Dawn of Swords

by David Dalglish

  “Jacob speaks for Ashhur,” his mother said without lifting her head from her knitting. “Do not question the orders of your god.”

  “But, Mother, if—”

  “Enough. The decision is made. Leave us.”

  “Fine.”

  Patrick wheeled around and stumbled out of the atrium. Brigid and Keela moved to follow him, their faces awash with pity, but he brushed away their consoling hands. He heard the sound of Cara weeping softly behind him, followed by his mother’s scolding. Disgust roiled in his midsection, and it struck him that only a few minutes earlier there had been something much more pleasant churning down there. He wished Brittany were still around. Another roll with the young temptress would have done wonders for his morale.

  He slammed the double doors of the atrium shut behind him. When he turned, he was startled to see Nessa, her hands clenched just below her mouth. She had been listening in at the door. Tears streamed down her cheeks, dripping into the collar of the heavy white nightdress she wore. Her strawberry hair was a tangled mess. Though she was over thirty, she still looked like the same innocent babe she’d been when she was but a teen. Even her stature, shortest of the DuTaureaus, hinted at incredible youth. It seemed as though Nessa’s development had been irrevocably arrested in almost every way.

  “I’m sorry, Patrick,” she whispered, throwing herself into his arms.

  Patrick huffed when she rammed her head into his chest. He embraced her, feeling her warmth. When he leaned her back and kissed her cheek, he could taste the salt of her tears.

  “It’s all right, Ness,” he whispered. “I’m used to it by now.”

  “But why is Mother so mean?”

  He shrugged. “Guess she doesn’t like having a monster for a son.”

  She punched him in the shoulder. He was surprised by how much it hurt.

  “You’re not a monster.”

  Patrick laughed. “So you keep telling me, sister. You almost make me believe it.”

  He blew out the candles closest to the atrium door and, throwing one huge arm over his sister, escorted her down the hall.

  “You know,” he said, “we should run off together. You and I. You with your shortness, me with my freakishness—we could take the south by storm. Maybe in Karak’s lands we could establish ourselves a career as performers. We could learn about money, and how quickly it vanishes. It could be fun!”

  Nessa passed him a hopeful look. “Or we could simply go to the delta.”

  Patrick laughed. “And why would you choose to go with me? Didn’t you visit there just last month?”

  “Yes, but it’s late summer, and the barking cranes are migrating. I’ve heard they gather in such great numbers that the marshlands look like they’re covered with writhing maggots for miles.”

  “That’s a pleasant image.”

  “They’re not gross maggots. They’re…feathery maggots. Please, Patrick, take me with you.”

  Patrick laughed.

  “Very well. Just make sure you’re the one who tells Mother you’re coming. I don’t think I have the stomach to speak to her for a few years, maybe even a decade.”

  “I imagine not,” she replied with a tinkling laugh. “When will we be leaving?”

  Patrick let out a grunt. “Let me get some sleep, and we’ll go first thing tomorrow.”

  “That’s good, actually,” said Nessa. Her eyes brightened and she wiped the last vestiges of tears from her speckled, rosebud cheeks. “Make sure to wake me at dawn. I must go feed the birds.”

  She spun around and ran down the hall, her tiny feet making no impression on the thick rug.

  “Feed the birds?” he shouted after her. “Now? But it’s dark.”

  “I forgot earlier,” he heard her reply as she disappeared around the bend in the hall. Patrick shrugged his shoulders.

  “Strange little girl,” he said and then chuckled. Who was he to talk?

  He returned to his room and flopped down on his bed, which still smelled of Brittany. Pulling the covers up and nestling them beneath his nose, he let the smell of femininity carry him off into a very much needed and dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER

  6

  My love,

  It has been only forty-nine days since our last congregation, forty-nine days since my lips kissed yours, and I miss you so. Each passing day is like torture as I lie alone, dreaming of your face, the sweep of your hair, the smell of your skin. My family surrounds me, oftentimes oppressively so, and yet I have never felt so alone.

  I wish to see you. I need to see you. Not a moment goes by that I don’t wish to be in your bed once more. I long to hear your voice as you prattle of tariffs and trade laws and the courts. You have a way of brightening even the dreariest of subjects. I want to hear you speak of your battles with the Carstakian mobs, your hunts for the immense wolves of the northern hills. Life is dreadful here, all prayer circles and farming and preparing meals for the family. Surely we, as a people, were made for much more. And when I look at the life you live, it all seems so much more interesting, full of adventure and struggle, each day a new challenge. Yes, I know it’s sometimes daunting, and the thought of thieves roaming the night sends a chill up my spine, but I know that if you were by my side, I would always be safe.

  I know our love is forbidden. I know our two worlds were meant to be kept separate. But I cannot bear another day without you. I need to see you. Tomorrow I leave for the delta with my brother. I do not know how long we will stay, but from the way my brother speaks of things, the visit may last for many months. I beg that you bid leave of the city you call home and meet me here. Please, come quickly. It will be difficult to evade the eyes of my brother, but if we must, we can meet at your sister’s cabin by the river bend as we did before. Perhaps this time we will make a son, and then neither of our families can deny our bond.

  I love you entirely, my fearless warrior of the light.

  Yours forever, in this world and the next,

  Nessa

  Crian Crestwell’s eyes traced back to the beginning of the note, taking in every looping letter written in Nessa DuTaureau’s whimsical penmanship, every i dotted with a circle, every g swooping low to invade the line below. He folded the curled parchment in half, then leaned back in his chair. The hawk perched on the windowsill crowed, and he tossed a hood over its head to silence it. His mind drifted back to the three days he and Nessa had spent at his exiled sister Moira’s secluded cabin by the river. It was then that they’d finally consummated their long-secret relationship, and now he could think of nothing but her. He felt a sort of lightness pervade his being.

  Last month, his father had sent him to Brent, which bordered the Quellan forest, to assist his sister Avila in pushing back a group of brigands who had been poaching on elven lands. On his way back he’d tarried in Haven under the pretense of seeing Moira. It had been difficult to hide his meetings with Nessa then, and it would be even harder to see her now. As Left Hand of the Highest, it was his duty to keep Karak’s peace in the townships beyond the northern borders, where the regime’s authority was at its weakest. Both he and his brother Joseph, the Right Hand, served as de facto judge, jury, and executioner when outside the boundaries of Veldaren or Erznia. Only now, given Vulfram Mori’s ascension to Lord Commander, Crian’s responsibilities included acting as Captain of the City Watch in Veldaren. Finding a suitable excuse for traveling to the delta was a troublesome proposition. His place was in the city now, not trolling the outlying townships in search of poachers, bandits, blasphemers, and other such lawbreakers.

  The other fly in the ointment was the volatile nature of Haven itself. When last he visited, the town had been an afterthought for both his father and his god. But the attack had changed everything, and Karak himself had just returned after four decades. Though he had never met the deity in person—Karak had left Neldar before his birth—he and his family were still beholden to the god above all else.

  Yet Crian knew he would still try, for ev
en with his duties to his god and his realm, Nessa DuTaureau was all he could think about. It had been that way since their first meeting, and those feelings had only grown over their twelve years of clandestine correspondence.

  Crian sighed, and walked over to the fire that burned in his room’s hearth. He placed a kiss on the folded parchment, and then dropped the letter atop the coals. He watched as it was burned away into nothing, ensuring that their secret was kept for one more day.

  A commotion from the window summoned him over for a look. The heartless geometry of the cold, drab city beyond the castle walls simmered in a heat-wrought haze. Down below, inside those walls, a brigade of armored men marched through the portcullis and into the courtyard, followed by three figures on horseback. A fleet of supply wagons rolled in after them. Crian gasped as he recognized the polished dome of the Lord Commander and the shock of white atop the heads of his father and sister. He had not expected the party back for another two days at least.

  Someone knocked on his door.

  “Sir Crestwell,” shouted the voice of Leonard, his squire, “your father has returned.”

  “I know,” Crian replied, his heart racing in panic.

  “Do you wish me to help you dress?” the squire asked through the door.

  “No…yes…just prepare my armor in the sacristy. I’ll be there in a moment.”

  He heard Leonard’s steps quicken down the hall. Crian rushed to his mirror, a framed, foot-and-a-half square chunk of rare dragonglass, a gift from his father on his eighteenth birthday. It was his most prized possession, tangible proof that the man whose seed created him truly cared. Leaning forward, Crian examined his reflection. His jaw was rigid, his chin wide, his cheekbones sturdy. His eyes were hazel, imbued with emerald threads that shot from his pupils like starbursts. He was handsome and robust, resembling his mother more than his father. As the youngest of the Crestwell children, he had always looked upon his visage as a blessing, setting him apart from his brothers and sisters, who had all inherited their father’s silver hair and smooth, regal features.

  But now that blessing had turned into a curse. A single strand of white pierced his flowing brown hair. It stuck out like a wolf in the middle of a herd of sheep, and he plucked it from his scalp, letting it drop to his feet while he anxiously searched for more. Thankfully, he found none. In a panic he dropped to his knees and searched for the rogue hair, dashing to the hearth once he found it. Onto the coals it went, to burn like Nessa’s letter. Then he went to his desk, jotted a quick note on a small scrap of parchment—I will try. Love, C—and fastened the message to the hawk’s leg. Afterward he opened a hidden compartment in his desk, removing a tiny swath of fabric from within. He cut free the wisp of birch bark that was tied below the hawk’s neck, replacing it with the fabric. Poking his head out the window to make sure his father and sister were no longer in the courtyard, he thrust his arm out the portal, the hawk perched atop his thick leather glove.

  “Fly, Atria,” he said after removing the bird’s hood, and it took flight.

  Atria was Nessa’s bird, trained over the last ten years specifically to act as courier for the messages between them. Fasten birch bark to the bird’s neck, and it would seek out Crian. Do the same with a small bit of cloth dashed with rosemary perfume, and it would seek out Nessa. The system had never failed them in the past. He prayed to Karak that it would remain that way.

  “Leonard!” he shouted.

  It took ten minutes for his squire to assist him in putting on his plate armor. It was a bothersome ensemble, cast from pounded iron dipped in liquid silver. The breastplate was ornamented with the sigil of House Crestwell, that of a snake wrapped around the torso of a seated lion, their noses touching. A forked tongue, painted red, flicked from the face guard. As a finishing touch, he slid Integrity, the jewel-encrusted, curved saber that had been forged for him when he accepted the title of Left Hand, into the scabbard at his waist. The entire suit was heavy and uncomfortable, but his father, the Highest, had a weakness for custom and required his Left and Right dress according to their station on entering Tower Honor.

  Sometime later, he stepped through the arched portal and into the Tower Honor, sweat beading on his brow from descending seventeen floors while in full platemail. The Palace Guard formed a line on either side of the corridor, eyes trained distantly on nothing, expressions blank. Crian passed between them, his footsteps muted by the purple carpet that led the way to the huge doors of the throne room.

  Crian’s father stood before those doors, Avila beside him, both dressed in their black leather riding attire. They appeared to be deep in conversation. Lord Commander Vulfram was nowhere to be seen. At the sound of his rattling movements, his father and sister looked up. The Highest offered Crian a dismayed look.

  “You’re late,” Clovis said. “Tardiness is not an admirable trait for the Left Hand. In an altercation, the left strikes first. If the left hand is slow, the right will not be able to land the finishing blow.”

  It was a phrase Crian had heard a thousand times before. Inwardly he rolled his eyes, but he kept his expression as firm as granite. His father was critical of all his children, expecting the absolute best of them at all times. In his own way, Crian guessed, it was how he showed he cared.

  “I beg your pardon, Highest,” Crian said, dropping to one knee, taking his father’s hand, and kissing it. From the corner of his eye, he saw Avila smirk. “I was not expecting you back so soon.”

  After he stood back up, his father fixed him with a sideways glance.

  “And what were you doing?” he asked.

  “I was getting some rest, Father.”

  “But it is nearing noon. A little early to be tired, is it not? I have just ridden for a week, sleeping in a dingy tent each night, and I am as alert as ever.”

  Crian tried to hold back an irritated sigh, but a slight puff of air escaped his lips.

  “There was a riot in the financial district last night, Highest. A faction of disgruntled laborers set fire to the Brennan Depository in response to a supposed lowering of wages. It took most of the night to get the blaze under control and arrest the guilty parties. I did not return to the castle until dawn.”

  His father shook his head. “Exhaustion is no excuse. You are a Crestwell, ageless and mighty. You have many years ahead of you in which to rest.”

  “I’m sorry,” Crian said, bowing. “As always, you are right.”

  A hand fell onto his plated shoulder. “Stand up, son. We must make our audience now.”

  They opened the doors and stepped into the throne room. Inside was a madhouse. People were everywhere, commoners and high merchants alike, shouting at each other, seeking the ear of the king with some complaint or another. The Council of Twelve, a collection of eleven men and one woman from different points around the kingdom, chosen by their people as representatives, cowered against the walls at the back of the room. Interspersed throughout were members of the Sisters of the Cloth, wrapped head-to-toe in fabric so that only their eyes were revealed. The women were legal property of the merchants, and their job was to ensure that their owners were satisfied.

  The noise was thick, the vitriol thicker. Ulric Mori, the Master at Arms, stood in the center of the mass, trying to adjudicate a heated argument between fat, bald Cleo Connington and the distinguished Matthew Brennan. Sentries from both houses were being held back by the Palace Guard. The atmosphere in the room was like dry kindling, needing only a single spark to set it ablaze.

  Overseeing it all was a bored King Eldrich Vaelor the First. The king was a tall, willowy man of thirty-seven, his cheeks sunken and his hair sparse, with a beard that had grown in splotchy and incomplete. The crown resting atop his head was a plain gold band—simplicity for a simple job, as Eldrich’s father, the first king, had said. He sat on an ornate throne made from grooved ivory and positioned on a raised platform on the other side of the room. Grayhorn tusks, brought from the west by the earliest traders, formed a halo of curved
spikes that encircled the king’s head and torso, exaggerating the carved lion that roared from the throne’s peak. Another set of tusks formed the armrests, and the king’s fingers tapped atop them, causing a barely perceptible twang to echo through the chamber. He had ascended to the throne eight years ago, after his father, Edwin, had died, succumbing to the red cough. Having been stationed outside the city for much of his life, Crian had rarely seen the king before assuming command of the City Watch. Since then, he had gotten to know the man quite well. The king’s style of leadership was haphazard and inconsistent, and half the time he seemed drunk with his illusionary might. But his true calling lay in his ability to consolidate power. Unlike his father, most of the high merchants were completely dedicated to him, which kept gold flowing into the realm.

  King Vaelor pointed at Cleo Connington and beckoned him forward. The Highest led his children out of the throng, and stepped in front of the fat rich man, cutting him off. Clovis bowed before the king and swept his arm wide.

  “King Vaelor,” he said, “we have returned from the delta, and are ready to disc—”

  “What the fuck,” the king bellowed, his voice unusually gruff for such a lithe man.

  Clovis straightened, a look of shock on his face. Crian and Avila exchanged glances, just as stunned as their father was.

  “How dare you interrupt me when my court is in session?” the king asked. He didn’t look bored any longer, and his eyes burned with rage. “Highest of Karak or not, you are still a servant of the throne, Clovis. I will not be disrespected.”

  “Yes, my Lord,” the Highest replied. His voice seethed with resentment, and if a look could kill, all of the king’s insides would have liquefied in an instant.

  King Vaelor waved dismissively. “Wait in the vestibule. I’ll see you when I’m done.”