Winds of War

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Torsten nodded.

  The dwarf didn’t leave, only shifted his weight to the other foot and scratched his head.

  “Was there something else?” Torsten asked.

  “It’s uh…. All this work's gonna take longer than expected.”

  “How much longer?”

  “A fortnight? Maybe three.”

  “If you need more men, there are plenty of folk in South Corner who can use the coin. Trust me.”

  “Won’t help. With the mountain so damaged, we gotta work slow or risk cavin the whole yigging thing—excuse me words, Lord.”

  Torsten motioned for him to continue.

  “Then there’s matchin the architecture, and I tell ye, even we dwarves don’t build em like this no more. The stonework's impeccable.”

  Torsten ground his teeth. “The Crown hired your crew because you’re one of the best in the Dragon’s Tail.”

  The dwarf clicked his tongue. “The best willin to travel so far south to work on a crypt. Ye humans do love yer dead. We burn ours and give em to the air. Fires keep us warm and the demons away. Just bein round em gives me the willies.”

  Torsten bent to meet him face to face, knowing how much the dwarves hated being reminded of their stature. He grabbed him by the collar. “I don’t want to hear your excuses,” he bristled. “You’re being paid handsomely. Get it done or we’ll find someone else who can.”

  The dwarf didn’t back down. “Ain’t no one better than dwarves, Glassman. And ain’t none of em other than me who’d be wantin to risk bein slung over a wall by the throat by the Queen Mother.”

  Torsten squeezed tighter, then decided better of it. He shoved him away. “Just get it done.”

  The dwarf bowed excessively low. “O’course, yer Highness. We won’t stop til the job’s done or yer coffers be dry.”

  “Dwarves,” Torsten grumbled. As he turned to leave, he thought he heard the foreman mutter something about ‘flower-pickers’ under his breath.

  The new Master of Masons, Leuvero Messier was instructed to find the best and Icarus deToit, the new Master of Coin, to pay whatever it took, but the new Royal Council lacked experience, among other necessary virtues. Of all those who’d served directly under Liam, only Torsten remained. The others had been dismissed, executed, or fled the Queen’s rage while he was off to the Webbed Woods.

  Even Uriah had to start somewhere, Torsten told himself.

  Being the Wearer wasn’t an easy job, and it wasn’t his place to question his station. Still, he longed for the days when Uriah wore the white helm, and the only worry was if news of the late king’s condition would leak beyond the castle walls. Things were simpler then.

  Instead, he now had business in the dungeons, facing one of those Royal Council members who’d fled and now returned. The warren of dwarven-built tunnels deepened and grew less ornately carved until it was no more than plain, efficiently stacked blocks of stone. Somehow, even the room full of corpses found a way to smell more pleasing.

  Torsten turned into the lower dungeons. Sir Nikserof stood with a torch before one of the cells. He noticed Torsten and struck his chestplate in salute.

  “Wearer, he’s in here,” he said. “They say he strolled right into the prefect's estate in Winde Port, begging for his old station back.” Torsten returned the salute. He wasn’t sure of the soldier’s name as he had traveled all the way from Winde Port.

  In the cell sat an older gentleman wearing fat mustache. He dressed like a noble because he was one.

  “Sir Unger!” the prisoner exclaimed. He jumped at the bars and poked his head into the opening. “There’s been some sort of mistake.”

  “No, Lord Darkings, there hasn’t been,” Torsten said. Yuri Darkings was the former royal Master of Coin, handler of finances. He had the tanned skin of a man from the great port city to the southeast, and no man knew more about the Yarrington coffers than he. “You abandoned your kingdom in its time of need.”

  “Oh please, Shieldsman,” he countered, his sense of nobility returning. “It was a matter of survival. Oh wait, you wouldn’t know. You were sent away before she’d really lost it.”

  “I did what I had to for the Glass.”

  “So did I. You think it would have helped anybody had I stayed and wound up hanged like Deturo and the others? Now we have some pimple-faced Royal Physician no good to anyone. Now let me out, and we can put all this behind us.”

  “Your role has already been filled.”

  “What, by some pup from the market district? One of my assistants? I was hand-picked by King Liam before his body failed. I never imagined how much I’d miss him being around.”

  Torsten didn’t want to voice his agreement, but his expression betrayed his thoughts. Yuri seemed to gain confidence in seeing he was getting through.

  “He kept me too busy to breathe with all his conquests,” Yuri said, “but at least those made sense.”

  “King Pi has returned,” Torsten said, mustering his most authoritative tone. “Everything is as it should be, yet I’m told you were in no rush to return. You would have been in Winde Port for a week or two before Prefect Calhoun says you walked through his doors.”

  “Would you have been scrambling to return here?”

  “Am I not here now?”

  Yuri sighed and backed away. “You’ve made your point, locking me away down here. But be smart, Sir Unger. I know what it takes to fund a war. I hear the rumors. I know what’s coming.”

  “I am merely a member of the Royal Council,” Torsten said. “I don’t decide who sits on it.”

  “Ah, but you have her ear.”

  “There is a new king now.”

  “Please, I may have just returned, but I have ears all over the city. I know the ‘Miracle King’ hasn’t spoken a word since he was returned to life, if that’s even what happened.”

  “It was. I was there.”

  “Relax. I’m not questioning anything these days. All I know is that everyone who disappointed Oleander wound up dead or down here, but all she did was kick you from the castle and onto some insane quest. Don’t be a fool, Unger. I can help, just as I have for decades.”

  “I’m sure you could. But how could we ever trust a man who’d abandoned his post?”

  “I hear the Caleef is visiting soon. I know exactly how much they owe us in delinquent taxes, how much they’ve been skimping since the late king’s condition became public. Down to the autla. And I know how much it costs to arm a Glass Soldier for war. Who is in charge now, deToit, my apprentice?” He laughed when Torsten’s face betrayed the answer. “He can barely grow a beard. You need me.”

  Torsten wanted to curse the man, but he knew he was right. As much as he loathed merchant-types with all their scheming and counting coins, men like Yuri were all that kept the Crown from drowning in debt. War was expensive, if it came to that, and another loan from the Iron Bank in Brotlebir was out of the question. Liam funded more than half his campaigns through them, paying the dwarves back when another foreign city was sacked and absorbed by the kingdom.

  Investing in Liam had been a smart decision, and his ability to settle debts had forged strong alliances with the dwarven kings, especially King Cragrock of Brike’s Hollow. Investing in the unpredictable Queen and a child, however; that was far riskier. The fact ever more proved by the quality of artisans willing to travel to Yarrington. In the days of Liam, dwarves would have fought one another for the chance to build something for him. Now they sent their leftovers.

  “Your reinstatement is not for me to decide,” Torsten said. “But I’ll speak with her.”

  “I suggest you do it fast. It’s never a good idea to be in a castle surrounded by strangers. You know me at least, and you know I know what I’m doing. Can you say the same for anyone else in the new Council?”

  “I said I’d talk to her.” He turned to Sir Nikserof. “See to it he is fed well and made comfortable during his time here.”

  “Sir.” Nikserof saluted.


  “We’re all that’s left, Torsten,” Yuri said as Torsten turned to leave. “We can’t let her mar Liam’s legacy any further before the boy is even old enough to lead.”

  Torsten grunted a response, then continued along. He knew Yuri only as well as he needed to, being that they served on the same Council for the last year, but he also knew the old dwarven saying that the demon you know is better than the demon you don’t. And Yuri was right. There was nobody in Yarrington better with money.

  Torsten reached the other end of the dungeons when he heard a cackle. The sound of it made his blood boil and his heart race.

  “My, my. My dear sister really has made a mess of things,” Redstar said through the metal mask covering his face to keep him from drawing blood with his teeth. All that was visible beyond it were his dark eyes. It was the playfulness in them Torsten found most unnerving. Locked in the deepest dungeon, to be executed any day now, yet everything seemed like a game to him.

  “Quiet!” one of the two guards posted outside his cell snapped.

  Torsten stopped and bit his lip. He told himself not to turn and face the manipulating heathen. It never led to anything good.

  “Why don’t you let me out and I’ll talk with her? I can join the fair prince. Miraculous, what happened to him, wouldn’t you say? It is like he has some strong tie to the Lady. Two souls beneath this mountain were once buried but not dead, not really. How… poetic.”

  Torsten couldn’t hold it in. He turned to engage when Sir Wardric Jolly arrived and slammed on the bars in front of him. The gray-haired Shieldsman was the unofficial second in the King’s Shield, having served since before Torsten was born.

  “You’ll hang soon enough, knave,” Wardric said. He turned to Torsten and saluted. “Sir, I need to talk with you.”

  Torsten held Redstar’s gaze for a moment longer.

  “Buried, not dead. Buried, not dead,” Redstar sang, snickering.

  “Torsten,” Wardric said, finally earning Torsten’s focus. He guided him around the corner. “When are you going to get rid of him already?”

  “The Queen did not wish to besmirch the miracle of Pi’s rebirth by spilling the blood of her brother before the coronation,” Torsten replied.

  “Well, that’s done with now, and nothing boosts the people’s spirits like a good execution.”

  Torsten smiled and patted him on the back. “His time will come. Now, you seemed in a hurry. Is everything all right?” He’d become used to things going awry. When someone of any stature approached him, he assumed the worst. However, the old, weathered Shieldsman appeared calm.

  Wardric led the way through the labyrinthine tunnels beneath the Glass Castle. “Queen Oleander is requesting your presence in the Throne Room,” he said. “He’s arrived. A day late and with no notice.”

  “Naturally. The Black Sands want to see Yarrington as it is, not as we would present it to be for the coronation. Afhem Muskigo tested us with fire, and now Caleef Sidar Rakun will test us with his eyes.”

  “If they’re working together,” Wardric offered.

  “If Muskigo truly did attack without blessing, Caleef Sidar will have no choice but to align with us.”

  Wardric sighed. “I tire of these games.”

  “Brace yourself, my friend. I fear the games have only just begun.”

  “Iam save us all.”

  “So, you have faith He’s with us again?” Torsten asked.

  “The only legitimate heir of Liam Nothhelm rose from the dead. Wren the Holy believes it a miracle, why shouldn’t I?”

  “A miracle, indeed,” Torsten said.

  But whose?

  He couldn’t keep the thought from popping into his mind. Every time he pictured Pi standing in the Royal Crypt, crown and bloody Drav Cra orepul in hand, Torsten thought of those last words he’d heard the boy whispering in darkness—Redstar’s words.

  Buried, not dead… buried, not dead.

  “You went to see him again?” Wardric asked as they rounded a corner into the castle’s east wing. Tall, pointed-arched windows lined the hall, stained glass shining like precious gems beneath the winter sun.

  “See who?” Torsten asked, happy to be stirred from impure thoughts.

  “The boy, Rand.”

  “He’s a boy no longer.”

  “You’re wasting your time, Torsten.”

  “I refuse to let another worthy soul abandon his post.”

  “Then consider the reason he left,” Wardric pleaded. “Consider the reason the Royal Council is sparse, and those who remain are grossly under-qualified whelps.”

  Torsten shot a glower his way. Wardric took him by the shoulders and stopped him outside the door to the Throne Room. “How long will the miracle steal everyone’s attention? Eventually, we have to address what happened while you were gone. How can the people trust leaders who hang physicians and servants for merely speaking truth? Our dungeons still overflow, and we don’t even know who really belongs there.”

  Torsten lightly shrugged Wardric off. They’d grown closer in the weeks since he’d returned from the Webbed Woods. Of all the Shieldsmen, Wardric had given Torsten the hardest time after he’d taken over for Uriah Davies, his long-time predecessor. It took horrid times, but Torsten now knew that if he could trust anyone throughout the kingdom, it was the gray-haired Shieldsman standing before him.

  “Let us deal with one problem at a time,” he said. “We were all lost after Liam passed. A new king doesn’t change that. None of what happened was right, but we can only look forward now. Agreed?”

  Wardric drew a deep breath, then backed away. “Agreed. Now, go make sure the Caleef answers for what was done.”

  “He will, my friend. You have my word.”

  Torsten turned, but Wardric grabbed his arm. “Don’t let her cause a war we cannot win. We’ve lost enough already.”

  Torsten nodded, then stepped into the Throne Room. Pantego’s ultimate seat of power, a Glass Throne possessed by a juvenile king, towered over the room. By the new king’s side stood Queen Oleander, and behind her the Council of nobodies her unbridled rage had left them with. Torsten was the only among them who’d seen war while serving under Liam. For Iam’s sake, he was the only one who’d ever even held a sword.

  Glass Soldiers lined the hall along with a handful of Shieldsmen. The former remained at attention, stoic, disciplined. The latter saluted Torsten, fists against their chests as he passed. Torsten recognized only a few of the Shieldsman beyond Nikserof who remained downstairs. Sir Mulliner, Reginald, a few more faces he couldn’t put to names.

  His own fingerprints upon the Shield, compared to Uriah’s, were nearly imperceptible after he spent so much time catering to the Queen’s will and sending others to their deaths at the hands of Bliss. And now there were fewer within the walls of Yarrington than ever before. Following the death of Liam, dozens had been dispatched to strongholds throughout the kingdom by Wardric when Oleander wasn’t looking. All across the southern reach, they trained the Glass armies and fortified, preparing for another attack by the Black Sands. Then there were those like Rand and Lord Yuri Darkings who had fled Oleander’s wrath and deserted their post.

  “You’re late,” Oleander said from beside the throne. She was easily one hundred paces away, but her voice carried down the vaulted ceiling like a galler in flight.

  Torsten bowed low. “I had some affairs of the state to address, Your Grace.”

  She slowly shook her head. “You know I don’t like waiting when I call.”

  “Apologies, Your Grace. It won’t happen again.”

  “You always say that.” She held her stern glare for a few seconds before it gave way to a smile.

  Just the sight of it gave Torsten pause. Her late husband had named her the Flower of Drav Cra, and never had an epithet been apter. A month had passed since Pi was reborn, and since that day she was as confident as ever, never leaving her quarters without a veritable army of handmaidens preening her.

  Present
ly, she wore a blue gown—always blue—more extravagant than any Torsten remembered having seen her in. It was cut low—always low cut—revealing the lines of her collarbone, then sweeping up around her slender shoulders like peacock feathers. The bottom cascaded down the throne’s dais. With Tessa dead at the hands of her wrath, Oleander’s new favored handmaiden—he wasn’t sure of her name—was busy unfurling the ends, so it appeared like a waterfall cascading down glass steps.

  Torsten couldn’t help but remember when he found Oleander at Pi’s bedside, shattered by grief after the boy died. It was as if she too had experienced a rebirth through his resurrection, the whole castle even. The court went from cowering from her grief-stricken wrath, to impossibly busy with the coronation and other affairs. And now, the royal entourage of the Shesaitju Caleef was arriving in the heart of Pantego. On the surface, everything seemed back to normal, but one look around, and it was painfully clear how much it wasn’t.

  As Torsten took his position to the left of the throne, he realized he’d never attended an audience with any but Liam seated upon it—even when the King was sick and his body rendered useless, it was him.

  As usual, Pi slumped to one side of the glass seat three sizes too big for him. The chair’s arm was so high it could have served as a headrest. He dressed in an elegant satin tunic, his long, dark hair combed as his mother spent so much time doing every night. Torsten found himself growing angry at the sight of the boy’s beautiful crown, so much more extravagant than Liam’s but fought it off.

  “The Shesaitju are a proud people,” Torsten whispered to Pi while they watched the main doors of the castle. “Choose your words carefully, but do not give an inch.”

  King Pi half-turned his head to regard Torsten with a single eye. Torsten averted his gaze. The boy’s expression didn’t change. Not a word. Not even a nod. His mother would tell him to take his time finding his voice again as she stroked his hair every night. But Torsten remembered his voice—the voice which whispered to the Buried Goddess in the night; thanks to Redstar.

  “The Shesaitju will learn humility,” Oleander said, standing on the opposite side of the throne. “Don’t worry, my precious child, they are here to grovel and apologize to their new king, nothing more.”