The Rise of Kings (The Flameweaver's Prophecy Book 1)

by Emery, Ben

  The shadow slipped back out of the White Palace as easily as it had entered, gliding past the prostrate bodies of a pair of palace guards at the main door, their blood pooling about them. The unmoving form of Villanus lay near them, eyes still open. The shadow hovered over him momentarily, re-placing the trinket into the dead man’s palm where the fall had jarred it loose. It would be dawn soon though, and being caught in daylight would not bode well, particularly once word of the assassination got out. Besides, there was more work to be done.

  Chapter Two

  Attais was unused to waking up outside of the city. Still expecting to be awoken by the trundle of cart wheels on flagstones and the hum of the crowds, the din of the Residential District was a far cry from the peaceful birdsong-mornings of the village of Legio.

  Situated several miles west of Caldoa, upon the plains that separated the capital from the Outer Sea, the small settlement had only recently been built, and for one specific reason: the honouring of heroes. A decade since the Ninth Legion had almost single-handedly reversed the fate of its allies and spared all Alloria from the marauding Vahc, Villanus had sought to repay the city’s finest soldiers with a retirement like no other. Each veteran and his family was given a house, a small tract of land, and money from the palace’s own treasury.

  Attais’ father, Dagier, was one such veteran, and, for the past two months, they and his mother had lived beyond the congested confines of the city walls in the quiet, green countryside.

  Stretching out his stiff limbs as he rolled out of bed, Attais tried to forcibly shake the effects of sleep from his body. He had been looking forward to this day for three years. Since turning eighteen he had sought to join the ranks of the Legions, as his father had done at the same age. Peace, however, does not necessitate the recruitment of soldiers, and he had been forced to wait until now, when, given that near a thousand men had been retired, the city was once again looking for warriors.

  But he would not be alone. The formation of the New Ninth Legion, as it was being publicly referred to, would attract hopeful recruits in the thousands. Not least because of the reputation of their predecessors, and the rewards that had been heaped upon them for their service.

  Attais liked his chances though. At the age of twenty-one, he stood a little over six feet tall and slim but muscular, due, for the most part, to the many evenings he had spent sparring with his father in preparation for this day. He would not be a spearman, as Dagier had been; he was neither large nor strong enough for that. Instead, the role of a swordsman was a far more likely one for someone of his build, and he had practiced with a blade as often as he could.

  He washed and dressed himself eagerly, running a hand through the mop of brown hair that had begun to flick into his field of vision and ignored the untidy scrawl of a beard of one unused to shaving. Thudding down the wooden staircase he found both parents sat in the kitchen, his father beaming happily as he entered, while his mother, Sadora, anxiously prodded her breakfast around her plate with a fork. She pushed herself to her feet and wordlessly wrapped her arms about her son; one soldier in the family had been almost too much for her. Dagier squeezed his shoulder tightly, and bade him good luck, trying hard, for the sake of his wife, to keep the pride from his voice.

  The beaten path that fed into the small village was, like those of so many other settlements outside of the capital, connected to a main road of paved slabs, like a series of small tributaries joining a river. The road from Legio was neither long nor particularly difficult, but, given the rare nature of such a day as this one, when the population of the city was due to swell by thousands, farmers and traders from all over Alloria had converged in swarms upon Caldoa. The result was that nearly every inch of the road Attais sought to travel along was choked with carts and barrows, laden beasts of burden, and increasingly impatient vendors, desperate to make it to the markets before all the good spots were taken.

  A near-nauseating mixture of nerves and excitement had forced the hopeful recruit into a run, with the thought that expending energy would serve to quell the sickly feeling within.

  With the absence of horses and donkeys since the Scouring, animals Attais wished he could have seen after hearing stories of the Wars of the Faithful from his father, cattle, oxen and occasionally goats had served as the primary pack animals of the various nations across the world. As it was, the broad nature of these beasts meant Attais had to run alongside the road, rather than upon it, if he wished to move with any haste at all, as every few paces the lazy lowing of the beasts accompanied him.

  He arrived at the main gate of the western wall of the city, known as the Boar’s Gate, within the hour, at which point the traffic had slowed almost to a standstill as both people and animals were bottlenecked onto the neat, if dirtied, flagstone streets of the capital. A pair of Legion guards, both swordsmen, stood either side of the road, beneath the white stone archway built into the high walls, intently monitoring the steady inflow of visitors.

  Beyond them, a young man of average height and lean build, with tidy hair of jet black, munched, bored, on an apple, watching the arrivals amble past him.

  ‘You took your time!’ he shouted, spraying chunks of apple into the air as he spotted Attais slither between the inside of the arch and the high sides of a vegetable cart.

  ‘Piss off,’ Attais panted in reply, still out of breath from his run.

  The young man, Coran, grunted in amusement and tossed the core of his apple into a slowly filling drainage ditch that ran alongside the road. He hadn’t been waiting long, but his impatience had eventually surmounted his usually laid-back demeanor after being forced to wait for his friend. He too had wanted nothing more since childhood than to live the life of a legionary.

  ‘We’d better hurry,’ he added, as Attais regained himself. ‘The city’s a mess already. Not a chance we’d have gotten through Forge’s or Silver Gate. The whole damn world has turned up to join the Legions!’

  Forge’s and Silver were two of the other three main gates that allowed entrance into Caldoa. The former, in the eastern wall, was named as such because it led directly into the heart of the Military District, and its network of blacksmiths and tanners. The latter, to the south of the capital, stood across the thoroughfare that ran north to south through the Merchant District, and beyond the city walls it was the northernmost point of the Vine Road that led south into Vinnah. The fourth gate, in the north wall and the external entrance to the Residential District, was known as the Domis Gate, and was far less used than the other three. The passage in and out of each, while often obscenely slow anyway, had only become more difficult, and the rising tempers of those inbound was only curbed by the growing terseness of the guards.

  Attais and Coran, familiar as they were with the city’s labyrinth of streets, began to squeeze their way into and between the throngs that lined the roads, ducking in and out of less populated alleyways and lanes, edging slowly toward the Market Square; the huge, central marketplace that covered almost a third of the Merchant District, and was filled with traders from all over Banmer.

  At the very centre of the Square, dominating the low stalls around it was a towering marble statue of Allor First-King, holding his spear aloft and pointed at the sky. Commissioned by Allor’s eldest son and successor after the death of the city’s founder, it stood, as though a constant protector, over Caldoa and its people. The magnificence of the commemorative monument was lost upon the clamour of street vendors shouting out their competitive prices, and the general buzz of conversation, pleasant or otherwise, that accompanied such large crowds and cramped conditions. There seemed to be far more quarrels among the merchants themselves as Attais and Coran passed, no doubt due to the increased number of them and the increasing lack of space in which they were forced to settle.

  The pair pushed onward, able to move quicker as the crowds thinned out on the opposite side of the Square. The wall separating the Merchant and Military Districts was almost in sight, and the roads between
them, though teaming with mostly male individuals, seemed to be allowing a steady trickle of people through. It would not be long now before the two fell under the scrutiny of the Legion’s recruiters, lieutenants, and the legendary General Galarus.

  It had been Rural Iyannis, youngest of the Kingmakers, that had found the body of Villanus, broken, as it was, upon the steps of the White Palace early that morning. The bodies of the two guards, of far less importance, had received barely a second glance, facedown in sticky scarlet puddles of their own creation.

  But it had not been the man to whom Rural had paid so much close attention; he had never had any respect or admiration for the former Voice, or what little he had achieved during his reign. Instead, what had occupied the Kingmaker so entirely was a small wooden amulet on a leather strap, still clenched in Villanus’ cold fist.

  Rural had managed to prise it from the dead, iron grip without too much force, and had pocketed it swiftly. He then summoned a pair of palace guards to him, both of which were in his personal service, despite the younger of the two being the son of another Kingmaker.

  ‘Move Villanus’ body back up to his chambers,’ he had ordered them. ‘And dispose of these two.’ He flicked his hand idly toward the other corpses. ‘Quietly,’ he added. ‘And clear up the blood as well.’

  He left them to it, making his way into the long vaulted Hall of the Kingmakers in the southern wing of the palace. There, he took a seat at the head of the rectangular, oaken table and waited, turning the small amulet in his hands, until the mess outside had been dealt with, and he was able to summon the remaining four Kingmakers to him.

  Due, as they were, to meet later that day, and given the urgency of the message with which the most junior of their number had sent for them, the older members of the Council of the Voice made their way, surprised and annoyed, to the heart of the Holy District.

  Given the thorough cleaning the steps of the Palace had undergone, none of the four, as they entered, were given any indication that anything was amiss, other than, perhaps, the absence of any rain the night before that might have explained the dampness of the low, marble staircase.

  ‘Couldn’t this have waited?’ the eldest Kingmaker, Ursta Cayas, demanded.

  Rural doubted the old man’s tone would have been any different had he been aware of current circumstances. Aged and grizzled, he was well into his late sixties, with thin grey hair and skin that seemed to hang from his bones. His ancestors had founded the timber yards east of the city, on the peripheries of the Witherpine Forest. Formerly a legionary, as was tradition within his family, he had never seen battle. Instead, Rural knew, he had performed a far darker and more sadistic service to Caldoa.

  The other Kingmakers, having sat themselves around Rural, looked to be in agreement with Ursta; they were all powerful individuals, and busy enough with their own affairs to be annoyed by this unscheduled interruption that, quite frankly, better be worth it.

  ‘Shut up, you old fool,’ Lidora Stonearch, no less wizened herself, though with the energies of a much younger woman, berated him; more for an opportunity to snap at Ursta, rather than in the defence of Rural. A hard and fiercely intelligent woman, she was the matriarch of her family, who owned the quarry town of Whiterock in the northeast.

  The remaining two Kingmakers: Epi Vinnah, a grotesque ball of a man, who’s many chins spilled over the collar of his silken attire, which barely contained the girth he had amassed over a life of vice and excess; and Paeran Boreas, a skeletal waif, thinly moustached and forever glaring from deep set eyes, waited for the bickering to end.

  Rural was not so patient. He pushed himself to his feet and silence fell upon the room. He was a tall man, and broad; intimidating though not particularly muscular. A serious face and dark eyes stared at each of them from beneath short, brown hair. His adoptive family’s name carried more weight throughout Alloria than any other sat around this table, and they all knew it.

  ‘Villanus is dead,’ he said bluntly, not intending to shock, but more concerned with what was to follow.

  This time the silence was one of disbelief.

  Rural produced the wooden amulet from the fold of his cloak and tossed it onto the table. He would have preferred to have held on to it but it was necessary for them all to see with their own eyes. The small necklace bounced a couple of times before Ursta slapped his palm across it to stop it moving. As he removed his hand, each of the Kingmakers leant in, craning their necks to get a better view of the trinket.

  ‘The assassin,’ Rural started, deliberately, ‘was wearing this. I found it in Villanus’ hand this morning.’

  ‘What is it?’ Ursta replied, confused and still very much annoyed. ‘And why didn’t you alert the guards immediately?’

  ‘I arrived hours after the murder,’ Rural countered, expecting this question to be raised. ‘The assassin, expert as they appear to have been, would have long since vanshed. I saw no reason in spreading panic throughout the city.’

  Ursta nodded once, seemingly content with the answer.

  While they talked, Paeran had leaned further over the table, until his wiry frame was almost laid upon it. He ran his thumb over the delicate carving on its face that they had all been staring at.

  ‘It looks,’ he began hesitantly, ‘like the standards of the Tribes.’

  A merchant by birth, he had seen them often in his dealings with the western traders.

  ‘I came to the same conclusion,’ Rural agreed, relieved that he hadn’t had to spell it out for them. ‘Though I’ve never seen their symbols united like this before.’

  The Kingmakers leaned in again. Sure enough, knowing now what they were looking for, they were able to make out the depictions of the clenched fist of the Ironhand Tribe; the triangular mountain of the Torncloud; and the winding serpent of the Wornsea. All three were intertwined into a single emblem.

  ‘It would seem,’ Rural continued slowly, making sure they were all following his every word, ‘that the Tribes have ceased their infighting and turned their attentions toward us. Villanus’ assassination was a declaration of war.’

  The largest church in the Holy District, the House of the Venerated Allseer, was also the oldest, and a stone’s throw away from the pillar of rock atop which the White Palace was built.

  For many of the priests who served within its rough stone walls, it was an honour and a privilege. For Oliune Korcus, however, it was a right he had acquired long ago, and one not obtained through a fortuitous birth into a powerful family, as others had.

  It had been some time since Rural had been to visit his old friend, longer, indeed, than he cared to admit to himself; given the nature of much of what they discussed, the privacy of the palace was often more suited to their conversations. The news he bore, however, was of such a magnitude that it seemed only fitting that he deliver it in person.

  The high wooden doors at the entrance to the church lay open, as they always did during the daylight hours. Their faces were worn and weathered by time, and Rural could not recall ever seeing them in a state of less disrepair. They were still serviceable, of course, but had become such a characteristic feature of the building that, though it had been discussed, it would be a crime to replace them.

  The entrance hall was a circular, domed atrium, made of the same roughly hewn stone as the rest of the church, and the uneven flagstone floor was naturally lit from above through broad, curved windows laid into the ceiling.

  Lining the room was a scattering of wooden benches that looked older than the walls, and Rural was surprised they could hold their own weight, let alone those of anyone wishing to sit upon them. To his right, however, a thin man with a straight back and short, white hair sat alone, reading. As the Kingmaker’s footsteps echoed throughout the atrium, the old man looked up from the ancient tattered and dog-eared book he held in his hands, his wrinkled face breaking into a smile as his eyes adjusted to clearly see the newcomer.

  ‘Rural, my boy! It is so very good to see you again,’
Olinue greeted him warmly, pushing himself steadily to his feet.

  ‘No better than it is to see you, Oliune,’ Rural replied, returning the smile despite the serious nature of his visit. The old priest had been a close friend of his adoptive parents for many years.

  ‘What brings you down from the palace?’ Olinue asked, only the barest hint of jest in his voice. He was a tall man, taller than Rural, and unbowed by his age, at which even the young Kingmaker would have struggled to guess. Though even as a child he had never found the Order priest to be intimidating, he knew many did, and rightly so, he thought.

  ‘I was wondering if we could take a walk. It’s been a while since I wandered these halls,’ the Kingmaker asked.

  ‘Of course, of course. Follow me.’ Oliune lifted a heavy key from the folds of his white robes, and unlocked a door in a shadowed corner of the atrium, revealing a long corridor beyond. ‘This way,’ he beckoned.

  Rural followed, and the door was locked behind him. The pair walked, in silence, at first, as Rural idly observed the paintings that hung on either side, depicting artists’ impressions of Allor First-King and the founding of Caldoa, each blessed by the radiant and faceless light of the Allseer. He had taken an interest in these pictures as a child, and the stories Oliune had told him of the history of the Order, and, more importantly, its future.

  ‘Villanus is dead,’ he stated matter-of-factly.

  Oliune said nothing, but continued to walk by the Kingmaker’s side, hands clasped behind his back.

  ‘This is the moment we have been waiting for, for over a decade,’ Rural continued.

  The old priest nodded slowly. ‘If the fourth is dead, it would seem so. Are you prepared? Are the Kingmakers on your side?’ His tone was cold and calculating and possessed nothing of the warmth with which he had first greeted the younger man.

  ‘Two, I am certain of. Ursta and Lidora I doubt will stand behind me, at first. What of the Order?’