Queen of Fire

by Anthony Ryan

  “Can you really be so ignorant of us? You have orchestrated havoc in this world for centuries. How can you know so little?”

  “I see only through the eyes of those snared in the Beyond, and even then the visions are often dim. Death does things to a soul, stripping away much that gives it substance. There was a philosopher in my time who argued that the sum of a soul is merely memory, the soul itself no more than metaphor.”

  “Evidently he was wrong.”

  “Was he? Haven’t you ever wondered why it is only the Gifted who reside in the Beyond? Can it be only they are worthy of soulhood and all these other unblessed condemned to slip into nothing when death claims them?”

  “Life has taught me to be tolerant of mysteries, especially those with no answer.”

  The Ally laughed, soft and sincere, then shuffled closer. His features became clear as he leaned forward, his gaze intent and questing, seeking understanding. “I am the answer. The Beyond is not the eternal domain of the dead, it is the result of folly and pride, it is a scab covering a seeping wound, eternally corrupted and corrupting. To exist there is to know the chill of death for all eternity, to feel yourself slowly ebb away until you are nothing but formless consciousness, shorn of memory but aware, knowing nothing but that endless cold.”

  “And yet, somehow, you retain enough reason to plague us.” Vaelin rose, moving to the Ally’s side, crouching and leaning close to voice his demands in a harsh whisper. “What is your gift? What awaits us in Volar?”

  The Ally said nothing for a moment, Vaelin seeing the calculation return to his gaze. “She spoke of how much she loved you, how you mended a heart torn by grief. Though she worried over the woman you loved before her, fearing when this war was done you would seek her out. But mostly she worried for the child you made together. She hoped for a girl but knew it would be a boy, a boy who might one day be tempted by his father’s martial ways…”

  The Ally reeled from the blow, blood and teeth erupting from his mouth. Vaelin was only dimly aware of the feel of his fist pounding Erlin’s features into bloody ruin, or the torrent of hate that spilled from his mouth, and he never felt Alturk’s war club clip the base of his skull, sending him into the deepest sleep.

  And this time the dreams came.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Lyrna

  “Lord Lakrhil Al Hestian is hereby appointed Battle Lord of the Queen’s Host.”

  She had called them to the temple’s tallest tower, far above the smouldering pyres that littered the plain. The dark red mass of slain Arisai could be seen, stripped of weapons then piled near the riverbank and left to rot. “These men had no souls,” she said when Brother Kehlan made a tentative suggestion some form of observance might be appropriate. “One cannot honour what does not exist.”

  She scanned the faces of the captains, seeking sign of dissent, but whatever feelings they might have harboured towards the elevation of a man named a traitor were kept well hidden. They know me too well now, she surmised, oddly dismayed by their timidity. Only Lords Nortah and Antesh exhibited any clear reaction. The Lord Marshal gave a silent and weary shake of his head. He and Al Hestian had a tendency to ignore one another with the kind of rigid indifference that told of deep mutual enmity, the spike protruding from Al Hestian’s stunted right arm a constant and inescapable reminder of a long-unresolved grievance. The reaction of her Lord of Archers was more pronounced, his face tensed in suppressed anger.

  No desire to follow the butcher of Greenwater Ford, Lyrna surmised. How fortunate I have another card to play.

  “Lord Marshal Nortah will assume command of the Dead Company in his stead,” she went on. “The Queen’s Daggers are hereby enrolled in the Mounted Guard under command of Lord Iltis.”

  She turned to Al Hestian, “Battle Lord, your report on the state of the Queen’s Host, if you please.”

  “Our full losses amount to little over fifteen hundred men, Highness,” he replied. “Plus three hundred wounded and unable to fight. Three regiments besides the Queen’s Daggers were so badly mauled I must advise they be merged into one. However, our losses may be considered slight in comparison to the enemy. More than thirty thousand slain and a thousand captured, the remainder fled and in no state to fight again. Count Marven deserves great credit for such a victory.”

  One of the Nilsaelin twins spoke up, the one with the red-enamelled breastplate though Lyrna still found it of little help in distinguishing between the two. “Our noble grandfather will ensure his memory is honoured the length and breadth of Nilsael. My brother and I will personally fund the construction of a statue in Meanshall.”

  Lyrna pushed away the image of Marven’s bleached, panicked face, weeping as she pressed the cloth to his burning brow. He would rather have just gone home to suffer his wife’s cutting tongue.

  “A thousand prisoners?” she asked Al Hestian.

  “Indeed, Highness. I intended to ask what you wanted done with them.”

  “The river’s deep and fast-flowing,” Baron Banders pointed out. “Spare us the effort of cutting so many throats.”

  The other captains exchanged nods and murmurs of agreement, though she noted Nortah’s grimace of disgust. “No,” she said. “They are to be preserved. Wounded are to be cared for and food provided. I understand from Brother Hollun most hail from this province.”

  “They do, Highness,” Al Hestian confirmed. “They’re an uncommonly poor lot for Volarian soldiery, I must say. Few veterans among them, most little more than boys conscripted barely two months ago.”

  “I believe there is a town several days’ march along our road, I assume many will hail from there.”

  “Urvesk, Highness. A sizeable place from all reports. I was going to advise we bypass it, the garrison is unlikely to be numerous enough to threaten us and a siege would cost time and lives we can’t afford.”

  She shook her head. “No. We will march there with all dispatch. Please make the army ready to move by dawn tomorrow. We’ve lingered here too long.”

  She dismissed them and stood regarding the view as they trooped down the winding stairwell, though, as expected, one decided to linger. “You have words for me, Lord Antesh?” she asked without turning.

  He moved to stand at a respectful distance, though his darkened visage told of a simmering anger. “I cannot command my people to follow that man, Highness,” he stated. “When they hear of this…”

  “Lady Reva would have followed him,” Lyrna said. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Lady Reva had a soul blessed by the Father himself. I do not, neither do my archers. When we lost her … we lost our heart.”

  “Then you will no doubt rejoice to hear you have a chance to regain it.” She turned, meeting his gaze squarely. “I have sound intelligence from the Seventh Order that Lady Reva lives and is captive in Volar.”

  She watched his face transform from dark anger to pale shock, soon followed by hope. “This … this has been confirmed?”

  “Speak to Brother Lernial, he will provide assurance. Then I assume you will wish to share this joyous news with your people.”

  “I … yes.” His head jerked in a bow and he backed away. “My thanks, Highness.”

  She turned back to the view as his rapid footfalls echoed up the stairwell, stumbling occasionally in his haste. “They really think their god talks to her?” Murel wondered allowed.

  “Who’s to say they are wrong.” Lyrna’s gaze tracked to the markings on the flat surface that topped this tower, the mass of meaningless symbols carved centuries before.

  “Wisdom tells me,” she said, “that each tower in the temple was allocated a priest upon construction, one said to have been touched by the gods. It was their lifelong mission to carve whatever insight the gods had imparted to them into the tower, from the lowest step to the very top. A lifetime spent etching their visions into stone, forbidden any other task, never allowed to venture from their towers. Little wonder they were insane by the time they finished, their me
ssages no more than the scrawl of gnarled and maddened hands. And when they were done…” She went to the edge of the platform, her slippered toes protruding into space as she raised her arms, the wind whipping her gown and hair. “They would fly and the gods would reach down and snatch them from the air.”

  “Highness?”

  She turned to see Iltis moving closer, reaching out a tentative hand to draw her back from the edge. She lowered her arms and waved him away with a small laugh. “Worry not, my lord. It’s not my time to fly, I still have so much to do.”

  She had Al Hestian send the North Guard ahead to Urvesk with orders to make themselves as conspicuous as possible. The Nilsaelin cavalry were divided into companies and dispatched north and south with the mission of freeing all the slaves they could find, though Lyrna fully expected their talent for looting to be given free rein. They had been cautioned to spare the free populace where possible and send them east with a full appreciation of their queen’s intent. Accordingly, as they marched away from the temple and the dusty plain into the verdant hill country beyond, the horizon on either side was marked by tall columns of smoke rising from villas burned in the Nilsaelins’ wake. From their reports it seemed many in this region had been told not to flee since the invaders would soon be crushed by the Empress’s invincible forces.

  By the fifth day many companies had returned, somewhat burdened by sundry valuables, but also trailing a collection of freed slaves, soon growing to more than a thousand over succeeding days. Lyrna made a point of personally greeting as many as possible, finding most to be young and prone to addressing her as “Honoured Mistress.” Their older brethren were apparently too steeped in lifelong fear to accept this new queen’s offer of freedom.

  “Some of them wept when we burned their master’s house, Highness,” a baffled Nilsaelin captain told her. “A few even tried to fight us.”

  She had Nortah take charge of their new recruits, with Wisdom’s assistance since the Lord Marshal spoke no Volarian. “It’ll take months to turn this lot into soldiers,” he told her as she toured his makeshift training camp. They had paused in a broad valley ten miles short of Urvesk, taking up residence in a plush villa the Nilsaelins had been thoughtful enough to spare for her comfort.

  “You turned former slaves into fighters before, my lord,” she pointed out.

  “They had only been in chains for a few days, weeks at most. And their hatred burned bright enough to overcome a lack of skill and discipline.” He gestured at the recruits labouring under the tutelage of sergeants from the Dead Company, who seemed intent on compensating for a lack of shared language with volume. “Most of these have known nothing but bondage.”

  “I’m willing to wager their hatred will burn bright too,” Lyrna said. “When sufficiently roused. Keep at it my lord. We move on in three days.”

  The city of Urvesk lay close to a fork in the river that ran alongside the road, birthing a smaller tributary snaking off to the north. It reminding her vaguely of Alltor with its high walls; however, the similarity faded at the sight of the many gaps, and the sprawl of mean housing that spread beyond them to the edge of the river. The price of stability is unpreparedness, she decided as Lord Adal galloped towards her.

  “The place grows less populous by the day, Highness,” the North Guard commander reported. “They’ve been fleeing north or east in a steady stream since they first caught a glimpse of us. No sign of any soldiery beyond some sentries on the walls, perhaps two hundred at most.”

  “Thank you, my lord. Please rest your men.”

  “Highness, I…” He hesitated, a keen entreaty in his eyes. “I had hoped to lead the assault.”

  What is this man’s hunger for glory? she wondered. She greatly valued him as a captain, being one of the few true professionals in the army, but grew ever more concerned over his desire to place himself in peril. Accounts from the battle of the temple were rich in reports of his reckless valour, though he contrived to emerge from it all without a scratch. “There will be no assault, my lord,” she told him. “Conserve your courage for Volar.”

  She turned Jet and cantered to where the prisoners had been arrayed, just over a thousand grey-faced men and boys standing shackled in four loosely ordered ranks. “Are there any officers here native to this city?” she called in Volarian.

  They shuffled in fearful silence, many not daring to raise their heads, one boy near the front weeping openly.

  “Speak up, you filth!” Iltis barked in Realm Tongue, making his meaning clear with a vicious crack of the overseer’s whip he had secured from somewhere.

  A man with a bandaged face in the third rank slowly raised a hand and was soon dragged from the throng by Iltis.

  “You are an officer?” Lyrna asked the prisoner as Iltis forced him to his knees before her.

  “A captain,” he said in a wheezy voice. The bandage on his face covered his right eye, dark with dried blood, his complexion telling of a man moving closer to death with every step. “Called from the reserve to fight the Empress’s glorious war of defence.” He gave a bitter laugh and Lyrna divined he fully expected to die in the next few moments.

  “Get up,” she told him. “My lord, remove his chains.”

  She guided Jet closer as the one-eyed captain stared up at her in bafflement, seemingly uncaring of the blood that seeped from his chafed wrists as Iltis removed the manacles. “You will go home, Captain,” she told him, pointing to Urvesk. “And tell whoever holds charge of this city that your comrades here will be freed, for I do not come to this land for slaughter, but justice. In return the city will release every slave in bondage and open its gates to me. If they do not, I will kill ten prisoners every hour until they do. If reason still does not prevail, they will find themselves drowning in ash and blood when I send my army through their ragged walls.”

  She nudged Jet closer still, leaning down to stare into his one good eye. “Ask them if they really want to die for the Empress.”

  By nightfall over three thousand slaves had emerged from the gates. Lyrna watched the last of them troop out and waited, concealing a sigh of relief as the gates remained open. Did you ever manage this, Father? she asked the old schemer’s ghost. To take a city by words alone.

  “I should go ahead with the Realm Guard, Highness,” Al Hestian suggested. “Ensure a proper reception for your entry.”

  It would be so easy, she thought, eyes still fixed on the open gates. So many wooden houses, so much fuel, the flames would light the sky for a hundred miles.

  “I shan’t be entering the city,” she told Al Hestian. “Send as many men as you think fit to ensure they haven’t contrived to retain any slaves and secure additional supplies for my new subjects. No looting on pain of execution. Leave them sufficient stocks to guard against starvation, and their horses. I’m keen for word of our actions here to spread. Be sure the army is ready to march by dawn.”

  She glanced at the prisoners huddling together in the gloom, shivering as much in fear as from the oncoming chill. Like all those souls I left to drown in the bowels of the slave ship, she thought, hands clutching her reins until they ached. It would be so easy …

  “Release this lot an hour before we march,” she ordered, wheeling Jet about and galloping back towards the villa.

  They covered a hundred miles in three days, the Battle Lord insisting on a pace that saw many soldiers collapsing at the end of a day spent on what many now referred to as the “blood road.” The march had made Lyrna intimate with the varying moods of her army. The Nilsaelins were the most vociferous grumblers, issuing a collective groan of relief and exhaustion at the conclusion of the second day. The Realm Guard were the most disciplined on the march though also the most fractious in the evenings; fistfights over card-games or petty disputes were still annoyingly common. The Renfaelins were by far the most cheery, their encampment rich in song and laughter most evenings, providing a stark contrast to the muted efficiency of the Cumbraelins, though their relative quietude had assume
d a grim determination since the temple. They marched at a faster pace than all the other contingents, Lyrna having acceded to Lord Antesh’s request to lead the column, and would often be two or three miles ahead by nightfall. Also, judging from the way they would cluster around the few priests among them come evening, news of Lady Reva’s survival seemed to have birthed a resurgence of piety.

  “I find myself ashamed, Highness,” Antesh said on the evening of the third day. She had sought him out during her nightly tour of the camp, finding the Cumbraelins more respectful than usual, their bows deeper though their ever-cautious gaze still lingered.

  “Ashamed, my lord?”

  “After the storm, when we thought Lady Reva lost, I doubted the Father’s purpose in bringing us here. At Alltor everything had been so clear, she seemed to shine with His love. But if He could take her from us, how could He bless this endeavour? I thought perhaps it might be punishment, a judgement on our willingness to ally with you. Now I see how foolish that was. She would never have guided us along a false path.”

  Hearing the certainty with which he coloured every word Lyrna resisted the impulse to ask if, in fact, her Lord of Archers worshipped a goddess rather than a god. “She is a truly great soul,” she said. “I long to see her again.”

  She inclined her head and moved away but Antesh reached out, his hand stopping just short of her sleeve. “Highness, if I may. I know you have no belief in the Father, in truth I doubt you have much truck with your own Faith either. But know, although you may not feel his love, he gives it nonetheless.”

  Lyrna found herself beset by the unfamiliar sensation of not knowing what to say. She had never been comfortable around displays of devotion; her infrequent meetings with the late Aspect Tendris had been a considerable trial, as had her exchanges with Aspect Caenis, though he had provoked as much pity as discomfort. Lives dominated by the spectres of ancient dreams, she thought. But it never seems to make them happy.