The Swampling King (The Windwalker Legacy Book 1)

by Ben S. Dobson

  And it was stronger now than he’d ever felt.

  Come to me, and I will end this. I can save you. I can set you free.

  Grasping for what scant training he’d received at the Stormhall, he started a desperate backwards count in his head, fighting the same urge that had already driven a man to step off the wall. Nine-hundred-ninety-nine, nine-hundred ninety-eight…

  “Loose!” he heard Farrel cry, and most of the men let fly their quarrels. Most, but not all. Some just stood and watched, mesmerized by the power of the Deep. Of those loosed, perhaps half of the bolts struck true, finding purchase in the pale flesh of a grubling or the exposed head poking out of a deeprat’s carapace. Too many—far too many—glanced off dark chitin or sank into the rotten earth of a rotborn’s body to no effect.

  And the Deeplings kept coming. Hardly a hundred yards separated them from the gate now.

  “Shona?” Josen’s mouth was suddenly very dry; the name came out in a croak. He looked over his shoulder.

  She was staring open-mouthed at the monsters charging toward the gate, but she turned her head at the sound of his voice.

  “Hurry.”

  45. The Wings of Eagles

  Shona

  “Over there. One more barrel and that one’s ready.” Shona directed two men carrying a heavy barrel of pitch across the courtyard toward a wagon that was near-full with quarrels and sackcloth and similar barrels.

  The courtyard enclosed by the Aryllian Keep’s outer walls was filled with a half-dozen other wagons at various stages of fullness, and Shona had already seen twice that number off on their way to the front. With Chancellor Polt’s aid, she’d commandeered whatever vehicles she could get—some came from the merchant counts of the Countsbluff, drawn by Wolfshead ponies, and others from the shopkeeps and traders of the People’s Plateau, pulled by teams of sturdy mountain goats. At her order, men and women bustled all around, piling and counting and loading supplies: food for the men, firewood, barrels of pitch, spare quarrels and wingbow strings, and whatever else she could think of that might prove useful. And no wagon left the Keep until Shona had personally checked its contents and destination.

  She had to. All of this was being done under a heavy influence of terror—everyone knew what was happening at the gates. Which meant mistakes would be made. And besides that, Shona needed to keep herself occupied. Without a distraction, her mind strayed to things she didn’t have time to think about. Didn’t want to think about.

  “As soon as it’s all tied down, you’re ready,” she called to the wagon’s driver as the men hoisted the last barrel into the back. “They need this at the Eyewall as soon as possible.”

  Not yet a quarter hour ago, she’d received word that the Mad Duke’s Gate had fallen; the battle-front had moved to the second of the three walls along the road, and it wasn’t going well. It was all anyone could talk about now. All around her, the men and women at work were whispering to one another, and she heard fragments of it: “Can’t hold for long…” and “Would take a miracle…” and “Only a matter of time before the next wall…”

  The same dread she heard in those conversations sat heavy in her stomach. Lord of Eagles, let Josen be safe. Even though the messenger had assured her that the king had retreated without injury, she couldn’t help but fear the worst. She didn’t know whether it was concern for a friend, or for the tool she needed to stop the man who had killed her parents—she couldn’t tell the difference anymore. She didn’t know if there was a difference anymore. The only thing she knew for sure was that she wouldn’t be at ease until she saw him for herself.

  But for now, she had to live with the fear. She couldn’t leave until the job was done.

  She’d been managing a constant stream of supplies for near two hours, and she was still waiting on the birds from the Royal Eyrie. Getting them caged and ready for transport was taking longer than she liked, even with the birdkeeper and a dozen apprentices at work. The eyrie was adjacent to the Keep, and a gate at the south end of the courtyard led directly to the base of the temple, but it was no short trip from the wagons to the aviary on the seventh tier. And there were matters beyond mere distance at play, too. Nothing was ever simple when it came to the traditions of the Convocation.

  When she’d seen the latest load of supplies off, she crossed the courtyard to the three wagons waiting by the eyrie gate, where she’d left Eroh. The boy stood alone, watching men dressed in brown robes and eagle’s feathers load their precious cargo. The flapping and screeching of the agitated birds was enough to make Shona grit her teeth. If they’re this loud when we get them to the wall, maybe they’ll scare the Deeplings away entirely.

  She placed a hand on Eroh’s shoulder as she drew abreast of him. “What do you think?” she asked. “Will they do what we need them to do?”

  “Goldeyes will show them.” Eroh looked up at her with a slight frown. “But I thought the other eagles would be here by now. They should see the sky.”

  Shona grimaced in frustration. It was admirable, perhaps, that Chastor Elva cared so deeply for her charges, but the birdkeeper was becoming a great annoyance. Mulley had left Shona to oversee the transport of the birds while he arranged a prayer vigil for the soldiers at the gates, but even with his authority and the king’s behind her, even with the last Windwalker at her side, it was proving difficult to make Elva do as she was told. From the start, the woman had been reluctant to put her birds in danger, and now she was holding up the process by insisting they be moved with such care and ceremony that the Plateaus might well have been overrun by Deeplings for days by the time they reached the front. And the eagles were proving to be a source of particular difficulty.

  Elva was coming down the steps of the eyrie’s first tier now, hovering over a pair of men carrying either side of a pole hung with three caged falcons. “Careful, now. Stop, stop, keep them level. Aston, you’re letting your side sway too much! Can’t you see you’re scaring them?” There was nothing remarkable about the woman’s voice, but after spending an hour arguing with her, it was worse to Shona than the screeching of the birds.

  Nonetheless, there was a job to do, and Shona meant to see it done. “Come with me,” she said to Eroh, and took his hand. Together, they strode through the open gate and up the stairs.

  Chastor Elva glanced up as they came near. The woman was small and plump, with red cheeks and a sour twist of a mouth. “Lady Shona.” She stood very straight when her eyes fell on Eroh, and stumbled for some form of proper address. “My… my lord Windwalker.”

  Shona didn’t bother to return the pleasantry. “Eroh, will you tell Chastor Elva what you just told me?”

  “You should bring the eagles,” Eroh said earnestly. “They’ll be happier outside.”

  “There,” said Shona. “The last Windwalker is asking for you to speed this along. I’d hoped you wouldn’t need him to tell you twice, but here we are.”

  Elva stared down at Eroh and swallowed nervously, but she said, “I… I am not trying to be difficult, my lord, but as I’ve told you, there is a method to this. Those birds are a sacred gift, and we must take proper—”

  “And I’ve told you that we don’t have time to waste,” said Shona. “As has the royal chastor. It’s the eagles I need above all. These others might do”—she gestured at the caged falcons hanging from their pole—“but I don’t attach much hope to ‘might’.”

  “I will have the eagles brought down when they are ready, Lady Shona.” Elva turned toward Shona, and a note of annoyance that she wouldn’t have dared direct at Eroh crept into her voice. “Chastor Mulley told me to deliver them, but he did not say to do it improperly. The cages must be blessed and anointed, to say nothing of the birds themselves. You are asking for the aid of the Sky God’s purest creations, and they are accustomed to the shelter of the aviary. To expose them to the corruption outside without proper preparation would be the utmost sacrilege. This is the way it has always been done.”

  Shona fought the urge to s
hake the other woman. Some people would hold to tradition even while the mountain crumbles beneath their feet. It would be so much easier to get things done if I could disguise change as something familiar.

  But then, if things had just stayed the way they were, her mother and father would still be alive.

  She felt her throat tighten, and forced the thought to the back of her mind. Not now. She clenched her fists. This isn’t what I need right now.

  What she needed was anger. And she had more than enough of that.

  “People are dying, Chastor Elva. Right now. If your birds can help even a little bit, then every moment you spend on your ceremonies costs lives. So let me be clear: I don’t care if you hear the voice of the Sky God himself telling you otherwise, you will go up these stairs right now and you will bring me down those eagles, or I will see you held responsible for every soldier lost while you’ve kept me waiting. Do you understand?”

  Elva took a step back. “I am a chastor of the Convocation! I won’t be threatened!”

  “You’ll do as I say, unless you want to take the place of the men you’re killing by ignoring me! I wonder how long you would survive on the front line? Do you think tradition would save you from a beetleback’s blades?”

  Elva looked to Eroh as if she thought the boy might save her, but Eroh only stared back with those wide golden eyes. The color fled from the birdkeeper’s face. “Lady Shona, you can’t… I hardly think…”

  “Are you under the impression that there is more to talk about, Chastor Elva? Stop stammering and go!”

  She went. Nearly tripping over the hem of her robe in her hurry, she went.

  Abandoned by their master, the birdkeeper’s apprentices looked uncertainly at Shona. “Weren’t you listening?” she demanded. “We are short on time. Get those cages loaded and secured.” With that, she led Eroh back down the stairs, and the two young chastors followed obediently behind.

  It was only then, as she descended back toward the courtyard, that she noticed someone waiting by the wagons. Watching her.

  Rudol.

  He was the last person she wanted to see at that moment, and to make it worse, Carissa was at his side. Shona’s fists clenched tighter; she only realized when it started to hurt that she hadn’t opened them since she’d started talking to Elva.

  “You shouldn’t be out here, Rudol. Go back inside.” Without meeting his eyes, Shona turned to watch the birdkeeper’s apprentices stow their load. “Those ones have space, just keep them to the sides,” she directed, pointing at two wagons that were only half full with noisily protesting birds. “Leave room for the eagle cages. You know their size better than I do, but I understand they’re much larger. I want all four on their way in one trip.”

  “Josen gave me freedom of the Keep,” Rudol said from behind her. “You know that. I can go where I want, as long as it isn’t past the gates.”

  Shona turned on him, her nails digging into her palms. “I don’t want you here, then. Is that better?”

  “You can’t speak to him like that!” Carissa stepped ahead of her husband, scowling. “He is still—”

  “He is nothing to me.” Shona heard the tremor of anger in her own voice, and hated it. Hated that she couldn’t control it better. She pried open one hand and rubbed at her forehead with the heel of it. “Please, just… just leave. I don’t have time for this.”

  “We only want to know what is happening,” said Rudol. “Tell us, and we’ll go. You have to know the truth, if anyone does. I’ve heard a dozen different stories, but… Deeplings at the gates? That can’t be.” He managed to control his voice, but she could see that what she’d said had pained him; it was in his eyes, and the fists at his side, clenched as tightly as hers.

  Good. He should hurt. “You don’t believe it?” Whatever anger she’d felt at Elva was nothing compared to this; she was shaking with rage. “You should. You made it happen.”

  Rudol blinked. “What?”

  “You could have stopped this a hundred times, Rudol!” Every defense Shona had put up shattered all at once; the words tore painfully past the constriction in her throat. “I begged you to tell me the truth, from the very beginning! I tried so hard to believe that you were better than this, that you were just being misled, that you would see reason. But you lied to my face, about everything. You left Josen to die. You shielded Castar from punishment. And even when we put Eroh right in front of your eyes, you refused to listen until it was too late! You decided to trust Castar over your own brother, over your… your oldest friend! And now he’s brought the Deeplings to tear down our walls. Thousands of people are going to die, because you were too blind too see what he really is!”

  “Are you still trying to tell us stories about dark magick?” Carissa all but rolled her eyes, as if Shona was simply telling children’s stories. As if the wagons of supplies and the terror in the air were all part of a show put on for her benefit. “You can’t blame Rudol for what the Deeplings do. They’re just beasts!”

  Shona ignored her. She didn’t care in the slightest about anything Carissa had to say. All that mattered was that Rudol understood.

  His protest wasn’t nearly as certain as his wife’s. “He… he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do that.” It came out in something less than a whisper.

  “Don’t tell me what Lenoden Castar wouldn’t do,” Shona said coldly. “You have no idea what he’s capable of. My parents are dead, Rudol.” Saying it aloud sent a sharp pain through her chest.

  Rudol’s eyes widened and his mouth opened, but he said nothing. Just closed it again, and hung his head.

  Shona felt the tears she’d been holding back flowing down her cheeks, but she couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to stop. He had to know what he’d done. “I watched him order my mother’s throat cut. I watched her die at his feet, choking on her own blood. My father got to live just a little bit longer, because I’m told even a hint of Windwalker blood is useful when it comes to summoning Deeplings. But they are here now, already summoned, which means he is gone too. And you could have stopped all of it, if you’d only listened. Everyone I love is gone because of you.” She didn’t say that Josen would have surrendered the Peaks if she’d only asked. That even though he hadn’t made her say the words—and she loved him for that—the decision had been hers.

  Those things were true, but they didn’t matter just then. Rudol had still done what he’d done.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, very soft, without raising his eyes.

  She’d expected that. It wasn’t enough. “I don’t care.”

  He did lift his head, then. “Let me fight.”

  That, she hadn’t expected.

  “Rudol, no!” Carissa gripped his upper arm; both her hands together didn’t wrap all the way around it. “You can’t leave me here alone!”

  Rudol put one hand over his wife’s in a gesture of half-hearted comfort, but he didn’t look away from Shona.

  “You can’t leave the Keep,” Shona said. “The guards take orders from the king, not from me.”

  “We both know they’ll let me go if you tell them to.”

  “Why should I? There are a thousand ways you could cause confusion out there. I’d just as soon not have anyone reminded of your demonstration at the standing ground. Why should I trust you with your freedom?”

  “I don’t know,” Rudol said, and rubbed a hand over his scalp. “Maybe you shouldn’t. You’ve been right about everything else. I’ve made nothing but mistakes, and I can’t fix any of them now. But I can at least defend the people I’ve failed. For whatever it’s worth, I give you my word that I won’t cause any trouble. I’ll hide my face under a helm and I’ll wear no blue or gold. Only grey. No one will know who I am.” He snorted ruefully. “I don’t know who I am anymore, except a Knight of the Storm. It’s all I’ve ever been good at. Let me fight.”

  “Rudol, please.” Carissa pulled against his arm as she spoke, as if the urgency in her voice could help her move a man more than twice her size. �
�She’s manipulating you. You’ve done nothing wrong! They stole the throne from you! You don’t have to do this!”

  At last, Rudol looked at his wife. “Yes,” he said sadly, “I do.”

  “Why? To be a meal for some monster from the Swamp? If you love me, stay with me!”

  “I’m sorry, Carissa.” Very gently, Rudol removed her hands from his arm.

  Carissa stared at him in disbelief for a long moment, and then a coldness set into her eyes. “If you’d only listened to me, we could have ruled the Nine Peaks together, you and I,” she said. “But you would rather throw your life away. For what? For her? For some misplaced guilt?” She shook her head. “You are a bigger fool than I thought.” Without another word, she turned her back and strode towards the Keep.

  Rudol didn’t call after her, only watched her go with a kind of resigned sorrow, as if he’d expected nothing else.

  And then he looked to Shona once more, still waiting for an answer.

  Shona didn’t know what answer to give. Let him fight. Let him die. What does it matter? But something in her resisted. She was still furious, still blamed him for everything, but she found herself arguing all the same. “She’s right. There are hundreds of Deeplings at the gates. One man isn’t going to make a difference against that. One more death won’t help.”

  Rudol only shrugged. “Even so.”

  Shona opened her mouth to protest further, but a small hand on her elbow stopped her. She looked down to find Eroh staring up at her. “You should let him go,” he said. “He wants to help. You said you know what it’s like when you want to help and no one will let you.”

  “I did say that, but…” But I didn’t mean for you to use it against me. “But this is different,” she finished weakly.

  “Let him go,” Eroh said gently, and for a moment he sounded far older than his years. “I believe him.” There was a sure, solemn look in those golden eyes that was hard to ignore.