The blood king cotn-2

by Gail Z. Martin

  "And if there is no other way?" Royster asked, watching him carefully. "Then I'll do what I must, even if I go to the Crone."

  TRIS WAS PLEASED to find Kiara waiting for him in the hallway when he concluded his lessons with Royster for the evening.

  "Royster promised he'd let you off by the tenth bell," she said conspiratorially. "I didn't even have to bribe him."

  Tris smiled tiredly. "I'm glad to see you-but I'm hardly up to sparkling conversation."

  Kiara took his hand. "That's all right."

  He took her in his arms and kissed her. She reached up and touched the pendant on the chain around his throat, her gift for his birthday. "I didn't get the chance to thank you," he said, letting his fingers toy with her dark hair.

  "I thought it might be a bright spot in your training." She tilted her head so that her cheek brushed his fingers.

  "The only one," Tris sighed.

  "Since neither you nor Carina is talking about it, it must be grim."

  Tris fought down the memories of the dark send-ings, and the horror they foretold. "The Sisterhood isn't much for half measures."

  They walked out onto a loggia overlooking the courtyard. Servants and merchants bustled across the dark cobblestones, their way lit by the small fires and torches that gave the guards a measure of light and heat in the cold evening. Kiara shivered. Tris wrapped his arms around her, letting her lean back against him and enjoying the moment.

  "Do you think that Jared and Arontala know where we are?"

  Tris remembered the red fire that pulsed from Alaine's orb, and the battle at the citadel. "I'm sure of it."

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. "How is it that two brothers can be so different?"

  "We're half-brothers, really. Same father-different mothers. Father was younger than I am now when he married Eldra-it was an arranged marriage, to keep the peace with Trevath. I understand that they hadn't even met before their wedding day. But they fell very much in love.

  "Remember that all this happened before I was born, and it wasn't often spoken of openly, since father had remarried by then. But Eldra didn't make a good impression. The ladies at court thought she was aloof and demanding. Her mood could be so dark that some of the noblewomen said she had a demon. And she had difficulty producing an heir."

  Tris looked out over the darkened courtyard. "Through it all, father loved her. And when she died bearing Jared, father was devastated. Bricen had just taken the throne-my grandfather died suddenly on a hunt-and he had no idea what to do with a baby. So Jared was left for the servants to raise and father retreated into his grief for ten years-until he met my mother."

  He smiled, remembering Serae. "Mother was like a spring wind, full of life and energy. And even though there was talk because she was the daughter of a sorceress, she gave father a son within the first year they were married. Me. Kait came along seven years later- they lost three children in the years between.

  "I always thought Jared hated Kait and me for having a mother-and for getting father's attention. Jared was an awful bully, and he had a pack of noble trash that did his bidding and liked the way he took whatever he wanted. Jared had Eldra's temper, and her dark moods. It got worse once he found Arontala-or Arontala found him."

  "I don't know whether father realized the mistakes he'd made with Jared or whether he just didn't know what to do about it, but he wouldn't crack down on Jared, and Jared knew it. Mother and grandmother did their best to keep Kait and me out of Jared's way, but I don't think they ever realized how often he thrashed us." He gave a sad chuckle. "I got rather good at stealing herbs out of the kitchen to mix up poultices to patch us both up. Since Jared had a penchant for beating the servants, I always wondered whether the kitchen staff knew what I was doing, and made sure to leave what I needed where I could find it."

  "I'm sorry," Kiara said, turning in his arms to face him. "I didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

  Tris shrugged. "Everything we're doing is about unseating Jared. It's hardly as if I can keep from thinking about him." He closed his eyes and the memory of the dark sending came again. He struggled to push the thought of Kiara with Jared from his mind.

  She raised a hand to touch his cheek. "What is it?"

  "Nothing," he said tightly. He met her eyes. "I want to keep you safe, Kiara. I know what Jared is like. I'd die before I'd let him hurt you."

  "The Oracle sent me on my Journey for a purpose," she said, and let her right hand fall to the pommel of her sword. "I fight as well as you do- maybe even better." There was a hint of challenge in her voice and Tris chuckled at the dare. "And until Arontala is destroyed, father-and Isencroft- are in danger. It's my fight too. Don't you dare try to make me into one of those cosseted noblewomen, spending their days playing tarle and embroidering handkerchiefs!"

  After all the tension of the last week, it felt as good to laugh as it did to hold her near him. "I wouldn't dream of it," Tris promised. "I love you," he murmured, bending to kiss her. More than yon can imagine, he added silently as she returned the kiss. More than life itself.

  MUCH LATER, WHEN Tris found his way back to his own quarters, he found a warm fire and a fresh bottle of Cartelesian brandy waiting for him. He kicked off his boots and sprawled in a chair in front of the fireplace. The brandy, a belated birthday gift from Vahanian and Soterius, made his aching muscles relax. He let the fire warm him as he drifted off to sleep in his chair.

  Tris, help me! He could hear Kait's voice in the darkness all around him, and Tris sat bolt upright. The cry rang in his mind, not from a dream, but from the netherworld itself. Tris closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.

  Focusing his power, Tris cast his circle and drew his wards, plunging into the darkness after Kait's cry. In the gray world where only his spirit could travel, he slipped among the dead and the undead, steeling himself against their cries and petitions. With all his strength, he focused on the sound of his sister's voice. As he drew closer he could feel her pain, her fear, even as the image of her face, trapped in a glass prison, grew clearer in his mind. But before he could reach her, a wall of cold darkness drove him back.

  Free her! Tris shouted to the darkness, but there was no reply. His feeling of dread grew steadily stronger. Kait's image grew dimmer, though her hand was pressed against the glass and her eyes begged for his help.

  Show yourself! Tris demanded, but again, no answer came.

  He found himself blinking at the light of Royster's candle as the librarian bent over him worriedly. The fire in the hearth had died, and Tris knew the night was far spent.

  "You saw Kait again, didn't you?"

  Tris realized that his hands were shaking. His shirt was wet with sweat, and his heart pounded. "It was so real. I could see her face pressed against the glass. I heard her crying for help." Haltingly, he found the words to recount the rest of the contact. Royster listened intently, frowning.

  "It was real. I'm not a mage, but I'm sensitive to the working of magic. I felt the magic myself, that's why I came. You say that Arontala laid a spell over the palace to drive out the ghosts that protected your father?" At Tris's nod, Royster thought for a moment, then moved to the books that lay on a table in Tris's room. He set down his candle and paged through the yellowed volumes, muttering to himself. Finally, he motioned Tris to join him, and

  ran his finger beneath a passage in the diaries of the Obsidian King.

  "Look here," Royster said. "This tells about how the Obsidian King, who was a great Summoner, started to draw on the spirits of the dead for power. At first, he drew from them to work magic that helped them. But later, as he turned to the darkness, he drew from unwilling spirits to enhance his own magic. At the end, he slaughtered captives, and then bound their spirits so that he could draw on them for a reserve. He fashioned a great crystal orb in which to capture souls and hold them until he could draw from their life force for his power."

  "The Soulcatcher," Tris murmured, remembering the glowing red orb in Arontala's lib
rary that he glimpsed the night of the coup; the same red fire in the crystal pendant around Alaine's neck in the Citadel.

  "When your grandmother fought the Obsidian King, the Mages of the Light opened a doorway to the abyss, so that Bava K'aa could drive him into the void, and he would be trapped in the abyss forever."

  "But she didn't."

  "No. Because of her love for Lemuel, for the mage whose body the Obsidian King possessed, Bava K'aa could not bring herself to destroy the orb. That orb is what you call Soulcatcher. Bava K'aa gave it to the sons of Dark Haven-the vayash moru-to guard. The currents of magic run strong below Dark Haven, and the Flow runs through the foundation of the great house itself. So the Obsidian King remained trapped in the orb, in Soulcatcher, on the edge of the Abyss all these years, waiting to be freed."

  "Then Kait's spirit is in the orb, for the Obsidian King to feed on when he breaks free?" Tris asked, the horror of it dawning on him as he framed the words. "The spirits he's trapped in there with him, he's going to feed on them to get the power he needs-"

  "To make the transfer," Royster finished. "Yes. That is why you must reach Margolan before the Hawthorn Moon. The Obsidian King was bound on the night of the Hawthorn Moon, and only on that night can he be set free. And may the Lady go with you."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  " GO ON AND have your fun-we'll hold the border." Harrtuck grinned and slugged Soterius in the shoulder. As the time came closer for Soterius and Mikhail to leave Principality, Harrtuck moved the mercenary companies to the Principality border. The refugee fighters and the professional soldiers regarded each other warily. But Soterius's stories of fighting the ashtenerath fighters had been enough to get the interest of the mercenaries, who doubled their evening guard.

  "Just wait to open the new casks of beer until we get back!" Soterius rejoined, making an effort to cover his apprehension.

  "Once the ashteneratb showed up, Staden's council certainly didn't mind deploying the mercs along the border." Harrtuck said, with a nod toward the mercenaries who were now camped between the refugee settlement and the Principality border.

  "I'm still hoping we don't need your troops to move onto Margolan soil," Soterius said.

  Harrtuck quickly sobered. "I'm with you, m'boy. If those fighters of yours kick ass they way you say they will, then I've got a cozy job coordinating the merc commanders. While Jared's expecting an attack, we'll keep his troops from 'wandering' into Principality territory."

  They both knew the other half of the "if." If Soterius did not succeed in raising a large enough band of strike-and-hide fighters from among the deserters and discontented in Margolan, then it would be up to the mercs to engage Jared's army, and the effort to put Tris Drayke on the Margolan throne would move from stealth attack to open war. Should the Principality mercs be needed, Soterius knew that Isencroft would also deploy its troops, now held in readiness along its border. Dhasson, bottled up by Arontala's magicked beasts for months, had its own reasons to wage war against Jared the Usurper should the beasts be dispelled. Eastmark was unlikely to remain neutral when Kiara was the niece of Eastmark's king, daughter to his favorite sister. Nargi and Trevath were likely to enter any war as Margolan's allies. If the gambit to destroy Arontala and depose Jared by stealth failed, the alternative was war-and the specter of unrestrained blood magic through the power of a reborn Obsidian King.

  In the two weeks since the last strike, Soterius had trained his refugee fighters hard. Tadrie and Sahila had recounted the attack of the ashtenerath. After all they had witnessed of the murders and atrocities committed by Jared's troops, the refugees believed

  Sahila's account of the ashtenerath without question, and with less terror than Soterius expected. Esme backed up Sahila's story, and when the healer was through explaining how Arontala created his ashtenerath, the shift in the refugees' attitude was palpable. Through their tears and grief at the thought of missing loved ones being tortured and altered into beast-like weapons, Soterius had felt a hardening of purpose. Almost overnight, the refugee camp became a base camp for the war. Any men healthy enough to train-as well as the strongest and most fit women-came forward to add to the numbers of Soterius's fighters.

  The rest of the camp organized itself with the help of Sahila's and Tadrie's wives. The two women, already leaders among the refugees, used their skills to marshal the refugees. Old women and children mended the armor, tents, and packs Sahila purchased from the mercs. Others sewed the black tunics, trews, and cloaks that would provide camouflage. Blacksmiths set to honing the blades of sickles and knives, or to producing hundreds of razor-sharp arrowheads. Boys too young to fight made arrows, filling quiver after quiver, or willingly stuffing and restuffing the targets that the fighters-in-training used in their dawn-to-dusk training.

  "As strange as this sounds, I think this has been good for the camp," Harrtuck observed, looking over the bustling tent city of refugees. "Look at them-they've got a purpose. They're not waiting to die, the way they were when we got here. By the Whore! All but the suckling babes have something useful to do-and the hope of going home. That's no small gift you've given them, Ban."

  "If it's a gift, it's a bitter one. We've got to keep a full scale war from happening, Tov. I've no desire to see your merc army waging war on Margolan soil."

  "Aye, you're right there," Harrtuck agreed. "I'm happy as anyone to be the back-up plan. And I hope to the Lover and Whore that we're not needed to step foot across the border. On the other hand, many a barroom brawl's been prevented by having the biggest, burliest guards stand where everyone can see them. That's something I've seen with my own eyes!"

  Soterius grimaced. "You and Vahanian. Spare me the details. My question is: now that they're paid for and outfitted, can you keep your mercs from spoiling for a fight?"

  Harrtuck nodded. "Principality mercs are the best disciplined, best led mercenaries in the Winter Kingdoms. Nothing like the moth-eaten vermin you'll find elsewhere. Several of the commanders are from Margolan themselves, and no small number of the troops. They're taking this personally.

  "Hell, I found a couple of the men Vahanian and I fought with ten years ago who have managed to keep their heads on their shoulders and the rest of themselves in one piece. Didn't hurt that they remembered Jonmarc and knew what happened at Chauvrenne. He's a bit of a legend in some quarters. So having Jonmarc on our side won us points.

  "The mercs who knew us then are commanders now, every bit as sharp as you'll find in the armies of the Winter Kingdoms, and sharper than a few generals, I'd wager. They understand the stakes. You won't have any problems with them."

  Soterius couldn't resist a grin as he looked at his old friend. Harrtuck was trimmer than he'd been in years, having lost some of the girth that came from too much ale and a comfortable palace job. He was dressed like the mercs in a quasi-uniform of wool, but where each merc company's heavy cloak bore its insignia on the shoulders, Harrtuck's sported Tris's coat of arms, the insignia of Bricen's second son, and now, the mark of the Margolan rebellion.

  "Ready to start the night's work?" Sahila and Tadrie joined them, and down the hillside, Soterius could see the rest of his fighters finishing their preparations.

  "More than ready," Soterius replied, and knew that it was true. Despite the stakes, he loved the work of soldiering, and the physical exertion of the task at hand kept him from brooding overmuch about the future.

  "Keep a lantern lit for us," Soterius joked, slapping Harrtuck on the shoulder.

  "Aye, and a warm mug of ale, too!" Harrtuck replied. He grew serious. "The Lady's hand be on you tonight, Ban."

  Soterius nodded. "We'll need the luck of all eight of the Lady's Faces before we're through."

  THEY SET OUT two candlemarks later, in the light of the waning afternoon sun. Mikhail would meet them at sunset, at the inn that was the rendezvous point for their contact. Soterius and Sahila rode in front. Tadrie, Pell, Tabb, and Andras each rode with their pods of four fighters. Under their cloaks they wore the
leather armor Sahila had bought from the merc units. Each man carried a sword or a battle axe, but after the encounter with the ashten-erath, Soterius had insisted on more distance weapons. So the men now also carried an assortment of crossbows and long bows, bolos, and heavy-duty sling shots.

  "Who's this contact of yours at the inn?" Soterius asked Sahila as they rode.

  "Alle's from Margolan," Sahila said. "Came east following the rumor that Prince Martris had survived, dead-set on joining up with a rebellion. Brought out a group of bards when Jared tried to kill them. The story I heard said Alle slit a couple of guards' throats when the group was ambushed. Won't say a word about family, but I'm guessing there's some blue blood, wrong side of the blanket or not. Joined up with Lemus, the tavern-keeper. The innkeeper's been running a regular ghost carriage for the last several months."

  "Ghost carriage?"

  "It's a Nargi term." Mikhail's appearance, moments after the sun set, startled them all with its suddenness. "In Nargi, the Crone's priests persecute and destroy any who get in their way, or who stray from their idea of 'purity.' Those with a gift for magic, or for music or art, can find themselves taken for the Crone's service or dead. Worse if they're found to be vayash moru, or any of the other things that the priests have decided for the Lady should not exist," he said with distaste.

  "Over the years, brave souls have taken it upon themselves to spirit away as many of the persecuted as they can save. It's only a fraction of the ones who are imprisoned or die, but it's a remnant at least. They operate in secret, using false names, hiding

  their identities even from each other. It's said that they have way stations all across Nargi, inns and caves and farmers who look the other way. And so a lucky few disappear from under the noses of their persecutors, as if they stepped aboard a ghost carriage and vanished into thin air." Mikhail smiled. "It's another case where the Blood Council chooses to stick to the letter of the truce and not mind the small details. And more than one of the Blood Council has been known to fund such things privately."