The Bastard King

CHAPTER SIX

The Otter glided along the Tuola River, on patrol against the Thervings. Now that Arch-Hallow Bucco no longer headed the regency, now that Queen Certhia had taken his place, King Lanius would not be betrothed to Princess Romilda of Thervingia. Grus approved of that. He didn’t expect King Dagipert would, though. No one in Avornis expected Dagipert would. War was coming now. The only question was when.

“We never should have landed in this mess in the first place,” Nicator grumbled. “Bucco never should have made that bargain.”

“Of course he shouldn’t,” Grus said. “I just think it’s a gods-cursed shame he’s still in the cathedral. They should have thrown him out of there when they flung him out of the palace.”

“I hear old Megadyptes didn’t want the arch-hallow’s job back,” Nicator answered. “He’s too holy for his own good, you ask me.”

“Me, I’d sooner have an arch-hallow who spends his time praying than one who tries to run the kingdom.”

Nicator grunted. “I don’t mind Bucco trying so much as I mind him botching the job. And he cursed well did. And we’ll have to pay for it.”

“Don’t remind me,” Grus said. The Otter and the rest of his flotilla could give the Thervings a hard time if they tried to cross the Tuola. But the river galleys could go only so far up the stream. Past that, Avornis’ horsemen and foot soldiers and wizards had to hold back Dagipert’s army. Could they? We’ll find out, Grus told himself, trying to smother his own doubts. Wistfully, he added, “It would be nice if somebody could run the kingdom, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, you just might say so, yes,” Nicator answered. He looked northwest, toward the rapids that kept the river galleys from moving any farther up the Tuola. Water boomed and thundered over black jagged rocks. Rainbows came and went in the flying spray. “What do we do when the Thervings try to go around us? They will, you know.”

“Of course they will,” Grus said. “We’ll just have to work with the soldiers as best we can, that’s all.”

“Happy day.” Nicator sounded unimpressed—but then, Nicator made a habit of sounding unimpressed. “If those bastards had any brains, they wouldn’t have been soldiers in the first place.”

Plump and fussy, Turnix bustled up to Grus and waited to be noticed. The commodore nodded to him now. “What’s up?”

“Something’s stirring, sir,” Turnix answered.

“What do you mean, stirring?” Grus demanded. “And where?”

Turnix pointed toward Thervingia. “Something there. Something magical. Something big, or I wouldn’t know anything about it. I do believe they’re trying to mask it, but it’s too big for that. I know it’s there even through their spells.”

“Ax is going to fall,” Nicator said grimly.

“I think you’re right,” Grus said. “Turnix, can you tell exactly where this spell’s coming from?”

“I haven’t tried, not up till now,” the wizard said. “I will if you like. The Thervings’ masking makes it harder.”

“Do your best,” Grus said. “It’s important.”

“Well, it may be important,” Nicator said. “Their wizards may be trying to bluff us about whatever they’re keeping under wraps.”

Grus didn’t want to think about that. By Turnix’s pained expression, the wizard didn’t, either. It wasn’t that Nicator was wrong. It was only that knowing he was right made everyone’s life more complicated. Grus spoke to Turnix. “See if you can find it. Maybe that will tell you whether it’s real or not.”

“Good enough.” Turnix turned toward Thervingia. He took an amulet set with a translucent green stone out from under his shirt and held it up so that the sun sparkled off it. Then he began to chant. He made one pass after another with his left hand. A couple of minutes into the spell, he staggered and muttered to himself.

“Are you all right?” Grus asked.

“I think so,” Turnix said. “They’ve got wizards looking for people who try to sneak through their masking spells, too. Whatever they’re doing, they don’t want anybody knowing about it.”

“All the more reason for us to find out,” Grus said.

Turnix nodded. He started chanting again, and swung the amulet back and forth, back and forth. Suddenly, he let out a sharp exclamation of triumph. The stone in the amulet turned clear as glass on part of the arc. Turnix pointed. “There!”

“Toward the northwest, where we’d expect to have trouble,” Grus noted.

“But do the Thervings mean it, Skipper, or are they trying to trick us?” Nicator persisted.

“I don’t know.” Grus turned to Turnix. “You’re the wizard. What do you think?”

Turnix looked troubled. “I still can’t be certain.”

“I won’t let anyone beat you if you’re wrong,” Grus said. “I want your best guess.”

The wizard nervously plucked at his beard. “I don’t think the Thervings know I got through their sorcerous screen. I do think they’re hiding something real, not running a bluff. You asked… sir.”

“You gave me what I asked for.” Now— what to do with it? Grus went into the tiny cabin at the stern that let him and Nicator and Turnix sleep out of the rain. He found a scrap of parchment, a quill pen, and a bottle of ink. He wrote rapidly, then brought the note to Turnix. “Here. Send this to one of the wizards with the cavalry and foot soldiers and back to the city of Avornis.”

Turnix read the note, then nodded. “You’ve summed things up here very well.”

Grus shrugged. “Never mind that. As long as they know.”

By the nervous way people went through the halls of the royal palace in the city of Avornis, one might think that one of the gods had stirred the place with a stick for sport. King Lanius felt the trouble without knowing what had caused it. When he asked his mother, Queen Certhia patted him on the head and told him, “It’s nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart.”

She could have done no better job of making him angry if she’d tried for a month. Glaring at her, he said, “Arch-Hallow Bucco would have told me just the same thing, Mother.”

Certhia mouthed something silent about Bucco. Then she said, “It’s nothing you can do anything about, and that’s the truth.”

“I don’t care whether I can do anything about it or not,” Lanius said. Like any child, he’d had to get used to the idea that things happened regardless of his opinion about them. “But I do want to know. I’m only a few years from coming of age. Then I’ll be King of Avornis in my own right. I should know as much as I can before then, don’t you think?”

His mother sighed and ruffled his hair. “I remember when I could hold you in the crook of my elbow. You were such a tiny thing then.”

Lanius hated when his mother told him things like that. “I’m not a tiny thing anymore.”

She had to nod. “No, that’s true. You’re not.”

“Tell me, then,” he said.

“All right. Let’s see what you make of it,” his mother said. “We have word from Commodore Grus and his wizard on the Tuola that the Thervings are planning something sorcerous farther up the river than his galleys can go.” She waited to hear what he would say next.

He frowned in thought. “Is this Grus a good officer?”

“Lepturus keeps track of such people. He says Grus is very clever,” Queen Certhia answered. “Lepturus says he may be too clever for his own good, but no doubt he’s able.”

“Would you have known that if Lepturus hadn’t told you?” Lanius asked.

His mother looked impatient. “Really, Lanius, you can’t expect me to keep track of all the officers who serve you.”

“Why not?” Lanius asked in genuine surprise. “You’re the head of the Council of Regents now. That means you might as well be King of Avornis. You should know these men.”

“Never mind that,” Certhia said. “I do know Grus now, thanks to Lepturus. What do you think we ought to do, supposing this report is true?”

“That’s the place everyone expects Dagipert to attack anyhow, just because our ships can’t help stop the Thervings there,” Lanius replied. “We ought to do everything we can to hold him back.”

Certhia gave him an odd look. “Did someone tell you to say that? One of your bodyguards, maybe? Or your tutor?”

“No, Mother,” Lanius replied. “I figured it out for myself. It looks pretty obvious, doesn’t it?”

For some reason he couldn’t fathom, that only made his mother’s expression odder. “How old are you?” she asked, and held up her hand before he could answer. “No, never mind—I know you’re eleven. But you don’t talk like you’re eleven. You talk like a man who’s my age, or maybe twice my age.”

“I just talk the way I talk,” Lanius said.

“I know,” Queen Certhia said. It didn’t sound like praise, or not altogether like praise. After a moment, she went on, “Lepturus gave me the same advice you did—that we go out and face the Thervings there in the foothills with everything we have.”

“Will you take it?” Lanius asked.

She nodded. “Yes. Lepturus will lead the army out of the city of Avornis. As head of the regency, I’m going with them.”

“I should come, too,” Lanius exclaimed. “I’m the king, after all.” Even if I can’t do anything much, he added to himself.

“Your coming along is fine if we win,” his mother said. “But what if we lose? What if King Dagipert gets his hands on you?”

“I suppose I’d have to marry his silly daughter,” Lanius said, which struck him as all too close to a fate worse than death. Other than that, though, falling into Dagipert’s hands didn’t worry him all that much. He’d been in someone else’s hands—one someone’s or another’s—ever since his father died. He didn’t like it, but he was used to it. And besides… “With me there, the soldiers will know they’d better not lose.”

“I want you to stay here safe in the city of Avornis,” Queen Certhia answered, and nothing Lanius could say to her would make her change her mind.

Nothing Lanius could say to her… After his mother left— stalked out of his bedchamber, really—the King of Avornis sent a servant to Lepturus, asking if the commander of the royal bodyguard would come and see him. Lepturus came at once. “You don’t ask me to come see you, Your Majesty,” he said after making his bows. “You tell me to come see you. That’s what being king is all about, you know.”

“No, I don’t know anything of the sort,” Lanius answered. “How should I?”

Lepturus grunted laughter. “Well, you’ll find out, Your Majesty. By the gods, you will. When you say ‘Hop,’ you’ll never see so many hop toads as go up in the air for you. Won’t be so very long, either.”

Lanius remembered that for the rest of his days, even though his coming of age seemed much further away to him than it did to Lepturus.

The guards commander asked, “What can I do for you, Your Majesty? You just name it. If it’s in my power, it’s yours.”

That was what Lanius wanted to hear. He said, “When you march against King Dagipert and the Thervings, take me along with you.”

“What?” Lepturus rumbled, his eyes widening. Lanius repeated himself. Grown-ups, he’d noticed, had trouble hearing, or at least trouble listening. Lepturus heard him out for the second time, and then asked, “Why do you want to do a thing like that?”

“Because I’m the King of Avornis, and that’s what the King of Avornis is supposed to do.” Lanius sounded very sure. He explained why. “I’ve read it in books, you see.”

“But the books don’t say anything about what happens when the King of Avornis is only eleven years old,” Lepturus said.

“Well, if I were bigger, I could fight better, but I don’t think one soldier more or less would make a lot of difference about whether we win or lose,” Lanius said. “Do you, Lepturus?”

With a chuckle, Lepturus shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose so. Tell me, though, Your Majesty, what’s your mother got to say about all this?”

“She says, ‘No!’ She says, ‘Heavens, no!’ ” King Lanius answered. “That’s why I called you—to see if I could get you to change her mind.”

“She heads the regency council now. She doesn’t have to change her mind for anybody,” Lepturus said, and Lanius nodded unhappily. Lepturus went on, “I don’t know that she ought to change her mind here, either, meaning no disrespect to you.”

“Wouldn’t the soldiers fight better if they knew the king shared danger with them?” Lanius asked. The books said things worked that way.

And Lepturus didn’t laugh, or chuckle, or even smile. He just rubbed his bearded chin and looked thoughtful. “They might,” he admitted. “They just might.”

Lanius leaned forward. “Will you talk to my mother, then?” His heart thudded in excitement.

Lepturus rubbed his chin some more. At last, slowly, he nodded. “I might,” he said. “I just might.”

Aboard the Otter, Grus waited for trouble. It hadn’t come yet. What had come was a message from the city of Avornis that astounded everyone aboard, from him down to the juniormost sailor.

“King Lanius is leading the army against the Thervings.” Nicator still sounded disbelieving.

“Maybe there’s more to him than meets the eye,” Grus said.

“He’s a boy. There could hardly be less to him than meets the eye, now could there?” Nicator answered.

“He’s a boy, but he’s the King of Avornis,” Grus said.

“He’s the King of Avornis, but he’s a boy,” Nicator retorted.

“If he carried the Scepter of Mercy, how old he is wouldn’t matter,” Grus said.

Nicator scowled. “There weren’t any Thervings in the mountains the last time a King of Avornis wielded the Scepter of Mercy. The Banished One stole it before they filtered off the plains to the east.”

“I know that. Everybody knows that, the same way everybody knows the Banished One can’t use the Scepter of Mercy.”

“Sending a little boy into the field isn’t the way to make up for not having it,” Nicator said.

“How do you know he was sent?” Grus said. “Maybe he wanted to go.”

“Not likely,” Nicator disagreed. “I wouldn’t want to go face the Thervings when King Dagipert’s feeling testy. Neither would anybody else in his right mind—and if Lanius does, he likely isn’t in his right mind.”

“Well, if you put what you’re trying to show into what you claim, that does make arguing easier,” Grus said, more annoyed at Nicator than he usually let himself get.

Before the veteran could answer back, a watchman called out and pointed to the bank of the Tuola, where a ragged-looking fellow who might have been either an Avornan or a Therving stood waving by a horse on its last legs. At least he’s not a soul-dead thrall, Grus thought, and ordered the Otter to a halt. He hailed the stranger. “Who are you, and what do you want with us?”

“I’m Count Corax, by the gods,” the ragged man replied, as though Grus were supposed to know who he was. And, in case Grus didn’t, he went on, “I’m just back from a mission to the Heruls, on the far side of the Bantian Mountains.”

“Ah,” Grus said, and called an urgent order to his sailors. “Man the boat and bring him aboard.”

As they hurried to obey, one of them asked, “What about the horse, Skipper?”

“If you can get it onto the boat without any trouble, fine,” Grus answered. “If you can’t, too bad. I don’t think Corax there will miss it.”

Sure enough, the horse stayed behind. Corax scrambled up from the boat onto the river galley. No matter how ragged he looked, he carried himself like an Avornan noble, sure enough—one of the arrogant type. He looked at the Otter as though it were as much his to command as the horse had been.

“Take me to the city of Avornis, so I may speak to the regents at once,” he said.

Grus shook his head. “Sorry, Your Excellency, but I can’t do it.”

Count Corax turned red. Grus got the idea he wasn’t used to hearing people say no. “Why not?” he demanded.

“For one thing, I’m on war patrol,” Grus answered. “I can take you to the nearest town and put you on a better horse than the one you had, but that’s it. And, for another, the regents aren’t—or at least Queen Certhia isn’t—at the city of Avornis.”

“Well, where are they?” Corax asked. “Wherever it is, you have to take me there right away.” He looked set to add, Now hop to it, gods curse you, but somehow held back.

“I can’t do that, either,” Grus said.

“Well, what in creation can you do?” Count Corax barked.

“I can tell you that Queen Certhia has taken the field against the Thervings,” Grus replied. “I can tell you that King Lanius is in the field, too. And I can do what I said I’d do before that—I can take you to the next town and put you on a horse. The army is covering territory river galleys can’t reach.”

Corax swore. He kept on swearing for the next several minutes, hardly seeming to draw breath and not repeating himself once. At last, he calmed down enough for a coherent sentence. “I need to see the queen this instant.”

“I do understand that it’s important, Your Excellency,” Grus said. “I’m doing the best I can for you.”

“It isn’t good enough,” Corax snarled.

“Tell me, Your Excellency, are you by any chance related to Count Corvus?” Grus asked.

Corax blinked. “He’s my brother. Why do you ask? Do you know him? I don’t recall hearing that he knows you.” Suspicion filled his voice.

“We met once, a long time ago,” Grus said. “And I’ve heard a lot about him.” None of what he’d heard was good. And Corax sounded as hard and unpleasant as his brother.

One thing Corax couldn’t do was take a hint. “I should hope you’ve heard about him,” he said. “All of Avornis should know about us.” The Otter’s bow dipped. He grabbed for the rail.

“I’m sure all of Avornis will.” Grus didn’t mean it as a compliment, but Corax didn’t need to know that.

Nicator asked, “What about the Heruls?”

“What business of yours are they?” The nobleman looked down his nose at the river-galley officer.

“Well, if I’m going to fight me a war, I’d sort of like to know how big a war I’m fighting,” Nicator answered. “If the Heruls will pitch into Thervingia, King Dagipert can’t hit us near as hard as he can if they sit on their hands.”

Corax weighed a sardonic reply. Grus reluctantly gave him credit for deciding against it. The envoy did say, “You need to worry less than you may have thought you did.”

“Oh, I always worry,” Nicator said. “But you’re right—the thing is, how much?”

Grus always worried, too. He was more imaginative than Nicator, and so found more things to worry about. A kingdom full of bad-tempered, haughty nobles like Corax and Corvus came to mind. They could do whatever they pleased, especially when the King of Avornis was weak. How many men, all through the realm, were busy lining their pockets because nobody was keeping an eye on them? The answer was, too many.

When he let Corax off the Otter at the town of Veteres the next day, the noble started screaming at the people there to get him a horse and get out of his way. Grus looked at Nicator. “You see?” he said. “He’s like that with everybody.”

Even before Count Corax galloped off to the northwest, Grus had the Otter heading back out toward midstream to resume his patrol. He took war patrol duties seriously. And he needed to. That very afternoon, another horseman came galloping down to the riverbank. This fellow had a bloody bandage on one arm and an arrow sticking out of the saddle behind him. “The Thervings!” he cried. “The Thervings are over the border!”

“Really?” Grus murmured. “I never would have guessed.”

King Lanius hadn’t known what to expect from life in the field. It was, he realized, much less of a hardship for him than for the Avornan soldiers. His tent could have held a couple of squads of them. He didn’t suppose they got the same food he aid, either.

On the other hand, none of them had a tutor accompanying him to war. Lanius wouldn’t have minded, or didn’t think he would have minded, trading books for a sword. But the tutor wasn’t so harsh a taskmaster as usual. He kept looking around, eyes wide and frightened. At last, Lanius asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong now, Your Majesty,” the man answered. “But many more things can go wrong here than they can back at the royal palace.”

For a while, Lanius enjoyed looking at the countryside. He rarely left the palace, and up till now he’d never gone outside the city of Avornis. But after a few days, the landscape began to pall. It was, after all, just a landscape—little villages and farmhouses and fields and meadows, some with sheep or cattle or horses in them, and groves and patches of forest and streams and ponds and, rising in the distance, the Bantian Mountains. Lanius began to wish he were home, especially as the terrain grew more rugged and the going slowed.

He made the mistake of saying as much to his mother. “Shall I send you back to the city, then?” Queen Certhia asked eagerly.

He shook his head. “No, thank you. I still want to see what happens.”

“People kill each other,” Certhia said. “Do you think you’ll learn something, watching all the different ways they can die?”

“Yes, Mother, I do,” he answered. Certhia gave him an annoyed look and waved him out of her pavilion, which was even larger and fancier than his.

The rough country from which Avornis’ famous Nine Rivers sprang was interesting, but only for a little while. As the flat-lands had, hills and gorse and heather and bushes for which he had no names soon lost their appeal. Then a rider came galloping out of the southeast as though he had demons on his tail. He shouted for Queen Certhia and for Lepturus, and closeted himself away with them when they met him.

Again, Lanius’ mother wouldn’t tell him what was going on. Again, the commander of the royal bodyguards proved more willing to talk. “That’s Count Corax who just came into camp,” he said when he emerged. “He’s back from a trip to the other side of the mountains. Bet you can’t guess why.”

“To incite the Heruls against the Thervings?” Lanius asked.

Lepturus jerked in surprise. “Well, I guess I should have known better than to say something like that to you, Your Majesty. Still, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you know?”

“It’s the kind of thing Avornis does, whenever we have someone who thinks of it,” Lanius answered. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. That’s what I’ve read, anyhow.”

“Oh,” Lepturus said, and then, “Me, I don’t have a whole lot of book learning.”

“It’s all I have,” Lanius said. “How could I have anything else, when I’ve never been out of the city of Avornis before?”

“Now that you are out, what do you think of the countryside?” the guards commander asked.

“Not much,” Lanius answered. “I like the royal palace a lot better.”

Lepturus threw back his head and laughed. “Well, you’re honest about it, anyway.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” Lanius asked.

“No reason, Your Majesty. No reason at—” Before Lepturus could finish, horns blared and men started shouting his name. He hurried out of the royal pavilion. Over his shoulder, he said, “Sorry to go like this, but sounds like somebody just dropped a pot. I get to pick up the pieces.” The tent flap fell behind him. He was gone.

With his mother still talking things over with Count Corax, there was no one to tell Lanius he couldn’t step outside his pavilion and see what was going on. Horsemen and foot soldiers hurried north and west in a steady stream. The guards by his tent, though, didn’t leave. If they had, it would have been treason. Lanius asked one of them, “Where are all the soldiers going?”

“Off to fight, Your Majesty. Off to fight,” the guardsman answered.

“Are the Thervings over there, then?”

“That’s right,” the fellow said. “But we’ll lick ’em. You can count on that.”

Lanius didn’t just want to count on it. He wanted to see it for himself. If he hadn’t come here to see a battle, what was the point to this long, dull, uncomfortable journey? He pointed in the direction the soldiers were going. “Fetch my pony,” he told the guards. “I’m heading that way myself.”

Queen Certhia would have said no. (Actually, Lanius was sure his mother would have had hysterics before saying no.) Lepturus would have said no, too. But Certhia was busy with Corax, and Lepturus was busy with the army. That left it up to the bodyguards. They were young men themselves. When they grinned at one another, Lanius knew he had a chance. When one of them hurried off to get the pony, he knew he’d won his gamble.

He was on the pony’s back and riding in the direction everyone else was going in less time than it takes to tell about it. The guardsmen clustered round him. They hadn’t forgotten their duty, even if they’d interpreted it in a way that would have made his mother blanch.

“The king! The king! Look, it’s the king! He’s come to fight along with us!” Soldiers stared at Lanius and pointed his way. Then they began to cheer. The cheers spread through the whole army, getting louder and deeper as they did.

By then, Lanius was only a little way behind the battle line that was taking shape on what looked to have been a field of barley. “I think this here’s just about far enough,” one of his bodyguards said. The others nodded. It was high ground. Beyond the Avornan soldiers, Lanius watched another line of battle forming. The sun glinted from the Thervings’ helmets and spear-points. Their horn signals, thin in the distance, sounded not much different from those Avornan trumpeters used.

“What are you doing here?” someone behind Lanius demanded: Lepturus.

“That’s, ‘What are you doing here, Your Majesty?’ ” Lanius replied in his haughtiest tones.

Those tones didn’t work. “Don’t get smart with me, sonny, or you’ll find you’re not too big to get your bottom warmed,” Lepturus said. “Now answer me—what are you doing here?”

“I came to see the battle,” Lanius said, much more quietly.

The guard commander’s gaze raked the men who’d let Lanius come so far from the pavilion. They all looked as though they wished they could disappear. “I’ll deal with you later,”

Lepturus said, and they looked unhappier yet. Lepturus turned back to King Lanius. “This isn’t a game, Your Majesty. The men who die will stay dead when it’s over. The men who hurt will go on hurting. The same goes for the horses. It’s worse for them, I think—they have no idea why these things happen to them, and all the loot they can hope for is a few mouthfuls of grass.”

“I understand that,” Lanius said, though he wasn’t sure he did. “I want to see it.”

As he had back at the pavilion, Lepturus got interrupted, this time by roars first from the Thervings and then from the Avornans. The two armies started moving toward each other. Lepturus looked very unhappy indeed. “Well, you’re going to get your wish, Your Majesty, on account of I haven’t got time to deal with you right now. But I’ll tell you something—if you get killed, I’m going to be very annoyed at you.” He hurried away, leaving Lanius to chew on that.

“Don’t you worry none, Your Majesty,” said one of the guardsmen who’d brought him forward. “Nothing’s going to happen to you. We’ll make sure of that.”

His comrades nodded. Lanius wondered what would happen to a bodyguard who let something happen to him. Nothing pretty, he suspected.

Less than a quarter of a mile ahead, the Avornan army collided with King Dagipert’s Thervings. Lanius hadn’t expected the noise to be so dreadful. It sounded as though a hundred palace servants had dropped trays full of bowls and goblets and all started screaming about it at once. But it didn’t end in a matter of moments, as dropped trays would have done. It went on and on and on.

An Avornan came staggering back out of the fighting. Blood splashed his coat of mail and his breeches. More blood dribbled out through his left hand, which was clenched around his right. In eerily conversational tones, he said, “Two fingers gone. Just like that, two fingers gone.”

Lanius gulped. His belly churned. He’d come out to see the Avornan army triumph. Watching a mutilated man, standing close enough to smell the hot, metallic odor of the blood the fellow was losing, wasn’t what he’d had in mind. I will not be sick, he told himself sternly. By Olor’s beard, I won’t. One of his guards pointed toward the surgeons. The wounded soldier stumbled away. He still sounded as though he couldn’t believe what had happened to him. Lanius wished he couldn’t believe it, either.

The fighting came closer. The Thervings were pushing the royal army back. An arrow thudded into the ground about twenty feet in front of Lanius. A guard said, “Beg your pardon, Your Majesty, but if them bastards—uh, beg your pardon again—get any nearer, we’re going to have to move you back.”

“All right,” Lanius said, and all the guards looked relieved. He didn’t want to fall into Dagipert’s hands. The idea of marrying Romilda terrified him. He was much more afraid of that than of getting hurt or killed. Death wasn’t real to him. Injury hadn’t been—not till he saw the man with the ruined hand. But having to spend the rest of his life with a girl —if that wasn’t horror, he didn’t know what was.

More bloodied Avornans came back past him, some under their own power, others helped by friends. A few of them, seeing who he was, saluted or called out his name. Most, lost in a private wilderness of pain, paid him no attention.

Lightning struck from a clear sky, right in the middle of the Thervings’ line. The thunderclap staggered Lanius. Lurid purple afterimages danced in front of his eyes when he blinked. A guardsman said, “Oh, good! Our wizards aren’t asleep after all.”

Another bolt struck, and another. The Thervings staggered back. The Avornans surged forward after them. “King Lanius!” they shouted. “King Lanius and victory!”

“How’s that, Your Majesty?” a bodyguard asked.

It was heady, sure enough. Queen Certhia kept an eye on what Lanius ate and drank, but every once in a while he got enough wine to feel a little drunk. This reminded him of that, but even better. Still, he couldn’t help asking a question of his own. “What will the Thervings’ wizards do?”

He didn’t have to wait long to find out. Flames shot up from the ground. As Lanius had heard soldiers calling out his name, so he also heard them scream as the fire engulfed them. To his relief, they didn’t scream long.

“That’s a foul magic,” one of the guardsmen said. “If lightning hits you, you’re gone, just like that.” He snapped his fingers. “But fire? Fire makes you suffer.”

All at once, the flames died. Another bodyguard said, “Our wizards are awake today.” Still shouting Lanius’ name, Avornan soldiers forced their way forward again.

The Thervings fought stubbornly. From everything Lanius had read about them, they usually did. No matter how stubbornly they fought, they had to give ground. At last, with the sun halfway down the sky in the west, they withdrew from the field. A fierce rear guard kept the Avornans from turning a victory into a rout.

But it was a victory. Soldiers gathered around King Lanius, cheering till they were hoarse. Lepturus came up and asked him, “What do you think of that? Plenty of grown men, they’d give their left nut to have people shout for ’em this way.”

Lanius beckoned to the commander of his bodyguards. Lepturus obediently leaned close. In a low voice, Lanius said, “I think I’d sooner be back at the palace.”

Lepturus laughed. “Well, Your Majesty, can’t say I’m too surprised. But we won, so it was worthwhile.”

Ravens and vultures had already started squabbling over the corpses lying on the field. Wounded men’s groans rose into the air. Dejected Therving prisoners, hands bound, stood under guard. Relatives might ransom a few nobles. The others faced hard labor the rest of their lives. “Was it?” Lanius asked.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Lepturus answered. “Bad as this is, it’d be four times worse if we’d done our best and the Thervings licked us anyway.”

After some thought, Lanius sighed. “Maybe,” he said, and then, “What did Count Corax tell my mother? Will the Heruls bother King Dagipert, too?”

“I think so.” Lepturus looked up. “But here she comes. You can ask her yourself.”

Queen Certhia didn’t give Lanius the chance. She came up to him and hugged him. Under cover of that hug, she whispered, “You don’t know how foolish you were, or how much danger you were in there.”

“It worked out all right, Mother,” Lanius answered. “We won.”

“You didn’t know we were going to,” his mother said. “You should never have come on this campaign in the first place.”

“But I did,” Lanius said. “I did, and we won.”