The Uncrowned King

by Rowena Cory Daniells

  THE UNCROWNED KING

  Book Two of the Chronicles of King Rolen's Kin

  Rowena Cory Daniells

  First published 2010 by Solaris an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd, Riverside House, Osney Mead, Oxford, OX1 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN (.epub version): 978-1-84997-180-5

  ISBN (.mobi version): 978-1-84997-181-2

  Copyright © Rowena Cory Daniells 2010

  Maps by Rowena Cory Daniells and Luke Preece

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Designed & typeset by Rebellion Publishing

  Printed in the UK

  Chapter One

  Byren's eyes burned from the piercing cold wind, and he could no longer feel his legs. He'd been skating since late last night, since Dovecote's great hall was set alight, since Elina died in his arms. Since his twin thrust him out of the hall, barred the doors and turned to hold off the enemy, trapping himself inside the burning building.

  Grief, fuelled by fury, gripped him, driving him on. Byren had no tears, only a terrible determination. But he clung to one hard kernel of satisfaction.

  The old seer's prophecy had been proved wrong. He had not murdered his twin to gain the throne. Despite their misunderstandings, despite Lence's pig-headed conviction that Byren meant to usurp him, Byren had remained loyal to his older brother. And, in the end, Lence had chosen an honourable death. Somehow, it made his loss easier to bear.

  But it also made Byren the kingsheir against his wishes. After the lies his cousin Cobalt had told, his father would never believe this.

  No, the only way for him to prove his loyalty was to take word of the Merofynian invasion to the abbot. Convince the old man to give him leadership of the abbey's standing army of warrior monks and march against Rolencia's ancestral enemy, Merofynia. He had to save Rolencia, save his family.

  Byren had skated through the long winter's night and the short day without rest, and now it was dusk. But the time had not been wasted, for he'd planned his battle tactics.

  Having met his enemy, Byren knew that Overlord Palatyne was a ruthless man, possibly even more cunning than the Merofynian king he served. Palatyne was sure to have escaped the burning of Dovecote's great hall. Even now the overlord would be regrouping his forces, calling for reinforcements and making plans to spear-head through Rolencia's rich, unprepared valley to take King Rolen's castle before Byren's father had time to gather his warriors.

  His skates scissored over the ice, each stroke precise and powerful. His body ran on, thigh muscles propelling him over the ice, while his mind ran on how to beat the Merofynians.

  The problem was timing... it was late winter. His father's lords and their men were at home on their estates, and the warlords had returned to their princedoms. Everyone was preparing for the spring planting, not war. His father would be lucky if he had two hundred experienced warriors in the castle. He might gather another five hundred eager, untrained men from the town, but even with them King Rolen wasn't ready to face Palatyne.

  There was but a glimmer of hope. The Merofynian overlord's supply chain was dangerously overstretched. If Byren could retake Cockatrice Pass, then Palatyne and his warriors would be cut off from reinforcements and supplies.

  It all rested on Byren reaching the abbot in time, and convincing him to place the monks under his command. The traitorous warlord who ruled Cockatrice Spar was dead and his men scattered, so Palatyne could expect no help from that quarter.

  Once Cockatrice Pass was secure, all Byren had to do was lead the warrior monks down into the valley, force-march them to catch up with Palatyne's men and provoke a battle on his terms. He knew the lay of the land, the overlord didn't. He'd make sure his warriors had the high ground.

  Byren believed he could defeat Palatyne. At twenty, he'd been leading warriors against upstart warlords for five years, and his father had saved Rolencia from a Merofynian invasion at eighteen. As Captain Temor, his father's friend and advisor always said, the worth of a warrior was in his head and heart, not in the years he'd lived or the strength of his arms.

  Besides, he owed it to Lence. And he owed it to Elina. Her last words had not been words of love for him, but of revenge. Burn them all, promise!

  Tears stung his eyes, blurring his vision.

  As he rounded a bend, Byren hit a slippery patch and his skates slid out from under him. His body slammed down on the ice. He found himself skidding on his pack like an overturned turtle. The frozen lake had opened in front of him, but he was not headed towards it. He was headed for the bank, a solid wall of snow that hid rocks for all he knew. He had time to protect his face and curse his luck before he ploughed into it. The impact knocked the air from his chest and sent his wits spiralling away.

  Byren woke with a shiver. The brilliance of the frothing stars told him it was full dark. Shudders wracked his body, sending powdery snow slipping off his chest and face. With caution, he tested his limbs... amazingly no bones were broken.

  An odd bird call sounded, soft yet imperious. It was this which had woken him. Turning his head, he saw he'd ploughed through a drift into an inlet formed by an eddy on the side of the lake. This was Viridian Lake, which meant he had another good day's skating before he reached the abbey on the side of Mount Halcyon. He would need his wits to meet the abbot, so he decided to make camp and start out fresh at sunrise.

  As soon as he got to the abbey he'd ask to see Fyn. He'd have to tell his youngest brother how Lence had died. Fyn would believe Byren had not betrayed his own twin. Byren had always got on well with his younger brother, even though Fyn had been gifted to the abbey as a lad of six.

  The odd bird call came again. This time it was more imperious, followed by a harsh cry that finished on a furious, rising note.

  Byren rolled into a crouch to listen. A glow formed in the hollow beyond the slope at the far end of the inlet. There had to be a camp fire. Unless it was the Merofynians, and he didn't think a scouting party would be this far from the main camp, he could claim traveller's ease and share some of his provisions in exchange for a place by the fire.

  As the harsh cry returned, the glow heightened.

  Had the travellers captured a bird, which was objecting while they prepared to slaughter it for dinner? Even though he'd hunted the valley since he was old enough to ride a pony at his father's side, Byren did not recognise the cry.

  Something wasn't right. The more he studied the glow coming from the hollow, the more it unnerved him. He went very still, his breath held. The glow did not flicker like the leaping flames of an open fire. It was too steady, like concentrated starlight.

  Untying his skates, he slung them over his shoulder and crept along the bank of the inlet. After working his way up the far slope, he stretched full length in the snow to peer down into the hollow.

  For a heartbeat he simply stared. Nothing could have prepared him for this. Two Affinity beasts faced each other, both were as big as dogs and both were displaying. What was that bird called, the one with the glowing crest and tail?

  The name came to him... hercinia. And his bestiary studies produced the text he'd memorised with the encouragement of his tutor's switch. Hercinias were rare, only found in deep forests and greatly prized for their glowing
feathers, which were worth a small fortune. This one must be a female getting ready to mate because only the females glowed like this and only when they were fertile.

  Even as he watched, the hercinia opened its tail feathers in a wide arc like a fan. In the centre of each feather's tip was a glowing 'eye', an iridescent patch that pulsed bright enough to confuse and scare off a predator. Even if the bird's feathers hadn't been in their glowing state it would have been magnificent. A fine, diamond-tipped tiara of lacy feathers grew from the crown of the hercinia's head. The brilliant feather tips danced like agitated fire flies as it confronted the other bird.

  For a moment Byren wondered if this was the hercinia's mate and he was witnessing a rare, exquisite dance of love. Then the other bird leapt into the air, wings flapping, long tail trailing behind it and he recognised it as a calandrius. A ripple of shimmering colour raced up its long neck collecting around its eye sockets and beak, heightening its already brilliant colouring. To call those feathers red was an insult. They were vermilion... a living, pulsing vermilion.

  Calandrius were prized by healers for their ability to tell if a sick person was on the verge of death. The calandrius could inhale the breath of the diseased person, absorbing the poisonous vapours that made them ill. But the birds were used sparingly for, to overcome the disease, they had to fly towards the sun until the illness was burnt out of them. Often they did not survive. And, if they did, they would not return to the healer once set free.

  Awe stole Byren's breath. He wished Orrade was with him to see this, but they'd separated after they escaped from the burning hall. With his father's murder, his best friend was now Lord Dovecote and he'd led the estate's surviving servants and villagers into the mountains. Byren hoped they had escaped Palatyne, whose cruelty had been illustrated only too graphically when he killed all the old lord's prized doves. Those beautiful birds had done nothing but bring pleasure to those who looked on them.

  Unlike these birds. Oh, they were beautiful certainly, any farmer or trader who came across them would try to capture them to make their fortune, but Affinity beasts were not defenceless. The two birds were of a similar size and each probably weighed as much as a wolf hound. Sporting razor-sharp beaks and talons, they circled each other warily. Thanks to their Affinity, they were highly intelligent and attuned to threats.

  Byren watched, all else forgotten as he tried to make sense of the confrontation. What were two such rare god-touched beasts doing here in Rolencia's settled farmlands?

  Then the hercinia refurled its tail like closing a fan and let the display drop, so that its iridescent tail stretched behind it, twice as long as it was tall. How did it manage to fly with that weight?

  At this signal, the calandrius folded its wings by its side and a ripple of shimmering colour flowed down its long neck away from its eye sockets and beak, so that the intensity of the colour eased to a deep, softly glowing magenta.

  The calandrius backed up a step. The hercinia also backed up and the two birds seemed to reach an unspoken agreement. As one they fluffed their feathers and sank onto the snow to writhe about, looking for all the world like chickens giving themselves a dust bath.

  The absurdity of it made Byren smile, but then his skin went cold as understanding hit him.

  Only an Affinity seep would elicit this behaviour from god-touched beasts. He had no Affinity, which was why he could not sense it, but he knew the signs and he'd heard marvellous stories of this phenomena. Affinity seeps were dangerous because they attracted all god-touched beasts. The last time he'd discovered one, it had attracted a lincis. Half great cat, half wolf, the lincis were highly territorial, and Orrade had nearly died.

  Cautiously, Byren checked his surroundings for signs of any further Affinity beasts. As far as he knew the ulfr pack were still on the loose. Adult ulfrs were large as a pony and more intelligent. This pack was led by a remarkable male which had shown its followers how to avoid every trap set for them.

  Byren listened for their distinctive howls, but there was no sign of the ulfr pack, or other beasts. He relaxed slightly.

  The discovery of another seep, the fourth since last spring, was deeply worrying. As well as attracting god-touched beasts, the untamed Affinity that seeped up from the earth goddess's heart was a source of power which could trigger latent Affinity in people. And this would mean the person had only two choices, leave Rolencia forever or serve one of the abbeys. King Rolen would not countenance renegade Power-workers in his kingdom, not after standing helplessly by while they killed his father and older brother during the last Merofynian invasion.

  Byren had to report the seep to the abbot, who would send out one of his Affinity warders to contain it. They kept a store of sorbt stones for just such an event. Once the seep's power had been absorbed into the stones, the abbey became their custodian, protecting Rolencia and its people from untamed Affinity.

  He should leave and make camp elsewhere.

  Byren was about to go when a boy of no more than eleven broached the far rise of the hollow. He was skinny and poorly dressed for the cold, and there was something odd about his face. Having grown up with his father's generation, all of whom carried injuries from the last invasion, he recognised the injury. The child had been beaten cruelly, breaking his cheek bone. This made one eye sit slightly lower than the other.

  Catching sight of the birds, a delighted smile broke across the child's strained face. He went to approach, then hesitated, his hand going to a metal collar around his neck. It was connected by a chain to the man who followed. And, as this man broached the rise, Byren recognised him for a renegade Power-worker. An Utlander, judging by the filthy symbols of power tattooed onto his forehead, and the fetishes woven into his matted hair.

  'I was right, it's -' The Utland Power-worker broke off, seeing the Affinity beasts. He'd been speaking Merofynian but Byren had no trouble understanding him, thanks to his mother's patient tutoring.

  With a happy, inarticulate cry the boy ran down into the hollow, only to have the keeper jerk so hard on the chain that his legs went out from under him and he sprawled in the snow, gasping, hands going to the metal collar.

  Byren winced in sympathy.

  Both birds gave cry and leapt into the air, just as half a dozen Merofynian warriors came over the far lip of the rise. The men stood stunned. The boy scrambled to his feet, panting.

  Due to their size the birds had to work their broad wings furiously to gain height, creating great downdraughts of air, which stirred up the fine, powdery snow.

  'Stop them!' the Utland Power-worker screamed. He swore, beside himself with frustration as the men fumbled to remove their gloves and string their bows. 'No. Not like that, you fools. The calandrius is worth a fortune alive -'

  Thud, thud.

  Two arrows struck home.

  Both labouring birds cried out in distress and dropped into the seep. The boy fell to his knees in the snow with a wail of distress. The Utlander ignored the child's weeping and, after thrusting the boy's chain into the hands of the nearest man, he ploughed down the slope.

  Several of the warriors made the Merofynian sign to ward off evil, though whether they were afraid of the seep or their own Power-worker's anger, Byren could not tell.

  The Utlander tore off his cloak and threw it over the calandrius, which had come to its feet and was trying to creep away with a broken wing. It gave a mournful cry of protest when he swept it up in his arms.

  Staggering a little with the weight, he turned to face his escort. 'You're lucky it's still alive. Come here and take it. Bring my pack, I need my sorbt stones.'

  Byren tensed. He did not want to see the power of the seep fall into enemy hands.

  There was some confusion as three men slithered down into the hollow, reluctantly joining the Utlander in the centre of the seep. One took the calandrius, and another went to remove the other wounded bird. The third held the boy's chain and the Power-worker's pack. The boy edged nearer the birds, eyes fixed on them. Illum
inated by the bright starlight, Byren could see tear tracks glistening on the lad's grimy cheeks.

  'Wait. Is the hercinia dead?' The Power-worker checked.

  He must have found signs of life for he wrung the bird's neck with callous efficiency, eliciting a whimper of protest from the boy.

  'Stop your moaning, brat.' He nodded to one of the warriors. 'Pluck its feathers. That's all it's good for. And don't pinch a single one. I'll know.'

  'What about the body?' the man who held the hercinia asked. 'Seems a waste not to eat such a plump -'

  'You're right.' The Power-worker made several signs over the bird, muttering under his breath. Byren guessed he was settling the bird's Affinity, which had been released on its death. But the signs were nothing like the ones the castle's Affinity warders used. 'There, it's safe to eat. Make camp over the rise.'

  'So near the seep?' the one with the calandrius whined.

  'Yes, so near. I still have to drain the seep's power. Now get going.'

  The two carrying the birds retreated up the slope, while the third unslung a pack from his shoulder and opened the buckle so the Power-worker could rummage through.

  'What of the brat?' he asked.

  'Give her a bit of the bird's white meat as a reward. But keep an eye on her, she's just as likely to try to sneak back to roll in the seep. Little savage,' the Power-worker muttered. Byren thought this was a bit rich, coming from a renegade from the uncivilised Utland isles, and he felt sorry for the girl, who he'd taken for a boy. 'Keep an eye on her. Once I set up the active sorbt stone it will drain power from anything, including her.'

  'How long will this take?'

  'As long as it has to. I'm not leaving a seep for Rolencia's sanctimonious monks to hoard.' He untied some cloth to reveal two stones, carved so that they slotted together like lovers. 'This isn't a large seep. Should be done by morning.' He noticed the man's expression. 'Don't worry, we'll catch up with the others tomorrow.'