Lyram sprawled sideways, his leg hot and wet with blood, and barely caught himself against a merlon. The view of the hundred foot drop to the moat and the milling soldiers below made his head spin. Smoke blew across the battlefield, pumping from the barbican as well as the siege tower now. And on the horizon, a plume of dust.
Hands touched his legs as he teetered on the merlon. Kicking with his good leg, he threw himself backwards, grabbed hold of a crenel one-handed, and swung himself around to land on his feet with his back to the wall. The wounded leg screamed in pain, nearly collapsing under his weight. Ahura’s blade, how bad was it?
Traeburhn knelt on the ground, his hand clutching his bloodied a nose. His sword and Lyram’s lay farther down the battlement.
Lyram limped his way along the wall towards the sword, but froze when Traeburhn looked up. The duke was closer to their blades.
“Why are you doing this?” Lyram asked. Why risk all this just for Drault? It was treason, with conequences of the worst kind if discovered. What could Drault offer Traeburhn that he didn’t already have? The prince was an irresponsible imbecile, so it couldn’t be affection, even if Traeburhn were capable of such emotion.
Traeburhn smirked up at him. “You poor honourable fool. Too honest to even understand the favours traded between men of power.”
He understood politics, even if he didn’t like it. Blood trickled down his leg, pooling inside his boot. Too much blood. With his wounded leg, there was no way he’d beat Traeburhn to the swords, and the duke was more heavily armoured, leaving him at a disadvantage on all fronts.
“Too honest,” Traeburhn said, “to understand ambition.”
This made no sense. Traeburhn already held the chancellery. There was nothing more powerful than the chancellor, except of course...
“The king,” Lyram whispered. “You treasonous bastard, you want the throne. Killing me gets you one step closer, and foiling the Velenese marriage assures Drault begets no legitimate heir. And Drault’s such an idiot he presented you the opportunity on a platter and didn’t even realise it.”
Traeburhn’s eyelids flickered, then he pushed himself to his feet, throwing himself after the weapons.
Lyram lunged at the same instant. His leg buckled under him in a flash of white pain as he seized Traeburhn’s gauntleted hand and, using their momentum, swung the duke around in a huge arc to strike the wall. In one move, he grasped the duke’s thighs and, ignoring the blaze of agony from his knee, levered him up and backwards over the battlements.
“Wait!” Traeburhn’s gauntleted hands caught futilely at the stone merlons, his voice shrill. “Wait! It doesn’t have to be this way. We can join forces against Drault! You can be king.”
Lyram’s legs quivered with the strain, the left on the verge of buckling. He ground his teeth. “You were right when you said I was an honourable fool—I may not understand ambition, but you don’t understand honour. My life for king and country.”
“Wait! Wait! You cannot honourably kill a peer of the realm!”
Lyram leaned forward to give Traeburhn a good look at his face inside his helm as he grinned. “I thought of that, after we fought in your tent—after you killed me. There is no dishonour in putting down a rabid dog. Let this be just.”
He lifted his left boot and slammed it into the fingers of Traeburhn’s gauntleted hand where he clutched the battlements, and then again. The wound in his leg flared with each blow, but he grit his teeth and kept pounding. Crying out, the duke released his hold, and in the same moment Lyram levered him higher.
The weight of his armour took over, and the duke slid over the edge with a despairing wail.
Lyram sagged through a crenel, staring down at the flailing figure of Traeburhn in the moments before he struck the water. Then, shuffling around on the stones, he examined his own wound. Blood soaked his pants from knee to ankle, and the cloth flapped loose where it had been rent by the blade. The sight of his own flesh laid open beneath, the edges red, made him gag. He blotted the blood, and the white of bone shone within before fresh blood welled up.
Galdron lay in a pool of blood nearby. Light-headed and dizzy, Lyram crawled across the bloodied stones to his captain. Galdron’s chest still rose and fell, but barely. He fumbled for Lyram’s hand as his commander came into his field of vision. “Promise me... Promise, sir. My niece... has no one but me. Promise me... she’ll be cared for.”
“Hush,” Lyram soothed. With his free hand he gingerly peeled the mail and cloth away from Galdron’s wound. He let out a long breath. Links of mail and pieces of cloth were driven deep in the wound gaping in Galdron’s chest. Only by some miracle, or maybe some out of character mercy of Ahura, was his captain still alive.
Lyram’s hand tightened on Galdron’s. “I’ll look after her.” The girl would get the captain’s pension, now.
“Good. Good.” Galdron gazed at him with unfocussed eyes. “She comes... I... Sir, it’s been an honour.” This time when he exhaled, he did not breathe again.
Lyram bent his head forward and closed Galdron’s eyes before making the sign of the goddess.
From behind, a shout rose up from the doubled gate towers.
“The king! The king has come! We are saved.”
“Awake at last.”
The voice broke through his light doze. Ellaeva. Lyram forced his eyes open on to bright light. After blinking a few times, images formed in the brilliance. This was his suite, in the castle. At the edge of his vision, Ciotach an Bhais rose from a chair by the crackling fire.
“How long?” Lyram’s voice cracked. “Did the king really come?”
“You’ve been out for almost a day. You lost a lot of blood. But yes, the king came. The siege is broken.”
She poured a mug of water and held it to his lips. Her other hand supported his head.
“Galdron...?” His voice broke on the word.
“We found him next to you.”
Her fingers twined in his hair, and he lapsed into silence, fixated on her touch, recalling memories of a night tangled together in her bed. Was it all a dream, a mad, wild fancy? What fool otherwise would lie with a woman who pledged her chastity to the goddess of death? And what woman would break that pledge?
After a long moment, he broke the quiet. “Am I to be arrested when I rise from my sickbed? Or am I already under guard?”
“Arrested?” A frown creased her brow. “For what, pray tell?”
He shook his head. It felt as though packed with cotton. “For the murder of Chancellor Traeburhn.”
“Traeburhn has been posthumously stripped of his title and convicted of treason,” a harsh voice interrupted them.
Lyram struggled to sit in his bed. Framed in the doorway stood his king, still clad in dented and scuffed armour, and stained with blood and road dust. Lyram fought with the covers in order to rise and bow.
“Rest, Aharris. No one is expecting you to climb out of your sickbed for courtesy.” Alagondar waved dismissively as he crossed the floor.
When Lyram didn’t desist, the king pressed him flat to his back with a gauntleted hand. “Why in the name of all that is holy did you think you would be arrested? An attack against my border castles is treason when brokered by one of my nobles.”
“I— Well, I— I’m out here, and...” He floundered, trying to find some elegant way to reference his exile.
Alagondar gave him a long flat look. “I exiled you because you struck my son, Aharris. I know he’s a prat and likely deserved it, but at the same time I can’t tolerate such blatant attacks against my power, and you usually have more control of your temper. I should like to think recent events gave you some perspective. You certainly look better than when we last parted. Your altercation with my son, however, would never have made me dismiss your testimony against Traeburhn.”
Lyram’s mouth worked soundlessly, and finally he shrugged. “Your majesty is gracious.”
“You should remember that, the next time you make an enemy.”
Friends who apparently threw him to the wolves. Drault would, no doubt, take steps to avoid having this debacle linked to him or the marriage under negotiation. Setting Traeburhn up as a traitor was expedient if nothing else.
“Nor do I think this siege was personal, sire. I think Traeburhn’s sights were set on your majesty’s throne. Ruining the peace with Velena, foiling the royal wedding, and killing me—it all put him that much closer to the crown.”
Alagondar’s visage darkened. “Treason of the worst kind. We found Bradlin dead on the battlefield, and the Velenese earl, Alamus, being held captive. The mercenary captain got away, it seems. Dealing with treason is always a messy business. You’ll need to root out the members of the aristocracy willing to throw their lot in with Traeburhn, and his estates will need to be appropriated.”
“Me, your majesty?” Lyram lifted his head to meet his king’s eye.
“We,” Alagondar said firmly. “Your holiday is over, Aharris. I need my military adviser back.”
“Thank you, your majesty.”
“My motives are selfish, Aharris.” He nodded perfunctorily to Ellaeva as he turned for the door. “Your holiness.”
Alagondar swept from the room in a jingle of mail.
“So that was your king,” she said softly. “I’m glad I met him before I leave. One never knows when my service will bring me to his court.”
“You’re leaving?”
“The siege is broken. There is nothing to keep me.”
“Nothing?” Anger stirred in him. Did he mean so little to her? When he reached for her emotions bundled in his head, she was hard and slick as glass, a tight, protected knot hiding her real feelings.
“Nothing I am permitted to have. Do you know what I saw upon the walls, when you fought Traeburhn? I saw her hand, Ahura’s hand, upon you.”
“Dragon dung.” He flicked his fingers dismissively at the notion. “No man has ever been blessed by her touch.”
“I promised to tell you the truth of your sword, and it begins and ends with this.”
He stirred, glancing over at her with narrowed eyes.
She stared off into the distance, as if she could not, or would not, look at him. “Once the Aharris clan dedicated itself to Ahura—as much as one can, without taking holy vows, and as much as any man is allowed. The family had two mottos: the one about sleeping dragons, and the one you took for your own. The family’s sworn duty was to enact the will of Ahura or die trying. That’s why the dragon on your clan sword mirrors the one on my holy sword. Your blade once possessed powers akin to the holy sword, and that memory of power allowed me to share mine.”
“I didn’t know,” he said, staring at the sword upon her hip. “What has that got to do with whether the goddess did or didn’t touch me?”
“Ahura touched many of your line in the past. She blessed them, I suppose, but too many of the family died as an indirect result—much as Battle Priestesses do. Used by the goddess until they are all used up. Over time, there was less doing and more dying. At some point the clan stopped dedicating its sons and daughters to death. Otherwise the clan would become extinct. I’ve read the records and the accounts of what those so blessed did, and I’m sure what I saw on the walls was Ahura, but that was no blessing, Lyram—it was a warning. Broken vows of blood are paid in blood, and the blood need not be mine. No one is beyond her reach.”
That left him cold, chilled through to the bone like a man sitting in a bath of ice water. This was what he feared, wasn’t it? Nowhere was far enough to be beyond the reach of a vengeful goddess. No matter how far or fast he ran, one day death would come to him, and he would be hers.
“So, what? Everything that happened was for naught? You will go back to being a good obedient priestess?”
When she looked at him, a cavernous emptiness suffused her eyes, and when she spoke, the hollowness of her voice didn’t hide the ache running beneath. “I will try to find my parents, but other than that..., yes. That is what I am.”
She moved to turn, and he caught her hand, pulling her back.
“You serve a cruel mistress.”
Her expression turned hard and flat. “Life is cruel. Deathly simply is.”
“What about what Leinahre said, about using me to get to you? Aren’t you afraid?”
“No. Why should I be? I will go back to hunting Rahmyrrim, as I have always done.”
“Do you feel nothing?” His shout rang off the walls of his bedchamber. The desperation in his breast would push him barefoot over hot coals, if it would make her stay.
Tears pricked her eyes, and the little glass bubble in his head shattered into a thousand fragile pieces, revealing the raw wound beneath.
“Do not make the mistake of thinking that because I don’t show my feelings that I therefore have none.” Her voice was low and did not shake, but its very evenness betrayed the iron-hard control she exerted over it. “I love you, Lyram Aharris. I should not, but I do, and I do not know how to stop. But my love for you imperils us both, and anything we might make between us. Because I feel, because I fear, I must go.
“If we defy a god, we will surely lose.” She pulled her hand free of his with a sharp jerk.
He didn’t fight her, and she whirled and strode from the room, almost running. He didn’t call her back. The hollow ache in his chest consumed him.
“I love you, too,” he told the empty room.
Some hours later, Everard found Lyram perched on a seat by an arrowslit watching the activity below. An army filled the grassed space between the inner and outer walls now, and the purple-and-gold banners of Alagondar of Ahlleyn waved overhead. The gates stood open, and men passed freely to and fro. Such a very different scene from yesterday.
“It’s been a tumultuous few days, sir.” His aide spoke from somewhere behind him, his voice as rigid as his usual posture. “So many of the soldiers dead. Leinahre. Galdron.”
His voice wavered on that last name. Everard and Galdron had been friends for decades.
“I don’t understand,” Lyram said without turning from the scene below. “Where did all these men— Where did the king come from? It’s more than a month’s ride to the capital....”
“Phelip, sir. He was wounded but he broke free and made it to the Howling Caisteal. Apparently the king was doing a tour of the Borders, and when news came to him at Drumbarden House, he mustered the garrison and each of the Border Castles between there and here.”
“Phelip? I’m glad. He’s just a boy. Too many died, Everard.”
“Aye, sir. The priestess is gone?”
“She is gone.” A bitter note crept into his voice.
Everard said nothing.
“You did warn me, Everard.” That memory burned.
“Aye, sir.” His aide’s voice was almost painfully neutral. “If I might be so bold, sir, it’s better this way. You already have a prince for an enemy. You don’t need a god as well.”
“Truth indeed.” Lyram turned aside from the arrowslit and slumped in his chair. “I can always rely on you for the truth.”
“Aye, sir. Home now? To court?” A light of eager excitement brightened Everard’s eye.
“Aye, home. I wouldn’t say I’m in the king’s favour once more, but I’m at least partially redeemed.”
Home, to court, where all the memories of Zaheva lingered, but at least none of Ellaeva. There he would find Drault, and his chance to revenge Zaheva.
Am I really contemplating the murder of my prince?
“Justice before mercy,” he whispered. He would watch, and wait, and he would be patient. There would be a way. “Death comes for us all.”
“Sorry, sir?”
“Nothing, Everard. Start making preparations for the journey home, if you will.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lyram turned back to the window, to the south. He could still sense Ellaeva in his head, moving away
from him, growing fainter but still present.
He could keep that much of her.
---THE END---
Aharris, Lyram (a-HAR-ris, LIE-ruhm)—eldest son of the Duke of Habrodeen. Previously held the position of King’s Sword and served as chief military adviser to the King of Ahlleyn, now disgraced and in exile to the remote border castle Caisteal Aingeal. Third in line for the throne of Ahlleyn. He has one sibling, a younger sister.
~~~
Aharris, Clan (a-HAR-ris)—an Ahlleyn Clan, of which the current chief is the Duke of Habrodeen. It has two clan mottos. “Let sleeping dragons lie” remains in current use, together with the clan seal of a sleeping dragon. The second motto, “aut agere aut mori”, means “Do or die” and has fallen into disuse.
~~~
Ahlleyn (ah-LANE)—a monarchy in the northwest of the continent, characterised by a clan hierarchy. The present incumbent of the throne is King Alagondar Gaylbrath. The national language has the same name, although an older form of the tongue exists and is referred to as “Old Ahlleyn”. Its people are typically fair-skinned, and have blond or red hair, and blue or green eyes.
~~~
Ahura (ah-WHO-rah)—the goddess of death, truth and justice. One of the six gods considered to be part of the natural order.
~~~
Ahura, Order of (ah-WHO-rah)—the order of priestesses dedicated to the service and worship of Ahura. The Order of Ahura is responsible for running the court systems in most kingdoms, under the highest court presided over by the local government. Priestesses serve as magistrates and judges to hear and resolve disputes, can witness sworn testimony, and are also responsible for administering last rites.
~~~
Alagondar (al-ah-GON-dah)—current king of Ahlleyn and clan chief of the Clan Gaylbrath.
In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1) Page 39
