The Devil's armour

37

Thorin Glass had two sons and two daughters he had not seen in almost two decades. There was also a wife, Romonde, whom he had deeply loved and who, regardless of the nights he’d spent in Jazana Carr’s bed, he had never truly forgotten. Thorin had long ago lost hope that Romonde was alive and supposed that she, at least, would not have to endure Jazana Carr’s promised revenge. Still, Thorin worried often over his sons and daughters. After his imprisonment the world had thought him dead, and so Thorin believed his children had scattered to the winds, especially in the aftermath of Liiria’s demise. Despite all the magical things he had seen in Grimhold, he never really had faith in seeing any of his children again. And that was why, more than any other reason, Breck’s news had shocked him so.

At first Thorin felt nothing at all. He was simply numb. Breck had told him that Aric was well and living in the library, and all Thorin could do was stare dumbly with his mouth agape. His son was nearly twenty now and an asset to their army, Breck pointed out. He had remained in Koth his entire life, and when the call had gone out for men to defend the city, Aric had volunteered. The statement made a lump rise in Thorin’s throat, the first of many emotions that would dazzle him over that night and coming day. Neither Breck nor Vanlandinghale could offer him more information, however. Aric, they told him, was notoriously tight-lipped about the rest of his family.

‘He’s embarrassed because you abandoned them,’ Breck had explained. ‘He’s known since meeting me that you are alive.’

That night, Baron Glass had gone to a shabby little chamber in the library and had not emerged again till morning. There were not many rooms left within the building, most already occupied by soldiers or staff, but the men who gave it up for him did so gladly once they discovered his identity. His arrival was too big a thing to keep secret, Breck warned him. Aric would find out very soon.

Thorin hardly slept at all that night as he waited for his son to knock on his door. He had taken off the Devil’s Armour finally, wearing only the components of his missing arm. Thorin never removed those pieces now. To do so not only rendered him with one arm again; it also severed his powerful link with Kahldris. There were two cots in the room, across one of which Thorin gently laid his armour. The other he kept for himself, resting his tired body as he waited for Aric to arrive.

Aric never did.

The only visitor was Vanlandinghale, who brought some clothes for him and some plain food, leaving it on the table before departing. Thorin could not help but wonder what the young lieutenant thought of him, or what the rest of them were saying now. Mostly, though, he thought of Aric. He had a picture in his mind of the last time he had seen his son, a tot of three years with a fresh face and unkempt hair that no amount of spittle could keep in place. His brother Nial was the older of the two; the twin girls older still. Aric was the youngest, and the perfect picture of him had not faded from Thorin’s memory.

Remarkably, Kahldris did not speak to Thorin the entire night. Though Thorin could feel the Akari’s presence, Kahldris was strangely silent, letting him brood without advice or judgement. Thorin was grateful for the spirit’s silence. Day by day, the creature Minikin had warned him against was becoming more and more his companion. He was even trustworthy. It seemed to Thorin that only Kahldris truly grasped his angst and pain. Perhaps it was because Kahldris himself had been a military man, and had probably lost his own family to war. Kahldris, Thorin decided, understood him.

By the next morning, Thorin had tired of his cramped quarters and his own dismal company. Attiring himself again in his armour — mostly because he feared it being stolen — he went down to the yards where the horses were kept, leaving shortly before sunrise so he wouldn’t be seen. A handful of boys slept in the hay, but when he bellowed for them they came running, hurrying to ready his horse and watching him with awe. Thorin could not help that other soldiers had already seen him, and as he passed them in the yards he wondered if any of them were Aric. Still, he made no attempt to speak to any of them. He simply rode out of the yards and down Library Hill, into the waiting heart of Koth.

Purposely avoiding the busy avenues along Capital Street, Thorin rode instead around the shops and taverns into Chancellery Square. Just as he had seen it from the hillside, he noticed again how much it had changed. In the distance rose Lionkeep, where he had spent hours arguing with King Akeela and his father before him. An eerie quiet palled the square, long abandoned now. Thorin trotted slowly along the parade grounds, pitted by horse hooves and littered with broken bits of lances and spears. The great government buildings had long been left to ruin, and if Thorin listened hard enough he could hear the ghosts of his long-gone friends, the noblemen of Liiria who had made their country great. Once, the square had been filled with busy civil servants and scheming bankers. Now all of them were gone, and the void they left was like the sudden emptiness in Thorin’s heart.

Finally, he neared the House of Dukes. Most of the grand building still stood, though it was badly decayed. This was the place he had missed the most, where he had led his fellow landowners and where his voice held sway. Thorin stared up at the beautiful tower of grey stone and tarnished silver leaf, and for a moment could not move. His horse fidgeted beneath him. The quiet of the parade ground unnerved him. .

Until he heard a sound.

Another horse was approaching. Following him. Thorin did not turn around. He knew without looking who had trailed him and why. A sweat broke out on his brow. Even the armour could not protect him from this confrontation.

‘Easy,’ he whispered, patting the neck of his mount. He waited in the shadow of the House of Dukes as the rider drew nearer. What would Aric look like, he wondered?

At last the rider drew up next to him. Thorin hesitated before turning, but the corner of his eye confirmed his suspicion. Aric Glass — his son — wore the uniform of a Royal Charger, complete with hat and cape. Though he had never seen him as a man, he was easily recognisable.

‘I followed you,’ said the young man finally. His voice was calm but sad. ‘The others told me you had ridden off. I should have guessed you’d come here.’

Thorin Glass looked at his son and was pleased. Aric had grown into a handsome young man, with the same dark, cowlicked hair.

‘I waited for you last night,’ said Thorin. ‘You didn’t come.’

‘I needed time to think on what I’d say to you.’

‘And now you’ve had your time.’ Thorin nodded at his son. ‘Speak.’

Aric Glass had an innocent face, the kind more suited to a poet than a soldier. There was a remarkable lack of anger in his expression, but tremendous confusion, too. He said, ‘I can’t believe you came back. After all these years I can’t believe it.’

‘I came back because I finally could,’ said Thorin. ‘And to protect you.’

‘You didn’t even know I was alive,’ sneered Aric. ‘And the only reason you came back is because you missed having Liiria under your thumb. Well, those days are gone, Father.’ He looked Thorin up and down. ‘I know about your special armour. Breck told me about it. You think it makes you strong. Maybe it does. But I know the truth. I know you would have never come back without it.’

‘Aye, the armour makes me strong. And yes, I was weak before I found it. Too weak to come back for you and the others. .’

‘Damn it, stop now,’ blasted Aric. ‘You were alive all those years. You could have come back any time, but you preferred the bed of that harlot, Jazana Carr.’

‘I could not come back,’ Thorin argued. ‘Not while Akeela was alive. If he had ever known I still lived he would have found you all and killed you. By the time he was dead I was an old man, and I didn’t know where any of you were, or even if you were still alive.’ Thorin looked at Aric hopefully. ‘Will you at least tell me that?’

‘The others are gone,’ said Aric bitterly. ‘Mother died ten years ago.’

The news staggered Thorin. Knowing Aric wouldn’t believe his grief, he pretended there was none. ‘What about Nial and the girls?’

‘I don’t know. They left Liiria years ago, as soon as they could. Akeela stopped keeping an eye on us after you were gone. Tesia and Jaynil both married and went east. I never heard from them again.’

‘And Nial?’

‘Same thing maybe. Maybe dead.’ Aric spoke with effort. ‘Only mother stayed in Koth. Nial headed north to Jerikor when he was sixteen. They all thought you were dead. I thought so too until I met Breck. He told me you were alive and that he’d spoken to you in Norvor.’

‘That’s true,’ said Thorin, remembering his meeting with Breck in Hanging Man. ‘I’m glad he didn’t lie to you. I’m glad at least one of you knew I was still alive.’ He tried to smile at his son. ‘You look good in that uniform.’

‘Please, don’t tell me I look the way you once did,’ Aric groaned. ‘That’s the kind of compliment a man doesn’t need, to be told he looks like a traitor. That’s what everyone thinks, you know. Even Breck.’

‘You can all think what you like and be damned,’ Thorin thundered. ‘I came back to protect Liiria, with or without the blessings of you whelps. But I will say that I am proud of you, Aric. You may not care to hear it, but I’m proud you stayed in Koth to defend her. That was something I could never do, but believe it or not I wanted to.’

The sorrow on Aric’s face deepened. ‘I want to believe you,’ he said. ‘When Breck told me you’d returned I thought it was impossible, that you’d never come back because you didn’t care about anything but yourself. And now you wear that armour. .’ He grimaced at the frightful suit. ‘To me it seems an accursed thing. Only a man who craves power would wield such a weapon. And to be truthful, I see that in your eyes.’

Thorin frowned; it was the second time in as many days someone had said that to him. He reminded himself that it was strength they saw in his eyes, the great force of Kahldris and nothing more or less.

‘You may hate me if you wish,’ he said. ‘I know the failure I was as a father. You have reason to hate me, Aric. I won’t ask for your love. But I tell you the truth, and if there is trust in you I will take that instead.’

Aric’s gaze lingered on Thorin’s enchanted arm. ‘I remember your stump,’ he said almost blithely. ‘It used to scare me when I was a boy. Now that arm of yours scares me more. How can such a thing be?’

‘How does the sun rise in the morning? Why do the rains come in spring? I don’t know, Aric. And I can’t explain this magic any better. It is the way things are in Grimhold. It’s a gift. That’s what they call it, at least.’

‘A gift?’ Aric frowned at the armour. ‘Such a gift should be refused, I think.’

‘Some others think that, too,’ said Thorin, remembering Minikin’s warnings. ‘But to refuse it would be Koth’s doom. Without it we could never beat Jazana Carr.’

Aric looked at his father strangely. ‘What is she like? Jazana Carr, I mean. You spent all that time with her. Was she really so much better than my mother?’

‘No,’ said Thorin, stung by the question. ‘Your mother was a fine woman. Jazana Carr was a convenience to me.’

‘I don’t believe you. No man would spend so long with a woman he didn’t love.’ Aric pressed his father with a longing glare. ‘You did love her, didn’t you?’

Seeing the hurt in Aric’s face, Thorin sounded a diplomatic note. ‘Once, perhaps, but it is done with, boy. We are enemies now.’ Then, a different thought occurred to him. ‘Is that why you’re here? Because you hate her so for loving me, and me for loving her?’

‘I came to defend Koth,’ Aric said. ‘I didn’t even know you were alive when I came here.’

‘Aye, but you’ve stayed. Other men have fled Koth. They’ve left the city like rats. And more will do the same once they see her armies coming. But not you. That’s what I see in your eyes, Aric. I see a hunger for revenge.’

‘She is the woman that destroyed me,’ Aric confessed. ‘If not for her you might have come back sooner.’

For the first time, Thorin had the urge to touch his son. A simple hand on the shoulder would have said so much — yet he could not make his hand move.

‘Do you think we can beat her?’ asked Aric. ‘I mean really — do we have any chance at all?’

‘We’ll beat her,’ Thorin assured him. ‘Have no doubt, boy. There’s not a blade been forged that can harm me now. And with the rest of you behind me. . well, no army of hers will stand a chance.’

The words bolstered Aric, who at last smiled. ‘Then I’m glad you’ve come back. . Father.’

Thorin’s pride soared. This good man before him was his son. Without a word he reached out and — bridging the great ford between them — clasped his armoured hand on Aric’s waiting shoulder.