by Simon Brown
Gudon, Ager and their troops covered the first two thirds of the distance to the fort dismounted to lower their profile. They walked double file through depressions and around hills until they came to a natural bowl just over a league from the fort, led there by scouts posing as Haxus pickets. There the Red Hands mounted and formed two long lines. On Ager's advice, in case their charge ran into Haxus cavalry and to boost their morale after losing their leader Kumul, Gudon placed the lancers in a single line in front of the Red Hands and put them under the command of his brother Makon; they would be first into the attack, and their task would be to disperse any enemy horse and then peel away, giving Gudon and the bodyguard access to the fort's gate. Behind the Red Hands, Ager organised his own warriors, the only Chetts in Lynan's army who fought together as a clan and, with the Red Hands, the only Chetts Ager had trained to fight on foot.
Gudon and Ager embraced quickly and mounted. It was thirty minutes from first light and the changing of the Haxus pickets when Gudon gave the order to attack.
The five long lines of cavalry climbed out of the bowl, losing some of their orderliness. As they walked over the lip and onto level ground the lancers broke into a canter. Gudon counted slowly to thirty then ordered the Red Hands to a canter as well. By now they were only a league from the fort and he could see Haxus guards rushing along the high walls in panic. He glanced left and right, saw his own sweeping lines, watched his riders holding back their horses from the charge. Further afield he could see the great dark masses of the banners under the command of Korigan and Eynon as they surged forward. He saw Makon raising and then lowering his sword; the lancers burst from a canter to the charge, their long spears held overhand, their line still tight. Gudon smiled at the image, and wondered at what Kumul had wrought. And then it was his turn. He raised and lowered his own sword and kicked his horse into a gallop. The Red Hands matched him, and with one voice they screamed their war cry.
Ahead he could see the fort gate still open like a cavernous mouth. Some soldiers ran around in front of it, but none of them made an attempt to close it. Then someone seemed to organise them and they started pushing two huge wooden doors into place. Gudon felt a terrible knot in his stomach as he realised the Red Hands would not make it in time, then watched with elation as Makon led the lancers straight for the gate instead of peeling away. The Haxus infantry in front of him scattered and the lancers burst through into the fort, and seconds later Gudon and his warriors followed them through. As soon as he was past the gate Gudon sheathed his sabre, dismounted and drew his short sword. The few enemy armed were already fleeing in all directions, the rest were still in their tents or just now tottering out half dressed and wondering what all the noise was about. Gudon assigned one troop to guard the entrance while the others spread out and started the slaughter. At first he stood back, making sure that pressure was applied whenever it looked like the defenders were starting to organise, but when Lynan himself appeared he surrendered command and joined in the fight, revelling in the bloody fury that filled him.
Lynan forced Salokan to watch. The massacre went on for most of the morning, the last few hours being nothing more than the final mopping-up where scattered enemy soldiers were rooted out of hiding places or found feigning death among all the bodies. When all was done and not a single enemy was left alive, Lynan escorted Salokan around the fort. So much blood had been spilled that the ground was covered in a red mud; it crept over the toes of the king's boots. He tried to turn his face away from the slaughter, but whichever way he looked he saw thousands of his soldiers turned into carrion. He closed his eyes, but then he could smell the blood and the shit and hear the panting of the exhausted Chetts. In the end he was more afraid of the dark than the light. When Lynan had finished his tour he leaned over and whispered in Salokan's ear: 'I will do this to every fort and camp, every farm and village, every town and city in Haxus that you do not order to surrender to me. And every time I do it, you will bear witness.'
Jenrosa refused to enter the fort. She could hear the buzzing of flies two hundred paces away. Her stomach heaved and she turned away, but something stopped her from leaving. She groaned.
'We must listen to the earth again,' she said urgently to Lasthear. The two of them knelt down and scratched a circle, but before they could begin the calling a rivulet of blood from the fort met the circle and started to fill it. Lasthear cried out and tried to erase it, but Jenrosa grabbed her hand. 'Let it finish,' she ordered. In horror she watched as the circle became a swollen red disk. She called to the earth and the dust devil came and spat specks of blood against their faces. Words formed in the pool and Jenrosa recited: 'A red monarch.'
She waited for Lasthear to speak the words she saw, but the woman's mouth was clamped shut. To Jenrosa it looked as though invisible fingers grasped her jaw.
'A red woman,' Jenrosa continued uncertainly.
And still Lasthear would not—or could not—speak.
'A red city.'
'And then the dust devil returned, spitting more blood, and ended the spell. Lasthear cried out in pain and shock. Jenrosa tottered to her feet, her breathing ragged, and started to cry. She shouted in anger and furiously wiped the blood and tears from her face.
Lynan was in the grove where even sunlight seemed liquid and green. There was no sound of bird or insect, but all the trees and ferns seemed fit to burst with life. He was lying on his back. He could smell the grass, sweet and young, and beneath it the earth, dark and moist. Above him a wind rustled the canopy. He looked down the length of his body, admired his hard white skin. He noticed he had three of the Keys of Power. He moved aside the Key of Union and the Key of the Sword, and there lay the Key of the Sceptre, the Monarch's Key. He sat up, surprised. When did he get this? Who gave it to him?
He held it up to study it in better light and dropped it with a start. It was covered in blood. He tugged its chain over his head and threw it away with all his strength. It sailed through the air, slowed and then stopped, suspended.
'This is mine,' said a too-familiar voice.
Lynan searched among the trees for her.
'I gave it to you to keep for me,' she said.
'I will not win the throne for your sake,' he said.
Silona laughed, and the sound came from every direction, from the very forest itself. 'You do everything for my sake,' she said.
CHAPTER 5
Queen Charion paused in her striding to look out over her capital from the walls that surrounded it. Daavis had been turned into a city in which the houses, cannibalised for their stone and wood, looked like hollow skulls. Everywhere she looked her people scurried like ants, repairing city walls, restocking depots with food and armaments, tending livestock, pushing carts and pulling wagons and, if too young or too old to help, keeping out of the way. Parks and gardens had been turned into fields and pens. Cattle had been slaughtered and their meat dried and salted; sheep and goats were kept alive for their fleece and milk and an emergency meat supply. New cisterns had been dug and plastered and whitewashed then filled with water from the Barda River. Metal bowls, cups, eating utensils and jewellery had been collected and melted down and were being converted into spear and arrow heads and swords and daggers. New tunnels were being dug parallel to the walls so enemy mining could be countered swiftly. Long lines of elderly matrons were tearing clothing into strips, bleaching them in vats of urine, drying them and folding them for bandages.
Charion breathed deeply. She commanded all this activity and all the countless minutiae that went with it.
She could not remember the last time she had managed to sleep for more than two hours at a time, and she knew it was starting to show. She was even more crabby and acid-tongued than usual; food tasted like sawdust, and wine like brackish water. She had worn the same dress now for God knew how long, having donated most of her clothes to her city's cause, not to mention most of the cooking pots and utensils from her palace's kitchens. She had even ordered most of the good quality palace furniture sent to t
he sawyer so the wood could be used in wall construction or in the making of arrows and spear hafts.
But she could not complain. This was the second time in as many months that her people had been called on to prepare the city for a siege, and she had heard no word of criticism, no sound of complaint. How could she do less?
She glanced down and saw workers labouring in one of the counter-mine tunnels. 'Farben!' she shouted, and everyone in a radius of forty paces suddenly froze. All except Farben, that is, who hurried to her from the back of her entourage.
'Your Majesty?'
'I thought I ordered the trenches to be at least two paces deep?'
'You certainly did, your Maj—'
'Then why is this trench decidedly less than two paces deep?'
The workers in the trench looked worriedly at each other. Farben wrung his hands! 'I don't know, your Maj—'
'Then get down and find out!' she ordered, and Farben scuttled down the nearest stairs and to the local work foreman, a large hairy man who scowled at him. Charion watched the two men argue for a moment before the foreman angrily grabbed a measuring stick, stuck it into the trench, pulled it out and waved it in
Farben's face. The official made a placating sound and hurried back to Charion.
'Well?' she demanded.
Farben was sweating from a mixture of nerves and fright. 'It is two paces deep, your Majesty.'
Charion looked surprised. 'Really?' she said mildly, leaning over to look at the trenches a second time.
Farben nodded eagerly.
Charion harrumphed and set off again around the walls, yelling out observations that were carefully recorded for future action: 'We need more stone here… shift labour from the cisterns to trench construction… we need more canvas to shelter the people in this quarter…' until she had done a complete circuit of the walls, ending at the northern gate. She dismissed her officials and gazed around once more, noting with relief that the walls were almost completed. Her biggest worry had been that Lynan would attack before she could repair all the damage done by Salokan when he attacked Daavis, and now it looked as if the city would be even better prepared than on that occasion. Maybe she would even allow herself four hours sleep tonight.
Before descending from the walls she looked northwards over gently rolling farmland, now deserted and starting to look rundown. The next winter would be a hard one for her people. But they would survive. Somehow, they would all survive.
Galen and his men filled their helmets with water from a stream and let their horses drink from them; when the horses had finished, and none of them showed any signs of illness, the knights themselves slaked their thirst from the stream. When Galen had drunk his fill he wet a scarf and wiped his face, then placed the scarf around his neck; the cool water trickled down his chest and back, bringing some relief from the heat. It was a hot day and even though the knights were dressed at most in greaves, and of course their helmets, they were all soaked in sweat. They were not used to summers this far north, and it was telling on them as well as their mounts.
Magmed, looking nothing like the young and arrogant knight who had set out all those months ago from Kendra, joined Galen. 'It is nearly summer, and this stream shows no sign of drying; the weeds are still green right to the top of the bank. What do you think?'
Galen looked around. He liked this spot. The land sloped gently from west to east, the stream eventually disappearing in a copse of trees not a hundred paces away. He nodded. 'Aye. We'll place an outpost here. There is water and wood and a good view of the surrounding land.'
In fact, Galen admitted to himself, he liked this land a lot. Although the heat was not to his favour, it was at least a dry heat, unlike the sultry summers citizens experienced back in Kendra. The grass was starting to yellow, but there were enough waterways and cool valleys to keep livestock going until cool autumn rains replenished the earth. You could raise good horses here, he thought. Good stallions for the knights of Kendra.
As well, he admitted to himself, a property here would give him an excuse to be away from Kendra… and closer to Charion. As a member of the Kingdom's aristocracy—the Twenty Houses—he found that Areava had made Kendra a little too chilly for his liking; her dislike for his kind was well known.
He had seen a great deal of Hume over the last ten days. His mixed command of knights from the Twenty Houses and light infantry from Aman had early established that Lynan's Chett army was not yet moving on Daavis, and so had subsequently pushed back the perimeter of the area under Kingdom control further and further north of the city. Every twenty leagues or so, he would establish a series of outposts in a wide arc, each outpost equipped with signal fires and a garrison. This spot would provide the last outpost necessary for the line some sixty leagues out from Daavis. That was five days march for most armies, three for Galen's force, and two for the Chetts, unmatched in mobility. Galen would push out another twenty leagues and establish a final ring of outposts. After that he would return to Daavis and see what Queen Charion had planned for him.
Or even Areava. She may have sent new instructions while he had been away.
For a moment he pictured the two women together. Areava he had long admired from afar. She was cold, aloof, as beautiful as winter; and she was ruler of all Grenda Lear. For a long time he had harboured the secret dream of wedding her; her marriage to Sendarus had temporarily sunk that, but now that the man was dead, for which Galen was genuinely sorry, the way was open again. But now there was Charion.
He shook his head in wonder. Until a short while ago he had convinced himself he did not even like Charion, but after leaving her behind in Daavis he found he missed her intelligence and her strange dark beauty, the opposite of Areava's.
Yes, he thought. It would be good to get back to Daavis.
It was bright day in Kendra, and a gentle breeze wafted through the south gallery of the palace. Olio stood at the entrance to the gallery watching a kestrel flying high, high above the harbour. It made great circles in the sky, dipping and soaring, patiently waiting for the right moment to strike. Olio was hypnotised by it.
'Your Highness?'
Olio sighed and turned. It was the fat man with the funny clothes again. Olio had wanted to see his sister, but everyone kept on telling him she was too busy to see him. He asked for his mother or Berayma then, but apparently they were very busy too. 'And what of Lynan?' he asked one official. 'I suppose he's busy as well!' The official had not answered that one, which Olio found strange. Instead, the only one who could come and see him was… now what was his name again…?
'Do you remember me, your Highness? I am Prelate Edaytor Fanhow.'
Ah, yes, that's right. 'Hello, Prelate. That's a strange name.'
'My name is Edaytor. Prelate is my title.'
Olio blinked at him. He did not want to admit he was getting confused.
'You can call me Edaytor,' the fat man continued.
'I can call you anything I like,' Olio said haughtily.
'That is true.'
'I am a prince.'
'That is true, too.'
'My mother is queen of Grenda Lear.'
He heard Edaytor take in a deep breath. 'Are you so sure of that?'
Olio raised his eyebrows. 'Of course I'm sure. I'm her son, aren't I?'
'When was the last time you saw your mother?'
Olio's forehead creased in thought. 'Oh, a long time ago. She is very busy. She is queen after all.'
'Would you like to step out onto the gallery?'
Olio shrugged.
Edaytor stepped out first. 'It is a beautiful day.'
'There is a kestrel flying over the harbour.'
Edaytor searched the sky for a moment before finding it. 'I see it.'
'The kestrel is the badge of my family,' Olio said. 'See?' He pinched out the kestrel emblem sewn into his shirt.
'It is a wonderful badge. It is the most famous badge in all of Grenda Lear.'
'It means I am a Rosetheme,' Olio a
dded.
'You are Olio Rosetheme, prince of Grenda Lear.'
Olio frowned. 'Yes. Yes I am.'
'And do you remember what the Rosetheme family has that no other family has?'
'The crown,' he said immediately.
Edaytor laughed. It was a nice sound, and for the first time Olio decided that maybe he would like this man.
'I mean other than the crown. Even greater symbols of royal authority, filled with magik and power.'
Olio creased his forehead in thought again. He was silent for a long time. 'Can you give me a clue?'
'There are four of them.'
Olio's eyes lit up. 'Oh, I know! I know! The Keys of Power! Mother wears them on chains around her neck.'
Edaytor nodded, and licked his lips. 'Can you tell me what the four Keys are?'
'Whew,' Olio gushed.
'I know it's a hard question.'
'There's one for fighting. It's got a sword. That's my favourite. There's one with a sceptre. That's the most important Key. There's one with a circle. That's the most boring one. And there's one with…'
'Yes?'
'It has…' Olio shook his head as if he could loosen the answer from his brain. 'It has…' He glared at his feet, mouthing a word that would not come. He started to blush with anger.
'That's very good,' Edaytor said hurriedly. 'Three out of four. Do you want me to tell you what is on the fourth Key?'
'No,' Olio said, unconvincingly feigning disinterest.
'Well, I'll tell you anyway. The fourth Key has a heart on it.'
Olio slumped then, as if his whole body had been under great tension. 'Yes,' he said weakly. 'I remember now. The Key of the Heart.' He looked up at Edaytor, and the prelate saw something of the old Olio flicker across his face, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. Olio looked past Edaytor. 'The kestrel is gone,' he said flatly. 'I don't expect we'll see it again today.'
A message had come from Aman for Orkid, carried by pigeon. He did not open it until his office was empty, his clerks and secretaries all gone. The small scroll of paper had only a dozen words on it.
