pattern, into a rhythm. And it was a pattern, my Lords. A rhythm to lull us to sleep. When we got to the Trange, everything went mad.”
