Sovereign

CHAPTER 1

In the hour before first light, Lynan Rosetheme, outlaw prince of Grenda Lear, stood alone in the chill morning air. His face was turned up to the sky, but his eyes were closed. He could smell the newly turned earth of many graves and, a little further, the dryer, more pungent smell of horses. Some distance away he could smell humans, thousands and thousands of them—his own Chetts within a league or two, his enemy perhaps fifteen leagues south, and a large number unexpectedly north of his position.

He felt the softest of winds blow around him, a cool westerly, and the wind brought the sound of something else he was not expecting. Cavalry. His eyes blinked open and for a moment he felt dizzy. The stars above wheeled in the sky and he had to spread his feet to remain steady. He brought his gaze down and saw the dark shape of Jenrosa sitting at the head of Kumul's grave. He heard someone behind him and turned quickly. It was Korigan, the tall queen of the Chetts. 'You are mourning your friend,' she said. Lynan shook his head. 'No.' He looked back, then, at Kumul's grave and Jenrosa. It still seemed unbelievable to him that his friend's body was under that mound; mere earth—mere death, for that matter—could not vanquish the giant warrior, the most famous soldier in all of Grenda Lear and Lynan's teacher and guardian.

'I hear riders coming from the west,' he told Korigan. 'Many hundreds.'

'Areava's knights?' she hissed urgently. 'Again? How did they get around us?'

'Not knights. Chetts.' He handled the Key of the Sword that hung around his neck, still dark with the blood of Sendarus. It felt absurdly light.

'Eynon?' Korigan asked, her eyes widening.

'Possibly. If so, he is still many hours away.'

'I will rouse the banners—'

'No,' Lynan told her.

'But Eynon—'

'If it is Eynon he does not come to make war,' Lynan said with certainty. 'At least not against us.'

Korigan shook her head, but did not voice the objection that rose in her throat. She had never trusted Eynon, her most determined opponent among the Chetts.

'But send out some scouts,' Lynan added.

'Just to be sure,' Korigan said, smiling.

'Send most south to check on the Kingdom's army and send the rest north,' Lynan told her.

'North?'

'There is a third army hereabouts, and I want to know its strength, who it belongs to and in what direction they are travelling.'

'The Haxus king? Salokan?'

'Probably, and still in retreat.' Lynan smiled mirthlessly. 'Like us.'

Korigan nodded and turned to leave. She hesitated, feeling the need to say more, to let him know she understood the pain he was going through. Not now, she told herself. Later, when he has had time to accept the death of Kumul. She left.

Alone again, Lynan once more closed his eyes and concentrated on his other senses. The wind from the west dissipated and soon a warmer, more vigorous wind started from the east, carrying with it the smells of farmland and rivers and towns and, deep underneath, the tang of the sea.

The memory of Kumul's death haunted Ager all through his sleep. He woke with a start at first light. He stood up, beating his arms around him to get the blood going, then absently strapped on his sword. He glanced down at Morfast, still asleep under their combined horse blankets. She was breathing slowly and evenly, and for a moment some warmth crept back into his heart. Then, unexpectedly and like a biting wound, memories of the battle three days before flooded back into his memory. It was the first time since that terrible day he really felt his friend's death. Ager had to stop himself from groaning. He wanted to sink back down and hide himself under his arms, not wanting to face a world without Kumul Alarn striding through it.

He shook his head to clear it. Thinking like that was too much like a death wish, and Kumul would have despised him for it. He looked eastward, saw that sunrise was still a while off, and then saw Lynan standing against the horizon, not far from the graves of the Chetts who had fallen in the battle against Queen Areava's army. But Lynan, there is no time to grieve, he thought to himself. We lost the battle and the enemy will be after us even though you did kill its captain.

He watched the young prince for a moment before approaching him. When he got close enough to see Lynan's expression he saw he was not grieving; instead, he seemed absorbed in himself and deep in thought. Ager did not want to disturb him and turned to leave.

'Don't go,' Lynan said quietly.

'Your Majesty?'

Lynan snorted. 'Even you call me that now.'

Ager nodded. 'You will be king.'

'Even after our defeat?'

Ager studied Lynan closely. 'You don't look like someone who thinks they have suffered a defeat.'

'Oh, we were defeated alright.' He blinked. 'And we lost Kumul. I think I would rather have lost my army than him.'

And still, to Ager, it did not look as if Lynan truly was grieving the loss. He felt in his bones that something was not quite right, but he could not put his finger on it. Lynan was saying the right words, but there was little emotion behind them, as if the combination of losing Kumul and fighting an army loyal to his sister had overwhelmed his feelings.

'Possibilities are presenting themselves,' Lynan continued.

'So will the enemy soon enough. They must be organised by now and cannot be far behind.'

Lynan closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them said: 'Areava's army is still in camp.'

'How can you possibly know—?'

'But there is another force to our north. They are moving away from us.'

'Salokan,' Ager said without doubt.

'Korigan is sending out scouts to make sure.'

'It must be Salokan,' Ager insisted. 'Areava sent her army up here to deal with Salokan, not us. And Jenrosa's magik showed the Haxan army was beaten and in retreat.'

'I want to be sure. I don't want to be trapped between two forces. Our mobility is our greatest advantage.'

For a moment neither man said anything. Ager then noticed Jenrosa sitting by Kumul's grave. 'Have you talked to her in the last three days?'

'No,' Lynan said quietly, not needing to ask who he was talking about. 'I'm not sure… perhaps it would be best if you…'

'I think you need to go to her,' Ager said with more certainty than he felt. He was as worried by Lynan's seeming indifference as he was about Jenrosa being alone with her grief.

Lynan nodded abruptly and left. Ager watched, resisting the urge to go with him. He's no longer a boy, he told himself.

Jenrosa stared at her hands, unwashed since the day of the battle and still gory with Kumul's blood. It was all she had left of him, except unreliable memories. As the sky lightened she started to see patterns in the tracery of the blood; at first nothing definable, just glimpses of landscapes, unknown faces, mythical animals; but then it formed something like a map, and in her imagination she watched armies marching to and fro across her hands, watched great battles and watched great dying. A single tear fell from her eye and splashed onto her palm. Blood turned red again and whorled before coalescing into a face she recognised.

'Lynan,' she whispered, and even as she said the name his shadow fell across her. She looked up at him, and for a moment thought his pale skin had turned the colour of blood. She put her hands to her face and looked away, gasping.

Lynan gazed down on her with concern. 'Jenrosa?'

She looked up at him and saw that his skin was pale again, as pale as dawn. She let out a deep sigh that made her whole body shudder. 'I thought…' she started, but could not finish.

He squatted beside her and took her hands in his own. She could not believe how cold they were, colder even than hers. A hundred things to say passed through her mind, but she did not want to say any of them.

'What will you do now?' he asked. She could tell from his tone that he was trying to be gentle, but there was a dryness about it that made him sound uncaring.

'Carry on, of course,' she said, surprised by the sound of her own voice. She had expected it to be filled with emotion, but there was something of Lynan's dispassion about it, and she understood then that inside he must be feeling as desolate as she. 'I am a magiker. I am a Chett magiker. I will stay with you and Ager and Gudon and the rest.' She drew a deep breath. 'I will avenge Kumul's death. Somehow.'

'Then come,' Lynan said. 'We will have need of you before long.' He stood up, bringing her with him.

Jenrosa felt suddenly cold and shivered. Lynan took off his poncho and draped it around her shoulders, then signalled to Ager who hurried towards them.

'Take her to Lasthear,' he told Ager. 'She should be with other magikers. They will know how to make sure she rests.'

Ager nodded and left with Jenrosa, his arm around her shoulders. Lynan thought his two friends looked terribly small then, and quite frail, so different from the confidence and strength they had all seemed to share when Kumul was alive. He wanted to shout out that he would protect them, that everything was alright, but remembered he was standing beside Kumul's grave and realised it was a lie. He could protect none of them, and did not believe for a moment that everything was going to be alright.

The scouting groups Korigan sent out before sunrise returned halfway through the morning. They reported directly to Korigan, who then went to find Lynan. She found him with Gudon and his personal bodyguard, the Red Hands, already mounted as if they had only been waiting for word from her.

'Areava's army still has not moved,' Korigan said. 'They are waiting to see what we do first.'

'And the force to our north?'

'Salokan,' Korigan confirmed. 'He is moving as quickly as he can, but he has a lot of infantry and a lot of wounded with him and his progress is slow. He is heading due north, for the Haxus border.'

'Why is Areava's army not pursuing us?' Gudon asked.

'We hurt them badly,' Korigan said. 'They are licking their wounds.'

'And with Sendarus dead, and the Key of the Sword taken from him, they may not have a commander,' Lynan added.

'Squabbling between seconds-in-command?' Gudon asked.

Lynan glanced at his oldest friend among the Chetts. 'Maybe. Or maybe they don't know how badly we were hurt. Or maybe just indecisiveness. Kumul told me that my father once said a general should always do something. Better the wrong thing than nothing at all.' Both Korigan and Gudon looked at him keenly then. Lynan laughed ruefully. 'Don't worry. We'll be doing something.''

For a moment no one said anything. Lynan seemed content just to sit on his mare. Eventually Gudon prodded: 'What are we waiting for?'

Lynan pointed west. Gudon could see a faint haze on the horizon and scurrying birds in the air above it. 'Eynon,' Lynan said. Gudon glanced at Korigan and saw her worried expression. 'But we are not going to wait for him. I am going to meet him.'

'I'll call the banners,' Korigan said. 'You will meet him with your army behind you.'

'No. I will go with my Red Hands. Wait for me here.'

'But your Majesty, this is Eynon!' Korigan pleaded. 'He knows that destroying you will destroy me and open the way for him to become king of the Chetts—'

'Do you really think Eynon can kill me?'

Korigan remembered the way the enemy had struck at him in the last battle with no effect at all. After Jenrosa had given him the blood of the wood vampire Silona to save his life he had become something more than human; to the Chetts he was the White Wolf returned, the apothesis of myth. She blushed and shook her head.

'This needs to be done,' Lynan said to her gently. 'Trust me. Wait here. I will return before evening. Send out more scouts to keep watch over the Kingdom's and Salokan's armies. When I come back I will want to know exactly where both are.'

Many years ago, when Eynon was still a boy, his father had sent him on a trading expedition to the east. Accompanying one of the midsummer caravans across the Algonka Pass, he saw with wide-eyed wonder the lush and rich lands between the sea and the Ufero Mountains, lost count of the teeming thousands that lived there, and marvelled at the wealth even the smallest landowners displayed. Now, decades later, he still had to resist the temptation to just sit on his horse and gawp, open-mouthed, at the verdant pastures and forests he was leading his Chetts through. He also had to resist the temptation to think this plush land produced only plush soldiers. He knew the armies raised here had conquered most of the continent of Theare for the Rosethemes, and under General Elynd Chisal—Prince Lynan's father—had even chased the mercenaries out of the Oceans of Grass, something the Chetts themselves had never been able to do.

Until Korigan's father united us all under his banner. Eynon breathed deeply. He understood that what the old king—also called Lynan—had done had been for the good of all the Chetts, but in the internecine wars he had waged to forge that unity, Eynon's own father had been killed. And now Lynan's namesake, the son of the great General and ally of Korigan, was creating a new destiny for the Chetts.

Eynon retrieved the Key of Unity from a pouch around his waist and felt its weight in his hands. It was heavier than it should have been, although to his surprise it grew lighter day by day. His followers had expected him to place the Key around his neck. After all, had not the White Wolf himself sent it to him as a bribe, to bring him and his Horse Clan and all the clans allied to him back into the fold? But he had not done that. The Key had not been sent to him as a bribe, as his people thought, but as a reminder of where his real loyalty should lie; it had been a gentle prod from a wise prince.

And it had come with a greater gift, Eynon reminded himself. The heads of the mercenaries Prado and Rendle, two of his people's greatest enemies.

He put away the Key and looked up. His riders were passing through a wood and its shadows criss-crossed over them like the fingers of giant hands. For all its beauty, this part of the world made Eynon feel trapped. The landscape seemed to settle in against him. Back on the Oceans of Grass everything was open and flat; but here even the sky seemed to close over him.

He studied the face of the rider next to him, saw that it showed no fear or anxiety. Rather it showed a kind of eagerness.

'You have enjoyed your stay with us, Makon?' Eynon asked.

The tall Chett carefully regarded his host. 'I will tell Lynan that you have been the most generous of hosts.'

Eynon was surprised by the answer, and then realised Makon had misunderstood his question. But of course Lynan was uppermost in the man's mind. It was something he and his people could not help noticing about Makon, and all the Red Hands he had brought with him to deliver Lynan's gift: they were infatuated with the White Wolf. The eastern prince was already more myth than man, and that more than anything had convinced Eynon he had no choice but to support him in his struggle. After all, who could hold out against myth?

There was a shout up ahead from one of his van, and a moment later a rider was galloping towards them. She passed Eynon, wheeled and came along beside him. 'Chetts. Many of them. Red Hands.'

'How far?' Eynon asked.

'About an hour from here.'

'And Lynan?'

'He leads them,' she said, and looked as if she was about to say something else, but she nervously eyed Makon and obviously decided to say no more.

'Tell the van to continue,' Eynon said. 'We will join you presently.'

The rider rushed away.

'I would like go on ahead to greet Lynan,' Makon said.

Eynon's first impulse was to ask Makon to stay with him—he wanted to make his own impression on Lynan without the prince being coloured by any report his emissary might make—but letting Makon go was a demonstration of his own confidence and authority.

'Give Prince Lynan my regards.'

Makon grinned his thanks, spurred his horse to the gallop and was soon gone from sight.

The two forces met at noon where the road left the woods and wound its way through a grassy field. Both leaders ordered their respective forces to hang back and rode to meet each other in the centre. When Eynon was close enough to get his first proper look at Lynan he could not help grunting in surprise at the changes he saw. Where before the prince had seemed uncomfortable in his pale skin, like a calf dressed in a wolf's hide, clearly he had since grown into it. Lynan was small and wiry and white as snow, and his gaze—as cold as winter—never wavered from Eynon's face. They stopped a few paces from each other, and made no move to take the other's arms in greeting; they had no need for false camaraderie between them. Each knew what was happening.

'I am glad you came,' Lynan said.

'I believe you,' Eynon replied without irony. Then he noticed the Key of the Sword hanging from the prince's neck. He could not help staring at it.

'Courtesy of Areava,' Lynan said.

Eynon looked up in surprise. 'You have slain the queen?' He could not help sounding as shocked as he felt.

'No. She had given it to her lover. An Amanite called Sendarus.'

'Then you have defeated the Kingdom?'

Lynan shook his head. 'We were beaten.'

Eynon blinked. For a moment he could think of nothing to say, then: 'You are in retreat?'

'No. Both sides were badly mauled. I think the Kingdom's army was hurt the worst, but they held the field. Technically that means they had the victory.'

'A Chett would not consider that a victory,' Eynon said matter-of-factly. 'A blood-soaked field isn't worth the life of one warrior. If they lost more warriors than you, then you won.'

'I lost Kumul,' Lynan said bluntly. 'I did not win.'

'God, lad, I did not expect to be greeted with a celebration, but I was not expecting this feast of bad tidings.'

The way Eynon said 'lad' made Lynan think of Kumul. In a strange way—his speech and the manner in which he held himself—the chief reminded him of his dead guardian. He pushed the thought away. 'It is best you know exactly how I stand before you commit yourself to my cause.'

'You are so sure that is why I have come?'

'You brought the Key of Union,' Lynan said with certainty.

Eynon could not help grinning. 'And how do you stand?'

'My army is mostly intact. The Kingdom's army is not chasing us; they have little cavalry left to speak of, and most of that is made up of knights from the Twenty Houses who are not at all suited to pursuit. There is a third army to the north of us: Salokan's retreating invasion force.'

'You met Kendra's heavy cavalry?'

'And destroyed most of it.' Lynan closed his eyes for a moment. 'That was Kumul's doing.'

'You forgot to mention one thing in your appraisal.' Lynan thought for a moment. 'I do not think so…'

'You defeated the mercenaries under Prado and Rendle.'

'Ah.'

'So as I see it, you have at least one victory to your credit, and possibly a second.' Eynon reached into the pouch around his waist and brought out the Key of Union. 'This is yours, I believe,' he said and handed it to Lynan.

'Thank you,' Lynan said simply, taking it and putting it around his neck. It clinked against the Key of the Sword and for the briefest of moments he felt a surge of power course through his veins. He was so surprised by it that he barely heard the cheering of the Red Hands behind him.

Gudon sat at the back of the circle that surrounded Lynan. He was both amused and a little frustrated by the gathering, but had expected that from the beginning. Closest to Lynan were Korigan and Eynon, old rivals now fighting for the same cause, but old rivals nonetheless. Backed up by their allied clan chiefs, each was arguing for a different strategy for the Chett army.

The discussion was heated, deadlocked and acrimonious. Gudon wondered how different it would have been had Kumul been present, and concluded that his presence would only have raised the temperature even higher. In the time he had known him, Gudon had learned that putting Kumul in a debate was like dropping a lit torch in a dry stable. He winced. Would have been like, he corrected himself.

His gaze wandered from Eynon to Korigan as each repeatedly argued their particular plan, and occasionally to Jenrosa sitting among the other clan magikers. He could tell she was trying to concentrate on what was being said—or shouted—but her mind was elsewhere.

And in between it all squatted Lynan, impassive, making no attempt whatsoever to adjudicate between his fractious followers. He waited until Korigan and Eynon had spent themselves, then stood up. All other conversations stopped. He looked at Korigan.

'As I understand it, you want me to move against the Kingdom's army and finish what we were unable to finish in the battle three days ago.'

Korigan nodded, and he looked at Eynon.

'And you want me to move directly on the provincial capital Daavis, taking it while the Kingdom's only army in this province of Hume is still recovering.'

Eynon nodded. Lynan breathed deeply and then looked directly at Ager, sitting quietly beside Gudon. 'And you, old Crookback, what is your advice?'

Ager blinked in surprise. All eyes rested on him, everyone aware that as one of Lynan's original companions, he had more influence than the average chief.

Ager cleared his throat. 'I say, what does the White Wolf want to do?'

Lynan smiled, and a sigh passed through the meeting. Both Korigan and Eynon looked abashed.

'The White Wolf says we will not attack the Kingdom's army, nor will we attack Daavis.'

'Surely we're not retreating back to the Oceans of Grass!' Eynon declared. Under Lynan's suddenly cool stare, he swallowed and said hurriedly: 'I did not bring my followers all this way to go back again without striking some blow for your Majesty.'

Oh, that was coolly said, Gudon thought, and he could see that Lynan was amused by it as well.

'You and your followers will strike a blow for me, Eynon,' Lynan told him, speaking loud enough for all at the meeting to hear. 'And for all Cherts.'

'Then who are we going after?' Korigan asked. 'I speak for all the Chetts when I say we would like a second chance to attack the Kingdom, either against its army or against Daavis.'

'So would I,' Lynan said. 'But not now.'

'Why?'

'Two reasons. First, we don't know whether or not there are Kingdom reinforcements on the way. Second, it is the expected thing to do.'

'So we go after Salokan,' Ager guessed aloud.

There was a shocked silence. Eventually Korigan asked: 'But why make a second enemy? He's running away from the Kingdom, and as long as we don't interfere, he'll scarper all the way back to Haxus.'

'Salokan is already an enemy. Haxus was always a base for mercenaries during the Slaver War, and was again for Rendle this winter. I do not need to remind any here how much pain and misery the slavers caused the Chetts; without Haxus as their main base, they would not have been able to operate as freely as they did.'

'When do we go after him?' Ager asked.

'Is the army ready?' Lynan asked Korigan.

'Yes, your Majesty.'

'Then we go after Salokan tonight.'