The Heir To The North

by Steven Poore

  “But what about you?” she asked him.

  His eyes held no emotion. None of the ghosts had yet uttered as much as a cry, though their mouths moved to shape words, but this time the soldier only held up his sword in a salute. Cassia touched her own blade to his. The hilt of her sword suddenly felt ice cold, leeching warmth from her hand, but the blade gained a brilliant silvery hue.

  Touched by magic, she thought, too exhausted to be awed as events and impossibilities piled atop one another. She could scarcely take it in.

  Cassia broke the salute and sprinted across the ground toward the steps. She had already decided not to look back. These soldiers had already died once for their homeland and she did not want to see their bold spirits snuffed out a second time. Not when she was responsible for those deaths.

  The stone was as damp as she had feared, but Craw’s intimidating presence overhead kept the mists at bay and there was nothing to trip her or seize her limbs as she skidded over the rampart. It was only nervous energy that kept her going, she knew. Exhaustion dragged at her heels and weighed her down, and she was barely able to haul herself up to the top of the watchtower.

  The mists swirled below her, covering the hillside. Dark shapes moved within, just as she had seen in the resurrected town of Karakhel. Cassia kept her sword high and ready, circling anxiously, but it seemed the effects of the curse wards were concentrated on the courtyard.

  “Craw!” she shouted.

  The force of its passage overhead knocked her to her knees once more. She raised her head and watched the dragon sweep into a graceful curve that brought it back toward the watchtower. The mists curled away, repelled by Craw’s presence.

  Craw reared up, wings fully extended, and its hind claws closed on the crumbling battlements. Swiftly, girl. We are not out of danger yet.

  The dragon raised one of its smaller front limbs so Cassia could scramble up onto its back. She was far too tired to complain when Craw rolled that limb to tumble her into place at the base of its long neck. Her stomach heaved as Craw thrust back into the air, the watchtower dropping quickly away from view. She caught one brief glimpse of the courtyard before it was lost within the murk, and if the fire still burned at all, she could not see it. There were tears in the corners of her eyes; tears she wanted to ascribe to the cold air that stung her face, but she knew she was mourning the wraiths she had called up.

  To die again. With my authority.

  Craw banked, the dragon’s great wings pushing it beyond the reach of a thick tendril of mist that whipped across the sky. Hold on, girl. If you fall . . .

  “Where are we going?” The mists covered more than just the hillside and the ruins of Karakhel, she could see from this height. She could not make out any of the valley’s landmarks, and with no sun visible in the grey sky, her sense of direction was confounded. Another thought occurred to her and she glanced over her shoulder. “Craw, where is Malessar?”

  A fair question. Where are your clothes?

  Her hands were already numb, and the rest of her body was not far behind. Even on the worst winter nights, huddled beneath scrubby bushes by the side of a frozen mud track while her father drank himself to insensibility by the fire, she had never felt this cold.

  “I burned them,” she admitted.

  Whatever the dragon thought of that, it kept its own counsel. Malessar is nearby. The wards must be sealed again.

  Craw dipped, following the curves of the landscape. They had left the valley behind and now flew low between the inhospitable peaks of the mountains. Mists curled over the ground below, hugging the contours of the land and disguising the few stands of trees that grew there. She could not work out their heading, but Craw seemed to be making for a high ridge that ran the length of the range to her right.

  The ridge was clear of mists, and Craw slowed to circle a wide promontory that looked out over Caenthell’s valleys. A figure stood there; the warlock leaned on his staff, head bowed. She was so glad to see him alive that the scale of his exhaustion did not register until Craw reared to a halt and she scrambled from the dragon’s back to run to him.

  “Sir, I thought—” she began, but Malessar raised a hand to stop her.

  “No apology is necessary,” he said. “The fault is mine. I should not have brought you to this place. The wards are disintegrating. Caenthell is far too dangerous, even for me.” He frowned. “What has happened? Where are your clothes?”

  He tore off his cloak and wrapped it around her. “Gods above, girl, you will catch a death of cold up here!”

  “I used up all the fuel,” she explained. “I had to keep the fire burning, or you would be unprotected, and the soldiers could not hold back the mists, and I thought I was going to die . . .”

  Malessar tied the cloak tight around her neck and pressed two fingers against her forehead. She flinched at the touch.

  “Soldiers? No, never mind. This can wait for another time. Stay back from the edge, girl. This ledge was ever perilous, but we will not be here long.”

  He led her back from the sheer cliff face, and when he halted she collapsed onto the ground. She heard him speak to Craw, but she did not understand the words. The battle had drained her completely. Cassia could hardly believe she still lived. She shivered with remembered fear and desperation. The world had contracted to the dirt within arm’s reach and she struggled to keep the warlock in sight.

  Fighting against the onrushing dark of unconsciousness, she watched Malessar take a small pouch from his belt and lay out a series of objects along the top of the cliff. He spoke to the dragon again and Craw, transformed once more, shook his head and gestured in her direction.

  It’s my fault, she thought. It must be my fault. I have to tell them . . .

  But the thread of her thoughts was unravelling so quickly she could not even remember what was so important. Her exhausted mind was playing tricks on her, overlaying her view of Malessar and Craw with a scene conjured from her imagination . . .

  Two men stand above the Hamiardin Pass, discussing strategy, dividing up the North between them. Their cloaks are frayed and weather-worn, crusted with the ice of a hard winter. One man is thick-set and broad-shouldered, his gloved hands braced against his hips. The sharp edges of his armour bulge through his cloak, but his head is bare and the dark ringlets of his hair lie plastered to his skull as he stares down upon Caenthell. His companion is taller, more slender, but his poise speaks of his utter self-confidence and the devastating talents he commands. While he talks, punctuating his calm words with sweeping gestures across the snow-capped mountains, the soldier judges each point with blunt monosyllabic replies.

  In the valleys below, the spires of an impregnable castle fly bright pennons in the chill mountain winds. Soon there will be bloodshed – and after that, these men will rule the world. Jedrell and Malessar. And behind them, silent and stoic in the way of all Northmen, a captain named Baum guards his liege lord. The long years of exile have weighed heavy on his shoulders, but now his faith in Jedrell’s leadership has been repaid and soon he will return home.

  The warlock glances over his shoulder, as if aware that he is being watched. There is a distracted frown upon his face. Although he is far younger here, he still wears the gravitas of a much older man. He says something to Jedrell, but the words are whipped away by the wind. The last High King of the North turns, one hand clasped to the hilt of the greatsword at his side, ready to meet any threat face on. His features – buried for centuries beneath the weight of history – are revealed for the first time.

  She gasped, and the vision shattered. Meredith.

  Craw turned his gaze upon her. His fingers curled and pulled at unseen strings. The curse affects you, girl. Do not fight this – you must sleep, or your mind will be destroyed.

  Cassia tried to open her mouth to protest, to tell the truth at last, but the words would not come. Her spirit, assailed on all sides by ancient magic, fled into darkness.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Her
dreams were haunted by visions of Meredith. As a warrior. As a prince. As a lover, bare-chested as he had been in the yard of the Old Soak, hovering uncomfortably close over her. As a king, fierce and remote, casting a shadow the size of a mountain over her life . . .

  No, not a mountain. Two mountains – and Meredith was framed between them, holding them apart, or else pulling them down upon himself . . .

  She woke, so tangled in a blanket that it took her a few moments to unwrap herself and sit upright. That, it turned out, was not a good idea. Her head spun and her stomach heaved rebelliously, as though she was drunk. The fact that both the blanket and her clothes were soaked through with sweat told the remainder of the story.

  Cool hands pressed her back down. “Rest,” she heard someone say. A familiar voice: soothing, mothering. “Here – drink this.”

  The water was as sharp as mountain ice. The mountains . . .

  “Leili . . . ?”

  It all rushed back with the force of a blow. The mountains, the vision of Malessar and Jedrell, Craw and the desperate battle against the mists – everything jumbled into one terrifying blur. And all of it my fault. It has to be.

  “Leili, I have to speak to him.”

  “Stop fussing, girl. You’re not fit. Drink up and rest.” There was an edge of concern in the woman’s voice, and her hands pressed more firmly. Cassia did not have the strength to fight back.

  “But . . . Baum and Meredith . . . my prince . . . my charm . . .”

  Leili clicked her teeth. “The fever’s talking now. Whatever it is, it can wait, girl. You sweat it out, eh?”

  She closed her eyes again and let her shoulders slump back, but Leili still kept one hand pressed to her chest. The cold of the water had hidden a bittersweet taste that was only now apparent. A sleeping draught . . . ? But I don’t need to sleep! I need . . . I need . . .

  q

  The next time she knew herself to be awake, it was Leili’s humming that roused her. The sound echoed through the windows. The shutters were flung wide and dust and insects played in the broad shafts of light. Cassia lay still for a few minutes and watched them, becoming aware of how the light moved in response to the slow passage of time, before she remembered that her room did not have windows like these that opened onto the dhar’s courtyard.

  Shifting around on the cushions, she was able to see that she had been moved into the long room Malessar had originally offered her. It still loomed around her, far too large for her to be comfortable, but she was glad she had not been left to suffer her fever in her own small, darkened room.

  Leili was cooking, she thought. That meant everything would be all right.

  Except that it won’t be. How long have I been asleep?

  She began to lever herself out of the bed, but hesitated. Leili would hear the boards creak the moment she stepped upon them. Still, it couldn’t be helped. She couldn’t lie here all day.

  At some point she had been stripped of her clothes and dressed in a plain knee-length shift. The thin cloth was damp and smelled stale; it looked too small to belong to Leili, so it must have been dragged out of storage somewhere. Cassia padded over the floor barefoot, her arms outstretched for balance. She blinked away the sudden rush of dizziness, making for the chests that sat on either side of the door onto the balcony. She was pulling a tunic from the first chest when Leili’s shape cast shadows through the windows.

  “You shouldn’t be up so soon!” the woman tutted. “You’re weaker than a newborn lamb!”

  “I have to get up,” Cassia told her. “It’s too important.”

  Leili shook her head. “And now you sound like the master. You Northerners – you’re all as stubborn as each other. You’ve got three days of meals to catch up on, and I’ll be damned if I let you go without them. I’ll force them into you one after another if I have to.”

  Cassia didn’t doubt that. Some battles were not worth fighting. Leili hovered attentively over her while she donned a pair of breeches plainly made for a man with much longer legs. The boots, at least, were her own. When she reached for her scabbard, hung on the back of the door, Leili tutted again and Cassia glared at her for a moment before giving in. She took her staff instead, using it to support her as she made her way slowly down the stairs.

  “The master,” she said between breaths as she descended. “How is he? Is he here?”

  “You’re as bad as each other,” Leili said.

  Cassia remembered how Malessar had gone into seclusion after he fought off the storm that chased the Rabbit from Hellea. The use of sorcery had weakened him for several days then. How much more of his strength must he have used to restore Caenthell’s curse wards? And how would that incapacitate him?

  “But he’s here, isn’t he?”

  “He’s in his bed, girl. As you should be.”

  Cassia’s mind moved too fast for her to catch up. She knew she would have to recover further before she could make the connections that lurked just out of reach, and that was frustrating enough to bring a curse to her lips. She reached the bottom of the stairs and paused for breath, taking a firm grip on the staff to prevent her hands from trembling.

  “There’s too much at stake, Leili. More than I can say. I cannot just rest.”

  The old woman’s eyes were filled with sadness. “I said you sounded like him. Oh, Cassia, you’re no girl anymore.”

  It was a measure of how preoccupied she was that it took her a full hour to work out what Leili meant.

  q

  When one of Leili’s cousins arrived at the door to bring three loaves of tomato bread and to make gossip, Cassia took advantage of the distraction. She gathered up the clay bowl and slipped gingerly off the stool, moving as quietly as possible to the door into the garden. Leili never once turned around.

  Cassia had to admit the cook had been right in one respect: she needed feeding up. The spiced lamb must have slow-cooked for all the time she had been asleep, it had been so soft. Nothing she had eaten ever tasted so good.

  It sounded as though Narjess was up on the roof; Cassia wondered if he was repairing the marks in the walls where Craw had landed. It might cure him of his disbelief in dragons, although he was so set in his ways that she doubted it. She walked across the colonnade towards Malessar’s private rooms, glancing up from time to time to be sure Narjess had not seen her.

  Even with her staff to aid her she felt exhausted by the time she reached the far wing of the dhar. The garden had never seemed so long before. The clay bowl of stew was warm against her side, and that warmth lent her some degree of strength.

  Where the room she had slept in had been thrown open to the daylight, the shutters at this end of the dhar were closed tight on both floors, as were the ornately decorated doors. Cassia knew the lower floor held the warlock’s library and work areas – she had peered in through the windows once, on a rare occasion when the shutters were open, and seen the dark silhouettes of unfamiliar furnishings there. She had guessed Malessar used the room above as his living quarters. She gritted her teeth against fatigue and took the stairs slowly. Leili’s gossiping echoed faintly through the colonnade behind her.

  In all her time in Galliarca she had never been in this part of the house. There was no physical wall erected around it, but there might as well have been. Cassia felt the hairs on her arms stir as she stepped onto the balcony. There was sorcery in the air. Of course, she thought. It could not be any other way.

  She hesitated and then knocked lightly on the smaller access door that was set into the larger pair. There was no reply from within.

  I can leave it. I can leave him. I don’t have to do this.

  But she did, she knew. Malessar had given her a life – a life she would otherwise never have had. Despite any protestations he might make, that meant she owed him a debt.

  Juggling bowl and staff, she lifted the latch. Daylight illuminated a slanted rectangle of rich carpet beyond. “Sir?” she called in a low voice. “Sir, I have food for you.”

&
nbsp; There was still no answer. She took a deep breath and stepped through, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the gloom. There were cases, hangings and shelves on the walls, alongside alcoves that were darker than the rest of the room, and there were cushions and low tables in the Galliarcan style. At one end of the room another small door must lead through to the warlock’s private dressing area. At the other end, curtains had been drawn to hide his bed.

  The prickling sensation reached her back, another wave starting at her wrists. Cassia felt the urge to drop both the bowl and her staff and scratch furiously at her skin. “Sir, I’ll let some light in,” she said.

  She left the bowl on a table and used the tip of her staff to flick the upper catches of one of the shutters and push it outwards. Sunlight and colour returned to the room.

  Like so much of the dhar, Malessar’s quarters were a battling confusion of Galliarcan and Northern styles. The carpets were cream, with borders of thorns and trailing ivy. Intricately detailed lanterns hung from the beams high above, Galliarcan to the core. The hangings showed scenes from Galliarcan tales as well as the Age of Talons, while dark figurines of mail-clad soldiers and slender maidens stared up at her from the alcoves and low shelves. Although she thought she had known what to expect, Cassia still found herself distracted and amazed by the variety of decoration.

  More to the point, however, was the presence of another two bowls of food, both untouched and congealed, congregated with buzzing flies. Cassia moved the stew she had brought away from that table and covered it with a small mat.

  “Sir?”

  She brushed one hand against the silken curtain that surrounded the bed. There was nothing for it, she decided. She scooped the curtain aside to see into the divided space.

  Malessar lay with his eyes closed, beneath a simple blanket. He looked every inch his nine hundred years or more, his skin pallid and tight against his skull. One hand sat on top of the blanket, the fingers curled like dead worms. Cassia could not conceive of this man as the self-confident, energetic scholar she had met in Hellea. For one terrifying moment she thought he was dead.