He stood suddenly, and she yelped as he lifted her from her chair, holding her across his chest while she laced her fingers behind his neck. “I would call you beautiful a thousand times, though the Mystics put me beneath their knives and command me to renounce your grace. But you have not answered my question. Tell me how many summers you have seen, or I may have to draw the truth from you by every means at my disposal.”
“Do your worst,” she purred.
THEY SPENT THE DAY DOING little of consequence, and it was evening before Ebon left her at last. The sun had almost gone down, and he hurried through torchlight. He had time enough before curfew to return, but he had no wish to remain in the cold a moment longer than necessary.
The streets seemed curiously crowded for a Sunday, when many merchants and crafters chose not to work. The Seat had become flooded with new arrivals recently. There was some vague rumors that the High King soon meant to make her next move in the war.
Ebon soon tired of struggling through crowds and having to halt for every passing carriage or wagon of goods. He broke away from the press, aiming for the yawning mouth of an alley that seemed to head the right direction. But when he reached the end, it turned north rather than south. He grumbled and increased his pace. Soon he saw the alley’s end ahead, leading to another street packed even tighter than the last one.
He pushed into the crowds with a sigh, forcing his way across and into another side street. Here at last the way was clear, and it even headed in the right direction for a time. Ebon let loose a breath of relief and slowed.
A boot scuffed on the street behind him. He turned. The street was empty.
His heart began to race, but he scowled and fought the queasy feeling in his stomach. Xain, it seemed, was not done stalking him. He had a chilling thought: had the dean seen him leave Adara’s house? But he dismissed that fear at once. No matter what Xain suspected him of, Ebon did not fear the dean would threaten Adara.
Hunching his shoulders, he pushed on through the cold. The side street led him south, but it kept turning the wrong direction as it did so. Soon he had neared the Seat’s western edge, where the buildings showed more signs of damage from the fighting and the flames, and there were fewer people about. And then he came upon a street where there were no other passers-by at all.
Three quick footsteps sounded, shockingly close. But when he turned, the street remained empty.
He put his hands to his hips. “Enough of this. I can hear you, Xain, scuttling after me like some pickpocket. If you have received another note, I still know nothing about it. But come out and ask me anyway, if that is your wish, so that we may both go about our evenings in peace.”
The person who stepped from the shadows was not Xain.
Ebon froze. He could see no face beneath the green hood, but the person who faced him was a behemoth—nearly as large as Perrin, and clad in mail under their cloak.
There came a hiss of drawn steel. A broadsword glinted in the moonslight. Ebon could not drag his gaze from its shine. Thick, heavy boots crunched in the snow, forming holes as deep as Ebon’s whole leg.
“I … who …” Ebon took a step back, almost stumbling in a drift behind him.
The figure reached up to drag its hood back. It was a man, his skin almost as dark as Lilith’s, and within his sallet his grey eyes reeked of death. His fist looked big enough to envelop and crush Ebon’s skull. Where Ebon had often been awed by the thickness and vigor of Mako’s muscular arms, this man now made Mako seem a spindly little boy, a bookish scholar tucked in some dark basement away from the sun, scrawny as Kalem was. Over the chain on the man’s chest was a tabard of black leather, and his fists shone with plate.
All this Ebon saw in the scant seconds it took the giant to approach him. They were only two lengthy paces apart now. But then he stopped.
“You have been seeking me.” The voice from his barrel-wide chest thrummed in Ebon’s lungs, deeper and stronger than Isra’s voice even with the strength of magestones. And at the words, knowledge struck Ebon like a mace to the forehead.
“G-Gregor,” he stammered. “You are Gregor.”
There came no answer, but the man’s eyes flashed. And Ebon recalled the story that Lilith had told him. In his mind he saw the hall filled with people, burning, all of them screaming. His throat seized up. He tried to take a backwards step, but his feet would not move.
“Why has your family taken an interest in me?” said Gregor. He took one step forwards, and Ebon wilted.
“I am not … I did not …”
Gregor shook his head, a single sharp jerk. “No lies. As long as your words interest me, you will live. As long as I hear the truth within them, you will live. You die tonight, but it is up to you how long you have before then.”
Like a striking serpent, a hand the size of a boulder shot forth to seize Ebon’s robes and haul him up off the ground. Ebon lost control of his bladder, and tears stung his eyes as piss dripped to the snow below him.
“I sought nothing,” he whimpered, voice shattering to a sob. “I swear it.” A lie, he screamed in his mind. A lie means death. But he could not help it. His thoughts betrayed him, for he knew now that he would die, here on this street and unseen by anyone.
But then behind Gregor, from the other side of the street, a second shadow detached itself from the darkness between two buildings. Ebon heard a soft snik-snik, and saw the silhouette of two daggers. Mako, he thought with relief.
He let his gaze linger too long. Gregor caught the look and turned on the spot, faster than such a man should have been able to move. Mako leaped, black cloak fluttering behind him. Gregor caught the daggers on his sword and shoved back with a rumbling grunt. Mako danced, shifting from one foot to the next before striking again. Again Gregor parried the blow, swinging the sword in a wide arc and slicing down with it—but Mako was already gone.
They took a step back, taking each other’s measure in the darkness. Ebon wanted to step forwards, to do something, but he knew not what. He was a child in this battle of giants. What good would mists be, if he must draw within Gregor’s reach to use them? And he could not help Mako by shifting stone.
Then a hand seized his shoulder to drag him back. Had he not already voided himself, he would surely have soiled his clothes again. “Come, boy,” said a woman’s voice. “You are of little use here.”
He looked back and saw that she was clad just like Mako, and had her hair trimmed close to her scalp. Two steps he took beside her, away from Gregor, before he stopped. “We cannot leave Mako,” he gasped.
“That is not Mako,” said the woman. “Come.”
Ebon peered closer in the darkness—and then he saw that it was the truth. The man standing before Gregor was tall enough, but not quite as broad, and his eyes glinted blue beneath his hood, instead of dark like Mako’s.
Now the assassin’s knives swept forwards like serpents, striking here, there, and here again in the space of a blink. But though Gregor held no shield, he used his plated arm to block one of the blows, while the others glanced from his chain.
And then his fist swung, faster than when he had seized Ebon, and crushed the Drayden man’s face.
The assassin stopped moving all at once, as though a force holding him up had suddenly vanished. He held his feet for a heartbeat, though his nose was pulp and his jaw hung slack on tendons, displaying shattered teeth.
Gregor seized his head, fingers wrapping to the back of the man’s skull. With the grip for leverage, he pulled the assassin onto his broadsword. Four handbreadths of blood-covered steel thrust out of the man’s spine, and his legs went limp. Gregor withdrew the sword and smashed the front of his helmet into the man’s face. Then he brought the man’s head down with a crunch against his armored knee.
The Drayden man slumped to the snow, a corpse three times over.
Even as she pulled Ebon away, the woman threw a dagger with a hiss of rage. It struck Gregor in his back, but the chain shirt rebuffed the blade, which fell
impotent to the snow. Gregor threw a look over his shoulder—but then Ebon was around the corner of a building and out of sight, still being dragged by the woman.
Now that he no longer beheld the giant, Ebon found he could move again, and he ran, faster even than his rescuer. After they had passed a few streets, she yanked him to face her. He looked into her hard face, wincing at the scar that ran from her upper lip through one ruined eye.
“Back to the Academy,” she growled. “Stop for nothing. Look at nothing. Speak to no one. And if you value your life, do not leave again for any reason—not unless Mako is with you.”
Ebon wanted to stay a moment longer, to ask her one more question. But even as he hesitated, she seized a shoulder and whirled him around. Then she planted a boot on his back and kicked hard. Ebon went sprawling to the ground, sliding along in the slush with a cry.
“Leave, you piss-stained steer!”
He left, scrambling to his feet and barely remaining upright. Once he started running he could not stop, but could only move his legs faster and faster. Soon he was winded, and his chest screamed at him in pain, but he only sprinted harder. He reached the main road that crossed the island east to west and pressed heedless through the people there. Many of them he struck in his flight, but he did not stop for their angry shouts.
Before long he reached the Academy’s front door. Two paces away from it he stopped and doubled over to catch his breath, crying out as that sent lances of pain into his ribs. He looked back down the street. Gregor was nowhere to be seen, nor was any other threat.
The tears that had threatened now spilled forth, and bile leaped to the back of his throat. His mind burned with the image of the Drayden man falling to the ground, of the nauseating way his bones had bent the wrong direction. Falling to hands and knees he vomited. All the wine he had drunk with Adara and all the food he had eaten for supper spilled into the virgin snow.
It was a while before he could force himself to stand. His body groaned in protest when he did, and his legs were clay beneath him. But as soon as he could, he stumbled towards the front door. From the position of the moons in the sky, he had only just made it before curfew, and so he wasted no time before entering.
There in the front hall, to his great surprise, he found Theren and Kalem waiting for him. But if they saw the state of him, they did not remark upon it—and once he saw their pale faces and wide, frightened eyes, he knew that his encounter upon the streets was not the only thing that had gone terribly wrong.
“What is it?” he said. “What happened?”
“War is declared,” said Theren. “Tomorrow, the armies of the High King march on Dulmun.”
FOR A MOMENT, EBON COULD only stand and stare at the news. But then the pain in his side redoubled, and he stumbled.
“Here now,” said Kalem, as he and Theren came forwards to take Ebon’s arms. “Ebon, what is …” Then his nose curled. “Have you …?”
Ebon blinked back fresh tears. “I need a bath. Please. Help me.”
They cringed, but they helped him, taking an arm each and escorting him to the bathing room, which fortunately was not far away. There he disrobed while Kalem went to fetch him water. Theren took his soiled robes and put them in a soapy basin to soak.
“What happened?” said Kalem, once Ebon had settled into the water and his friends sat to either side of him.
“Gregor found me.” Ebon shuddered at the memory of the man’s soulless grey eyes. “Somehow he heard that we were seeking him, and he found me out in the streets.”
Theren scowled. “How did you defeat him?”
“I did not,” said Ebon. He stopped and closed his eyes, for his voice was dangerously close to breaking. “I did not,” he said again when he could speak. “I ran. And I only escaped because two of Mako’s fighters came to my rescue.”
“Did they … is Gregor …?” Theren glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one could overhear, but the bathing room was empty.
“They did not kill him,” said Ebon. “He killed one of them instead, and mayhap has killed the other by now, for she turned back after she got me to safety. Gregor did not simply kill. He took the man apart. I have never seen anything so terrifying. It was worse than watching Mako put Matami to the question.”
“How did he find you?” said Kalem. “What will you do now?”
“I do not know,” said Ebon. “The woman who saved me warned me not to leave the Academy again, not for anything, unless it was at Mako’s direction and under his guard.”
“That seems wise,” said Kalem, shivering. Theren glared and remained silent.
“Enough talk of that,” said Ebon. “I do not wish to think of it any longer. Now tell me of your news. When did Enalyn declare war?”
They told him all that they had learned so far. That day, while Ebon was with Adara, the High King Enalyn had proclaimed that her host would go to make war upon Dulmun. What fleets she had managed to assemble would set sail from the eastern docks, while a great force of soldiers even now marched east across Feldemar to attack Dulmun’s northern lands.
“What of the south?” said Ebon. If the High King’s armies meant to march on Dulmun’s southern reaches as well, that would take them near to Idris.
“Nothing was said of it,” said Kalem. “She may be hesitant to march her armies along the north side of the Spineridge. Or mayhap she means to attack there and is keeping the plan secret, at least for now.”
“That brings to mind my chief question,” said Theren. “Why would she proclaim any of this? Would it not be better to strike in secret, taking Dulmun by surprise?”
Ebon had thought the same thing, but Kalem shook his head at once. “She does not hope to vanquish Dulmun by means of war. That could be costly in both lives and coin, and we are in the midst of winter. But for months now, ever since the attack, all the nine kingdoms have become mired by indecision. Only three kingdoms have openly pledged their support to the High King: Selvan, the land from which Enalyn herself came; Hedgemond, my homeland; and Calentin, whose people are so few and so far from the war that their support makes little difference either way, even if they had not sent only a token of their strength, which they have. The other kingdoms hem and haw, neither breaking their oaths nor rushing to fulfill them. By declaring this war openly and putting forth an assault, the High King means to prompt the other kingdoms to action. Now their oaths compel them to lend aid.”
“And if they do not?” said Theren.
“They will be branded traitors,” said Kalem. “When the war is over, and Enalyn has vanquished Dulmun, she will then turn her armies upon the kingdoms that refused to aid her. She will cast their kings down and purge their families—or exile them, if she feels merciful.”
“That is a small mercy,” said Theren. “But are we even certain she will vanquish Dulmun?”
“Of that there is no doubt,” said Kalem. “Dorsea will now pledge its full strength; their king is already fearful of Enalyn’s wrath, for she nearly executed him after the battle of Wellmont. And Dorsea alone would be enough. Even if the other kingdoms stay their hands—which I doubt—Enalyn will have enough backing to raze Dulmun. She knows it, and Dulmun knows it, and so she hopes they will surrender.”
Theren raised her eyebrows. “You seem very certain of all this.”
Kalem shrugged. “I have been taught the ways of such things since birth. Where common children learn a trade and merchant children learn to manage coin, royal children are taught the ways of power and war.”
“Then Dulmun will surrender, and this war will soon end,” said Theren.
“I do not think so,” said Kalem sadly. “Bodil of the family Valgun is their king, and she is a warlike woman. Also, she knows that if she surrenders, her life and the lives of her close kin will be forfeit. Therefore she will fight as long as she can, if only to stave off the inevitable. I think that is another part of Enalyn’s plan—she hopes to amass as much strength of arms as she can, hoping that either Bodil will su
rrender, or that one of her kin will rebel against her, depose her from the throne, and surrender in her place. But there shall be much bloodshed before that happens, either way.”
They were all silent for a moment. Ebon thought he could almost imagine it: the great legions of soldiers marching across Feldemar, on their way to fight and die upon the soil of Dulmun, and the fleets of ships that would tomorrow speed across the Great Bay to do battle with their foe’s mighty fleets. It was a chilling vision, and one not easily dismissed.
“What does the Academy mean to do?” said Ebon.
They both stared at him. “What do you mean?” said Theren. “The Academy means to do nothing, unless it is to keep training its students in the ways of magic. It is a school, not a barracks.”
Ebon gaped. “So we are meant to just carry on with our studies? Going to class each day as though a war is not being waged beyond these walls? The Seat is in the middle of this fight—and I do not mean only because the High King dwells here. If Dulmun launches a fresh attack, we will be the first thing in their way.”
Again Kalem shook his head. “The Seat is not in danger. It is heavily fortified, and there are many other places along the Great Bay where Dulmun would have an easier time of it. When they attacked it, it was only after luring the High King’s armies away with subterfuge. Even then they struck quickly, hoping to win through surprise rather than strength of arms. Now they have lost surprise and will make their war in other ways, as long as they may.” He gave a little smile. “If you hoped to escape your lessons for a time, I am afraid to tell you that Perrin will still expect you in your place every morning for your studies.”
They sat in silence. It was strange: outwardly, nothing looked to have changed. Yet Ebon felt as though everything was different in some ethereal manner he could not see with his waking eyes. The objects in the room seemed fresh and newly seen, though of course he had beheld them many times before.
The Academy Journals Volume One_A Book of Underrealm Page 65
