Heir to the Raven (The Pierced Veil, #1)

by J. Wesley Bush

  His tithe had the two serjeants on the ground and were savaging them. Stepan held the peasant serjeant down by the throat and was mutilating his face with short, furious blows from a rock. Others were kicking him savagely. The Oberyn serjeant was laid out well and truly dead. Magpie, Yosip, and the rest were plunging spears through his leather armor like they were churning butter. Around him, he saw other peasants doing the same to their own leaders. Tears of happiness stung his eyes.

  “Follow me!” Mirko stood and shouted. “They can’t stop all of us!” Others in the tithe took up the call. He tucked away the corded rope and grabbed his spear. “Let’s go.”

  His tithe moved through the rest of dead Rotamir’s century and many others joined them on the way. As they were situated on the right flank, it took no time at all until Mirko broke into open ground. Jandari horsemen circled to both the front and the left, with perhaps two hundred yards separating them. If they fired on the fleeing peasants, it would be a slaughter. But Mirko knew God was protecting him. Holding the spear over his head with both hands, he aimed for the clearing between the two groups of Jandari and ran with all the speed his bent back allowed. He dared not look back, but thought he sensed others doing the same. Soon, men began sprinting past him in great numbers.

  Miraculously, he crossed the killing field in safety, suffering nothing worse than a hacking cough from the dust. He broke through to untrammeled green grass and clear air. Once sure he was safe, Mirko slowed and looked back.

  A waving line of peasants were still following him, snaking back nearly as far as the Belgorshan army. The Jandari were allowing them to pass. Mirko was weak at numbers but estimated there were thousands. Many more, however, remained in place, too broken to the leash to run. Beyond them, he saw that the dam had given way and water now surged around the castle, with many siege ladders carried off in the flood.

  The Belgorshan army began shifting, the archers and pikemen pivoting in an orderly way. Vasik One-Arm joined Mirko and saluted him with a spear. “The slave who defeated a king.”

  “Leax still far outnumbers the Jandari.”

  “Battles are lost in the mind, not the body,” Vasik answered. “Leax is already organizing a retreat and leaving the peasant rabble to die.”

  Mirko watched bitterly as Vasik’s prediction came true. The mercenaries and household troops fell back in good order up the riverbank, joined by soldiers near the broken dam. Sensing their moment, the Jandari circles spooled out into columns once more and charged. They moved among the peasants like shepherd dogs, driving and dividing. No, like wolves among sheep. Mirko forced himself to watch. He had helped bring this fate.

  Mirko and his tithe waited until the last of the followers arrived. “We must hurry and get ahead of Leax’s army,” he told them. “We’ll not survive unless we can make use of the river on our journey.”

  “But where can we go?” a man asked plaintively. “If we return to our homes without a writ of release, they’ll kill us.”

  “Not if we kill them first.” Mirko turned and led his people home.

  CHAPTER 59

  T imble’s throat was raw from singing, but he couldn’t stop. Dweorgs seemed especially vulnerable to high notes, so he kept to womanish songs in a falsetto register: The Maid of Perina, Sweet is the Sound, Green Garlands, and two versions of My Rupert to the Lichyard Gone. It was getting harder to stay in tune and he suspected that off-key music would lack the same bite.

  For now, at least, Targe and the breach company were holding back the dweorgs, but he could hear a great number of them under the surface, awaiting their turn. Once the breach company fell, it was over for the castle.

  Targe beat one down with a nasty mace strike to the head, but the next in line drove him back with a pickax. Targe lost his footing and stumbled. The second dweorg pressed the advantage and struck him to the ground.

  Cursing his own noble nature, Timble ran forward and pounced on the dweorg as it bent to finish off Targe. It reared up and he dropped his dagger trying to hold on. Feeling inside his cloak, he grasped hold of one of the darts sheathed in the lining as the dweorg reached back and clawed at him. Timble yanked open its visor and stabbed at its eyes with quick jabs, grinning as he felt the point sink into soft, yielding flesh. The dweorg roared in pain and grabbed its pickax with both hands. Timble whispered a blasphemy as he realized what was coming.

  The pickax swung backward over its shoulder with terrifying force, punching straight through his leather brigandine, into the meat of his shoulder. Bones cracked. The dweorg yanked the weapon back out, which hurt nearly as much. Timble pushed off with his feet and good arm, landing on his mangled shoulder and awkwardly rolling away. A follow-up strike from the dweorg just missed his legs. By then, Targe was back on his feet and caught the distracted dweorg with an uppercutting swing of the mace.

  Timble scrabbled back from the melee and sat down against a cask. Pain radiated from his shoulder. His head swooned. Blood warmed his back and began to soak his trousers.

  Killed by a stone man; at least it was an interesting way to go. But Tancred and Lockridge still lived. With any luck, he thought, maybe the Belgorshans will think I’m dead and bury me in a shallow grave, then I could escape. Playing dead was far from the most challenging role he’d played. Of course, he would probably bleed out well before the enemy got around to gathering the bodies.

  Just then, the sound of distant thunder came both up through the tunnel and down the stairs. That was odd, for the weather had been sunny. They said rain during sunshine was lucky, but all the luck seemed to be with Leax that day.

  He heard a strange, onrushing sound, and shouts of alarm from the dweorgs below, then the bloody weirdest thing happened as a torrent of water fountained out of the tunnel. In seconds, he had to stumble upright to keep his nose above water.

  Slogging through the deepening flood, Timble tried to keep up with the breach company as they retreated backward from the tunnel. The water was up to his neck by the time he reached the stairs and began drunkenly climbing them on all fours. Strong hands grabbed him by the belt and tugged him upward toward the light.

  CHAPTER 60

  S elwyn awoke in his bed. Mother slept nearby on a coffer chair, just as she had always done when he fell sick as a child. Memories flooded back to him: a burning dam, sinking galleys, a beautiful woman who spoke without a voice. He brushed fingers over his throat. Three thin scars ran in parallel on each side. It was all real. “Mother?”

  “Selwyn!” She awoke instantly alert and went to sit by his side. “How do you feel?”

  “How long?” His throat was creaky with disuse.

  “Six days since the battle. Reyhan saw you go under. We all mourned you.” Selwyn could hear tears in her voice. “But then the watch found you on the castle dock early this morning. It was a miracle.”

  “Six days.” Memories continued to return. He remembered waking more than once on a bed of kelp and later in a glade by the river, itching as the slashes in his throat began to heal. He remembered the Lady changing to a woman’s form and the terrible softness of her kisses.

  “It was dark when you returned, but the men described something like a giant snake pulling you on to the dock.” Tentatively, she asked, “Was it her? The Green Lady?”

  “Aye. It was. I made her three oaths and she saved us all.”

  “Oaths?” Mother’s tone fell flat. “What did you swear to a great faie?”

  Selwyn sat up in bed and pulled his knees in protectively, blushing as he recognized the childishness of the gesture. “I swore to protect her and raise my children to do the same. Otherwise, she refused to expose herself to the world.”

  “That sounds reasonable. What was the third oath?”

  Selwyn choked down the lump in his throat and felt tears sting his eyes. “Also… I had to give her an offspring.”

  “A child?” Mother stood and began pacing. “If she births a changeling, you eldest child would be a bastard. Do you understand what th
at means? It could endanger your succession.” She must have seen the look on his face, for she abruptly softened. “I’m sorry, dear, but I was raised a Swan. Our first instinct is politics.”

  “It was the only way, I promise.”

  “I’m just thankful you’re alive,” she said, returning to his side and taking his hand. “How do you feel?”

  “I haven’t had time to think on it yet.” It was said those who lay with great faie were changed, but he still felt numb. Too much had happened too quickly.

  Reyhan poked his head into the room. “Hope you don’t mind, but I heard voices. About bloody time! It’s tedious work standing outside your door.” He caught Mother’s glare and gave a hangdog look. “Am I intruding, my Lady?”

  “Not at all.”

  Selwyn wiped at his misty eyes and then sat up straight. “What have I missed?”

  “Leax halted his retreat at Wicke’s Keep,” Reyhan answered. “Scouts tell us he’s encamped and seems to be waiting for more troops and supplies.”

  “I remember how much it cost us to keep an army in the field during the Herring War,” Mother said. “And that was mainly Jandari volunteers and conscripts. How is Leax not bankrupt?”

  Selwyn frowned. “I have a suspicion on that but tell me what else has happened.”

  The two of them recounted all that he had missed: Helaena winning the Swans to their cause, Lord Dexter defending an ever-shrinking portion of the frontier, and Timble discovering that Duke Lockridge had murdered Father.

  Anger dispersed the lingering fog of sleep. “I had Lockridge here, in my power.”

  “You could not have known, dear. Unfortunately, the king still trusts in Lockridge. I know how angry you must be, but this is not the time to pursue him.”

  “Agreed. I will avenge Father, but the needs of the March come first. While Leax is reconstituting his army, I plan to lead my men west and fight a decisive engagement with the Vyr. If we don’t get our refugees home in time for planting, they’ll be in a bad way.” Selwyn thought back over the past, bloody months. “Reyhan. Do I… do I still have an army to lead?”

  “About eighteen hundred men, many nursing wounds, but the Belgorshans left behind a mountain of arms and armor. If we can get more bodies, equipping them won’t be a problem.”

  “What happens when Leax returns?” Mother asked. “Won’t the villagers just have to flee south again?”

  “No, Mother. Leax won’t have the cavalry or supply train to operate far from the… the river.” He couldn’t bring himself to say her name quite yet. “We’ll take our men to the frontier, to Castle Dexter, and do nothing more than harass Leax as he marches south – we’ve bled ourselves dry and our duty to the kingdom is satisfied. Leax is King Randolf’s problem now.”

  The muscles in her jaw clenched, but Mother nodded. “I hate leaving our home to that fat boor, though it seems the only choice.” She pursed her lips in a way that made Selwyn nervous. It usually meant he was in trouble. “Now, what is this nonsense I hear about instituting the Codex?”

  Reyhan shot Selwyn an apologetic look. “I might have mentioned the word to her, Your Grace. It weren’t my fault – she caught me and the brandywine at a vulnerable moment.”

  “Such talk is the last thing we need, Selwyn. You are sixteen years old, your duchy is in tatters, and you live or die by the support of your bannermen.”

  “Your pardon, my Lady, but I’ve ridden with Selwyn these many months. He’s earned the support of his bannermen.”

  Selwyn gave an acknowledging nod. “I understand the danger of rash action, Mother. Honestly. I let my emotions rule both in my conflict with King Randolf and when I tried to rescue Wicke. It nearly cost us everything. In this, I promise to proceed slowly and wisely. But the March is my responsibility, and I’m accountable to God for leaving it more just and prosperous than I found it. If Restoration can work on this small scale, perhaps it will serve as an example to others.”

  He tried to keep his voice level, but emotion crept in. “This is my gesture, the best way I know to honor Wicke.”

  Alethea gave him a rare smile. “Well, just speak softly about these Restoration plans. Your father’s grave is not far off, and if he hears this sort of talk, his raven is likely to come and kill us all.”

  “This isn’t meant to dishonor Father. I’ve realized that he and I were so much alike. We both saw the decadence of our time and wanted to return to something better. His dream was of the old Jandari ways, mine the Commonwealth. It’s just that his could never work: the Jandari of the Shield Forest have strayed too far from the old ways, and the Coastermen have no part in them at all.” He paused for breath, his pulse racing. “Restoring the Commonwealth, though, could unite all of us, and not only Jandari, but all of the Covenant lands. I must only proceed with caution; as they say, even the great cedar will bend if you do it gradually. Don’t you see?”

  Alethea kissed his forehead and stood. “What I see is that regardless of politics, your father would be proud. You saved the family and defended your lands. Now get some rest. This is all far from over.”

  ****

  Tancred the Magus hesitated before approaching the royal baths. In a long history of distortions and lies, this one was his most important yet. It was vital that King Randolf accept his version of events. It was equally important that the king not take out his wrath about Gladwin’s death on him. Randolf had not left his chambers in a week, and some said he was unmanned by grief. Tancred feared the king might be unhinged by it as well. Taking a deep breath, he stepped up to the knight barring the door. “I am here to see the king about a matter of some importance.”

  The knight blew out his cascading mustache. “Apologies, Magus. Only the clark and a couple of servants are admitted to the royal ablutions. And any others as His Majesty chooses to permit.”

  He realized the knight was dressed in the livery of House Yates. Looking into the baths, he saw that all of the king’s guards were dressed in Yates green and brown. Had the king’s paranoia now extended even to the Royal Guard?

  “Please convey to His Majesty that I have news regarding Sir Gladwin’s death and await his convenience.”

  The knight stepped inside for a moment and then rushed back out, ushering Tancred into the baths. King Randolf’s sallow, gawky frame seemed lost in the enormous tub, made with enough bronze to cast a full set of godhall bells. As soon as Tancred crossed the threshold of the room, Randolf pushed away the servant washing his hair and clutched the side of the tub, his toadish face distorted with rage. “Pillock! Useless tit!” Anger gripped his tongue for a time, then permitted him to sputter out, “S-s-stews-born son of a jackal!”

  Tancred felt blood drain from his cheeks, and bowed his head in mock humility but genuine fear. Nothing was more dangerous than a petty man with power. “Sire, I offer my deepest sadness and regret. Gladwin was a peerless knight and constant friend to you and the realm.” That should help. Randolf basked in the language of chivalry. “I accept full responsibility for this tragedy and offer myself up for any punishment you choose. As I had told the council, I noticed Avishag’s taint upon the girl from the first. In my pride, I thought I could help her overcome it. Not only pride, but also compassion — she was such a sweet child, and I lacked the heart to kill her summarily.”

  “You were weak.” The unexpected voice jolted Tancred. Duke Lockridge leaned forward from the shadowed corner in which he sat. “And now that weakness has robbed our king of his dearest friend and companion.”

  He’s been sitting here stoking the king’s fear and anger, Tancred thought. Randolf needs a new target, if I’m to walk out of here without shackles. It would have been most helpful to target Lockridge, but there was little hope of success.

  “Your Majesty, I bring intelligence about Gladwin’s sacrifice, with significance for the safety of the realm.” Playing on his paranoia was the surest way to distract Randolf. “Over the past week, I’ve interrogated the family of glassblowers from the house wher
e Gladwin died. Under my influence, they confessed to procuring sacrifices for Larissa and disposing of the bodies. Dozens are buried in the undercroft of their home.”

  The king listened raptly. “We suspected this much. Go on.”

  “They also confessed to being in the service of King Leax, who is a private devotee of Avishag.”

  “That’s absurd—” Lockridge interjected, but the king waved him silent.

  “No, this makes perfect sense,” Randolf said. “We’ve long believed that Imperial lands traffic with the dark faie. I only wish we had known this before. We could have made common cause with Duke Harlowe, and Sir Gladwin might still be alive.”

  “Sire, I counsel caution,” Lockridge said placatingly. “This is based on the word of Avishag cultists.”

  “This is based on the word of my magus and chief counselor.” The king stood and motioned for his body servant, who brought an ermine robe. For an instant, cold anger lent him a regal air. “Gladwin served me since we were boys. He was, indeed, a peerless knight and true friend. I will grind Leax and his hirelings into the dirt. I will render his fat carcass for soap!” He dismissed them with a wave. “Gather the Council and be sure Marshal Jasper attends. We have much to plan.”

  Tancred inclined his head and backed out of the room. Finally, King Randolf was going to do the right thing. He gave silent thanks that at least some good had come from his betrayal of Larissa, though he knew God had no interest in his prayers.

  ***

  Helaena rolled her gray dress and packed it into the saddlebags. Morning birds sang outside the window of the tower chamber and the sun was just rising over the barley fields. It was a good day to begin a journey. Her work in the Swanlands had been a success, and her times with Sir Addison even better, but the savanna beckoned. By rights, she should have left already, but Buttermilk had caught a fever in the stables and the pony was just now fit to ride. Saafi was less enthused about leaving the amenities of court for the frontier, grumpily stowing away her belongings.