Blade of Empire

by Mercedes Lackey

  “And it was the liveliest Harvest Court Oronviel had ever seen—as well as the last,” Rithdeliel said.

  “Do you think I mean to end all that we are?” Vieliessar answered. “We will hold Harvest Court this year, just as we always have.”

  “What I think is that you are refusing to take my point,” Rithdeliel answered in frustration.

  “If I have not taken it in the last three days, why do you think I will take it now?” Vieliessar answered simply. “Lady Glorthiachiel will not swear fealty to me. She has asked to die at my hand.”

  “She doesn’t deserve to!” Rithdeliel finally burst out.

  “Ah,” Vieliessar said. “At last we come to it. But I spent my first twelve years of life as a child of Caerthalien, as all know. Should I not honor the house that sheltered me?”

  “And killed your father!” Rithdeliel snarled. “And erased your House!”

  “And yet I stand here before you having erased all Houses,” Vieliessar said. “And I will do more.” She held her arms out from her sides as Bragail fitted her swordbelt into place over her surcoat. Vieliessar reached out to pick up her helm, tucking it under her arm. “Come. It is time.”

  * * *

  The crowd parted for her as she walked from her pavilion. Even at noon, the day was cold, and Vieliessar could see her breath upon the air. Rithdeliel and Bragail followed her until they reached the front ranks of the spectators, then Rithdeliel and Vieliessar walked on alone. When they reached the edge of the circle, she stopped just outside. Rithdeliel raised his warhorn to his lips and blew a call familiar to everyone here:

  A Challenge. A Challenge. Come and fight. Come and fight.

  He lowered his horn and stepped back among the witnesses.

  For a long moment it seemed there would be no answer, then the ranks of spectators opposite Vieliessar began to draw aside. Down that corridor walked Lady Glorthiachiel. Alone.

  Every noble child of the Hundred Houses trained in war, and Lady Glorthiachiel had won her sword and spurs in honest battle. For a Challenge Circle she would have worn armor, but this was an execution. Lady Glorthiachiel bore a sword as tradition demanded, but wore only ordinary garments. Over her tunic and trousers, she wore a surcoat in Caerthalien green, with the three gold stars of its badge upon the front, and a hastily-added silver Vilya blossom—symbol of the head of the Line Direct—at her left shoulder. Her face was an expressionless mask.

  She stopped just outside the Circle, as Vieliessar had.

  “Wait,” Vieliessar said, not moving from where she stood. “This need not be. Lady Glorthiachiel, if you will pledge to me and keep my law, I will gladly pardon you. This I swear upon my name.”

  “You have no name,” Glorthiachiel answered, her voice pitched to carry. Her black eyes held unflinching hatred. “Farcarinon is erased. You have slain my husband, my children, all my kin. Let the Silver Hooves determine Caerthalien’s fate.” I should have smothered you in your cradle. True Speech brought Vieliessar the words Glorthiachiel did not say.

  Glorthiachiel stepped forward, over the boundary. “Will you join me?” she asked coldly. “Or do I name you coward?”

  Vieliessar locked her helm into place and stepped forward.

  * * *

  Armored, she was in no danger. She hoped to make this a quick and merciful kill: in the Great Hall of Caerthalien, where she’d been raised, she’d seen Challenge Circle executions take a full candlemark, as Lengiathion Warlord cut his victim to pieces in slow degrees. She meant to show her audience that the High King did not intend to follow that tradition. Not vengeance in the name of power. Not cruelty for the sake of sport. Justice.

  Ladyholder-Abeyant Glorthiachiel was making that difficult.

  She met Vieliessar’s first stroke blade to blade. Strike, block, disengage, attack. Vieliessar caught the return blow upon her forearm shield, but she felt the force behind it. Glorthiachiel sprang backward before Vieliessar’s response could touch her. The two combatants began to circle, warily.

  Does she seek the Silver Hooves’ favor by this display?

  Let Glorthiachiel step outside the circle and her life was forfeit—ignominious execution instead of honorable death. Let her remain within, and weariness would eventually render her too slow to defend herself—a lesson Vieliessar had learned at Gunedwaen’s hands long before she had held her first true sword.

  I will not make this death into sport!

  She knew that was what the spectators expected. The execution of a defeated enemy was the time for a display of power. It was how it had always been.

  It would not be so any longer.

  It took only a heartbeat for Vieliessar to change her tactics. Instead of waiting, watching for an opening, as she would have against an armored challenger, as training and instinct demanded, she flung herself into her attack. She forced Glorthiachiel back toward the edge of the circle, giving her no chance to maneuver. It was a move that would spell death on the field, where survival demanded care, caution, the husbanding of one’s resources. Glorthiachiel fought back savagely, but a part of her attention must always be on the boundary, lest she step over it.

  The moment of inattention came.

  Vieliessar struck. An upward blow that severed Glorthiachiel’s sword arm. Then a downward blow that severed her neck.

  The body fell. Vieliessar stepped back over the edge of the circle.

  The entire battle had taken less than an eighth of a candlemark.

  A sigh went up from the waiting spectators. Relief? Disappointment? True Speech could give no single answer in the presence of so many thoughts.

  She shook her bloody sword as clean as she could.

  “Let this body be laid with the others,” Vieliessar said. “Lady-Abeyant Glorthiachiel of Caerthalien rides now with the Starry Hunt.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  ICE MOON TO STORM MOON: THE KINGDOM OF THE WEST

  In Bethros, they sing songs of Princess Ringwil’s stainless honor, but it was Ringwil who betrayed Bethros, and by this pretense sought sanctuary in Haldil thereafter. There is no Song of Einartha, who called Ringwil to the Challenge Circle when she discovered the truth, and whom Ringwil spared to toil as a kitchen-servant until the end of her days.

  —A History of the Hundred Houses

  “How am I ever to have peace?” Hamphuliadiel bellowed.

  His outcry was muffled as much by the rich carpets and tapestries that lined the chamber as by the layers of Wards and Shields that underlay them. The minor Lightborn might be satisfied with their stark Meditation Chambers. The Astromancer required … more. No longer did Hamphuliadiel possess merely a sleeping room and an Audience Chamber, but a proper and fitting private dining chamber, a personal study and library, and a private receiving chamber. This last was the mirror of his public Audience Chamber, and many of the fine ornaments and furnishings had been moved from the one to the other. The windowless chamber was now the most secure location in all the Fortunate Lands. No spell could breach it, and the use of physical force against the Sanctuary of the Star was unthinkable.

  It was here that he received Momioniarch’s latest—unwelcome—report.

  “My lord Astromancer, I cannot tell you what I do not know,” Momioniarch said patiently.

  “How is it you do not know?” Hamphuliadiel demanded. “Have those you have taught grown too proud to listen when you Call?”

  “One of my students gave her life to Farspeak me that news,” Momioniarch said softly. “More news must wait.”

  “Yet you are sure of this?” he demanded. “She has won?”

  “She has won, my lord Astromancer. Vieliessar Lightsister is now Vieliessar High King.”

  Hamphuliadiel turned away, struggling to keep himself from screaming aloud. It would not do for even Momioniarch to see him less than master of himself.

  How is it that I have all that I want and yet Vieliessar’s victory turns it to ash?

  Hamphuliadiel’s heart had lifted with hope when at last Mom
ioniarch Lightsister had brought the news that the battle he so eagerly awaited was to begin with the next day’s dawn. Surely the Starry Hunt would favor the virtuous, and Vieliessar would be defeated. But incredibly, Vieliessar had won. The time of the Hundred Houses was at an end.

  “To ruin and darkness with the so-called High King!” Hamphuliadiel growled. “The Sanctuary of the Star will stand against her madness, no matter how surges the tide of her followers! It was I who was summoned to greatness, not she—and soon enough she will know this! She will beg me for forgiveness and lay down her sword at my feet to gain it!”

  * * *

  Momioniarch remained prudently silent as Hamphuliadiel paced and muttered, knowing he had forgotten she was here. My lord Hamphuliadiel has no way of bringing such a thing to pass, and well he knows it. But nothing was ever gained by speaking hard words to the ears of princes. Neither force nor reason will bring Vieliessar Farcarinon suppliant to Hamphuliadiel.

  Vieliessar, too, had been Momioniarch’s student once. Momioniarch remembered her well: stubborn, difficult, secretive, and far too proud. As if she had known herself to be High King even when she was scrubbing pots in the kitchens. Momioniarch Lightsister could see no possible compromise between Vieliessar and Hamphuliadiel, for each of them made of the Lightborn game-pieces in a vast and living game of xaique.

  It was a game Momioniarch had gladly played since that Midwinter Court in Haldil so long ago, when she had been Called by the Light. There had been four of them that year: her, Hamphuliadiel, Galathornthadan, and Sunalanthaid. She’d been a Craftworker’s daughter. Galathorn and Sunalan had been Landbond. But the kitchen boy who was their fourth was the greatson of the War Prince of Bethros. He had told her that secret long before he shared it with the others, and Momioniarch had prized it. Born in slavery and orphaned early, he had never forgotten his mother’s dying words. Avenge me, Einartha had said. Avenge my shame. How better to do that than to take for himself the rulership he should have had by right of blood?

  Swear yourselves to me, and you shall be princes.

  And they had, following Hamphuliadiel’s long sight without question. He told them they would all take the Green Robe, and it had come to pass. He told them he would see to it that they did not live out their years as the slaves of Caerthalien, and that, too, had come to pass.

  He saw, long before Vieliessar did, that it is the Lightborn who hold the true keys to power.

  Everything the Hundred Houses had ever achieved was built upon the power of the Lightborn and what they could do. War was what the Hundred Houses knew and loved. It made them easy to control, to manipulate—if one sought true power. Lightborn Magery had been what made it possible for the War Princes and the Lords Komen to battle eternally without being subject to the devastating cost of war. Mosirinde Peacemaker and Arilcarion War-Maker had leashed that Magery: Mosirinde’s Covenant and The Way of the Sword were the jesses upon the ankles of every Lightborn, saying how—and when—Lightborn power could be used.

  But lift the twin yokes of Mosirinde Peacemaker and Arilcarion War-Maker from the necks of the Lightborn, as Vieliessar had done so casually, and the Lightborn became more powerful than any War Prince. In the end, Lightless fear would destroy the Lightborn.

  At least, it would destroy the High King’s vassal Lightborn.

  But Hamphuliadiel meant to train all who came within his power to give their first loyalty to the Sanctuary of the Star. Let the War Princes make them handmaids to their sport once more—and let them know it was Hamphuliadiel Astromancer’s gift … a gift that could be withdrawn whenever he chose.

  Only let Vieliessar play at Kingship in the east until it is too late for her to undo what she has done. She has no gifts to compare to what the Sanctuary can offer her noble lords.

  She will not bow. But neither will she reign. Not so long as we.

  * * *

  “I have faith that day will come, my lord Astromancer,” Momioniarch murmured.

  At the sound of her voice, Hamphuliadiel startled, for in his dismay at the disastrous news she brought, he had forgotten her presence. No matter. She had witnessed nothing to his discredit.

  “Send for my servant,” he said. “I will walk upon the grounds. And say nothing to anyone of what you have said to me.”

  * * *

  His servant came quickly, bringing not only Hamphuliadiel’s opulent fur cloak, but also his fur-lined boots. The Bearward pelt was thick and silky, and Magery had altered its hue to Lightborn green, so that no one might mistake Hamphuliadiel Astromancer for a mere komen. His boots rang upon the marble floors as he made his way to the antechamber; in the absence of new Candidates, the Sanctuary of the Star was emptier now than it had been since its first stones were laid by Mosirinde Peacemaker in the long ago. Nearly all the Lightborn who had lived and taught here had been summoned away by their War Princes last Sword Moon, and the hospital’s Teaching Chambers stood empty of Healers. If not for the fact that Hamphuliadiel had held back everyone who had dared the Shrine since last Woods Moon, he would be able to number the Lightborn within these walls upon the fingers of his two hands.

  But they are mine, as all who come after them will be mine, Hamphuliadiel thought with grim satisfaction. Where else would they go? The Hundred Houses are erased, and there are no tailles of komen to take them to the so-called High King, even if they wished to seek her out.

  When he reached the antechamber, he stood for a moment in the center of its silver compass rose. Behind him lay the bronze doors of the Shrine. Hamphuliadiel hesitated. He knew he must be ready for whatever came next, now that the world had gone mad. He could make a propitiatory sacrifice, even ask a Foretelling. He could not believe the Starry Hunt would favor Vieliessar, but Their ways were mysterious and Their favor perilous.

  He decided to wait.

  The servant who stood ready to unbar the doors bowed low in humility as Hamphuliadiel walked out into the morning. The wind was sharp and snow crusted the ground. Hamphuliadiel went down the wide stone path that led to the outer gates. They opened at a touch.

  To his right lay Rosemoss Farm. The sound of axes striking wood was a faint regular sound. Bellion Farmholder was clearing more land for planting, as Hamphuliadiel had directed. Many hectares had been cleared already. More must be, if the Sanctuary was to feed itself—as it must now that there were no War Princes to send the tribute caravans. Fortunately Hamphuliadiel had already begun to do what was needed to make certain the Lightborn could survive without those gifts and tithes. He debated a moment, then turned left.

  Here was the work of his moonturns of labor. Duty had called him to remain as Astromancer in defiance of all custom. A lesser man would have broken beneath the weight of that call, but Hamphuliadiel had been ready. The Light Itself had forged Hamphuliadiel in its fires to stand against Vieliessar’s madness when it came. If Candidates did not come now to the Sanctuary, Farmfolk and Craftworkers eager for safety and security did. Soon the Sanctuary would rule over more chattels than even Caerthalien at the height of her power could boast. His new village would outshine all Vieliessar’s conquests.

  Areve—named for the nearby Flower Forest—was less than a Wheelturn old. It was still primarily a thing of tents, scavenged pavilions, and crude huts, but Hamphuliadiel had laid out its design himself and summoned up the wells with his own hand when its border stones were set, and someday it would be magnificent—a vaster domain than any the High Houses had ever claimed; larger and wealthier than Bethros or Haldil or even Caerthalien itself. Someday even that which had once been Farcarinon would belong to the Sanctuary and its Astromancer, and he would be the greatest power in the land.

  But if, in a sense, Vieliessar was responsible for the existence of Areve, it was the Hundred Houses that had given Areve its wealth. Vieliessar had fled across the Mystrals amid a mob of Farmfolk and laborers. When the High House Alliance had followed, they had wisely left such folk behind, expecting to return to their domains within a few sennights at most
. But by Hearth Moon the army was far away, the Dragon’s Gate was sealed, and the Alliance’s great army had taken with it all that it needed to feed itself. The people of the West had fled to the only source of safety and rulership they could imagine.

  The Sanctuary of the Star.

  His Lightborn had wanted to send them back to their homes, but Hamphuliadiel was wiser than they. Moonturns before, when the High Houses had declared alliance, he had ordered Master Bellion to begin clearing more land for spring planting. When refugees began to arrive at the Sanctuary, Hamphuliadiel announced that all who wished to seek the protection of the Sanctuary of the Star were welcome—not in the Sanctuary itself, of course, but in the new village that would soon hold thousands.

  There were already a few small houses in the Craftworkers’ quarter, and a curl of smoke rose up from the chimney of the forge. Someday Areve would have cottages and workshops and Craftworker halls—even a hospital for Lightless Healing. But barns and granaries were far more important than houses, and so the labor of the refugees and the timber cut in Rosemoss Forest went first to that. Graciously, Hamphuliadiel had even allotted land within the village walls to the Landbonds who had come to him, but that quarter held little more than holes scratched in the earth and a few flimsy lean-tos.

  If they want to be warmer than this next winter, they will labor more quickly. It is said that Vieliessar erected a Battle City at Oronviel in less than two moonturns. My people can do no less.

  Hamphuliadiel walked along the high road of the village to come, admiring the one he saw in his mind. There were only a few folk within its bounds at this time of day. Most of them were clearing land for plowing or tending livestock, and the most trustworthy were gathering the bounty of Arevethmonion herself. Those who remained looked on in wonder as he passed. At least they were capable of the respect and deference the Light deserved, if they were capable of little more. He wrinkled his nose in distaste at the piles of garbage and litter, the sheer untidy mess of the village. There were few senior Lightborn to spare for the task of governing, and the Postulants were utterly untrustworthy; a few years before, they had been chattel and laborers themselves. They had no notion of what was needed to make the usefulness and living wealth of a village increase.