The RuneLords

by David Farland

  She'd been terrified in her dream, had watched her people, the peasants of Heredon, racing to the safety of the castle. The hills to the north, east, and west were full of them--peasants in brown tunics and thick boots, hunched and running for cover. Hefty women with babes in tow, men pushing wheelbarrows full of turnips. Boys driving calves with sticks. An old woman with sheaves of wheat tied to her back. Young lovers with dreams of immortality in their eyes.

  All of them raced, seeking cover.

  But Iome knew the castle could not protect her people. Its walls would never hold back Raj Ahten.

  So she pursed her lips and blew with all her might, blew to the west, then to the east, then to the south. Her breath came out smelling of lavender, and it purpled the air. Every person it touched, everyone she breathed upon in all the kingdom, turned to white thistledown, white thistledown that bobbed and swirled in every small eddy of wind, then suddenly caught in a great gust and went floating high and away over the oaks and birches and alders of the Dunnwood.

  Last of all, Iome breathed on herself and upon Gaborn, who stood beside her, so they too turned to thistledown and went flying high over the Dunnwood, gazing down at the autumn leaves, all golden and flame and earthy brown.

  She watched as Raj Ahten's armies burst from under the trees with a shout, soldiers waving battle-axes and spears toward her castle. No one stood to oppose them.

  Desolation. Raj Ahten might have hoped to win something, but all he would inherit would be desolation.

  As her horse carried Iome south through the night, she felt as if she flew, leaving the world behind. Until just after midnight, when a sudden dizziness swept over her, and she looked up to see her father, too, weaving in his saddle. Grief struck her as she recognized what was happening.

  At Castle Sylvarresta, someone--Borenson, she suspected--had begun to slaughter her Dedicates.

  * * *

  Chapter 32

  A HIGH PRICE FOR HOSPITALITY

  The army of Raj Ahten came to Hayworth after midnight, as King Orden had said it would.

  The innkeeper Stevedore Hark woke in his cot beside his wife to the sound of hoofbeats on the far side of the river. It was an odd trick of sound that let one hear them so clearly here on the promontory above the water. The stone cliffs on the hillside above the road caught the sounds of hoof-beats, sent them echoing down over the flood.

  Stevedore Hark had taught himself years ago to wake at the sound of such hoofbeats, for more often than not, if a man was riding abroad at night, it meant Hark would have to find the traveler a bed.

  His inn was small, with but two rooms, so often his guests were obliged to sleep four or five on a straw mat. A stranger coming in the middle of the night meant that Hark might have guests to waken and placate, as he stuffed a new customer in their bed--all kinds of such worries.

  So when he heard hoofbeats, Stevedore Hark lay abed trying to count the number of riders. A thousand, two? his sleepy mind wondered. Which bed shall I put them in?

  Then he recalled that the bridge was out, and that he'd promised King Orden to send these men south to Boar's Ford.

  He jumped up, still in his bedclothes, and struggled quickly to pull on some socks, for it grew cold here at night, so near the mountains. Then he rushed from his inn, looked out over the river. He'd left a lantern posted under the eaves of his roof, just for this moment, but he did not need his own light.

  The soldiers stood there, across the river. Knights in full armor, the four lead men carrying guttering torches to light their road. Torchlight reflected off brass shields, and off water. The sight of the warriors frightened him--the white wings engraved on the helms of the Invincibles, the crimson wolves on their surcoats. Mastiffs and giants and darker things could be seen, too.

  "Hail, friends, what do you want?" Hark called. "The bridge is out. You cannot pass. The closest place is upstream, at the Boar's Ford. Twenty miles! Follow the trail."

  He nodded encouragingly, pointing the way. A little-used trail led up-river to the ford. The night air smelled heavy-laden of rain, and the wind swirled about Hark's head, carrying the scent of pine. The dark waters of the river lapped softly at their banks.

  The soldiers studied him quietly. Tired, it seemed. Or perhaps they did not speak his tongue. Stevedore Hark knew a few words of Muyyatinish.

  "Chota. Chota!" he shouted, pointing toward the ford.

  Among the horsemen, a shadowy figure suddenly pushed its way forward. A small dark man with glittering eyes, and no hair. He gazed across the river toward Hark and smiled broadly, as if sharing a private joke.

  He shrugged off his robe and stood naked. For one brief moment, his eyes seemed to glow; then a blue flame licked the side of his face, rising into the night.

  "The darkness of a deception--I can see it in you!" the small man cried.

  He raised a fist, and the blue flame shot along his arm, came skipping across the surface of the river like a stone, and bounced toward Stevedore Hark.

  Hark shouted in terror as the thing touched the side of his inn. The ancient timbers screamed as if in pain, then burst into flame. The oil in the lamp posted under the eaves exploded all along the wall.

  The small blue light then went racing back across the river, to rest in the small man's eyes.

  Stevedore Hark shouted and rushed into his inn to fetch his wife and guests before the whole building burst into a conflagration.

  By the time he'd dragged his wife and guests from their beds, the roof of the inn was afire, orange flames writhing up in great sheets.

  Stevedore Hark raced from the inn, gasping from smoke, and looked out across the river. The dark man stood watching, smiling broadly.

  He waved toward Hark with a little flourish, then turned and headed along the road--downstream, toward Power's Bridge, some thirty miles to the east. It would take Raj Ahten's army far out of their way, but the Wolf Lord's soldiers would circumvent Orden's ambush.

  Stevedore Hark found his heart pounding. It was a long way for a fat old innkeeper to ride to get to Longmont, and there were no force horses in town. He couldn't warn Orden that his ambush would fail. He'd never make it riding through the woods at night.

  Silently, he wished Orden well.

  * * *

  Chapter 33

  TREACHERY

  King Mendellas Draken Orden toured the defenses of Longmont in the failing light, considering how best to defend the rock. It was an odd castle, with outer walls exceptionally tall, carved of granite from the hill Longmont squatted upon. The fortress had no secondary or tertiary walls, as one found in a larger castle, such as at Sylvarresta. It had no fine merchants' quarter, held only two defensible manors for minor barons, along with the keeps for the Duke, his soldiers, and his Dedicates.

  But the walls were solid, protected by earth runes of bonding.

  The tallest building in the keep was the graaks' aerie--a merely functional building on a rock pinnacle that could nest up to six of the large reptiles. One reached the aerie by means of narrow stone stairs that zigzagged along the east wall of the pinnacle. The aerie was not meant to be defended. It had no merlons archers could hide behind, no landings on the stairs where swordsmen had room to swing. It held only a wide landing field atop the pinnacle for graaks, then six circular openings in nests above the field.

  The dukes of Longmont had not raised graaks here in generations. King Orden thought it a shame. A hundred and twenty years past, several harsh winters came, and here in the north the graaks had frozen from cold. During those same winters the Frowth giants had traveled from the north over the snow. But when the winters warmed and the wild graaks flew up again from the south, the kings of Heredon hadn't tamed them, as their forefathers had. When they sent messages, they trusted riders on force horses.

  It seemed a shame to Orden. A rich tradition had been lost. In some small way, the nation became poorer for it.

  The aeries were badly kept. Stone watering troughs lay empty. Gnawed bones lay about,
leftovers from past feedings.

  Over the years, Orden had sent messages north by graak, and some graaks had stopped here. No one had ever cleaned the dung from the floors; now lime liberally covered the stone. The stairs leading to the aerie were age-worn. Vines of morning glory climbed from cracks in the rock, their blue flower petals open now to the evening sun.

  But Orden found that one could see well from the landing field on the aerie--even down to the roofs of the Dedicates' Keep and Duke's Keep. So he secreted six archers with steel bows there, ordering them to hide and watch, shooting only if Raj Ahten's forces made it through the gates. He added a single swordsman to guard the steps.

  In the semidarkness, he waited for his body servant to light a lantern; then by its light he toured the Dedicates' Keep. From the outside, it looked to be an austere, grim keep--a round tower that could hold a thousand Dedicates. For windows, it had a handful of small slits in the stone. Orden imagined few Dedicates ever stood in the full sunlight once they gave endowments. To become a Dedicate for the Duke, one virtually had to consign one's self to a prison.

  But the interior of the Dedicates' Keep was surprisingly plush. The walls were painted white, with images of blue roses or daisies stenciled along the small windowsills. Each level in the tower had its own common room, with beds arranged around the outer walls, and a fine hearth in the center. Such rooms were devised so that at night a pair of caretakers might watch over a hundred or more Dedicates at once. The rooms each had chessboards, comfortable chairs to sit in, fresh rushes mingled with lavender on the floors.

  King Orden worried for his son. He still had no word of Gaborn's whereabouts. Had the boy been killed? Did he sit in Sylvarresta's keep, a Dedicate to Raj Ahten? Perhaps he rested beside a warm fire, weak as a kitten, playing chess. One could only hope. One had to hope. But Orden's hope was waning.

  The Duke's Keep now cloistered less than a hundred Dedicates, all in a single room. Orden calculated that it should have held at least five hundred to serve the fortress defenders. But at least four hundred Dedicates had died in the fight to win back the castle.

  The battle for freedom claimed that many victims.

  Fortifications for the tower concentrated at its lowest level. With great thoroughness, Orden inspected these defenses, for he hoped to fight Raj Ahten here, where he might have some advantage.

  A portcullis opened to a guardroom where a dozen pikemen might keep watch. The gears to the portcullis were kept some eighty feet back, in a separate room. A pair of guards could be housed in the gear room.

  Off from the gear room lay an armory and the Duke's treasury. The armory was well stocked with arrows and ballista bolts--more than Orden would have imagined. The arrows were bound into bundles of a hundred. A quick guess told Orden that at least two hundred thousand arrows lay there, most newly fletched with gray goose feathers--as if the Duke had been vigorously preparing for the end of the world.

  The Duke's armor and that of his horse were gone, taken by one of Raj Ahten's Invincibles, no doubt. Still, Raj Ahten's men had left a princely long sword--fine Heredon spring steel, honed to a razor's edge.

  Orden studied its hilt. The name of Stroehorn was branded into it, an artificer of exceptional skill some fifty years past--a veritable Maker.

  The Indhopalese, who'd never worn anything but leather mail in battle till fifty years ago, didn't value Northern armor or swords. In the desert, heavy ring mail or plate was too hot to fight in. So men there had worn lacquered leather armor, and instead of the heavy blades of the North fought with curved scimitars. The curved blades maximized the cutting edge of the sword, so that a single strike could slice through a man's body. Against lightly armored opponents, curved scimitars proved to be elegant, graceful weapons. But when a scimitar's edge met ring mail, the blade quickly dulled or bent.

  For fighting a man in ring, one needed a thick Northern blade, with its straight edge and hard steel. These could pierce armor with a lunge, or could chop through small rings.

  Seeing this fine sword abandoned here in the armory gave Orden hope. Raj Ahten marshaled a great number of troops. He might terrify, but he fought in an unfamiliar clime, with inferior Southern steel. How would his desert troops fare come winter?

  Eight hundred years ago, the kings of Indhopal had sent gifts of spices, ointments, and silk, along with pet peacocks and tigers, to Orden's ancestors, in hopes of opening trade. In return, Orden's forefather sent back a gift of horses, gold, fine furs, and wool, along with Northern spices.

  The kings of Indhopal spurned the gifts. The furs and wool seemed overburdensome in warm lands, the spices unsatisfactory. The horses--which they thought of inferior quality--were fit only for use as draft animals.

  But they loved the gold, enough to send the caravans.

  So Orden had to wonder how the Indhopalese would acclimate. Perhaps they'd not learn the value of wool or fur until half of them froze. Perhaps they'd spurn mounts bred for Northern mountains, just as they spurned Northern steel.

  Last of all, Orden inspected the treasury. The Duke had stocked it with a surprising amount of gold blanks, used for striking coin. King Orden studied the stamps--which bore Sylvarresta's image on the front and the Seven Stones on the back.

  It seemed odd that the Duke should be striking coins. A balancing scale sat on the floor, and Orden took a golden coin from his own pocket, placed it on one pan of the scale, then placed the Duke's blank on the other pan of the scale.

  The blank was light. Whether it had been shaved too small, or whether it was light because the gold had been mixed with zinc or tin, King Orden could not tell.

  But it was clear that the Duke of Longmont had been a counterfeiter before he'd turned traitor. "Scurvy-infested dog!" Orden muttered.

  "Milord?" one of his captains asked.

  "Go cut down the carcass of the Duke of Longmont. Cut through the intestines that keep him hanging from the keep, then fling the corpse into the moat."

  "Milord?" the captain asked. It seemed a singularly disrespectful way to treat the dead.

  "Do it!" Orden said. "The man doesn't deserve another night of royal hospitality."

  "Yes, milord," the captain answered, rushing off.

  After touring the Dedicates' Keep, Orden decided not to tour the others in the castle. The manors for the Duke and his lords seemed paltry. Orden saw no sense in guarding them.

  Besides, it would be better to concentrate his men on the outer walls. Longmont was so narrow that an archer on the east wall could shoot the hundred yards to the west wall, which meant that if enemy soldiers managed to breach one wall, numerous defenders could still fire on them.

  Fifteen hundred men, maybe sixteen hundred. That was all King Orden had at the moment. He'd sent messengers to Groverman and Dreis, hoped for reinforcements. Perhaps Borenson would return with most of his army intact.

  But they would have to get here soon. Reinforcements that did not arrive before dawn would not get in.

  King Orden had finished inspecting the Dedicates' Keep when Captain Cedrick Tempest, the Duchess's aide-de-camp, came to meet him, followed by a Days, a plump woman of middle age. Captain Tempest was a stout man, with thick curly brown hair cropped close. He carried his helm in hand, a sign of respect, but did not bow on meeting King Orden. For a flicker of a second, Orden felt slighted, then realized this man was acting lord of the castle. As such, by right, he did not need to bow.

  Instead, Tempest reached out to shake hands at the wrist, as an equal. "Your Highness, we are happy to receive you, and offer you and your men such comforts as we can. But I fear there may be a battle soon. Raj Ahten has an army advancing from the south."

  "I know," Orden said. "We'd like to fight beside you. I've sent to Groverman and Dreis, begging reinforcements, but I suspect they'll hesitate to honor a request from a foreign king."

  "The Duchess also sent for reinforcements," Tempest said. "We should soon see what it gains us."

  "Thank you," Orden said, watching the
man's eyes.

  This was the worst news. If no help had come yet, it meant Dreis and Groverman, on hearing of the invasion, had chosen to fortify their own positions rather than send aid. One could hardly blame them.

  After a moment Orden asked, "May we speak privately?"

  Tempest nodded discreetly; together they walked into the Duke's Keep, climbed a flight of stairs. Orden's men waited outside. Only Orden's and his son's Days followed him into the room, with the matronly Days who followed Tempest at their heels.

  In the great room, blood still smeared the floors from a fierce battle. Wood chairs lay in splinters; a gore-covered axe lay on the floor, along with a pair of long daggers.

  The Duchess's battle had come down to knife work in here.

  A pair of red hounds looked up curiously as Orden entered, thumped their tails in greeting. They'd been sleeping before the cold fireplace.

  King Orden got a torch, lit it, placed it under the kindling in the fireplace. Then he took a seat by the fire, ten feet from Tempest's own chair.

  Tempest looked to be in his early fifties, though it was impossible to tell. A man with endowments of metabolism would age fast. But Mendellas could often guess a warrior's age by looking in his eyes. Even with endowments of metabolism, some men maintained a look of innocence, a look of inexperience. A man's eyes stayed young--like his teeth and his mind and his heart--though his skin might become spotted and wrinkled.

  But Tempest's brown eyes looked full of pain, battle, and fatigue. Orden could tell nothing by gazing into them. Tempest's eyes looked a thousand years old.

  The King decided to lead to his subject tactfully. "I'm curious to know what happened. Raj Ahten obviously garrisoned soldiers here--good force soldiers. How is it that the Duchess defeated them?"