by Ellyn, Court
To top off all his other crimes, it was his fault that Carah was gone. She’d be safe if she hadn’t felt the need to come to Windhaven.
Vonmora’s steward happily put Kethlyn and his officers up in the best rooms for the night, and Kethlyn demanded a bottle of wine. And then another.
A sharp, startling sting to the face woke him. “Get up, damn you!”
Before Kethlyn could drag his eyelids open, he felt his ankle jerked toward the ceiling and the floor sliding away under him. The rug chafed the skin on his bare shoulders. He expected Uncle Thorn, eyes blazing, mouth spitting fireballs, but it was the frayed cloak of Alyster he saw.
A feeble kick caught the highlander in the elbow and was enough to free Kethlyn’s leg. But he couldn’t rise to his defense fast enough. The wine churned in his head, throwing him back to the floor.
Alyster seized him under the arms and hoisted him over a bathtub full of cloudy cold water, the same water Kethlyn had used to scrub the road off him last night. He cried out as hands overpowered him and shoved his head underwater. Assassin! he thought, but a grip on his hair hauled him out of the water long enough to let him take a breath, then dunked him again.
This time when Alyster raised him, Kethlyn locked a hand on the edge of the tub. “Let go! You have no right!”
“I make my own right, you pathetic wee scab.” Alyster clubbed Kethlyn’s hand, dislodging it, and pushed him under. Where was his guard? Didn’t they hear the splashing, the shouting? Why had they let this madman into his chamber?
Kethlyn drove an elbow into the highlander’s belly. The hands released him. He shot out of the water, fist swinging. Alyster saw it coming and leapt back. He slapped Kethlyn’s fist aside, cracked him upside the ear and sent him crashing to the wet tile.
“Carah was too gentle with you,” rang Alyster’s voice, a treble din. “Soon as she’s gone you run back to the bottle, eh? Worthless sot!”
With an irate bellow, Kethlyn surged from the floor, feet sliding. Alyster struck him down again. Pain wrapped hot fingers across his face.
“You can’t beat me fist to fist, lad,” Alyster said. “Don’t try it. Get dressed. Your army’s waiting.”
Blood slicked the inside of Kethlyn’s cheek. He spat. “I don’t take orders from you.”
Alyster snorted. “You’re in no condition to give them either. You’re a disgrace, is what you are.”
“You know nothing!” Kethlyn raked sodden hair from his eyes and drew himself up into something resembling a dignified stance.
“Don’t I?” Alyster sneered. “Carah told me everything. Why you rallied to your bloody accursed king instead of your own family. Sniveling bootlick.” He turned up his nose with the expertise of a courtier and strode from the dressing room.
“Son of a…” Kethlyn pursued the highlander into the parlor, retaliatory insults on his tongue. Before he spat them out, Alyster whirled, brawler’s instincts sound, and tossed Kethlyn sideways. An armchair broke his fall and tumbled across the floor with him, a tangle of legs and upholstery. He kicked himself free of the treacherous furniture and lay on his back, cursing and holding his head to make the spinning stop.
Alyster loomed over him, teeth grinding. “You have no idea what it is to live as a bastard! You should ask me sometime. Coddled and pampered and spoiled, you are. You make me sick. You’ve been fighting to hold onto the very riches that were given to you. Things you neither earned nor deserve. Crawling after them on your belly like a snake, as if titles are worth more than people! How did the War Commander ever beget the likes of you?”
Kethlyn scrambled to his feet, arm up to shield off Alyster’s raised fist. “How dare you draw my father into this!” It was a pitiful counterattack, but Alyster’s words had disarmed him completely. He had no better weapon. “Who the hell do you think you are?”
Alyster glared contempt. “I’m not Kingshield’s bastard, that’s who. But he didn’t trust you enough to tell you. I’m telling you.”
Not Uncle Thorn’s … then … “You’re lying.”
“Why should I hide from the likes of you? Don’t like having an older brother? Take it up wi’ me. Damnable coward. I don’t need lofty titles, ships, or palaces to tell me who I am. If that’s all you are, I pity your people.”
How to make him shut up? How to stop the truth flowing like blood?
Kethlyn found himself on his knees beside an empty wine bottle.
Alyster blew air from his nostrils like a stamping warhorse. “You’re nothing to fear. Being killed by you would be an insult. I’ll waste no more breath on you.”
The caustic words churned inside Kethlyn’s head all the way up the mountain and through Windgate Pass. A brother? How many more bastards did Da have out there? Spitefully he wondered if his mother was hiding any of her own.
What hurt far more than his parents’ secrets was the knowledge that this brother had seen right through him, and expected to find nothing more than what he’d seen.
Had Kethlyn ever owned a shred of honor, an ounce of courage? He liked to think so. But, then, neither had been tested, really tested, before Valryk approached him with his scheme. If only I’d had the courage to say no, to risk his wrath. The integrity to tell my family what he meant to do…
How many more days were left to him? Would he spend them all like this? Sniveling…
He was grateful Alyster rode at the rear of the column. They met eyes only once that day, when they reached the summit of the pass and rested the horses for an hour. Kethlyn raised his chin in an attempt to prove that his dignity was still in place, that Alyster’s savagery had affected him not at all. But Alyster cast him a withering glare that snuffed all of Kethlyn’s pretentions.
The column descended into Helwende well after dark. Gheryn opened his doors to them, and thanks to a courier that Commander Leng had sent ahead, he had supper prepared for them too. As wealthy as Helwende’s lords had always been, as frequented as they were with the latest fashion from foreign ports, the dining hall was old and musty and dark. As if on principle, its lords had refused to allow foreign influences to infiltrate it in the past five hundred years.
“My apologies,” Gheryn said. “Trade being what it is these days, I can’t offer you the best.” Still, he brought out a fine Doreli red and filled the officers’ goblets with his own hand.
Alyster laid a hand over Kethlyn’s goblet. “His Lordship isn’t indulging.”
Gheryn and the wine moved on. “I noticed your father doesn’t take wine either when he visits,” he said, blithe and oblivious. “Admirable habit, I guess, for commanders to be sober.”
Kethlyn glared hot daggers at the highlander. “I despise you.”
Alyster smirked. “Lucky me.”
Thanks to his bastard brother, Kethlyn didn’t sleep more than a few fitful minutes that night. One glass of wine would’ve done the trick, damn him.
His host set off again an hour before dawn. The warmth of the rising sun seeped into Kethlyn’s armor, and he nodded off in the saddle. But before noon, the heat inside chainmail and plate became unbearable, and he woke sweating and irritable.
Thorn led the column, not east along the King’s Highway, but south, along lanes narrow enough only for a single cart to pass comfortably. To each side stretched razed farmyards and torched grain fields. Bones, human and bovine, were mounded beside the remains of campfires. Thorn paid the destruction no mind, as if it were the customary scenery.
Acts of attrition, Kethlyn realized, must have become all too common in the lands south of the Silver Mountains. He was unable to rein in his horror. I permitted this. I could’ve stopped it.
By the time the sun was at its hottest, slanting from the west, the dark eaves of Avidan Wood reared up across their path. During council, Thorn had insisted there was no other way to go, that taking the highway east around the Wood to Ilswythe would invite disaster. Commander Leng had argued that taking the army through the accursed Wood would spell their doom. “No man emerges from th
at evil place!”
“If I am with you, you have nothing to fear,” Thorn assured them.
Kethlyn hoped his uncle was right. Smoke hazed the southern sky, and hot winds whirled with the sweet stink of smoldering foliage. Thorn had explained that their enemy had set alight the southern region of the forest, and that the people who dwelled there were embroiled in battle somewhere to the east. But the smoke wasn’t the only change Kethlyn noted. He passed Avidan Wood several times a year, and invariably it was a hideous, twisted place that gave rise to foul vapors and terrifying howls, where otherworldly lights prowled, snatching away travelers who dared approach.
The trees he gazed upon now belonged to a different forest entirely. “I don’t understand,” he said, gazing up at the towering green canopy wreathed in sunlight and smoke. “There’s nothing sinister about it. It’s beautiful.”
Uncle Thorn rode too far ahead to hear him or offer explanation, but on his right Commander Leng nodded and grunted in inarticulate awe.
Entering the twilight under the branches, Thorn reined in until Kethlyn and his commander caught up. “Stay tight and stay silent,” he warned them.
Leng stayed behind to pass the order to each company as they entered the trees, and to discourage argument or insubordination. They hadn’t told the troops that this was the path they would take, and for good reason.
Kethlyn rode close to his uncle’s side. Thorn was vigilant, his gaze never still. What was he looking for? Kethlyn saw no drifting lights, no Dragon Eyes, no great green monsters like the one that had stolen Carah away. Only vast trees whose bark was so thick that a man could fit inside the fluted folds; whose canopy was so lofty that birds living there might never see the ground.
Thorn knew the Wood as well as a native. He chose the path without hesitation. At times they rode a broad flagged road; at others, a game trail that forced the companies to march single-file. Kethlyn had never believed his uncle actually lived inside Avidan Wood. Thorn told many stories. Humbling to realize some were true.
The sound of rushing water grew loud, and at last the winding path led them to the banks of the Avidan River. A humble, mossy bridge, only wide enough for two horses to ride abreast, arched over the tumbling waters. Moving an army of four thousand across took the rest of the afternoon. Thorn showed little tolerance for delay. He rode ahead, compelling Kethlyn to order his troops to double-time it to keep up.
Across the river, waste awaited them. After having seen the majesty of the trees as they were meant to be, riding through the ashen ruin filled Kethlyn with despair. Was nothing precious to Lothiar? Was victory worth this devastation?
Thorn followed the river eastward. Behind them lay the towers of Mithlan and the quiet waters of the Leathyr River that shaped the Leanian border. The ash-blight, he explained, went right up to the Mithlan bridge; he knew for a fact that ogres held it. “Best put distance between them and us before we make camp.”
Night was no hindrance. Thorn pressed the soldiers east. In the darkness, embers smoldered red under the ash, like the eyes of predators. Branches grasped at the passing soldiers like beggars’ fingers.
When they were at last permitted to stop for the night, the troops dropped into the ash like stones. They slept so heavily that none heard footfalls prowling on the outskirts of camp. At dawn, when muster was called, six men were reported missing.
“Bound to happen,” Thorn said when Kethlyn brought him the news. He was hurriedly saddling that unlawful black horse of his. Alyster did the same nearby. “Queen Briéllyn lost several hundred on her way to Ilswythe. We’re lucky Lothiar hasn’t sent an army against us yet.” He tied off the saddle’s cinch, then beckoned sharply at Alyster.
The brothers stood side by side, pointedly ignoring each other.
“Listen, both of you,” Thorn said. “I’m heading off on my own, but you’re to continue on route to Tírandon.”
“Uncle, you can’t abandon us!” Kethlyn cried.
Thorn’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t in the mood for whining. “Avoid major roads and villages. Alyster will be your guide. Trust his eyes. Do as he says.”
Alyster sighed as if wondering how he’d gotten roped into this job, and Kethlyn groaned, not about to conceal his disgust at the prospect of bowing to this spiteful man’s word.
The back of Thorn’s hand struck Kethlyn in the chest. Steel plate reverberated with a muffled thunk. “You don’t have a choice. Ruvion knew we were at Windhaven, and Lothiar will puzzle out why. If he doesn’t send a regiment to stop you, he’s a fool. Sacrifice only as many men as you must to get away, but make it to Tírandon. I’ll join you if I can.”
Kethlyn didn’t have time to protest before Thorn hoisted himself into the saddle. He’d hoped his uncle, and especially Carah, would be present to vouch for him. But there was only Alyster, and Kethlyn doubted his illegitimate brother had anything favorable to offer in his defense. Looked like he’d be facing his mother and father alone.
Ever the bold one, Alyster grabbed Záradel’s bridle. “You gonna find her?”
A feral thing surfaced in Thorn’s face, like a snarl. For an instant, Kethlyn thought his uncle meant to incinerate the highlander, but his rage was directed elsewhere. “I’m going to hunt down someone who knows too much and make them tell me.” With that, he jerked Záradel’s bridle free and galloped away into the ash.
~~~~
The noontime sun glared hot and unfettered upon the forest floor by the time Thorn rode within sight of Linndun. Soot stained the sunset colors of the city wall, and the white towers of the Lady’s palace spiraled nakedly skyward, stripped of its ruffled green skirt. The thud of war drums and the blare of horns resounded on the ash-stifled air. Hungry braying added a disharmonious note, and between the blackened trees the Black Marsh reserve came into view. The ogres, drawn up in disciplined ranks, faced the city. The sentries, too. Careless. None had yet seen the approach of horse and rider.
Beyond their helmed heads, battle raged before the city’s southern gate. Ogres hurled themselves against a breach in the wall. A tower had collapsed, exposing the roofs and tree towers lining Linndun’s main thoroughfare. Dranithion stood atop the mound of rubble, bows working furiously. On the ground below them, hundreds of Regulars slashed with dual swords in an attempt to keep the ogres from infiltrating the streets.
Thorn slowed Záradel to a trot and unsheathed the staff.
Saffron’s golden light beamed bright as a star beside him. “You should not do this. Find another way. Stay with your nephews, my Thorn.”
He batted the staff at her. She dodged it easily. “Get away from me, fay. You failed her! You failed me! Where were you?”
Saffron keened a sharp note. Her hands spread in a humanlike gesture of helplessness. “I had to choose, my Thorn. It was you I guarded. Alyster’s axe flew true because I helped it. The ogre fled instead of coming for you! If you had been lost, my Thorn, all hope would go with you. But you can save our Carah.”
“Then stay out of my way.” Rage brimmed too full to permit enough room for regret. Later, maybe he would feel it and apologize to his guardian. Later.
Some fifty yards from the enemies’ rear, he reined in and dismounted. Záradel detected the battle rumbling under her hooves and cantered away. Thorn’s heart hammered in his throat as he tucked the staff under his arm and drew off one satin glove, then the other, and secured them in his belt. The tips of his fingers were as black as the ravaged trees, stiff and cracked and insensible. Touching the rágazeth had dampened the fire inside them, but over the last several days that paralysis had waned. Working with Lord Daryon in the forge had done the trick. Thorn’s hands had slowly remembered the touch of fire. Eventually, he hadn’t needed the bellows to stoke the coals.
An ogre spied him at last and bellowed the alarm. The companies in reserve turned, hefting shields, axes, and swords as long as Thorn was tall. Among the columns, their Elari commander turned one of Bramoran’s blue roan stallions. Iryan Wingfleet. The wound m
arring the side of his face had scarred to a garish red latticework. The sword he unsheathed hummed a startled note.
Undaunted, Thorn advanced, driving for the center of the reserve. The air sweltered around him, a constrained tide of fury.
“Alone, Dathiel?” Iryan called over the din of battle. “One day your arrogance will be your end.”
The ogres brayed and smashed blades against their shields. They were like dogs straining at the leash. Over their heads, Iryan ordered, “Mathilanë h’ëor!”
Two companies rushed Thorn at once. He swept an arm. The earth thumped, tossing ash upward in a thick cloud. Thorn’s arms gathered the wind into a cyclone and sent the ash hurtling into the ogres’ faces. Those in the front line breathed it down, and stumbled choking. Behind, their denmates barreled over them, blind but determined.
Thorn arced the staff as if he swung a club. The air backflipped, cracking like a dam bursting. The wave flung back rows of ogres. Bones crunched. Chests caved. Organs burst. Corpses hurtled into the ogres running along behind, crushing them. The charge halted.
Wingfleet’s mount had reared and rolled under the blast. The Elari himself lay half-buried under the dead animal, unmoving.
Thorn raised a hand. A star built in the sky, orange flame churning.
The ogres knew what it meant. None wanted to be in the star’s path. The companies broke apart, running over each other to escape. Thorn’s hand slashed down, and the star dived, bursting upon a tangled knot of panicked ogres. Bodies danced, wreathed in flame.
Once, not long ago, he had lied to Carah. He told her he was above base vengeance. She had seen through him and he’d struck her for it. He feared the storm sleeping inside. Feared the primal power of it. Feared too that he loved it. There was no pleasure greater than the power surging up through his toes and out along his fingers, than watching his enemy sheered down like blades of grass. He opened his arms to it, a vessel desiring to be filled, and the flow of avë was so thick, so pure, that for an instant, he felt his feet rise off the ground.
