Queen of the North (Book 3) (Songs of the Scorpion)

by James A. West

  Contents

  Queen of the North

  Also by James A. West

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Excerpt Iron Marches

  About James

  QUEEN OF THE NORTH

  Songs of the Scorpion Vol. III

  Copyright © 2014 by James A. West

  First edition: May 2014

  Published by: James A. West

  Cover art by: Darko Tomic

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  Produced in the United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Also by James A. West:

  WORKS OF FANTASY

  Heirs of the Fallen:

  Book One: The God King

  Book Two: Crown of the Setting Sun

  Book Three: Shadow and Steel

  Book Four - Final Volume: Wrath of the Fallen

  Complete Heirs of the Fallen Omnibus

  Songs of the Scorpion:

  Book One: Reaper of Sorrows

  Book Two: Lady of Regret

  Book Three: Queen of the North

  Be sure to join the Scorpion in upcoming adventures!

  Short Stories:

  Night’s Hunt

  Acknowledgments

  For Jonesy, a little dog with a giant heart. He always kept me company while I wrote, and made sure I got my exercise. We miss you.

  Be sure to sign up for my newsletter to receive updates and info about new book releases at: http://jamesawest.blogspot.com

  You can also visit me on Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/jwestbooks?ref=hl

  Prologue

  Have you come again to taunt me, Gavin, or will you finally grant me the blessing of death?

  Hearing the Oracle’s voice deep inside his head, far below the fertile soil from which sprang dreams and nightmares, left the man befuddled. Gavin? That’s not who I am … or is it? Despite that uncertainty, he knew he stood in the Celestial Chamber of the Ilesma Temple, a place where only a select few could question the Oracle and obtain the secrets of unborn tomorrows.

  He glanced toward the ghostly radiance, the essence of the Oracle caught within a spherical cage of silver mesh hovering above a forelimb of graven silver, itself thrusting up from the marble floor. Its carved obsidian talons curled below the sphere, frozen in the act of snatching it from the air. The ensorcelled metalwork of both the cage and the forelimb caught the starlight falling through the portal in the domed ceiling, drawing the radiance into itself and setting the metal alight with a spectral glow.

  Do you take pleasure from my torment? the Oracle asked. I have often thought it must be so, Gavin, even as I have long wondered why my suffering should please you.

  The man hesitated to answer. A vague notion warned him there was a grave danger in responding to this being unless fully prepared. He stared at the throbbing light, drawn to it, yet repulsed.

  Gavin? The Oracle’s voice was curious now, and somehow sly.

  The man narrowed his eyes. Gavin. The name sounded familiar. Gavin is my name … but only here … and only to this being. Gavin, the real Gavin—the man saw in his mind the image of a towheaded boy with a lopsided grin—had been a favorite playmate. I took his name to use in this place—

  All at once, his sense of self solidified. Just as quickly, he constructed an impenetrable barrier around his deepest thoughts. If given a chance, the Oracle could tear holes in the essence of a seeker’s mind as easily as it parted the veil guarding sight of future things. I am master here, the man—Gavin—assured himself, just as his predecessors had been masters of the Oracle in their time.

  Gavin?

  “I have never taunted you,” Gavin said, finally coming around to the spirit’s first question. As to granting your death, you shall never have it. “Nor have I ever taken pleasure in your suffering.” This was not entirely true, but what he felt concerning the Oracle was more complex than could be described by base emotions.

  The Oracle didn’t respond to his assurances, but Gavin felt something move between them along their ethereal bond. Frustration, fear, killing wrath?

  At length, the Oracle spoke again, its tone now sharp. Your mere freedom taunts me as much as your living flesh—two things your ancestors stole from me long ago.

  Gavin waved a dismissive hand. “You speak of thefts, but you and your kind lost that war. How is your failure any fault of mine?”

  Should the vanquished suffer for eternity? Should they never have the chance to live free again?

  Gavin circled slowly over polished marble tiles the hue of deep ice, his shoulders banded with starlight and shadow. “Had your kind triumphed, how would you have treated my forebearers?”

  Ringing silence met this.

  “You cannot answer, can you? Not honestly, at any rate. For to do so would be to admit that your treatment of my ancestors would have been swift annihilation—as it always was, before our spellcasters bested your kindred.”

  Not necessarily.

  Gavin chuckled dryly. “How you deceive yourself. We have old histories and older songs reaching back to the days when my people were little more than beasts. Those tales speak of your conduct toward the folk you vanquished. You and yours were as gods—cruel, brutal, uncaring gods. Were our roles reversed … well, that would be rather difficult, since I’d never have been born, nor my father, nor his father, nor his father’s father, and so on?”

  Would you not choose annihilation over eternal enslavement?

  “Choice is of no concern here, but rules alone. If those rules happen to include repaying in some small way the cruelty you delivered upon my ancient kindred, such is but a spoil of war.”

  At least admit that your people won the war through trickery.

  “Has there ever been a war fought and won through purely noble deeds? I think not,” Gavin answered quickly, before the Oracle could attempt to twist obscure legends into fact. “Victory is victory, no matter how it is achieved.”

  Would you believe me if I told you my kind had grown beyond seeking victories, and that we had chosen instead to seek companionship and alliances?

  Gavin had heard these lies before. “No Oracle, I would not believe that in the least.”

  The Oracle suddenly asked, What do you seek?

  Gavin paused in his circling. “A sickness infects Targas.”

  The sickness you speak of came with your kind. Your enduring presence has only further befouled this once great city to its heart. I cannot help you.

  Gavin resumed his circuit around the silver cage. “Cannot, Oracle … or will not?” Silence held
within his mind. He knew the answer the Oracle would give before it came, but this was a game he never tired of playing. A game of boundaries and authority, of victors and the vanquished, of rulers and the ruled.

  If I knew the answer you seek, came the Oracle’s grudging reply, you know I would have no choice but to give it to you.

  Gavin chuckled softly. The Oracle was simply delaying the inevitable revelation. As was his wont, Gavin played along. “Of course, of course. You must forgive me. Such trifling matters regarding your submissiveness often slip my mind.”

  I forgive you nothing.

  Now Gavin laughed outright. “Don’t be so petulant!”

  Free me, the Oracle warned with true anger, and I shall redefine petulance for you.

  Gavin halted, an uneasy tingle flashing over his skin. “You know I can no more free you than you can free yourself,” he said more sharply than he intended—fear of reprisal did not trouble him, but rather the fear that he had somehow let the Oracle rattle him. He couldn’t allow the imprisoned spirit to gain even an inch of ground within his mind. I’m Gavin! I’m master here! he thought, reinforcing the barriers against the caged spirit.

  Silence again, wide and dark and complete.

  Gavin waited, breathless, a sudden suspicion growing large in his heart that the Oracle had somehow kept hidden a secret resistance or power, something as ancient as itself. Yet, if the Oracle had any secrets, why not use them before now? The answer, obviously, was that there was no secret power.

  Gavin gave himself a shake, laughed off his jitters.

  You sound afraid, the Oracle said.

  “Now who is doing the taunting?” Gavin disliked the tremor in his voice.

  How could I taunt you, Gavin, the master of me, my ruler, my persecutor?

  “Enough!” Gavin shouted. When the Oracle had spoken his name, he heard a question, felt a probing for his true identity. His fear grew into yawning gulf. He must learn the answers he sought, and then promptly leave the Celestial Chamber. “Tell me how to heal my city!”

  Your city? Is that how you think of Targas, the Everlasting City of Light?

  “If Targas is not my city,” Gavin said, “then it belongs to no one.” He and the Oracle might bandy about lies and ambiguities, but in this, there was only a single truth. Targas sheltered his people, but the city was his, and he would happily destroy its glorious walls, its crystal spires, and its undying light, before he let anyone push him from his rightful place. After a time, the Oracle spoke the words he wanted to hear.

  Ask of me what you will, Master.

  Much better, Gavin thought, a fitful grin tugging his lips. He wanted to savor the Oracle’s defeat, but for some reason he found it rather unfulfilling tonight, even bitter. Irritated, Gavin rounded on the silver sphere. “The oldest histories claim your kind have been here since the founding of Targas.”

  Much and much longer than that, Gavin. My ancestors, like your own, were once nomads roaming the frozen wastes in search of sanctuary. When they deemed such a secure place must not exist, they built one—first the vast warrens under the city, then the city itself.

  “Do you love Targas?”

  A pause. As if it were my own child.

  “Then tell me how to restore Targas and drive to ground those who plot to destroy—” Gavin hesitated, calculating “—our city.”

  To suggest to me that we share some common purpose proves you are the cruelest of all my former masters.

  “Tell me how to succeed,” Gavin demanded.

  Seek the man and his mark.

  “What man? What mark—” Gavin’s breath grew thick as jelly in his chest as an image of a sinister-looking creature filled his mind. With the image came the face of a man, and with the face came a vision of Targas lit not by everlasting light but by leaping mountains of flame. With all the images came a sudden and complete understanding of the means Gavin must employ to save his city. It was terrible, unthinkable, but there was never a doubt in his mind that he would do what was required.

  After the vision faded, Gavin stammered, “Th-Thank you,” his voice tinged with a reverence, and below that was something else. Boundless fear. The Oracle had never so fully invaded his mind as to show him visions as if they were his own, and he knew not what it meant.

  I will do anything to save Targas, the Oracle answered. You must hurry, for the time between success and absolute loss is far narrower than you can imagine. Many already plot against you, and their utmost desire is to supplant the rule of the Munam a’Dett priesthood.

  “Who would dare?” Gavin cried. “Reveal them to me!”

  It is enough for you to know that there are more than you would believe, and far more than you could ever hope to defeat alone. Find the man who bears the mark of his namesake, or you shall lose Targas and all else you hold dear. Go with haste, Gavin. Go!

  Gavin fled the Celestial Chamber, not realizing until later that he had gone forth with the eager swiftness of one commanded.

  Chapter 1

  Winds laden with fat snowflakes hooted mournfully over Valdar, over Queen Erryn, over torn fields filled with the dead and dying. Bitter that wind was, full of winter’s breath that tugged and gnawed at her cloak of dark leather and silver-gray wolf fur. Will I be remembered as the valiant Queen of the North, she wondered, surveying what her commands had brought upon her army, or will I be despised as the Queen of Blood?

  Beyond the palisade, wounded Prythians waved slowly to their comrades, like men drowning in a mire. Some of her soldiers were more energetic, trying to kick and claw their way back to the walls, but they were betrayed by their shattered limbs. Swords, Erryn had learned, broke bones more often than they cut cleanly. Hammers and beaked mauls were worse yet, mutilating everything they struck. Some of the injured, such brave and strong men a few hours ago, now lay moaning, too damaged to do anything but wait for their brothers to load them into rickety carts as if they were a late and rather poor crop of gourds.

  A treacherous gust brought a charnel scent to her. If that had been all she detected, maybe her guts wouldn’t have twisted so violently. But there were other smells to war, that of urine and excrement, which seemed to cling to to everything. Erryn swallowed, closed her eyes. I did this—I chose to do this—but I cannot surrender. Then as now, her decision was firm, her resolve true, because life north of the Shadow Road didn’t favor merciful hearts or weak stomachs. I did this, she thought again, this time with the same sense of righteousness that had filled her heart the day she, Queen Erryn of Valdar, formerly a simple orphan girl with too much fire in her heart, had begun her war….

  ~ ~ ~

  Many weeks before, King Nabar’s emissaries had come in the plush and curtained comfort of gilded white carriages, each drawn by a six-horse team. Four mounted companies of Kingsguard formed a bristling wall around the carriages, the standard-bearers hoisting aloft the new banners of Cerrikoth’s Royal House. The single white rose of Qairennor had become many, and they wreathed the horned bull of Cerrikoth charging over a crimson field. This new banner proved that King Nabar had indeed wed Princess Mirith, the daughter of the Qairennoran witch-queen, who Nabar’s own father had made war against before his death.

  Erryn marveled at the soldiers’ shiny clean breastplates and gold-trimmed crimson cloaks, at their burnished helms, and at their lances so long and sharp. Oh, and how their horses marched, as if they were as proud as their riders!

  Just beyond Valdar’s weathered gray gate, the Kingsguard halted at a crisp command, banners fluttering in the gentle breeze. This was a proper army. Clean and orderly. Her Prythian forces, which Erryn had hired at Lady Nesaea’s suggestion, their scruffy wolfskin cloaks and armor of scale and boiled leather, looked and sounded like a horde of plainsmen in comparison.

  The emissaries popped out of their carriages, clad all in rich finery better suited to the warmer southlands. When the chill of the north hit them, they huddled together and gazed about with expressions of horror.

  With
General Aedran on one side, her steward Breyon on the other, and half a hundred Queensguard at her back, Erryn marched through the gate to meet her uninvited guests. She did her best not to look overawed. As they walked, Breyon instructed her on the ways of highborn.

  “They dip into each other’s puckered arseholes like they’re loaded with honey,” he assured her with a knowing wink. With his gray-whiskered face smudged in dirt, he seemed more a beggar than a steward.

  “He has the way of it,” Aedran agreed.

  “Surely you jest,” Erryn said.

  Breyon shook his head. “They cannot get enough arse-licking. Only thing they like better than licking each other’s arses, is to have a lowborn on his knees with his tongue wagging. Reckon it makes ‘em feel all noble and charitable, like they’re givin’ us a treat.”

  Erryn was not keen to have her arse licked, nor to lick these flowery arses before her. Nevertheless, she did her best to appear friendly and proper. Pleasantness was easier when you had a thousand blood-hungry Prythians guarding a fortress at your back, even if it was only a lowly wooden one. Her Queensguard, armed with great swords and huge iron axes, and well-known for their love of cutting foes to pieces for the sheer enjoyment of it, also helped keep a warm smile on her face.

  Standing about in the dreary weather, recoiling at the soggy muck under their fine silken slippers, the emissaries shunned introductions and got right to business. They graciously offered to name her Reeve of Valdar, complete with a gold-and-ivory rod of office.

  “Accept the stewardship of Valdar,” they told her, stumbling over each other in their apparent eagerness to insert their tongues into her bottom, “and King Nabar will overlook your trespass.”

  Trespass? Is that all I did by naming myself queen, just step a little beyond the bounds of my birth?

  Erryn took the proffered rod, hefted its engraved length in her hand. It was too pretty to use for stirring stew or thumping heads. So, as far as she was concerned, the thing had no use. “It’s beautiful,” she said in a wondering voice, as if greatly impressed.