The Traitor's Heir

by Anna Thayer

  Telo had believed in kings.

  His hands began to shake. Whatever Aeryn had told him, he did not and could not believe in kings… could he?

  The cadet watched him expectantly. The boy had noticed the way that he held his palm; Eamon had clasped it to dull the pain. He yearned to speak of it.

  “Are you well, sir?”

  Eamon looked about him. The other ensigns, and Spencing, were far away. Most were distracted by the hilarity dogging every step of the table setting, or busy preparing the holk for the night. His betrayal would not be seen.

  It is treachery against your oath. It will be seen.

  He shuddered. It was reckless. It was treachery. The Master’s revenge would be terrible. But Grahaven had to be warned.

  So slowly that he wondered if he moved at all, he held his palm out towards the cadet. He did not even know whether the boy would be able to see what he saw, what he knew to be there, but he had to try.

  “Do you see my palm, cadet?” he asked. Grahaven frowned, seeking guidance as to the relevance of the question, then looked carefully down at Eamon’s hand.

  “Yes?” he offered.

  “What do you see?”

  The cadet searched for a horridly long moment, and Eamon suddenly worried that he would be seen. He was leading a cadet astray and if Spencing saw… Every noise became a threat to him and he struggled to remain calm.

  What seemed like years later, Grahaven looked up. “There’s a mark. Did the cat miss?”

  Eamon guiltily snatched his hand away, as anxious now to hide it as he had been to show it. Thinking his guess correct, the cadet spoke again.

  “I am sorry, sir, and a good hand, too. I should never have let you –”

  “This is the mark of the throned, cadet,” Eamon whispered. Dunthruik loomed in his sight as though to stop his very voice. He swallowed. “This is what they give you, when you swear.”

  A disconcerted look passed over the boy’s face. Steeling his nerves, Eamon spoke again. “This mark is a violation, Mr Grahaven. You will be commanded to do things in the name of the Master – and you will do them, because you bear this mark…” Seeing the boy’s clouded face, Eamon faltered. “It is infinitely noble of you to want to honour your brother by following him in his service. I do not and will not ask you to promise anything to me, cadet, because that would be to set myself on a throne before you, just as he seeks to do.” Eamon wondered where his words sprung from. “But please… consider not swearing. Drop out of the college when they take you back.” Eamon’s voice grew urgent. “Do anything but don’t… Don’t swear.”

  Grahaven gaped silently. It looked as though the walls of his world were crashing about his ears and the noise was too much for him to bear.

  “That’s… that’s snake talk…”

  Eamon was startled. Snake talk? He supposed it was. “Just… please, just think about it.”

  Weakly and with odd politeness, Grahaven smiled. “I should go and help the others,” he said. He turned, returned as he remembered to salute, and then hurried away.

  Eamon nervously chewed the inside of his cheek. He didn’t know if his words would have any effect but at least he had spoken. He gave one last look at the brooding city then made his way below deck. He felt weak and tired. He decided to take advantage of the preparations, and rest.

  It seemed only moments later that disjointed noises shuffled in and out of his sleep: howling, spectral cries, manic footfalls, the clash of steel. He could hear Spencing roaring with a voice like thunder. Was he dreaming?

  His eyes snapped open, but rather than disappearing the sounds from his dream grew louder, more real. Stiff from lying down, Eamon lowered himself from his hammock and hurriedly strapped scabbard and sword to his belt. His shoulders were in agony but he choked back the pain and slipped into the passageway.

  In the hatchway above him pink and gold laced the clouded twilight; the ship’s lanterns were already lit and the smell of cooking had grown even stronger. In the shifting light he saw shouting shadows moving quickly to and fro on the deck above him. The sounds of the struggle were getting louder and more frenzied.

  He edged his way up the stairwell and peered up. Then he froze in horror. Many of the ensigns and cadets were being bound and herded into a corner where they were made to kneel. The sailors were in the opposite corner of the broad deck sitting sullenly. The captain brooded at their head with all the defensiveness of a mother hen. Their silence implied that it was not the first time in their careers they had been boarded.

  Creeping up a couple more steps Eamon saw bodies strewn across the bloody decks. Ilwaine was one of them; the ensign’s eyes stared vacantly out of his face. Spencing and a couple of others were fighting still, swords flashing in furious flurries, but they were swiftly being overcome. Their opponents were masked men, dressed in dark greens and browns. The boarders were about twenty-five in number, almost as many men as there had been on the holk, but evidently skilled in their trade and favoured in their enterprise. Eamon suspected that the holk had been taken just as supper was beginning; spilled gravy lay mixed with blood. Ensign Hill slipped in a puddle of it, fell, and was impaled by his attacker as he went down.

  Eamon stared, incapacitated by anger and fear. He could not challenge two dozen men on his own, but what other choice did he have?

  Drawing his sword he leapt up the steps onto the deck with a loud cry. His first opponent fell.

  “Sir!” called a voice. Though wounded in his left arm, Mathaiah Grahaven was one of the cadets still free and fiercely fighting. Eamon took his bearings; then he clearly saw the face of the man he had killed. The mask had been dragged askance. It was a harsh face, though not unkind. Its lines and shapes reminded him of Telo.

  Enraged, Eamon yelled across the deck: “Stay this madness! There is no need for killing here!”

  As if by some miracle, everyone stopped. One of the boarders, a giant, muscular man, gestured to his fellows. The men quickly secured those still standing free, all except Eamon. With bloodied sword in hand and chest heaving, Eamon tried to assess the situation. Spencing shot him a look that might have skewered a charging beast but the lieutenant was manhandled aside before he could do more; he was beaten to his knees.

  There was no protocol that could have prepared Eamon for that moment, staring over the bloody deck at men who could kill him at a breath. They were overcome, out-manned, and all of them in danger of their lives.

  Eamon stepped boldly towards the one he assumed to be the leading man – only boldness could hide the way he trembled. He cleaned his blade on the side of his jacket and offered the pommel to the stranger.

  “In return for the lives of every man on this vessel,” he said steadily, “accept my surrender.”

  A broad smile formed underneath the giant’s mask. The stranger snatched Eamon’s sword away. Two men stepped up to Eamon’s sides and pinioned his arms. He grimaced as pain arched up and down his back like lightning.

  “Who, pray, are you?” the stranger asked. His voice was rounded with an odd accent, and he pronounced his vowels with an according and peculiar accuracy. Eamon decided he was from the northern provinces or maybe from Galithia, a merchant state just over the border.

  Taking a breath, he tried to pronounce his name in a dignified fashion. “Lieutenant Eamon Goodman.”

  “Lieutenant Goodman.” The stranger repeated the name thoughtfully. “Lieutenant Goodman. Tell me, Lieutenant Goodman – where is your cargo?”

  Eamon wondered if the men were pirates. He had heard that some still operated on the River, but for the most part the Gauntlet had driven such ruffians to remote coasts and headlands.

  “We have no cargo but ourselves,” Eamon answered, truthfully enough. “We are bound for Dunthruik.”

  “Where is your prisoner, Lieutenant Goodman?” the stranger demanded, his tone vengeful. Eamon glanced discreetly at the others. Grahaven, restrained a few feet away, looked grim but determined. Eamon tried to draw assura
nce from that look. What should he do? While on active service at the borders his orders had somehow always kept him from the worst parts of skirmishes and battle. He had, more often than not, acted as a courier, and his experience in real fights had never involved surrender. Now, he wished they had.

  “Will you guarantee me the life of every man on this ship?” He tried to remain confident but the stranger’s answering roar of laughter shattered any pretence he might have maintained.

  “It seems to me that you have nothing to bargain with!” The man fixed Eamon with a steely glare. “Search below deck,” he said. Several of his followers immediately moved away. Eamon tried to contain his nerves for the eternity it took the men to return. The masked face watched him the whole time, enjoying his discomfort.

  Suddenly the men were back, with Aeryn walking freely between them. The keys for some of her bindings had been kept below deck but her hands were still in heavy manacles. She took in the situation at a glance.

  “Giles,” she breathed. Eamon saw that she addressed the burly stranger in front of him. Wisely, he held his tongue. “Giles,” Aeryn continued, “what are you –?”

  “The key, if you please, lieutenant,” Giles intoned, holding out his hand and addressing Eamon as though he were a child.

  “I shall need the use of my arms for that, sir,” Eamon replied hotly. That Aeryn knew the man deeply angered him.

  The men at his sides gave him a little leeway to move; he wrenched his arms free. Withdrawing the keys for Aeryn’s cuffs he tossed them to the strange man. Giles passed them straight to somebody else who released her. She rubbed at her wrists, sore and chafed from her confinement.

  “You keep poor hospitality on board your ship, Lieutenant Goodman,” Giles said with a solemn shake of his head.

  “It is all a snake deserves!” Spencing spat. The lieutenant fell silent as a boarder dealt him a crushing blow to the stomach.

  “Giles, stop it!” Aeryn cried. But the big man ignored her. He turned back to Eamon with a terrifying glint to his eye. Before such a look Eamon found it hard to hold his ground.

  “I am afraid that we have outstayed our welcome, lieutenant,” Giles said. “Your young lady will be coming with us.”

  “You cannot take her,” Eamon replied, knowing how stupid it sounded. He wished that she could know he had only ever wanted to help her. If only he had done something sooner. He fixed his gaze on his captor. The man dwarfed him. “I beseech you,” he said, “let her go freely.”

  Giles roared with laughter.

  “Now there’s a word! Beseech! You make me laugh, Lieutenant Goodman!” he said, wiping an imagined tear from his large eye. “But not enough, I’m afraid, to earn your keep.” His voice went cold. “I grant none of your requests,” he pronounced, turning his drawn sword and watching how torchlight sparked down the crimson blade. “But, in recognition of the kindness you have shown me, I will kill you before the others. Thus perish the throned’s bloody Gloves!” he yelled, and struck.

  Aeryn screamed. Eamon clenched his eyes shut and felt every muscle of his body tense in anticipation of the falling blow, knowing it would not shield him.

  But the pain never came. What he felt instead was the weight of a warm body staggering onto him. Opening his eyes, he had the sense to catch Grahaven; Giles’s blade had punctured the cadet’s side. As the boy fell, Giles cruelly twisted the blade, ensuring a devastating wound. He yanked his weapon free.

  Horrified, Eamon took the boy’s weight. They slid down to the ground and he tried to staunch the bloody rent. How had the cadet found the strength to pull away from his captors in time to take the blow?

  All Eamon knew then was hot blood round his fingers and fear that the blade would come back for him. In the awful moment that followed he saw Aeryn grabbing Giles’s hand. Her lips moved to words that he could not hear. Time slowed.

  Mathaiah was choking in his arms. Desperately Eamon tore off his jacket, crumpled it together in his hands and forced it down hard on the boy’s side. Moments later its red was saturated with a brighter one.

  “Murderer!” Eamon screamed.

  “No less than you,” Giles replied evenly.

  “This isn’t the way, Giles!” Aeryn yelled, struggling to hold back the man’s hand. Eamon saw that in moments Giles would shake himself free; then the blade would have nothing between it and its helpless goal. Instinct told him that he had to do something, but there was nothing to be done.

  Mathaiah began coughing, his lips rimmed with blood. Eamon tried even harder to staunch the wound, but it was beyond any skill. Had the blade not been twisted there might still have been a chance… but the masked man knew his business.

  Robbed of strength the boy’s head lolled back and his eyes began to assume the vacant stare of death. It was plain that his spirit fought to stay in its house and also that it could not cling much longer to the threshold. Sobbing, Eamon gathered the young man against him.

  But as Eamon held the dying boy, his vision changed. He saw a field, strewn with broken bodies, shattered spears, and splintered shields. A mournful wind moved over it; at its heart a man held his hands over a dying woman who was dressed in finery all covered over with a dark cloak, her arms curved protectively over her womb. Eamon knew instantly that he beheld a queen, beautiful beyond compare, from a time of long ago.

  As he watched he saw the man drawing breath. Strange light shimmered about his hands – light like the blue bolt that had surrounded Aeryn in the prison. Eamon saw what the light did, and he somehow knew that he could ask it to do for him what it had done for the man he saw.

  The vision faded. He saw Mathaiah’s chest falling in what he knew to be a final breath. The time was now.

  He hurled aside his jacket and pressed his hands to the pulsing wound. He felt raw flesh beneath his fingertips and nearly jerked back, but his nerve held. Shouts rang out around him; he knew the voice was Aeryn’s and that Giles’s hand was free and swooping down. But he knew, somehow, that he had the time he needed.

  Gone was the pain in his back, gone the pain in his hand. It was all swallowed by the calm he had seen in the light on the battlefield. He saw it again but now it was real light, cool as a dawn breeze and with music in it like the song that had created the world. It danced before him in his mind and when he opened his eyes he saw that it danced about his hands, too. For a few seconds, it hovered; then with the surge of an ocean wave it left him and spread over Mathaiah, breaking like water across sand.

  Then it was gone.

  Suddenly time went at double speed. The voices over him became distinct and all the calm he had felt in the lull vanished.

  With a cry Eamon flung himself over the cadet’s body.

  “Stop!” Aeryn screamed. “He is a King’s man!”

  This alone of all the powers on the earth could stop Giles’s hand. Slowly, the sword sank down to his side and he gazed with contempt at his intended prey. Eamon felt his chest heaving in terror as the man paced to within a foot of him.

  “He bears the throned’s mark,” Giles spat, stabbing at Eamon’s hand with the tip of his blade. Eamon didn’t even dare to look up; he gripped Mathaiah’s body feverishly tight.

  “He is a King’s man!” Aeryn cried again, angrily. “Don’t pretend you didn’t see it, Giles!”

  “Prove it!” Giles snorted, kicking Eamon once for good measure. Eamon took the blow on his side. It was crushingly painful, leaving him struggling for breath.

  Suddenly Aeryn’s voice was at his ear. “Eamon,” she said. “Eamon, you have to get up.”

  He did not know if she meant it kindly or not. He slowly lifted his head to look at her.

  “I need to look at the cadet,” she said softly.

  Eamon matched her gaze uncomprehendingly. She nodded once to him. He sat up, pulling ruddy hands from Mathaiah’s side. He knew that there was more blood on him than should give cause to hope. But, like Aeryn, he looked.

  Then he stared. What had he done? He wrung his ha
nds as hideous uncertainty came over him. The face below him was still pale, but its eyes were open.

  “Sir?” the boy whispered.

  Fearing the worst, Eamon reached out and took the cadet’s hand. “I’m here,” he said. “I’m sorry –”

  But he could not finish. No sooner had the boy felt the thick blood on the hand that grasped his own than he sat up in terror.

  “Sir, you’re hurt!” he cried, and it was clear to see that, bar a stain that spelled doom for his jacket, the boy bore no wound. The blood was all on Eamon’s hands.

  Staggered and speechless, Eamon stared. Mathaiah saw his face, looked at the blood, and seemed suddenly to remember that it was his. He touched his side in amazement.

  “Sir?” he breathed, trembling.

  Eamon was no less astounded.

  Suddenly Spencing screeched a damning howl across the deck: “Traitor! Snake!”

  Whatever reprieve they might have won from Giles they lost in that moment.

  “Bind the lieutenant and the boy,” he barked, “and take them to the boats. Kill the others. Burn the holk.”

  “No!” Eamon screamed. But his voice was lost in the panic that suddenly smote every man on board. He saw cadets, ensigns, and sailors, bound though they were, leaping to their feet and hurling themselves overboard, determined to face the River rather than Giles. Most were not so lucky and many never even reached their feet.

  Eamon struggled forward and reached for his sword before he remembered that he had surrendered it. He heard Mathaiah’s voice calling out in warning, but it came too late. The next thing he knew was a blow that forced him to his knees, and the screaming faded away.

  CHAPTER VII

  He did not know how much time had passed. Unconsciousness clawed at him as he struggled to drag himself back into the world.

  A face bore down on him with a vile, empty smile – a face with a burning mark on its brow more threatening than any instrument of torture. A hand reached towards his and to the flaming mark upon it. Eamon writhed to escape his tormentor and suddenly realized that it was a dream.