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

by James A. West

  The drumming and chants changed again, and all at once the workers’ backs straightened and they rose up as one to rip the weapons from their captors. For a long time afterward, they made war.

  When at last it seemed the final battle had been fought, the former slaves began circling the great hall, knees bent, weapons thrusting and slashing. They added their voices to their chanting brothers. Fists hammered against thighs, louder than before.

  Erryn recalled Aedran’s tale, but what she saw was unfamiliar. “What do they do now?”

  “They seek after our birthright, the Soul of the Dragon. Such is the destiny and purpose of all true Prythians.”

  The words were on her tongue to ask what that meant, but the drumming rhythm increased until the warriors were running about the great hall. Then, without warning, they broke apart and joined their brethren. No cheers and rowdy calls filled the hall as before, only reverent quiet.

  Erryn looked to Aedran and saw the sheen of tears in his eyes. Impulsively, she used the ball of her thumb to brush one glimmering line of dampness from his cheek. “If your destiny brings such sadness, why follow it?”

  He caught her hand. “The sadness comes from having to follow this road at all. As I told you before, if our ancestors hadn’t failed us and themselves, we’d not have to search for our lost destiny now.”

  She wanted to ask more, but One Eye Thal presented himself. The sheen in his remaining eye had nothing to do with sorrow or regret, but anger. Some of that emotion fled when he looked at Erryn. “The men and I thank you for the feast, and for not letting us freeze off our stones out in that murderous whore of a storm.”

  Erryn repressed a grin at his uncouth thanks, not that it troubled her. She had been born to a woodcutter and a surly barmaid. Whether she claimed the title of queen or not, she was uncouth, through and through.

  “You’re most welcome, captain. And you have my thanks, as well.”

  His brow wrinkled in question.

  “You’ve all kept me safe against those who’d crush my claim to a throne that’s never existed, and you’ve followed me even when it makes no sense to do so.” Before he could protest, she rushed on. “There’s not enough gold in the world for such fine warriors to risk your lives for me, yet you do so.”

  “Aye,” One Eye Thal said, “Course, by now, it’s not gold we follow, but you.”

  Erryn blushed at that, more out of shame than embarrassment. “I’m not so foolish to believe that what this army has gained for me has anything to do with my decisions. As it stands, the best ideas come from General Aedran and you captains. Most times I feel like a girl playing at something I’m not—especially a queen.” She cut off abruptly, knowing that for the absolute truth, and thinking she ought not to have said it aloud. She hid her face behind her cup and gulped at the last of her blackberry brandy.

  To her amazement, One Eye Thal and Aedran burst into laughter. “The problem with your ordinary ruler,” One Eye Thal said airily, “is that they rarely think they need advice, even though most wouldn’t know where to shit if you sat them on a privy pot and aimed their arseholes for ‘em.”

  Erryn choked on her brandy, spraying the spirits across One Eye Thal’s grizzled face. Then all three were laughing, while One Eye Thal pulled up his tunic to wipe away the brandy.

  When the laughter dried up, Aedran said to Erryn, “There are some rulers who are born with the gift to lead … and I think you’re one of those.”

  Now her blush was from pleased embarrassment. “Does that mean I can expect you to address me as queen, rather than girl?”

  “O-ho!” One Eye Thal hooted. “You’ve stepped knee-deep in it now, lad!”

  “I suppose I have at that,” Aedran said.

  Erryn sat straight, looking down her nose at him. He didn’t flinch back, but returned her look with one of his own, bold and strong. “Well, general, what’s your answer? Queen or girl?”

  “You’re no girl,” he said, but added before she could gloat, “but neither are you fully a queen.”

  “That’s your answer?”

  He shrugged. “It’s the best I have. But trust that I’ll continue to follow and serve you until you come into your own—for that to happen, I’ll also continue to advise you, as will the rest of your captains.”

  One Eye Thal cleared his throat. “I’ll leave you to this argument,” he said, bowing once more and turning back toward Erryn’s somber army.

  “Triple the guard,” Aedran called.

  Without turning, One Eye Thal signaled that he understood.

  ~ ~ ~

  You’re no girl … but neither are you fully a queen. Caught between consternation at his mild rebuff, and concern at his order to increase the guard, Erryn felt her anger growing. When Aedran turned toward her, she intended to have it out with him. Her lips parted, but instead of words, there came a frustrated sigh, and she caught his face in her hands and pulled his lips to hers.

  Aedran’s eyes widened, but he returned her passion with his own, plunging his fingers into her hair. One moment Erryn was aware of the great hall, the cold graystone walls, the men settling down to rest, and One Eye Thal ordering a triple watch. In a blink it all receded, leaving just her and Aedran.

  Her hands brushed over his bearded jaw, his neck, across the breadth of his shoulders. He trembled like a caged animal. One of his hands found her breast. Erryn leaned into him, her fingers burrowing beneath his cloak, tugging at the straps of his armor. You’re not alone! a voice warned, but she refused to heed it.

  His free hand glided over her waist, caressed her hip, moved with cautious urgency between her legs. She moaned, brought his mouth to her neck, whispering an answer to his unspoken question. “Yes,” she said, once and again.

  When Aedran suddenly broke away, Erryn was not sure what was happening. She couldn’t fathom why the taste of him was still on her lips, or how his strength still tingled in her palms, when he now sat so far away. She sat wobbly and breathless on her makeshift throne.

  “What is it?” she asked, disliking the desperation threading her voice.

  “We cannot,” he gasped.

  She cast about, saw no one looking their way—the closest soldier was a dozen strides distant, and now that it was mostly dark in the great hall, he was only a dim blur. Still, if it was privacy Aedran wanted….

  She clutched at his hand. “I know where there is an empty chamber. It’ll be cold—” she flashed him a unsteady smile “—but we can bring blankets to warm us.”

  He caught her hand before it could wander to his chest. She felt the same quivering excitement in his fingers that she felt all through her.

  Before he could say anything else, she said in a low, enticing voice, “Would you deny your queen the desires of her heart?”

  Some of that trembling went out of him. “It’s not our hearts that desire,” he said, looking around with a guilty, uneasy expression. Before she could argue, he added, “But even if this were more than the yearning of our flesh, we cannot be together as … as a man and woman. Not now.”

  Erryn wanted to scream for him to take her, beg him to taste her naked skin. She wanted to do the same things to him.… Instead, she dropped his hand and sat back. Disappointment and a queer sense of loss warred against sudden anger. Anger proved the victor.

  “Why not?” she demanded.

  “Because this night we bared the soul of Pryth to you, things no outlander has ever seen. You may not have been born in Pryth, but you now carry my people within you. That burden and gift is what makes a true Prythian.”

  “If carrying the soul of Pryth means I cannot have you, then I don’t want it. Take it back, I beg you.”

  “No,” he said, the word falling between them like a heavy stone, stopping her from reaching for him again more surely than if he had struck her a blow. “Not now,” he said, gentler, but still final.

  Then when?

  Instead of asking, she took a deep breath, smoothed her face, and stood up. “Help m
e down,” she said, her voice cold, commanding.

  He looked at her with surprise and a residue of something—hurt, maybe, or was it disappointment? She did not give a damn. He had toyed with her, what with all his innocent touches and less than innocent looks. Whatever he had hoped to gain, she couldn’t guess, for what most men wanted, she was willing to give, yet he had spurned her.

  Aedran slid off the table. “I should explain.”

  “Keep your explanations,” Erryn said, following him down. As soon as her feet hit the floor, she began striding away. His grip fell on her shoulder. She tried to shrug him off. When that failed, she made to pry his fingers away. It was a wasted effort.

  He spun her around, pushed his face close to hers. “You will hear me out.”

  “So be it,” she snapped.

  Aedran’s glare softened. “Prythians always choose queens. It has been that way from the time of our ancestors. And our queens are more than women with crowns to the people of Pryth.”

  “What more can we be?”

  His gaze wandered over her face. “Our queens speak with the voices of the gods, they guide us wisely, command us boldly and justly.”

  “What’s that have to do with anything?” She had heard tales of kings and queens who named themselves gods, but she vowed never to be such a one.

  “As I told you before, this night we bared ourselves to you in a way that we never have to any outlander. By doing so, we have chosen you to be our true queen.”

  “You said yourself that I am no queen,” she said bitterly. “In truth, though I named myself one and the folk of Valdar supported me, I have no mind for making war, or keeping peace, or ruling people. I have no crown, no throne, no banner. You speak often of past ages and histories, but those are only stories to me—new stories, at that. I’m an ignorant orphan who spent most of her life thieving and lying to survive. If you need a place to sleep where the rats are fewest, or desire an apple that’s not as wormy as the rest in the barrel, I can find those things. A true queen would know how to be rid of the rats. A true queen would ensure all the apples in her realm are sweet and good. I am no queen.”

  “You misunderstand the abilities of queens,” Aedran said with a gentle smile. “That aside, whatever you were before matters nothing now. You’ll learn all you need to know. In the meantime, you are our chosen queen—the Queen of Pryth. You stand above us, as have all our queens before you. A Prythian queen must represent the will, mind, and soul of our gods. Such a woman would be soiled by the touch of a mere warrior.”

  A single flame of hope flickered in her breast. “Then I renounce my title.”

  “What has been done in the sight of your army cannot be undone … save by death.”

  Death? Is he mad? “I want to go back to Valdar,” she said, struggling for breath.

  His brow creased with regret. “It’s too late for that. You have a duty now to your army and the folk of Pryth.”

  “If I’m so esteemed, how can you deny me?” she demanded.

  “A Prythian queen would never stand against the destiny of her people.”

  She stepped closer to him. “What if I do? What if I refuse what you’ve placed upon my shoulders?”

  His face hardened. “Then I’d be expected to kill you for a betrayer. You’re a part of us now, and it’s expected that you’ll behave so, lest some begin to think your heart harbors the same treachery that destroyed our ancestors.”

  “I hired you blood-hungry fools to serve me, not the other way around.”

  “We will serve you … as long as you serve us by embracing your new purpose.” Aedran stepped closer. “Accept and rejoice in that you’ll be queen of more than you ever dreamed.”

  “Only if I behave as I’m expected to, which is to say if I behave in ways that serve Pryth?”

  “Aye.”

  “I never wanted anything but to help my people, those who’d suffered under the thumb of Lord Sanouk….” She trailed off, her eyes widening. “It was you.”

  He blinked. “Me?”

  “Yes,” Erryn grated. “You put the seed into my head to murder King Nabar’s emissary, and then to cross the Gyntors into the Iron Marches. You knew this would happen all along, didn’t you? All this about me becoming your queen and the voice of your gods. I don’t even know your gods! Ilex is my god—a god of thieves—not Ahnok, nor the God of the Mountains, with his crazed Thousand Daughters. You’ve been manipulating me from the beginning, turning me to do your will.”

  He didn’t bother to deny the accusation. “At first, I only wanted to earn the gold and glory you offered, and to win you a proper crown from King Nabar. But all isn’t lost. Now that you’re the Queen of Pryth, we are bound to destroy Nabar, as was your deepest wish all along. In time, we will do that.”

  Erryn shook her head. “Only as long as I serve the will of the army I bought!”

  “Do not look at it that way.”

  “There is no other way to look at it. I was freer as an orphan than I’ll ever be as your queen. Can you not see that you have chained me the way your ancestors were chained? Can you not see that your queens are but pretties placed on a high seat and told what to say and what to think, never truly leading at all?”

  Aedran scrubbed a hand through his hair. “That’s nonsense!” He began stammering some explanation, but she cut him off.

  “I want to sleep,” Erryn said woodenly, turning away.

  This time, he let her go.

  Chapter 15

  Using a shovel with a flat wooden blade, Rathe tromped across the Lamprey’s deck and pushed a load of snow over the side. Although the air felt warmer, the ice on the River Sedge was thickening. The sound of it crunching against the cog’s bow and under the six pairs of stroking oars made a hellish din.

  Loro perched on a nearby barrel, sharpening his sword. Falling snow had crowned the hood of his bearskin cloak. “I thought sure we paid for passage aboard this leaky tub,” he said offhandedly.

  Rathe scooped another line of snow over the side. “We did.” He paused to arm sweat from his brow. Where he had just shoveled, fat flakes were already whitening the deck again. If the storm kept up, it would be a long day and a longer night.

  Loro looked up from testing the edge of his sword with a thumb. “Then why are you working so damned hard at something the crew is supposed to do?”

  “What else am I to do?”

  “Relax,” Loro said, shoving his sword into the scabbard. “Let these wretches do their chores.”

  Rathe set to work again. “Sitting still makes me nervous.”

  With a shake of his head, Loro shucked his dagger and began running the sharpening stone over the blade. “That’s a sickness, brother. Must be. Why, I could lay about half the day, and not feel a bit of unease.”

  Rathe gave him a lopsided grinned. “When I’m your age, I’ll likely feel the same.”

  “I’m not so old as that, you spindly shit. I just look it because my hair started falling out when I was still on the teat.” Loro scratched his chin, eyes narrowed in thought. “No, I expect your need to labor is on account of being fidgety. For myself,” he went on, ignoring Rathe’s scowl, “I see no need to exert myself without reason. Waste of energy.”

  “Some call that sloth,” Rathe laughed, arming more sweat from his brow.

  Loro grinned wryly. “Fidgety folk invented the word sloth to make themselves feel better about being so fidgety. Look at you, working up a sweat on such a cold day. None of the crewmen are working so hard.”

  Rathe glanced at the sailors in question, and wondered what Loro saw that he didn’t. A few held their hands over a smoldering brazier near the mainmast, but the rest were taking turns clearing the deck of snow, or knocking ice from the rails, yardarms, and shrouds. Gnat used a long brass eyeglass to search the banks of the river. After the first glimpse of Edrik’s company shadowing the Lamprey, they hadn’t been seen since.

  Rathe set to clearing the deck again. “I grew up hoeing poor soil, pl
anting crops, reaping crops, chopping wood for the cook stove. The work was endless,” he said, remembering the aches that formed in his hands and shoulders, the baking heat of the sun in high summer cooking his head, the way dirt migrated into every crevice on his body, leaving him chapped and raw in places he would rather not consider.

  “Seems like you’d have learned your lesson,” Loro said.

  “I learned to hate cabbage and parsnips,” Rathe admitted. “Too much work to grow something that doesn’t do a thing to fill your belly. I feel the same about most things that come out of the ground.”

  “From the stories I’ve heard about the Ghosts of Ahnok, you must’ve also had an abiding hatred for crofters.”

  Rathe cringed at the rush of memories. Wizened Captain Nariq, seeking levies for King Tazzim’s legions, had traded Rathe’s hoe for the hilt of a sword when he was no more than ten years old, setting him on the path of a soldier. Nothing he had ever done was harder, and he had earned much glory, but he had also spilled much blood. Toward the end, most of it had fallen from innocent crofters and village folk. “I was a soldier. I received my orders, and I followed them.” To my regret, he didn’t add.

  “We of the City Watch had orders, too,” Loro drawled. “Course, I rarely followed them. I remember once—”

  Murmurs went through the crew, cutting Loro short. Rathe glanced over his shoulder to see Fira crossing the deck with Nesaea by her side. The fire-haired woman had washed her face and hair, and other than a slight green tint to her cheeks, she looked much better.

  “Seems Liamas’s potion worked,” Rathe observed.

  Loro slid his bulk off the barrel and sauntered toward her with a wide grin. Fira brushed by him without a word and made her way to Liamas, who was also grinning. His grin grew wider when she stretched up and planted a lingering kiss on his lips.