The Kingless Land

by Ed Greenwood

  “So it is,” the other agreed heartily, peering up and down the other. “A fine morning to deal in fish, if you’re interested.”

  “By the Three! I was just on my way to make some purchases at the docks!” was the delighted reply, and as they bent their heads together, one merchant muttered, “Is it time?”

  The other replied even more quietly, “Not yet. They should get into the wine soon; I delivered it to all the barracks last night. Wait until you hear my horn.”

  As if his words had been a cue, the none-too-fragrant alleyway air was shattered by the deafening blast of a hunting horn. Both men froze in astonishment. “Wha—” one of them started to say, as the Seneschal of Adeln rose out of a barrel right behind them and swung a heavy mace with brutal force.

  It takes very little time, and even less fuss, to dash out the brains of two men onto the cobbles, Presgur observed, vaulting out of his barrel. At his feet, the bodies stopped twitching, amid faint wet sounds.

  “My thanks for leading us to all your friends, idiot Silvertree foxes,” he told one sprawled corpse, in tones of satisfaction. Then he turned to the other, and added, “Next time, don’t use almond root to poison wine—in Adeln, soldiers still have tongues to taste with!”

  Men with drawn swords ready in their hands began to appear out of dark doorways up and down both alleyways. Presgur bent over to pluck a hunting horn from the belt of a Silvertree spy who’d be needing it no longer and ordered the nearest men, “Take these scum to Hawkroon House. Our Lord Wizard has a little surprise in store for overclever Silvertree mages—one involving fresh blood.…”

  The bright light of full morning touching the trees around him improved Hawkril’s mood not one bit. He went on grimly twisting dead tree limbs away from the trunks they’d grown from and hurling them onto a growing pile of gathered deadfalls. This was taking too bebolten long.…

  It mattered little who heard him breaking branches or what unfriendly eyes might see the rising flame of the fire he planned; if he didn’t warm his senseless companions soon, three of the Band of Four would be corpses. They lay in a little group of sodden bundles in the dell where he’d set them down, after three exhausting carries through the woods from the rocks where the boat had been wrecked, to the next bend of the river, here. All the Band of Four still owned was what they wore or he’d carried hence … and he hadn’t the strength left to make another trip. The crows had been clustered thickly around the boatmaster, spitted on his spar and staring sightlessly at swarming flies, when last Hawkril left him, and the warrior from Blackgult didn’t want any of them following him here.

  The armaragor should have collapsed from weariness long ago, but sheer iron will was carrying him on through the gathering and stacking and flint-striking. His head swam as he knelt to blow on his tinder to get the smoldering going; someone had battered him but good with a club that had been small but quite hard enough.

  He glanced over at the huddled body of his oldest surviving friend, and muttered, “Couldn’t we have just hunted down deer for a season? Did you have to go after a lady sorceress because of her jewels? How far did we get with them, anyway? From one Silvertree mansion to another, across the river! Bah!” Hawkril turned grimly back to his work as the tinder caught and flared, and the critical time of introducing the right twigs began.

  Behind him, the maligned procurer stirred. Craer’s eyelids fluttered for a moment and then he came suddenly to full wakefulness. He lay still, listening to the snap and rising crackle of the fire and the scrapes of shifting boots and deep, slow breathing that had to belong to Hawkril. There were trees all around, and no rushing water or creak and groan of an old boat carried along by it. Where was he?

  Would he live long enough for it to matter? The procurer explored the tender area at the back of his head gingerly, carefully felt the rest of his body with hands that still ached and smarted, and then unfolded his wet cloak from where Hawkril must have wrapped it around him, and rolled to his feet.

  Hawkril’s head snapped around at the sound; Craer gave him a rueful smile of gratitude, shook himself to make sure of his balance and that his aching limbs would obey him, and stepped forward to clap his friend’s shoulder in silent thanks. Then he took off his dripping cloak and hung it on tree boughs to shield the light of the quickening fire from the view of anyone who might be looking across the river, or sailing along it under orders from the Baron Silvertree.

  Grimacing at that thought, Craer stood for a moment listening to the forest sounds and then stalked off into the woods to relieve himself and gather more wood, moving as quietly as possible. He drew his knife as he went; his stomach would probably welcome a fire-roasted, juicy morn-meal.

  Sarasper started groaning and murmuring things long before he awakened. Hawkril listened grimly, but the healer said nothing intelligible before suddenly sitting bolt upright, awake and staring.

  There was dread on his face, and the sweat of remembered fear beaded his forehead and ran down his cheeks—but when Hawkril leaned close to look at him, Sarasper drew in a deep breath, waved the armaragor away, and insisted he was all right.

  The weary warrior shot a suspicious glance or two in Sarasper’s direction as the morning warmed. The dread never left the healer’s eyes.

  Once Hawkril was sure he heard the whispered word, “Overwhelmed!” but at least the healer was conscious, and walking about—even rooting among the rotting forest leaves for morn-meal roots and mushrooms.

  When the armaragor lifted the last bundle to lay it close beside the fire, his mouth tightened. The Lady Embra Silvertree slept, no matter how much noise he made or how often he gently slapped or pinched her.

  The time came when the smell of roasting rabbit and squirrel drifted strong around them, and three worried men washed the hair of a sleeping woman and cut the black dried blood out of it—while still she slept on, oblivious to gentle attempts to rouse her. They turned her, to dry all sides of the clothes she wore, and argued anew about what they should do now.

  “We have an agreement,” Sarasper reminded the procurer and the armaragor firmly. “If that still means anything to men who dwelt in Blackgult.”

  Hawkril’s face grew dark. “I take rather more care with my mouth than you do, healer. Hard feelings are a poor reward for a man who pulled you from the river not all that long ago.”

  “Hey, now—easy there, the both of you,” Craer said quickly. “Yes, we agreed—and yes, Sarasper, we’ll hold to that agreement. But surely you must see that to succeed in … in what Forefather Oak wants you to do, you must stay alive.”

  Sarasper glared at him. “So much is obvious, Craer; what clever trickery is this?”

  The procurer looked exasperated. “No trickery, Old and Suspicious, but a simple point: we none of us dare to devote our lives entirely and only to chasing the Dwaerindim. If we do, Baron Silvertree’s mages, and other old foes we have who may turn up, and anyone else who’s seeking the Stones—and that’d be half the mages and some of the bards and all of the barons here in Aglirta, now wouldn’t it?—can expect our arrival in specific places and easily lay traps for us, time after time. All they have to do is spread word of a Dwaer in this spot or that, make their preparations, and wait. It won’t take much; how well do you think you could heal of us, if a tenth of those arrows back on the boat had hit their marks? And all it takes is one, in the wrong place—eye or throat or heart—and the Horned Lady will be handing you to the Dark One, and your quest won’t matter much anymore.”

  “I know this,” the healer said in a small voice. “This fear kept me in hiding for far too long … until you came.” His eyes were suddenly bright with tears, and he hung his head.

  “Stop that,” Hawkril told him roughly, “and look to the lass, here. What’s wrong with her?”

  “Nothing,” Craer said brightly. “She sleeps, resting that sword-sharp tongue of hers, and that’s fine. Let sleeping lady sorceresses lie, that’s what I say.”

  Both Sarasper and Hawkril g
ave him sour looks and grunts of exasperation, united once more in their thoughts. Craer smiled at them, shrugged, and then plucked the tiniest knife either of them had ever seen out of his belt buckle, picked up one of Embra’s limp hands, and started to do her nails. He ignored the glances of the other two men, even when they turned from irritated to incredulous.

  A bright and pleasant morning, as the old saying went, was lighting the ruins of Indraevyn as Phalagh of Ornentar stumbled sleepily out of the shattered chamber, which he’d shared with two other wizards, to relieve himself. One of them snored with a very loud, irregular boarlike snorting, and when he found out who …

  Phalagh rounded a heap of loose stones in search of some trees to water and found the veteran warrior Rivryn standing in the stinking armor he’d not taken off for three days, one hand on the hilt of his blade and a sour expression on his battered face.

  The wizard raised an eyebrow. “That’s a stormy look,” he said, wetting a helpless nearby sapling. “Wherefore?”

  “A most vigilant watch you spellhurlers mount, I’m thinking,” Rivryn replied with deadpan sarcasm, gesturing around at overgrown rocks and encircling trees.

  “Hum?” Phalagh asked, shaking the last cobwebs of slumber out of his head. He looked where the warrior’s out-flung arm indicated. “What’re you pointing out?”

  “Behold,” the warrior said shortly. “Absence of wizard.”

  Phalagh looked around again, a little chill awakening in him. Rivryn was right; there was no sign of the wizard who should have been standing there on watch.

  The mage frowned. “Nynter drew last watch,” he said slowly, “and should have been right here—or over there, by yonder thrusting rock.”

  They clambered toward the rock together and then, exchanging grim glances, around it, peering this way and that … only to come to a halt in silent unison and stand staring.

  Nynter was standing in the dark and doorless entrance of a nearby ruined building. Or rather, the lower half of him was standing there, facing them: legs and pelvis, still upright, but the body above them bitten clean off and devoured or carried away. Blood had flowed down the legs from those terrible gnaw marks to pool and dry around the mage’s booted feet, and one of his winged daggers was orbiting the grisly remains, endlessly looping in a slow, lazy circle like a patient blowfly.

  Phalagh swallowed and tried to speak. Finding his throat too dry, he swallowed again. “What could have done this?” he asked, his words coming out in a hoarse whisper.

  The warrior shrugged. “Almost anything,” he said shortly. “We haven’t explored this place well enough, what with all your driving hunger and haste to find a floating stone, remember?”

  The mage turned on him with a snarl. “Do you dare to mock me?”

  “Oh, no,” Rivryn replied calmly, hefting a dagger the wizard hadn’t seen him draw in one hand, “I’d never be so foolish as to do that.” The dagger rose with a little twirl and flash, to be deftly caught in callused fingertips and hefted again. “I need you too much; you’re one of just two mages we’ve left, remember? And mages are so useful, and so vigilant. I sometimes wonder what we’d all do without them. …”

  Glacial eyes met, expressionlessly, for a very long time. The dagger rose and fell in an easy rhythm, and the eyes belonging to the wizard looked away first.

  Baron Silvertree preferred to keep his wizards out where he could see them—and they could keep an eye on each other—not off by themselves, free to work mischief. He also liked to keep them busy at his tasks … not pursuing little betrayals of him on their own. It was a source of some satisfaction, on mornings such as this one, to enter his audience chamber and see them hard at work. This required that he arrive at different times, to keep them attentive and respectful, never knowing when he’d appear.

  So though he’d just as soon have dallied the morning away in his vast bed with his six maidens of chamber, this time he hurried them through satisfying and bathing him, let them dress him in a silken robe, and then strolled to his audience chamber in their company, to enjoy a lavish morn meal there.

  His greeting, as the maidens knelt to serve him food, was jovial, but his wizards acknowledged it as briefly as bare civility allowed. The baron smiled thinly. All three mages were hard at work: Markoun on a way to heal his blinded eye or perhaps replace it with a copy of his good one; Ingryl on a means of hunting down the lost Lady Embra; and Klamantle eavesdropping on the minds of Silvertree agents in baronies up and down the River Coiling, to learn the latest news and confirm continued loyalty.

  Of the three, Klamantle seemed the most oblivious; the spell he was employing involved its caster concentrating on distant thoughts by staring into the flame of an oil lamp.

  Wherefore the baron was startled when the quietest of his wizards suddenly staggered back from his worktable with a raw-throated shriek and began stumbling about the room screaming and clawing at his eyes. Wisps of smoke seemed to lick out from between his fingers.

  Ingryl didn’t even look up, but everyone else in the room watched the agonized mage, and grew pale. The oil lamp was trailing smoke, its flame gone, and the baron caught the remaining eye of Markoun and snapped, “Where was he scrying?”

  The youngest mage looked at the nut half-shells on Klamantle’s map, and said grimly “Adeln. Someone there worked magic upon him.” Then he looked at his stricken colleague and asked hesitantly, “Klamantle?”

  The reply was a howl of pain and despair as Beirldoun whirled to look at him, dropping his hands away from his face.

  Markoun shuddered. Klamantle’s eyes looked to be gone—two holes, it seemed, out of which twin plumes of smoke were boiling. The wizard’s mouth trembled, and then a fresh spasm of pain seized him, and the screaming began anew.

  The maidens around the baron were wincing and shrinking away from the stricken mage, but Faerod Silvertree went on calmly eating. Markoun looked at him and then over at Spellmaster Ingryl, who was working on at his own spell without pause, and shook his head in disbelief. Then he turned back to his own worktable, drew in a deep breath, and reached for the clay he’d been using to craft himself the likeness of an eyeball. The sobbing and howling grew louder, and twice Markoun reached for a scroll and then drew his hand back. Finally he turned, frowning, and tersely cast a deeper slumber spell, stepping forward to catch Klamantle’s suddenly limp and silent body and lower it to the floor.

  The smoke was dying away now, and Markoun could see that his colleague still had eyeballs … seared white eyeballs. He shivered and looked up to discover the baron’s gaze on him. There was something approaching contempt in Faerod Silvertree’s eyes.

  “I can’t work with that noise going on,” Markoun explained.

  The baron shrugged. “One can learn to. Look yonder.” He inclined his head toward Ingryl Ambelter, who was calmly and unhurriedly adjusting two padded jeweler’s clamps to hold one of Embra Silvertree’s hairs stretched taut in front of him. “I shall set him the task of restoring Beirldoun’s eyes before evening.”

  Markoun nodded. “Forgive me, Lord, but I cannot help but wonder why we’re meddling in Adeln when they obviously don’t welcome even scrying from afar?”

  Had he been a little less in awe of the baron, and so less apprehensive about the consequences of daring such a question, the youngest Silvertree wizard might finally have noticed the eye peering from a spy hole behind the baron … an eye that had spent much time watching the ruler of Silvertree and his Dark Three in recent weeks. But he wasn’t.

  The Baron of Silvertree lifted up a goblet from the table as if he’d never seen it before, sipped from it, and then told it, “The need to wonder aloud, and know things that concern them not, are failings that seem to afflict all wizards,” Faerod Silvertree drawled, “those loyal to me regrettably included.”

  “Forgive me, Lord, I-I—”

  The baron held up a hand. “Enough; you have asked, and so you shall hear … a little. It can hardly come as news to a studious mage that the
baronies all up and down the Silverflow are rising to war—war that will come, once ’tis expected, as night follows day. Hireswords eat too much, and their loyalty comes at too high a price, for any of us to let them go unused for more than a season at most. Someone will strike at someone else, and all the Vale will erupt. I’ll see to it, if no one else does.”

  Faerod Silvertree gave his youngest wizard a wintry smile and said, “You’ve no need to know who in my judgment will do what; that’s a game open only to those who try to hold land in the Vale. It matters little, in any event, for since Blackgult fell to me and I was able to seize all it held, the rest of the rulers of the Vale have been doomed. Aglirta shall rise again, and I shall be its king … though a lot fewer folk will be around to see it, once the war to come—and the specific slayings it’ll be prudent for me to carry out, thereafter—are done.”

  It seemed to be Markoun’s day to dwell dangerously. He found himself boldly asking, “But surely, Lord, every baron with armaragors and hireswords enough might, in private, say the same words you’ve just uttered? How can all of you be right?”

  The baron merely smiled, and Markoun nervously rushed to fill the lengthening silence. “Or is it all up to the battlefield and the whim of the Three?”

  The baron’s smile did not change. “I think you’ve seen something of how well prepared Silvertree is for war to come. Not merely you three, and my alliances, and an army larger and better than all others in the Vale, but the granaries.”

  “Granaries? Yes, but—”

  The baron stroked the head of his favorite maid, who was nuzzling at his codpiece. “Ah,” he said, “you see, but you do not see. Learn, then: when we ride to war, the warriors of Silvertree will fight with torch and oiljug every bit as enthusiastically as they ply their swords and loose their crossbows.”