“Penhallow and Geir made a special trip to Glenreith to try to convince me of the same thing,” Blaine said with a sigh. “Kestel and Piran agreed with them.”
“And are you convinced?”
Blaine looked away. “I never even cared about being Lord of Glenreith. I certainly didn’t come back to Donderath to seize the throne.”
“No one’s saying that you did,” Niklas replied. “In fact, it’s pretty clear that you don’t want it, which perversely means that you’re probably the best person to give it to.” He managed a wry smile. “None of the other warlords could rally enough support to take the crown without a fight—and possibly a civil war.” He gestured toward the land beyond the walls of the tent. “Regular people aren’t soldiers. They don’t take orders. They have to be led. You could be a great king, Blaine.”
Blaine looked back at his friend. “You’ve known me since we were kids—and you can still say that?”
“I’m not the only one,” Niklas replied. “The men speak well of you, and more than once there’s been speculation about a someday king.” He met Blaine’s gaze. “You always come up as the favorite.”
Blaine sighed. “We’ve got a lot to survive before anyone should start measuring for a crown.”
“I’ll grant you that,” Niklas agreed, taking one more swig from his flask and passing the last of the whiskey to Blaine. “But think about it this way. You’ve gone through more than anyone else to try to get Donderath back on its feet. Could you really just go back to Glenreith and let someone else run things, especially if it didn’t go well?”
Blaine tossed back the whiskey. Niklas did not need a reply; he knew Blaine too well for that. He’s right, and so is Penhallow. I’d never be able to stand by and let someone wreck what we’ve worked so hard to build. But… king? That’s going to take some getting used to.
“Sleep on it. There’s time to think things through—but don’t rule it out, all right?”
“I won’t—but until we’re rid of raiders and rogue talishte, I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”
Niklas left shortly afterward, called away to deal with a question from his night commander. Blaine blew out the lanterns and crawled into bed, but his dreams were dark, filled with vengeful spirits and old enemies held at bay by Carr’s watchful ghost.
CHAPTER NINE
NOT EXACTLY WHAT IT USED TO BE, BUT MAYBE it’ll be good enough,” William Folville said with a nod, looking down at the section of stone wall that ranged from the embankment on the right side of Castle Reach harbor down toward the partially rebuilt city.
“It’s a start.” Traher Voss stood with his hands on his hips, staring at the harbor as if he were remembering how it had been before the Great Fire, when tall-masted ships of all kinds lay at berth in the waters at the docks and their crews went ashore to spend their hard-earned coin at taverns and brothels.
Many of those ships still lay at the bottom of the harbor where they sank when a green ribbon of fire burned the world. The ships that didn’t sink took off for parts unknown.
Only a few had returned. One made it all the way to Edgeland and came back with a load of convict-colonists who wanted to return to their homeland. Another had sailed up and down the coastline, only to return home with a report of widespread destruction. Donderath was on its own.
“I guess it would be too much to hope that ships heading for Castle Reach might offer their assistance,” Folville said with a sigh. He was just shy of thirty years old, a skinny man with sharp, rodent-like features, a mop of dark hair, and bad teeth.
Voss gave a derisive snort. “What do you think?” Traher Voss was a legend. He was in his middle years, stocky but not fat, broad-shouldered and bald-headed, with strong arms and hands calloused and widened by years wielding battle swords.
Mistrust came naturally to Folville. Before the Great Fire, he had led a band of thieves, pickpockets, and hustlers who called themselves the Curs. As the bastard son of a prosperous merchant and his trollop mistress, Folville had few illusions about life. His mother had taught him what she knew about surviving life on the streets, and when she died young of fever, he learned the rest of what he knew the hard way.
“Between the soldiers General Theilsson sent and the men you’ve provided, it shouldn’t be more than a week before we get the wall finished,” Folville said, changing the subject.
Voss’s eyes narrowed as he looked out over the teams of men, women, and children working along the wall. Some carried stones, others chipped them with tools to make them lie flat, and the youngest ones walked up and down the line with buckets of water and sacks of bread. “How’d you get all those people to turn out?”
Folville shrugged. “I told them the truth.” Fate had dealt him a strange hand, elevating him from the leader of one of Castle Reach’s most successful hoodlum gangs to liegeman to warlord Blaine McFadden and defender of what remained of Castle Reach. It was an arrangement of necessity and mutual benefit.
“I know the city doesn’t look like it used to,” he said. The once-grand port had been burned, drowned, and battered by unnatural storms. Gods, it’s amazing that anything is left, he thought. “But look at it up close, and you’ll see how much work we’ve all done. Knocking down the buildings that couldn’t be saved and taking what we could of the lumber and tiles, shoring up the damaged buildings, using what we could pick from the rubble to fix up the best of what’s left.”
A note of pride came into his voice. “So many people left the city and never came back that there’s more than enough housing for the ones who stayed.” Castle Reach had never been kind to its most desperate residents. He knew that from experience. “They own the city now,” he said with a rare smile. “And they’ll be damned if anyone is going to take it away from them.”
He turned to see Voss giving him an appraising look. Folville ignored the glimmer of impatience he felt at being evaluated. Voss would not be the first to underestimate him, nor probably the last. “They earn food for time worked, and if they need something else—like a pair of shoes or a blanket—we’ll do our best to find it for them for extra work.” He shrugged. “Simple. Fair. There’s so much that needs doing, even the children, elders, and cripples can work.”
Voss gave a grudging smile. “McFadden picked a good liegeman,” he replied, and chuckled at Folville’s surprise. He clapped Folville on the shoulder, nearly knocking him off his feet. “You forget that I’ve been running a mercenary army for damn longer than I want to remember. Like herding wild dogs, or teaching wharf rats to march in a row. You’re getting the work done. That’s what matters.”
For years, Voss had made his name and his fortune commanding private armies for Donderath’s squabbling nobility, or lending out his sellswords to King Merrill if the army needed extra, expert soldiers for a special assignment. Yet Voss and his men had been curiously absent in the Meroven War, and Folville wondered if Voss’s alliance with talishte lord Lanyon Penhallow had something to do with that.
Folville walked with Voss down the slope of the embankments toward the city. Much of the original wall that defended the port had been destroyed. In some places, the stones merely needed to be restacked. Other parts had been smashed, swept away in the high waves, or carted off by locals who needed them to shore up their own ruined foundations and cellars.
“How’s the leg?” Folville asked one man, who nodded as he carried stones to fix a breach in the wall.
“Don’t hurt me as much as it did. I can move it,” he said, sticking out his leg and bending his knee a few times for show.
Folville grinned. “Good for you. Glad to hear it.”
He moved down the line a few more feet, and a woman hailed Folville. “Cap’n! Thank you!”
“Glad to help, Daris,” he said, continuing to walk. All the way down the line, people hailed him.
“You’ve managed to drive out the Red Blades and the Badgers?” Voss asked.
Folville nodded. “Cost some lives, I’ll tell you t
hat. Red Blades ran the Lower Nine for years, and they didn’t much like giving it up,” he added with a lopsided grin. The Blades and the Badgers had once been the rival hoodlum gangs to Folville’s Curs.
“Badgers used to have the dockworkers and the seawall guards to back them up, and when they all went away and the trollops they ran couldn’t make money ’cause there weren’t any sailors in port, lots of the Badgers up and left, thinkin’ there might be better times or at least more food elsewhere,” he added.
“But you stayed.”
Folville drew a deep breath. “Yep. The Curs aren’t going anywhere. My folks saw what Lord McFadden did during that last big storm, how he got us warning before the blow, and saved folks himself. Ain’t none of the highborns done that for us before.”
Voss nodded. “Captain Hemmington and Captain Larson speak well of you and your organization.”
Folville gave a sharp laugh. “That’s funny, now. Never had guards say a nice thing about us before this. Usually, they were tryin’ to run us out of wherever we were.” He paused. “But those two, they’re all right. For soldiers, I mean, regular ones, not mercs.” He realized he was bungling it. “You know what I mean.”
Voss chuckled. “Yeah. I think I do.”
Folville looked down at the waterfront. A mix of soldiers and city dwellers labored there. A half-built wharf jutted from the shore. At the shoreline, men hauled rocks and mixed mortar to repair the seawall.
Voss’s voice brought Folville out of his thoughts. “You rebuilt the lighthouse?” he asked, frowning as he stared at the tall wooden structure on the spit of land that jutted farthest out to sea. Before everything fell apart, the Castle Reach lighthouse had been the tallest and brightest on the Eastern Shore, marking the most prosperous port in the Ascendant Kingdoms. “Who do you think is going to see it? By all accounts, the rest of the Continent is hurting as bad as we are.”
Folville grinned. “It’s not to bring ships in. It’s to keep ships out. There’s no light in there. Lord McFadden helped us find some powerful far-seers,” he added. “We have one up there day and night, scanning the water for ships. Just in case anyone decides to pay us a visit.”
“And if they do?” Voss asked.
Folville’s grin was tight. “We’ll do our best to be ready for them,” he said. “Every day, we send out men in boats to go up and down the coastline and watch for ships. Not to lead them in but to warn us before they come sailing into the harbor like they own the place. Between the mages and the boats, I figure it’s the best early warning we’re likely to get.”
He raised an eyebrow. “And while we’re doing everything we can, I sure would appreciate help from your men and General Theilsson’s soldiers.”
Folville gestured to the townspeople at work on the seawall. “There’s more work to do than anyone could finish in a lifetime. And it’s still a chore to feed everyone. We organized some teams to farm the land just outside the city walls. Same with the fishermen. We’ve got relays of men going out in small boats and bringing back what they can, but there are a lot of mouths to feed, and they’re hungrier with all the work they’re doing. I gotta say it hurt sending all that stuff on the Nomad when we got people in need here.”
Voss nodded. “Aye. McFadden explained why we had to do it. I’m just glad we got her out of the harbor safely. And we’ve done our best to bring in whatever supplies we can to make up for what shipped out.” He raised his face to the sea wind. “In the meantime, my men will be here, and so will the soldiers General Theilsson sent you. Defeats the purpose if we fight off the warlords inland and lose the harbor, don’t you think?”
Folville relaxed, just a bit, and let out a long breath. “Glad to hear it. The townspeople want to help. They’re afraid of outlanders coming in and taking what they’ve worked so hard to rebuild. But they’re not soldiers. I can take the most promising ones and turn them into sentries and patrols, but if there’s real fighting to be done, they’ll be overwhelmed.”
Voss clasped his hands behind his back as he walked. “Yes—and no. Never underestimate a cornered rat. No offense intended,” he added with a wolfish smile. “Don’t think of your people as soldiers. Think of them as street fighters. You know that word.”
“By Esthrane’s tits, the Curs are the best at street fighting,” Folville said. “Never lost a battle on our home streets.”
“And that was against an enemy that hailed from Castle Reach, and knew the territory,” Voss replied. “Any outlander who comes into the city, either by land or sea, won’t know these streets like you do. You’re right: Ordinary citizens make lousy soldiers. But force an enemy to take a city house by house, and the game changes,” he said, a predator’s glint in his eyes.
“Regular folks get angry when someone comes into their streets and their houses,” Voss said. “I’ve seen women beat men twice their size senseless with frying pans and children lead soldiers into ambushes or slit throats at night. People fight harder for what’s theirs. Prepare your people for that, just in case, and no one can take Castle Reach from you.” He paused. “And to make sure of it, you’ll have soldiers to help as well.”
“I hope you’re right,” Folville said as they left the embankment and headed down along the waterfront. “Because if Castle Reach falls, so does the inland, and Warlord McFadden’s hopes for Donderath with it.”
From here, Folville could see the shipworks, down by the unmistakable red roof of the Rooster and Pig Tavern. Once the pride of Donderath, the shipworks had built many of the kingdom’s largest sailing ships, vessels that plied the seas bringing cargo back from the Cross-Sea Kingdoms and beyond, or taking prisoners north to Velant and returning with their holds full of crates of gemstones and barrels of salted herring.
The shipworks had collapsed in one of the last monstrous storms. Now, teams of men moved over the ruins like ants, clearing away rubble, cleaning debris out of the berths, rebuilding the scaffolding and docks so that someday soon, shipwrights could repair the large ships that had survived the storms, and build anew. Someday, but not now, Folville thought. Castle Reach was not yet ready for outsiders.
As they reached the walkway behind the seawall, a woman strode toward them. Betta was Folville’s sometime lover and longtime second-in-command. She had dark hair cut chin-length, features that were too sharp to be conventionally pretty, and hard, blue-green eyes that never missed anything.
“Sentries just got back from the midday shift,” she said, not bothering with greeting or preamble. “I think you’re going to want to hear what they’ve got to say.”
Folville glanced to Voss. “Care to join us?”
Voss nodded. “If there’s something going on, my men will need to know about it.”
“They’re back at base,” Betta said, then turned and walked away, certain that the men would follow. Folville could not help noticing the sway of her hips and the way her shoulders moved when she walked. Damn, it’s been too long.
Betta led them past hundreds of soldiers and city dwellers working in teams on projects all along the waterfront. The late summer air smelled of salt spray and dead fish. Hearing the waves against the seawall was a comfort to Folville. Dangerous and fickle as the sea could be, the waves were constant, steady, and sure. He had fled from the worst of the storms, waited out the sheeting rain and the gusting winds, climbed to high ground to keep from being washed away in the floods. Still, there was nowhere else he would rather be than Castle Reach. It wasn’t much, certainly no longer in its glory, but it was home.
‘Base’ was a solid stone building three stories high on Hougen Square, in the center of Castle Reach. “This is your headquarters?” Voss said with a hearty chuckle.
Folville could not resist a grin. “Yeah. It’s not going to burn down or float away, and I figure if it survived the Cataclysm and all the magic storms, it can last a while longer.”
“I like the way you think,” Voss said, still chuckling. “Takes some nerve, boy, to call the king’s tariff house
your own.”
Folville shrugged. “He’s not using it, seeing as there is no king,” he replied. “And if we get a king, I’ll give it back.” He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe.”
All those years as an urchin in Castle Reach, Folville had crept through Hougen Square, mindful to stay out of sight of the king’s guards around the tariff house. It had been grand and imposing, white marble gleaming in the sun, and the glimpse of its sumptuous interior when the doors opened was a reminder of King Merrill’s power and wealth.
Now, the tariff house was scarred with soot and the high-water marks of several floods. Betta led them up the worn steps, and two of Folville’s guards opened the heavy, carved oak doors for them. The regal furnishings, fine tapestries, and glittering crystal had long ago been looted or destroyed. Yet even without the trappings of monarchy, the grand old building had a shabby pride about it and a sense of strength and permanence that gave Folville a measure of comfort.
They followed Betta into a wood-paneled room furnished with a scarred desk, a battered chair, old crates, and scuffed barrels. No doubt an impressive large table and beautiful chairs would have graced the room before the Cataclysm, but those pieces were long gone, hauled away by those who could make use of them, or more likely, burned for firewood in the long, harsh winter.
Four men waited in the room, turning nervously as Folville and the others entered. The men ranged in age from their twenties into their middle years, all with the worn look of fishermen who had braved the worst that the sea had to offer. Their clothing was threadbare and they carried the smell of the sea on their skin and in their hair. Folville recognized the men, and noted with concern who was missing.
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