by Jack Conner
“But why did it take her so long to find her way here? Why did she disappear like that?”
“Apparently she escaped Celievsti on swan-back and spent many weeks wondering alone, reeling from the shock. I think she likely suffered some head trauma, but if so she’s recovered. Go to her. We’re keeping her in a room on the wall, near the South Gate.”
Baleron finished dressing. “Why haven’t you told my father the news yet?”
“You were the closest to her. I figured you should go to her first. Besides, it is late and the news can wait till tomorrow, but she should see at least one familiar face before then, and I’m sure you have plenty of catching up to do. I’ll tell Madam Hyulen to prepare a suite for her tonight.”
“Very well. And thank you.” To Amrelain, he said, “Go on to your quarters. Rolenya and I have much to talk about.”
She stuck out a full lower lip. “Are you sure?”
Baleron laughed. “I’m sure. Fear not, I’ll call on you soon.”
He departed for the stables and saddled Lunir. Lunir, sensing his excitement, cawed enthusiastically.
The great metropolis of Glorifel—with all its spires and arches and monuments and delicate bridges over rushing streams, its architecture heavily inspired by the elves and all the more beautiful for that, home to half a million people—wheeled and spun below, its lights flashing and streaking, but Baleron hardly noticed. He almost couldn’t believe it. Rolenya, alive!
He’d given her up for dead, or nearly so. Could she really have escaped the destruction of Celievsti? It was almost too much to ask for. The gods weren’t this merciful—at least, not to him.
He followed the lights of King’s Road, the main tree-lined boulevard that led straight from Grothgar Castle to the South Gate, over bridges spanning dark streams and one river and over and through hills, and then he was there.
The thick gray line of the wall rose into view, as well as the high heavy arch of the gate. Beyond, the bonfires of the Borchstogs leapt high into the night.
Landing Lunir, he instantly leapt off the glarum and alit on the cobblestones with a spring in his step.
“Rolenya!” he cried. “Rolenya!”
With a smattering of footsteps, a group of armored soldiers came into view. The cluster of knights folded away and there she stood in their center, newly clothed in white and freshly washed and ravishingly beautiful. Long black hair framed her white face, and her lips looked very red.
She gave him a secret smile and said, “I’m here.”
With that, she ran into his arms and flung herself against him, giddy.
He noticed she looked happy, at least on the surface, but underneath he could sense a certain solemnity, a sense of mourning, which he found imminently understandable. After all, her true father had perished mere weeks ago, as well as thousands of others of her kind, and her true kingdom had just been invaded and would soon likely fall to the fires of Gilgaroth. Inside, she must be devastated. Not to mention the fact that the recently learned truth about her heritage had just severed her from the only family she’d ever known. Just the same, it was no wonder that she had returned to Glorifel rather than Clevaris. This is where she’d grown up, the only home she’d ever known. Added to that, Clevaris was even more inaccessible than Glorifel. Perhaps she’d flown there first.
“It’s so good to see you again,” he whispered to her.
“You too.” She turned to the leader of the guard. “I’ll be safe now, Captain.”
“I’ll see her to the castle,” Baleron assured him.
“It was a pleasure, my lady,” said the soldier, and bowed. He and his men turned back and left the former brother and sister, but now something else, alone.
“Come,” Baleron said. “Let me take you on a ride.”
He showed her to Lunir and they climbed astride, she riding directly behind Baleron, her hands clasped about his chest, her body pressed into his back as the glarum bucked and jostled them, awkwardly winging its way through the air, too old to bear two riders for long and too caustically-tempered to bear them as long as even that.
Rolenya, laughing, hugged Baleron tighter and he could feel her breasts mash against his back. Her nipples were hard and pressed into him through the thin material of her dress. Her thighs pressed into him from behind. Suddenly he felt very hot. Why was he noticing these things? He fervently tried not to.
When they reached the castle, he landed on his balcony, and he and Rolenya slipped off the glarum. Baleron whispered a command to Lunir, pointing to the stables, and Lunir cawed in a disgruntled manner, but he took off and made his way back to them. It had taken Baleron several days to teach the glarum that trick.
Rolenya beamed, squeezing Baleron’s hands. Her blue eyes shone. It was so good to see her again.
“Oh, Bal!” she said.
“Oh, Rolly. I’m so glad you’re safe. We were so worried about you. I don’t know where to begin.”
“Then don’t. I won’t, either.” She cast her eyes up to the shiny, bloated moon glaring down at them from the black sky through a brief rift in Gilgaroth’s clouds. “The Eye of Illiana,” she breathed. “What do you think she sees tonight, when she looks at us?”
He shifted uncomfortably. “I think she sees a prince and princess ... of different countries now ...”
She seemed to sadden. “So Father ... King Grothgar ... told you.”
“Of course.”
She nodded. “I will miss being your sister, Bal.”
“So will I.”
She nodded to the moon. “What else do you think she sees?” She turned to look at him, to study his face.
He hesitated. Where was she going with this? “A man and a woman,” he ventured. “Brother and sister—or raised that way.” What else was there? “Best friends,” he added.
Her eyes were very blue tonight. And very still. They seemed to hold him in some strange spell.
“And nothing else?” she asked. It was almost a sigh.
“Allies?” he chanced.
That made her smile.
“Yes,” she said. “Most definitely allies.”
The wind gusted and blew her long black hair away from her face and made the tail of her white dress dance like a phantom. It plastered the front of her dress against her body and he was painfully aware of her voluptuous yet slender form, the swell of her breasts, the flare of her hips. Her lips were red and moist. She had an oval face and high, round cheekbones that made her look angelic. Her skin looked creamy in the moonlight, and he noticed she was barefoot. The effect made her look strangely vulnerable, and despite himself he longed to put his arms about her.
“I ... I think,” he started, suddenly for some reason a bit nervous, “that we should try to go to b—” He stopped himself. “To try to get some sleep. It is late.”
She traced his scarred, bearded jaw with her light, nimble fingers. “I won’t be getting any sleep tonight, Bal.” She was very close to him, and he could smell her heady, exotic perfume. It was very sensual. Where had she gotten it? Surely the sorcerers hadn’t given it to her. At her proximity, his skin prickled, and his hairs stood on end. He began to feel a bit light-headed.
“Will you?” she added.
He’d known this woman all his life, but never had he been this nervous around her. Why was she doing this? Why was she acting this way? And why, gods help him, did he find her so hard to resist?
“W-what are you doing?” he stammered.
“Only what we’ve both dreamed of for too long. But I’m done with dreams, Bal. I’ve been too close to death too many times. I’ve seen it too often. We’ve got to live our dreams now, Baleron, don’t you see? Or else why bother?” She stood up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against his. They were moist and hot. “Well?” she asked.
This was too soon, too sudden. Things were moving impossibly quickly. She’d just gotten here, and already this! It was as if they’d both been waiting for it all their lives and now their feelings threatened
to overwhelm them.
Perhaps that was the case. All these years, had he really thought of her ... in that way? He didn’t think so, but nothing made sense at the moment, and her presence was quickly driving him beyond reason.
He almost could not believe what happened next.
It seemed a madness took him.
He kissed her.
Her lips were soft and hot. She responded passionately. Urgently. Hungrily.
He gripped her upper arms and jerked her to him, pressing her against him in a fit of passion that defied reason. Clothes dropped hastily to the floor.
He threw her on the bed, and she gasped and wrapped her long slender legs about his hips and pressed him deep inside her. Her eyes widened the first time he entered her, and she moaned, and he suckled on her ripe, firm breasts with their small red nipples and ran his fingers through her sweaty black hair.
Their bodies melded, it seemed, and they became a writhing tangle of sweat-drenched limbs and heaving bodies, and though he had no idea what he was doing, he knew that he never wanted it to end.
Afterward, they lay tangled in each other’s arms, the silken sheets awry, and her damp cheek against his sweaty, hairy chest. It rose and fell with his breath and he held her fragile body in his arms and slept. He felt very warm, and sated, and drowsy.
Gilgaroth did not sleep. In the shape of the Great Wolf, he lay at the front of the camp, his fiery eyes staring unblinking at the walls of Glorifel. He rested upon a great mound of corpses of all manner of beings, as a dragon might lounge upon his hoard. Flies and the stench of death rose about Him.
Ungier tried to keep his distance, though he did have news to bring. Instead, he sought out the captain of prisoners, who showed him the selection of men caught in the last attack. Ungier, feeling that he needed a lot of blood tonight, chose the largest three.
Afterward he was done with them, as he was trying to select which girl of his new harem (the girls had been captured in the small towns his army had marched through on the way to Glorifel) he would amuse himself with, his daughter Serengorthis, one of his spies and messengers, flew in from Larenthi. She brought tidings of the war for Clevaris and conferred with her father privately.
“I will take the news to Master,” Ungier told her when she’d finished.
Reluctantly, he strode up the aisle of torture racks upon which Glorifelans writhed in misery to the great putrescent mound upon which Gilgaroth sat. Ungier waited for his Master to notice him, and eventually Gilgaroth, without averting His eyes, said, “Speak.”
“My necromancers have divined that, ah, Rolenya has been cleared by the human sorcerers.” He grimaced. “She, if I may call her that, is free.”
“You do not like her.” A flicker of amusement.
Ungier plowed on. “There’s more. Serengorthis has just come from the siege at Clevaris. She reports that Grudremorq and his Grudremorqen are amusing themselves by torturing the Borchstogs and putting them to death, but only after playing games with them first.”
“The River still keeps them from attacking the city?”
“It does. And no bridge will span it without bursting into white flames.”
“Grudremorq is a fool.”
Ungier decided to press his suit. “Grudremorq detests Your children in favor of his own. That must stop. He will need the Borchstogs to attack or he will fail. I suggest he needs ... a rebuke.”
The Eyes of Hell studied him. For a long moment, Gilgaroth did not answer. At last, with deceptive calmness, he said, “Still you play your games. You think that to bring my wrath upon your old charge will serve you. It will not. Do not try this again.”
Ungier sagged, cursing himself.
“Nevertheless, I leave soon.”
Ungier looked up, hesitantly. “Where to, my Lord?”
“Krogbur.”
A strange feeling came over Ungier. “The Black Tower of your vision?” A wistfulness crept into his voice. “I long to see it. For ages I have longed to see it. ”
“It is glorious, the first true fruit of the Spider’s web.”
“If I may ask, why do You return there? Your Presence inspires my troops.”
The eyes flared, and the smoke issuing from the throat grew thicker, blacker. “Lie not to me, Ungier. I know what you desire most of all—my absence.”
“Never, Sire!”
The Great Wolf growled, and Ungier felt the heat of the Second Hell on his face. He shrank back, throwing up a hand to ward off his destruction.
It did not come. Gilgaroth quieted. The heat faded.
The Wolf turned his horrible eyes back to Glorifel. “And you desire she whom I took from you. Rolenya ...”
Ungier did not deny it. Desperately he wanted to ask the boon of his father that he’d yet to voice. He wanted to solicit a prize for Havensrike’s delivery, yet Gilgaroth had already scorned his devotion to the prize he would ask, and he sensed that to openly ask for it ... for her ... would be a mistake.
Instead, he said again, “But why do You go to Krogbur, in the midst of Your War?”
Gilgaroth sat silent, then said, “I should never have left. It is a thing that does require My presence—new-forged, it needs its Smith to hone it, to strengthen it. As well, this army of yours may not be enough. The mage Logran has some weapon of defense that keeps our full strength from assaulting the city, and Rauglir may not be able to destroy it alone. I go to Krogbur to gather a host that will break Glorifel with or without Logran’s shield.”
“But Glorifel may fall at any time. Rauglir, and Baleron’s Doom—”
“If Glorifel is won, my new army will go to the next target. That is not your concern.” Gilgaroth’s eyes smoldered, and now the Beast turned and stared Ungier in the eye. Ungier forced himself not to look away. “Take Havensrike for me. Do not return to me until it has fallen. Do not fail.”
Ungier swallowed. “I won’t, my Lord.” But inside he was thinking, Perhaps THEN He will give her to me. Then I will have earned her.
Baleron awoke to knocking at his door.
“Who is it?” he called groggily, but then memory came to him and he jerked wide-awake.
Naked, Rolenya lay sprawled beside him on the bed, still asleep. What had he done?
The knocking came again. Whoever it was hadn’t heard him.
“Gods!” he murmured. No one must find him like this. Loudly, he asked again, “Who is it?”
“Captain Quinton, sir.”
“Hells.” He shook Rolenya awake. “Rolly,” he whispered.
She cracked a sleepy eye. “Yes?”
“Dress and hide. Quickly.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
She was a bit bleary-eyed and put out at being hidden away, but she rose and let him shut her in his large closet. Hastily, he threw on some pants and opened the door.
“Yes?”
Rafael Quinton smiled at him. The captain seemed well pleased with his charge these days; he quite clearly enjoyed being the one to protect Lord Baleron, leader of the Fighting Five Hundred. “There’s been a development, sir. I hope you’ll forgive the intrusion.”
“I’ll let you know afterward.”
“Your father has just finalized the organization of the Great Council meeting that was put off by the siege. It shall be a week hence.”
“But how will the delegates relay information to their capitals? Ungier will shoot any carrier pigeon down.”
“Through sorcerers, I suppose. At any rate, I was instructed to inform you that you’ll be attending. All those on the King’s Council will.”
Baleron found it difficult to retain his impassive face at this news. To sit beside his father at a meeting of the Great Council! It almost made him smile—and would have if not for the meeting’s cause.
“Is that all?”
“Yes, my lord. Will you be attending the family breakfast?”
“Tell them I’ll be down shortly. And I will bring the new arrival.”
“Th
ank you, sir.”
At all times the captain left two guards posted to either side of the prince’s door. They were part of his guard (of six, now) and Quinton was their supervisor. Glancing at them now, Baleron shuddered to think what they’d heard last night but knew that their oath swore them to silence. He felt safe on that issue, at least.
With a quick nod at the two sentries, who remained inscrutable, Captain Quinton departed. Baleron closed the door.
Finding Rolenya, he said, “Get dressed.” While she went about it, he turned his back and said over his shoulder, “Last night was a mistake, Rolly. A terrible, awful mistake. Let’s forget it ever happened. Make no mention of this to anyone. Ever. Promise me.”
He turned around to find her smiling coyly. “I promise,” she said.
“Now hurry. It’s time for you to see Father.”
“Papa ...” A strange look crossed her suddenly serious face. Her eyes seemed far away, lost in memory.
Her feelings for the old man must be quite complex, Baleron supposed. She’d thought of him as a true father all these years, only to find out now that he wasn’t ... and now her real father was dead. Baleron couldn’t imagine the torment she must be going through.
He held her close, and she buried her head in his chest while he stroked her thick raven hair.
Half an hour later, they walked into the Royal Breakfast Room, and the reunion began. The king, of course, was overjoyed to see his daughter again, as clearly that was still very much how he thought of her.
“I never doubted you!” he exclaimed. His eyes veritably sparkled. It was infectious.
With hardly a thought to anything else, he cut through the room and wrapped her in a great bear hug. She laughed joyfully, and so did he. Still embracing her, he lifted her off the ground, a deep, contented chuckle escaping from his throat.
Baleron, despite himself, was moved.
“How?” asked the king. Then, too impatient for an answer, he cried, “Ah, Rolenya!”
Only reluctantly did he set her down. All the other princes gathered round, murmuring excitedly.
“Oh, praise Illiana!” muttered Rilurn.
