by Pierre Pevel
And nothing would resist its breath.
Yet, the worst thing was probably the evil aura which emanated from him, an aura that terrified Lorn and covered him in an icy sweat. Because the inferno that burned in the entrails of this monster was not of this world, but was fed by the Dark.
The Dragon of Destruction advanced its head into the light from the bowls. Its red eyes glowed like two spheres filled with incandescent metal. Crossed by ivory horns, a membranous ruff surrounded the base of its skull. It almost hid the arcanium collar which tightly encircled its neck and was attached to long, heavy chains that, dragging on the stone, shackled its chest and legs.
Erklant I had not killed Serk’Arn. He had captured and enslaved him.
‘It was subjugated by a spell to the kings of Langre and their descendants,’ said the old king as he stood. ‘Ever since, we have derived our power and our glory from it.’
Feeling stunned and disorientated, Lorn turned towards the High King, but the latter was addressing Serk’Arn:
‘So, my old friend? What is your verdict?’
The humbled dragon stirred in its chains and roared. Nevertheless, it plunged its terrible gaze into that of Lorn and probed, hunting for something …
… which it found at last.
‘The Guardians did not lie to you,’ it announced regretfully. ‘I can do nothing against him.’
The High King’s thin dry lips smiled. His pupils, reduced to little black dots, shone with hope and joy.
‘Which means,’ he said, ‘that I am going to entrust you with the destiny of my kingdom. Because I am dying. In less than a year, I will no longer be here.’
Lorn turned and raised his gaze towards the dragon’s blazing eyes. It felt as if Serk’Arn’s powers could sweep him away and annihilate him at any moment.
It was …
‘And if nothing is done, the High Kingdom will disappear with me,’ the old king was saying.
It was like facing a silent storm, an invisible hurricane.
‘I know this is a terrible thing to confess, Lorn. But I need you. The High Kingdom needs you.’
It was like being pierced by an incredible force, rising out of the entrails of the world and of time.
‘Lorn, are you listening to me?’
But Lorn did not answer.
Or rather, he did not answer the king, because he was concentrating wholly on the words he was exchanging in thought with the dragon – words that they alone could hear.
A long moment passed in silence.
II
Late Spring 1547
1
‘And so he left the Citadel and its grey stone ramparts. Except for the High King, none knew his destination. He rode the byroads, alone, with a sword at his side and a wolf’s head ring on his finger. Finally, after long days, he left the plains of Langre and climbed the first foothills of the Argor Mountains. In his sleeve he carried a letter sealed with a black wax seal.’
Chronicles (The Book of the Knight with the Sword)
‘Ma’am?’
Queen Celyane of the High Kingdom did not turn round.
She was alone, watching the rehearsal from an upper gallery, surrounded by an odour of sawdust, wood glue and fresh paint. The Palace’s grand hall had been rearranged to match the layout of another hall, two hundred and fifty leagues away, where Angborn would be ceded to Yrgaard in the course of a long ceremony. Ropes stretched between poles divided the space and marked off the places where the attendees would sit. Around them, curtains closed off certain perspectives while opening others and provided the outlines of corridors. Drawn in chalk, a central aisle led to a wide dais on which mannequins sat in armchairs imitating thrones. On either side of this aisle, workmen were building terraces of seats. The racket of their hammer blows annoyed the master of ceremonies. Aided by his assistants, he was carefully choreographing a group of servants who had been requisitioned to embody the diplomats and other dignitaries who would be attending the event from the far corners of Imelor.
‘I beg your pardon, ma’am.’
The queen still gave no reply.
It was as though a spectacle or a sumptuous theatre play was being prepared on a stage with a painted backdrop. One almost expected to see some pyrotechnical effects being tested. Yet in fact it was the signature of a historic treaty between the High Kingdom and Yrgaard that was being organised. The smallest details of the ceremony had to be meticulously worked out in accordance with the demands of protocol and etiquette. While taking into account the specific enmities and susceptibilities of each participant. One faux pas, the slightest delay or oversight, might spell disaster. The queen did not want any hitches. This treaty would mark the success of her foreign policy and would definitively impose her authority both within and without the borders of the High Kingdom. Nothing must be left to chance. Nothing must mar the day of her triumph.
Celyane stood there thinking for a moment, her eyes shining, a half-smile upon her lips. Then, growing irritated at the presence of her minister at her back, she asked:
‘What is it, Esteveris?’
The man came forward but took care to remain in the shadows behind her.
‘There is news from the Citadel, ma’am. The troop of Grey Guards heading towards Samarande did indeed have orders to escort Lorn Askarian to the fortress. Where the High King granted him a private audience.’
‘Very well. And?’
The queen made no effort to hide her boredom.
‘Who knows what the king told him?’
‘What do you mean, who knows? And here I was, thinking that you would know.’
The minister’s face clouded over. Ordinarily, he was very proud of the effectiveness of his vast network of informers, which he maintained at considerable expense.
Or at least considerable expense to the Crown …
The queen smiled.
She liked to score points over Esteveris, who she knew to be highly intelligent. Better still, she adored making him recognise his ignorance or impotence. Indeed, she took particular pleasure in humiliating this fat bald man, with his pink oily skin and small porcine eyes, who – in secret, he believed – lusted after her.
Esteveris was not the only one who had spies.
‘No doubt, I will find out soon enough,’ he said. ‘However, there’s something even more worrying …’
He left his sentence dangling.
But as Celyane remained silent and kept her back turned towards him, he had to continue:
‘The king and Lorn went to visit the tomb of Erklant I the following day. Then the king appointed Lorn First Knight of the Realm.’
The queen raised an eyebrow at this and finally turned round.
‘First …’
‘… Knight of the Realm.’
She cast about in her mind. The title meant something, but what?
And then it came back to her.
There had once been an Onyx Guard. It had been founded during the Last War of the Shadows and served the kings of Langre until the advent of the High Kingdom. Erklant I had dissolved it. The title of Knight to the Ebony and Onyx Throne – or Onyx Knight – had then become purely honorific and, the current High King having bestowed it upon some of his first companions-in-arms, there were only a few ageing lords who still wore the black signet ring with the wolf’s head.
The queen shrugged.
‘That title doesn’t represent much any more,’ she said. ‘Who still cares about it? And a ring in return for three years in Dalroth is not much of a reward, when you think about it …’
‘The king has made several Onyx Knights, true. But he has just given Lorn the title of First Knight. That’s not the same thing, ma’am. In fact, it’s quite different.’
‘Then explain it to me, Esteveris!’ snapped the queen in a voice that betrayed both impatience and anger.
The minister bowed slightly by way of apology.
‘The First Knight commanded the Onyx Guard, ma’am. No one has been named Firs
t Knight since it was dissolved.’
‘So the king has appointed Lorn the head of a guard that has not existed for several centuries,’ said Celyane ironically. ‘Do you think he plans to re-establish it?’
‘Who knows?’
‘And with whom? And how? When? With what funds?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Esteveris.
Celyane bared a superior smile …
… before frowning on seeing her minister’s anxious expression. He was ambitious and devoted, devoid of scruples and cruel. He could err through excessive zeal and perhaps even out of pride. But he wasn’t one to become easily alarmed.
The queen started to share his worry.
‘What aren’t you telling me, Esteveris?’
In the Palace hall, a great crash was heard, provoking cries of horror and pain. Built too hastily and poorly, a whole flight of terraced seats had just collapsed beneath the weight of the bit players who had taken their places, while the workmen were still working underneath. The queen leaned over the balustrade and looked down on the disaster. In the wreckage of broken planks, she saw grimacing faces, bleeding wounds and broken bones. People were already hurrying to help the victims, jostling one another in their efforts to extricate them.
But completely indifferent to the distress and suffering of the injured, Celyane was looking at something else, torn between stupor and fear.
In tumbling down, the terraces had pushed back the dais with the mannequins. The figure representing the queen had fallen from her seat and her false crown had rolled onto the floor.
Livid, with her back stiff and her features frozen, the queen turned slowly towards her minister. He had been her astrologer before becoming her counsellor. Being very superstitious, she continued to consult mages, seers and fortune-tellers. Esteveris knew that this accident, for her, was a frightening omen.
‘What haven’t you told me?’ repeated the queen between clenched jaws.
Withstanding her gaze with difficulty, the minister said:
‘I’ve consulted the texts, ma’am. Command of the Onyx Guard is not the First Knight’s only prerogative …’
2
‘Northern rampart of the High Kingdom, the feet of the Argor range are bathed by the Sea of Mists. It is a province of tall mountains, beautiful valleys and high pastures, blue granite, cloudy ridges, elevated peaks and eternal snows. The air is crisp there and the water clear, the nights are often cool and winter is never far away.’
Chronicles (The Book of the High Kingdom)
Lorn did not see the first man die.
But he’d heard the Gheltish war cries and knew what he would discover when he arrived at the crest of the ridge. He had prudently left his horse behind, tethered to a dead tree. Lying flat on his belly, he observed the soldiers taking refuge behind some rocks in the bed of a dried-up river below. Caught in a trap, they were being harassed by riders with dark brown skin and long black hair, wearing leather and bone armour, who circled them at a gallop, firing volleys of arrows.
Ghelts.
Lorn counted twenty to twenty-five of them, against only ten soldiers. Already wounded for the most part, the soldiers did not stand a chance of winning the fight and were preparing for a heroic final stand. Did they know this engagement would be their last? Did they know they could expect no mercy? Lorn was familiar with Ghelts, having fought them for a year in Dalatia. They were brave warriors, formidable and often honourable, but they gave no quarter. If no one came to rescue them, these soldiers were doomed.
Lorn studied the valley, the flanks of the surrounding mountains and the road that snaked its way into the distance and climbed towards a pass.
No one.
Having emptied their quivers, the Ghelts assembled into a mass and charged, screaming. Only a few of the soldiers were in any shape to fight. Covered in blood, exhausted, they confronted the riders who bore down on them before jumping from their saddles to engage their opponents in furious close quarters combat. The doomed soldiers fought with desperate energy, trying to protect their wounded comrades. It was a savage and murderous business. A massacre. Heads flew through the air. Opened bellies spilled their steaming guts. Blood spurted in great sprays of sticky crimson, accompanied by cries of agony and rage.
Lorn watched the soldiers fall one after another without feeling any real emotion. The last, staggering, bearing wounds all over his body, did not even have the strength to raise his weapon against the fatal blow.
The wide blade of a scimitar decapitated him.
The Ghelts looted the soldiers’ bodies and took their horses. Lorn watched them ride away at a gallop, whooping victory cries.
Without hurry, he walked back to find his horse. His ginger cat – who he had finally named Yssaris – was sitting on the saddle, waiting for him. Lorn rubbed its head and allowed it to climb onto his shoulder while he mounted. Then he went over to the site of the carnage.
The bodies lay on the ground, mutilated and grimacing, while the air reeked with a warm odour of blood and guts. Lorn had not thought for a second of coming to the rescue of these men during the attack and he felt no remorse because of it. Their hour had come, and that was all.
Besides, he had a mission to fulfil.
He heard a moan.
Lorn dismounted again while Yssaris jumped from his shoulder, and he turned over a soldier he had believed dead like the others.
He practically was.
The man had a terrible wound to the skull and another, more grievous still, in his side. With a mere glance, Lorn could tell he would die soon. The instants remaining to the man could only be used to find a certain peace.
Lorn gave a resigned look to Yssaris who was watching him, quietly seated a short distance away. After that, he wiped away the dust, the sweat and the blood staining the soldier’s face. Then he lifted the man’s head gently and brought the mouth of a water flask to his dried lips.
The soldier managed to drink a little.
He opened his eyes and gave thanks with a nod of the head.
‘The Ghelts …’ he murmured in a broken voice. ‘We … We found them but they …’
‘I know,’ Lorn interrupted him. ‘I saw.’
‘Saw? You … were there? And … And you did … nothing?’
‘It would have been just one more death.’
The soldier tried to rise but was so weak that Lorn merely had to place a hand on his shoulder to prevent him.
‘We must … We must warn the castle!’
‘No,’ said Lorn. ‘You’ll be going nowhere.’
The man looked at him, and then understood.
The features of his face sagged and he let his head fall backwards. He was not yet thirty years old. No doubt he was a husband and a father.
‘I’m going to die,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I … I’m not in much pain. Perhaps …’
‘No. It’s over.’
Lorn had accompanied enough dying men in their final moments to know that it was useless to either lie to them or say too much. The best thing was to be there, to be present. Nothing was worse than solitude in the last moments. Lorn waited until the soldier’s breathing became regular and said:
‘What’s your name?’
‘Sares.’
‘Are you a believer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then this is the moment to pray, Sares.’
With tears in his eyes, the soldier nodded weakly. He brought a filthy hand encrusted with blood to his chest and seized a pendant in the likeness of the Dragon-King: a crowned dragon with an upright body, its wings deployed horizontally.
Expressionless, Lorn took the dying man’s other hand.
He stayed with him until the end.
When the soldier was dead, Lorn stood up. He looked for a long while at the contorted bodies lying all around him, which, in the heat, were starting to attract insects. Then he raised his eyes towards the ridge from which he had watched the battle.
&
nbsp; A rider was there.
A Ghelt sitting straight and motionless in his saddle, pointedly watching Lorn, his silhouette clearly outlined in the raw sunlight.
A lookout. Or a straggler, thought Lorn.
Eyes squinting behind his dark glasses, he observed the warrior in turn, as Yssaris leapt into his arms. A long moment went by before the other man turned away and disappeared behind the ridge.
Lorn then climbed atop his own mount and left in the opposite direction.
3
Lorn found Calaryn in an uproar. Once he crossed the drawbridge and double portcullis, he had to dismount in the courtyard and hold his horse by the reins.
Count Teogen’s castle was in a state of full alert.
Soldiers came and went, marching in ranks or jostling past one another in a disorderly fashion, archers, crossbowmen and pikemen all mixed together. Their faces looked tense and worried. Horses were champing at their bits. Hooves rang on the sonorous paving. Beneath an archway, men were struggling to hold on to the chains of a snorting wyvern. One needed to shout to be heard and use one’s elbows to advance in the mob. Standing apart, a group of arquebusiers practised their manoeuvres. They charged, shouldered their weapons and aimed at mannequins swinging from poles in front of the ramparts. They opened fire without startling very many in the general racket, the salvo frightening only a murder of crows, who cawed as they flew off.
Lorn knew this fervour: it was the one that preceded battle.
Spotting a steward to whom everyone seemed to be directing their enquiries, he hitched his horse, leaving it under Yssaris’s guard, and went to plant himself in front of the man. As he continued to deal with various matters, the steward glanced over several times at the stranger wearing a hood and dark glasses, who did not say a word.
Finally, he asked:
‘What do you want? Be brief!’
‘I have a letter. For the count.’
‘Give it to me. I’ll have it brought to him as soon as possible.’
