The Sum of All Men

13 Pragmatic King Orden

Thirty miles to the south of Castle Sylvarresta, a high rock called Tor Hollick rose four hundred feet above the Dunnwood, and from its crags one could gaze far.

Once, long in the past, a fortress had stood here, but few of the stones remained one atop another. Many had been carried away to build walls for peasants' homes.

King Mendellas Draken Orden sat uncomfortably on a broken, lichen-crusted pillar, staring away over the rolling hills, the tops of trees that stirred in the night wind. His cape of green samite fluttered on the small breeze. A cup of too-sweet tea warmed his hands. In the air above him, a pair of nesting graaks circled on leather wings, calling out softly in the darkness, their batlike shapes huge against the stars.

King Orden ignored them, his attention focused elsewhere. A fire burned on a distant hill. Castle Sylvarresta aflame?

Orden found the very thought to be harrowing. It was more than a pain of the heart, it was a pain of the mind and of the soul. Over the years, he'd learned to love this realm and its king dearly. Perhaps, he loved it too dearly. He was riding now into danger.

According to Orden's scouts, Raj Ahten had reached the castle by midday. The Wolf Lord could have mounted a quick attack, burned the castle.

On seeing the glowing sky, Orden feared the worst.

Two thousand troops camped in the woods below his perch. His men were exhausted after a day of riding at an incredible pace. Borenson had raced to his king after leaving Gaborn. A hard flight it had been—Borenson had left four assassins dead in his trail.

King Orden found his heart hammering at the thought of his son, there in that burning castle. He wanted to send a spy in and learn where Gaborn was, how he'd fared. He wanted to charge the castle and save his son. Such useless thoughts preyed on him. He would have stood and paced, if his rocky perch had given him the room.

No, he could do nothing except grow angry at Gaborn. So foolhardy, such a strong-willed boy. And yet so hopelessly stupid. Did the boy really believe Raj Ahten sought to take only the castle? Surely Raj Ahten knew that Orden journeyed each year to Castle Sylvarresta for the hunt. And the key to destroying the North was to destroy House Orden.

No, this entire escapade was little more than a trap. A lion hunt, in the manner of the South, with beaters in the bushes and the spearmen somewhere in the rear. Clever of Raj Ahten to beat the bushes, to take Castle Sylvarresta as a distraction. Orden had already sent scouts to the south and to the east, hoping to discover what spearmen blocked his road home. Surely every path was guarded. If Raj Ahten played his part well, he might yet destroy House Orden and take Heredon in the bargain. King Orden expected to hear nothing from his scouts for a day or more.

It was foolhardy of Gaborn to go to Sylvarresta. Foolhardy and great of heart.

Yet King Orden had long been Sylvarresta's friend, and he knew that had the tables been turned, had he been the first to hear that Jas Laren Sylvarresta stood in need, he'd have ridden hard to fight beside his old comrade.

Now Orden had to satisfy himself by watching the city burn from afar, awaiting reports from the scouts who rode ahead. He had six scouts on good force horses. It would not be a long wait. Though his soldiers and their horses needed rest, Mendellas would not sleep this night, perhaps not for many nights to come. With some forty endowments of stamina, he need never sleep again, if he did not so desire.

Certainly, Raj Ahten would not sleep tonight.

On the rock above him sat Orden's Days, and his son's. King Orden looked up at the men, wondering. Why did Gaborn's Days not go to him? If Gaborn was at Castle Sylvarresta, then the Days should follow. He'd know if another Days spotted Gaborn. Or perhaps Gaborn's whereabouts did not matter. Perhaps his son was captured, or dead?

As he kept his slow watch over the next hour, letting his mind drift and dream, he considered his own defenses at home. King Orden sometimes had...impressions...of danger, felt the presence of reavers on his southern border. As a child, his father had told him that these impressions were the heritage of kings, a birthright. He considered now, but felt nothing.

He wondered about the fortresses on his borders. Were they secure?

A scout soon reached King Orden with news. Sylvarresta had indeed fallen—captured at sunset without a fight.

Worse than Orden had feared. At that news, King Orden took a lacquered oak message case that had been tucked inside his belt. It was a message to King Sylvarresta, sealed with the signet of the Duke of Longmont.

King Orden's scouts had intercepted Longmot's messenger at dawn, if “intercepted” was the proper word. More particularly, Orden's scout had found the man dead, his corpse concealed in the brush beside the road, killed by an assassin's arrow. Orden's scouts would not have recovered the message box if not for the stink of the body.

The countryside was crawling with assassins, set along the road in pairs.

Under normal circumstances, Orden would have respected the privacy of the parties involved, would have delivered the message case to Sylvarresta himself. But Sylvarresta had fallen, and Orden worried that Longmont had sent word of evil tidings. Perhaps it, too, was besieged. It was, next to Castle Sylvarresta, the most defensible fortress in all Heredon. Though nineteen other fortifications dotted the kingdom, they guarded smaller cities and villages. Five of the fortresses were only minor keeps.

So King Orden broke the wax seal on the message case, pulled out the fine yellow parchment scroll, unrolled it, and read by starlight. The flowing script was obviously written by a feminine hand, but had been written hastily, with words crossed out:

To His Most Rightful Sovereign King, Jas Laren Sylvarresta: All Honor and Good Cheer Wishes, from His Most Devoted Subject, The Duchess Emmadine Ot Laren

Dearest Uncle: You are betrayed. Unbeknown to me, my husband has sold you, permitting Raj Ahten's forces to move through the Dunnwood. Apparently, my husband hoped to rule as regent in your stead, should Heredon fall.

But Raj Ahten himself was here two nights ago, with a powerful army. My husband ordered the drawbridge lowered for him, kept our soldiers at bay.

In one long night, Raj Ahten came and took endowments from many. He repaid my husband's treachery with treachery of his own, hanging him by his guts from the iron grates outside the window of his own bedroom.

Raj Ahten knows better than to trust a traitor.

As for me, he treated me badly, using me as only a husband should use his wife. Then he forced me to grant him an endowment of glamour, and he left a regent, some scholars, and a small army to manage the city in his absence.

For two days his regent has tried to suck this land dry, taking endowments by the hundreds. He cares little whether those who give the endowments live or die. So many Dedicates lie heaped in the bailey, no one will be able to care for them. I myself he used as a vector, taking glamour from hundreds of women, while my sons, Wren and Dru, though they are mere children, now vector stamina and grace to the Wolf Lord.

It was not till an hour ago that our own servants and a few guards managed to revolt, overthrowing our tormentors. It was a bloody struggle.

But all was not for nothing. We have captured forty thousand forcibles!

Here, King Orden halted, for his breath suddenly left him. He stood up, began pacing. He felt faint.

Forty thousand forcibles! It was unheard of! In all the Northern kingdoms, not so many endowments had been given in twenty years. Orden glanced up at the pair of Days sitting on the rock above. These men knew that those forcibles were hidden there. By the Powers, Orden wished he knew a hundredth of what the Days must know.

Raj Ahten was a fool to hold such great wealth in one place. Someone would steal those forcibles.

By the Powers, I'll steal them! Orden thought.

Unless it was a trap! Had Raj Ahten really believed he could hold Longmont?

Orden pondered. If one went into a foreign castle, took major endowments from all the royalty, all the finest soldiers, one could supplant one's enemies in a single night, steal their strength and leave them gasping in defeat.

The Duchess had said it was the house servants who managed the revolt—few soldiers. So her soldiers were dead—or drained of endowments. Perhaps it was not a trap.

Raj Ahten had trusted his own men to hold his treasure for him in Longmont—a fine castle, with stunning defenses. What better place to keep so many forcibles? And from there, he would have taken forcibles to Castle Sylvarresta, to drain his enemies. Indeed, he probably already had some in his possession.

King Orden read on:

I trust that these forcibles shall be of great use to you in prosecuting this war. Meanwhile, an occupying army approaches from the south. According to communiqués, it should be here in four days.

I've sent to Groverman and Dreis, requesting aid. I believe we can withstand a siege, with their help.

The Wolf Lord left me no palace guard, no soldiers. Those who have given endowments are vectored to Raj Ahten through my sons.

Raj Ahten is on his way to you in Castle Sylvarresta. I do not believe he can reach you until the night before Hostenfest.

He is dangerous. He has so many endowments of glamour, he shines like the sun. For decades now, Longmont has been home to many vain women, each hoping to be more beautiful than her neighbor. Their beauty is all vectored through me.

I will not uphold your enemies.

In two days, all those who have granted endowments in Longmont shall die by my hand. It grieves me that I must kill my own sons, but only by doing so can I revive enough troops to defend the city.

I've hidden the forcibles. They are buried beneath the turnip field at Bredsfor Manor.

I suspect you will not see me again, not alive. I'm placing Captain Cedrick Tempest, of the palace guard, in temporary command of Longmont.

My husband hangs from his window still, his own intestines serving as a rope for his neck. I will not cut the villain down. If I had known beforehand of his treachery, I'd not have dealt with him so kindly.

I go now, to sharpen a knife. Should I fail, you know what to do.

Your Devoted Niece,

The Duchess Emmadine Ot Laren

Mendellas Orden finished reading the letter, heart hammering, then laid it aside. “You know what to do.” The age-old cry of those forced to serve as vectors: Kill me, if I can't kill myself.

King Orden had often met the Duchess. She'd always struck him as a mousy little lady, too timid for grand deeds.

It took a strong woman to kill herself, her children. Yet King Orden knew that there was a time when one could follow no other course. So, Raj Ahten had vectored the soldiery through the royal family, forced them to grant major endowments, so the soldiers would never be able to fight again-unless the royal family was slaughtered.

The Duchess would have to do her duty, butcher her own children to save the kingdom. It was an evil trade. King Orden only hoped his own son did not fall into Raj Ahten's clutches. Orden imagined that he had the strength to kill his own son, if the need arose.

But he dreaded the deed.

King Orden turned over the letter, read the date. Harvest 19. Written almost two days past, over a hundred miles away.

The Duchess hadn't expected Raj Ahten to reach Castle Sylvarresta until tomorrow. So she planned to kill herself at dawn, before the occupying army arrived.

A pity she hadn't killed herself this morning. Her sacrifice might have done King Sylvarresta some good.

Orden quickly scrawled letters to the Duke of Groverman and the Earl of Dreis—the lords with castles closest to Longmont—begging them both to send aid while at the same time requesting it from neighbors. Though the Duchess had already sought aid from those lords, Orden feared that her messengers might have met the same fate as the man he'd found on the road. To be certain that Dreis and Groverman came, he said bluntly that Raj Ahten had left a hoard of treasure at Longmont.

“Borenson?” King Orden called when he finished. The captain was sitting on the rocks above him, just a few feet below the tangled limbs of the graaks' nest.

“What is it, milord?” he asked, scrambling down to Mendellas' side.

“I have a job for you, a dangerous job.”

“Good!” Borenson said, his voice full of cheer. Borenson dropped beside the King in the starlight. He was a full head taller than the King, his red hair spilling down from under his helm, over his shoulders. It wasn't right for vassals to be so large. He watched the King expectantly.

“I'm taking five hundred men south, to Castle Longmont—right now. A thousand more will follow at dawn. I want you to take five hundred men with you now. Our scouts tell me that a few thousand nomen are in the woods at Castle Sylvarresta. If you ride hard, you can meet them at dawn, outside the castle, and let the men practice their archery.

“Keep your forces in the woods. The Wolf Lord won't dare send reinforcements from the castle if he can't guess your number. If he should attack, retreat gracefully, heading for Longmont. At noon, your men will retreat to Longmont in any case.

“It seems that the Duchess of Longmont has her hands full. Raj Ahten took her castle, stole endowments from hundreds of her people. At dawn she plans to kill herself, and anyone else who is a Dedicate to Raj Ahten. And it seems that she's captured a great treasure. So I must go to relieve her of it. I'll want you to keep the Wolf Lord off my back.”

King Orden considered his next move. He knew these woods well, had hunted the Dunnwood many times over the past twenty years. He needed to use that knowledge to his advantage.

“I will be destroying the bridge at Hayworth, for all the good it will do. So you will send your men to Boar's Ford—to that narrow canyon below the ford. There they will sit in ambush. When Raj Ahten's troops come through, your men will attack—push boulders on them from above, loose arrows, set the east end of the canyon ablaze. But don't let your men draw sword unless you have to. Your troops will then race for Longmont. You understand? Your only purpose is to harry the Wolf Lord, to cause damage, to nibble at the edge of his defenses, to slow his journey.”

Borenson was smiling even wider, grinning like a maniac by now. It was practically a suicide mission. Orden wondered why that proposition delighted him. Did the man wish for death, or was it merely the deadly challenge that thrilled him?

“Unfortunately, you may not be with your troops.”

“I won't?” Borenson's smile faltered.

“No, I have something more reckless in mind for you. Tomorrow at noon, while your troops retreat toward the ambush, I want you, personally—and you alone—to ride into Castle Sylvarresta, to deliver a message to Raj Ahten.”

Borenson began grinning again, but it was not the crazed, reckless grin he'd had before. Instead, he seemed more determined. Beads of sweat began to form on his brow.

“Be surly, abuse Raj Ahten as best you know how. Tell him that I've captured Longmont. Crow about it. As proof of my deed, tell him that I killed his Dedicates there at dawn—”

Borenson swallowed hard.

“Make him believe that I have taken forty thousand of his forcibles into my possession, and that I've put them to good use. Tell him that I will sell...five thousand of them back to him. Tell him that he knows the price.”

“Which is?” Borenson asked.

“Don't name it,” Orden answered. “If he has my son, then he will offer my son. If he does not have my son, then he will think you speak of King Sylvarresta's family, and he will offer the King.

“No matter what hostage is offered, check on the condition of the hostage before you leave. See if Raj Ahten has forced Gaborn—or King Sylvarresta—into giving an endowment. I suspect he will use the royal family as vectors for major endowments. In fifteen hours, he could easily take hundreds of such endowments. If so, then you know what to do.”

“Pardon me?” Borenson asked.

“You heard right. You know what to do.”

Borenson laughed, almost a coughing sound, but there was no longer a smile on his face, no longer a gleam of delight in his eye. His face had gone all hard, impassive, and his voice carried a tone of disbelief. “You would have me kill King Sylvarresta, or your son?”

Overhead, one of the huge graaks called out, swept low. There was a time in Orden's life when he had been small enough to ride one of the huge reptiles. When he'd weighed fifty pounds, at the age of six, his father had let him take long journeys on the backs of tamed graaks with the other skyriders, over the mountains to the far kingdom of Dzerlas in Inkarra. Only boys with endowments of strength and wit and stamina and grace could take such journeys.

But when King Orden's son, Gaborn, became a skyrider in his turn, Mendellas never let Gaborn take a far journey. He'd tried hard to protect his son. He'd loved the boy too much. He'd hoped the lad would have time to grow, gain some maturity—a commodity all too rare among Runelords, who were often forced of necessity to take endowments of metabolism, grow old far before their time. There were things that King Orden still needed to teach his son, arts of diplomacy and strategy and intrigue that could not be learned in the House of Understanding.

Moreover, Orden's own father had been captured when he was but a boy, and then had been forced to give endowments to a Wolf Lord in the Southern Wastes. His father's friends had rescued him from his fate—with a sword.

Borenson could never know how much giving this order hurt. King Orden felt determined that his men would never know: Gaborn's great heart might well have earned him a death sentence.

King Orden clapped the big warrior on the shoulder in sympathy. Borenson was trembling. It would be a hard thing to go from being Gaborn's sworn protector to his assassin. “You heard me right. When Raj Ahten gets your message, he will race to Longmont, to meet me in battle. He will have hundreds of Dedicates in Castle Sylvarresta by dawn—Dedicates that he won't he able to carry south in such a hurry, Dedicates that he won't he able to properly guard.

“I want you to go into the Dedicates' Keep at Castle Sylvarresta, once Raj Ahten leaves, and slaughter everyone left within.”

The big warrior's grin had now faded completely.

“You understand that this must be done. My life, your life, the lives of everyone in Mystarria—everyone you've ever known and loved—might well depend on it.

“We can show no weakness. We can show no mercy.”

From a pouch at his hip, King Orden withdrew a small ivory flask. Captured inside were mists from the fields of Mystarria. Orden's water wizards had said that the flask contained enough mist to hide an army should the need arise. Borenson's army might need such a mist. He handed the artifact to Borenson, and wondered if he should also give the man his golden shield. It had a powerful spell of water warding in it. Orden had brought it as a betrothal gift to Sylvarresta. Now, he considered that he might need that shield himself.

Orden wondered. He did not want to kill Sylvarresta. Yet if Sylvarresta succumbed to Raj Ahten, then it became Orden's duty. The Kings of Rofehavan needed to know that no one could give endowments to the Wolf Lord. No one would be permitted to do so and live. Not even Orden's best friend.

“We will do what we must to our friends, our kin,” King Orden said to himself as much as to Borenson, “if they serve the enemy. That is our duty. This is war.”

14 A Wizard in Chains

Shortly before dawn, the sounds of many clanking chains preceded Binnesman into the King's audience hall; then the guards dragged the herbalist in to face Raj Ahten, as Iome watched.

She shuddered and hid in a darkened corner, afraid somehow that Binnesman would spot her, would loathe her very existence. In the past few hours, she'd had time to inspect the rune of power branded into the skin of her breast. It was a complex thing, a horrid thing that tried to draw far more than mere beauty from her. It tried to draw her pride, her hope.

Though she fought the influence of the rune, though she denied this boon to Raj Ahten, still she felt less than human. A mere rag in the corner, something that cringed and watched.

Legend said that long ago, the facilitator Phedrosh had created a rune of will, a symbol that sapped the strength of mind from its victims. Had Raj Ahten had such a magic symbol built into the rune that had branded Iome, she'd not have been able to deny him.

Now she felt grateful that Phedrosh had destroyed that rune of power and the secret of its making, before he fled to Inkarra.

As Binnesman was dragged to the room, his shackles rattled. Strong irons bound Binnesman neck to foot, hand to hand. Two guards merely lugged him across the plank floor, threw him at Raj Ahten's feet.

Four of the Wolf Lord's flameweavers walked beside the herbalist, all hairless, dark of skin. Three young-looking men and a single woman, all with that peculiar dancing light in their eyes that only flameweavers have. The male flameweavers had donned saffron silk robes, the woman a crimson mantle.

As the woman drew near, in the lead, Iome could feel the heat of her skin, a dry heat, as if her flesh were a warming stone to put in a bed on a cold night.

Iome felt the woman's powers in another way: a feverish lust came with her, mingled with a curious intellectual arousal. This lust was nothing like the earthy sensuality that Iome felt in Binnesman's presence—a desire to bear children, to feel small lips suckling at her breast. No, the flameweavers carried a consuming need to rape, to take, an undirected rage all finely controlled by keen intellect.

Poor Binnesman looked a dirty wreck. He was covered from head to foot in grimy ash, yet his sky-blue eyes showed no fear as he looked up.

You should fear, Iome thought. You should. No one could withstand Raj Ahten, the light in his face, the power of his voice. In the past few hours, she'd seen things she could not have imagined: Two hundred of her father's guard had granted endowments. Most needed little persuasion. A look at Raj Ahten's face, an encouraging word, and they gave themselves.

Few even thought of resisting. Captain Derrow, of the palace guard, asked to forbear swearing fealty to Raj Ahten, saying he was oath-bound to serve House Sylvarresta. He therefore begged to serve as a guard in the Dedicates' Keep, pointing out that other great houses would now send assassins to dispatch Sylvarresta. Raj Ahten agreed, but only on the condition that Derrow give a lesser endowment, one of hearing.

Another who begged no boon faced rougher treatment. Captain Ault refused the Wolf Lord entirely, had cursed him and wished him death.

Raj Ahten had heard the reviling with patience and a smile, but afterward, the woman in crimson had taken the captain's hand, tenderly. Then her eyes flashed in laughter as the captain burst into flames from toe to head and just stood, screaming and writhing as the fires consumed his flesh, melted his armor. The room had echoed with his shrieks. The odor of charred flesh and hair clung to the walls of the room even now.

Ault's blackened corpse was placed downstairs at the entry to the King's Keep.

So humbly now the people of Castle Sylvarresta came to stand before their new lord and give obeisance. Raj Ahten spoke calmly to them, his face shining like the sun, his voice as unperturbable as the sea.

All night long, Raj Ahten's troops had been marshaling the richest of the local merchants into the keep, seeking tributes of gold and endowments. The people gave to him whatever he asked, would give all that they had.

Thus, Raj Ahten had finally heard the name of the young man who had killed his giants, his outriders, and mastiffs on his errand to warn King Sylvarresta of the impending invasion. Even now, Raj Ahten's trackers scoured the Dunnwood, searching for young Prince Orden.

King Sylvarresta sat on the floor at Raj Ahten's feet. His neck had been tied to the foot of the throne, and King Sylvarresta, with all the naivete of a kitten, kept pulling at the rope, trying to chew it in half. The idea of untying himself did not occur to the King. Iome watched her father at Raj Ahten's feet, and even to her, Raj Ahten seemed great. His glamour so affected her that somehow she felt it fitting that her father should be there. Other kings kept dogs or great cats at their feet as pets. But Raj Ahten was more than a common leader. He deserved to have kings at his feet.

At Raj Ahten's side stood his personal guard, two counselors, and the fifth of his flameweavers, a woman whose very presence made Iome tremble, for she could sense the flameweaver's power. She wore a midnight-blue robe, loosely tied over her naked body. And she stood now before a silver brazier, like a large platter on a pedestal, on which she had placed twigs and knots of fiery wood. The green flames rose some three or four feet above the brazier.

Once that night, the woman had looked up from her brazier, her eyes shining with fierce delight, and said to Raj Ahten, “Good news, O Shining One, your assassins seem to have slaughtered King Gareth Arrooley of Internook. His light no longer shines in the earth.”

On hearing this, Iome felt awed. So Raj Ahten was attacking more than one king of the North. She wondered at the depth of his plans. Perhaps we are all fools compared with him, she thought, as ignorant as my father tied at Raj Ahten's feet.

Now Raj Ahten gazed down at Binnesman in the light thrown from the pyromancer's brazier, and thoughtfully scratched at his beard.

“What is your name?” Raj Ahten asked the wizard.

Binnesman looked up, “My name is Binnesman.”

“Ah, Binnesman. I know your work well. I've read your herbals.” Raj Ahten smiled at him, patiently, glanced up at the pyromancer. “You bring him in chains? I would not have it so. He seems harmless.”

The flameweaver beside the Wolf Lord gazed at Binnesman as if in a trance, eyes unfocused, staring past him, as if she sought to work up the nerve to kill him.

“Harmless enough, Your Lordship,” Binnesman answered in a strong voice. Though he still crouched on all fours, he watched the Wolf Lord casually.

“You may rise,” Raj Ahten said.

Binnesman nodded, struggled to his feet, though his chains kept him bowed so he could not raise his neck. Now Iome could see more clearly that he wore manacles at his feet, that his hands were cuffed, and that a short, heavy iron chain led from manacles to cuffs to neck. Though Binnesman could not stand upright, the bowed stance did not bother him. He'd hunched over plants for so many years, his back had become stooped.

“Beware of him, my lord,” the pyromancer at Raj Ahten's side whispered. “He has great power.”

“Hardly,” Binnesman chided. “You've destroyed my garden, the work of master gardeners for over five hundred years. The herbs and spices I'd have harvested are all lost. You are known as a pragmatic man, Raj Ahten. Surely you know these were things of no small benefit!”

Raj Ahten smiled somewhat playfully. “I'm sorry my sorcerers destroyed your garden. But we haven't destroyed you, have we? You can grow another garden. I have some fine gardens, near my villas and palaces in the South. Trees from the far corners of the world, rich soil, plentiful water.”

Binnesman shook his head. “Never. I can never have another garden like the one you burned. It was my heart. You see...” He clutched at his robes.

Raj Ahten leaned forward. “I'm sorry. It was necessary to clip your wings, Earth Warden.” He spoke this title with solemnity, with more respect than he'd shown anyone else this night. “And yet, Master Binnesman, I truly did not want to harm you. There are few notable Earth Wardens in the world, and I've tested the efficacy of the herbs that each of your kind grows, studied the ointments and infusions you provide. You, Binnesman, are the master of your craft, of that I am sure. You deserve greater honor than you have been accorded. You should be serving as hearthmaster in the Room of Earth Powers in the House of Understanding—not that fraud Hoewell.”

Iome marveled. Even in far Indhopal, Raj Ahten knew of Binnesman's work. The Wolf Lord seemed almost omniscient to her.

Binnesman watched him from beneath bushy brows. The wrinkled lines of Binnesman's face were wise, and after years of smiling, made him look kind and soft. But there was no kindness behind his eyes. Iome had seen him smash bugs in his garden with that calculating gaze. “The honors of men do not interest me.”

“Then what does interest you?” Raj Ahten asked. When Binnesman did not answer, he said softly, “Will you serve me?”

The tone of voice, the subtle inflections, were all such that many another man would have prostrated themselves.

“I serve no king,” Binnesman answered.

“You served Sylvarresta,” Raj Ahten gently reminded him, “just as he serves me now!”

“Sylvarresta was my friend, never my master.”

“You served his people. You served him as a friend.”

“I serve the earth, and all people on it, Lord Raj.”

“Then will you give yourself to me?”

Binnesman gave him a scolding look, as if Raj Ahten were a child caught doing wrong when he knew better. “Do you desire my service as a man, or as a wizard?”

“As a wizard.”

“Then, alas, Lord Raj, I cannot take a vow to serve you, for it would diminish my powers.”

“How so?” Raj Ahten asked.

“I've vowed to serve the earth, and no other,” Binnesman said. “I serve the trees in their hour of need, as well as the fox and the hare. I serve men with no greater and no less devotion than I serve other creatures. But if I break my vow to serve the earth, if I seek instead to serve you, my powers would perish.

“You have many men who will serve you, or who will serve themselves in your interest, Raj Ahten. Content yourself with them.”

Iome wondered at Binnesman's words. He lied now, she knew. He did serve men more than animals. He'd once told her it was his weakness, this peculiar devotion to mankind. In his eyes, it made him unworthy of his master. Iome feared that Raj Ahten would see through the lies, punish Binnesman.

The Wolf Lord's beautiful face was untroubled, and it seemed to Iome to be full of kindness.

Binnesman said softly to Raj Ahten, “You understand, as a Runelord, you must care for your Dedicates, or else in time they would starve or sicken. If they died, you would lose the powers you draw from them.”

“The same principles apply to me...or to your flameweavers. See how they feed the fire, knowing they will gain strength from it in return?”

“Milord,” the flameweaver at Raj Ahten's side whispered, “let me kill him. The flames show that he is a danger. He helped Prince Orden escape from his garden. He supports your enemies. The light within him is against you.”

Raj Ahten touched the flameweaver's hand, calming her, asking, “Is it so? Did you help the Prince escape?”

Don't answer him, Iome wanted to shout. Don't answer.

But Binnesman merely shrugged. “He had a wound. I tended it, as I would if he were a rabbit or a crow. Then I pointed his way into the Dunnwood, so he could hide.”

“Because?” Raj Ahten asked.

“Because your soldiers want him dead,” the herbalist answered. “I serve life. Your life, your enemy's life. I serve life, as surely as you serve death.”

“I do not serve death. I serve mankind,” Raj Ahten said calmly. His eyes hardly narrowed, but his face suddenly seemed harder, more passionless.

“Fire consumes,” Binnesman said. “Certainly, when you surround yourself with so many flameweavers, you too must feel their tug, their desire to consume. It has you in its sway.”

Raj Ahten casually leaned back on the throne. “Fire also enlightens and reveals,” he said. “It warms us in the cold night. In the right hands, it can be a tool for good, even for healing. The Bright Ones and the Glories are creatures of the flame. Life comes from fire, as well as from the earth.”

“Yes, it can be a tool for good. But not now. Not in the age to come. Certainly no beings of the greater light will come do your bidding,” Binnesman said. “I think that you would do better to rid yourself of these...forces.” He waved casually at the flameweavers. “Other wizards would serve you better.”

“So you will serve me?” Raj Ahten asked. “You will supply my armies with your herbs and ointments?” He smiled, and that smile seemed to light the room. Certainly Binnesman will help him, Iome thought.

“Herbs for the sick and the wounded?” Binnesman asked. “I can do this in good conscience. But I do not serve you.”

Raj Ahten nodded, clearly disappointed. Binnesman's devotion would have been a great boon.

“Milord,” the flameweaver hissed, glancing from brazier to Raj Ahten, “he is not truthful. He does serve a king! I see a man in my flames, a faceless man with a crown! A king is coming, a king who can destroy you!”

Raj Ahten studied the herbalist, leaning even closer in his chair, the green flames from the brazier licking the side of his face. “My pyromancer sees a vision in the flames,” he whispered. “Tell me, Binnesman, has the earth granted you such visions? Is there a king who can destroy me?”

Binnesman stood straighter, folded his arms. His fists were clenched. “I am no friend of the Time Lords, to know the future. I don't gaze into polished stones. But you have made many enemies.”

“But is there a king whom you serve?”

Binnesman stood for a long moment, deep in thought, his brows furrowed, Iome almost believed that the old herbalist would not answer, but then he began to mutter, “Wood and stone, wood and stone, these are but my flesh and bone. Metal, blood, wood and stone, these I own, these I own.”

“What?” Raj Ahten asked, though surely he could not have failed to hear the old man.

“I serve no man. But, Your Lordship, a king is coming, a king of whom the earth approves. Fourteen days ago, he set foot in Heredon. I know this only because I heard the stones whisper it in the night, as I slept in the fields. A voice called to me, plain as a lark, The new King of the Earth is coming. He is in the land.' ”

“Kill him!” the flameweavers all began shouting at this revelation. “He serves your enemy.”

Raj Ahten tried to silence their yammering with an upraised hand, and asked, “Who is this Earth King?” His eyes blazed. The flameweavers kept calling for Binnesman's death; Iome feared that Raj Ahten would grant their boon. The light in their eyes increased, and the woman at the brazier raised her fist, let it burst into flame. In a moment, Raj Ahten's desires would not matter. The flameweavers would kill Binnesman.

In an effort to save the herbalist, Iome shouted, “It's Orden. King Orden crossed our border two weeks ago!”

At that very moment, the chains holding Binnesman dropped away, both hand and foot, and Binnesman unclenched his fists, tossed something into the air—

Yellow flower petals, withered roots, and dry leaves that fluttered in the green light.

The flameweavers shrieked in dismay and fell back, as if blasted by the weight of the flowers.

The brazier snuffed out. Indeed, all the lanterns in the audience chamber winked out at once, so that the only light in the room was early-morning starlight, shining in from the oriels.

When her eyes adjusted, Iome looked around, mystified. The flame-weavers had all fallen backward from Binnesman as if struck by lightning. They lay stunned, gazing without seeing, whimpering in pain.

The room had suddenly filled with a clean, pungent scent, as if a wind had carried with it the air of a distant meadow. Binnesman stood tall and straight, glaring at Raj Ahten from under bushy brows. The cuffs and manacles he'd worn now lay at his feet, still firmly locked. It was as if his limbs had merely melted through them.

Though flameweavers lay dazed and wounded at Binnesman's feet, Iome had felt nothing during the attack. A flower had touched her face, then dropped to the floor, nothing more.

Raj Ahten stared at the herbalist, slightly annoyed, gripped the arms of the throne. “What have you done?” Raj Ahten asked softly, evenly, in the starlight.

“I will not suffer your flameweavers to kill me,” Binnesman said. “I've diminished them for a moment, nothing more. Now, you will excuse me, Your Lordship. I've much work to do. You wanted herbs for your armies?” Binnesman turned to leave.

“Is it true that you back King Orden? Will you fight beside him?”

Binnesman gave the Wolf Lord a sidelong glance, shook his head as if appalled. “I do not wish to fight you,” Binnesman intoned softly. “I have never taken a man's life. You are asleep to the powers of the earth, Raj Ahten. The great tree of life arches over you, and the leaves of it whisper to you, but you do not hear them rustle. Instead, you merely sleep among its roots, dreaming of conquest.

“Turn your thoughts to preservation. Your people need you. I have great hope for you, Raj Ahten. I would call you friend.”

Raj Ahten studied the old wizard a moment. “What would it take for you and I to become friends?”

Binnesman said, “Swear an oath to the earth, that you will not harm it. Swear that you will seek to preserve a seed of humanity in the dark season to come.”

“And what do you mean by these oaths?” Raj Ahten asked.

“Divest yourself of the flameweavers who desire to consume the earth. Value life—all life, plant and animal. Eat from plants without destroying them, harvest only the animals you need. Waste no creature, either animal or man. Turn your armies back from this war you have initiated. There are reavers on your southern borders. Your struggle should be with them.”

For a long time, Raj Ahten sat on the throne, simply staring at Binnesman. During that moment, a servant rushed in with a fresh lantern from the anteroom, so that it illuminated the Wolf Lord's face. He appeared thoughtful.

Iome could see the longing in Raj Ahten's eyes, and almost she believed he would take the oath.

But as the servant drew near with the lantern, it seemed to Iome that Raj Ahten's resolve flickered like the tongues of the fire. “I swear, to protect mankind from the reavers—for their own good,” Raj Ahten said. “I...do only what I know I must—”

“You do nothing of the sort!” Binnesman shouted. “Listen to you: You've taken so many endowments of Voice that when you talk, you convince yourself of your own mad arguments. You are deluded!”

Iome's heart pounded, for she suddenly realized that Binnesman was right. Raj Ahten was swayed by the sound of his own mad Voice. It had never occurred to her that such a thing might happen.

Binnesman shouted, “Yet—there is time to change your mind—barely! Divest yourself of these mad notions. Don't dare rob these people and call yourself good!”

He turned and ambled from the room, looking every bit the bent old man. Yet he walked without fear, as if, Iome thought, he had conducted the interview, as if he had dragged Raj Ahten to this room in chains.

Then he was gone.

Iome watched in astonishment, for no one else that night had merely chosen to leave Raj Ahten's presence. Iome feared that Raj Ahten might try to imprison the old man, or drag him back and bully him into service.

But the Wolf Lord remained thoughtful, watched the dark corridor through which Binnesman had exited.

Moments later, as the flameweavers began to regain consciousness, a guard hurried to the King's chamber to announce that the herbalist had just been spotted outside the city gates, hobbling across the fields to the Dunnwood. “Our bowmen on the wall could have shot him,” the guard said, “but we did not know your will in this matter. The nomen are camped in the fields, but none detained him. Shall I send scouts to fetch him back?”

Raj Ahten frowned. It seemed far too short a time for a man to have left these halls and escaped the castle. And it was equally as bizarre that none of Raj Ahten's highly trained soldiers had stopped the old man.

“Did he reach the edge of the forest?” Raj Ahten asked.

“Aye, milord.”

“What is he planning?” Raj Ahten wondered aloud. He stood swiftly, pondering. Then added, “Send a party of hunters to find him—if they can.”

But Iome knew it was too late. Binnesman had gained the woods, the Dunnwood, the ancient forest, a focus for the earth powers. Even Raj Ahten's most accomplished hunters could not track an Earth Warden through the Dunnwood.

15 Poetics

Once the trackers left, Gaborn made his way alongside the mill, carrying Rowan. For a young man with three endowments of brawn, she did not pose much of a burden, and Gaborn realized that carrying her now offered an added benefit: she would not leave her scent on the ground.

It is hard to track a man who has just left a river. His body oils get washed away, so that when he steps on dry land, he is harder to smell. Gaborn wanted to leave only his small traces of scent.

As he struggled up the incline, out of the millrace, the ferrin saw him coming, growled in fear, and scurried for cover.

“Food, food,” he whistled, for these creatures had performed him a service. How great a service, they would never know. Gaborn had little food to give, but as he reached the mill, he lifted the wooden latch on the front door, went in. A hopper above the grindstones was filled with wheat. Gaborn opened the hopper, turned to look behind him. The ferrin stood just outside the door, eyes wide in the darkness. One little gray-brown ferrin woman was wringing her paws nervously, sniffing the air.

“Food. I give,” he whistled softly.

“I hear you,” she chirped in return.

Gaborn slowly walked past them, left the ferrin just outside the door. They waited, blinking at him nervously, afraid to enter the mill with him watching.

Gaborn hurried up the trail to the castle, under the trees, then crept along the tree line until he reached the small stream that wound through the pussy willows.

Here, he slogged through the marshes quietly. The sky was red on the hill now, and the archer on the city wall stood out bright against the sky. He was watching the fire, Binnesman's garden burning. Ashes drifted slowly through the air.

Gaborn crept through the willows, up to the city wall, unseen. At the wall, he set Rowan down and squirmed under first, through the cold water, then waited for Rowan. She wriggled beneath the wall, teeth gritted in pain at the touch of the icy water. She staggered up to her knees, inside the castle gate, then pitched forward in a faint.

He caught her, laid her in the grass beside the stream. He took off his dirty cloak, wrapped it around her for what little warmth it could give, then began making his way through the streets.

It was an odd sensation, walking that street. Binnesman's garden was afire, the flames shooting now eighty feet into the air. The castle was alive with people shouting, running to and fro, afraid the fire would spread.

On the street leading to the stables, dozens of people raced past Gaborn, many of them carrying buckets to the stream so that they could douse the thatch roofs of cottages, protecting them from falling cinders.

Yet of all the people who passed Gaborn, none asked his name or sought to learn why he carried an unconscious woman. Is Earth protecting me, he wondered, or is this such a common sight this night that no one notices?

Gaborn found the spice cellars from Rowan's description. It was a fair-sized building, something of a warehouse whose back was dug into the hill. A loading dock by the wide front doors was just the height of a wagon.

Gaborn cautiously opened the front door into an antechamber. The scents of spices assailed him—drying garlic and onions, parsley and basil, lemon balm and mint, geranium, witch hazel, and a hundred others. The cook's son was supposed to be sleeping here. A pallet lay in a corner with a blanket over it, but Gaborn saw no sign of the boy. On a night like tonight, with soldiers in town and a huge fire burning, the boy was probably out watching the sights with friends.

A wall of stone and mortar stood on the far side of the antechamber. Gaborn carried Rowan to it, opened it wide. A huge chamber was behind the door. A lantern hung by the wall, burning low, next to a flask of oil and a couple of spare lanterns. Gaborn poured oil into a lantern and lit the wick so that it burned brightly, then gaped.

Gaborn had known that the King dealt in spices, but hadn't guessed how much. The chamber was filled to the brim with crates and sacks. Off to the left were common culinary spices in huge bins, enough to supply the city through the year. Ahead were smaller casks of Binnesman's medicinal herbs and oils, ready for shipment. To the far right lay thousands of bottles of wine, along with casks of ale, whiskey, and rum. The chamber must have reached back a hundred feet into the side of the hill.

The place held a miasma of scents—spices rotting, spices fresh, dust and mold. Gaborn knew he'd found safety. Here beneath the earth, in the far chambers under the hill, no hunter would be able to track him.

He closed the great door, made his way with the lantern to a corner of the cellar, stacked some crates to form a little hiding place, then laid Rowan behind them.

He lay down with her, warmed her with his body, and for a time he slept, curled against her back.

When he woke, Rowan had turned, was gazing into his eyes. He felt a pressure on his lips, realized that she'd just kissed him awake. She breathed softly.

Rowan had dark skin, with thick, lustrous black hair and a gentle, caring face. She was not beautiful, he decided, merely pretty. Not like Iome, or even Myrrima. Both of those women were blessed with endowments that made them more than human. Both of them had faces that could make a man forget his name or haunt him for years after a mere glimpse of them.

She kissed him again, softly, and whispered, “Thank you.”

“For what?” Gaborn asked.

“For keeping me warm. For bringing me with you.” She cuddled closer, spread his robe over them both. “I've never felt so...alive...as I do right now.” She took his hand, placed it on her cheek, wanting him to stroke her.

Gaborn dared not do it. He knew what she wanted. She'd just reawakened to the world of sensation. She craved his caress—the warmth of his body, his touch.

“I...don't think I should do this,” Gaborn said, and he rolled away, put his back to her. He felt her stiffen, hurt and embarrassed.

He lay for a moment, ignoring her, then reached into the pocket of his tunic, pulled out the book that King Sylvarresta had given him earlier in the day. The Chronicles of Owatt, Emir of Tuulistan.

The lambskin cover on it was soft and new. The ink smelled fresh. Gaborn opened it, fearing he wouldn't be able to read the language. But the Emir had already translated it.

On the cover leaf, in a broad, strong hand, he'd written,

To my Beloved Brother in Righteousness, King jas Laren Sylvarresta, greetings: It has been eighteen years now since we dined together at the oasis near Binya, yet I think fondly on you often. They have been hard years, full of trouble. I give you one last gift: this book.

I beg of you, show it only to those you trust.

Gaborn wondered at the warning. After running out of space at the bottom of the page, the Emir had not bothered to sign his name.

Gaborn calmed himself, prepared to memorize everything in the hook. With two endowments of wit, it was a daunting task, but not impossible.

He read swiftly. The first ten chapters told of the Emir's life—his youth, his marriage and family connections, details of laws he had authored, deeds he had done. The next ten told of ten battles fought by Raj Ahten, campaigns against entire royal families.

The Wolf Lord began destroying the smaller families of Indhopal first, those most despised. He worked not to take a castle or to bankrupt a city, but to decimate entire family lines. In the South, the code of honor made it obligatory to avenge one's relatives.

Among the horsemen of Deyazz, he'd attack a palace in one city, then slay Dedicate horses of those who might come to the city's aid, while also taking children for ransom on another front. With multiprong attacks, he overwhelmed his foes.

Gaborn quickly saw that Raj Ahten was a master of illusion. Always one could see the knife flashing in his right hand, while his left kept busy elsewhere. A small army might lay siege to a king's palace in one land while five others quietly ripped at the underbelly of some lord two kingdoms away.

Gaborn studied the patterns of the assaults. He grew terrified.

Raj Ahten had taken Castle Sylvarresta with nothing more than his glamour and fewer than seven thousand knights and men-at-arms. True, he brought Invincibles, the heart of his army. But it left many questions unanswered. Raj Ahten had millions of men who could march at his command.

Where were they?

Gaborn wondered as he read. The tales of Raj Ahten's battles contained no hidden knowledge. The Emir had laid bare Raj Ahten's tactics, but a good spy could have gleaned as much information.

Gaborn skimmed the Emir's poetry, found it dull, mere doggerel, each line ending in a full rhyme, each line perfectly metered.

Some poems were sonnets that enjoined the reader to seek for some virtue, in the way of poems given to young children who are learning to read. Yet in the sonnets, the Emir did not always rhyme flawlessly. Sometimes he ended in near rhyme, and on a swift reading, Gaborn found that the near rhymes leapt out at him.

It was not until reading ten pages that Gaborn stumbled on the first of these near rhymes, in an odd poem, a form called a sonnet menor.

Now Gaborn focused on that poem, for it held Sylvarresta's name in the title.

A Sonnet for Sylvarresta

When the wind strokes the desert in the night, so that veils of sand obscure the starlight, we lie on pillows by the fire to read In books of puissant philosophy.

Ah, how they clear the mind, focus the eye, Of mortal men who linger, love and die!

Gaborn rearranged words in each line, seeing if he could form sentences that might convey some hidden meaning. He found nothing.

He wondered at the words, longed for the days when men from the North could have traveled openly in Indhopal. He'd recently heard a trader bemoan those times by saying, “Once there were many good men in Indhopal. Now it seems they are all dead—or perhaps just frightened into evil.”

Five poems later, Gaborn came upon another poem in the same form, yet its near rhymes came in the first two lines.

Gaborn thought back to the near rhymes in the previous poem: “Read, philosophy.” Now the near rhymes here: “Behind, spine.”

He thumbed through the next five pages quickly, found another near rhyme, with the words, “Room, of dream.”

“Read philosophy behind spine. Room of Dreams,” he muttered. His heart pounded. The teachings that the Days learned in the Room of Dreams were forbidden to Gaborn's kind. Surely, the Days would destroy this chronicle if they found the Emir disseminating such knowledge among Runelords.

Thus the Emir's warning: “Show it only to those whom you trust.”

Gaborn glanced at the remainder of the book. The last section was dedicated to philosophical musings—treatises on the “Nature of a Goodly Prince,” exhorting would-be kings to mind their manners and avoid slashing their father's throats while waiting for the old men to die off.

The cover, back, and spine of the book were made of stiff leather, sewn to a softer covering of lambskin.

He glanced over his back. He'd been reading for hours. Rowan lay quiet, breathing in the slow way of those who sleep.

Gaborn unsheathed his knife, cut the threads that bound the cover to the book. As he did so, he kept fumbling; his hands shook badly.

His forefathers had wondered at the teachings in the House of Dreams for generations. A man had died to bring this to Sylvarresta. Probably without reason. A spy knew that a book came from Tuulistan, and figured that it warned of Raj Ahten's invasion plans. So the spy had struck down an innocent man.

Yet Gaborn worried—even though he suspected that it was irrational—that he, too, would be killed, if the Days ever learned he'd read these teachings.

From inside the back cover dropped five thin sheets of paper with a small diagram and the following note:

My Dear Sylvarresta:

You remember at Binya, when we discussed those men who revolted against me, for they said I stole their wells to water my cattle? I had been taught that as prince, all the land in my realm belonged to me, as did the people on it. These things were my birthright, granted by the Powers. So I planned to punish the men for their theft.

But you enjoined me to slaughter my cattle instead, for you said that every man is lord of his own land, and that the lives of my cattle should serve my people, not my people the cattle. You said that Runelords could rule only if our people loved and served us. We rule at their whim.

Your views seemed wonderfully exotic, but I bowed to your wisdom. I have spent years since considering the nature of what is just and what is unjust.

We both have heard forbidden fragments of doctrine from the Room of Dreams, but recently I learned something most secret from that place. I give you this diagram for your instruction:

The Three Domains of Man

In the Room of Dreams, the Days are taught that even the ugliest sparrow knows itself to be a lord of the skies, and knows in its heart that it owns all it surveys.

They teach in the room that every man is the same. Every man defines himself as a lord unto himself, and inherits a birthright of three Domains: the Visible Domain of things we can see and touch; the Communal Domain made up of our relationships with others; and the Invisible Domain—territories we cannot see, but which we actively protect nonetheless.

While some men teach that good and evil are defined by the Powers or by wise kings in authority, or change according to time and circumstance, the Days say that the knowledge of good and evil is born into us, and that the just laws of mankind are written on our hearts. They teach that the three domains are the sole medium by which mankind defines good and evil.

If any man violates our domain, if he seeks to deprive us of our birthright, we call him “evil.” If any man seeks to take our property or life, if he attacks our family or honor or community, if he strives to rob us of free will, we can justly protect ourselves.

On the other hand, the Days define goodness as the voluntary enlarging of another's domain. If you give me money or property, if you bestow upon me honor or invite me to be your friend, if you give time in my service, then I define you as good.

The teachings of the Days—they are so different in implication from what I learned from my fathers. My father taught that the Powers had ordained me to be lord of my realm. As was my right, I could take any man's property, any woman's love, for these things I owned.

Now I am confused. I hold to what my father taught, yet feel in my heart that I am wrong to do so.

I fear, my old friend, that we are under judgment by the Days, and that this diagram shows the rod by which we are measured. I do not know how they intend to manipulate us—for by their own measure, they would be evil to slay us.

Some books say that the Glories paired the lords with the Days, but in ancient times, the Days were called “the Guardians of Dreams.” So I wonder: Is it possible that the Days seek to manipulate us in some strange way? Do they manipulate our hopes and aspirations? Most particularly, they write the chronicles of our lives, but are the chronicles true? Did the heroes we aspire to emulate even exist? Were such men heroes even by their own standards? Or do the Days seek to manipulate truth for purposes we cannot guess?

So, I have secretly written this chronicle and sent it to you. I am growing old. I will not live long. When I die and the Days write the tale of my life, I wish you to compare the two chronicles, to see what you can find. What part of my life story will the Days omit? What part will they embellish?

Farewell, My Brother in Righteousness

Gaborn read the document several times. The teachings of the Days did not seem particularly profound. Indeed, they seemed rather obvious and straightforward, though Gaborn had never encountered their like. Gaborn could see no reason why they should be kept secret, particularly from the Runelords.

Still, the Emir had guarded these writings, had feared some unnamable retribution.

Yet Gaborn knew that, sometimes, small things could be powerful. As a child of five, he'd often tried to lift the huge halberds that his father's guards bore in the portcullis. At that age, he'd been given his first endowment of brawn, and immediately had gone out and discovered that he could lift the halberd and swing it with ease. A single endowment of strength had seemed a great thing. Now, as a Runelord, he knew that it was nothing. Yet he wondered at these teachings. They seemed simple, yet he knew that the Days were anything but simple. An odd devotion, taken to an extreme, could have profound effects on a person—in just the same way that a simple love of food led to obesity and death.

Gaborn had seldom wondered if he was good. In reading these teachings from the Room of Dreams, he wondered if it was possible to be a “good” Runelord by the Days' standards. Those who gave endowments usually regretted it, in time. Yet once the gift was given, it could not be returned. At that point, any endowment that the Runelord held would be considered a violation by the Days.

Gaborn wondered if there might be some acceptable circumstance when it was all right for a person to grant an endowment. Perhaps if two men desired to combine their strength to fight a great evil. But this could only happen if he and his Dedicate were one in heart.

Yet at the center of the Days' teachings lay a concept he could barely apprehend: Every man is a lord. Every man is equal.

Gaborn was descended from Erden Geboren himself, who gave and took life, whom Earth itself had ordained king. If the Powers favored one man above another, then men could not be considered equal. Gaborn wondered where the balance lay, felt as if he stood poised at the edge of receiving a revelation.

He had always thought himself a rightful lord over his people. Yet, he was also their servant. It was the Runelord's duty to protect his vassals, to shield them with his own life.

The Days thought all men were lords? Did this mean that no man was a commoner? Did Gaborn really have no rights to lordship?

For the past few days he'd wondered if he was a good prince. He'd floundered at the question, but he'd had no clear definition for good. So Gaborn began to test the Days' teachings, to consider their implications.

As Gaborn lay on the cellar floor, the Days' teachings began to alter the way he would think forever after.

Gaborn wondered how he could protect himself without violating another's Domains. He saw from the diagram that the outer ring, the ring of Invisible Domains, detailed realms that were often fuzzy. Where does my body space end and another man's begin?

Perhaps, Gaborn wondered, there was an approved list of reactions. If someone violated your Invisible Domains, you should warn him about it. Simply speak to him. But if he violated your Communal Domains, if, say, he sought to ruin your reputation, you would take your case to others, publicly confront that person.

Yet if a person sought to violate your Visible Domains, if they sought to kill you or steal your property, Gaborn could see no other recourse but to take up arms.

Perhaps that was the answer. Inevitably, it seemed to him, each type of Domain became more intimate as you moved from the outer circle toward the center. Thus, protecting that more intimate Domain required a more forceful response.

But would it be good to do so? Where did goodness fit in here? A measured response seemed appropriate, just, but the diagram suggested to Gaborn that justice and virtue were not the same. A good man would enlarge the Domain of others, not merely protect his own Domains. Thus, when administering justice, one had to choose: Is it better to be a just man at this moment, or a good one?

Do I give to the man who robs me? Praise the man who belittles me?

If Gaborn sought to be good, he could do little else. But if he sought to be a protector for his people, was that not also good? And if he sought to protect his people, he could not afford to be virtuous.

The Days' teachings seemed muddling. Perhaps, he thought, the Days hide these teachings from the Runelords out of compassion. By. the Days' standards, it is a hard thing for a man to be virtuous. Raj Ahten seeks my realm. By their standards, if I were good, perhaps I would give it to him.

Yet that seemed wrong. Perhaps it is a greater virtue for a Runelord to be just and equitable?

He began to wonder if even the Days understood the implications of their diagram. Perhaps it was not three circles of Domains, but more. Perhaps if he rearranged the individual types within the Domains, forming nine circles, he could better gauge how to react to an attempt at invasion for each.

He considered Raj Ahten. The Wolf Lord violated men's Domains at every level. He took their wealth and their homes, destroyed families, murdered, raped, and enslaved.

Gaborn needed to protect himself, his people, from this beast who would ravage the world. But he could not simply frighten Raj Ahten away, could not bully the man or reason with him or cow him by denouncing him to the people.

The only thing Gaborn could do to save his people would be to find a way to kill Raj Ahten.

Gaborn listened closely, asking Earth if that was its will, but felt no response—no shaking of the earth, no burning in his heart.

At the moment, Gaborn could not touch the Wolf Lord. Raj Ahten was too powerful. Still, Gaborn thought he might spy on Raj Ahten, maybe discover how best to wound him. Perhaps Raj Ahten had prized Dedicates he carried with him, or perhaps a certain counselor drove the Wolf Lord relentlessly in pursuit of conquest. Slaying a counselor could accomplish much.

Gaborn might discover such things. But he'd have to get close, first. He'd need to find a way into the inner circles of the castle.

Gaborn wondered if Earth would approve. Should I fight Raj Ahten? By doing this, would I violate my oath?

It seemed a good plan, daring, to spy on the Wolf Lord and learn his weakness. Gaborn had already established some cover in the Dedicates' Keep, as Aleson the Devotee.

Gaborn judged that if he and Rowan went to the gate of the Dedicates' Keep just after dawn, after Raj Ahten's night guard changed, and took some odd items of spice with them, perhaps they could gain entry. All that night, he lay awake, considering...

The sun rose pink in the east, stirring a dawn chill as Gaborn and Rowan left the spice house, carrying small bales of parsley and peppermint. A low mist was creeping up from the river, over the walls, making a blanket on the fields. The rising sun dyed the blanket gold.

Gaborn stopped outside the door, tasted the mist. It had an odd scent, the tang of sea salt where there should be none. Almost he could imagine the cries of gulls in that mist, and ships sailing from harbor. It made him long for home, but Gaborn thought he just imagined the odd scent.

The sounds of morning were like any other morning. The cattle and sheep were still wandering about the city, and their bawling and baaing filled the air. Jackdaws chatted noisily from their nests among the chimneys of houses. The blacksmith's hammer rang, and from the cooking chamber in the Soldiers' Keep one could smell fresh loaves baking. But overwhelming the sumptuous scent of food, even the sea mist, was the acrid stench of burned grasses.

Gaborn did not fear being spotted. He and Rowan were dressed like commoners, anonymous inhabitants of the castle.

Rowan led Gaborn up a fog-shrouded street, until they reached an old shack, a sort of hermitage on the steep side of the hill, near where the wizard's garden had stood. Grapevines climbed the back wall of the shack. It would take only a minor freeze to bring out the sweetness in the grapes.

Gaborn and Rowan filled their stomachs, unsure what other food they might get that day. At the sound of coughing within the hermitage, Gaborn got up, prepared to leave. Someone began thumping inside the cottage, hobbling on a cane. It was but a matter of time before the occupant came outside and discovered them.

Gaborn pulled Rowan to her feet just as hunting horns sounded over the fields south of the castle.

This blare of horns was followed immediately by grunts and shrieks. Gaborn climbed a little higher up the hill to look over the Outer Wall, to the mist-shrouded fields. The river lay to the east, with fields beyond it. The trees of the Dunnwood sat on a hill across the valley to the south.

At the edge of the wood on the south hill, Gaborn suddenly spotted movement in the fog: the glint of steel armor, peaked helms—lances raised in the air. Horsemen rode at the edge of the woods, cantering through the fog.

Before them raced a thousand nomen, black shadows who lumbered over the ground on all fours, shrieking and howling in terror. The nomen fled toward the castle, half-blinded by daylight.

There, Gaborn saw a rider wearing the midnight-blue livery of House Orden, with the emblem of the green knight.

He could not fathom it—his father attacking the castle.

No! he wanted to shout.

It was a suicide charge. His father had brought a few men as a retinue. They had come as a light escort—mere decoration—not prepared for war! They had no siege engines, no wizards or ballistas.

As Gaborn realized all this, he knew it hardly mattered. His father believed that Gaborn was in Castle Sylvarresta and that the castle had fallen. His father would do whatever he thought necessary to win back his son.

That recognition filled Gaborn with guilt and horror, the thought that his stubbornness, his stupidity, had suddenly put so many people's lives in jeopardy.

Though his father's soldiers had come as “mere decoration,” they did not fight like decorations. The horses plunged downhill, churning the fog; their horsemen's axes were raised high overhead. Gaborn saw nomen running, naked, fleeing the knights' axes. They shrieked in horror, their yellow fangs gaping wide. Some nomen turned, set their spear butts in the mud.

His father's knights surged forward on armored horses, lances shattering, axes falling, blood and mud and fur filling the air, along with the howls of nomen, the screams of the dying.

Hoofbeats thundered from the south. Hundreds of voices rose in a shout, the battle cry of “Orden! Brave Orden!”

In answer, a tremendous roar came from the east. A contingent of Frowth giants rushed over the fields on the far side of the river, making toward the Dunnwood from the eastern fields—eighty giants lumbering like moving hills in the fog.

Shouts arose from guards on the castle walls, the blare of horns as Raj Ahten's soldiers were called to battle, roused from their beds. Gaborn feared Raj Ahten would send his own knights riding onto the battlefield. House Orden had at most a contingent of two thousand men, unless his father had managed to summon reinforcements from one of Sylvarresta's minor keeps.

Almost as quickly as that fear of Raj Ahten's counterattack arose, it was assuaged. Gaborn heard shouts at the southern gates, the clanking of gears as Raj Ahten's troops hurried to raise the drawbridge. The fog in the valley was so thick, Gaborn could not see if any nomen made it over the bridge.

Raj Ahten could not counterattack now. He could not be certain what size force House Orden had brought. If he attacked, he might find himself ambushed by a force so large he could never withstand it. It was, after all, a common tactic to try to lure a castle's defenders out by feigning an inadequate force.

A contrary wind blew from the east, and the fog suddenly thickened. Gaborn could see nothing more of the battle. Even the giants disappeared in the mist.

Yet he heard horses neigh in terror, the battle cries of House Orden. On the hill across the valley, horns sounded—two short blasts, one long. An order to regroup.

“Come on!” Gaborn told Rowan, and he took her hand. Together they raced up the streets, uphill toward the King's Keep.

The city was in chaos. Raj Ahten's troops were throwing on armor, rushing to man the city walls.

As Gaborn and Rowan ran to the King's Gate, the soldiers were lowering the portcullis leading into the business district. They ordered Gaborn back.

Five hundred of Raj Ahten's troops rushed down from the King's Keep, trying to reach the Outer Walls. A small herd of startled cattle dashed this way and that before them, seeking escape.

In the confusion, Gaborn and Rowan shouldered their bales of spices, raced through the portcullis into the market.

The market district was undefended. Raj Ahten's men had not yet formed a plan for resisting attack. None of his soldiers had been posted to specific turrets. Watching the walls, Gaborn saw dozens of soldiers rush to the catapults, others manning the towers at each corner of the castle—but Raj Ahten's troops spread themselves thin. Some rushed for the Outer Wall; others tried to nail down defenses in the Dedicates' Keep.

Practically no one manned the second wall of the city's defenses, the King's Wall.

From the plain below—mingled with the screams of nomen, the neighing of horses as they died, the roars of giants—the knights of House Orden broke into song, their deep voices celebrating the glory of war.

Gaborn's father had always insisted that each of his personal guard have three endowments of Voice, so that orders could be easily shouted across the battlefields. Their death song erupted from the fog, shook the very stones of Castle Sylvarresta, reverberated from hill to hill. It was a song to strike terror in the hearts of foe:

“Bring your honor, swing your sword,

You mighty men of Orden.

Reap your foes in fields of gore,

You bloody men of Orden!”

There were the sounds of horses neighing and dying—so many horses. Gaborn did not understand why the horses screamed until he realized that Raj Ahten's horses were still tethered on the far hill. His father's troops were slaughtering the Wolf Lord's mounts.

Gaborn and Rowan stopped on the cobbled street, a hundred yards beneath the King's Keep, and stood gazing over the fog-covered greens, trying to see the battle. Gaborn was suddenly aware of several men rushing past.

He turned just as a burly soldier pushed him aside, shouting, “Out of the way!”

And there, racing past in black scale mail, the white owl's wings sweeping wide from his black helm, came Raj Ahten with his personal guard, counselors, and Days. Three weary flameweavers ran at his side.

Gaborn almost reached to draw his sword, to strike at the Wolf Lord, but knew it would be foolish. He turned away, the blood in his face rising in anger.

Raj Ahten ran past Gaborn at arm's length, issuing orders to his guard in Indhopalese: “Ready your men and horses! You flameweavers—to the walls. Send lines of fire from here to the woods, so that we can see into that fog. I'll lead the counterattack! Damn that insolent Orden!”

“It is an unnatural fog,” his flameweaver worried. “A water wizard's fog.”

“Rahjim, don't tell me you fear some young water wizard who hasn't even grown his gills yet?” Raj Ahten scoffed. “I expect more from you. This fog will work against Orden as much as work for him.”

The wizard shook his head woefully. “Some Power fights us! I feel it!”

Gaborn could have reached out and touched the Wolf Lord, could have lopped off his head, yet had done nothing.

The enormity of the lost opportunity weighed on Gaborn. As Raj Ahten and his troops hurried down Market Street, Gaborn fumbled to draw his sword.

“No!” Rowan hissed, grabbing his wrist, pressing the blade back into its sheath.

She was right. Yet as he surveyed the street, he saw that it was a perfect spot for an ambush. The shops would not normally open for another two hours—and this day was far from normal. Perhaps they would not open at all.

Market Street twisted southwest, so that even though one was not far from the King's Keep and the inner tier of defenses for the city, one could not be seen from the Keep's walls above, nor from the outer walls below. The three-story stone buildings along Market Street blocked such a view.

Gaborn halted. The morning shadows were still deep, the street deserted. Gaborn wondered if he should wait for Raj Ahten to return up the cobbled road.

He glanced up toward the King's Keep.

A woman ran toward him, a woman dressed in a midnight-blue silk robe that was tied indecently, half revealing her pert breasts. She bore in her right hand a silver chain that held a small metal ball in which to burn incense, but the incense in the ball was aflame. Lights danced madly in her dark eyes, and her head was bald. She carried herself with such authority, Gaborn knew she must be someone important.

It was not until she was nearly upon him that he felt the heat of her—the dry burning under her skin—and knew she was a flameweaver.

The woman lurched to a stop, gazed at him as if in recognition. “You!” the flameweaver cried.

He did not think. He knew with every fiber of his being that she was his enemy. In one smooth stroke he drew his blade, swung it up, and lopped off the woman's head.

Rowan gasped, put her hand to her mouth and stepped backward.

For a split second the flameweaver stood, her head flying back, the incense burner still in hand.

Then her entire body turned into a green pillar of flame that spouted high into the air. The heat of it made the rocks at her feet scream in protest, cremated her own body in a portion of a second, and Gaborn felt his own eyebrows curl and singe. The blade of his sword burst into flames as if stricken with a curse, and the fire raced down the bloodstained metal toward the hilt so that Gaborn had to thrust the thing to the ground.

For good measure, he somehow felt compelled to pull off his scabbard, throw it down too—as if it might burst into flame from its long association with the blade.

Too late he realized his mistake in killing the flameweaver.

A powerful flameweaver cannot be killed. She can be disembodied, and in time she will dissipate, become one with her element. But there is a space of time, a moment of consciousness between death and dissipation, where the full power of the flameweaver is unleashed, where the flame-weaver combines with the element she served.

Gaborn staggered backward as quickly as he could, pulling Rowan with him. Even in death, the flameweaver sought to remain human, sought to retain her form, so that one moment a great fountain of green fire rose skyward, and the next a huge woman of flame, some eighty feet tall, began to take shape.

The inferno assumed bodily form—a marvelously compact assortment of topaz and emerald flames, her sculpted cheeks and eyes perfect, the small breasts and firm muscles of her legs all reproduced with marvelous accuracy. She stood as if confused, looking blindly to the south and to the east, from whence came the noise and clamor of battle.

The flameweaver's elemental reached out, curious, touched the rooftop of an ancient shop on Market Street. As she steadied herself with one fiery hand, the lead on the roof melted, began running molten from the gutters.

This was a wealthy district, and many of the shops had large glass windows, which shattered from the searing heat. Wooden posterns and signs burst into flame.

Yet the elemental was not fully conscious. The flameweaver perhaps did not realize yet that she'd been murdered. For a few moments, Gaborn suspected, he would be safe.

Then she would come for him.

“Run!” Gaborn hissed, and pulled Rowan.

But she stood in shock, for the fierce heat burned her more than it could him. Rowan screamed in pain, her fresh nerves suffering from the close proximity of the elemental.

A china shop was to his left, and Gaborn hoped only that it had a back entrance as he raised his arm, ran headlong through its glass windows.

Shards of glass rained down on him, cutting his forehead, but he dared not slow to assess the damage. He pulled Rowan through the mess as he ran for the back of the shop, toward an open door that led to a workshop. He glanced back in time to see a fiery green hand snake through the shop-window behind them.

A green finger touched Rowan's back. The young woman screamed a bloodcurdling cry as fire pierced her like a sword. A long tongue of flame exited through her belly.

Gaborn let go her hand, astonished by the pain in her eyes, by her horrible dying scream. He felt as if the fabric of his mind suddenly ripped. He could do nothing for her.

He ran through the workshop door, slammed it behind. The chisels and awls of a wood sculptor lay all about. Wood shavings cluttered the floor.

Why her? Gaborn wondered. Why did the elemental take her and not me?

A back door stood here, bolted from inside. He threw open the bolt, felt a wall of heat rushing up behind him. He fled into an alley.

Began to dodge left, up a blind run, but went right. He shot into a narrow boulevard, some twelve feet from doorstep to doorstep.

Gaborn felt desolate, hurt, remembering Rowan's face, how she'd died. He'd sought only to protect her, but his impetuousness had killed her. He almost could not believe it, wanted to turn back for her.

He rounded another corner.

Two of Raj Ahten's swordsmen stood not twenty feet from Gaborn, eyes wide with fear. Both of them scrabbled backward, seeking escape, oblivious of Gaborn.

Gaborn turned to see what they stared at.

The flameweaver's elemental had climbed a rooftop, now straddled it like a lover, and the whole roof was sprouting in flames, a terrible inferno of choking smoke that roiled black as night.

The elemental was losing her womanly form—the flames of it licking out greedily, stretching in every direction to wreak havoc. As a flame touched a building, the elemental grew in size and power, became less human.

The fiery whites of her eyes gazed about, searching all directions. Here was a marketplace to burn—below lay the wooden buildings of the poorer market. To the east stood the stables, and to the south the mist-shrouded Dunnwood with its cries of death and shouts of horror.

Her eyes swept past Gaborn and seemed to focus on the two soldiers, an arm's length away. The soldiers turned and ran. Gaborn merely stood, afraid that the elemental, like a wight, would be attracted by movement.

Then the elemental gazed back toward the vast rolling hills of the Dunnwood, the tree limbs reaching above the fog. It was too tasty a feast for the elemental to ignore. The flameweaver became a hungry monster now, a devourer. The stone buildings of the market offered little sustenance.

She stretched her hand, grasped a bell tower, and pulled herself upright, then began racing toward the woods, legs of flame spreading over rooftops.

There were shouts of dismay down below as she reached the portcullis at the King's Gate. Soldiers manning the towers at either side of the gate burst into fire at her approach, dropped in flaming gobbets like chunks of meat burning on the spittle of a campfire.

Friend, enemy, tree, or house—the flameweaver's elemental cared not what she consumed. To get a better view, Gaborn climbed an external stairway behind an inn. There he crouched just beneath the eaves of a roof.

The stone towers at either side of the portcullis cracked and blackened from the heat as the elemental passed. The iron bars of the portcullis melted.

And as she hurried down toward the lower bailey, toward the city gates, hundreds of voices broke out in unison, screaming in fear.

By the time she reached the outer gates, the flameweaver had begun to lose her human form entirely, and instead was a creeping pillar of fire. She climbed the city wall, just above the drawbridge, and stood for a moment atop the towers, perhaps fearing the moat. A face flickered in the flames, so much like a woman's face, which gazed back longingly toward the wooden shacks in the lower part of the city, down toward the Butterwalk.

Then the flames leapt the wall, over the moat, and raced through the fields toward the Dunnwood.

Distantly, Gaborn became aware again of the sounds of war, the battle horns of his father's soldiers as they sounded retreat upon those mist-shrouded fields. His heart had been pounding so hard that he had not heard any other sounds for half a minute.

The light of the elemental's fire blazed, cutting through that blanket of fog. In that light, Gaborn could see—as if lit by a flash of lightning—three mounted soldiers battling among the nomen, swinging their great horseman's axes wide over their heads, locked in furious combat.

Then the soldiers were gone, consumed in fire. The elemental began sweeping over the plain, so greedy for dry grass and timber and human life that she seemed to dissipate altogether, to lose consciousness, and become nothing but a great river of flame gushing across the fields.

Gaborn felt sick of heart. When the elemental had touched Rowan, he'd almost felt as if it pierced him, too. Now he heard shouts of despair in the fields, mingled with screams from the injured and dying here in Castle Sylvarresta. He could not block out that last horrid look of pain on Rowan's face. Almost a look of betrayal.

He did not know if he had done well or ill in slaying the flameweaver. Killing the flameweaver had been impetuous—almost a reflex that felt somehow right, yet carried dire consequences.

For the moment, the walls of fire rising up from the field kept Raj Ahten from exiting Castle Sylvarresta, from sending his men into battle.

That might be a saving stroke for my men, Gaborn thought.

But perhaps not. Gaborn had no idea how many of his troops died in that river of flames. He only hoped that in that fog, the men had seen the fiery elemental crouching on the castle walls, had been able to flee.

Men were dead and dying in the castle. Dozens, maybe hundreds of Raj Ahten's troops had burned in the flames. The portcullis of the King's Gate had been incinerated.

Even as Gaborn watched, the huge oak drawbridge to the Outer Gate was aflame; the towers beside it crumbled in ruin. The gears to raise and lower the bridge had melted in the wreckage.

With one fell swipe of his blade, Gaborn had just compromised Castle Sylvarresta's defenses.

If his father sought to attack now, today, he'd have an entrance into the castle.

Gaborn became aware of a tiny figure atop the Outer Wall, gazing over the walls of flames—the figure of a man in black armor, the white owl's wings of his helm sweeping back.

He clutched a long-handled horseman's warhammer in one hand, and shouted with the voice of a thousand men, so his words rang clear from the hills, made the castle walls reverberate. “Mendellas Draken Orden: I will kill you and your spawn!”

From his perch at the top of the stairs, Gaborn fled to hide in the nearest alley.

16 The Feint

During his ride from Tor Rollick, Borenson had been lost in thought. The impending battle did not occupy his mind. It was Myrrima, the woman he'd betrothed in Bannisferre. Two days past, he'd escorted her, her sisters, and her mother into the city, to keep them from harm as Raj Ahten's troops wreaked havoc through the countryside.

Myrrima had borne the attack well, kept a stout lip about it. She'd make a fitting soldier's wife.

Yet in his few tender hours with the woman, Borenson had fallen deeply, irrevocably in love. It wasn't just her beauty, though he prized that well. It was everything about her—her sly, calculating manners; her grasping nature; the unabashed lust that flashed in her eyes when she rode with him alone to her mother's farm.

She'd actually turned and smiled up into his face, her dark eyes all innocence as she asked, “Sir Borenson, I assume you are a man who has endowments of stamina?”

“Ten of them,” he'd said, bragging.

Myrrima had raised a dark brow. “That should be interesting. I've heard that on her wedding night, a maid often discovers in bed that a soldier's great stamina is good for something more than insuring that he doesn't die from battle wounds. Is it true?”

Borenson had tried to stammer some answer. He'd never dreamed that a woman so lovely would ask him so frankly about his skill in bed. Before he could manage a reply, she stopped him by saying, “I love the color red on you. It looks so good when you wear it on your face.” He'd blushed more fiercely, felt grateful when she looked away.

Borenson had fancied himself lost to love more than once. But this felt different. He was no moon-sick calf, bawling in the night for some heifer. This felt...right. Loving her felt right, all the way down to the bone.

He'd realized he was in love as he rode to warn King Orden of the invasion. He'd been racing full-speed along a road, horse galloping, and had passed three lovely maids picking berries at the edge of the road. One had smiled at him seductively, and he'd been so lost in thought about Myrrima, it wasn't until he was ten miles down the road that he realized he hadn't smiled back.

That was how mad he'd gone.

On riding to Castle Sylvarresta, he'd driven Myrrima from his mind with this thought: The sooner I finish this battle, the sooner I can ride back to her.

Yet well before he reached the castle, Borenson's troops began to run into Raj Ahten's scouts, hunting parties in fives and tens along the road. His fastest knights hunted and slaughtered the scouts gleefully as Borenson plotted his attack on the nomen.

Near the castle he stooped at the banks of the River Wye and opened the flask of mist King Orden had given him. He struggled to hold it as fierce winds howled from the bottle's neck.

By opening the flask over water, he'd doubled the amount of mist it normally would give. So he stoppered the bottle when it was still half-full.

Yet as the smell of sea fog swept across the little valleys around Castle Sylvarresta, Borenson tasted the salt in the air and thought of home. He dreamt how it would be to take Myrrima back to his new manor at Drewverry March. He knew the estate—a fine manor, with a hearth in the master bedroom.

He quickly drove such thoughts from his mind, ordered his archers to string their bows and charge through the dawn woods. Five minutes later, his men surprised the nomen, sleeping in trees. Arrows flew; nomen dropped like black fruit from the oaks of the Dunnwood—some of them dead, some seeking the safety of the castle.

His men thundered and screamed across the downs, herding nomen before them, a great mass of dark fur, snarling fangs, red eyes blazing with fear and rage.

Borenson always laughed in battle, he was told, though he seldom noticed it. It was an affectation he'd learned young, when Poll the squire used to beat him. The older boy had always laughed when he dished out punishment, and as Borenson grew old enough to mete out some retribution, he'd taken to laughing, too. It terrified some foes, angered others. Either way, it caused his opponents to make mistakes while his comrades took heart.

Thus he found himself in the midst of the plain, in a thick fog, surrounded by a dozen nomen. The creatures hissed and roared.

He put his warhammer to work, parried blows with his shield, called on his horse to kick and paw the air, clearing away attackers.

Lost in the rhythmic rise and fall of the warhammer, he was surprised when a great wall of flames shot through the fog to his left.

He shouted for his horse to retreat, to run for its life. It was a force stallion, after all, able to outrace the wind.

But then the wall of flame veered, stretched out tendrils to grasp them all, like some living monster groping for them. The nomen saw their own deaths racing toward them, and one yanked Borenson's foot, trying to pull him from his mount, so that they might die in one another's embrace.

He hacked at the creature with his warhammer, realizing that he might die, that he might never deliver the message King Orden had asked him to bear to Raj Ahten. He planted his warhammer in the noman's face, kicked the creature away, and his horse lunged through the mist.

Borenson raced back over the plains, calling “Orden, Orden!” for his men to regroup. The fire raced after him, like slender fingers that would grasp and tear.

Then he raced under the dark trees.

When the fire reached the oaks, it hesitated, as if...uncertain. It prodded a large oak, exploding it into flame, then seemed to forget Borenson.

Only half a dozen men managed to follow Borenson back into the woods, but he'd seen dozens of others scatter from the flames, into the mists.

He waited for several long minutes for his men to regroup, hoping they'd reached safety. Here in the trees, he felt safe, hidden. The leaves hung over him, closing him in. Surrounding him like a cloak. The branches were shields against arrow and claw, a wall to slow the flames.

Down in the valley, he heard a tremendous cry—Raj Ahten shouting threats of murder against House Orden. Borenson did not understand the reason, but the fact that Raj Ahten would be so outraged made him giddy.

Borenson blew his war horn, calling men to regroup. Minutes later, four hundred men had gathered from all around the valley near Castle Sylvarresta. Some bore alarming news of battling Frowth giants east of the castle. Others said nomen were regrouping, trying to reach the castle gates. Other warriors had chased nomen deeper into the woods and hunted them to good effect. Some men had busied themselves slaughtering Raj Ahten's horses. This whole battle was getting crazy, losing focus, and Borenson almost wished now that he'd not covered the battlefield in fog.

He considered what to do, felt it would be safest to stay in the woods, hunting the last of the nomen. But more tempting game lay before the castle, in the fog.

“Right then,” he ordered. “We'll do a sweep from east to west before the castle. Lancers in front, to handle the giants. Bowmen to the sides to clear the nomen.”

The air was filling with smoke from the fires in the fields and in the woods downhill.

The knights of Orden formed ranks, charged through the trees, down to the east field. Borenson had no lance, and so took the middle of the pack, near the front, so that he could direct.

As his horse thundered through the mist, Borenson saw a huge giant looming off to his left, a great shaggy mound in the dense fog. Two lancers veered, slammed into the beast.

The wounded monster bawled out, slashed with its enormous claws, sent a warhorse sprawling as if it were a pup, snapped a warrior in half with its tremendous jaws.

Then Borenson was charging past that battle. A few bowmen had spurred into that fray.

Two more giants came wading through the fog. Nomen had gathered in their wake, taking courage. Twenty of Borenson's knights veered toward them. Borenson's heart hammered. One giant roared in rage, calling others. A vast horde of giants and nomen came rushing together, dark hills with a black tide of spearmen behind. A shout of triumph rose from the monsters' throats.

Borenson's heart nearly stopped. For in their midst rode hundreds of soldiers with brass shields. At their head, one huge warrior in black scale mail, with a helm of white owl's wings, raised a great warhammer and shouted a war cry with a voice of a thousand men: “Kuanzaya!”

The fellow struck terror into Borenson's heart, for he bore the armor and the weapons of kings.

Raj Ahten had his helm raised, and he was the most astonishingly handsome man Borenson had ever seen. The magnificent volume of the Runelord's voice made Borenson's horse stagger in its tracks. Witless with fear at the sound of the war cry, it struggled to retreat. Borenson shouted for it to charge, but Raj Ahten's voice had been so deafening, perhaps it had damaged the mount's hearing.

The horse thundered to a halt, fighting its reins, trying to turn on Borenson. Borenson managed to pivot it toward the enemy. Then they were in thick battle. Borenson's lancers frantically charged the giants, spreading the cavalry dangerously thin, bowmen firing a hail of arrows, while Borenson himself struggled to charge Raj Ahten.

His mount would not go near that man, fought instead to flee. It raced to Borenson's left, and Borenson found himself charging into the thick of giants as Raj Ahten swept past, warhammer rising and falling with incredible speed as he blazed a bloody trail through the ranks of defenders.

A giant rushed at Borenson through the fog, swung a huge oaken staff. Borenson ducked the blow, fled past the giant, into a knot of nomen who hissed and snarled, happy to see a lone soldier in their midst. Several giants raced past Borenson, seeking the heart of the battle.

Somewhere behind him, one of Borenson's lieutenants began blowing his war horn, desperately sounding retreat.

Borenson raised his hammer and shield, began to chuckle as he fought for his life.

17 In the Queen's Tomb

Three hours after a perfect pink dawn, Iome stood atop the Dedicates' Keep and watched as Raj Ahten and a thousand of his Invincibles rode back into the castle, along with dozens of Frowth giants and hundreds of war dogs—all amid cheers and shouts of celebration. The fog on the downs had burned away, but a few wisps still clung amid the shadows of the Dunnwood.

Apparently, the Wolf Lord had taken a great chance, had gone to skirmish with Orden's troops in the woods, and had succeeded in killing and scattering them.

Raj Ahten's men rode smartly, weapons raised in salute.

Chemoise had brought Iome here to the Dedicates' Keep at first sign of attack. “For your own protection,” she'd said.

The remains of many a tent and farm still burned out on the fields, and a wildfire ran amok through the Dunnwood, blown now by the easterly winds, two miles from the castle.

For a while the flames had squirmed more like a living thing—tendrils shooting out in odd directions, plucking a tree here, exploding a haycock there, consuming a home with greed.

The blazes within the castle had extinguished, for Raj Ahten's flame-weavers drew the power from them. And though Raj Ahten sent men among the streets to seek the murderer of his flameweaver, his beloved pyromancer, he did so to poor effect. The elemental had consumed most of Market Street, destroying any trace of the identity of her murderer.

In the charred and smoking ruins outside the gates of Castle Sylvarresta, one could see many signs of destruction. A thousand nomen had burned near the moat, where they'd sought to make their stand against Orden's mounted knights. One could count Orden's fallen knights among them, too—two hundred or so blackened lumps that had once been men in bright armor, clustered in smoking heaps along the battle lines.

Hundreds more nomen lay strewn at the edge of the woods, where the battle must first have raged fierce and heavy. The trees there were now nothing but blackened skeletons.

Three dozen Frowth giants littered the battlefield, strange-looking creatures, with their hair burned off. Iome had never envisioned them thus—each with pink skin and a long snout like a camel's, the hugeness of their claws. From atop the Dedicates' Keep, they looked like misshapen, hairless mice, dotting the battlefield. Some dead giants still held knights and their horses in their paws.

Raj Ahten's horses were dead, cut down with many of the guards who'd been stationed at the edge of the wood.

Yet now his men celebrated a victory, a battle won.

Iome did not know if she should rejoice at Raj Ahten's victory, or weep for Orden.

She was a Dedicate now to Raj Ahten. Rather than fear Raj Ahten, Iome now had to fear assassination at the hands of other kings, or from the Knights Equitable who battled the Wolf Lord.

Chemoise stood at Iome's side, gazed over the blackened fields, weeping as Raj Ahten's troops rode to the castle. Smoke still crept over the ash, and stumps burned all the way to the hill and into the woods.

Why does Chemoise cry? Iome wondered. Then she realized that she, too, had eyes filled with tears.

Iome understood. Chemoise cried because the world had gone black. Black fields. Black woods. Black days ahead. Iome drew her hooded robe more tightly around her, hiding her face. The heavy wool seemed thin protection.

Some of Raj Ahten's troops waited down in the lower bailey. Raj Ahten rode from the battlefield toward the city gates, to meet with his flame-weavers and counselors. Even the Frowth giants ducked under the posterns of the gates and came into the lower bailey, seeking protection.

In the hills to the south, a hunting horn rang out, followed by another farther east, and another. A few last stragglers from Orden's army perhaps, calling to one another.

Iome waited for Raj Ahten's men to turn around, ride out, and mop up the survivors. Given the strength of his forces, she did not understand why so many of his men remained here in the castle.

Unless something had happened on the battlefield that she couldn't see. Perhaps Raj Ahten feared for his own men. Perhaps they were weaker than she believed. The Wolf Lord must have feared to chase Orden's men any farther, for he knew full well that he could get drawn into an ambush.

Raj Ahten's wisdom went far beyond Iome's. If he was frightened, perhaps he had good reason to fear. Yesterday, Gaborn had told Iome that King Orden could soon reach the castle with reinforcements.

Iome hadn't given it much thought. Orden often brought a couple hundred men in his retinue. What could they do?

Yet Gaborn clearly believed the force was powerful enough to strike at Raj Ahten. Gaborn had never spoken the number of his father's troops, she now realized. Wisely so. House Sylvarresta could not divulge information it didn't have.

Iome glanced at her Days, who sat a few paces off, with her mother's Days, both of them watching the dark fields. They knew how many men Orden had brought, knew every move each king was making. Yet for good or ill, the Days only watched the armies move like pieces across a chessboard.

How many men had Orden brought to Hostenfest this year? A thousand? Five thousand?

Mystarria was a rich country, populous. King Orden had brought his son with a proposal of marriage. It was common with such proposals for a royal family to make some display of wealth, to marshal some soldiers, engage the knights in friendly competitions.

Orden would have many of his best men on hand. Five hundred of them, perhaps.

Yet Orden was also pompous, given to vain display. So double that number.

The warriors of Mystarria were fierce. Their bowmen trained from youth to fire from horseback. The prowess of their knights with their long-handled horseman's axes and warhammers was legendary.

Perhaps the legend of Mystarria's warriors would keep Raj Ahten at bay, so that he would not dare leave the castle again. Or perhaps Raj Ahten feared the Earth King that his pyromancers warned of.

Iome watched for a long moment from the Dedicates' Tower. No one else returned to the castle—not one black-maned noman.

Defiantly now, in the wooded hills to the east and south and west, battle horns blared in a dozen directions, sounding charges, calling new formations.

Orden's knights still fighting nomen in the woods. It would be a long, grueling day for those warriors.

Down at the city gate, Raj Ahten turned in his saddle to look back over the fields one last time, as if wondering if he should ride once more; then he entered the city, and his men closed the ruined drawbridge.

Life went on. From the tower, Iome could see much of the city. Down by the Soldiers' Keep, women and children hunted for eggs left by the hens. The miller was grinding wheat by the river. The fragrance of cooking fires mingled with the smoke and ash of war. Iome's own stomach felt tight. When Iome judged that she had watched from the wall long enough, she went down to the bailey in the Dedicates' Keep, her Days following. Her mother's Days stood on the tower, kept watching the fields.

Iome's father sat in a shaft of sunlight, playing with a pup that snarled and chewed at his hand. Her father had soiled his britches while Iome stood on the wall, so Iome went to work with bucket and rag, to clean her father. He did not fight her, simply stared at her ruined face, frightened by her ugliness, not knowing who she was.

He was handsome as ever, with his endowments of glamour intact. Stronger than ever. A superman with the mind of a child. While she washed the feces off him, King Sylvarresta lay watching her with wide eyes, and made gawping noises, blowing bubbles. He smiled innocently at this newfound pleasure.

Iome nearly broke into tears. Twelve hours. Her father had given his endowments nearly twelve hours ago. This was a critical time, this first day—the worst for him. Those who gave greater endowments went through a time when they were in grave danger. The facilitators called it “endowment shock.” One who gave wit would sometimes forget to breathe, or his heart would forget how to beat. But if he survived through this first day, if he survived the shock of the endowment, he might regain a small bit of his wit. Somehow, his body would claim a tiny fraction, enough to survive. At the moment, Iome's father was at his weakest, his most helpless, but later today he could go through a “wakening,” a moment when the endowment between lord and vassal became firm, when he regained some small part of his mind.

Thankfully, Iome's father had suffered none of the worst effects of endowment shock. Now that twelve hours had passed, she hoped he might regain some wit. It was possible—if he had not wished to grant the endowment with all his heart, if the forcible had not been perfectly fashioned, if the facilitator had not chanted his spells with precision—it was possible that he might even remember her name.

So Iome sang to her father softly as she finished cleaning and dressing him. Though he showed no signs of recognizing her, he smiled at her songs.

Even if he never remembers who I am, Iome told herself, it will be worth it to sing. In time, he might learn to love my singing.

When she finished changing him, Iome dressed him with a cloth diaper beneath his tunic.

The bailey of the Dedicates' Keep was filled with ruined men and women, people who had given endowments the night before. The influx had overwhelmed the caretakers. As quickly as Iome and Chemoise finished caring for their own fathers, they began caring for other men—guards who'd faithfully served House Sylvarresta since childhood.

The cooks got breakfast ready, and Iome carried plates of blackberry-filled pastries among the Dedicates. She knelt to waken one young woman who slept in the sunlight beneath a green blanket, a guard named Cleas, who'd escorted her on many a trip into the hills.

Rarely did women serve as guards. Even less rarely did they serve as soldiers of the line. Yet Cleas had done both in her life. She had endowments of brawn from eight men, had been one of the strongest swordmasters in Sylvarresta's service. Raj Ahten had delighted in taking the strength from her. Now Cleas did not breathe. Sometime during the night, she'd become too weak to draw breath.

Iome hurt at the sight, did not know whether to feel angry or grateful. With Cleas' death, fifteen people who had given her endowments would have suddenly become whole, easing the overcrowding in the Dedicates' Keep. Yet Iome had lost someone she'd loved. Iome's throat felt tight. She knelt over Cleas, weeping, looked back. Her Days stood watching. Iome expected the woman to be cold and dispassionate as ever, her little V of a face tight-lipped and empty. Instead, she could see lines of sorrow in her expression.

“She was a good woman, a good warrior,” Iome said.

“Yes, it is a terrible waste,” the Days agreed.

“Will you help me get her to the tombs?” Iome asked. “I know a vault we can use, a place to honor the guards. We will place her with my mother.”

The Days nodded weakly. On such a dark day, this small gesture struck Iome powerfully. She felt grateful.

So Iome finished feeding the Dedicates; then she and the Days got a litter, spread a blanket over Cleas to use as a pall, and carried her to the south wall of the keep, laid her on the ground next to five other shrouded litters. Four of those litters held Dedicates who had not lived out the night.

Iome's mother, Venetta, lay under the last black burlap shroud. A slim golden circlet, resting atop her chest, identified the body of the Queen. A black-and-white jumping spider had climbed onto the circlet, hunting a bluebottle fly that buzzed about.

Iome had not seen her mother's face since her demise, almost dared not pull back the shroud to look at it. Yet she had to see if her mother's body had been properly prepared.

All morning, Iome had avoided this duty.

Chancellor Rodderman had come in the night to tend to Venetta's funeral arrangements. Iome had not seen him since. Perhaps he had business outside the King's Keep, but Iome suspected that he had decided it was best to avoid Raj Ahten. He might even have dodged his responsibilities in preparing the body.

Raj Ahten's men had brought the corpse here, to the Dedicates' Keep. He would not have left it in the Great Hall, where custom dictated it be placed for the morning, to be viewed by vassals. The Queen lying dead on a pallet, for all to see, might engender discord in the city.

Instead, it had been secluded within the high and narrow walls of the most inner keep, where only the Dedicates might see.

Iome pulled back the black burlap covering.

Her mother's face was not what she'd imagined. Apart from the terrible wound, it was like gazing into the face of a stranger. Her mother had once had several endowments of glamour, had seemed a great beauty. But at death the beauty had gone out of her. Unexpected threads of gray hair were woven into her black tresses. The shadows under her eyes looked dark and sunken. The lines on her soft face had grown hard and old.

The woman on the pallet had been cleaned, but nothing could hide the gash on the left side of her face where Raj Ahten's signet ring had torn her skin, the indentation in her skull where her head had met the paving stones.

The woman beneath the shroud seemed a stranger.

No, Raj Ahten had no need to fear the vassals. They would not rise up in outrage at the death of this old thing.

Iome went to the portcullis, to the captain of the guard, a dark little mustached man in big armor, a helm embossed with silver. It seemed strange for Ault to be gone, or Derrow, when they had stood under this stone alcove for so many years.

“Sir, I'd like permission to take the dead to the King's tombs,” Iome said, holding her breath.

“De castle is onder attack,” the captain said gruffly, his Taifan accent thick. “Is no safe.”

Iome fought the urge to slink away. She did not want to antagonize the captain, yet she felt that it was her sacred duty to bury her mother, show the woman that one last act of dignity. “The castle isn't under attack,” Iome tried to sound reasonable, “only a few nomen trapped in the woods are under attack.” She waved her hand out over the burned battlefield before the castle. “And if Orden should attack, you would see him coming from half a mile, and he would have to breach the Outer Wall. No one is likely to reach the Dedicates' Keep.”

The little man listened intently, his head cocked to the side. Iome could not tell whether he understood her. Perhaps she'd spoken too fast. She could have spoken to him in Chaltic, but she doubted he'd understand.

“No,” the little man said.

“Then let her spirit take vengeance upon you, for I am guiltless. I do not wish to be haunted by a Runelord.”

The little man's eyes flashed in fear. The spirits of dead Runelords were said to cause more trouble than most—particularly if they suffered violent deaths. Though Iome did not fear her mother's shade, this little Taifan captain was from a land where such things were taken far more seriously.

“Hurry,” the little captain answered. “Now. Go. But take nothing more than half an hour.”

“Thank you,” Iome said, reaching out to touch him in gratitude. The captain shrank back from her touch.

Iome called out to Chemoise, to her Days. “Quickly, we need bearers to carry these litters—and some charnel robes.”

Chemoise ran into the kitchens, brought out some of the deaf and mute bakers, the butcher and his apprentice, kitchen helpers with no sense of smell. In a few moments, two dozen people came to help bear the litters.

The butcher trundled over to the Dedicates' Hall, came out with an armload of black cotton charnel robes, with their deep hoods and long sleeves.

Each pallbearer donned a charnel robe, so that the ghosts in the tombs would know they had not come as grave robbers, and at the hem of each robe was a silver bell whose tinkling would drive off any malicious spirits.

When they had finished, they went to the litters and began carrying the dead to the portcullis. Iome took the front right handle of her mother's litter, as was her place.

When they were ready, the Taifan captain and his sergeant put their backs to work, raising the portcullis quickly, and shooed them all from the keep with a warning. “Be back, twenty minutes. No more!”

It would not be enough time, Iome knew, to set the bodies in place, sing the soothing funerary lullabies to the dead, yet she nodded yes, just to put the captain's mind at ease.

Then she began lugging the bodies to the back of the Dedicates' Keep, to a wooded hollow, the King's tombs.

Iome had never done such heavy labor, so she had not gone two hundred feet past the gate, round the corner of Feet Street, when she found herself, heart pounding, moist with sweat, begging the others to stop.

It was nearly noon. As she waited in the bright sunlight, the smell of ash cloying the air, a dirty young hunchback in a deep-hooded robe darted out from the shadows beneath a market's awning.

Immediately she knew it was Binnesman. She could feel the earth power emanating from him, and she wondered what had brought him back, wondered why the wizard sought her.

The hunchback sidled up to Iome, forcing her back a step. “Let ol' Aleson give you a hand with that, lass,” he whispered, pulling back his hood a bit, and he reached for the right front pole to the litter.

It wasn't Binnesman at all. Iome felt astonished to recognize Gaborn's face beneath a liberal coat of grime. Her heart pounded. Something was afoot. For some reason, Gaborn had not made it outside the castle gates and needed her help. And, somehow, Gaborn had grown in the past few hours; had grown in the Earth Powers.

Iome pulled her hood closer to hide her face. For a moment, she felt once again as if all her pride and courage would leach from her. The spell woven into Raj Ahten's forcibles still sought to drain her self-esteem.

Over and over again, she whispered in her mind a litany: This, I deny you. This I deny you.

Yet she could not bear the thought that Gaborn might recognize her. She let him take the litter; then Iome walked beside him as the pallbearers cut through an alley, down the narrow streets that led to the tombs.

The tombs of House Sylvarresta consisted of hundreds of small stone mausoleums, all painted white as bone, rising among a sheltered grove of cherry trees. Many of the mausoleums were designed to look like miniature palaces, with absurdly tall pinnacles, and statues of the dead kings and queens standing at the gates of each tiny palace. Others of the mausoleums, those reserved for trusted retainers and guards, were simply stone buildings.

When they reached the shelter of the grove, Gaborn and the others set down their burdens. Gaborn whispered to Iome, “I am Gaborn Val Orden, Prince of Mystarria. I'm sorry to impose upon you, but I've been hiding all night, and I need information. Can you tell me how House Sylvarresta fares?”

With a start, Iome realized that Gaborn didn't recognize her—not with her beauty gone, her skin rough as bark. Behind her, Iome's Days had her face and historian's robes covered beneath the charnel robes, just another anonymous pallbearer.

Iome did not want Gaborn to know who she was. She could not stand the thought of being ugly in his sight. Yet another fear also struck her heart, for she saw a more compelling reason to keep her identity hidden: Gaborn might feel the need to kill her. She was, after all, a Dedicate to an enemy king.

Iome spoke with a low, frightened, voice; hoping to disguise it. “Do you not even know whose corpse you carry? The Queen is dead. But the King lives. He has given his wit to Raj Ahten.”

Gaborn grasped Iome's arm. “What of the Princess?”

“She is well. She was given a choice—to die, or to live and serve her people as regent. She was forced to give an endowment, also.”

Gaborn asked, “What has she given?” He held his breath, his face full of horror.

Iome considered speaking the truth, revealing her identity, but she could not. “She has given her sight.”

Gaborn fell silent. Abruptly he lifted the litter, signaling an end to the break, and began walking between the tombs again, thoughtful. Iome led Gaborn and the pallbearers to her parents' tomb, which was of classic design. Nine marble spires rose from the tiny palace atop it; outside its door stood statues of King Sylvarresta and his wife, images carved in white marble shortly after their wedding eighteen years before. Iome signaled for the bearers to also bring Cleas into the tomb. As a faithful guard, it was only right that she be interred beside her queen.

As they entered the shadowy tomb, Iome smelled death and roses. Dozens of skeletons of faithful guards lay in the tomb, bones gray and moldering. But last night, someone had brought bright red rose petals and strewn them across the floor of the tomb, to alleviate the smell.

Gaborn bore Queen Sylvarresta to her sarcophagus, in the sanctum at the back of the tomb. It was a red sandstone box, with her image and name chiseled into its lid. The roof above the sanctum was a slab of sheer marble, so thin that light broke through it, shining down onto the sarcophagus beneath.

Here in this deep corner, air breathed into the tomb from tiny slits in the stonework, so that the smell of death did not reach.

It took a great deal of effort for Gaborn and two bakers to slide the lid of the sarcophagus back, exposing the empty casket. Then they lifted the queen into place, and were about to set the lid on the box when Iome begged them to stop, to let her look for a while.

Pallbearers carried Cleas to a stone shelf, pushed back the bones of some loyal guard from a decade past, and laid Cleas in his place.

They did not have Cleas' armor and weapons to bury with her, so a baker took a warhammer from a nearby corpse, laid it across Cleas' chest, wrapped her hands around its handle.

Gaborn stood a minute in the dim light, studying the moldy skeletons, many of them still in armor, bearing weapons on their chests. Though the room was small, only forty feet long and twenty wide, five tiers of stone shelves were cut into the walls. Some guards had been entombed here for over twenty years. Bones from knuckles and toes littered the floor, borne there by rats.

Gaborn looked as if he would ask a question.

“You may speak freely here,” Iome told him, still kneeling beside her mother's casket. “These pallbearers are all deaf or mute, sworn to the service of House Sylvarresta. No one here will betray you.”

“You bury your dead with their weapons here in House Sylvarresta?” Gaborn asked.

Iome nodded.

He seemed delighted, looked as if he would rob a corpse. “In Mystarria, we bequeath fine weapons and armor to the living, so it can be put to good use.”

“Mystarria does not have so many smiths to keep employed,” Iome said dryly.

Gaborn asked, “Then no one will mind if I borrow a weapon? Mine was destroyed.”

“Who can say what offends the dead?”

Gaborn did not immediately take a weapon. Instead, he paced nervously. “So,” he breathed at last, “she is in the Dedicates' Keep?”

Iome hesitated to answer. Gaborn had not said who “she” was. Apparently he was distraught. “The Princess came to the keep this morning, and washed her father and fed him. Raj Ahten's guard put her there for safekeeping during the attack. But she may leave at any time. I think she still occupies her room in the King's Keep, with servants to attend her.”

Gaborn bit his lip, quickened his step, thinking furiously. “Can you get a message to her for me?”

“It should not be hard,” Iome answered.

“Tell her that House Orden is sworn to protect her. Tell her that I will kill Raj Ahten, that she will look upon my face again someday, no longer a Dedicate.”

“Don't...please don't try,” Iome said, choking back a sob. Her voice cracked, and she feared Gaborn would hear it, see through her disguise.

“Try what?” Gaborn asked.

“To kill Raj Ahten,” she said deeply. “Queen Sylvarresta clawed him with poisoned fingernails, yet he withstood the venom. It is said that the wound of a sword thrust through his heart heals before the blade is withdrawn.”

“There must be a way to kill him,” Gaborn said.

“You will be forced to kill House Sylvarresta, for both the King and his daughter are Dedicates to Raj Ahten. Lord Sylvarresta himself received eighty endowments of wit last night, all in Raj Ahten's behalf.”

Gaborn turned at this news, went to the door of the tomb, staring out up into the sunlight, considering.

“I will not kill my friends,” Gaborn said, “or their Dedicates. If they gave endowments, they did not do so willingly. They are not my enemy.”

Iome wondered at this. It was common practice to kill another's Dedicates, a necessary evil. Few Runelords would shirk this most hateful responsibility. Did Gaborn hope to let men live, simply because they did not intend evil? She said, “Even if you spare House Sylvarresta, even if you turn instead to other houses, kill other kings, they are also innocents. They, too, deserve to live. They have no love for Raj Ahten.”

“There must be a way to get Raj Ahten without killing others,” Gaborn said. “A decapitation.”

Iome had no advice to give. With powerful Runelords, a decapitation was the most certain way to insure a kill, but plotting the deed and doing it were two different matters. “And who will decapitate him? You?”

Gaborn turned to her. “I could try, if I can get close to him. Tell me, is the herbalist Binnesman well? I need to speak with him.”

“He's gone,” Iome said. “He vanished in the night. Raj Ahten's men saw him...at the edge of the woods.”

Perhaps of anything she could have said, this news seemed to dismay him most.

“Well,” Gaborn said, looking lost, “I must change my plans. If the wizard is in the woods, perhaps I can find him there. Thank you for the news, Lady...?”

“Prenta,” Iome whispered. “Prenta Vass.”

Gaborn took her hand, kissed it, as if she were a helpful lady-in-waiting. He held her hand, just a moment too long, lightly sniffed the scent of her perfumed wrist, and Iome's heart skipped. Her voice had not faltered, she felt sure; he had not recognized her voice. But did he recognize her perfume?

He gazed into her face, with his penetrating blue eyes, and though a small frown formed on his lips, he did not speak. Iome pulled away, turned her face, heart pounding, fearing that she had been discovered.

She knew she was hideous, that every scrap of beauty had been stripped from her. Her yellow eyes, her wrinkled skin, were gruesome enough. But her features were nothing compared to the horror she felt inside, the insidious draw toward self-loathing.

Surely he would condemn her. Surely he would pull away in contempt. Instead, he stepped around, to better see her face.

Iome suspected that Gaborn recognized her. He regarded her silently now, trying to discern any traces of the woman he had seen yesterday. But he refused to embarrass her by voicing his recognition. Iome could not withstand that gaze, felt forced to raise a hand, and with it hid herself from those eyes.

“Don't hide from me, Prenta Vass,” Gaborn said softly, taking her hand again, pulling it down. He'd spoken her name hesitantly. He knew her. “You are beautiful, even now. If there is any way I may serve you?”

Behind Gaborn, Iome's Days shifted nervously, and the bakers suddenly left the tomb as if they'd just recalled urgent matters elsewhere. Iome wanted to break into tears, to fall into his arms. She only stood, trembling terribly. “No. Nothing.”

Gaborn swallowed hard. “Can you bear another message to the Princess for me?”

“What?”

“Tell her...that she haunts my dreams. That her beauty is indelible in my memory. Tell her that I'd hoped to save her, hoped to give her some small aid, and maybe I did some good—I killed a powerful flameweaver. Because I'm here, my father has come, though perhaps too late. Tell her I stayed the night in Castle Sylvarresta, but now see that I must leave. My father's soldiers are hunting for me in the woods. I dare stay no longer. I'm going to try for the woods, before my father charges the city.”

Iome nodded.

“Will you come with me?” Gaborn asked. He stared into her face, and now she knew without a doubt that he recognized her. His eyes were filled not with contempt, but with pain, and so much gentleness, she longed to fall into his arms. Yet she dared not move.

Iome's eyes filled with tears. “Come? And leave my father? No.”

“Raj Ahten will not hurt him.”

“I know,” Iome said. “I—don't know what to think. Raj Ahten is not totally evil, not as I feared. Binnesman hopes for some good from him.”

“ 'When you behold the face of pure evil, it will be beautiful.' ” Gaborn quoted an old saying among Runelords.

“He says he wants to fight the reavers, that he wants to unite mankind for our own defense.”

“And when the war is won, can the Wolf Lord give your endowments back to you? Will he give his own life so that all those who were robbed of endowments can regain them, as Good King Herron did? I think not. He will keep them.”

“You don't know that,” Iome said.

“I do,” Gaborn insisted. “Raj Ahten has revealed his nature. He has no respect for you or any other. He will take all that you have, leave you with nothing.”

“How can you be sure? Binnesman seemed to want him to change. He hoped to convince the Wolf Lord to rid himself of the flame weavers.”

“You believe he will do it? You can stand here, over the body of your dead mother, and believe Raj Ahten has any degree of decency whatsoever;”

“When he speaks, when you look in his face—”

“Iome,” Gaborn said, “how can you doubt that Raj Ahten is evil? What do you have that he has not yet tried to take? Your body? Your family? Your home? Your freedom? Your wealth? Your position? Your country? He has taken your life, as surely as if he'd slain you, for he desires to strip away all that you have and all you hope to be. What more must he do to you, before you know him to be evil? What more?”

Iome could not answer.

“I'm going to cut off the bastard's head,” Gaborn said. “I'm going to find a way to do it, but first we need to get out of here alive. Now will you come with me, if I bring your father out of the city, too?”

He took her hand, and when he touched her, all darkness fled. Iome's heart pounded. She almost dared not to believe her fortune, for when she looked into Gaborn's eyes, all her fears, all her self-loathing and sense of ugliness vanished. It was as if he were some living talisman that wrought a change on her very heart. A stone fortress, she thought. A haven. “Please,” he begged, using all the powers of his Voice.

She nodded yes, numb. “I'll come.”

Gaborn squeezed her hand. “I don't know how, yet, but I'll come for you and your father—soon—in the Dedicates' Keep.”

Iome felt again that sensual thrill, the longing she associated with the presence of Binnesman. Her heart pounded. He had just held her tenderly, as though she still had her endowments of glamour, as if she were beautiful.

He turned, took a short sword from a corpse and tucked it in the folds of his robe, then hurried from the tomb, his fleeting shadow blocking the cold sunlight a moment.

As he fled, she almost dared not believe he would return for her, that he would not save her. Yet a warm certainty filled her. He would be back.

When he was gone, Iome's Days said, “You should be careful of that one.”

“How so?”

“He could break your heart.” Iome could not fail to note something odd in the Days' voice, a tone of respect.

Iome felt terrified. If Raj Ahten caught her trying to escape, he'd show no mercy. Yet she knew that her heart was not pounding in fear, but for another reason. She held her hand over her heart, trying to still it.

I think he already has broken it, she told herself.

18 Dueling with Deception

Two hours after Gaborn fled Iome in the tombs, Borenson rode up to the ruined gates of Castle Sylvarresta, a green flag of truce flying from a dead nomen's lance. He forced a smile.

His muscles ached, and his armor was covered in blood. He now rode a new horse, gleaned from a fellow soldier who would never ride again.

It would be a game to match wits with Raj Ahten, one he did not want to play. Luck had not favored him. Most of his warriors had been slaughtered. He'd paid for every small victory. His soldiers had slain more than two thousand nomen. He had unhorsed most of the Wolf Lord's army, and had managed to slay or drive off a number of Frowth giants—while a dozen more of the creatures had perished in that insane fire. Dozens of Raj Ahten's legendary Invincibles had followed Borenson's men into the woods, and the Invincibles were now so full of arrows that their corpses looked as prickly as hedgehogs.

Yet Borenson had not won a clear victory, despite heavy enemy losses. Raj Ahten had quit hunting Borenson's men when they got deep into the woods, fearing an ambush. In part, Borenson had hoped that Raj Ahten would brave the woods, where his own men, he felt sure, would have the advantage.

But Borenson also wanted Raj Ahten to fear that ambush, needed Raj Ahten to believe that the woods were full of men. King Orden had often said that even a man with great endowments of wit could be outsmarted, for “Even the wisest man's plots are only as good as his information.”

So it was that Borenson rode up to the gates of Castle Sylvarresta, reigned his horse in at the moat. Smiling.

On the charred wall above the ruined gate towers, one of Raj Ahten's soldiers waved his own lance overhead three times, an acceptance of Borenson's request for truce, then waved at him, beckoning him to ride into the castle. The drawbridge was down, its gears and chains melted. One side of the drawbridge was so charred it had a hole in it large enough to let a man ride through.

Borenson stayed where he was, not wanting to deliver messages in private, and shouted, “I'm in no mood for a swim, not in this armor. Raj Ahten, I bear a message for you! Will you face me, or must you hide behind these walls?”

It seemed madness to accuse the Wolf Lord of cowardice, but Borenson had long ago decided that sanity was no virtue in an insane world.

In twenty seconds, when he heard no response, Borenson shouted again. “Raj Ahten, in the South they call you the Wolf Lord, but my lord says you are no wolf, that you are born of a common whippet, and that you have not the natural affections of a man, but instead are given to fondling bitches. What say you?”

Suddenly, atop the wall, stood Raj Ahten, shining like the sun, the white owl's wings sweeping wide from his black helm. He gazed down, imperious, unperturbed by the insults.

“Serve me,” he said softly, so seductively that Borenson almost found himself leaping from his horse, to fall on one knee.

But he recognized the use of Voice immediately, was able to ignore it. A captain in Orden's guard could not be the kind of man easily swayed by Voice.

“Serve you, the one who's been baying from these walls all morning, breathing out threats to my lord? You must be mad!” Borenson said. He spat on the ground. “I fear there is no profit in serving you. You don't have long to live.”

“You claim to have a message?” Raj Ahten asked. Borenson thought that the Wolf Lord seemed too eager to stem the tide of insults.

Borenson made a show of taking a long gaze at the soldiers along the castle walls. Thousands of archers were there, other defenders with pike and sword. And on the wall-walks behind them were citizens of Castle Sylvarresta—curious boys, eager to hear his message. Some farmers, merchants, and tradesmen stood now to defend the walls for Raj Ahten as vigorously as they would have stood to defend Sylvarresta the night before. Borenson felt acutely aware that his message was for these soldiers and townsmen more than for Raj Ahten. A message foretelling doom that was delivered in private might demoralize a single leader. The same message delivered before an army could subvert an entire nation.

“Such a small army, to be trapped so far from home,” Borenson said, as if musing to himself. Yet he threw his own voice, loud enough so the men on the far walls could hear.

“They are a fine army,” Raj Ahten said. “Good enough for the likes of you.”

“Indeed,” Borenson countered. “I do commend them. Your men died most excellently in the woods this morning. They fought almost as well as expected.”

Raj Ahten's eyes blazed. Borenson had succeeded in angering him. This is maybe not the smartest thing I've ever done, Borenson told himself.

“Enough of this,” Raj Ahten said. “Your own men died well, too. If you desire a contest to see whose men die best, then I must concede that your men will win, for I slaughtered enough of them today. Now, deliver your message. Or did you come merely to try my patience?”

Borenson raised a brow, shrugged. “My message is this. Two days ago King Mendellas Draken Orden took the castle at Longmont!”

He waited a moment for this news to sink in, then added, “And though you have sent occupying forces to hold that piece of rock, King Orden bids me to let you know that your reinforcements have been slaughtered to the man.”

This news shook the defenders on the castle walls. Raj Ahten's men were gazing at one another, trying to consider how to react.

“You lie,” Raj Ahten said evenly.

“You accuse me of lying?” Borenson said, using his own gift of Voice as best he could, trying to sound righteous and indignant. “You know the truth of it. As proof, you may search your own feelings. This morning at dawn, King Orden put to death all in Longmont who had given you endowments. You felt the attack. You felt his retribution. You cannot deny it!

“And now I shall tell you how it was done: We began our march three and a half weeks ago,” Borenson said honestly, naming the time since he'd left Mystarria, then calculated when Raj Ahten's own troops would have set march, “shortly after we received word of your departure from the South.

“At the time, my lord King Orden sent word to the far corners of Rofehavan, setting his snare for a pup of a Wolf Lord. Now, Raj Ahten, the noose has your neck, and shortly you shall find yourself choking, choking on your greed!”

The men on the walls began talking, looking about in dismay, and Borenson guessed at their question. “You wonder how my lord knew that you would attack Heredon?” Borenson shrugged. “My lord knows many things. He heard of your plans from the spies who serve at your side.” Borenson glanced meaningfully at the counselors and magicians who stood beside Raj Ahten, barely suppressing his smile. He held his gaze on the imperious-looking Days at Raj Ahten's side. Perhaps Raj Ahten might still trust these men, but from now on, Borenson suspected none of them would trust each other.

Raj Ahten chuckled at Borenson's ploy, countered with words that struck terror in Borenson's heart. “So, King Orden has sent you to get word of his son. Don't worry, the young man is for ransom. What does Orden propose to offer?”

Borenson took a deep breath, glanced at the castle walls in desperation. He'd been told to offer a ransom for a nameless friend, so that Raj Ahten would betray the names of those he held captive. But Raj Ahten had guessed his ploy. Now, Borenson hoped the words he spoke next might dishearten the Wolf Lord even further. “I was told to offer nothing—until I have inspected the Prince.”

Raj Ahten smiled playfully. “If King Orden cannot keep track of his own son, I shall not oblige him. Besides, you would not like what you saw.”

Borenson wondered. This game was becoming complex, more complex than he liked. If Raj Ahten really had Gaborn prisoner, then he should not have hesitated to show the young man. Unless, indeed, he had killed the Prince.

Yet, if Raj Ahten had not captured the Prince, then by Borenson admitting that he needed to inspect the merchandise, Borenson had revealed to the Wolf Lord that he, too, did not know Gaborn's whereabouts.

Belatedly, Borenson realized that he had departed from the script King Orden had written for him. He was trying too hard to be clever, working too hard to go his lord one better. By doing so, he might well have jeopardized his whole mission.

His face burning with shame, Borenson turned his horse around, began to leave. He doubted that Raj Ahten would let him go. The Wolf Lord had to be terrified, had to wonder whether King Orden had captured the forcibles in Longmont. Had to wonder how many might be offered in ransom.

“Wait!” Raj Ahten called at Borenson's back.

Borenson glanced over his shoulder.

“What will you offer me, if I show you the Prince?”

Borenson said nothing, for at the moment he feared to speak, so he just urged his horse to walk slowly away.

Borenson rode his horse a hundred yards, fully conscious that this little encounter could still go astray. He was within bowshot of the castle, and Raj Ahten's wizards manned the walls. Raj Ahten would not let him escape without trying to wring some information from him.

Yet Borenson asked himself once again, If Raj Ahten has the Prince, why does he not show him?

Borenson turned his horse, gazed up into Raj Ahten's dark eyes. “Gaborn safely reached our camp last night,” he lied bold-faced, “and I fear that I can no longer offer any ransom. I came only to bring that message.”

Raj Ahten showed no emotion, but the frightened, self-consciously determined faces of his counselors spoke volumes. Borenson felt sure he had guessed correctly, that Raj Ahten did not have the Prince. He remembered a few scouts his men had killed last night, and another party of scouts his men had fought deep in the woods an hour ago. Why else would so many of Raj Ahten's troops have been scouring the forest?

“However,” Borenson continued, “House Sylvarresta is an old and valued ally to my lord. I can offer something for the King's family, for their safe return.”

“What?” Raj Ahten asked.

Borenson departed further from the script Lord Orden had composed for him. “A hundred forcibles for each member of the royal family.”

Raj Ahten laughed now, laughed with relief and scorn. Here in the North, where blood metal had been so scarce the past ten years, three hundred forcibles might seem a princely sum. But to Raj Ahten, who had forty thousand forcibles hidden in Longmont, it was nothing. Raj Ahten no longer believed that Orden had taken Castle Longmont, just as Borenson had planned.

“Consider the offer well, before you laugh me to scorn,” Borenson said. Now it was time to put the Wolf Lord on the rack. Borenson said confidently, “Lord Orden captured forty thousand forcibles in Longmont, and for the past two days, he has had half a dozen facilitators putting them to good use. Perhaps to a man as rich as you, the loss of forty thousand forcibles seems a small thing—but my lord will not up his offer of ransom for the King and the royal family. Of what use to him are such people, when they only serve you as Dedicates? A hundred forcibles for each, nothing more!”

Borenson watched Raj Ahten's counselors tremble at the news, felt deeply gratified, though Raj Ahten himself stood stoically, the blood slowly draining from his face.

“You lie,” Raj Ahten said, betraying no fear. “You do not have the Prince. You have no forcibles. And there is no spy. I know what your game is, messenger, and I am not dismayed by your ruse. You...merely annoy me.”

By use of the Voice, Raj Ahten sought to bolster his troops. But the damage had already been done. Compared to the harrowing message Borenson had delivered, Raj Ahten's denial sounded hollow, thrown up vainly as a last defense.

And yet, and yet Borenson feared that Raj Ahten did see through him. He felt a nagging worry.

Borenson spurred his horse forward, out over the burned grass before the castle. Here and there, small puffs of smoke still boiled up from the ground. When he felt safely out of bow range, he wheeled about.

“Raj Ahten,” he cried, “my lord begs you to meet him at Longmont if you dare. Bring with you any fool who wishes to die—your five thousand against his fifty! There, he swears, he will grant no quarter, and he will whip you like the vicious cur that you are!”

He raised his arm in signal, and out across the hills, his men began to blow their war horns in the woods, the short staccato blasts that commanded each squadron to reform.

King Orden had sent two hundred horns on this expedition, for he had planned to have his men sound them in the hills when his son had secured Iome's hand.

Yet in time of war, such horns were issued only to each captain of a hundred. Raj Ahten would know this, and Borenson only hoped that the Wolf Lord's ears were keen enough to discern the number of horns.

It would be well if Raj Ahten believed that Borenson's eighty surviving men were eight thousand.

19 Sifting

Raj Ahten's most devoted counselor Jureem watched through slitted eyes as his master stood atop the burned walls of Castle Sylvarresta while Borenson rode away. His master's face glowed with beauty, seemed almost translucent. A face so bright, it was the light of the world. Raj Ahten seemed unperturbed by this dire news.

Yet Jureem found himself trembling. Though his master denied it, he knew something was wrong. Jureem could only wonder, for his master seldom confided in Jureem anymore, or sought his advice.

For years these Northerners had been a thorn in his master's side, sending their Knights Equitable to assassinate his Dedicates. Raj Ahten's own beloved sister had died in his arms from a wound administered by a Knight Equitable. Over the years he had grown to detest these pale-skinned Northerners, until now, as Raj Ahten took their endowments and plotted ways to use them, he seemed to feel nothing for them. No remorse, no pity, no human compassion. Now this.

At the moment, Jureem felt painfully distressed. He wanted to run to Longmont and learn if Borenson spoke the truth. He wanted to shoot Borenson in the back. He wished that Borenson had never spoken. Furthermore, Raj Ahten's flameweavers had seen visions of a king in their fires, a king who could destroy him. King Orden.

Now the wizard Binnesman had gone to join Raj Ahten's enemy,

Jureem held his hands in fists, trying not to let others see how they shook. He'd thought that eliminating House Orden would be easy. Now the matter seemed more complex.

A book could not contain words enough to relay the schemes that his master, Raj Ahten, had laid. Jureem only understood them in part. By tradition, King Orden came for the hunt here at Castle Sylvarresta, bringing a couple of hundred men in his retinue.

This year, his son was of an age that, Raj Ahten decided, the Prince too would have come. And so he'd laid his trap, besieging Castle Sylvarresta with a few men, hoping to send Orden scurrying south, where Raj Ahten's troops, hiding along the roads leading to Mystarria, would slaughter King Orden and his son. If the King did not run south, Raj Ahten's scouts would hunt him down eventually.

It was but one of a hundred plots set in motion. This very day, dozens of parties of assassins would strike at targets. Armies marched against fortresses to the west and south. In other places, armies would simply show themselves, then disappear into some forest or mountain pass, either freezing vital forces in some stronghold or drawing them away from intended targets.

Jureem knew that the heart of his master's plan lay here. The heart of his plan was to strike down both Orden and Sylvarresta.

Yet dire portents now warned against it. The pyromancer had seen a king here, a king who could destroy the Great Light of Indhopal.

Raj Ahten had left himself open to attack. He'd brought fewer than a thousand forcibles to Castle Sylvarresta, and over half of those had been used up last night, consumed by the spells that bound Raj Ahten and his Dedicates. He'd left forty thousand forcibles at Longmont, true, and he'd judged that those forcibles would be safe. Longmont was a great castle, with high walls bound with magic spells. And though Raj Ahten's forces in Longmont had been small, their numbers were to have been bolstered soon.

The window of opportunity for someone to strike at Longmont had been dreadfully narrow. Given Longmot's defenses, it should have been able to withstand any attack from the smaller keeps within striking distance. Castles Groverman and Dreis were both within a days' ride from Longmont. But Raj Ahten's advance scouts had assured him that the garrisons there were small. Jureem's spies had seen none of Orden's forces in either castle.

His spies only sent word that Orden had brought a “larger than anticipated retinue” to celebrate Hostenfest, and that they were camped outside the village of Hazen, on the southern borders of Heredon. The retinue contained at most three thousand men—including knights, squires, cooks, and camp followers. It was a large force, larger than Raj Ahten had planned to engage. Normally Orden brought fewer than three hundred men to the hunt.

But now the scouts said that last night, over two thousand knights had been riding toward Castle Sylvarresta. How could that be? Did Orden bring two forces, one to attack Longmont, another to ride north?

Two days. Jureem hadn't received a report from Longmont in two days. He should have had a status report. Jureem suspected that Longmont had fallen. King Orden had somehow taken the castle.

Fifty thousand men, the messenger had said. Fifty thousand? The number unnerved Jureem, for it seemed too close to the number of knights he'd estimated Orden would marshal against his master next spring—if Orden escaped the trap. King Orden could marshal a quarter million knights of decent prowess, but he'd not attack with anywhere close to that number. He wouldn't dare leave his castles defenseless.

Elaborate schemes, all on the verge of crumbling. Raj Ahten needed to take the North, and he needed to take it quickly. For years now the blood-metal mines of Kartish had been playing out. They'd be empty by midwinter.

Only in Inkarra could he get more blood metal. It was said that the mines there still yielded well.

Yet no lord of Rofehavan or Indhopal had ever succeeded in invading Inkarra. Wizards there were not powerful, but they were plentiful. The Inkarrans had adopted battle tactics well suited to their terrain—quick strikes in the hills on solid little ponies. And the Inkarrans could not be defeated unless one also defeated the high lords of the arr.

Worst of all, in long ages past, a certain Master Facilitator named Tovil had fled Rofehavan to Inkarra, and there he had launched a new school for the study of forcibles. In Inkarra, amazing discoveries had been made, discoveries no other wizards had ever been able to duplicate. In Inkarra, forcibles had been developed that left no scar, so that one could learn from a mark the shape of a rune of power. These forcibles transmitted talents and skills from one person to another.

In all the years of spying, the lords of Rofehavan and Indhopal had never been able to duplicate the Inkarrans' discoveries.

Each time a Northern lord had tried to invade the South, he quickly found that the Southerners did not just fight him—they also provided forcibles to his enemies.

Thus, no lord had ever been able to take Inkarra, drain its riches, or penetrate its secrets.

Jureem knew that Raj Ah ten had to act soon. He had to drain the Northern kings now, subjugate them, and then move on. It was quite possible that in days now lost to legend, Daylan Hammer had taken endowments of will and talent, that these were an integral piece that Raj Ahten needed before he could become the Sum of All Men.

Jureem prided himself on being a man who was not easily deceived. He strongly suspected that Borenson had told an intricate tale based on some truth, twisted together liberally with lies. Yet as Jureem considered the message Borenson had brought, it was damnably difficult to know where the truth ended and the lies began.

After only a few moments on the castle wall, Raj Ahten looked to his side, at Jureem. “My counselors, let us walk,” he said. The Wolf Lord seldom sought advice from Jureem or Feykaald anymore. Certainly his master was worried.

They came down from the city wall, walking along the steps, and had not gone far before they were out of the crowd, heading up a small rise toward the stables.

“Feykaald,” the Wolf Lord asked the oldest of his counselors. “What think you: Does King Orden have his son?”

“Of course not,” Feykaald hissed. “The messenger was too startled, too frightened, when you first mentioned the ransom. That messenger was full of lies. He spoke not a word of truth.”

“I agree that Orden does not yet have his son, but though the messenger's manner showed him to be a liar, he spoke some truth.”

“He does not have his son,” Jureem agreed, replaying every nuance of the messenger's voice, every expression.

“Granted,” Raj Ahten said. “What of Longmont?”

“He could not have conquered it,” Feykaald spat quickly.

“He has done so,” Raj Ahten said, his voice not betraying the concern that this must have caused. Jureem's heart nearly froze at the thought.

“O Greatest of Lights,” Jureem said, “I must argue with you. The messenger's demeanor clearly indicated that this, too, was a lie. Orden must be a fool, to send such a poor liar on such an errand!”

“It is not the messenger's demeanor that convinced me,” Raj Ahten said. “I felt a dizziness at dawn. Virtue left me. Many hundreds of Dedicates died, and their endowments are lost. Of that I am sure.”

To lose so many endowments was a deep blow, a fearsome cut. Yet it did not terrify Jureem. In distant lands to the south, Raj Ahten's facilitators worked assiduously to find new Dedicates for him. These were men with great glamour and powers of Voice, who could lure others into Raj Ahten's service, put the forcibles to them. Raj Ahten was in a constant state of flux, gaining in strength and wit and glamour and stamina at an astonishing rate. Jureem no longer knew how many thousands served as his lord's Dedicates. He knew only that his lord grew in power, day by day. Jureem could not yet see what his lord would become, when he became the Sum of All Men.

But this morning he had suffered a blow.

In a day or two, Raj Ahten's occupying armies would arrive, a hundred thousand strong, and lay siege. Orden could not have anticipated so large an occupying force.

At the same time, three armies would enter the kingdom of Orwynne to the west, and King Theros Val Orwynne, upon seeing that he was caught in a vise, would have little choice but to either surrender or dig in for a siege. He would not be able to send aid to Orden in Longmont.

Meanwhile, saboteurs in Fleeds had begun poisoning the grain stock to the stables of High King Connel, preventing the horse clans from mounting their fierce cavalry attacks.

No, Orden had to be terrified. So he was sending this little yapping messenger to bark at Raj Ahten.

“Perhaps,” Jureem said, “Orden has taken Longmont, but he cannot hold it.” Yet if Raj Ahten was right, if Longmont had fallen, and this messenger had managed to feign dishonesty through his whole speech, was it yet possible that in every matter he had spoken the truth?

Now Raj Ahten said the thing Jureem dreaded most. “Do we have a spy in our midst?”

Jureem considered, could see no other way to explain how Orden had known that Raj Ahten planned to attack Heredon. Nor could Orden have known about the forcibles hidden in Longmont, or known that the garrison was undermanned.

Immediately, Jureem worried that he himself might have been the problem. Had he spoken of these things to any of his lovers? Had he spoken before any servants or strangers? A careless word to the wrong person?

It could have been me, Jureem thought. He'd confided his fears about leaving Longmont undermanned to one of his lovers, a horseman who bred fine stallions. But had he mentioned that the forcibles would be there? No. He had not spoken of them.

Jureem looked to his side. Feykaald had been with Raj Ahten for many years. Jureem trusted the man. As for the flameweavers, they cared nothing for Raj Ahten. They served the elemental fires, and would follow Raj Ahten only so long as he promised them war, promised to feed their master.

So Jureem did not worry that these men were spies. True, it could be that one of the captains was a spy. But how? How could even a spy have notified Orden of the opportunity at Longmont on such short notice?

No, it was the Days, the tall man with graying hair and chiseled, imperious features who most worried Jureem. He could have aided Orden in this battle. Only he.

Jureem dreaded this moment, had long suspected it would come. The Days claimed they were neutral, that they never aided any lord against another. To do so would have been to interfere in the affairs of men, an action that the Days said the Lords of Time would not tolerate. So they merely recorded events—but Jureem had heard too many rumors, too many hints at unscrupulous dealings in the past. For years, Raj Ahten had grown in power until he reached the point where Jureem suspected that the Days would unite against him.

In their own way, Jureem believed the Days were far more of a threat than the irrepressible Knights Equitable.

The Days, of course, knew Raj Ahten's actions. The Days knew well in advance that Raj Ahten planned to attack Longmont, knew he'd left the castle without a sufficient garrison. The Days' twin, the man or woman who shared his mind in the monastery to the north, of course knew what had come to pass. And anything learned by one Days could swiftly be relayed to many.

It was all Jureem could do to keep from whirling now and gutting the Days.

“I think, we are betrayed, my lord,” Jureem said, glancing at the Days. “Though I know not how.” His master was watching, had seen the covert accusation.

Yet what could the master do? If Jureem accused the Days falsely, and slew him, he might make matters worse. All of the Days would then openly fight Raj Ahten, betray his secrets into every ear.

On the other hand, if Jureem did not slay the Days, then a spy would remain in the camp.

Raj Ahten stopped.

“What will we do now?” Feykaald asked, wringing his little hands. They stuck out from his turquoise silk robes like twisted knots from a tree limb.

“What do you think we should do?” Raj Ahten asked. “You are my counselor, Feykaald. So counsel me.”

“We should send a message,” Feykaald whispered, “to General Suh, and divert his armies to us for reinforcement, instead of having him attack Orwynne.”

Feykaald was old, tough, and full of experience. He'd lived long by being careful. But Jureem knew that Raj Ahten often desired less-cautious counsel. The Wolf Lord had grown in power by listening to Jureem.

He leaned his ear to Jureem. “And what would you do?”

Jureem bowed his head. He spoke carefully as he thought aloud. “Forgive me, O Blessed Light, if in this matter, I do not seem so alarmed.” He flashed a distrustful glance at Feykaald. “It may be true that King Orden has captured your forcibles, but who will he use them on? You have already stripped endowments from everyone who was worthy at Longmont. Orden cannot use the local populace. Which means he would have to take endowments only from his warriors—an unfortunate proposition, for with each endowment he took to himself, he would weaken his own army.”

“So you propose?”

“Go to Longmont and take your forcibles back!” It was, of course, the only possible answer. Raj Ahten could ill afford to wait for reinforcements. It would only give Orden time to either slip away with the treasure or draw reinforcements himself.

Raj Ahten smiled at this answer. It was risky, Jureem knew. Perhaps Orden wanted to draw them out of Castle Sylvarresta for an ambush. But all life was a risk. And Raj Ahten could ill afford to do nothing.

The Master had taken six endowments of metabolism. In doing so, he was able to thwart the assassins who came after him time and again.

But taking such endowments carried a great danger, the promise of an early death. Metabolism could serve as a weapon against its owner. Indeed, in one case, according to legend, a Dedicate who gave a great king metabolism was kidnapped by the King's enemies. Then, the enemies gave hundreds of endowments of metabolism to the Dedicate, making him a vector, so that the King died of old age in a matter of weeks. For this reason, Raj Ahten had vectored all his metabolism through a single Dedicate, a man he always kept near to his side, in case he needed to slay the man and break his own link.

Few kings ever dared take more than one or two endowments of metabolism. With six, Raj Ahten could run six times the speed of another man.

But he also aged six times faster. And though Jureem's master had many thousands of endowments of stamina, and would grow old with incredible grace, Jureem knew that the human body was meant to wear out over time. His master had lived for thirty-two years now, but because of his many endowments of metabolism, he had aged far more than that. Physically, he was in mid-eighties.

Raj Ahten could not hope to live much beyond the biological age of a hundred and ten, nor could he survive without his endowments.

Only a few years back, Raj Ahten had made the unfortunate mistake of slaying some of his Dedicates, so that he could slow his own aging. But within a week, a Northern assassin had nearly slain the Wolf Lord. Since then, Raj Ahten had been forced to bear this lonely burden of high metabolism.

Three years. He needed to unite the world, to become the Sum of All Men within three years, or he'd die. One year to consolidate the North. Two to take the South. If Jureem's master died, it might well be that the hope of all mankind would die with him. The reavers were that powerful.

“So we go to Longmont,” Raj Ahten said. “What of Orden's army in the Dunnwood?”

“What army?” Jureem asked, certain from many small cues that there was no great threat. “Have you seen an army? I heard war horns blowing in the wood, but did I hear a thousand horses neighing? No! Orden's mists were there only to hide his weakness.”

Jureem squinted up at his master. Jureem's obesity, his bald head, made him look like an oaf, but Raj Ahten had long known that Jureem was every bit as dangerous as a cobra. Jureem found himself saying, “You have twenty legions approaching Longmont—an army Orden cannot withstand, not if you fight at our head. We must go and take Longmont.”

Raj Ahten nodded solemnly. Those forty thousand forcibles represented the labor of thousands of miners and craftsmen over the past three years. A large pocket of blood ore—now tapped dry. They were irreplaceable.

“Prepare the men to march,” Raj Ahten said. “We will empty Sylvarresta's treasury, take what food we need from villages we pass. We leave in an hour.”

“My lord, what of the horses?” Feykaald asked. “We will need mounts.”

“Our soldiers have enough endowments; most need no mounts,” Raj Ahten said. “And common horses require food and rest, more than a man.

My warriors shall run to Longmont. We will use what horses we can. We'll empty Sylvarresta's stables.”

A hundred and sixty miles by road. Jureem knew that Raj Ahten could walk that distance himself in a few hours, but most of his archers would not bear the burden of more than a single endowment of metabolism. Such soldiers could not run to Longmont in less than a day.

Raj Ahten would have to leave his nomen here. They would only slow the march. The giants and war dogs, though, could take such abuse.

“But,” Feykaald urged, “what of your Dedicates here? You have two thousand in the Dedicates' Keep. We don't have horses to move them, nor do we have enough guards to protect them.” His attention, too, had turned to logistics.

Raj Ahten's answer was chilling. “We need leave no warriors to guard the Dedicates' Keep.”

“What?” Feykaald asked. “You practically beg Orden to attack. You'll get your Dedicates killed!”

“Of course,” Raj Ahten said. “But at least their deaths will serve some higher purpose.”

“Higher purpose? What higher purpose can their deaths serve?” Feykaald asked, wringing his hands, mystified.

But Jureem suddenly saw the plan in all its cruelty and magnificence: “Their murders shall nurture facetiousness,” Jureem reasoned. “For years, the Northern nations have united against us. But if Orden murders Sylvarresta's Dedicates, as he must, if he destroys his oldest and dearest friend, what will he win? He might weaken us for a few days, but he will weaken himself forever. Even if he should escape with the forcibles, the lords of the North will fear Orden. Some here in Heredon will revile him, perhaps even seek vengeance. All this shall work against House Orden, and destroying Orden is the key to taking the North.”

“You are most wise,” Feykaald whispered, glancing first at Raj Ahten, and then at Jureem, his voice filled with awe.

Yet such a waste saddened Jureem. So many men go through their lives content to do nothing, to be nothing. It was wise to harvest endowments from such men, put them to use. But wasting the lives of Dedicates this way—was a great shame.

Jureem and Feykaald shouted a few curt orders, and in moments the castle walls became alive as the troops prepared for the march. Men rushed to and fro.

Raj Ahten began heading along the narrow cobbled streets, wanting to be alone with his thoughts, walking past the King's stables—some fine new wooden buildings that stood two stories tall. The upper story held hay and grain. The lower stabled the horses.

His men rushed everywhere, claiming the first steeds they found, shouting orders to stablehands.

As he passed, Raj Ahten peered into several open doors. A few Dedicate horses were kept in stalls, many of them hanging from slings where stable-masters groomed and pampered the unfortunate beasts. Barn swallows darted in and out through the open doors, peeping in alarm.

The stables became tremendously busy. Not only were Sylvarresta's horses stabled here, but some of Raj Ahten's finer beasts had been brought last night, to be cared for by Raj Ahten's own stablemasters.

He had enough good warhorses to mount a decent cavalry.

Raj Ahten ducked into the last stable. The odor of dung and horse sweat clung in the air. Such stench irritated Raj Ahten, with his overdeveloped sense of smell. Raj Ahten's stablemaster washed the master's horses twice daily in lavender water and parsley, to diminish such offensive odors.

In the front of the stable, a boy with dark hair stood by a stall. He'd bridled a force horse—a good one by the number of runes on it—and stood grooming it, preparing it for the saddle. Several horses of equal merit stood by. The lad was too pale of face to be one of Raj Ahten's own stablehands, had to have been inherited from Sylvarresta.

The young man turned at the sound of Raj Ahten's entry, glanced nervously over his shoulder.

“Leave,” Raj Ahten told the boy. “Take the horses to the gates and hold them yourself. Reserve the best for Counselor Feykaald and Chancellor Jureem here—no other. Understand?” Raj Ahten pointed to Jureem, who stood just outside the door, and Jureem nodded curtly at the boy.

The young man nodded, threw a small hunting saddle over the horse's back, and hurried past Raj Ahten and his counselors, gawking, terrified.

Raj Ahten sometimes had that effect on people. It made him smile. From behind, the boy looked familiar. Yet Raj Ahten suddenly felt a certain muzziness, a cloudiness of thought as he tried to recall. Then he had it—he had seen the boy on the street, earlier this morning.

But no, he now remembered, it had not been the boy. Merely a statue that looked like him. The young man led the horse from the stable, began buckling and cinching the saddle, tying on saddlebags, just out of earshot.

Alone with his Days in the shadowed stable, Raj Ahten whirled and caught the Days by the throat. The man had been following two paces farther back than normal. Perhaps a sign of guilt, perhaps in fear.

“What do you know of this attack at Longmont?” Raj Ahten asked, lifting the Days from the ground. “Who betrayed me?”

“Not, aagh, me!” the Days responded. The man grabbed Raj Ahten's wrist with both hands, clung for dear life, trying to keep from strangling. Fear lined his face. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

“I don't believe you,” Raj Ahten hissed. “Only you could have betrayed me—you or your kind.”

“No!” the Days gasped. “We, ugh, we take no sides in the affairs of state. This is...your affair.”

Raj Ahten looked in his face. The Days seemed terrified.

Raj Ahten held him, muscles strong as Northern steel, and considered breaking the man's neck. Perhaps the Days was telling the truth, but he was still dangerous. Raj Ahten longed to crush the fellow, to rid himself of this pest. But if he did, every Days across the world would unite, would reveal Raj Ahten's secrets to his enemies—the numbers of his armies, the locations of his hidden Dedicates.

Setting the Days down, Raj Ahten growled, “I am watching you.”

“Just as I watch you,” the Days said, rubbing his sore neck.

Raj Ahten turned, left the stable. The captain of his guard had said that Gaborn Val Orden had slain one of the Wolf Lord's scouts near here. The Prince would have left his scent behind.

Raj Ahten had endowments of scent from over a thousand men. Most of his scouts had taken endowments of scent from dogs, and hence feared the dogbane that the Prince carried.

“My lord, where are you going?” Jureem asked.

“To hunt Prince Orden,” Raj Ahten decided on impulse. His men would be long at work preparing for the march. With Raj Ahten's endowments of metabolism, he could spend time doing something of value, while others worked. “He may still be in the city. Some jobs you should not leave to lesser men.”

20 A Prince Unmasked

“Och, orders is orders! His Lor'ship tol' me to put the King and his girl on proper 'orses—even if I had to tie 'em in the saddle! The wagon's too slow on such a long march, thru them woods,” Gaborn said, affecting a Fleeds accent.

The finest horsemen came from Fleeds, and he wanted to play the part of a trusted stableboy.

Gaborn sat atop his stallion, gazing down at the captain in the Dedicates' Keep. The guards had raised the portcullis, and busily filled a great covered wain with Dedicates gained here at Castle Sylvarresta—those who acted as vectors for Raj Ahten, including King Sylvarresta.

“He say to me none of thees!” the captain said in his thick Taifan accent, glancing about nervously. His men had abandoned their posts to raid the kitchens for provisions. Some officers looted Sylvarresta's treasury, and others down on Market Street were breaking shopwindows. Every moment the captain spent talking to Gaborn meant the captain would have less time to stuff his own pockets.

“Aye, what do I know?” Gaborn asked.

Gaborn turned to leave, nudging his mount with his heels, pulling around the four horses he had on his lines. It was a delicate moment. Gaborn's mount grew skittish, laid its ears back, rolled its eyes. Several soldiers hurried into the Dedicates' Keep, to help loot the treasury. Gaborn's stallion flinched at each soldier who crowded past, ventured a small kick at one man. One of the tethered stallions responded to the sudden move by bucking. Gaborn whispered soothing words to keep the whole bunch from bolting.

In the last few minutes, the streets had suddenly come alive with people—a mob of Raj Ahten's men sprinted to the armory to grab supplies, weapons, horses; merchants rushed hither and thither to protect what they had from looters.

“Halt!” the captain of the guard said before Gaborn got the horses turned. “I put King on horse. Which one ees for him?”

Gaborn rolled his eyes, as if the answer were obvious. If he'd truly been a stablehand, he'd have known which mount would remain calmest, which horse would try to keep the idiot king from falling. As it was, he feared that all five horses might bolt at any second. His own horse, the stallion he'd ridden into town the day before, had been trained to recognize the Wolf Lord's soldiers by their coat of arms, and to lash out against them with hoof and tooth. Surrounded by the Wolf Lord's troops, his stallion tossed its head from side to side, shifting its weight uneasily. Unsure. His mood unnerved the other horses.

“Och, today, who knows?” Gaborn said. “I smell a likely storm. They're all a wee skittish.”

He looked at the horses. In truth, two mounts seemed less concerned by the commotion.

“Prop the King on Uprising, and here's to hopin' he don't fall!” Gaborn patted a roan mount, inventing the horse's name on the spur of the moment. “The Princess, she sits on his sister 'ere, Retribution. Their Days can ride the skittish horses and plummet to their asses for all I care. Oh, and watch that girth strap on the King's saddle. It wiggles loose. Oh, and Death Knell there, put her last in your line. She kicks.”

Gaborn handed the lines to the captain, giving him the reins to all four mounts, and turned to leave.

“Wait!” the captain said, as Gaborn suspected he would.

Gaborn craned his neck, sat with a bored expression.

“You geet King on horse! Everyone on horse. I want you personal to geet them down through gates.”

“I'm busy!” Gaborn objected. Sometimes the best way to secure a job was to pretend you did not want it. “I'm wanting to watch the soldiers leave.”

“Now!” the captain shouted.

Gaborn shrugged, urged the horses through the portcullis, into the bailey of the Dedicates' Keep, near the huge wain.

No one had yet managed to bring the draft horses to pull the wain, so the wagon merely sat, its axletree lying on the ground.

Gaborn looked into the wagon, tried not to stare too hard at Iome. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of a sleeve, then got off his horse, helped Iome mount. He had no idea whether she could ride, felt relieved when she sat lightly atop her mare, took the reins confidently.

The drooling King was another matter. His eyes grew frightened and he hooted and grasped the horse's neck with both hands as soon as Gaborn got him saddled, then tried to slide off. Though the King had once been a fine horseman, he gave no evidence of it now. Gaborn realized he would, quite literally, have to tie the man to the pommel.

So Gaborn used one of his lead ropes and did just that, wrapping the rope around the King's waist twice, then tying him to the pommel in front, and to the hitches for the saddlebags in the rear.

Gaborn's heart pounded. He was taking an insane risk: Iome could ride, but the King would pose a definite problem.

Gaborn planned to take the King and Iome through the city gates, then gallop for the woods, where Orden's forces could protect him. Gaborn hoped that none of the enemy archers would dare shoot the King. As a vector, he was too valuable to Raj Ahten.

Gaborn most feared that Raj Ahten's forces might lead a mounted pursuit.

Fortunately, the King's horse seemed more intrigued by the King's whooping and grasping antics than frightened. After Gaborn tied the King securely into his saddle, Sylvarresta became more interested in petting the mount and kissing its neck than in trying to unhorse himself.

Raj Ahten bent over the bloodstained ground, sniffing Gaborn's scent in the birch grove. On the ridge above stood his counselors and two guards, illuminated by the noon sun.

But here in the shaded forest, Raj Ahten searched alone, as only he could.

“That's the spot,” one of his captains called.

But the ground held only the odor of mold and humus, desiccated leaves. Ash had rained down from the fires that incinerated the wizard's garden, fouling the scent. Of course the tang of a soldier's blood filled the air.

The Prince had passed through the herbalist's garden, so that his natural scent lay masked under layers of rosemary, jasmine, grasses, and other rich fragrances. Raj Ahten's own men had tramped here by the dozens last night, further fouling the trail.

The more he tasted the air, the more elusive the scent seemed.

But none of his hunting dogs could track as well as Raj Ahten did. So the Wolf Lord knelt in the loam, sniffing tenderly, dismissing some scents, seeking for that which was Gaborn. He crawled forward, searching for a vestige of Gaborn among the trees. Perhaps the young man had brushed a vine maple, or touched the bole of an alder. If he had, his scent would cling to the spot.

Raj Ahten found no scent near the blood, but found something nearly as interesting: the earthy musk of a young woman, a maid who worked the kitchens. Odd that none of his hunters had mentioned the scent. It might be nothing, or it might be a woman who accompanied the Prince.

Raj Ahten suddenly stood upright, startled. A half-dozen finches in a nearby tree took flight at the movement. Raj Ahten listened to a soft wind blow through the trees. He recognized the girl's scent, had smelled it—

This morning.

He'd passed her on Market Street, just outside the King's Keep.

Raj Ahten had endowments of wit from over a thousand men. He recalled every beat of his heart, remembered every word ever uttered to him. He visualized the woman now, at least the back of her head. A shapely young thing, in a hooded robe. Her long hair a deep brunette. She'd been next to a statue of gray stone. Once again, he felt an odd sensation—a peculiar muzziness of thought.

But—no, he suddenly realized. It could not have been a statue. The thing had moved. Yet when he'd passed it, he'd had the impression of stone.

He tried to recall the statue's face, to imagine the thing he'd passed as living flesh. But he could not see it, could not visualize it. A statue of a boy—a faceless, plain-looking lad in a dirty robe.

They'd stood in the streets near where his pyromancer had been murdered.

But wait, Raj Ahten had it now—the scent. He recalled their smell. Held it in his mind. Yes, it was here in the woods. And he'd smelled it at the stable. The young man Raj Ahten had seen at the stable, minutes ago.

Raj Ahten could remember everything he'd seen in years. Now he tried to dredge up the lad's face, to see him there in the stables.

Instead, he saw the image of a tree: a great tree in the heart of the wood at dusk, so vast that its swaying branches seemed to reach up and capture the stars.

It was so peaceful under that tree, watching it, that Raj Ahten raised his hands, felt the warmth of the starlight touching his own hands, penetrating them.

He longed to be that tree, swaying in the wind. Unmoved, unmovable. Nothing more than trunk and roots, reaching deep into the soil, tendrils of root tickled by the passing of countless worms. Breathing deep. The birds soaring through his limbs, nesting in the crooks of branches, pecking at grubs and mites that hid in the folds of his bark.

Raj Ahten stood, breath suspended, among the trees of the forest, looking down on his smaller brothers, tasting the wind that meandered slowly above him and through him. All cares ceasing. All hopes and aspirations fading. A tree, so peaceful and still.

Ah, to stand thus forever!

Fire blossomed in his trunk.

Raj Ahten opened his eyes. One of his flameweavers stood glaring at him, had prodded him with a hot finger.

“Milord, what are you doing? You've been standing here for five minutes!”

Raj Ahten drew a deep breath of surprise, looked at the trees around him, suddenly uneasy. “I...Gaborn is still here in the city,” Raj Ahten said. Yet he could not describe the boy, could not see his face. He concentrated, and saw in rapid succession a stone, a lonely mountain, a gorge.

Why can I not see his face? Raj Ahten wondered.

Then he looked up at the trees around him, and knew. A small band of trees, narrow along the river. A finger of the Dunnwood. But powerful, nonetheless. “Set fire to this wood,” he told the flameweaver.

Raj Ahten raced for the city gates, hoping he was not too late.

Sweat poured from Gaborn's face as he urged the horses through the lower bailey. Thousands of troops clogged the gates.

Five hundred knights milled outside the city wall. Their warhorses wore the finest armor Sylvarresta's smiths could forge, blackened and polished. Another thousand archers stood ready near the walls with bows strung, should an army race out from the woods.

Yet the fact that so many men had already left the castle did not ease the congestion. Thousands of soldiers did not travel completely alone—squires, cooks, armorers, tailors, bearers, fletchers, prostitutes, washwomen all thronged the streets. Raj Ahten had seven thousand soldiers in his legion, but his camp contained another thousand followers. Armorers dressed the horses in the bailey. Children darted about underfoot. Two cows had run down the Butterwalk and now tramped through the crowd.

In the turmoil, Gaborn rode from the castle, trailing Iome's mount, her father's, and those of two Days, trying to keep his horse from kicking and biting every soldier who wore the red wolves of Raj Ahten on his shield or surcoat.

One dark-faced sergeant grabbed the reins of Gaborn's horse, shouting, “Give me horse, boy. I take that one!”

“Raj Ahten told me to keep the reins myself,” Gaborn said. “It's for Jureem.”

The sergeant drew back his hand as if the words burned him, eyed the horse longingly.

Gaborn rode through the press of bodies, toward the throng of soldiers gathering on the blackened grass outside Castle Sylvarresta. He held the line to the King's horse tightly, glanced back.

The idiot king smiled at everyone, waving, his mouth wide with joy. Gaborn's own mount, with its surly nature, waded through the masses, breaking a path for the horses that followed. Iome's and King Sylvarresta's Days trailed last.

Near the blackened gates, everyone sought to surge across the damaged drawbridge. One side had burned through from the elemental's fires, but had been hastily repaired.

“Make way for the King's mounts! 'Ware the King's mounts!” Gaborn shouted.

Gaborn eyed the city walls as he passed beneath the portal. Archers everywhere guarded the outer wall, but most foot soldiers had deserted their posts.

Then, suddenly, he passed under the main arch. Gaborn did not entirely trust the ruined bridge to hold the weight of both his people and their horses. A few planks had been thrown over the rent, but they looked flimsy, so he dismounted, had Iome do the same. As for the King, he left the man mounted and cautiously walked each horse across, then entered the throng of soldiers milling about in the charred grass.

Raj Ahten's soldiers nervously watched the hills, anxious to be on their way. The troops bunched together, as men do when fearful. The sounds of King Orden's hunting horns less than an hour before had put them in a grim mood.

Iome crossed the bridge, and Gaborn helped her back into the saddle, then led her mount over the dirt road, holding the reins to his own horse, as if he were but a stableman delivering the animals.

From behind him came a sudden commotion. A strong voice shouted, “You, Prince Orden!”

Gaborn leapt a horse, with a kick spurred the beast, shouting, “Game ho!” His mount surged forward so hard that Gaborn nearly fell from the saddle.

He'd taken his mounts from Sylvarresta's hunting stables, trusting they were trained for the chase. At his command, the horses ran like the wind. These were horses bred for the woods, strong of leg, deep of chest.

Some quick-thinking soldier leapt in Gaborn's path, battle-axe half-drawn. “Strike!” Gaborn shouted, and his horse leapt and lashed out with a forehoof, dashing the warrior's head open with the rim of its iron shoe.

From atop the castle wall, Raj Ahten cried, “Stop them! Hold them! Before they reach the woods!” His voice echoed from the hills.

Then Gaborn reached the fields, with Iome shouting and racing beside, clutching the reins to her father's mount.

Behind them, the pair of Days had not spurred forward. One soldier grabbed the King's Days by the hem of his robe, dragged the man down as the horse bucked. Three others joined into the task. Iome's Days, a thin woman with a straight mouth, let her horse dance around the commotion, taking the rear.

Dozens of knights spurred their own mounts, heavy warhorses trained for combat. Gaborn did not fear them. Under the crushing weight of their own armor and that of their armored riders, the horses should fall behind. But they were still force horses, with supernatural strength and endurance.

Gaborn glanced back, shouted for Iome to go faster. He had only a short sword-not much to fight against such men.

On the castle walls, many archers had great bows made of steel that could shoot five hundred yards. Dozens of them nocked arrows. At such a distance, no one could fire accurately, but a lucky shot could kill as easily as a skillful one.

His horse galloped so fluidly, he felt as if it were a creature of wind, come to life beneath him, hooves pounding a four-beat. The stallion raised his ears forward, raised his tail in contentment, grateful to be free of the stable, grateful to race over the ground like a storm.

The woods seemed to rush toward Gaborn.

An arrow whipped past Gaborn's neck, grazed the ear of his mount.

Behind him, a horse screamed in pain, and Gaborn glanced back to see it stumble, an arrow in its neck. Iome's Days rode the mount, her thin mouth an O of surprise. She somersaulted over the horse's head, a black arrow in her back as she fell headlong into the charred field.

Half a dozen bowmen had let fly, the arrows sailing toward Gaborn in a long arc. Gaborn shouted, “Right, ho!” As one, all three remaining chargers veered, dodging from beneath the arrows' trajectory.

“Bowmen, cease fire!” Raj Ahten raged. His fool archers were going to kill his Dedicates.

Five dozen knights raced over blackened fields, pocked with dead nomen and Frowth, toward the near hills where burned trees raised twisted limbs. If the knights did not catch the Prince before he entered the woods, Raj Ahten suspected Gaborn would find safety among King Orden's troops.

As if to confirm Raj Ahten's suspicions, a lone war horn sounded from the woods—a high, lonely cry—from the peak of the first hill. A signal for Orden's men to charge.

Who knew how many knights lurked there?

Beside Raj Ahten, two flameweavers ran to the top of the wall. The hairless men leapt beside him, the heat of their bodies rising fierce as an inferno.

Raj Ahten merely pointed. He could not see the boy's face. Even when Gaborn turned, for some reason he could not focus on the boy's face. But he knew the back, the form. “Rahjim, see the young man who is falling behind, preparing to fight? Burn him.”

A satisfied light shone from the flameweaver's dark eyes. Rahjim exhaled nervously; smoke issued from his nostrils. “Yes, O Great One.”

Rahjim drew a rune of fiery power in the air with his finger, then raised a hand high, grasped for half a second toward the sun shining high in the sky. The heavens suddenly darkened as he gathered sunlight into fibers, threads like molten silk, and brought them all twisting down in ropes of energy, to focus in his hand—until his palm filled with molten flames.

Rahjim held the fire for a portion of a second—long enough to gather a proper focus. He threw with his might.

Gaborn fell forward as a blast of wind and energy smashed his back, felt a sudden burning. He wondered if an arrow had hit him, realized that his surcoat was afire.

One of Raj Ahten's knights raced his horse beside Iome, trying to grab her reins.

Gaborn ripped the dirty, rotting cloth that covered him, tossed the blazing thing in the air just in time to watch the rag burst into flame. He fancied that only the mud on the cloak had kept him from burning in that precious half-second. The garment fell over the face of Iome's pursuer's warhorse, catching on the horse's helm. It almost looked to be a magician's trick.

The horse whinnied in terror, stumbled, threw its rider.

Gaborn glanced over his back. He was now hundreds of yards from the flameweaver—out of range of his most dangerous spells.

Having missed in his first attack, the flameweaver would now show his power in fury.

Atop the hill, on the winding road ahead, a war horn sounded for a second time, calling King Orden's men to charge. The very thought terrified Gaborn. If King Orden charged, Raj Ahten would learn just how few soldiers Gaborn's father had.

The skies darkened a second time, but the darkness held longer. Gaborn turned, spotted the flameweaver, hands raised. A ball of flame, bright and molten as the sun, formed between his fingers.

Gaborn pressed his face close to his mount, smelled the horse's sweat, the sweet odor of its hair.

The road ahead twisted east, though soon it would lead south. The road was broad, full of dust in this season, kicked up by the animals of thousands of traders. But ahead it led past some blackened trees to the promising shelter of the woods beyond. That is where the war horn had sounded. But if Gaborn left the road here, kept straight, he'd reach the woods more quickly.

Once in the woods, out of the flameweaver's sight, he'd be safer.

“Right, ho!” he shouted, urging the horses from the road. Ahead, Iome's mount obeyed the command, and the King's followed its lead. At the sudden turn, King Sylvarresta howled in fear, clung to his steed's neck. Gaborn let his mount leap an embankment like a hare, sailing over blackened logs.

To Gaborn's left, the ball of flame hurtled past—having expanded to the size of a small wagon even as it lost power over the distance.

The rush of heat and light smashed into the blackened turf, exploded. Black ash and fire worried in the air.

Then Gaborn was racing through black tree trunks, dancing between trees, using them to shield his back. Even in death, they provided some protection.

Raj Ahten's troops surged after, men shouting curses in Southern tongues. Faces lined with rage.

Only the fact that he now had no cloak, nothing to protect him but his skin, reminded Gaborn of Binnesman's herbs in the pouch tied about his neck.

Rue.

He grasped the pouch, ripped it from his neck, and waved the thing in the air. The powdered leaves floated out like a cloud.

The effect was devastating.

The soldiers who hit that cloud of rue began hacking. Horses whinnied in pain, faltered and fell. Men shouted. Metal clanged on ground. Gaborn glanced back.

A dozen knights lay coughing on the blackened hillside. Others had all veered from their inexplicably fallen comrades. Most of them had deemed it wise to retreat from the insistent blowing of the war horn, for they now raced full-tilt back to Castle Sylvarresta.

Gaborn topped a small rise, saw the dirt road from the castle winding through a narrow valley.

Among the blackened trees near the ridge top sat one lone warrior atop an unarmored gray mare. He wore his shield on his left hand—a small round device not much larger than a platter.

Borenson, waiting. White teeth flashed beneath his red beard as the big guard smiled a welcome to his Prince. Gaborn never had thought he'd be so happy to see the green knight of House Orden on any warrior's shield.

Borenson raised his war horn to his lips again, sounded a charge, and raced toward Gaborn. His steed leapt the corpse of a Frowth giant, lunged downhill.

“Archers, draw!” Borenson shouted an obvious ruse. The valley beyond held nothing but blackened trees and stones. The guard drew a long-handled battle-axe from its sheath on his saddle, waved it above his head, thundered past Gaborn to cover the Prince's retreat.

Only one of Raj Ahten's warriors had dared cross the ridge, come rushing down.

A huge man on a black steed—his white war lance poised, like a spear of light. Yet even in the half-second as Gaborn reined his horse to wheel about, he glanced back.

The knight wore blackened chain beneath a gold surcoat, with the emblem of Raj Ahten's wolves emblazoned in red. His lance, the color of ivory, had been stained with blood.

The knight's high helm had white wings painted on it, signifying that he was no common soldier—but a captain of Raj Ahten's guard, an Invincible with no fewer than fifty endowments.

Borenson could not equal the man.

Yet Borenson spurred to meet the warrior head—on, his steed throwing dirt with every pounding of its hooves.

Then Gaborn understood: his father's troops had fled, would not come to his rescue. Borenson had to kill this knight or die in the attempt, lest Raj Ahten learn the truth.

Gaborn drew the short sword from the belt at his waist.

The Invincible charged downhill, lance poised, holding as steady as the sun in the sky.

Borenson raised his battle-axe high. The wise thing to do would be to time his swing, parry the lance before its tip speared his mail.

But these were force warriors, and Gaborn did not know what kinds of strengths or talents the Invincible might have. Gaborn was not prepared for their tactics.

Just as it appeared Borenson would be hit, he called “Clear!” His horse leapt and kicked.

The Invincible buried his lance in the horse's neck. Only then did Gaborn see that this was a “pinned lance”—a lance held to the warrior's gauntlets with a metal pin. The pins helped when battling armored opponents, for it insured that the knight would not lose his grip when the lance hit metal.

Unfortunately, one could not release the lance without removing the heavy steel cotter pins that held it to his gauntlet. Now as the lance buried itself in the horse's flesh and bone, such was the weight of the horse that the knight's arm wrenched up and back, then snapped, bones shattering even as his lance cracked under tremendous pressure.

The Invincible howled in rage. His worthless right arm remained pinned to a broken lance.

He grabbed for his mace with his left hand as Borenson launched from his own mount, swinging his wicked axe so hard that it pierced the Invincible's mail shirt, drove through his leather underjerkin, and buried its head in the hollow beneath the Invincible's throat.

Borenson followed his weapon, the full weight of his shield slamming against the big knight. Both of them bowled over the back of the knight's horse, landed in the ash.

Such fierce blows would have killed a normal man, but Raj Ahten's blood-crazed Invincible shouted a war cry, and shoved Borenson back downhill a few yards.

The Invincible leapt to his feet, drew his mace. Gaborn wondered if the knight would live up to his name, for he seemed invincible. Some of these knights had over twenty endowments of stamina, could recover from nearly any blow.

The Invincible rushed forward, a blur. Borenson lay on his back. He kicked, slamming an iron boot into the knight's ankle. A bone snapped like the cracking of an axle.

The Invincible swung his mace. Borenson tried to block the blow with the edge of his shield. The shield crumpled under the impact, and the lower edge of it drove into Borenson's gut.

Borenson groaned beneath the blow.

Gaborn had nearly reached the battle, his own horse flying back uphill.

Gaborn leapt from his horse's back. The Invincible whirled to meet him. The big man swung his mace high, ready to smash Gaborn under its iron spikes.

The Invincible's full helm allowed no peripheral vision, so he could not see Gaborn till he turned. As he spun, Gaborn aimed his sword at the eye slits in the man's visor.

The blade slid in with a sickening thud, and Gaborn let himself fall forward, knocking the knight backward, piercing his skull.

He landed atop the armored knight, lay a moment, the breath knocked from him. Gasping. He looked the Invincible in the face, to be sure he was dead.

The fine blade had driven through the eye slit up to the hilt, driven through the Invincible's skull, then punctured through the back of his helm. Even an Invincible could not survive such a devastating wound. This one had gone as limp as a jellyfish.

Gaborn got up in shock, conscious of how close he'd come to death.

He quickly assessed himself, checking for wounds, glanced uphill, afraid another knight might charge down.

He tried to yank his short sword free of the Invincible's helm. The blade would not come loose.

Gaborn climbed to his hands and knees, gazed at Borenson, panting. Borenson rolled to his stomach, began vomiting onto the charred earth.

“Well met, my friend,” Gaborn said, smiling. He felt as if it were the first time he'd smiled in weeks, though he'd left Borenson only two days past.

Borenson spat on the ground, clearing his mouth, and smiled at Gaborn.

“I really think you should get your butt out of here before Raj Ahten comes down the road.”

“Good to see you, too,” Gaborn said.

“I mean it,” Borenson grumbled. “He'll not let you go so easily. Don't you realize that he came all this way just to destroy House Orden?”

21 Farewell

In the Dedicates' Keep, Chemoise grunted as she struggled to help her father from his bed of straw and dried lavender, dragged him out onto the green grass of the bailey so he could board the great wain for his trip back south. It was hard to move such a big man.

No, it was not his weight that made dragging him difficult. Instead it was the way he clutched her, grasping fiercely at her shoulders, his powerful fingers digging into her skin like claws, his legs unable to relax enough to walk.

She felt she had failed him years before, when she'd let him go south to fight Raj Ahten. She'd feared he would never return, that he'd be killed. She'd hoped her fear had been only a child's concerns. But now, after his years as a prisoner, Chemoise imagined she'd had a premonition, perhaps a cold certainty sent from her ancestors beyond the grave.

So now she carried not only her father, but also the weight of her failure all those years before, a weight that somehow tangled with her feelings of inadequacy at having found herself pregnant. Her, the Princess's Maid of Honor.

The western Great Hall in the Dedicates' Keep was huge, three stories tall, where fifteen hundred men slept on any given night. Smooth walnut planks covered the floors, and each wall held a huge hearth so the room could be kept comfortably warm all winter.

The eastern Great Hall, on the far side of the bailey, held a third as many women.

“Where...?” Chemoise's father asked as she dragged him past the rows of pallets where Dedicates lay.

“South, to Longmont, I think,” Chemoise said. “Raj Ahten has ordered you to be brought.”

“South,” her father whispered a worried acknowledgment.

Chemoise struggled to drag her father past a man who'd soiled his bed. If she'd had time, she'd have cared for the fellow. But the wain would leave any moment, and she couldn't risk being separated from her father. “You...come?” her father asked.

“Of course,” Chemoise said. She could not really promise such a thing. She could only throw herself on the mercy of Raj Ahten's men, hope they'd let her care for her father. They'd allow it, she told herself. Dedicates needed caretakers.

“No!” her father grumbled. He quit trying to walk, suddenly let his feet drag, making her stagger to one side. She bore the weight, tried to carry him against his will.

“Let die!” he whispered fiercely. “Feed...feed poison. Make sick. We die.”

It worried her how he pleaded. Killing himself was the only way he could strike back at Raj Ahten. Yet Chemoise could not bear the thought of killing any of these men, even though she knew that life for them would be horrible, chained to some dirty floor. She had to hope that her father would return someday, whole, undefiled.

Chemoise hugged her father, bore him through the big oak door, into the light. The fresh wind carried the smell of rain. Everywhere, Raj Ahten's troops rushed to and fro, seeking the King's treasury and armory above the kitchens. She heard glass break down the street, the cries of merchants.

She dragged her father to the huge, covered wain in the bailey. The sides and roof of the wain were made of thick oak planks, with only a thin grate to provide any light or fresh air. One of Raj Ahten's soldiers grabbed her father by the scruff of the neck, lifted him into the wain with no more care than if he were a sack of grain.

“Ah, de last,” the soldier said in a thick Muyyatin accent.

“Yes,” she said. The Raj's vectors were all in the wagon. The guard turned.

Chemoise glanced down the road through the portcullis gate, startled, Iome, King Sylvarresta, two Days, and Prince Orden were riding fine horses down Market Street toward the city gates.

She wanted to ride with them, or to shout a blessing to help them on their way.

She waited while the guard wrestled her father through the door. The wagon shifted with the movement. At the front of the wagon, some horsemen expertly began to back four heavy horses into their traces, hitching them to the axletree.

Chemoise climbed up the wagon steps, looked in. Fourteen Dedicates lay on straw inside the shadowed wagon. The place smelled fetid, of old sweat and urine that had worked into the floorboards and walls. Chemoise looked for a place to sit among the defeated men—the blind, the deaf, the idiots. At that moment, the guard was laying her father on the hay. He glanced over his shoulder at Chemoise.

“No! You no get!” the guard shouted, hurrying up to push her back from the wagon door.

“But—my father! My father is there!” Chemoise cried.

“No! You no come!” the guard said, pushing her.

Chemoise backed completely out the door of the great wagon, tried to find her footing on the ladder behind. The guard shoved her.

She fell hard to the packed dirt of the bailey.

“Ees military. For just military,” the guard said, with a chopping motion of his hand.

“Wait!” Chemoise cried. “My father is in there!”

The guard stared impassively, as if a daughter's love for her father was a foreign concept.

The guard rested his hand on the hilt of the curved dagger in his belt. Chemoise knew there would be no reasoning, no mercy.

With a shout and a whistle, the driver of the huge wain urged the horses from the Dedicates' Keep. Guards ran before and behind the wagon.

Chemoise couldn't follow the wagon to Longmont. She knew she'd never see her father again.

22 A Hard Choice

As Borenson smiled at Gaborn, watched the Prince suddenly reach the realization that Raj Ahten had come primarily to slay him and his father, a blackness came over Borenson's mind—a cloud of despair.

He saw King Sylvarresta, told himself, I am not death. I am not the destroyer.

He'd always tried to be a good soldier. Though he lived by the sword, he did not enjoy killing. He fought because he sought to protect others—to spare the lives of his friends, not to take the lives of his foes. Even his comrades-in-arms did not understand this. Though he smiled in battle, he smiled not in glee or from bloodlust. He did so because he'd learned long ago that the fey smile struck terror into the hearts of his opponents.

He had an assignment from his King: to kill the Dedicates of Raj Ahten, even though those Dedicates might he his lord's oldest and dearest friends, even if the Dedicate was the King's own son.

Borenson saw at a glance that King Sylvarresta had given his endowment. The idiot king no longer knew how to seat a horse. He leaned forward, eyes wide with fright, moaning incoherently, tied to the pommel of his saddle.

There, Borenson assumed, beside the King rode Iome or the Queen—he could not tell which—all the glamour leached from her, skin as rough as cracked leather. Unrecognizable.

I am not death, Borenson told himself, though he knew he'd have to bring death to these two. The thought sickened him.

I have feasted at that King's table, Borenson told himself, remembering past years when Orden took Hostenfest with Sylvarresta. The smells of roast pork and new wine and turnips had always been strong at the table—fresh bread with honey, oranges from Mystarria. Sylvarresta had always been generous with his wine, free with his jokes.

Had Borenson not thought the King too high above Borenson's own station, he'd have been proud to call him friend.

On the Isle of Thwynn, where Borenson was born, the code of hospitality was clear: to rob or kill someone who fed you was dastardly. Those who did so were afforded no mercy when slain. Borenson had once seen a man stoned near to death for merely affronting his host.

Borenson had ridden here hoping that he would not have to carry out his King's orders, hoping that the Dedicates' Keep would be so well guarded he'd never have a chance to gain entry, hoping that King Sylvarresta would have refused to grant an endowment to Raj Ahten.

Iome. Borenson recognized the Princess now, not from her features but from her graceful build. He remembered one late night, seven years past, when he'd been sitting in the King's Keep beside a roaring fire, drinking mulled wine, while Orden and Sylvarresta traded humorous tales of hunts long past. On that occasion, young Iome, wakened by the loud laughter beneath her room, had come to listen.

To Borenson's surprise, the Princess had come into the room and sat on his lap, where her feet could be near the fire. She had not sought out the King's lap, or that of one of the King's own guards. She'd chosen him, and just sat by the fire, gazing dreamily at his red beard. She'd been beautiful even as a child, and he'd felt protective, imagining that someday he might have a daughter so fine.

Now Borenson smiled at Gaborn, tried to hide his rage, his own self-loathing, at the duty he must perform. I am not death.

The dead enemy's warhorse had run downhill, stood now, ears back, regarding the situation calmly. Iome rode to it, whispered softly, and took its reins. The warhorse tried to nip her; Iome slapped its armored face, letting it know she was in command. She brought the horse to Borenson.

She sat rigidly as she drew near; her yellowed eyes filled with fear. She said, “Here, Sir Borenson.”

Borenson didn't take the reins immediately. She was within striking range as she leaned near. Borenson could slap her with a mailed fist, break her neck without drawing a weapon. Yet here she stood, offering him a service, his host once again. He stood, unable to strike.

“You've done my people a great service this day,” she said, “dislodging Raj Ahten from Castle Sylvarresta.”

A thin hope rose in Borenson. It seemed barely possible that she did not serve as a vector for Raj Ahten, that she'd given her endowment only, and therefore did not pose a major threat to Mystarria. This would give him some reason to spare her.

Borenson took the horse's reins, heart pounding. The stallion did not fight or shy from his foreign armor. It whipped its plaited tail, knocking flies from its rump.

“Thank you, Princess,” Borenson said with a heavy heart. I'm under orders to kill you, he wanted to say. I wish I'd never seen you. But he had to wonder at Gaborn's plan. Perhaps the Prince had a reason for bringing out the King and Iome, some reason Borenson didn't fathom.

“I heard more horns in the woods,” Iome said. “Where are your men? I would like to thank them.”

Borenson turned away, “They rode ahead an hour ago. We're alone here.” It was not time to talk. He retrieved his weapons from his dead horse, strapped them to the enemy's warhorse, mounted up.

They raced through the blackened woods down to the road, then followed it, thundering over one burned hill after another until they nearly reached some living trees, with their promise of shelter.

By a burbling brook at the edge of the woods, Gaborn called a stop. Even a force horse with runes of power branded on its neck and breast needed to catch its wind and get a drink.

Besides, in the green grass at the edge of the stream lay a soldier of House Orden. A black noman's spear protruded through the soldier's bloody neck. A gruesome reminder that although the small group would soon enter the woods, they'd still be in danger.

True, Borenson and his men had hunted nomen all morning, had scattered this band. But nomen were crafty nocturnal hunters, and usually fought in small bands. So some bands would be here in the woods, hiding under the shadows, hunting.

Gaborn dismounted as the horses drank, checked the soldier's body. He flipped open the man's visor.

“Ah, poor Torin,” Borenson grunted. He'd been a good soldier, had a fine talent with the morning star.

Torin wore the normal dress of a Mystarrian warrior, black ring mail over a sheepskin jerkin. A dark-blue surcoat over the mail bore the emblem of Mystarria, the green knight—a man's face with oak leaves in its hair and beard. Gaborn traced the outline of the green knight on Torin's surcoat.

“Beautiful colors,” Gaborn whispered. “The most beautiful a man could wear.” Gaborn began stripping Torin. “This is the second corpse I've had to rob today,” Gaborn grumbled as if displeased at the prospect.

“So, milord, you'll bring a new dignity to the profession,” Borenson said, not wanting to discuss the problem facing him. He eyed Iome, saw terror in her posture.

She knew what he had to do. Even she knew.

Yet Gaborn seemed oblivious. Was Gaborn mad? Or just immature? What made him think he could escape Raj Ahten with a woman and an idiot in his charge? Fine horses are nothing if you can't ride them—and obviously Sylvarresta could not ride.

“Where's my father?” Gaborn asked, stripping the corpse.

“Can't you guess?” Borenson said, unprepared for the question. “Right now, I'd say he's fifty miles from Longmont, hoping to reach it near dark. Raj Ahten has forty thousand forcibles there, buried among the turnips behind Bredsfor Manor. You know where the manor is?” Gaborn shook his head no.

“On the road three miles south of the castle,” Borenson said, “a gray building with a lead roof and two wings. We intercepted a message from the Duchess Laren that says Raj Ahten expects an army to reach Longmont within a day or two. Your father hopes to beat them to the treasure.”

“Raj Ahten knows this?” Gaborn asked, just as he got the ring mail untied from the body. “That's why he's abandoning Castle Sylvarresta? To reclaim the forcibles?”

Gaborn obviously thought this foolhardy. He angrily unstrapped the dead man's jerkin. Borenson wondered what occupied the Prince's mind. Did he not see that Sylvarresta must be slain? What was the boy thinking? “Your father hoped to convince the Wolf Lord that Longmont was conquered days ago,” Borenson explained, “and that he's been taking endowments day and night ever since.”

“A desperate bluff,” Gaborn said, inspecting the sheepskin jerkin, looking close to see if it harbored fleas or lice. But if Torin had suffered from fleas in life, they'd all hopped away as soon as the body cooled.

Gaborn put on the jerkin, pulled on the ring mail and the surcoat—all just a bit too large for him. A small shield lay by Torin's right hand—a target of wood, covered with a thin layer of brass, then painted dark blue. The lower edge of the shield was filed, so that if one slashed with that edge, it could slice a man's throat like a knife. Usually only a man with an endowment of metabolism kept such a small shield. Thrust quickly, it doubled as a weapon. Gaborn took the shield.

“What of Raj Ahten?” Borenson asked. “I can see that he is on the move, but will he go to Longmont?”

Gaborn said, “As Father hoped, he'll march within the hour.”

Borenson nodded. The sun shone in his blue eyes; he smiled. It was not a smile of relief. It was a hard smile, his battle smile. “Tell me,” Borenson half-whispered, “where are you taking them?” He nodded at Iome, her idiot father.

Gaborn said. “Longmont. I took the best horses in the King's stables. We can reach the castle by nightfall.”

Perhaps, if your charges knew how to ride, Borenson wanted to say. Borenson licked his lips, whispered, “It's a long journey, and hard. Perhaps you'd best leave Sylvarresta here, milord.” He spoke as if it were a friendly suggestion, tried to hide the hard edge to his voice.

“After all the trouble I went through to get them from Raj Ahten?” Gaborn asked.

“Don't play the fool with me,” Borenson spoke, voice rising in anger. His face felt hot; his whole body coiled. “Sylvarresta has long been our friend, but now he serves the Wolf Lord. How many endowments of wit does Sylvarresta vector to Raj Ahten? How many endowments of glamour does the Princess vector?”

“It doesn't matter,” Gaborn said. “I'll not kill friends.”

Borenson held a moment, trying to contain the rage building in him. Can even a prince afford such generosity? he wanted to shout. Yet he dared not give that insult. He reasoned instead. “They're friends no longer. They serve Raj Ahten.”

Gaborn said, “They may serve as vectors, but they chose to live, so that by living, they can serve their own people.”

“By letting Raj Ahten destroy Mystarria? Don't delude yourself. They serve your enemy, milord. Your enemy, and your father's and Mystarria's—and my enemies! It is a passive service—true—but they serve him no less than if they were warriors.”

Oh, how Borenson sometimes envied them—the Dedicates who lived like fat cattle on their lord's wealth, pampered.

Certainly Gaborn must see that Borenson served his lord no less fully, gave his all, night and day. Borenson sweated and bled and suffered. He'd taken an endowment of metabolism, so that he aged two years for every other man's one. Though he was but twenty years old chronologically, little older than Gaborn, the hair on his head was falling out, and streaks of gray bled into his beard. For him, life rushed past as if he were adrift on a boat, watching the shore forever slipping by, unable to grasp anything, unable to hold on to anything.

Meanwhile, people admired Dedicates for their “sacrifice.” Borenson's own father had given an endowment of metabolism to one of the King's soldiers before Borenson was born, and had thus lain in an enchanted slumber these past twenty years. It seemed to Borenson a cheat, the way his father stayed young, the way he suffered nothing while the man he endowed grew old and faded. What did his father sacrifice?

No, it was men like Borenson who suffered most for their lords, not some damned Dedicate, afraid to live his life.

“You must kill them,” Borenson urged.

“I cannot,” Gaborn answered.

“Then, by all the awful Powers, you'll make me do it!” Borenson growled. He reached to pull his axe from its sheath, glanced toward King Sylvarresta. Iome had heard the scrape of the axe handle against leather, jerked at the sound, staring at Borenson.

“Hold,” Gaborn said softly. “I order you. They are under my protection. My sworn protection.”

A gust of wind sent ash skittering across the ground.

“And I'm under order to kill Raj Ahten's Dedicates.”

“I countermand that order,” Gaborn said firmly.

“You can't!” Borenson said, tensing. “They're your father's orders, and yours cannot supersede his! Your father has given an order—a hard one that no man could envy. But I must carry it out. I will serve King Orden, even if you will not!”

Borenson did not want to argue. He loved Gaborn as a brother. But Borenson could not see how he could ever be faithful to House Orden if the Prince and the King did not agree on this issue.

In the distance, toward Castle Sylvarresta, the high call of Southern battle trumpets sounded—Raj Ahten marshaling his troops. Borenson's heart pounded. His men were supposed to delay the army, and even now were racing to Boar's Ford, where they would do little good.

Borenson shoved his axe back into its sheath, drew his own horn, sounded two long blasts, two short. The call to prepare arms. Raj Ahten's troops would not hurry to Longmont if they had to watch for an ambush every moment. Almost, Borenson wished his troops were still here, that he had the men to fight.

Borenson felt exposed at the edge of the woods. Gaborn took the helm off dead Torin, put it on his own head.

Gaborn looked up. “Listen, Borenson: If we have forty thousand forcibles, my father has no need to kill his friends. He can slay Raj Ahten, then place Sylvarresta back on the throne where he belongs.”

“That is a frightening if” Borenson said. “Can we risk it? What if Raj Ahten kills your father? By sparing Sylvarresta, you may consign your father to death.”

Gaborn's face paled. Certainly the boy had seen this danger. Certainly he knew the stakes in this battle. But no, Borenson realized, the boy was too innocent. Gaborn promised, “I wouldn't let that happen.”

Borenson rolled his eyes, clenched his teeth.

“Nor would I,” Iome answered from where her horse stood beside the stream. “I'd rather kill myself than see another come to harm on my account.”

Borenson had tried to keep his voice down so she would not hear, but of course his voice had been rising in anger. He considered. At this moment, King Orden was racing to Longmont with fifteen hundred warriors. Messages had been sent to other castles, calling for aid. Perhaps three or four thousand might meet at Longmont before dawn.

But Raj Ahten would stand at the head of a massive army, once his reinforcements arrived from the South.

King Orden had to get those forcibles, and once he had them, he'd have to hole up in Castle Longmont. No castle in this realm could better withstand a siege.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. In all likelihood, Raj Ahten had so many endowments from his people in the South that if Borenson killed Sylvarresta and Iome, it would gain no benefit for King Orden. That is what Gaborn believed.

On the other hand, times were uncertain. Orden and other kings had sent assassins south. Perhaps even traitors in Raj Ahten's own lands would see his absence as a perfect time to bid for power. One could not discount the possibility that at any given moment, the endowments Raj Ahten had gained here in Heredon would become vital to him.

No, Borenson needed to kill these vectors. He sighed. With a heavy heart, he pulled his war axe. Urged his mount forward.

Gaborn caught the horse by the reins. “Stay away from them,” he growled in a tone Borenson had never before heard from the Prince.

“I have a duty,” Borenson said, regretfully. He did not want to do it, but he'd argued the point so convincingly that now he saw he must.

“And I'm obligated to protect Iome and her father,” Gaborn said, “as one Oath-Bound Lord to another.”

“Oath-Bound Lord?” Borenson gasped. “No! You fool!” Now he saw it. Gaborn had been distant these past two weeks as they journeyed into Heredon. For the first time in his life, he'd been secretive. “It's true,” Gaborn said. “I spoke the oath to Iome.” “Who witnessed?” Borenson asked the first question that came to mind, “Iome, and her Maids of Honor.” Borenson wondered if news of this oath could be covered. Perhaps by killing the witnesses, he could undo the damage. “And her Days.”

Borenson set his axe across the pommel of his saddle, looked hard at King Sylvarresta. Who knew how far this news had spread? From Iome's maids to the King's counselor, to all Heredon. He couldn't hide what Gaborn had done.

Gaborn had a fierceness in his eyes. What pluck! The little ass! Borenson thought. He plans to fight me. He'd really fight me over this?

Yet he knew it was true. To give the Oath of Protection was a serious matter, a sacred matter.

Borenson didn't dare raise his hand against the Prince. It was treason. Even if he carried out Orden's commands in every other matter, he could be executed for striking the Prince.

Gaborn had been watching Borenson's eyes, and now he ventured, “If you will not allow me to rescind my father's order, then I command you thus: Wait to carry it out. Wait until we reach Longmont, and I've spoken to my father.”

Gaborn might well reach the castle before Borenson. There, the King would be able to settle this tangled matter.

Borenson closed his eyes and hung his head in sign of acquiescence. “As you command, milord,” he said. Yet a horrible sense of guilt assailed. He'd been ordered to kill the Dedicates at Castle Sylvarresta, and if he slew the King and Iome now, he would thus spare other lives; he would spare all those who were vectored through these two.

Yet to kill Sylvarresta would be cruel. Borenson did not want to murder a friend, regardless of the cost. And he dared not raise a weapon against his own Prince.

Bits of arguments rushed at Borenson, fragmented. He looked up at King

Sylvarresta, who had stopped moaning in fear, just as a jay went flying over the King's head in a streak of blue.

But if I do not murder these two now, how many others must I kill in the Dedicates' Keep? How many endowments has Sylvarresta taken? Are the lives of these two worth more than the lives of their Dedicates?

What harm has any of them done? Not one man in the keep would willingly toss a rotten apple at one of our people. Yet by their very existence, they lend power to Raj Ahten.

Borenson clenched his teeth, lost in thought. Tears began to water his eyes.

You will make me kill everyone vectored through these two, Borenson realized. That was his only choice. He loved his Prince, had always served faithfully.

I'll do it, Borenson thought, though I hate myself forever after. I'll do it for you.

No! some deep part of his mind shouted.

Borenson opened his eyes, stared hard at Gaborn.

Gaborn let go the reins of Borenson's mount, stood testily, as if he was still ready to try to pull Borenson from the saddle if the need arose.

“Take them in peace, milord,” Borenson said, trying to hide the sadness in his voice. Immediately Gaborn relaxed.

“I'll need a weapon,” Gaborn said. “Can I borrow one of yours?” Other than the black spear in Torin's throat, nothing was handy.

The warhorse Borenson rode had a horseman's hammer sheathed from its previous owner. It was an inelegant weapon. Borenson knew that Gaborn preferred a saber, for he liked to slash and thrust quickly. But the hammer had its strengths: against an armored opponent, one could easily chop through chain mail or pierce a helm. The saber was as likely to snap in such a battle as to pierce a man's armor.

Borenson pulled the hammer, tossed it to Gaborn. He did not rest easy with his decisions. Even now, he barely restrained himself from attacking Sylvarresta. I am not death, Borenson told himself. I am not death. It is not my duty to fight my Prince, to kill kings.

“Hurry to Longmont,” Borenson said at last with a sigh. “I smell a storm coming. It will hide your scent, make you harder to track. Take the main road south at first, but don't follow it all the way—the Hayworth bridge is burned. Go instead through the forest until you reach Ardamom's Ridge, then cut straight south to the Boar's Ford. Do you know where it is?”

Gaborn shook his head. Of course he did not know.

“I know,” Iome said. Borenson studied her. Cool, confident, despite her ugliness. The Princess now showed no fear. At least she knew how to sit a horse.

Borenson urged his warhorse forward a step, pulled the longspear from poor Torin's neck, snapped it off, and threw the bladed end to the Princess. She caught it in one hand.

“Won't you escort us?” Gaborn asked.

Doesn't he understand what I must do? Borenson wondered. Borenson had not yet confided that he planned to slay every Dedicate in the castle.

No, Borenson decided. Gaborn didn't know what he planned. The lad was that innocent. Indeed, if the Prince had even the slightest notion what Borenson intended, Gaborn would try to stop him.

Yet Borenson couldn't allow that. I'll do this alone, he thought. I'll take this evil upon me, stain my hands with blood so that you don't have to.

“I've other duties,” Borenson said, shaking his head. He soothed the Prince with a lie. “I'll shadow Raj Ahten's army, make certain he doesn't strike some unexpected target.”

To tell the truth, part of him wanted to escort Gaborn, to see him safe through the woods. He knew the Prince would need help. But Borenson did not trust himself to lead Gaborn for even an hour. At any moment, he might feel the need to turn on Gaborn, to kill good King Sylvarresta.

“If it will make it easier for you,” Gaborn said, “when I reach Longmont, I'll tell my father that I never saw you in the woods. He does not need to know."

Borenson nodded, numb.

23 The Hunt Begins

Raj Ahten stood above his dead Invincible, fists clenched. Downhill, his army marched for Longmont, archers running the winding road, their colored tunics making them look like a golden snake twisting through a black forest.

Chancellor Jureem knelt over the fallen soldier, robes smudged, studying tracks in the ashes. It took no skill to see what had happened: One man. One man slew his master's Invincible, then stole his horse, rode off with Gaborn, King Sylvarresta, and his daughter. Jureem recognized the dead mare on the ground nearby. It had been ridden by Orden's surly messenger.

The sight sickened him. If a few more soldiers had kept up the chase, Gaborn would surely have fallen into their hands.

“There are but five of them,” Feykaald said. “Heading cross-country, rather than over the road. We could send trackers—a dozen or so, but with Orden's soldiers in the wood, perhaps we should just let them go...”

Raj Ahten licked his lips. Jureem saw that Feykaald couldn't even count. Only four people were heading over the trail. His master had lost two scouts to Gaborn already, along with war dogs, giants, a pyromancer—and now an Invincible. Prince Orden looked to be not much more than a boy, but Jureem began to wonder if he had secretly taken a great number of endowments.

Raj Ahten's men had misjudged King Orden's whelp far too often. From the mounts he'd chosen, it appeared Gaborn would head into the woods, shun the highway.

But why? Because he wanted to lead Raj Ahten into a trap? Did the boy have soldiers hidden in the forest?

Or did he merely fear to travel by road? Raj Ahten had a few powerful force horses left in his retinue. Fine horses, bred for the plains and the desert, each with a lineage that went back a thousand years. Perhaps the lad knew his mounts could not outrun the Wolf Lord's horses over even ground.

But Gaborn's mountain hunters, running without armor, with their thick bones and strong hindquarters, would be almost impossible to catch in this terrain. Jureem suspected that Gaborn and Iome would know these woods far better than even the most informed spy.

Jureem drew a ragged breath, calculating how many men to send. Gaborn Val Orden would make a fine hostage, if the Wolf Lord found things at Longmont to be as he suspected.

Though the woods were silent, little more than an hour ago Jureem had heard Orden's war horns blow in the Dunnwood.

In all likelihood, Gaborn had already gained the company of Orden's soldiers, was surrounded by hundreds of guards. Yet...he could not just let Gaborn go. At the thought of Gaborn escaping, a rage burned in Jureem. Mindless, seething.

“We should send men to find the boy,” Jureem counseled. “Perhaps a hundred of our best scouts?”

Raj Ahten straightened his back. “No. Get twenty of my best Invincibles, and strip their horses of armor. I'll also want twenty mastiffs to track the Prince.”

“As you wish, milord,” Jureem said, turning away, as if to shout the orders down to the army that marched below. But a thought hit him. “Which of your captains shall lead?”

“I'll be the captain,” Raj Ahten, said. “Hunting the Prince should prove an interesting diversion.”

Jureem glanced at him sideways, raising a single dark brow. He bowed slightly, in acquiescence. “Do you think it wise, milord? Others could hunt him. Even I will come.” The thought of such a ride, of the pain his buttocks would have to endure, gave Jureem pause.

“Others might hunt him,” Raj Ahten said, “but none as tenaciously as I.”

24 Hope for a Ragged People

The road to Longmont turned muddy in the late morning as storms rolled across the sky. King Orden raced south all the way to the village of Hayworth, a distance of ninety-eight miles. It was a peaceful town spread along the banks of the River Dwindell, a village with a small mill. Green hills rolled as far south as one could see, each hill covered in broad oaks.

People here led a quiet life. Most were coopers who made barrels for wine and grain. In the spring, when the river swelled in flood, one could often see men on rafts made from hundreds of barrels all tied together, floating their goods down to market.

It displeased Mendellas Orden to have to burn the bridge. He'd stopped here often in his journeys, savoring the fine ale brewed in the Dwindell Inn, which sat beside the bridge on a promontory, overlooking the river.

But by the time Orden reached town, rain had soaked the bridge. Great rolling drops pelted his troops, dripped between the cracks of the four-inch planks. His men tried to light a fire where berry vines grew thick beneath the north end of the bridge. But the banks of the river were steep and the road sloped so that water draining down the street became a veritable creek.

Orden had supposed a couple of well-oiled torches would do the job, but even they proved to be of little use.

Orden was cursing his fortune when a couple of local boys pulled the innkeeper, old Stevedore Hark, out of the inn. Orden had been blessed by this man's hospitality many times.

“Here, here, Your Highness, what are you and your men about?” the innkeeper said in a belligerent tone, waddling down the street. Orden's fifteen hundred troops seemed not to alarm the innkeeper in the least. He was a heavy man in baggy pants, an apron over his broad belly. His fat face showed red beneath his graying beard, and rain streamed over his cheeks. “I fear we must burn your bridge,” Orden answered. “Raj Ahten will come down the highway tonight. I can't have him on my tail. I'll gladly reimburse the town for the inconvenience.”

“Oh, I don't think you'll burn that bridge any time soon,” the innkeeper laughed. “Perhaps you'd better come in and have a drink. I can get you and some of your captains a nice stew, if you don't mind a thin broth.”

“Why won't it burn?” King Orden asked.

“Magic,” the innkeeper said. “Lightning struck it fifteen years back, burned it to the ground. So when we built it back again, we had a water wizard put a spell on it. Fire won't hold to that wood.”

Orden stood in the pouring rain, and the innkeeper's words took the heart from him. If he had had his own water wizard, he could easily have countered the spell. But he had no water wizard here. The way the rain was falling, perhaps the bridge could not be burned anyway.

“We'll have to chop it through then,” Orden said.

“Here now,” the innkeeper grumbled, “no call for that. If you want the bridge down, pull it down, but leave the planks so we can build it back again, after tomorrow. We can store them over in the mill.”

Orden considered his proposition. Stevedore Hark was more than the innkeeper, Orden recalled. He was also the mayor, a man with a keen eye for business. The bridge was made of huge planks, bored and doweled together. Three stone pillars planted in River Dwindell held the bridge. Pulling the bridge down piece by piece would take a bit longer, but with fifteen hundred men to perform the labor, it would come down fast enough. The Powers knew that even his force horses needed to rest.

There was also a matter of friendship. Orden could not easily destroy the man's bridge. If he did, on the next trip through the town, he'd find that the ale had somehow all gone to vinegar. “I'd thank you to get me some dinner, then, my old friend,” Orden said, “while we hide the bridge for you.”

The bargain was struck.

While the rain poured and his men worked, Orden went into the Dwindell Inn, and sat brooding before a huge fire in the hearth.

He'd been promised a quick dinner of undercooked stew, but half an hour later, the master of the inn himself brought out some bread pudding and a warmed joint of pork—from one of the great boars that made hunting in the Dunnwood famous. The meat smelled delicious, sprinkled with pepper and rosemary, marinated in dark beer, then baked on a bed of carrots, wild mushrooms, and hazelnuts. It tasted as fine as it smelled.

And of course, it was strictly illegal. Commoners were not allowed to hunt the King's boars; Stevedore Hark could have been whipped for doing so.

The meat was a fine and fitting gift. Though Hark had obviously hoped to lift Orden's spirits, his kind gesture had the opposite effect, throwing Orden into a dire melancholy that made him sit beside the fire, stroking his beard with his fingers, wondering at his own plans.

How many times had he eaten at this inn on his trips to visit Sylvarresta? How often had he feasted on the bounty of these woods? How often had he thrilled to the baying of the hounds as they chased the great boars, taken joy in the toss of the javelin as he rode a pig down?

The innkeeper's hospitality, the fineness of the meal, somehow made King Orden feel...desolate.

Five years past, while Mendellas Orden hunted here, an assassin had broken into his keep, had slain his wife in her bed, with a newborn babe. It had been only six months since two daughters died in a previous attack. The murder of King Orden's wife and babe sparked outrage. Yet the killer was never apprehended. Trackers followed his trail, lost the assassin in the mountains south of Mystarria. He could have been escaping southeast into Inkarra, or he could have headed southwest to Indhopal.

Orden had guessed Indhopal or Muyyatin. But he could not have struck out blindly at his neighbors, without proof.

So he'd waited, and waited, for assassins to strike again, to come for him personally.

They never did.

Orden had lost a part of himself, he knew. He'd lost his wife, the one love of his life. He'd never remarried, planned never to remarry. If one cannot replace a lost hand or a leg, how can one hope to replace half of himself?

For years now, he'd acutely felt the pain. With so many endowments of wit, he could perfectly recall her tone of voice, her face. In his dreams Corette yet walked and spoke with him. Often when he woke on a cold winter's morning, he felt surprised to find that her soft flesh was not cupping him, trying to drink his warmth, the way she had when still alive.

He found it hard to describe the sense of loss he felt. King Orden had once tried to express it to himself.

He did not feel that he had lost his future, that his life was at an end.

His son was his future. King Orden would continue, go on without his wife, if the Powers so willed it.

Nor did he feel he had lost his past, for Orden could remember perfectly the taste of Corette's kisses on the night of their wedding, the way she cried in joy when she first suckled Gaborn.

No, it was the present he had lost. The opportunity to be with his wife, to love her, to spend each waking moment in her company.

Yet as King Orden sat in the Dwindell Inn, eating roast off a fine china platter, he became keenly aware that something new had been ripped from him.

His past was gone. All of his good memories would soon become unbearable. King Sylvarresta was not dead yet, so far as Orden knew, but sometime this evening, Borenson would try to carry out his orders. Orden would be forced to kill the man he most loved and admired. It was a foul thing, a bitter seasoning to a fine meal.

Perhaps Stevedore Hark understood what he felt, for the innkeeper got a thin stew cooking for some of the men, then came to sit a few moments at Orden's feet, commiserating.

“We heard the news last night from Castle Sylvarresta,” he whispered. “Bad news. The worst of my life.”

“Aye, the worst in several lifetimes,” Orden grunted, looking at the old innkeeper. Stevedore had gotten a few more white hairs in his sideburns this year. Indeed, his hair was more white now than grizzled.

It was said that each year, the Time Lords would ring a silver bell, and at the ringing of the bell, all who heard it would age a year. For those whom the Time Lords disliked, a bell might be rung more than once, while those whom the Time Lords favored might not have such a bell rung in their presence at all.

The Time Lords had not favored Stevedore Hark this year. His eyes looked puffy. From lack of sleep? No, the man would not have slept last night, after such tragic news.

“Do you think you can dislodge the monster?” Stevedore asked. “He has you outnumbered.”

“I hope to dislodge him,” Mendellas said.

“If you do, then you will be our king,” the innkeeper said flatly.

King Orden had not considered the possibility. “No, your royal family is intact. If House Sylvarresta falls, the Countess of Arens is next in title.”

“Not likely. People won't follow her. She's married in Seward, too far away to rule. If you win back Heredon, the people will want no one but you for their lord.”

Orden's heart skipped at the thought. He'd always loved the woods, the hills of Heredon. He'd loved the clean, friendly people, the sparkling air. “I'll drive Raj Ahten out,” Orden said. He knew it wouldn't be enough to drive Raj Ahten from this land. He'd have to go further. A Wolf Lord cannot be whipped like a pup. He must be slaughtered, like a mad dog.

In his mind's eye, King Orden saw the war unfold before him, realized he'd have to prepare to head south, to strike Deyazz and Muyyatin and Indhopal come spring, from there sweep south into Khuram and Dharmad and the kingdoms beyond.

Until all Raj Ahten's Dedicates lay dead, and the Wolf Lord himself could be slain.

If he won this war, there would lands to plunder. He cared nothing for most of the Southern kingdoms, but he would take one thing: the blood-metal mines of Kartish, south of Indhopal.

King Orden changed the conversation, talked with the innkeeper of days past, of hunts with Sylvarresta. Orden joked, “If the day should come that I'm king of Heredon, I suppose I'll have to invite you on my next hunt.”

“Indeed, I fear it is the only way you will keep me from poaching, Your Highness,” Stevedore Hark laughed, then slapped the King on the back, a touch so familiar that no one in Mystarria would have dared anything similar.

But Orden imagined that Sylvarresta had been slapped on the back by friends many times. He was that kind of man. The kind who did not have to be cold and distant to be kingly.

“It is agreed then, my friend,” Orden said. “You will come on my next hunt.” Orden changed the subject. “Now, tonight, Raj Ahten's army should come here and find that the bridge is out. I ask a favor of you. Remind them that Boar's Ford is shallow enough to cross.”

“Well, that's where they'd naturally go, isn't it?” Hark asked.

“They're strangers to this land,” Orden said. “Their spies may only have marked bridges on their maps.”

“You have a surprise in mind?” Hark asked. Orden nodded. “Then I'll tell them.”

On that note the innkeeper went back to work. Soon after, the rain let up, and King Orden took his leave of the inn, ready to set back out on the march.

He checked to make certain that the bridge at Hayworth was down, its huge beams and planks all safely stored, then let his men and horses finish their own brief meal.

His captains had purchased grain for the horses, and kegs of ale were opened for his troops. Though his men lost an hour in their ride, they felt much invigorated afterward.

So they set out on the road, much renewed, racing all the faster for Longmont.

They proceeded through the Durkin Hills for the rest of the afternoon, marching near the mountains to reach Longmont before sunset.

Castle Longmont sat on a steep, narrow hill among some downs, and had a cheery little town to its south and west. It was not huge, as castles go, but the walls rose incredibly high. The machicolations atop the walls were sturdily wrought. Archers could shoot through the machicolations or drop oil or stones on attackers from any part of the wall with little fear of reprisal.

The stonework on the walls was phenomenal. Many stones weighed twelve to fourteen tons, yet the stones fit together so cleanly, a man was hard-pressed to find a fingerhold.

Many considered Longmont unscalable. No one had ever achieved a successful escalade of the outer walls. The castle had fallen once, five hundred years earlier, when sappers managed to dig beneath the west wall, so that it collapsed.

Other than that, the castle had never been taken.

So as the troops neared Longmont, King Orden found himself longing for its safety. He felt unprepared for the scene of destruction before him.

The village at the base of the castle had been destroyed—hundreds of homes, barns, and warehouses, all burned to their foundation stones. Smoke curled up from some of the houses. No cattle or sheep grazed the fields. Not an animal was in sight.

The gray banners of Longmont rose on pennants on the castle towers, and had been draped over the castle walls. But the banners were all ripped and torn. Some few dozen soldiers manned the outer walls.

Orden had expected to find the village as it had been when last he saw it. He wondered if some great battle had been fought here, unbeknownst to him.

Then he realized what had befallen this land. The soldiers of Longmont had burned the town to its foundations and had brought in all the herds, expecting a siege by Raj Ahten's occupying forces on the morrow. By burning the city, they robbed the occupying forces of decent shelter. Here in these hills, with winter coming on, shelter would be a valuable commodity.

As Orden's little army rode to the castle gates, he saw relief on the faces of the soldiers stationed on the walls. Someone sounded a war horn, a short riff played only when friendly reinforcements were spotted.

The drawbridge came down.

As King Orden rode through the gates, men cheered from the castle—but so few voices.

He was not prepared for the sight that befell him: all along the walls inside the keep lay dead bodies and wounded townsfolk sitting in the open. Many wore armor—shields and helms robbed from Raj Ahten's defeated troops. Blood smeared the stonework along the outer wall-walks. Windows were broken. Axes, arrows, and spears sat stuck in the beams of buildings. A tower to a lordly manor had burned.

There, outside the Duke's Keep, the Duke himself hung from a window by his own guts, just as Duchess Emmadine Ot Laren had described.

Everywhere was sign of battle, few signs of survivors.

Five thousand people had lived here. Five thousand men, women, and children who fought with tooth and dagger to dislodge Raj Ahten's men.

They'd had no soldiers with heavy endowments and years of training. They'd had no great weapons. They had, perhaps, only an element of surprise, and their great hearts.

They'd won the day, barely. Then the families had fled, fearing retribution from Raj Ahten.

King Orden had anticipated that four or five thousand people would occupy this castle and town, people he could use to aid in his defense, people he could tap for endowments.

Chickens and geese roosted on rooftops inside the keep. Some swine rooted just inside the bailey.

Weak cheers greeted Orden, but they soon faded. One man called down from atop the Dedicates' Keep.

“King Orden, what news have you of Sylvarresta?”

Orden looked up. The man was dressed in a captain's smart attire. This would be Captain Cedrick Tempest, the Duchess's aide-de-camp, in temporary charge of the castle's defenses.

“Castle Sylvarresta has fallen, and Raj Ahten's men hold it.”

Cold horror showed in Captain Tempest's face. Obviously the man hoped for better news. He could not have had more than a hundred men. He could not really defend this castle, merely hold down the fort in hope that Sylvarresta would send aid.

“Take heart, men of Sylvarresta,” Orden called, his Voice making his words ring from the walls. “Sylvarresta has a kingdom still, and we shall win it back for him!”

The guards on the walls cheered, “Orden! Orden! Orden!”

Orden turned to the man riding next to him, Captain Stroecker, and whispered, “Captain, go alone, south to the Bredsfor Manor, and check the turnip garden. Look for sign of fresh digging. You should find some forcibles buried there. If you do, bring me twenty forcibles with the runes of metabolism, then cover the rest. Hide them well.”

King Orden smiled and waved to the ragged defenders of Longmont. It would not do to bring all the forcibles back here in the castle—not when Raj Ahten might attack, tear the castle apart in his search for them.

To the best of his knowledge, only three people alive knew where those forcibles lay hidden—himself, Borenson, and now Captain Stroecker.

King Orden wanted to make certain it stayed that way.

25 Whispers

Iome had been in the Dunnwood for only an hour when she first heard the war dogs bay, a haunting sound that floated up like mist from the valley floor behind them.

Wet splashes of rain had just begun to fall, and distant thunder shook the mountains. Contrary winds, blowing every which way, made it so that one moment the baying of the dogs came clear, then softened, then blew back to them.

Here, on a rocky, barren ridge, the sound seemed far away, miles distant. Yet Iome knew the distance was deceiving. War dogs with endowments of brawn and metabolism could run miles in a matter of moments. The horses were already growing tired.

“Do you hear them?” Iome shouted to Gaborn. “They're not far behind!”

Gaborn glanced back as his mount leapt through some tall heather and plunged now into the deep woods. Gaborn's face was pale; he frowned in concentration. “I hear,” he said. “Hurry.”

Hurry they did. Gaborn gripped his horseman's hammer, and instead of weaving among trees, he urged his mount forward and struck down branches so that Iome and her father did not have to dodge them.

Iome feared this was a fool's race. Her father didn't know where he was, didn't know he stood in danger. He simply stared up, watching rain drop toward him. Oblivious.

Her father didn't recall how to sit a horse, yet the men chasing them would be master horsemen.

Gaborn responded to the danger by pushing them faster. When they cleared the large stand of pine, he raced his mount down a saddleback ridge, into deeper woods, heading west.

The sound of hooves pounding, the straining lungs of the horses' breathing, was all swallowed by great dark trees, trees taller than any Iome recalled ever seeing in the Dunnwood.

Here, the force horses ran with renewed speed. Gaborn gave them their heads, so that the beasts nearly flew down the canyon, into deepening gloom. Overhead, the skies boomed with the sound of thunder. The upper boughs of the pine trees swayed in the wind, and the trees creaked down to their roots, but no rain pounded in these woods. To be sure, fat droplets sometimes wove through the pine boughs, but not many.

Because the horses raced so fast through these woods, Iome did not mind that Gaborn followed the canyon, deeper and deeper, so that they twisted around the roots of a mountain and found themselves heading northwest, circling back, somewhat, toward Castle Sylvarresta.

But no, she decided after a bit—not toward the castle, deeper to the west, toward the Westwood. Toward the Seven Standing Stones in the heart of the wood.

The thought unsettled her. No one ever went to the Seven Stones and lived—at least no one had seen them in the past several generations. Her father had told Iome that she need not fear the spirits that haunted the woods there among the stones. “Erden Geboren gave us these woods while he yet lived, and made us rulers of this land,” he said. “He was a friend to the duskins, and so we are their friends.”

But even her father avoided the stones. Some said that the line of Sylvarresta had grown weak over generations. Others said the spirits of the duskins no longer remembered their oaths, and would not protect those who sought the stones.

Iome considered these things for an hour as Gaborn raced west, through woods growing more dark and hoary by the minute, until at last they reached a certain level hilltop, and under the dark oaks she could see small holes all around, down in the forest floor, and from the holes she could hear distant cries and armor clanking, the whinny of horses, and the sounds of ancient battles.

She knew this place: the Killing Field of Alnor. The holes were places where wights hid from the daylight. She shouted, “Gaborn, Gaborn: Turn south!”

He looked back at her; his eyes were unfocused, like one lost in a dream. She pointed south, shouted, “That way!”

To her relief, Gaborn turned south, spurred his horse up a long hill. In five minutes they reached the top of a mountain, came back out into a low wood of birch and oak, where the sun shone brightly. But with these trees, the limbs often came low to the ground, and gorse grew thick beneath them, so the horses slowed.

Suddenly they leapt over a small ridge, into a wallow where a sounder of great boars lay resting beneath the shade of oaks. The ground here looked as if it were plowed, the pigs had rooted for acorns and worms so much.

The boars squealed in rage to find the horses among them. A huge boar, its back coming even with the shoulder of Iome's mount, stood and grunted, swinging its great curved tusks menacingly.

One moment her horse charged the boar, then the horse turned nimbly, almost throwing Iome from her saddle as she raced past the swine, headed downhill.

Iome turned to see if the boar would give chase.

But the force horses ran so swiftly, the pigs only grunted in surprise, then watched Iome depart from dark, beady eyes.

Gaborn rode down a ridge through the birches, to a small river, perhaps forty feet wide. The river had a shallow, gravelly bottom.

On seeing this river, Iome knew she was totally lost. She'd often ridden in the Dunnwood, but had kept to the eastern edge of the woods. She'd never seen this river. Was it the headwaters of the River Wye, or Fro Creek? If it was Fro Creek, it should have been dry this time of year. If it was the Wye, then they had wandered farther west over the past hour than even she'd imagined.

Gaborn urged the mounts into the water, let them stand for a moment to drink. The horses sweated furiously, wheezing. The runes branded on their necks showed that each mount had four endowments of metabolism, and others of brawn and stamina. Iome did some quick mental calculations. She guessed they had been running the horses for nearly two hours without food or water, but that was the equivalent of running a common horse for eight. A common horse would have died three times over at such a furious pace. From the way these mounts gasped and sweated, she wasn't sure they'd live through the ordeal.

“We have to rest the horses,” Iome whispered to Gaborn.

“Will our pursuers stop, do you think?” Gaborn asked.

Iome knew they wouldn't. “But our horses will die.”

“They're strong mounts,” Gaborn said, stating the obvious. “Those who hunt us will find that their horses will die first.”

“Can you be so sure?”

Gaborn shook his head, uncertainly. “I only hope. I'm wearing light chain, the armor of my father's cavalry. But Raj Ahten's Invincibles have iron breastplates—with heavier gauntlets and greaves, and ring mail underneath. Each of their horses must carry a hundred pounds more than the most heavily laden of our beasts. Their mounts are fine animals for the desert, with wide hooves—but narrow shoes.”

“So you think they will go lame?”

“I've chosen the rockiest ridges to jump our horses over. I can't imagine their mounts will stay shod long. Your horse has already lost a shoe. If I'm any judge, half their animals are lame already.”

Iome stared at Gaborn in fascination. She hadn't noticed that her mount had lost a shoe, but now stared down into the water, saw that her mount favored its left front hoof.

“You have a devious mind, even for an Orden,” she told Gaborn. She meant it as a compliment, but feared it came out sounding like an insult.

He seemed to take no offense. “Battles such as ours are seldom won with arms,” he said. “They're won on a broken hoof or a rider's fall.” He looked down at his warhammer, resting across the pommel of his saddle like a rider's crop. Then added huskily, “If our pursuers catch us, I'll turn to fight, try to let you escape. But I tell you, I don't have either the weapons or the endowments to beat Raj Ahten's men.”

She understood. She desperately wanted to change the subject. “Where are you heading?”

“Heading?” he asked. “To Boar's Ford, then to Longmont.”

She studied his eyes, half-hidden beneath his overlarge helm, to see if he lied or was merely mad. “Boar's Ford is southeast. You've been heading northwest most of the past two hours.”

“I have?” he asked, startled.

“You have,” she said. “I thought perhaps you were trying to deceive even Borenson. Are you afraid to take us to Longmont? Are you trying to protect me from your father?”

Iome felt frightened. She was suspicious of Borenson, had not trusted the way he looked at her. He'd wanted to kill her, felt it was his duty. She feared he would attack her Dedicates, though Gaborn did not seem to worry about it. And when Borenson had said that he needed to watch Raj Ahten's troops, Iome had felt obligated to accept his explanation. Still, a worm of doubt burrowed in her skull.

“Protect you from my father?” Gaborn asked, sounding only half-surprised at the accusation. “No.”

Iome did not know how to phrase her next question, but she spoke softly. “He will want us dead. He will see it as a necessity. He'll kill my father, and if he can't kill the woman that serves as my vector to Raj Ahten, he will want to kill me. Is that why you turn away from the path south?”

She wondered if he so feared that road south, that without thought, without even knowing, he turned from it. Certainly, if King Orden felt it necessary to kill Sylvarresta, Gaborn would not dissuade him. The Prince would not be able to save her.

“No,” he said quite honestly, frowning, perplexed. Then he sat up straight, said, “Do you hear that?”

Iome listened, held her breath. She expected to hear the baying of war dogs, or cries of pursuit, but she could hear nothing. Only wind on the ridge above them, suddenly gusting through yellow birch leaves.

“I hear nothing,” Iome admitted. “Your ears must be stronger than mine.”

“No—listen, up there in the trees! Can you hear it?” He pointed to the ridge above them, to the north and west.

The wind suddenly stilled, the leaves quit twisting. Iome strained to hear something—the snap of a twig, the sound of stealthy steps. But she discerned nothing.

Gaborn suddenly stood up in his stirrups, taller in the saddle, gazing into the trees.

“What did you hear?” Iome whispered.

“A voice, in the trees,” Gaborn said. “It whispered.”

“What?” Iome urged her horse forward, studying the copse he spoke of, trying to see it from a different angle. But she could see nothing—only the white bark of trees, the green and golden leaves fluttering, and the shadows deeper within the grove. “What did it say?”

“I've heard it three times today. At first I thought it called my name, but this time I heard it clearly. It called 'Erden, Erden Geboren.' ”

A chill ran down Iome's back.

“We're too far west,” she hissed. “There are wights here. They're speaking to you. We should go south, now, before it gets dark.” Darkness would not come for another three hours, but they had come too close to the Westwood.

“No!” Gaborn said, and he turned to Iome. He had a faraway look in his eyes, as one half-asleep. “If it is a spirit, it wishes us no harm!”

“Perhaps not,” Iome whispered fiercely, “but it is not worth the risk!” She feared the wights, her father's assurances aside.

Gaborn gazed back at Iome, as if for a moment he'd forgotten she stood there. On the hill, the birch leaves shivered again. Iome looked toward the grove. The skies were drizzling, a slight gray rain that fell evenly, making it hard to see deeply into the grove.

“There, it comes again!” Gaborn shouted. “Do you not hear it?”

“I hear nothing,” Iome admitted.

Gaborn's eyes suddenly blazed. “I see it! I see now!” he whispered urgently. " 'Erden Geboren'—that is the old tongue for 'Earthborn.' The woods are angry with Raj Ahten. He has abused them. But I am Earthborn. They wish to protect me.”

“How do you know?” Iome asked. By claiming to be Earthborn, Gaborn was perhaps saying more than he knew. Erden Geboren was the last great king of Rofehavan when it had all been one nation. He had gifted these woods to his warden, Heredon Sylvarresta, after his brilliant service in the great wars against the reavers and the wizards of Toth. In time Iome's own forefathers had become called kings—and they were kings in their own right, but lesser kings than those who came from the loins of Geboren. Over the sixteen centuries since those days, Geboren's blood had spread widely among the nobility of Rofehavan, until it would be difficult to say who was most closely linked to the last great king.

But with the union of the houses of Val and Orden, Gaborn could certainly contend for that honor—if he dared. By calling himself “Earth-born,” was Gaborn suddenly claiming these woods, this kingdom, as his own?

“I am certain,” Gaborn answered. “These spirits—if spirits they be—wish us no harm.”

“No, that's not what I want to know,” Iome said. “How can you be certain you are Earthborn?”

“Binnesman named me that,” Gaborn said easily, “in his garden. Earth asked me to swear an oath to protect it, and then Binnesman sprinkled me with soil and pronounced me Earthborn.”

Iome's jaw dropped. She'd known Binnesman all her life. The old herbalist had once told her that the Earth Wardens used to grant blessings upon new kings, anointing them with the dust of the earth they were sworn to protect. But this ceremony had not been performed for hundreds of years. According to Binnesman, Earth had “withdrawn such blessing” from current rulers.

She recalled now Binnesman's words in her father's keep, as Raj Ahten questioned the old wizard. “The new King of the Earth is coming.” She'd thought Binnesman spoke of King Orden, for he'd been the one to enter her father's realm on the day the stones spoke. Now she saw that it was not the old king whom Earth proclaimed: it was Gaborn, who would become king...

Yet Raj Ahten believed Mendellas Orden was the king his pyromancers envisioned in the flames. Mendellas Orden was the king he feared, the one he rode to Longmont to destroy.

Suddenly Iome felt so faint that she needed to dismount before she fell from her horse, for she had a premonition, a fear Mendellas Orden would meet Raj Ahten at Longmont, and that no power on earth could save King Orden in that battle.

She slid from her saddle, stood a moment in the stream, letting cold water wash her ankles. She tried to think. She feared going to Longmont, for she knew that King Orden would want her dead. Yet she feared not going, for if Binnesman was right, then the only way Orden might be saved was if Gaborn was there to save him.

By going to Longmont, she might well trade her life, and her father's, for King Orden's—a man whom she'd always disliked. Yet even if she did not like the man, did not trust him, she couldn't let him die.

Nor could she sacrifice her own father for Orden's sake.

Her father sat now on his horse, staring dumbly into the stream, oblivious of all that was said around him. Raindrops spattered him, and he glanced this way and that, trying to discern what had hit him. Hopeless. Hopelessly lost to her.

Gaborn gazed down at Iome, as if worried at her health, and she realized he was oblivious of her dilemma. Gaborn hailed from Mystarria, from a kingdom near the ocean, where water wizards congregated. He had no knowledge of the lore of Earth Wardens. He had no idea that he'd been anointed to be King of the Earth. He had no idea that Raj Ahten feared him, would kill him, if only Raj Ahten knew Gaborn's identity.

Wind gusted on the hill again; Gaborn listened as if to a distant voice. A few minutes ago, she'd wondered if Gaborn was mad. Now she realized that something marvelous was happening. The trees spoke to him, called him, for purposes neither he nor she understood.

“What should we do now, milord!.” Iome asked. She had never called any man but her father by that title, never submitted to another king. If Gaborn recognized the sudden shift in their relationship, he did not signal it.

“We should go west,” he whispered. “Toward the heart of the woods. Deeper.”

“Not south?” Iome asked. “Your father could be in danger—more danger than he knows. We might help him.”

Gaborn smiled at her words. “You worry for my father?” he said. “I love you for that, Princess Sylvarresta.” Though he said the words lightly, she could not mistake the tone of his voice. He indeed felt grateful, and he loved her.

The thought made her shiver, made her want him more than she'd ever wanted a man. Iome had always been sensitive to magics, knew that her desire for Gaborn was born of the earth powers growing in him. He was not handsome, she had to tell herself. Not really more handsome than any other man.

Yet she felt drawn to him.

How could he love me? she wondered. How could he love this face? It was like a wall between them, this loss of glamour, her loss of self-respect and hope. Yet when he spoke to her, when Gaborn assured her that he loved her, she felt warm all over. She dared hope.

Gaborn frowned in thought, said softly. “No, we shouldn't go south. We need to follow our own track—west. I feel the spirits drawing me. My father is going to Longmont, where castle walls will enfold him. Bone of the earth. The earth powers can preserve him. He's safer there than we are here.”

With that, he urged his horse forward, reached down a hand to help lift Iome to her saddle.

On the wind came the sound of war dogs baying in the far hills.

26 A Gift

For long hours they raced, leaping over wind-fallen aspens, climbing up and down the hills. Iome let Gaborn lead the way, half in wonder at the trails he chose.

Time became a blur—all the trees losing definition, time losing focus.

At one point, Gaborn pointed out that Iome's father seemed to be riding better. As if some portion of his memories had opened, and he recognized once again how to sit light in a saddle.

Iome wasn't so sure. Gaborn stopped the horses in a stream, and her father watched a fly buzz around his head as Gaborn asked time and again, “Can you ride? If I cut your hands loose from the saddle, will you hold on?”

King Sylvarresta made no answer. Instead, he looked up into the sky and began squinting at the sun, making a noise like, “Gaaaagh. Gaaaaagh.”

Gaborn turned to Iome. “He could be saying yes.”

But when Iome looked into her father's eyes, she saw no light in them. He wasn't answering, just making senseless noise.

Gaborn pulled out a knife, reached down, and slit the ropes that held King Sylvarresta's hands to the pommel of the saddle.

King Sylvarresta seemed mesmerized by the knife, tried to grab it.

“Don't touch the blade,” Gaborn said. Her father grabbed it anyway, cut himself, and just stared at his bleeding hand in wonder. It was a small cut.

“Hold on to the pommel of the saddle,” Gaborn told King Sylvarresta, then wrapped the King's hand around the pommel. “Keep holding on.”

“Do you think it will work?” Iome asked.

“I don't know. He's holding it tight enough now. He might stay on the horse.”

Iome felt torn between the desire to have her father safely tied to the saddle, and the desire to let him be free, unencumbered.

“I'll watch him,” Iome said. They let the horses forage for sweet grass alongside a hill for a few moments. Distant thunder was snarling over the mountains, and Iome became lost in thought. A thin rain began to fall. A golden butterfly flew near her father's mount, and caught his eye. He watched after it a moment, held out a hand toward it as it flew off into the shadowed woods.

Moments later, they headed into the forest, into the deep gloom. The trees gave shelter from the brief rain showers. For another hour they rode, as the darkness deepened, until they reached some old trail in a burn.

There, as they rode, another monarch butterfly flew up out of some weeds. Iome's father reached for it, called out.

“Halt!” Iome shouted, leaping from her saddle. She ran to her father, who sat askew, listening to his force horse breathe, lamely reaching a hand out.

“Bu-er-fly!” he shouted, grasping at the golden monarch that flashed ahead, as if racing the horses. “Bu-er-fly! Bu-er-fly!” Tears streamed from her father's eyes, tears of joy. If there was any pain behind those tears, any recognition of what he'd lost, Iome could not see it. These were tears of discovery.

Iome's heart pounded. She grabbed her father's face, tried to pull him close. She'd hoped he would regain some wit, enough to talk. Now he had it. If he knew one word, he could learn more. He'd experienced his “wakening”—that moment when the connection between a new Dedicate and his lord became firm, when the bounds of an endowment solidified.

In time, her father might learn her name, might know she loved him desperately. In time he might learn to control his bowels, feed himself.

But for the moment, as she tried to pull him close, he saw her ruined face, cried out in terror, and drew away.

King Sylvarresta was strong, so much stronger than her. With his endowments, he easily tore from her grasp, and pushed her so hard that she feared he'd broken her collarbone.

It did not matter. The pain did not diminish her joy. Gaborn rode back to them, leaned over on his mount, and took King Sylvarresta's hand. “Here now, milord, don't be afraid,” he soothed. He pulled the King's hand toward Iome, put the King's palm on the back of her hand, let him pet it. “See? She's nice. This is Iome, your beautiful daughter.”

“Iome,” Iome said. “Remember? Do you remember me?”

But if the King remembered her, he did not show it. His wide eyes were full of tears. He stroked her hand, but for the moment he could give her nothing more.

“Iome,” Gaborn whispered, “you need to get back on your horse. I know you can't hear them, but mastiffs are howling in the woods behind us. We don't have time to waste.”

Iome's heart pounded so hard she feared it would stop. Darkness could not be far away. The rain had momentarily halted.

“All right,” she said, and leapt on her horse. In the distance, war dogs began to bay, and nearby some lone wolf raised its voice in answer.

27 The Unfavored

In the shadows of the birches, Jureem gazed down as his master's Invincibles took a moment to rest, throwing themselves on the ground. Beyond this ridge, the mountains wrinkled and folded like crumpled metal, and trees grew huge. Gaborn was fleeing into the darkest heart of the Dunnwood.

Yet Jureem knew enough to fear this region, as did the Invincibles. Maps showed the Westwood only as a blank, and at its center was a crude sketch of the Seven Standing Stones of the Dunnwood. In Indhopal, it was said that the universe was a great tortoise. On the tortoise's back sat the Seven Stones, and on the stones rested the world. A silly legend, Jureem knew, but intriguing. For ancient tomes said that millennia ago, the duskins, the Lords of the Underworld, had erected the Seven Stones to “uphold the world.”

The Invincibles searched the ground under the birches for sign of Gaborn. Somehow, the Prince's scent eluded them, and now the mastiffs stood yapping stupidly, noses high, trying to catch the scent.

It should not have happened. Young Prince Orden had three people a horse. Their scent should have been thick in the air, the prints of the horses' hooves deep in the ground. Yet even Raj Ahten could not smell the boy, and the earth was so dry and stony that it could not hold a print.

Most of Raj Ahten's men were already unhorsed. Twelve horses dead, several dogs dead, too. The men who ran afoot should have been able to keep up with Gaborn, but complained, “This ground is too hard. We can't walk on it.”

An Invincible sat on a log, pulled off a boot. Jureem saw the black bruises on his sole, horrible blisters on his heels and toes. These rough hills had killed most of the horses and dogs. They'd kill men, too. So far, Jureem was lucky enough to retain a mount, though his butt hurt so badly he dared not climb off his horse for fear he'd never get back on. Even worse, he feared that at any moment his own horse would die. Not able to run with these men, he would be abandoned here in the woods.

“How does he do it?” Raj Ahten wondered aloud. They'd followed Gaborn for six hours, astonished at how the Prince eluded them. Each time, it had been in a stand of birches. Each time, they'd lost Gaborn's scent completely, had to circle the trees until he reached pine. Yet it was getting harder and harder to find the Prince's trail.

“Binnesman,” Jureem said. “Binnesman has put some Earth Warden's spell on the Prince, hiding him.” Gaborn was leading them all somewhere they did not want to go.

One of Raj Ahten's captains, Salim al Daub, spoke with a soft, womanly voice. “O Light of the Earth,” he said solemnly, “perhaps we had better relinquish this fruitless chase. The horses are dying. Your horse will die.”

Raj Ahten's magnificent horse did show signs of fatigue, but Jureem hardly imagined it would die.

“Besides,” Salim said, “this is not natural. The ground everywhere we walk is harder than stone, yet the Prince's horse runs over it like the wind. Leaves fall in his path, hiding his trail. Even you cannot smell him anymore. We are too near the heart of the haunted wood. Can't you hear it?”

Raj Ahten fell silent, and his beautiful face went impassive as he listened. He had endowments of hearing from hundreds of men; he turned his ear to the woods, closed his eyes.

Jureem imagined that his master could hear his men rustling about, the beats of their hearts, the drawing of their breaths, the strangling noises their stomachs made.

Beyond that...must be silence. A pure, profound silence all across the dark valleys below. Jureem listened. No birds called, no squirrels chattered. A silence so deep that it was as if the very trees held their breath in anticipation.

“I hear,” Raj Ahten whispered.

Jureem could feel the power of these woods, and he wondered. His master feared to attack Inkarra because it, too, harbored ancient powers—the powers of the arr. Yet here in the north the people of Heredon lived beside this wood and apparently did not harvest the power, or did not commune with it. Their ancestors had been a part of these woods, but now the northerners were sundered from the land, and had forgotten what they once knew.

Or maybe not. Gaborn was aided by the wood. Raj Ahten had lost the boy's trail, lost it hopelessly.

Now Raj Ahten turned his head to the northwest, and looked out over the valleys. The sun shone briefly on Raj Ahten as he gazed at a deep valley, far below.

The heart of the silence seemed to lie there.

“Gaborn is heading down there,” Raj Ahten said with certainty.

“O Great Brightness,” Salim begged. “Haroun asks that you leave him here. He feels the presence of malevolent spirits. Your flameweavers attacked the forest, and the trees want retribution.”

Jureem did not know why this annoyed his master so. Perhaps it was because Salim asked him. Salim had long been a fine guard, but a failed assassin. He'd fallen from Raj Ahten's favor.

Raj Ahten rode to Haroun, a trusted man who sat on a log, his shoes off, rubbing his maimed feet. “You wish to stay behind?” Raj Ahten asked.

“If you please, Great One,” the wounded man asked.

Before Haroun could move, Raj Ahten drew a dagger, leaned over and planted it through his eye. Haroun gasped and tried to stand, then tripped backward over a log, gagging.

Jureem and the Invincibles stared at their lord in fear.

Raj Ahten asked, “Now, who else among you would like to stay behind?”

28 At the Seven Standing Stones

Gaborn rode full-tilt, and though his mount was one of the strongest hunters in Mystarria, in the afternoon he felt it giving way beneath him.

The stallion wheezed for breath. Its ears drooped, lying almost flat. Serious signs of fatigue. Now, when it leapt a tree or jumped some gorse, it did so recklessly, letting brambles scrape its hind legs, setting its feet loosely. If Gaborn did not stop soon, the horse would injure itself. In the past six hours, he'd traveled over a hundred miles, circling south, then heading back northwest.

Gaborn felt certain Raj Ahten's scouts must have begun to lose mounts by now. He could hear but two or three dogs baying. Even Raj Ahten's war dogs had grown weary of the chase. Weary enough, he hoped, to make mistakes.

He rode on, leading Iome through a narrow gorge. Night's shadows were falling.

He could see quite well here. As if the eyebright administered the night before had not yet worn off. This amazed him, for he'd expected it to lose its effect long ago.

He felt thoroughly lost, had no idea where he'd managed to end up, yet it was with a light heart that he raced down into a deep ravine, covered in pine.

Here he found something he'd never expected to encounter so far into the Dunnwood—an ancient stone road. Pine needles had fallen on it over the ages, and trees grew up through the middle of it. Yet all in all, as he headed deeper into the gorge, the path could be tracked.

It seemed a decidedly odd road, too narrow for even a narrow wagon, as if it were made to be trod by smaller feet.

Iome must not have expected this road, either, for she watched it with wide eyes, looking this way and that. In the darkness, her pupils dilated.

The woods grew silent as they rode for the next half-hour, and the trees grew immense. The trio descended from the pines into a grove of vast oaks, trees larger than Gaborn had ever seen or imagined, spreading wide over their heads, the oak boughs creaking softly in the night.

Even the lowest branches rose eighty feet overhead. Old man's beard clung to those boughs in vast curtains, thirty and forty feet long.

On the hill beside him, in the trees, Gaborn saw lights winking among the boles of trees. Tiny holes had been dug beneath a rock shelf. A ferrin warrior rushed before the light, his tail whipping.

Wild ferrin, living off acorns and mushrooms. Some inhabited caves up there; others lived in the hollows of great oaks. Gaborn saw lights from their lamps among the immense roots and boles. City ferrin seldom built fires, since those attracted men who would dig the ferrin out of their burrows. Somehow, the presence of wild ferrin comforted Gaborn.

He strained his ears, listening for sign of pursuit, but all he could hear was a river, somewhere off to his right, rushing down the ravine.

Still the trail descended.

The trees grew old and more vast. Few plants thrived beneath these trees—no gorse or winding vine maple. Instead the soft ground was covered in deep moss, unmarred by footprints.

Yet as they traveled, Iome cried out, pointed deeper into the woods. Far back under the shadows, a gray form squatted—a heavyset, beardless man, watching them from enormous eyes.

Gaborn called out to the old fellow, but he faded like a mist before the sun.

“A wight!” Iome cried. “The ghost of a duskin.”

Gaborn had never seen a duskin. No human living ever had. But this looked nothing like the ghost of a man—it was too squat, too rounded.

“If it is the spirit of a duskin, then all is well,” Gaborn said, trying to put a good face on it. “They served our ancestors.”

Yet Gaborn did not believe for a moment that all was well. He spurred his horse onward a bit faster.

“Wait!” Iome called. “We can't go forward. I've heard of this place. There is an old duskin road leading down to the Seven Standing Stones.”

Gaborn flinched at this news.

The Seven Standing Stones lay at the heart of the Dunnwood, formed the center of its power.

I should flee, he realized. Yet he wanted to reach those stones. The trees had called him.

He listened for a long moment for sounds of pursuit. Distantly, he heard trees bending in the wind, speaking something...he could not quite distinguish.

“It's not much farther,” Gaborn told Iome, licking his lips. His heart hammered, and he knew it was true. Whatever lay ahead, it was not far distant.

He spurred his horse into a canter, wanting to take advantage of the failing light by covering as much distance as possible.

Ahead he heard a far-off rasping sound—like the buzz of rattlesnakes.

He froze in his saddle. He'd never heard the sound before, but he recognized it from others' descriptions. It was the rasping of a reaver as air filtered from its lungs.

“Halt!” he shouted, wanting to turn his horse and retreat.

Yet almost immediately he heard a cry ahead, Binnesman calling, “Hold! Hold I say!” He sounded terrified.

“Hurry!” Gaborn shouted and rode like a gale now, the horses' hooves drumming over the mossy road, beneath the black boughs.

He drew his warhammer, and pounded the ribs of his failing horse with his heels.

Sixteen hundred years ago, Heredon Sylvarresta had slain a reaver mage in the Dunnwood. The deed was legend. He'd put a lance through the roof of its mouth.

Gaborn had no lance, did not know if a man could even kill a reaver with a warhammer.

Iome shouted, “Wait! Stop!”

Deeper the road dropped, into the endless ravine, so that when Gaborn tried to look up above the dark branches, he had the impression of endless land all around and above him.

“The earth hide you...” the words rang in his mind. Iome and her father followed Gaborn down, until he felt as if at any moment he would be swallowed up into the belly of the earth.

He raced under the great oaks, which spread above him taller than any he'd ever imagined, so he wondered if these had grown here since the world was first born—then suddenly he saw an end to the trees, an end to the trail ahead. The rasping of the reaver came from there.

A ring of misshapen stones lay a couple of hundred yards off. Dark, mysterious, shaped somewhat like half-formed men. Gaborn raced to them in the starlight, hurtling under dark trees.

Something seemed very wrong. Only moments before, at the top of the hill, the sun had been setting. It was dusk. Yet here, with the steep mountains rising all around—here in the deep hollow, full night had fallen.

Glorious starlight shone all around.

Though legend had named this place the Seven Standing Stones, it seemed the ring had not been named aptly. Only one stone stood now—the stone nearest to Gaborn, the stone facing him. Yet it was more than a stone. Once it might have seemed human. Its features were ragged and chipped with age, and the statue shone dimly with a greenish hue, as if foxfire played over its features. The other six stones, all of similar design, seemed to have fallen in dark ages past; all had toppled out from the center of the ring.

And though they were of similar design, yet they were not. For this one's head lay askew, and another's leg was raised in the air, while a third looked as if it were trying to crawl away.

A tremendous blast of light erupted from what Gaborn had taken to be a huge boulder—a beam of fire that struck the remaining statue at its feet. Gaborn saw movement as the boulder took a step, then another blast struck the statue, a blast of frost that froze the air, cracked the statue's edges, flaking them away.

Before that single statue, a reaver mage spun to meet Gaborn.

Binnesman shouted, “Gaborn! Beware!” though Gaborn could not see the old wizard.

Gaborn first saw the reaver's head, row upon row of crystalline teeth flashing like ice in the starlight as its jaws gaped.

It bore no common ancestor to man, looked like no other creature to walk the face of the earth, for its kind had evolved in the underworld, descended from organisms that formed countless ages ago in deep volcanic pools.

Gaborn's first impression was of vastness. The reaver stood sixteen feet at the shoulder, so that its enormous leathery head, the width and length of a small wagon, towered above him though Gaborn rode on horseback. It had no eyes or ears or nose, only a row of hairlike sensors that skirted the back of its head, and followed the line of its jaw like a great mane.

The reaver scrambled quick as a roach on four huge legs, each seemingly made only of blackened bone, that held its slimy abdomen well off the ground. As Gaborn drew near, it raised its massive arms threateningly, holding out a stalagmite as a weapon, a long rod of clear agate. Runes of fire burned in that rod. Dire symbols of the flameweavers.

Gaborn did not fear the icy rows of teeth, or the deadly claws on each long arm. Reavers are fell warriors, but reaver mages are even more fell sorcerers.

Indeed, the whole art of the Runelords had developed in mimicry of the reavers' magic. For when a reaver died, others of its kind would consume the body of the dead, absorb its knowledge, its strength, and its accumulated magic.

And of all reavers, the mages were most fearsome, for they had amassed powers from hundreds of their dead.

This one lunged sideways, and Gaborn heard the rasping of air exhaled from the vents on its back as his horse charged. He detected a whispering sound in that exhalation, the chanting of a spell.

Gaborn shouted, putting all the force of his Voice into his call. He'd heard of warriors with such powerful voices that they could stun men with a shout.

Gaborn had no such gift. But he knew that reavers sensed movement—whether it be sound or vibrations of something digging beneath their feet—and he hoped his shout would confuse the monster, blind it as he charged.

The reaver pointed its stalagmite at him, hissed vehemently, and a coldness pierced Gaborn, an invisible beam that stung like the deepest winter. The air all around that beam turned to frost, and Gaborn raised his small shield.

Legend said that the greatest of flameweavers' spells could draw the heat from a man, just as flameweavers could draw heat from a fire or from the sun—suck the warmth from a man's lungs and heart, leave him frozen on a sunny day.

Yet the spell was so complex, required such concentration, that Gaborn had never heard of a flameweaver who'd mastered it.

He felt that spell's touch now, and threw himself sideways in his saddle, dropped in a running dismount as his horse raced ahead. The chill struck him to the bone, left him gasping as he rushed behind his charger, let its body shield his attack.

“No! Go back!” Binnesman cried from somewhere behind the ring of fallen statues.

Gaborn inhaled deeply as he advanced on the monster. The reaver carried no scent. Reavers never do, for they mimic the scent of the soil around them.

Yet the reaver mage rasped now, in terrible fury. The air hissed from the anterior of its long body.

Gaborn's horse staggered beneath the beam of cold, and Gaborn leapt over the falling beast, rushed the reaver at stomach level, swinging his warhammer with all his might.

The reaver mage tried to step back, tried to impale him with its staff. Gaborn dodged the blow and swung at its shoulder, buried the warhammer deep into the reaver's leathery gray hide. He quickly pulled the spike free and swung a second time, hoping to plunge deeper into the wound, when suddenly the reaver smashed the agate rod down at him.

Gaborn's hammer hit its great paw, pierced a talon, and the iron T of his hammer smashed into the reaver's blazing rod. The agate staff shattered along its entire length, and flame leapt in the reaver's paw, a hot flash that erupted with explosive force, cracking the wooden haft of the warhammer.

Iome rode in behind Gaborn now, shouting at the monster, and King Sylvarresta's horse danced to its left. The tumult and the horses circling round distracted the beast, so that it swung its great maw one way, then the other.

What happened next, Gaborn did not see, for at that second, the reaver chose to flee—running over the top of him so that its huge abdomen knocked him backward.

Gaborn hit the ground, the wind knocked from him as the reaver scrambled away. Gaborn wondered if he'd die from the blow. As a boy in tilting practice, he'd once fallen from his saddle, and a fully armored warhorse had trampled him. The reaver far outweighed the warhorse.

Gaborn heard ribs crack. Lights flashed before his eyes, and he had the sense of falling, of swirling like a leaf into some deep and infinite chasm.

When he regained consciousness, his teeth were chattering. He smelled some sweet leaves beneath his nose, and Binnesman had reached down beneath Gaborn's ring mail, was rubbing him with healing soils and whispering, “The earth heal you; the earth heal you.”

When the soil touched him, Gaborn's flesh seemed to warm. He still felt terribly cold, frozen to the bone, but the soil worked like a warming compress, easing each wound.

“Will he live?” Iome asked.

Binnesman nodded. “Here, the healing earth is very powerful. See—he opens his eyes.”

Gaborn's eyes fluttered. He stared, uncomprehending. His eyes could not focus. He tried to look at Binnesman, but it required so much effort.

The old wizard stood over Gaborn, leaning on a wooden staff. He looked horrible. Grime and blood smeared his face. His clothing smelled charred, yet when his right hand brushed Gaborn, it felt deathly cold.

The reaver had tried to kill Binnesman, too.

There was a look about the wizard. He trembled, as if in pain and shock. Horror showed in every line of his face.

The single standing statue was throbbing with light. Great icy blasts had chipped away corners of it, cracked it. Gaborn lay for a moment. He felt a bitter chill in the air. The sorceries of the reaver mage.

Distant war dogs bayed. Binnesman whispered, “Gaborn?”

The statue seemed to waver, and the aged half-human face carved into it glanced down at him. Gaborn thought his eyes were failing. But at that moment, the light within the statue died, turning black, like a candle snuffed out.

A great splitting sound tore the air.

“No! Not yet!” Binnesman cried, looking up toward the standing stone.

As if in defiance of his plea, the great stone rent in two and tumbled, the head of it landing almost at Gaborn's feet. The ground groaned, as if the earth might shake apart.

Gaborn's thoughts came sluggishly. He gazed at the huge statue, but ten feet from him, listened to war dogs baying.

The Seven Stones have fallen, he realized. The stones that hold up the earth. “What? Happening?” Gaborn gasped.

Binnesman looked into Gaborn's eye, and said softly, “It may be the end of the world.”

29 A World Gone Wrong

Binnesman leaned over Gaborn, peering at his wounds. “Light,” he grumbled. A wan green light began emanating from his staff—not firelight, but the glow of hundreds of fireflies that had gathered on its knob. Some flew up, circled Binnesman's face.

Gaborn could see the old man clearly now. His nose was blooded, and mud plastered his cheek. He did not look severely wounded, but he was clearly distraught.

Binnesman smiled grimly at Gaborn and Iome, bent his ear, listening to the baying dogs in the woods. “Come, my friends. Get inside the circle, where we'll be safer.”

Iome seemed to need no prodding. She grabbed the reins of hers and her father's horse, pulled both mounts round the fallen statues.

Gaborn rolled to his knees, felt his sore ribs. It pained him to breathe. Binnesman offered Gaborn his shoulder, and Gaborn hobbled into the circle of stones.

His horse had already gone in, stood nibbling at the short grass, favoring its right front leg. Gaborn was grateful that it had survived the reaver's spell.

Yet he felt reticent to enter that circle. He sensed earth power. It was old—a terrible place, he felt sure, to those who did not belong.

“Come, Earthborn,” Binnesman said.

Iome walked rigidly, watching her feet, apparently unnerved by the power that emanated from below. Gaborn could feel it, palpable as the touch of sunlight on his skin, rising from beneath him, energizing every fiber of his being. Gaborn knelt to remove his boots, to feel the sensation more fully. The earth in this circle had a strong mineral smell. Though enormous oaks grew all round, taller than any he'd ever seen, none stood near the center of the circle—only a few low bushes with white berries. The earth smelled too potent, too vigorous for anything else to thrive. Gaborn pulled off his boots, sat on the grass.

Binnesman stood gazing about, like a warrior surveying his battleground. “Do not be afraid,” he whispered. “This is a place of great power for Earth Wardens.” Yet he did not sound fully confident. He'd been battling the reaver here, and had been losing.

Binnesman reached into the pocket of his robe, drew out some spade-shaped dogbane leaves, crushed and threw them.

Up the ancient road, the baying of war dogs came fervently, high yips echoing through the limbs of ancient oaks. The sound sent chills down Gaborn's spine.

He sat, head spinning, and said, “I heard trees calling me here.”

Binnesman nodded. “I asked them to. And I placed protective spells on you, to keep Raj Ahten from following. Though at such a distance, they did little good.”

“Why do the trees name me wrong?” Gaborn asked. “Why do they call me Erden Geboren?”

“The trees here are old and forgetful,” Binnesman said. “But they remember their king still, for this wood held allegiance to Erden Geboren. You are much like him. Besides, your father was supposed to have named you Erden Geboren.”

“What do you mean, 'supposed to have named' me?”

Binnesman said, “The Lords of Time once said that when the seventh stone falls, Erden Geboren would come again to the stones with his Earth Warden and a retinue of faithful princes and kings, there to be crowned, there to plan for the end of their age, in hope that mankind might survive.”

“You would have anointed me king?” Gaborn asked.

“If the world had not gone wrong,” Binnesman said.

“And Raj Ahten?”

“Would have been one of your most ardent supporters, in a more perfect world. The obalin drew him here tonight, just as they drew you and King Sylvarresta.” Binnesman nodded toward the fallen creature that looked like a statue.

The obalin, these creatures had been called, though Gaborn had never heard the term.

“Gaborn, we are in terrible jeopardy. Nothing is as it should be—the kings of all Rofehavan and Indhopal should be here tonight. Men who should have been great heroes in the war to come have either been slain or now lie as Dedicates in Raj Ahten's keeps. All the Powers shall rage in this war, but the protectors of the earth are few and weak.”

“I don't understand,” Gaborn said.

“I will try to make it clearer, when Raj Ahten arrives,” Binnesman said.

Of a sudden, the shadowy forms of the mastiffs burst from beneath the trees, their baying more fervent.

Men and a few horses rushed out behind the dogs. Only three men rode still. The other mounts had succumbed during the chase. Twelve soldiers raced beside the horses. The fact that these twelve men had run so long, in armor, across such unforgiving terrain, made Gaborn nervous. Such warriors would be terribly powerful.

The garish dogs with their red masks and fierce collars raced up to within a hundred feet of the fallen stones, then snarled and leapt as if they'd confronted a wall. The mastiffs looked like shadows thrown by a flickering fire. They would not come near Binnesman's dogbane. Some began racing around the fallen stones.

“Quiet!” Binnesman said to the dogs. The fierce mastiffs cringed and tucked the stumps of their tails between their legs, daring not even to whimper.

Jureem followed his master to the circle of fallen stones. His stallion sweated, drenched, as if it had swum a river. The horse's lungs worked like bellows. It would not have survived another ten miles of this chase.

Jureem felt half-astonished to see Prince Orden's horses still alive, limping among the fallen statues.

A strange scent filled the air—smoke and ice and dust.

Raj Ahten stared hard at Gaborn, his glance askew, as if looking for something in particular.

Something odd was going on, Jureem realized. All of the Seven Standing Stones lay fallen, like half-formed men—misshapen, as if in their death throes. The scents of smoke and ice said that a battle had been fought here. Binnesman was wounded, dirt and blood on his face.

Overhead, a soft wind blew. The enormous oaks creaked in the slow wind, waving at the stars. Pale light glowed within the circle of fallen stones.

The Earth Warden stood scrutinizing Raj Ahten's men from beneath bushy brows, starlight glowing on his wispy beard. Confident. Dirty and bloodied. Still, the wizard seemed too confident. Jureem wished that his master's flameweavers were here. It had been a mistake to enter these woods without them.

Raj Ahten finally slipped from the back of his weary mount, stood holding the animal's reins. He smiled. “Prince Orden,” Raj Ahten called in his most seductive voice while his men finished circling their quarry. “Your running comes to an end. You need not fear me. You need not run any longer. Come, my friend.”

Jureem felt the overawing draw of that voice. Surely the Prince would come to the Great Light now.

But the Prince stood fast.

“Princess, you, at least, would not refuse me?” the Great One asked.

Jureem felt gratified to see Iome sway on her feet, compelled to draw closer.

“No one will come with you,” Binnesman said, stepping in front of her.

“You cannot draw near, Raj Ahten—any more than can your dogs, or your warriors.” Binnesman menacingly crushed leaves in his hand.

Dogbane. Even when it was not in the hands of an Earth Warden, dogbane was as potent at driving away dogs as Solomon's Seal was at frightening off cobras. Raj Ahten's men began backing from the statues. The dogbane would not kill them. Yet their dogs' noses feared the scent.

“Why have you come here?” Raj Ahten demanded of Binnesman. “This is none of your affair. Leave now, and no one will harm you.”

“More importantly,” Binnesman said, “why have you come here? You are a king of men. Did you hear the trees calling?”

“I heard nothing,” Raj Ahten said.

But Binnesman shook his head. “There are runes of concealment all about this place. Powerful runes. No man could have found it alone. Some greater Power drew you.” He nodded knowingly, and his tone broached no argument.

“Perhaps...I did hear a whisper, Earth Warden,” Raj Ahten said. “But it was very faint, like the voices of the dead.”

“That is good. You are strong in the earth powers, and only they can preserve us. The end of an age is upon us. If our people are to survive, we must hold council. Earth called you, Rah Ahten, just as it calls to kings you have enslaved. Can you hear it now?” Binnesman stood at ease, gazing deep into Raj Ahten's eyes.

“I feel it,” Raj Ahten said. “This place is strong in the Power that you serve.”

Binnesman leaned on his staff. The light of fireflies shone on his face, which had an odd tint, a metallic sheen. Perhaps Binnesman had once been human, but his devotion to Earth had leached him of some of that humanity. Jureem realized that the wizard was perhaps as alien to mankind as any Frowth or ferrin.

“And what of you?” Binnesman asked. “Could you serve this Power? Could you serve something greater than yourself?”

“Why should I?” Raj Ahten asked. “My flameweavers ask me time and again to give myself into greater service to their Fires. But why should I? The Powers do not serve man.”

Binnesman cocked his head, as if listening deeply to Raj Ahten's words. “But they do—oft times, when our purposes agree. And they serve in return those who serve them.”

“Grudgingly they return service, when they serve at all.”

Binnesman nodded. “I am troubled by your lack of faith.”

Raj Ahten responded, “As I am troubled by your abundance of faith.”

Binnesman raised a bushy brow. “I never sought to trouble you. If I have offended, I beg forgiveness.”

Raj Ahten cocked his head to the side, studied young Gaborn. “Tell me, Earth Warden, what spell is this, that I cannot see the Prince, but instead see rocks or trees when I look at him? Such a spell would serve me well.”

Jureem wondered at such a strange question, for the Prince seemed...visible enough to him. He wore no mask or cloak.

“It is a small thing, this spell,” Binnesman answered. “But you asked another question of me but a moment ago. You asked why I had led you here. And I confess that I did lead you. Now I have something I want of you.”

“What do you want?” Raj Ahten asked.

Binnesman said, waving to the stones that lay about, “These are the Seven Standing Stones of the Dunnwood. Doubtless you know of them. Perhaps you even know what a dire portent it is that they have fallen.” He spoke sadly, as if he felt great loss.

“I see them,” Raj Ahten said. “In your tongue they are the obalin. In mine they are called the Coar Tangyasi—the Stones of Vigilance, or so the old scrolls name them. It is said that the duskins fashioned the watchers to protect mankind.”

“That is right,” Binnesman said. “So you are familiar with the old scrolls. Then you know that the duskins were great wizards. Beside such, my power is nothing. Theirs were the powers of deep earth—of the shaping of things, of preservation. Mine is the power of the shallow earth—of the use of herbs and growing things.

“Long ago, the reaver mages made war on the Underworld, slaughtering the duskins. The duskins could not adequately defend themselves. In time they knew they would be destroyed, and that the reavers would also seek to destroy mankind. So they sought to protect us, give us time to grow. They raised the obalin of the Dunnwood, channeled life into them.

“In time, they were called the Seven Standing Stones. With eyes of stone they have watched the deep places of the world for us.

“Often have the obalin whispered to our kings, warning of the presence of reavers. But the obalin's voices can only be heard by those attuned to the Earth. Thus, among men, those most sensitive to earth powers have been chosen as kings.

“Surely, you, Raj Ahten, have felt urges that warned you to send your warriors to battle the reavers. You have been adept at thwarting them. Until now! Now the childhood of mankind is past. The reaver mages of the Underworld are free!”

Raj Ahten stood thoughtfully through Binnesman's lesson. “I've fought reavers well enough in the past. But I fear that you put too much trust in your stones. The duskins never imagined the Runelords, nor guessed the power we would wield. It does not matter that a stone has fallen in the Dunnwood, any more than it matters that a leaf has fallen.”

Binnesman said, “Do not speak lightly of them. The obalin were more than mere stone, more by far.” He looked down reverently. “But you, Raj Ahten, must fear the reavers that infest your borders. Perhaps you do not guess the full extent of the threat. When the obalin lived, one could learn much by touching them. Perhaps here is something you did not know: The reavers are in Kartish.”

In Kartish were the blood-metal mines. If the reavers captured them...

Binnesman continued, “In your gullibility you've allied yourself with flameweavers, for they are strong in war. But it is no accident that reavers also serve fire. Nor was it an accident that a reaver came tonight and administered a deadly wound to the last of the obalin in an effort to hurry the end of man.”

Binnesman turned his back to Raj Ahten, as if no longer concerned with him, and said, “Yet, there are greater powers than those wielded by flame-weavers.”

Raj Ahten stepped toward Gaborn cautiously, as if he considered moving in to attack. Of the warriors here, only Raj Ahten had never taken an endowment from a dog. Thus, only he could have withstood Binnesman's dogbane. Certainly, the wizard and his rabble were no match for Raj Ahten.

“Hold,” Binnesman said, whirling. “Let no man even think of harming another on this ground. This place is strong in the earth power, and such power must be used to protect life, to save it. Not to take it.”

To Jureem's surprise, Raj Ahten halted in his advance, sheathed his weapon. Yet as Jureem considered, he realized that the wizard's words had held a compelling tone. “Let no man even think of harming another on this ground...”

Binnesman held Raj Ahten with his eyes. “You say you want my help in fighting the reavers. Very well. I will help you, if you will join me. Give up your forcibles. Join us in our quest to serve the earth, Raj Ahten. Let its powers sustain you.”

Raj Ahten countered the offer: “Convince King Orden to give the forcibles back into my hands. Then we shall see...”

Sadly, Binnesman shook his head. “You would not join us even then, I believe. You do not want so much to fight the reavers as you want the glory that would come from defeating them.”

Gaborn stepped forward and said earnestly. “Raj Ahten, please, listen to reason. The earth needs you. Serve the earth, as I do. I am sure that if I talk to my father, we can work out a plan. We can divide the forcibles among both nations, so that none need fear the other...”

Gaborn stood, trembling, as if afraid to offer even this much. Obviously the young man doubted his ability to carry off such a scheme. Yet he seemed so earnest, every bit as earnest as the wizard.

Raj Ahten dismissed Gaborn's offer without a reply and said to Binnesman, “You are right. I will not join you, Earth Warden—not because I seek honor, but because you serve the snakes and field mice as much as you do mankind. I do not trust you. Our affairs matter nothing to you.” When he spoke of snakes and field mice, Raj Ahten glanced contemptuously toward young Prince Orden.

“Ah, but the affairs of men matter very much to me,” Binnesman said. “In my estimation, men may be no greater than field mice, but certainly men are no less.”

Raj Ahten said in a seductive voice, “Then serve me.”

Binnesman leapt up on a fallen obalin with all the energy of a young man. He stared down among the tiny white flowers that shone in the starlight, there among the circle of stones, and with a motion bade Prince Orden and the others to step back.

He said to Raj Ahten. “You seek to use me as a weapon, but it is given to me only to protect. You lack faith in the power that I serve. Here then. Let me show you a weapon...”

Jureem thought that the wizard would uncover some staff of power that lay hidden in the grass, or perhaps some ancient unbreakable sword.

Binnesman's manner suddenly became somber, and he swung his staff above his head in three slow arcs, then reached down and, with its tip, pointed a few feet ahead.

Suddenly a long swath of grass tore its roots away from the ground.

There, on the dark earth, Jureem could discern what looked like bones, as if something had died here in ages past, and had lain rotting under the ground.

But as he peered closer, Jureem saw that these were not bones—merely stones and sticks and roots that had been hidden. They appeared to be laid out in the form of a man. Jureem saw it first as Binnesman drew near a stone shaped like a head. Yellowed boars' tusks were arranged around the stone skull, like enormous teeth. There were dark holes in the stone, as if for eyes.

As Jureem studied, he saw that other stones made up the bones of hands; the horns of oxen splayed out from them like claws.

But if these stones and pieces of tree limb formed the skeleton of a man, then it was a strange man. Tendrils of roots lay among the stones and spars, forming odd networks, like veins running through the huge skeleton.

Binnesman raised his staff. The oaks along the hills suddenly seemed to hiss. Wind stirred the high branches, so that leaves seemed to give voice. Yet here in the glade, the air was perfectly still.

Terror filled Jureem, for he could feel earth power rising, as if at some unspoken request, from the stone beneath the ground, filling this little field.

Binnesman again waved his staff high in slow circles as he chanted,

“War is brooding. Peace is gone, here upon the glade. Earth is breathing. Life is born, from covenants long made.''

Binnesman stopped moving his staff about, and stared hard at the pile of stones and wood. He breathed heavily, as if speaking these few words had cost him dear.

The cadence of the chant was lost as Binnesman stared fixedly at the ground. He whispered to the dirt, “I've served the earth, and always shall. My life I give. Grant life to my creation. Grant a portion of the life I lost.”

In that moment, a strange and horrifying transformation occurred. A light, the color of emerald, began glowing brightly in Binnesman's chest, became a brilliant ball that exploded from him and smote the ground before him like a meteorite.

In that moment, in an infinite moment, Binnesman screamed in pain and clutched his staff, suddenly leaning against it to hold him upright. The fireflies on the staff all flew up and buzzed about, so that Jureem could see the wizard easily.

Binnesman's hair, which had been a nutty brown with streaks of gray, suddenly turned silver in the starlight. He leaned on the staff like a bent old man. His green cloak in that moment became washed in red, the russet shades of leaves in autumn, as if the wizard were some color-changing chameleon on the wall of Raj Ahten's Southern palace.

Jureem gasped, realizing what had happened: The old wizard had given years of his life to that pile of sticks and bones at his feet.

The earth surged as if in gratitude for his gift, emitted a groaning sound, as of timbers moving.

If there were words in that noise, Jureem did not understand them. But Binnesman listened, as if the earth spoke to him. Then his manner became grave.

He struggled slowly to lift his staff, looking weary almost to death, then began to wave his staff in circles again, and sparks now flew up from it in a blazing cloud. Binnesman chanted,

“Dark flows your blood. Bright knit are your bones. Your heart is beating within the stone. Day lights your eyes, and fills your mind with thoughts of teeth and claws that rend.”

On the ground, the stones and horns and roots began to shiver and tremble. The spars that formed the bones of an arm rolled backward a pace. Binnesman threw his staff to the ground and shouted, “Arise now from the dust, my champion! Clothe yourself in flesh. I call your true name: Foul Deliverer, Fair Destroyer!”

There was a clap of thunder as the dust of the earth rushed to obey his command, flowing toward the stones and wood, rushing like water or a low fog. Leaves and green grass, twigs and pebbles were all swirling into the mix.

In one moment, there was but a pile of refuse strewn on the ground in its strange pattern, and the next moment, bones and sinew formed. Muscles pulsed and stretched, lungs gasped for one huge breath. Leaves and twigs and grass were woven into the flesh, mottling its body with a strange patina of greens and browns, reds and yellows.

It all happened so quickly that Jureem could not really discern how the soil flowed up to give the being shape and life.

“Foul Deliver, Fair Destroyer” raised a hand, incredibly long, as flesh formed. At first it seemed only a creature of dust, but rapidly the skin hardened, shining emerald along the neck and back, with the yellow mottling of faded leaves.

He makes a warrior, Jureem thought. Hues of grass and the white of pebbles blossomed on the warrior's face and throat.

The warrior struggled up to its knees, neck craning, starlight striking its eyes. The eyes were as flat and dead as pebbles from a river bottom, until the gleaming starlight caught them and reflected; then they began glowing brighter and brighter. Fierce intelligence filled those eyes—and peace, a sense of peace that made Jureem yearn to be somewhere else, something else.

Jureem knew the meaning of this...creature. Among magicians, many sought to control earth powers. The most accomplished of these were the Arrdun, the great artificers and creators of magical implements among the arr. Compared with them, human Earth Wardens were often considered weak, for few Earth Wardens meddled in the affairs of men, and those who did took centuries to mature.

But it was said that a mature Earth Warden was among the most fearsome creatures one could ever encounter.

And the sign that an Earth Warden had matured came when he called forth his wylde—a creature born of the blood and bones of the earth, a living talisman that fought for its master. Eldehar had formed a giant horse to ride into battle against the Toth. Eldehar had said his wylde could be “destroyed, but never defeated.”

Jureem did not understand such oblique references to the Earth Wardens and their wyldes. Knowledge of them had faded over the millennia.

Now as the wylde formed, everywhere, a terrible wind began to rise, shrieking about the treetops high in the glade, whipping through Jureem's hair. It had come fast and furiously, a veritable storm.

Then the warrior began to grow hair—long green hair like seaweed that flowed down its back and over its shoulders, covering its breasts.

As the warrior took full form, Jureem stood astonished, for he recognized the rounded breasts, the feminine curves assuming shape.

A woman. A woman was forming, a tall and beautiful woman, with graceful curves, long hair, and clean limbs.

Jureem gasped. The wylde shouted a cry that shook the earth as the wind struck, lifted her in the air—so that she became a streak of green climbing high above the trees toward the south. Then she was gone.

The glade became quiet. The wind stilled.

Jureem stood, dumbfounded. He did not know if this was what Binnesman had sought. Had his wylde leapt away on some errand? Had the wind carried her off?

Had it really even been a green woman?

Jureem's heart was pounding, and he stood breathless, overawed. Confused. He looked to his left and to his right, to see the reactions of the soldiers. It had all happened so quickly.

Prince Orden's mount neighed in terror, reared back and pawed the air nervously. To the horse it would have seemed that the green woman simply materialized at its feet.

“Peace,” Binnesman said to the horse. It calmed at his admonition, and Binnesman gazed steadily upward, where his creation had disappeared into the sky.

He appeared...crestfallen.

Something was wrong. Binnesman had not expected the wylde to flee like this.

Now Binnesman was drained. Weakened. Old and hunched in his crimson robes. If he'd planned for the wylde to fight for him, then the plan seemed to have gone horribly awry. Binnesman hung his head and shook it in dismay.

“Faagh,” Raj Ahten hissed. “What have you done, you old fool of a wizard? Where is the wylde? You promised me a weapon.”

Binnesman shook his head.

“Are you so inept?” Raj Ahten demanded.

Binnesman glanced at Raj Ahten, gave him a wary look. “It is not an easy thing to draw a wylde from the earth. It has a mind of its own, and it knows the earth's enemies better than I. Perhaps urgent matters call it elsewhere.”

Binnesman held out a hand toward Raj Ahten's horse. The three remaining horses all responded by moving toward him, and Jureem had to fight his mount a moment, to keep it from stepping forward.

“What are you doing?” Raj Ahten asked.

Binnesman answered, “It is growing late. It is time for the enemies of the earth to rest their eyes, and to dream of peace.”

Jureem fought his horse and watched in wonder as, almost instantly, Raj Ahten and his soldiers fell asleep. Most of them fell to the earth, snoring deeply, but Raj Ahten himself stood in place as he slept.

The old wizard looked at the sleeping warriors and whispered, “Beware, Raj Ahten. Beware of Longmont.”

Then he looked up, caught Jureem's eye. “You are still awake? What a wonder! You alone among them are not an enemy of earth.”

Jureem fumbled for words, aghast to see his master thus subdued, astonished to see the old wizard and his charges still alive.

“I...serve my master, but I wish the earth no harm.”

“You cannot serve both him and the earth,” Binnesman said, climbing up onto Raj Ahten's mount. “I know his heart now. He would destroy the earth.”

“I am a king's man,” Jureem said, for he could think of nothing else to say. His father had been a slave, and his father's father. He knew how to serve a king, and how to serve well.

“The Earth King is coming,” Binnesman said. “If you would serve a king, serve him.”

With a nod, he indicated for Prince Orden and Iome to mount up. King Sylvarresta was still a horse.

Binnesman gave Jureem a long look. Then the wizard and his charges rode into the night, back up the road from which they'd come.

For a long time, Jureem sat a horse, watching as Raj Ahten slept.

The night seemed darker than any that Jureem could recall, though the stars were shining fierce enough. “A king is coming,” the pyromancer had warned before her death. “A king who can destroy you.”

Not since Erden Geboren, two thousand years ago, had an Earth King risen in the land. Now King Orden had come. At Longmont, King Orden would be preparing for Raj Ahten's attack.

Jureem gazed down at the obalin. Where once the Seven Stones had stood, now the creatures lay in ruin. He wondered at this portent. His heart pounded. He felt the warm night air, tasted the mineral tang of earth scent. Almost he turned to follow the wizard. But the sound of the horses' hooves was lost in the night.

He stared at his master.

For years Jureem had given his all to the Great One, had followed his every whim. He had struggled to be a good servant. Now, he looked into his own heart and began to wonder why.

There was a time, a decade ago, when Raj Ahten had talked often of consolidating forces, of uniting the kings of the South under a single banner to repel the attacks of reavers. Somehow, over the years, the dream had changed, become twisted.

The “Great Light,” Jureem had called him, as if Raj Ahten were a Bright One or a Glory from the netherworld.

Jureem turned his own horse.

I am the weakest man here, he told himself. Yet perhaps Orden will accept my service.

I will be branded a traitor, Jureem thought. If I leave now, Raj Ahten will believe that I am the spy who warned Orden where to find the forcibles.

Jureem considered. So be it. If I am branded a traitor, I will become one. He had many secrets that he could divulge. And if he left Raj Ahten's service, then it meant that the Wolf Lord would still have a spy in his midst.

He will expect me to head south, to Longmont, Jureem thought. And in time I will head south, to seek out Orden. But for tonight, I will head north to find a barn or a shed to sleep in.

He felt weary to the bone, and had no strength for a long ride. He rode hard into the night.