Brotherhood of the Wolf

Prologue

The week of Hostenfest began with a festive air at the Castle at Tal Rimmon in northern Mystarria.

On the first morning of Hostenfest, the spirit of the Earth King came as usual. Fathers and mothers took delight in heaping gifts of food for their children onto kitchen tables, honeycomb dripping in sweet piles, the small brown spotted tangerines common to Mystarria, almonds roasted in butter, sweet grapes fresh from the vine and still wet from the morning dew. All of these represented the bounteous gifts that the Earth King would bestow upon those who loved the land, “the fruits of the forest and of the field.”

And on that same first dawn of Hostenfest, the children rose and anxiously ran to the hearth. There mothers had left their daughters dolls woven of straw and dry wild flowers, or perhaps a box with a yellow kitten in it; and there young boys might find bows carved of ash, or finely embroidered woolen cloaks to help warm them through the coming winter.

So the children’s joy was full, and the week of Hostenfest came to Tal Rimmon under skies so warm and blue that they belied the coming of autumn.

Summer is forever, those skies promised. No wind shook the forested hills around the castle.

And if during the second day of Hostenfest, parents spoke in hushed tones of a fortress that had fallen, few children took note. Tal Dur was far to the west, after all, and Duke Paladane, the Huntsman, who served as regent while the King was away, would be swift to repel the armies of Indhopal.

Besides, it was still a season of joy, and reminders were everywhere. New herbs were strewn on the floors: meadowsweet, pennyroyal, lavender, or rose. The icons of the Earth King were still in place beside every doorway and window, inviting the Earth King into the people’s homes. It had been nearly two thousand years since an Earth King had risen to lead mankind. The old images carved of wood showed him in his green traveling robes with his staff in his hand, a crown of oak leaves woven into his hair while rabbits and foxes played at his feet.

The icons were meant to serve only as a reminder that an Earth King had once come. Yet on that day, some old women approached their icons and whispered, as if to the Earth King himself, “May the Earth protect us.”

Few children noticed.

And later that evening, when a rider said that far to the north in Heredon a new Earth King had indeed arisen, and that the name of that Earth King was Gaborn Val Orden of Mystarria, the people of Tal Rimmon erupted in jubilant celebration.

What did it matter if the same messenger bore dire news of lords slaughtered in far places, of the troops of the Wolf Lord Raj Ahten striking all through the kingdoms of Rofehavan? What did it matter that Gaborn’s own father, old King Mendellas Val Orden, had fallen in battle?

A new Earth King had arisen, after all, and of all the wonders, he was Mystarria’s own sovereign.

Such news filled the young ones with unaccountable pride, while the elders looked at one another knowingly and whispered, “It will be a long winter.”

Immediately the smiths around Tal Rimmon went to work forging swords and warhammers, shields and armor for man and horse. The Marquis Broonhurst and the other local lords all rode back to the castle early from the autumn hunt. In the Marquis’s Great Hall they argued for long hours about the portent of dispatches—the dark tidings of sorcerous attacks, of the movements of enemy troops, of Duke Paladane’s call to prepare for battle.

Few children noticed. As yet their joy was undiminished. But on that day it seemed a shift in the air brought an indefinable sense of urgency and excitement.

All week long, the young men of Tal Rimmon had been preparing for the tournaments that accompanied the end of Hostenfest. But now the boys who prepared to fight suddenly had a feral gleam in their eyes. And at midweek, when the first rounds began, those who jousted or took part in mock combat attacked their opponents with abnormal ferocity: For now they did not seek to win honor only among themselves, but fought for the right to someday ride into battle with the Earth King himself.

The Marquis noted the change, and when he told his lords, time and again, “It is a good crop this year, the best I’ve ever seen,” he was not speaking of apples.

At midweek the skies darkened, and an afternoon thunderstorm flashed above Tal Rimmon and shook the city. Many of the local children huddled abed with their mothers and fathers, safe beneath their quilts. That night, five hundred powerful Runelords rode from the east, answering Duke Paladane’s summons to defend Carris, the largest castle in western Mystarria. For the latest reports said that the Wolf Lord, who had been retreating toward his homeland in Indhopal, had suddenly struck south toward the heart of Mystarria.

The Marquis Broonhurst could not sleep with so many lords with his troops, so he had many of them wait out the storm in his Great Hall or in the hostels just outside the castle proper: There the lords and knights argued long and forcefully about how to repel the impending invasion.

Raj Ahten’s troops had taken three border fortresses already. Worse, he had taken endowments from perhaps twenty thousand people. He had taken to himself their strength, wit, stamina, and grace, turning himself into such a fierce warrior that none could best him in battle. He sought to become the Sum of All Men, a being that old stories said would be immortal. Some feared even now that he could not be killed.

Worse, he had taken so many endowments of glamour that his beauty outshone the sun. Hundreds of miles north in Heredon, when his troops besieged Castle Sylvarresta, King Sylvarresta’s people had taken one look at Raj Ahten’s face and thrown their weapons over the castle walls, welcoming him as their new lord. And at Longmot, it was said that Raj Ahten had used the tremendous power of his Voice to shatter the stone of the castle walls, as a songmaster might shatter crystal.

It was nearly dawn when Raj Ahten struck Tal Rimmon.

He came pulling a handcart filled with onions, a battered cloak pulled low over his forehead to keep out the night’s rain. The guards at the castle gates paid him little notice, for other peasants had also brought their carts to the gates. They stood sheltered from the rain beneath the eaves of a weaver’s shop.

Raj Ahten began to sing a song that was not words, but instead a low throaty moan of incredible volume, a sound that made the stone walls of Tal Rimmon hum at first, and that made the bones of a man’s inner ear vibrate as if a hornet were trapped within his skull.

The gatekeepers swore and drew weapons. The few farmers near Raj Ahten grasped their heads in pain as his song began to slowly shatter their skulls. They dropped unconscious before they died

Within seconds the stone of Tal Rimmon’s towers began to shiver violently. Bits of stone flaked away as if artillery battered the walls.

In moments the castle’s battlements trembled, heaved, and then toppled, as if struck by a mighty fist.

Raj Ahten stood in his ragged cloak and lifted his voice high, until the Marquis’s towers collapsed in on themselves and his Great Hall fell in a protest of screaming timbers.

The Runelords within those edifices were crushed under stones. Broken oil lamps spilled their contents into the timbers and tapestries, setting much of the castle aflame.

No common man could approach Raj Ahten without being slain. Two Runelords had enough endowments of stamina to withstand his Voice. But when they charged from the ruins of a hostel and tried to draw steel upon him, Raj Ahten drew his own dagger in a blur and spilled their guts.

Once the castle and most of the buildings in the market were down, Raj Ahten turned and fled down dark city streets, into the shadows.

Moments later, he reached his own Imperial warhorse, tied behind a farmer’s barn at the foot of a low hill. Two dozen of his Invincibles had gathered there in the darkness, waiting for his return.

A flameweaver named Rahjim sat upon a black horse and gazed hungrily toward the ruins of Tal Rimmon, toward the sheets of flame twisting up into the sky. This was the third castle his master had destroyed in a single night. He breathed rapidly in excitement, vapors of smoke issuing from his mouth, an unnatural light gleaming in his eyes. He had no hair, even on his eyebrows. “Where to now, O Great Light?” the flameweaver asked.

As Raj Ahten drew near, he felt the dry heat of the creature’s skin. “Now we ride to Carris,” Raj Ahten answered.

“Not to the Courts of Tide?” the flameweaver pleaded. “We could destroy their capitol before their lords ever learn of the danger!”

“Carris,” Raj Ahten said more firmly, determined to resist the flameweaver’s arguments. He did not wish to raze all of Mystarria yet.

Mystarria’s king was still safely secluded far to the north in Heredon, holed up deep within the Dunnwood, protected by the spirits of his ancestors.

“To strike down the capitol at the Courts of Tide would be a fell stroke,” Rahjim urged.

“I shall not attack it,” Raj Ahten whispered in a deadly tone. “The boy will not come if I leave him nothing to save.

Raj Ahten leapt onto the back of his warhorse, but for a long moment he did not ride for Carris. Tal Rimmon could be seen bright as day beneath columns of fire lit smoke.

Distantly, people screamed and tried to throw water upon their burning homes or to pull the fallen from beneath collapsed buildings. He could hear the children crying.

Raj Athen watched the city burn while reflected flames danced in his dark eyes.