The Born Queen

1 The Queen of Demons

Anne sighed with pleasure as ghosts brushed her bare flesh. She kept her eyes closed as they murmured softly about her, savoring their faintly chilly caresses. She inhaled the ripe perfumes of decay and for the first time in a very long time felt a deep contentment.

Anne, one of the phantoms simpered. Anne, there is no time.

A bit irritated, she opened her eyes to see three women standing before her.

No, she realized. They weren’t standing at all. Feeling a weird tingle that she knew ought to be more, she turned her gaze around her to see what else there was.

She was elsewhere, of course, couched on deep, spongy moss grown on a hammock in a blackwater fen that went beyond sight in every direction. The branches of the trees above her were tatted together like the finest Safnian lace, allowing only the wispiest of diffuse light through to glisten on the dew-jeweled webs of spiders larger than her hand.

The women swayed faintly, the boughs above them creaking a bit from their weight.

One wore a black gown and a black mask, and her locks were flowing silver. The next wore forest green and a golden mask, and her red braids swayed almost to her feet. The third wore a mask of bone and a dress the color of dried blood. Her hair was brown.

Their undisguised lips and flesh were bluish-black above the coils of rope that had cinched about their necks and wrung out their lives.

The Faiths, those obtuse creatures, were dead. Should she be sad? Part of her thought so.

Anne.

She started. Was one of them still alive? But then she felt the ghosts again, tickling against her. Now she knew who the ghosts were.

Should she be frightened? Part of her thought so.

“You’re dead,” she observed.

“Yes,” the faint voice replied. “We fought to linger here, but too much of us is gone. We had something to tell you.”

“Something useful? That would be the first time.”

“Pity us, Anne. We did what we could. Find our sister.”

“That’s right, there are four of you,” Anne remembered. Was she asleep? She seemed to be having trouble recalling things.

“Yes, four. Find—ah, no. He’s coming. Anne—”

But then a cold wind started in the depths of the quag, and the canopy was alive with strange dark birds, and Anne was suddenly alone with corpses.

But only for a moment. Then she felt him, as she had another time when in this place. All of her blood seemed to gather on one side of her body, and all of the branches of the forest yearned toward his invisible presence.

“Well, there you are, little queen,” the voice said. “It’s been too long.”

“Stay back,” she said. “You remember last time.”

“Last time, I was weaker and you had help,” the voice replied. “This is not last time.”

“What do you want?”

“Your company, sweet queen. Your hand in marriage.”

“Who are you?”

“Your king.”

“I have no king,” Anne bristled. “I am queen, regent in my own right.”

“Look deeper in your heart,” the voice purred.

“Who are you?”

“You want my name? What do names matter when one is as we are?”

“There is no ‘we,’” Anne protested. But her belly tingled, as it had when Roderick had kissed her there. The presence moved closer, and though she could not see him, she felt as if the shadow wore a wicked smile.

“Why did you kill the Faiths?”

A deep chuckle rustled through the branches, and the water stirred into circles all about.

Then a ruddy light fell on the broken surface of the fen, and Anne felt heat behind her. With a shriek, she turned to confront him.

But it was no male thing that stood behind her; there was no mistaking that. The body that shone like a white flame was willowy but certainly female, dressed only in locks that billowed and curled like strands of liquid, living fire. Her face was so terrible in its beauty that Anne felt as if icicles had been driven through her eyes and deep into her brain. She screamed so loudly, she felt her throat was tearing. “Hush,” the woman said, and Anne felt her larynx instantly close. Then the horrible gaze went through and beyond her.

“Leave,” she commanded.

“You only delay the inevitable,” the male voice muttered.

“Leave,” the woman repeated.

Anne felt the weight of him lessen.

“I didn’t kill your friends,” he said, and was gone.

Anne felt the woman’s gaze on her but could not look up.

“Who are you?” she whispered.

“The Kept gave you my true name,” the woman replied. “He gave you some of my old epithets—Queen of Demons, and so on.”

“Yes. But I don’t…” She trailed off in confusion.

“You wonder rather what I am. What I want. Why I’ve helped you.”

“I guess so,” Anne said weakly, feeling suddenly presumptuous.

“Am I demon or saint?” the woman sighed, so close that Anne could feel her breath.

“Yes,” Anne barely managed.

“If there were a difference, perhaps I could tell you,” she replied.

“And the man…”

“He’s quite right, you know,” the woman went on. “He didn’t kill the Faiths. I did. For you.”

“What do you mean?”

“You led me to them. You rejected them, withdrew your protection, and I ended their existence. All but the one, and I shall find her.”

“But why?”

“You don’t need them,” she said. “You never did. They were poor councillors. And now you have me.” “I don’t want you,” Anne protested.

“Then say my name. Tell me to leave.”

Anne swallowed.

“You won’t,” the woman said. “You need my help. You need all the help you can get, because he will come for you and will either make you his or destroy you. Which means you must destroy him. And that you cannot currently do. Your friends will fall first, then you.”

“And if I believe you, how can I stop that?”

“Strengthen yourself every way you can. Let me teach you the ways of your power. When he comes, you will be ready, if you trust me.”

“Trust you,” Anne murmured, finally lifting her gaze to the woman’s face.

This time it wasn’t so terrifying. There was something in the set of the woman’s eyes that seemed truthful. “Give me a reason to trust you,” Anne said.

A smile slit the woman’s face. “You have another enemy, one you haven’t noticed yet, one that even I have difficulty seeing, for he—or perhaps she—sits deep in the shadows of the Reiksbaurg Palace. Like you, he is able to look across leagues and through time. Haven’t you wondered why you manage to surprise the forces of the Church but Hansa is always one step ahead of you?”

“Yes,” Anne replied. “I assumed spies and traitors were involved. How can you be certain it’s shinecraft?”

“Because there is a place I can never see, and that is the sign of a Hellrune,” the woman replied. “A Hellrune?”

“A Hellrune sees through the eyes of the dead, who do not know past from present. Because the law of death has been broken, that is an even more powerful gift than it once was. But you get your visions directly through the sedos power. You can be stronger: See the consequences of his visions and act against them. In time, you will even be able to command the dead to give him false visions. But before you achieve that mastery, he can do much harm. If you act as I say, you may stop him sooner.”

“How is that?”

“Send an embassy to Hansa, to the court of Marcomir. Send your mother, Neil MeqVren, Alis Berrye—”

“I’ll do no such thing,” Anne snapped. “I just got my mother back; I won’t send her into danger.” “Do you think she isn’t in danger in Eslen? Try to dream about that. I promise you that you will not like what visions come.”

A sick dismay was starting to grip Anne, but she tried to stay strong. “You’re less use than the Faiths,” she said.

“No, I’m not. Your mother is going to ask to go, anyway; she thinks there is a chance for peace. You’ll know by that that I’m telling you something useful. But further, I’ll tell you this: If you send your mother, the knight, and the assassin to Kaithbaurg, I foresee an excellent chance for them to end the threat of the Hellrune and thus weaken Hansa. If you do not send them, I see you weeping over your mother’s body in Eslen-of-the-Dead.”

“An ‘excellent chance’? Why can’t you see whether they kill him or not?”

“Two reasons. The first is that since you haven’t decided to send them, the future is cloudy. But the deeper reason is that as I told you, I am not able to see the Hellrune. But I know the opportunity can arise. Try seeing it yourself.”

“I can’t direct my visions,” Anne said. “They just come.”

“You can direct them,” the woman insisted. “Remember how once you had to be summoned here? Now you come and go as you please. It’s the same. Everything you need is here, especially now that the Faiths aren’t mucking around.”

“Where is here?” Anne asked. “I’ve never understood that.”

“Why, inside the sedos,” she replied. “This is where the world is moved from, where the power flows from. It is given form only by those who live here. It is your kingdom now, and you can shape it as you want. Hansa, the future, the past—all are here. Grasp the reins of power. You need not take my word for anything I’ve just said. Discover it for yourself.”

And like a fire blown out by a wind, she flickered and was gone.

Anne stood there for a moment, looking at the dead faces of the Faiths.

Was it possible? Could she really free herself from the whims of the forces around her? Could she actually steer them herself, be free of doubt, finally chart her own destiny without the meddling of untrustworthy wights?

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” she asked the Faiths.

But their whispering was over.

“Well,” she murmured. “Let’s see if she’s telling the truth.”

And she saw, and woke with tears streaming on her face, and knew some things had to be done.

She rose to do them.

2 An Embassy

When Neil Meqvren saw the dragon banner of Hansa, his heart sped and his hand shivered for killing. Pain stitched up his side, and he couldn’t keep back a gasp.

“Easy, Sir Neil,” Muriele Dare said.

He tried to smile at her. In the sunlight a bit of her age was showing: wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and on the line of the chin, a few strands of silver in her black hair. Yet he had never seen her look more beautiful than now, in an emerald Safnite riding habit and embroidered black buskins. A simple rose gold circlet settled over her brow told her rank.

“Sir Neil?” she repeated.

“Majesty,” he replied.

“We aren’t here to fight, so stray your hand away from that sword.” Her brow creased. “Perhaps you shouldn’t be here at all.”

“I’m hale, Majesty.”

“No, you aren’t,” she retorted. “Your wounds are still fresh.”

“He’s a MeqVren,” Sir Fail de Liery said. “Like his father and his before. Men stubborn as an iron prow.”

“I know I can’t fight,” Neil said. “I know I’ll split open at the seams. But I still have eyes. I might see a knife in time.”

“And then split open your seams,” Fail grunted.

Neil shrugged, and even that hurt.

“You’re not here to step between me and a knife, Sir Neil,” Muriele said.

Then why am I here? he wondered silently. But he felt the tightness in his arms and legs and knew. Like the leics who had tended him, the queen mother believed he might never be able to wield a blade again. She was trying, as it were, to teach him another trade. So now, while the kingdom girded for war, Neil found himself gazing on the faces of the enemy, trying to count them.

He estimated a full Hanzish wairdu, about a hundred men, on the field between them and the white walls of Copenwis, but that would be only a fraction of their army. Copenwis was occupied, and though he could not see them, Neil knew that a sizable portion of the Hansan fleet was anchored in the harbor and along the shore of the great port. Six thousand, perhaps. Ten? Twenty? There was no way to know from here.

In his own party there were twenty, not twenty thousand. To be sure, they had nearly two thousand men behind them, but they were more than a league behind. The queen had not wanted to tempt the Hansans into battle. Not yet, anyway.

So the northerners glared at their flag of parley, and they waited. Neil heard them muttering in their windy tongue and remembered dark nights in his childhood, creeping up on Hanzish positions, hearing the same hushed language.

“Copenwis has fine walls,” Sir Fail observed.

Neil nodded and glanced at his old patron. Not long ago, he’d still had a trace of black in his hair, but now it was less gray than white. He wore it long, in the fashion of the isles, bound back with a simple leather thong. His cheek was pitted from the shatters of a spear shaft, and one of his brows lifted oddly from the time a Weihand sword had all but flensed that part of his forehead from his skull. Neil had first seen him with that purple, loose flap of skin and his eye swollen shut. He’d been six and had thought he was seeing Neuden Lem Eryeint, the battle saint, come as flesh on earth. And in the years since, serving him, in his heart of hearts he still thought of Fail that way: immortal, greater than other men. But Fail looked old now. He seemed to have shrunk a bit. It unsettled Neil.

“It does,” he agreed, tracing his gaze along the stout bastions of white stone.

“I lived there for a time,” Alis Berrye said.

“Did you?” Muriele asked.

“When I was eight. I stayed here with an uncle for a few months. I remember a pretty park in the midst of the city, with a fountain and the statue of Saint Nethune.”

Neil studied Alis from the corner of his eye. Her tone was light, but a little pucker between her eyes made him guess the young woman was trying to remember more: how the streets were laid out, where the gates were, anything that might help her protect and defend Muriele. For despite her youth, charm, and beauty, if the petite brunette was anything like her predecessor, she was dangerous, and the more knowledge she had, the more dangerous she could be.

Neil wasn’t sure he trusted her. Her past did not speak well of her.

He suddenly found Alis staring straight into his eyes and felt a flush on his face.

I caught you, she mouthed, then smiled cheerfully.

“Stout walls, anyway,” he said, sheepishly returning her smile.

“This poor city has changed hands so often, I wonder why they bother with walls,” Muriele remarked. She stood a bit in her stirrups. “Ah,” she said. “Here we are.”

Neil saw him, coming through the Hanzish ranks, a large man mounted on a charger in gleaming barding enameled black and sanguine. He wore a breastplate made in the same colors displaying an eagle stooping. It looked more ceremonial than useful. A cloak of white bearskin hung on his shoulders, and his oiled sealskin boots gleamed.

Neil knew him. He’d first seen that pink, corpulent face at his own introduction to the court of Eslen. It was the Archgreft Valamhar of Aradal, once ambassador to the court of Crotheny.

“Saint Rooster’s balls,” Fail muttered under his breath.

“Hush,” Muriele hissed, then raised her voice.

“Archgreft.”

The Hanzish lord nodded and dismounted, aided by four of the eight young men in his livery who had come with him to the field. Then he took a knee.

“Majesty,” he said. “I must say, I am glad the Ansus have kept you well. I worried and prayed for you during your captivity.”

“I’m sorry you were troubled,” Muriele told him. “I do so dislike being the cause of disturbance.” Aradal smiled uncertainly. “Well, I am all better now,” he replied.

“Yes. And rather camped in one of our cities,” she said, nodding at Copenwis.

“Oh, yes, that,” Aradal said. “I’m thinking that is what you’ve come to discuss.”

“You are as brilliant as ever, my lord,” she replied.

“Well, it must be the company I keep,” he said.

“Perhaps,” Muriele replied. “In any event, yes, I’ve been empowered by Empress Anne to take the terms of your withdrawal from our northern port.”

“Well, Majesty, that’s a bit sticky,” Aradal said. “You see, we had the king’s permission to take Copenwis under our protection.”

“By king you mean my brother-in-law Robert?” Muriele asked. “Robert was a usurper, never a lawful sovereign, so that’s easily cleared up. His word never came from the crown, and so you’ve no right or reason to be here.”

Aradal scratched his ear. “It’s rather more complicated than that, don’t you think?”

The queen drew back a bit. “I don’t see how. Take your fleet and your men and go home, Aradal.” “Well, they aren’t my men or my fleet, are they, Majesty? They belong to His Majesty Marcomir III, and he recognizes Robert as king and emperor of Crotheny.”

“If you’ve given shelter to that hell-hearted bastard—” Fail began, but Muriele silenced him with a frown before turning back to the archgreft.

“If Robert has taken refuge with your liege, that is another matter,” she said, her voice sounding a bit strained. “But for now, I think bringing our countries back from the brink of war should do.”

Aradal lowered his voice. “Majesty, you assume that war is to be prevented. I rather think it will happen.”

“Marcomir’s avarice has been known for a long time,” Muriele said, “but—”

Aradal shook his head. “No, there is more to it than that, Majesty. Your daughter has murdered churchmen, Muriele. William defied the Church, but Anne has denied and attacked it. Our people are devout, and the signs are all around us. There are those who say that it is not enough to conquer Crotheny; they say it must be cleansed.” His voice lowered further. “Majesty, I have tried to tell you before, I am friendly to you. Take your daughter and those you care for and go to Virgenya or someplace even farther. I…” He broke off. “I have said too much.”

“You will do nothing?”

“I can do nothing.”

Muriele shrugged. “Very well. Then I must speak with Marcomir.”

Aradal’s brows raised. “Lady…”

“By the most ancient law of nations, by the covenant the free peoples created when the Skasloi were destroyed, you must provide me safe passage to the court of your king, and you must conduct me safely out of it. Even the Church itself cannot subvert that most basic law.”

Aradal’s cheek twitched.

“Can you do that? Can you uphold the ancient covenant?”

“I can give you my word,” he finally said. “But my word does not travel very far from me these days.” The queen’s eyes widened. “You cannot be implying that Marcomir would kill me or take me prisoner.” “I am saying, lady, that the world has gone mad, and I can promise nothing. My liege is a man of law, I assure you, and I would stake my life that he would not treat you ill.”

“But?”

“But I can promise nothing.”

Muriele took a deep breath and let it out. Then she straightened and spoke in her most courtly tones. “Will you arrange for my party to travel to the court under flag of truce so that I can press the case for peace before His Majesty? Will you do that, Archgreft?”

Aradal tried to meet her gaze and failed, but then something strengthened in him, and he lifted his head. “I will,” he replied.

“I will return in the morning with my chosen companions,” she said.

“No more than fifteen,” he said.

“That will be sufficient,” Muriele assured him.

On another day the Maog Voast plain might have seemed pretty, Neil reflected. Four months had passed since his wounding in the battle for the waerd. It was the fifteenth of Ponthmen, and summer was just coming into its own. The fields were glorious with the white spires of lady’s traces, yellow oxeyes, purple thrift, and a rainbow’s hoard of flowers he didn’t recognize. They mingled their sweet scents with that of wild rosemary, bee fennel, and something that reminded him of apple, although there were no trees in sight on the flat landscape. Still, the riding of a league was a long time for Neil to have the army of Hansa at his back, and he glanced behind often despite the lack of cover for an ambush. But that lack of cover went two ways, and Neil felt rather as a mouse might, wondering if a hawk was about to come out of the sun.

Muriele noticed.

“I don’t think they’ll attack us, Sir Neil,” she said.

“No,” Fail snapped. “Why should they when you’ll deliver yourself to them tomorrow?”

“The old law—”

“Even Aradal won’t vouch for its keeping,” the duke pointed out.

“Niece, you’ve just escaped one prison. Why must you hurry back into another? They’ll hold you hostage to better bargain with Anne. Lady Berrye, reason with her.”

Alis shrugged. “I serve at the pleasure of Queen Muriele,” she said. “I find her reasonable enough.” “And don’t forget, we have hostages of our own,” Muriele added.

“Schalksweih?” Fail muttered. “How could I forget? It was I took him captive and his ship a prize. But against you…”

“He’s a favorite of Marcomir’s,” she said. “They have sued for his release.”

Fail looked heavenward, shaking his head.

“Why are you really doing this, dove?”

“What else should I do? Knit stockings while my daughter rides into battle? Arrange flowers as army after army arrays against us?”

“Why not, Majesty?” Neil interjected.

“Excuse me, Sir Neil?”

“Why not?” he repeated “The fleet of Hansa is inside our borders, and their land army is on the march. What can you say that will deter them? Sir Fail is right: You’ve suffered enough, milady.”

“How much I’ve suffered is not at issue,” Muriele countered. “And although I’m not flattered by your opinion of my political abilities, I see a chance to stop this war, and I will take it. I’ve discussed this with Anne. She will not yield one grain of our dirt if I am taken hostage.”

“She fought like a demon to retrieve you from Robert,” Fail pointed out. “Things have changed,” Muriele said.

Anne has changed, Neil reflected. Muriele was probably right in that: The empress would not be intimidated even by threats to her own mother.

He wondered where she was now: on the throne or off killing churchmen. The latter had become almost a sport to her.

“Well,” Fail said. “I’ll go.”

“One of our best sea commanders? It’s out of the question. You’re needed here, guarding our waves. Anyway, the strain of keeping your sword sheathed would split the vein on your forehead. You’re not much of a diplomat, Uncle.”

“And you are?”

She shrugged. “I’ve seen it done, and I have the station for it, even though I am a woman.” She paused. “Anne wants me to go, Uncle. One of her visions. She says there’s a chance.”

“Visions,” he snorted.

“She knew you were coming with the fleet,” Neil said. “She knew when. It’s why we knew we had to take down Thornrath so quickly.”

“Aye,” Fail muttered, chewing his lip. “Maybe her visions are true. But your own daughter, sending you to the viper’s den—it’s hard to fathom.”

“Majesty,” Neil said. “I know I’m not much use—”

“Oh, you’re going,” Muriele said. “Why do you think you’re here? If it were my decision, you would still be abed.”

Neil frowned. “You mean to say the empress wants me to go to Hansa?”

“She was quite adamant about it.”

“I see.”

Muriele shifted in her saddle.

“Do you feel slighted, not being in her guard?” she asked.

That took him by surprise. “Milady?”

“Are you disappointed at being returned to my service?” she amplified.

He shook his head. “Majesty, I always considered myself in your service. When I was guarding Anne, I was following your orders. I am your man and do not hope to be anyone else’s.”

He didn’t add that he found Anne more than a little uncanny, and although he knew firsthand that some in the Church had turned to darkness, he was happy not to be directly involved in Anne’s vendetta against z’Irbina.

Muriele took in his speech without a hint of changed expression, then nodded slightly.

“Very well. Once we return to camp, pick the men who will accompany us. In the morning we’ll begin our journey to Hansa.”

Neil nodded and began thinking about who to take along.

More than ever, he felt like prey beneath a hunter sky.

3 The End of a Rest

Aspar White tried to match his breath to the faint breeze through the forest fringe, to be as still as a stump as the monster approached. It was just a shape at the moment, about twice the size of a horse and slouching through the narrow white boles of the aspens. But he smelled autumn leaves although it was high summer, and when its eyes glittered like blue lightning through the branches, he felt the poison in its blood.

It wasn’t a surprise. The world was made of monsters now, and he had fought plenty. Sceat, he’d met their mother.

A few jays were shrieking at the thing, but most of the other bird sounds were gone, because most birds weren’t as blind, stupid, brave as jays.

Maybe it’ll just go by, he thought. Maybe it’ll just pass on by.

He was already tired; that was the damned thing. His leg ached, and his lungs hurt. His muscles were all soft, and his vision kept going blurry.

Half a bell he’d been out there, at the most, working himself no harder than a baby taking pap. Just looking across the meadow.

Pass, he thought. I don’t care what you are or where you’re going. Just pass.

But it didn’t, of course. Instead, he heard it pause and snuffle and then saw the actinic flash of its eyes. It stepped from the trees and into the field, moving toward Aspar as he waited in the cover of the trees on his side.

“Hello, luvileh,” he muttered, quickly thrusting four more arrows into the soft earth before him. No point imitating a stump anymore.

It was something new, not a monster he had seen before. From a distance, the thing resembled a bull crossed with a hedgehog. Bony spines bristled from it everywhere, and it was massively front-heavy, with colossal bunches of muscle above forelegs easily twice as long as the hind legs. Its head was blocky, with a single horn spearing forward so that it looked almost like an anvil. The eyes were set deep in bony plate.

He had no idea what to call it. Besides the eyes, he didn’t see anything that might be soft.

It bellowed, and he noticed sharp teeth. Were all sedhmhari carnivores? He hadn’t met one that wasn’t. “You make pretty babies, Sarnwood witch,” he grunted.

And here it came.

His first shot skittered off the armored skull, as did the second. The third lodged in the eye socket—or he thought it did, but after a heartbeat it fell out, and the eye was still there.

It was fast and even bigger than he’d thought. It bellowed again, a sound so loud that it hurt his ears. He had time for one more arrow but knew even as he released it that it was going wide of the eye. The monster bounded even faster, hit the ground, and crouched for the final leap, its forelimbs lifted up almost like a man’s, reaching for him…

Then the ground collapsed beneath it, and this time it shrieked in surprise and anger as it fell hard onto the sharpened stakes four kingsyards below. A catch snapped above Aspar, releasing a sharpened beam that had been suspended above the pit. He couldn’t see it hit but heard a fleshy thud.

Aspar let out a long breath, but an instant later a massive paw—a thick-fingered hand, really—clawed up over the edge of the hole. Aspar scooted back against a tree and used his bow to lever himself up. The other hand came up, followed by the head. He saw even more of a family resemblance to the utin he once had fought, but if it could speak, it didn’t. It strained, blood blowing from its nostrils, and began to crawl from the pit.

“Leshya!” Aspar snapped.

“Here,” he heard her say. He felt the wind as another massive log came swinging down, this one aimed to skim along just above the trap. It hit the beast in the horn, crushing it back into its skull, and it vanished into the hole again.

Aspar turned at Leshya’s soft approach. Her violet eyes peered at him from beneath her broad-brimmed hat.

“You’re all right?” she lilted.

“No worse than I was this morning,” he replied. “Aside from the indignity of being bait.”

She shrugged. “Should have thought of that before you went and got your leg broken.”

She walked over to the pit, and Aspar limped after her to see.

It didn’t know it was dead yet. Its flanks were still heaving, and the hind legs twitching. But the head was cracked like an egg, and Aspar didn’t imagine it would breathe much longer.

“What in Grim’s name do we call that?” he grunted.

“I remember stories about something like this,” she said. “I think it was called a mhertyesvher.” “That the Skaslos name for it?”

“I couldn’t pronounce the Skaslos name for it,” she replied.

“Notwithstandin’ that you are one,” he said.

“I was born in this shape, with this tongue,” she said. “I’ve never heard the language of the Skasloi. I’ve told you that.”

“Yah,” Aspar assented. “You’ve told me.” He looked back at the dying beast and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Well,” he mused, “I think it’s a manticore.”

“As good a name as any,” she said. “Now, why don’t we go rest.”

“I’m not tired,” Aspar lied.

“Well, there’s no reason to stay here. It’ll be days before the poison clears out, even if it rains.” “Yah,” Aspar agreed.

“Come on, then.”

He slung the bow on his back and looked around for his crutch, only to find Leshya holding it out for him. He took it silently, and they began walking back through the trees. It got harder when the slope turned upward, and they followed a little switchback trail up an ever-steepening way. At last it opened onto a rocky ridge that gave a good view of the scatters of forest and meadow below. A deep ravine fell from the other side of the crest, and across that, white-capped mountains rose against the turquoise sky. The western horizon was also bounded in peaks. With their back to the chasm and a view for leagues in every other direction, it was here they usually spotted the monsters when they came; that was why Leshya had picked the spot to build the shelter. It had started as a lean-to made of branches, but now it was a comfortable little four-post house with birch-bark roof.

Aspar didn’t remember the building of it; he’d been deep in the land of Black Mary, in and out of a fever that jumbled three months into a haze of images and pain. When it was finally gone, it left him so weak that even without a broken leg he couldn’t have walked. Leshya had tended him, built traps, fought the monsters that appeared more and more frequently.

The climb left him winded, and he sat on a log, looking out over the valley below.

“It’s time to go,” he said.

“You aren’t ready to travel,” Leshya said, poking the banking of the morning’s fire, looking for embers. “I’m ready,” he said.

“I don’t think so.”

“You came after me with your stitching still wet,” Aspar said. “I’m in better shape than that.” “You’re wheezing from a little walk,” the Sefry pointed out. “That ever been the case before?” “I’ve never been flat on my back for four months,” Aspar replied, “but I can’t spare any more time.” She smiled, slightly. “Are you that much in love with her?”

“None of your business,” he said.

“Us leaving now could get us both killed. Makes it my business.”

“I want to find Winna and Ehawk, yes. But there’s more to it. I have duties.”

“To whom? To that girl-queen Anne? You’ve no idea whether she’s alive or not. Or who sits the throne of Crotheny. Aspar, the Briar King is dead. There’s nothing left to check the sedhmhari. There are more of them every day.”

“Yah. And sitting here killing them one at a time won’t help.”

“What do you think will?”

“I don’t know. I’ve thought I might go back to where he was sleeping, find something.”

“In the Mountains of the Hare? That’s twenty leagues from here as the eagle goes, and we aren’t eagles.” Her eyes slitted. “Do you have some reason to think you should go there?”

“No.”

“No?” She sighed. “I know you, Aspar White. You just want to die fighting for the King’s Forest. This one here isn’t good enough.”

“It’s not—” He stopped. Not mine, he finished silently, imagining the great ironoaks of his youth rotting into putrid jelly, the bright streams clogged with death, the ferny glens choked in black thorn. Did he really want to see that?

“You came to find me,” he said, “all those months ago. You talked about having a duty other Sefry have abandoned. What is it?”

She had found some coals and was coaxing them to life and adding tinder from a pile near the pit, stirring up the scent of hickory and juniper. “I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t know if I can tell you that.” “I already know what you and your kind really are. After that, what secret is worth keeping?”

“I told you, I’m not sure. I’m trying to maun it out.”

“Well, fine; find me when you do. I’m going now.”

“You don’t even know where we are,” Leshya said.

“Well, I reckon if I head south, I’ll eventually come across someplace I know,” he replied.

“We’re lucky I remembered this place,” she said. “Otherwise they would have caught us long ago.” “Who? Fend?”

“And his people.”

“Your people.”

She acknowledged that with a bow of her head.

“Well, I’m sure they’ve stopped looking by now,” he replied.

“I doubt that,” she said. “You were with the Briar King when he died. He might have told you something.”

“What do you mean? So far as I know, he can’t speak.”

“That doesn’t mean he didn’t tell you something.”

Aspar remembered the shocking rush of visions he’d had as the Briar King died.

“Yah,” he said. “But if he told me anything, I don’t know what it was.”

“Yet.”

“Sceat,” he muttered.

“Aspar, you could be the most important man in the world right now. You might be the only one who can stop what’s happening—save the King’s Forest, if that’s the only thing that means anything to you.” “Is that why we’re still here? You’re hopin’ I’ll have some sainty vision?”

“I can’t think of any other hope to cling to. It’s why I’ve kept you safe.”

He looked at her. “That you have,” he said. “And I’m grateful. But there’s no need for you to take my part anymore. I’m strong enough now.”

“You aren’t, and you know it.”

“I won’t get stronger sittin’ about here,” he said. “And you know that. Now, if you think I’m so important, I reckon you can come with me. But I am going.”

She had a fire now. “Rabbit for supper,” she said.

“Leshya.”

She sighed. “Another four days,” she said.

“Why?”

“You’ll be four days stronger, and the moon will be dark. We’ll need that, I think.”

Aspar nodded and looked back to the east. He pointed at a nearly invisible talus slope that vanished behind a ridge.

“Is that the pass we came in through?” he asked.

She nodded.

“I reckoned.”

“The only way in or out unless you’re a bird or wildbuck.”

He nodded, then squinted. “We might not get that four days,” he said.

“Ilshvic,” Leshya snarled. He didn’t know what she’d said but could make a pretty good guess. A line of mounted figures was coming through the pass, a lot of them.

4 Proposition and Disposition

The broadsword cutting toward Cazio was moving almost too fast to see, and he suddenly understood the nasty grin on the monk’s face. Cazio reacted from years of training, jabbing his lighter but longer weapon out in a stop-thrust that should have pierced the man’s sword wrist. It didn’t, though, because—impossibly—the monk checked his swing. He stepped back and regarded Cazio for a moment, just out of measure.

“Interesting,” he said. “I’ve never met a swordsman like you. Are you from Safnia?”

“They have butchers in Safnia,” Cazio panted, trying to both watch the man and check his peripheral vision. Sounds of battle were everywhere. “But the only swordsmen in the world come from Vitellio.” “I see.” The fellow grinned again. “Vitellio. Home of the father Church.”

The man had gray eyes, darkish skin, and an accent Cazio couldn’t place.

“Tell me,” the man went on. “Why do you follow this heretic queen, you a man from the very birthplace of our faith?”

“I like the color of her hair,” Cazio replied, “and the sort of people she associates with.”

“When I move next,” the man warned, “you won’t have time to see the cut that kills you. Lay down your arms and you will be well treated.”

“I’m already well treated,” Cazio replied.

“You know what I mean.”

Cazio sighed and relaxed his guard.

“See there,” the man said. “I knew you looked sensible.”

Cazio nodded and lunged, throwing his front foot forward and pushing with the back.

The monk blurred toward him, and as Cazio let his lunge collapse into a forward duck, he felt hair shaved from the top of his head. The monk ran onto his rapier so hard that the hilt slammed into his solar plexus and the grip was wrenched from Cazio’s hand. The monk fell, hit, rolled, and sprawled, eyes glazing and blood pumping.

“As long as I can draw you into attacking when and where I want,” Cazio informed him, “I don’t need to be able to see you.”

The monk jerked his head in affirmation. Cazio could see that his spine was broken.

“Come get your sword,” the monk suggested.

“No, I’ll wait a moment,” he replied.

“You don’t have a moment,” the man pointed out.

Cazio followed his gaze and saw that he didn’t. Two of the man’s brethren were rushing toward him. Grimly, he started toward the fallen broadsword, only a yard away.

Then he felt something like a thousand spiders racing across his skin. His windpipe closed, and his heart shuddered, stopped, and started again, faster than before. He gasped and fell to one knee but fought back up.

But there was no need. His attackers were sprawled motionless on the ground, their corpses twisted unnaturally.

He turned and found Anne two kingsyards behind him. Her eyes were green ice, looking somewhere he couldn’t see. Her body was taut beneath her black and ocher riding habit, like the string of a lute tightened almost to breaking.

She shifted her gaze to him, and his heart suddenly went strange again.

Then her face softened and she smiled, and he swallowed as the pain in his chest eased. He started to say something, but he saw she wasn’t looking at him anymore but instead studying the grounds of the monastery.

“That’s it, then,” she said softly. “That’s all of them.”

“That’s what we thought before,” Cazio said, lifting himself to his feet. “Before these fellows came up from behind.”

“True,” Anne murmured. “I miss things still. They just arrived, I think—from the forest.”

“And there could be more. Anne, you ought to get inside. Your Sefry can sweep the woods around.” She shot him a smile that he suddenly suspected was condescending. But then, she had just killed two men without touching them, and it wasn’t the first time.

“You can still bleed,” he pointed out. “An arrow can still kill you. I can’t quite catch an arrow.” “True,” Anne said. “Secure me. I am at your disposal.”

The monastery Saint Eng stood on a small hill surrounded by wheat fields and pasture, save for one dark finger of forest that prodded up to it from the south. The clock tower of the town of Pale could be seen in the west, near the line of the same forest. It wasn’t a big place, just a few out-buildings and barns scattered around a squat, squarish structure with a single rather inelegant tower rising from the southeast corner.

Before they had taken ten steps, five of Anne’s cowled Sefry guard were with them, led by their amber-eyed captain, Cauth Versial.

“Majesty,” Cauth said, taking a knee. “Apologies. They drew us away from you.”

“It’s nothing,” Anne said. “You see my Cazio was able to handle it.”

My Cazio? Why had she phrased it like that?

“Nevertheless,” the Sefry said, “I shouldn’t have left you with only one guard. But the inside of the monastery is secure now.”

“Good,” Anne replied. “We’ll go there, then. And I think I’d like to dine.”

“It’s nearly that hour,” the Sefry said. “I’ll have something fetched.”

By the next bell Cazio was sitting with Anne in a small room on the west side of the building. St. Abulo was driving the sun down the Hesper sky, but he still had a few bells to go this long summer day. “I’ll miss this,” Anne sighed, gazing out the window and sipping her wine.

“Miss what?”

“These outings.”

“Outings? You mean our fights with the Church?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Just sitting on the throne is dull, and the details of war—well, the generals don’t really need me to work those out. This feels real to me, Cazio. I can see the faces of those we rescue.” Cazio sniffed his wine, then raised it up.

“Az da Vereo,” he toasted.

“Yes,” Anne agreed. “To the real.”

They drank.

“This is Vitellian,” he murmured. “From the Tero Vaillamo region if I’m not very wrong.”

Anne tilted her head. “Why does it matter? Wine is wine, isn’t it?”

For a moment Cazio had no idea what to say. He’d known Anne for almost a year and been almost constantly at her side during that time. He’d formed a pretty good opinion of her and had certainly never suspected she was capable of what could even charitably only be called a moronic statement.

“I, ah, you’re kidding with me,” he finally managed.

“Well, there’s red and white, I suppose,” she went on. “But really, beyond that I’ve never been able to tell the difference.”

Cazio blinked, then held up his cup. “You can’t tell the difference between this and the frog blood we drank at that inn on the way here? You really can’t?”

She shrugged and took a large swallow, then looked thoughtful.

“No,” she said. “I like this, but I liked the ‘frog blood,’ too.”

“It must be like being blind or deaf,” Cazio said. “I…it’s really absurd.”

She pointed the index finger of the hand holding the glass at him. “That’s just the sort of comment some queens might have your head struck off for,” she said.

“Yes, well, I’d rather have it struck off if I couldn’t discern Dacrumi da Pachio from Piss-of-the-Cat.” “But you can,” Anne said, “or say you can, so best start walking backward now.”

“My apologies,” Cazio said. “It’s just that this wine—” He tasted it again and dropped his eyelids. “Close your eyes,” he said, “and taste it again.”

He heard Anne sigh.

“It’s five, maybe six years ago,” he began. “The hills in the Tero Vaillamo are purple with the blooms of wild oregano and lavender; the juniper trees are swaying in a slight breeze. It’s hot, and it hasn’t rained in a month. The vines are heavy with little purple grapes so ripe that some have already begun to ferment. The familia is picking them, old men, young men, girls and boys, handling each grape like a little jewel, fruit from the same stock their grandparents and great-grandparents picked two hundred years ago and more. They put the grapes in a big vat, and as the afternoon cools, they feast on roast pork, they open last year’s wine, and there’s music while they smash the grapes with apple-wood pestles. They ferment it carefully, the way they’ve done it for centuries. They take their time, and the method never leaves the family. They let it ripen in a cellar, not too cool, not too hot. Perfect.” He took another sip. “Taste. The oregano, the lavender, the juniper. The smoke is their cooking fire, where they roasted the boar for the vatting feast. The art, the care…”

He suddenly felt breath on his lips.

“Hush,” Anne said as she kissed him.

She smelled like the wine and apricot and fresh green apple. Her tongue searched against his, and his whole body flashed hot. He fumbled his wine down and stood, reaching for her head, cupping behind her ears, and drawing her up against him. She laughed and pressed close.

Cazio took a breath—and lifted his head.

“Wait,” he said. “What—what?”

“I had to shut you up,” she said, reaching back up with her mouth. “You would have gone on like that all night. Come on; you know you wanted this.”

He released her and stepped back a little. “Well, yes,” he said. “But you weren’t interested, and then Austra…” He floundered off.

“So all of those things you said in Vitellio, when we met, and on the road home were nothing, just lies?” “No,” he said. “No, but it was before I knew who you were and before—”

“Austra,” Anne finished, crossing her arms. “Before you and Austra.” She frowned. “You’re no good for her.”

“No good for her but fine for you?”

“I’m different,” Anne said. “Austra—you could hurt Austra.”

“But not you?”

“Once, maybe. Not now.”

“Well, I’ve no intention of hurting Austra,” Cazio said.

“No. Otherwise you might do something like, oh, kiss her best friend.”

“You kissed me!”

“That’s how you tell it,” Anne replied.

“Now, wait,” he began, suddenly feeling that everything was out of control.

Anne suddenly laughed and picked her wine back up. “Hush, drink,” she said. “Your virtue is safe. I just wanted to know.”

“What?”

“If you really love Austra. If you’re really faithful to her. If you can be trusted.”

“Oh,” he said, his head whirling. “Then this was all for her?”

“Well, it certainly wasn’t for you,” Anne said. “Now tacheta, and drink your wine, and don’t try to explain it to me anymore.”

Cazio did as he was told, desperately trying to sort out what had just happened. He’d felt more competent on his brother’s boat, and he not only knew nothing about the sea but never felt adequate around his brother. He tried to sneak a glance at Anne, to see what the expression on her face was, but was a little afraid to.

When he’d first met Anne, she’d been in love with a man named Roderick, or thought she was, the way girls often did with their first paramours. Still, Cazio had always felt he had a chance. Anne had never given him much hope, though, and when he’d discovered she was in line to be queen of one of the most powerful nations in the world, he’d given up the matter for lost. Besides, his feelings for Austra had been strengthening that whole time, and he was happy with her, missed her even now.

So why did he want to grab Anne and return her kiss? Why did he find it so hard to picture Austra at the moment?

A light rap at the door caught his attention. He glanced up and saw that it was one of Anne’s Sefry pages.

“Majesty,” he said. “Duke Artwair of Haundwarpen begs a word.”

“Yes, of course; send him in.”

A moment later the duke appeared, an imposing man with steel-gray eyes and close-cropped hair. One of his hands was made of wood.

“Majesty,” he said, bowing.

“Cousin, it’s good to see you. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

He smiled uncomfortably. “I was riding in the area.”

“That’s an odd coincidence. This place is rather out of the way.”

“Indeed. I was riding in the area because reports were that you were here.”

“I see. You’ve come to collect me. Is that it?”

“You are the empress,” Artwair said, “I cannot ‘collect’ you. But you are needed in Eslen. Your people need you on your throne.”

“My people have seemed rather pleased to see me freeing their towns from torture and oppression.” “Yes, I agree. Your…adventures…have made you very popular. But now some begin to wonder if you are neglecting the larger issue of the war that seems sure to come.”

“I’ve you to general my army.”

“And you’ve an army to do the sort of thing you’ve been risking your life at these last few months. And this place—why did you come here? A monastery in the country, not so far from the Hansan border. Have you any idea how exposed you are here?”

Anne nodded. “I won’t be here long. And this is the last.”

“The last what?”

“The last of my ‘little adventures,’ as I was just telling Cazio. When I’m done here, I’ll return to Eslen, I promise.”

“Well, you’ve reduced the place,” Artwair pointed out. “What more did you have in mind?”

“Don’t you know where we are?” Anne asked. “The saint this faneway is dedicated to?”

The duke’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t—”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“B-because that is the business of the Church,” Artwair sputtered.

“A Church I have stripped of authority in my kingdom,” she pointed out. “Of temporal authority, yes,” Artwair said. “But this is different. Here you are definitely stepping into the realm of the sacred.” Anne shrugged. “So be it. The Church abused the boundaries first, not me.”

“I don’t understand,” Cazio said.

Anne turned to him. “This monastery is committed to Saint Mamres, the bloody saint of war,” she said. “His faneway is here. As we control it now, the Church will be making no new warrior-monks. And indeed, perhaps I will make a few of my own.”

Artwair’s face was still red, but the expression on it was turning thoughtful.

“It’s an interesting idea,” he said, “but a dangerous one. Forget the ire of the Church—”

“Done,” Anne pronounced.

“Well. Forget it, then. But you aren’t the first worldly ruler to try this, you know. Twenty years ago, Marhgreft Walis bribed the monks to let his bodyguard walk this faneway.”

“And?”

“There were ten of them. Seven died walking it. Another went mad immediately.”

“And the other two?”

“Were very good bodyguards. But the sacrifice—”

“Even bribed, I expect, the monks were loath to give up the power they guarded,” Anne said. “I imagine they neglected to mention some sacaum or such that needed doing. We have a few of them to question on the matter, so we won’t be missing any information.”

“I’m just urging caution, Majesty.”

“I know. But the enemy has Mamres monks and knights that cannot die and other monsters in number. I feel we need some of the same benefits.”

“Nor do I dispute it. Just be cautious.”

“I shall. And then I shall return to Eslen, I promise you, Cousin.”

Artwair left, and Cazio stayed close on his heels, looking more than a little relieved to be leaving her presence. She poured herself more wine, took a swallow, and went to the window.

“What have I done?” she whispered to the faintly visible evening star. She closed her eyes, but lightning seemed to flash there and made her mind busy. Her body was humming head to toe with desire.

She and Austra had been best friends for all of her life. She loved her like a sister and in a moment had betrayed her.

She wasn’t entirely stupid. She’d known her feelings for Cazio had been changing these last few months. Despite her first impressions of him, he’d proved more reliable and noble than any knight she had ever known with the possible exception of Neil MeqVren. He was also handsome, amusing, and intelligent. And Austra’s now. She’d tried to keep that firmly in her mind. But Austra should have known better, shouldn’t she? Austra knew what Anne felt before she did. Austra, her best friend, had snapped up the swordsman before Anne could sort out her own feelings.

“What sort of friend is that?” she wondered aloud.

She knew that she probably wasn’t being completely fair, but who was there to hear her?

Austra had no place in a fighting force and had proved that by getting injured on their first ride against the gallows of Brithwater. Nothing serious, but she’d sent her back to Eslen. These last few weeks, without her maid around, she’d felt that something was happening between her and the swordsman, something inevitable.

And when he’d kissed her back, she’d been really happy, like a girl again, ready to forget her duties, the coming war, the strange things happening in her mind and body as she gained more and more command of the powers Saint Cer had given her.

But no, he’d been surprised, and he’d remembered Austra very quickly, and so she had been wrong about their growing closer.

How foolish that must seem to him, and how intolerable to seem foolish.

And how tiring, how very tiring, to be still a virgin. Maybe she should have someone she didn’t give a fig about fix that for her and then have him exiled or beheaded or something so that she could see what the fuss was about. Austra knew well enough, didn’t she? Because of Cazio.

She shook that away. With all that was going on in her kingdom—in the world—didn’t she have better things to worry about? If Eslen fell, if the dark forces gathering against her triumphed, it wouldn’t matter who Cazio had or hadn’t loved.

“Majesty?” a soft voice whispered. She turned to find Cauth regarding her.

“Yes?”

“We’ve found the map of the faneway.”

“Excellent,” she replied. “We should begin immediately. Have you picked your men?”

“I—Majesty, I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“Sefry cannot walk faneways. Our constitutions forbid it.”

“What does that mean?”

“No Sefry has ever survived the attempt,” he replied.

“Really? Not just this faneway but any?”

“That’s correct, Majesty.”

“Wonderful,” she said sarcastically. “Send for the Craftsmen, then.”

“Very well. Is there anything else?”

Anne turned and rested her head against the windowsill.

“I’m changing, Sir Cauth,” she said. “Why is that?”

“I haven’t known you long,” he said, “but I expect being queen changes you.”

“No. That’s not what I mean. How much did Mother Uun tell you?”

“Not everything, but enough. You mean your blessing.”

“Is it a blessing?” she asked. “I’m stronger, yes. I can do things. But I’m changing. I think things I never thought before, feel things I’ve never felt…”

“You are touched by great powers,” he said. “That’s only natural.”

Anne shivered. “Some of my visions are terrible.”

“I’m sorry for your pain,” he said. He sounded sincere.

She shrugged.

“It’s lonely,” he ventured. “No one understands you.”

“That’s true,” she murmured, taking a sideways glance at the Sefry.

She had first seen Cauth when he and his troops had saved her from her uncle Robert’s men and, much to her surprise, he had pledged his life and loyalty to her. The Sefry had enabled her to win back her throne. She owed Cauth and his men a great deal.

But the Sefry were so strange, and despite their help and constant presence, she hadn’t really gotten to know any of them.

Nor had any of them spoken to her as Cauth was speaking now. It was a surprise but also something of a relief. The Sefry always had walked in that borderland between the mundane and the very strange. The unnatural was natural to them.

“People fear to speak to me,” she said. “Some are calling me the witch-queen. Did you know that?” “Yes,” he said. “But your friends—”

“My friends,” she repeated. “Austra has always been my friend. But even she…” She shied away from the subject. Who had really betrayed whom?

“We are less now.”

“What of Casnar de Pachiomadio?”

“Cazio?” She shrugged. “He doesn’t understand, either.”

“But he might.”

“What do you mean?”

“If he was touched by great powers, as you are. Then perhaps—and forgive my impertinence—then he might truly be worthy of you.”

She felt her face go hot. “That is impertinence.”

“I beg your forgiveness, then.”

“And it is dangerous, I’m told.”

“Not for a true swordsman,” Cauth replied.

“You know this?”

Cauth bowed. “I’ve spoken when I should have kept silent,” he said. “Please understand; it was only my concern for you speaking.”

“I forgive it,” she said. “When we are alone, you may speak your mind. I need that, I think, to stay honest myself.” She tilted her head. “Sir Cauth, why do you serve me?”

He hesitated. “Because you are our only hope,” he replied.

“You believe that?”

“Yes.”

“I wish you did not. I wish no one did.”

He smiled thinly. “That’s why you are worthy.”

And then he went. She returned to the window to think.

Cazio as a knight of Mamres, at her side. Her knight, not one on loan from her mother. Cauth was right: She needed someone more than merely mortal, someone else touched by the saints.

A knight of the dark moon for the Born Queen, a woman’s voice whispered. Anne didn’t bother turning. She knew she would find no one there.

5 Testament

Stephen had spent months expecting Fend to kill him. Now that the moment had arrived, he felt that he had no right to be surprised, but there he was, watching in frozen shock as the kneeling Sefry’s blade came free of its ancient sheath. Stephen tried to back away, but of course he was sitting down in a chair carved of granite. He wondered if the guards behind him were rushing toward the assassin or if they were part of the plot. He wondered if Fend would kill Zemlé, too, and hoped not.

The weapon darted toward him—and stopped. Stephen realized that it was the hilt end and that the one-eyed Sefry was holding the blade in his black-gloved hand.

The shock passed through him, pulling rage in its wake.

“What?” he heard himself snap. “What the sceat—” He cut himself off. “Sceat” was not a word he used. In the dialect he had grown up speaking, it wasn’t even a word. No, he’d gotten that from Aspar White, and his Oostish brogue.

He swallowed, feeling the anger already replaced by relief.

“What is this, Fend?” he asked, more controlled.

Fend’s eye glittered. “I understand we aren’t the best of friends,” he began.

Stephen coughed a mirthless laugh. “No, we’re not,” he affirmed.

“But you are Kauron’s heir, and I am the Blood Knight. It is my duty to serve you. But since your distrust for me stops you doing what you must, I see I will serve you best by letting another bear this sword and wear my armor.”

“You’re the Blood Knight because you drank the blood of the waurm,” Stephen said, “not because of those arms. And the waurm is dead.”

“The waurm’s blood is still quick in mine,” Fend said. “So drive this sword into my heart, collect my blood, and feed it to a champion you like.”

Stephen stared at the hilt of the weapon and, almost without thinking, took hold of it. He felt dizzy and odd and thought he smelled something sharp and dusty.

Killing Fend seemed like a good idea. The man was a murderer many times over. He nearly had killed Aspar, had treated Winna with great cruelty, and had had a hand in the slaughter of two young princesses.

Oddly, Stephen found himself reviewing those facts without much passion. The best reason to kill Fend was that he, Stephen, could rest easier at night. He shrugged and started to thrust.

What am I doing? he suddenly wondered, and stopped.

“Pathikh?” Fend gasped.

Stephen felt a little smile play on his lips. He’d frightened Fend. He had frightened Fend. He dropped the tip of the weapon.

“I don’t believe you,” Stephen said.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t believe you’re willing to sacrifice your life for a higher purpose. I think you expect to get something out of this or, rather, more out of it, since the waurm’s blood has already made you something more than you were. No, Fend, you have a goal, and it isn’t to die.”

“I’ve offered you my life,” Fend said.

“What happens when I stab the Blood Knight? I don’t know. I’ve seen a man that no blade can kill.” “I’m not like that.”

Stephen lifted his hands. “You know I don’t trust you. You just said so. Do you imagine this charade has changed that?”

Fend’s eyebrows rose.

“What?”

The Sefry grinned a little. “This isn’t the Stephen Darige I met at Cal Azroth,” he said. “You’re getting some steel.”

Stephen started to retort, but Fend’s words struck home. He wasn’t afraid of the man anymore. He hadn’t actually been afraid even when he had thought Fend was about to kill him.

“This is about the faneway, then,” Stephen said.

“Exactly, pathikh.”

“I’ve walked one faneway and been nearly killed by another,” Stephen said. “I’m reluctant to travel this one until I know more about it.” But even as he said it, he suddenly felt like the old, timid Stephen again. “What do you need to know?” Fend challenged. You are Kauron’s heir. The power of this mountain is yours. It is well past time for you to take it.”

“I haven’t found the Alq yet,” Stephen temporized. “I’ve found some interesting texts in the old section.” “Pathikh,” Fend replied. “The Alq will show itself to you after you’ve walked the faneway and not before. Didn’t you know that?”

Stephen stared at the Sefry while he tried to absorb that.

“Why hasn’t anyone mentioned this?” he asked, glancing back at Adhrekh, his valet.

The other Sefry looked surprised, too. “We thought you knew that, pathikh,” he replied. “You’re Kauron’s heir.”

Stephen closed his eyes. “I’ve been looking for the Alq for three months.”

“That wasn’t clear to us,” Fend replied.

“What do you think I’ve spent all of my time doing?” Stephen asked.

“Reading books,” Fend said. “Reading books when you’re right here in the mountain.”

“It’s a big mountain…” Stephen started, then waved it away. “From now on, don’t take for granted that I know anything, please.”

“Then you’ll walk the faneway?”

Stephen sighed. “Fine,” he said. “Have someone show me the route.”

Fend blinked. His mouth opened, and his eyes darted past Stephen to Adhrekh.

“What?” Stephen asked.

“Pathikh,” the Aitivar said, “we don’t know where the faneway is. Only Kauron’s heir knows that.” Stephen turned and stared at the man for a moment and saw he was serious. He looked back at Fend, and then the absurdity was suddenly too much to contain, and he started to laugh. Fend and Adhrekh didn’t seem to think it was funny, which made the whole thing even funnier, and soon he had tears in his eyes and the back of his head had begun to ache.

“Well,” he said when he could finally speak again, “there we go. Quite a situation. So my answer to you, Fend, is that I will walk the faneway when I find it. Do you have any further dismissive comments regarding the need to do research in the library?”

Fend glowered for a moment, then shook his head.

“No, pathikh.”

“Wonderful. Now leave me, please, unless you’ve got another bit of absolutely crucial information you’ve failed to mention to me.”

“Nothing I can think of,” Fend replied. He knelt, stood, saluted, and returned his weapon to its sheath. Then he held up a finger. “Except this. I’ve word of where Praefec Hespero is hiding,” he said. “I’d like to personally take charge of his capture.”

“Favor for an old friend?”

Fend stiffened. “Hespero was never my friend. Only a necessary ally for a time.”

“Find him, then,” Stephen said. “Bring him here.”

He watched the Sefry leave. Was he really going after Hespero?

It didn’t matter. Fend was leaving, and that was good.

He retired to the library, where he felt safest. His guard of four followed quietly behind him. They made him almost as nervous as Fend did. Sefry were nothing new to Stephen. When he was growing up in Virgenya, they had been a fact of life.

But at a distance. The Sefry of his experience traveled in caravans. They danced, sang, told fortunes. They sold things from far away and counterfeit relics. He’d rarely seen one with a sword.

They did not come calling, they did not go to school, they did not pray in chapels or visit fanes. They moved in the world of men and women, but rarely did they socialize with them. Of all the former slaves of the Skasloi, they were the most apart.

The Aitivar did not sing or dance, so far as he knew, but they could fight like monsters. Twelve of them had routed three times their number in the battle below the mountain. They were decidedly unlike any of their race he had ever known, but then, he never had really known a Sefry, had he? Aspar had. He’d been raised by one, and he held that they were all liars, absolutely not to be trusted. Fend certainly bore out that assertion. But the Aitivar—he still didn’t know what motivated them. They claimed to have been waiting for him, Kauron’s heir, but they were a bit gray as to why.

He noticed they were still bunched around him.

“I’m going to do a bit of research,” Stephen said. “I don’t need you right at my elbow.”

“You heard him,” Adhrekh said. “Take posts.”

Stephen turned to the vast collection of scrifti. A better collection he had never seen, not in any monastery or scriftorium. At this point, he had only the faintest idea of what was here or how it was organized. He’d found a very interesting section in an early form of Vadhiian he had never encountered before, and there were at least fifty scrifti in the section. Most seemed to be accounting records of some sort, and as much as he wanted to translate them, it seemed more pressing to divine the secrets of the mountain.

Still, daunting as the scriftorium was, the instincts and intuition of his training and saint-given gifts seemed to lead him roughly toward what he wanted. When he thought of a subject, there seemed a certain obvious logic that took him to it, although he found he couldn’t explain to Zemlé the workings of that logic.

And now, considering the mysteries of the Sefry, he found himself standing before a wall of scrifti, some bound, some rolled and sealed in bone tubes, some of the oldest placed flat in cedar boxes.

Sefry Charms and Fancies. Alis Harriot and the False Knight. Secrets of the Halafolk. The Secret Commonwealth…

He scanned along, looking for a history, but most of the books continued in the same vein until he came across a plain black volume with no title. He felt something like the sort of shock one often got on cold winter days when walking on a rug and touching something metal. Curious, he drew it forth.

The cover was only that, a brittle leather case enclosing a lacquered wooden box. The top lifted off easily, revealing sheets of lead tissue. He suddenly knew he had something very old. Excited, he peered more closely.

No one had ever heard the Sefry language; under the Skasloi, they seem to have abandoned their ancient tongue or tongues and adopted cants based on the Mannish languages around them. But Stephen had a sudden hope that that was what he might be holding, for the faint script impressed into the metal was not one he had ever seen before. It was flowing and beautiful but utterly unknown.

Or so he thought until he noticed the first line, and there something looked familiar. He had seen this script before, in simpler form, not flowing together but in distinct characters carved in stone. Virgenyan tombstones, the oldest.

He blinked as the first line suddenly jumped out at him:

“My Journal and Testament. Virgenya Dare.”

He choked back a gasp. This was the book he’d been sent here to recover. It was the reason he’d been trying to find the Alq, the hidden heart of the mountain, because he’d assumed that was where such a treasure would be.

Maybe it wasn’t the real thing. Surely there had been many fakes.

Hands trembling, he took the box to one of the stone tables, lit a lamp, and found some vellum and a pen and ink to take notes. Once that was all assembled, he gingerly lifted the first sheet and held it to the light. The impression was faded, the script very difficult to make out, and the Virgenyan incredibly archaic. Without his saint-touched sense, he might not have been able to read it.

MY JOURNAL AND TESTAMENT. VIRGENYA DARE.

MY FATHER HAS TAUGHT ME TO WRITE, BUT IT IS DIFFICULT TO FIND SOMETHING TO WRITE ON OR THE CHANCE TO DO IT. I WILL NOT WASTE WORDS. MY FATHER HAS DIED OF GALL ROT IN THE FESTER. HERE IS HIS ONLY MONUMENT, AND I GIVE IT WITH THE YEAR AS HE RECKONED IT.

ANANIAS DARE

HUSBAND AND FATHER.

B. 1560 D. 1599

I HAVE FOUND MORE LEAD TISSUE.

FATHER SAID I SHOULD WRITE, BUT I’M NOT SURE WHAT TO WRITE.

I AM VIRGENYA DARE, AND I AM A SLAVE. I WOULD NOT EVEN KNOW THAT WORD IF MY FATHER HAD NOT TAUGHT IT TO ME. HE SAID NO ONE USES IT BECAUSE HERE, THERE IS NO OTHER CONDITION TO COMPARE OURS TO. THERE ARE THE MASTERS, AND THERE IS US, AND THERE ISN’T ANYTHING ELSE. BUT FATHER SAID THAT WHERE WE COME FROM, SOME PEOPLE WERE SLAVES AND SOME WERE NOT. I THOUGHT AT FIRST HE MEANT THAT IN THE OTHER WORLD SOME MEN WERE ALSO MASTERS, BUT THAT ISN’T WHAT HE MEANT, ALTHOUGH HE SAID THAT WAS TRUE ALSO.

I HAVE LIVED WITH THE MASTER SINCE I WAS FIVE. I DO WHAT PLEASES HIM, AND IF I DO NOT, I AM HURT, AND THAT SOMETIMES PLEASES HIM, TOO. HE CALLS ME EXHREY (I INVENT A SPELLING HERE), WHICH MEANS “DAUGHTER.” THE MASTERS DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN OF THEIR OWN, BUT MY MASTER HAS HAD MANY MANNISH CHILDREN, ALTHOUGH ONLY ONE AT A TIME. I HAVE FOUND THE BONES OF MANY OF THEM.

I SLEEP ON A STONE IN HIS CHAMBER. SOMETIMES HE FORGETS TO FEED ME FOR A FEW DAYS. WHEN HE WILL BE GONE FOR A LONG TIME, HE LEAVES THE DOOR OPEN SO THE OTHER HOUSE STAFF CAN TAKE CARE OF ME. IT WAS TIMES LIKE THAT I USED TO SEE MY FATHER, FOR THEY WOULD SMUGGLE HIM TO THE OUTER COURTS. I HAVE TEACHERS, ALSO, WHO SCHOOL ME IN THE ANTICS THAT PLEASE THE MASTER. IN THE WAYS OF THE SKASLOI CHILDREN WHO ARE NO MORE.

SOMETIMES I AM LEARNT OTHER THINGS.

That brought Stephen to the end of the first sheet. He lifted it and went to the next and saw that it was different. The hand was the same, but the characters weren’t all Virgenyan and neither was the language. “Like the epistle,” he murmured. “A cipher.”

He lifted his pen to begin the work of translating it and realized with a start that his hand had been in motion while he’d been reading. He looked to see what he had written, and when he did, crawlers went up his neck. It was in Vahiian, and the hand was an oddly angular scrawl not at all his own:

SOMETHING TERRIBLE IS IN THE MOUNTAIN. IT DOES NOT MEAN YOU WELL. TELL NO ONE YOU’VE FOUND THE BOOK.

6 A Message from Mother

Aspar dropped belly-down when he saw the greffyn. That put it out of sight, but he still could feel the burn of its yellow eyes through the trees. He glanced up at Leshya in the branches above him. She touched her eye with two fingers, then shook her head no. It hadn’t seen him.

Gradually he raised his head until he was peering down the streambed.

He counted forty-three riders. Three of them were Sefry, the rest human. But that didn’t end the count of the procession. He’d spied at least three greffyns: horse-size beasts with beaked heads and catlike bodies, if one discounted the scales and coarse hair that covered them. Four vaguely manlike utins loped alongside the horses, mostly on all fours, occasionally raising their spidery limbs to grasp and swing from low branches. A manticore like the one he and Leshya had killed that morning finished up the unlikely company.

Grim, Aspar wondered, is all of that really for me?

He all but held his breath until they had passed. Then he and Leshya compared their count.

“I think there may be one more greffyn or something about that size and shape,” she said. “Following a few dozen kingsyards behind and deeper in the woods. Other than that, that’s about the size of it.” “I wonder what they left up in the pass.”

She thought about that for a moment. “The lead riders. Did you get a good look at them?”

“They were Sefry. Your lot?”

“Yes. Aitivar. But the three leading, those were all three Vaix.”

“Vaix?”

“Aitivar warriors.”

“Only three?”

She shook her head. “You don’t understand. The Mannish are probably fighting men. But there are only twelve Vaix at any given time. They aren’t ordinary warriors. They’re fast, strong, very skilled, very hard to kill.”

“Like that Hansan knight?”

“Hard to kill, not impossible. But they have feyswords and other arms inherited from the old times.” Her mouth quirked. “My point is, Fend has a quarter of his warriors out looking for you. You should be flattered.”

“Not flattered enough. He’s not with them.” He frowned. “How do you know Fend is their master?” “Because I believe he drank the blood of the waurm you killed. I think he’s the Blood Knight, which means the Aitivar have won.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Well, this isn’t the time to talk about it,” she said.

“No, that would’ve been sometime in the last four months.”

“I told you—”

“Yah. When there’s a chance, you’re telling me. But sceat, yah, now we’ve got to get out of here. So, back to the question: How many do you think they have in the pass?”

“Too many,” she said. “But I can’t think of another way to leave.”

“I can,” Aspar said.

She lifted an eyebrow.

Aspar grabbed at a scraggly yellow pine as the rotten shale under his foot shifted and then snapped. He watched it turn in the air, the flat fragments almost seeming to glide on their long way down. He felt the pine start to pull up from the roots and, with a grunt, pushed with the foot that still had purchase—and fell forward.

His target was a sapling growing up from the narrow edge below. He caught it, but it bent like a green bow, and he lost his grip and went back out into the air, turning, flailing for any purchase at all. Everything seemed to be out of reach.

Then something caught him. At first he had the impression of a giant spiderweb because it sagged as his weight went into it. He lay there for a moment, blinking, feeling the air all around him. The almost vertical slope stretched twenty kingsyards above, shattered stone and crevices filled with soil supporting a tenacious forest. Higher, the sky was simple and blue.

About four kingsyards up, Leshya’s face peeked down from where she was braced in the roots of a hemlock.

“That was interesting,” she said. “How I wonder what you will do next.”

A quick survey showed Aspar that he’d fallen into a sort of hammock of wild grapevines. Just below, the stubborn forest gave way to a gray stone cliff. If the vines failed to support him, there was nothing between him and the jumble of fallen rock a hundred yards below. He couldn’t even see the river at the bottom of the gorge, so there wasn’t much hope of hitting that.

He looked back in the direction from which he’d fallen. He and Leshya had been working their way down a groove worn by water running off the plateau. Not quite as perpendicular as the rest of the precipice, it was cluttered with enough debris to offer purchase, or at least so it had seemed from above. It was starting to look more dubious now as the water track steepened. The gray stone was harder, it seemed, than the shale above.

“What can you see from there?” Leshya asked.

“The channel hits the gray rock and gets steeper,” he said.

“Steeper?” she said dubiously. “Or impossible?”

“Steeper. Work your way to the deepest cut and there should be handholds. Below that, there’s a talus slope, like I reckoned.”

“How far below that?”

“I maun thirty kingsyards.”

“Oh, is that all? Thirty kingsyards of wedging our fingers and boot tips in cracks?”

“If you’ve got a better idea…”

“I do. Let’s go back up and fight them all.”

Aspar grabbed the thickest vine and carefully pulled himself to a sitting position. The natural net creaked and sagged, and leaves and chunks of rotting wood fell silently past him. Then he started working his way toward the rock face, cursing Grim in advance should a vine come unanchored and send him to the bonehouse.

He reached the wall and managed to scrabble sideways to the ledge, where he spent a few moments appreciating having something solid between him and the earth’s beckoning.

He turned at a slight noise and found Leshya on the shelf just above him.

“How’s the leg?” she asked.

Aspar realized he was wheezing as if he had just run for half a day. His heart felt weak, and his arms already were trembling from fatigue.

“It’s fine,” he said.

“Here,” Leshya said, holding out her hand.

She helped him up, and together they sat, regarding the descent still before them.

“At least we don’t have to go up it,” Leshya said.

“Sceat,” Aspar replied, wiping the sweat from his brow.

It had looked somehow better from the other angle. Now he could see the river.

“You might make it to the talus slope,” she said. “But the river…”

“Yah,” Aspar snarled.

The river had dug itself down another hundred kingsyards. Although he couldn’t see the canyon wall on his side, the other side looked as smooth as a fawn’s coat.

“We need rope,” he said, “and lots of it.” He glanced back at the vines.

“No,” Leshya said.

He didn’t answer, because she was right. Instead he scrutinized the gorge, hoping to find something he had missed.

“Come on,” Leshya said. “Let’s make it to the slope. At least there we’ll be able to camp. Maybe we’ll see a way to the river, maybe we won’t. But if they don’t think to look down here, we could survive for a while.”

“Yah,” Aspar said. “You said this was a stupid idea.”

“It was the only idea, Aspar. And here we are.”

“From here I might be able to get back up. Certain you could.”

“Nothing up there we want,” the Sefry replied. “Are you ready?”

“Yah.”

They started from the ledge at middagh, and it was almost vespers when Aspar finally half fell onto the jumble of soil and rocks, his muscles twitching and his breath like lungfuls of sand. He lay looking up from the deep shadow of the gorge at the black bats fluttering against a river of red sky, listening to the rising chorus of the frogs and the ghostly churring of nightjars. For a moment, it almost felt normal, as if he could rest.

It sounded right. It looked right. But he could smell the disease all around him. It was all poisoned, all dying.

The King’s Forest probably was already dead without the Briar King to protect it.

He should have understood earlier. He should have been helping the horned one all along. Now it was too late, and every breath he drew felt like wasted time.

But there had to be something he could do, something he could kill, that would set things right. And there was Winna, yah?

He pushed himself up and began to limp his way down to the next broad ledge at the bottom of the slope, where he could see Leshya already searching for a protected campsite.

In the fading light, from the corner of his eye, he saw something else. It was coming down the way they had, but quickly, like a four-legged spider.

“Sceat,” he breathed, and drew his dirk, because he’d bundled his bow and arrows and dropped them down before the most arduous part of the climb. They were still ten yards down the slope.

He relaxed his grip and shoulders, waiting.

The utin changed course suddenly, leaping from the rock face into the tops of some small poplars, bending them in a nightmare imitation of Aspar’s earlier stunt. As the trees snapped back up, he saw it land effortlessly on the slope downgrade of him.

He let his breath out. It hadn’t seen him.

But his hackles went back up when he saw that its next leap was going to take it right to Leshya. “Leshya!” he howled, coming out of his crouch and starting to run downhill. He saw her look up as the beast sprang forward. Then his leg jerked in a violent cramp and his knee went down, sending him into a tumble. Cursing, he tried to find his feet again, but the world stirred all about him, and he reckoned that at least he was going in the right direction.

He shocked against a half-rotted tree trunk and, wheezing, came dizzily to his feet, hoping he hadn’t broken anything new. He heard Leshya screaming something, and when he managed to focus on her, he saw her below him, backed against a tree, grimly stringing her bow. He didn’t see the utin until he followed the Sefry’s desperate gaze.

The tree-corpse that had stopped him was part of a jumble clogging a water cut in the slope. He was on top of a natural dam.

The utin was two kingsyards below him. Something seemed odd about the way it was moving.

Aspar got his footing and leaped.

It was really more of a fall.

The utin was on all fours, and Aspar landed squarely on its back. It was very fast, twisting even as the holter locked his left arm around its neck and wrapped his legs around the hard barrel of its torso. He plunged his dirk at the thing’s neck, but the weapon turned. That didn’t stop him; he kept stabbing away. He saw something bright standing in the utin’s chest, something familiar that he couldn’t place at the moment. He also noticed that the monster was missing a hind foot. Then the night was rushing around him at great speed. He leaned back to avoid the creature’s armored head slamming into his face and felt his weapon drive into something. The ear hole, maybe. The beast gave a satisfying shriek, and they were suddenly in the air.

Then they hit the ground hard, but Aspar had already blown out the breath in his lungs. He tightened his grip and kept thrusting.

Then they were falling again for what seemed like a long time, until the utin caught something, arresting their descent so hard that Aspar actually did loosen his grip around its windpipe. He expected to be flung off, but suddenly they were plummeting again. He managed to throw both arms around its neck.

It fetched against something else, howled, and fell again, twisting in the holter’s grip like some giant snake. Aspar’s arms were numb now, and he lost his clench again. This time he didn’t find it before something astonishingly cold hit him hard.

“Holter.”

Aspar opened his eyes, but there wasn’t much to see. He hadn’t lost his senses in the fall, but it had been hard keeping hold of them since. He’d been lucky in hitting the river where it was deep and relatively slow. From the rushing he heard up-and downstream, that easily could have not been the case.

Once he had dragged himself out, his abused body had finally given out. The warm air soon had taken the water’s chill, and the forest had worked to soothe him to sleep. He’d fought it but had drifted into and out of dream, and he wasn’t sure where he was when the voice spoke.

“Holter,” it croaked again.

He sat up. He’d heard an utin speak before, and this was just what it sounded like. But he couldn’t tell how far away it was. It could be one kingsyard or ten. Either way it was too close.

“Mother sends regards, Mannish.”

Aspar kept quiet. He’d lost the dirk and was unarmed. However badly the utin was hurt, if it could move at all, he doubted very much he could fight it with his bare hands. His best chance was to stay still and hope it was bleeding to death. Failing that, morning might give him a better chance.

He heard something sliding through the undergrowth and wondered if the monster could see in the dark. He hoped not, but that seemed like a thing monsters ought to be able to do.

“Mother,” the voice sighed again.

Something tickled the back of Aspar’s neck, something with a lot of legs. He stayed frozen as it explored around his ear, across his lips, and finally down his chin and across his jerkin.

It was quiet save for the gentle shush of the river, and after a time the sky above began to gray. Aspar turned his head slowly, trying to piece together his surroundings as the light came up. He made out the river first and then the reeds he’d crawled through into the shelter of the trees. The cliff across the water came into focus, and the boles nearest him emerged from darkness.

Something big fell behind him, brushing limbs and breaking sticks. He whipped his head around and saw something bright, glittering.

It was the thing in the utin’s chest. The creature itself lay collapsed only a kingsyard away. It had been right above him.

The thing in its chest, he saw now, was a knife, and he suddenly remembered, months before, a battle in an oak grove in Dunmrogh where a knight had wielded a sword that shone like this, a sword that could cut through almost anything.

The utin wasn’t moving. Carefully, Aspar leaned forward, soundlessly shifting his weight until his fingers touched the hilt. He felt an odd, tingling warmth, then took hold of it and pulled it out.

Blood spurted in a stream. The utin’s eyes snapped open, and it gave a horrible gurgling scream, starting toward Aspar but stopping when it saw the weapon.

“Unholy thing,” it said.

“You’re one to talk.”

It started an odd gulp and hiss that might have been a laugh.

“Your mother,” Aspar said. “The Sarnwood witch. Did she send you?”

“No, no. Mother not sending us, eh?”

“But you work for Fend?”

“The Blood Knight calls us. We come.”

“Why?”

“How we are,” the utin said. “How we are, it’s all.”

“But what does he want?”

The utin had shoved its fist into the knife hole. It wasn’t helping much.

“Not the same as Mother, I think,” it said. “Not at end of things. But doesn’t matter. Today he wanting you. Today, you.” It looked up suddenly and released a deafening, ululating shriek. Howling himself, Aspar drove forward, slicing through the exposed throat so deeply that the head flopped backward like the hood of a cloak. Blood jetted from the stump of its neck, pulsed another few times, and stopped. Aspar tried to still his own panting and reckon whether he’d been wounded by the thing. He didn’t want to take his eyes off it, so he was watching when its mouth started moving again.

“Holter.”

Aspar flinched and raised the knife back up. The voice was the same, but the timbre of it was somehow different.

“Another of my children dead by you.”

“Sarnwood witch,” he breathed.

“Each one is part of me,” she said.

He remembered her forest, how he’d felt her in every limb and leaf, how she’d laid her invisible weight on him so that he couldn’t move.

“He tried to kill me,” he pointed out.

“More coming,” she said. “They may kill you. But if they don’t, you have a promise to keep.” Aspar felt an even deeper chill settle in. Months earlier, to save the lives of his friends, he had made a bargain.

“I won’t ask for the life of anyone you love. I won’t ask you to spare one of my children.” “That’s what we agreed,” Aspar said. “I remember.”

She’ll ask for my life, he suddenly thought. But no, it wasn’t going to be that simple.

“Here is your geos,” she said. “The next human being you meet, you’ll take under your protection. And you will take that person to the valley where you found the Briar King sleeping.”

“Why?”

“That’s not in the bargain, holter. I honored my part; now it’s time for you to honor yours.” He sighed, trying to think what the witch could mean. Leshya was right; he’d been thinking about going back there anyway. But what could the Sarnwood witch be up to?

But he’d given his word, and she had kept hers.

“Yah,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

“Yes, you will,” she replied. The utin seemed to sag further, and a long soft exhalation escaped its lips. “If you live…”

Already Aspar could hear something else coming through the trees. He pushed himself up, every part of him shaking, and held the knife before him.

7 The Town Between

His blood soaks this ground. But his soul is with the Draugs.

Muriele stared at the sungilt waves and wondered what to feel. William had been a good man, a fair king. As husband he hadn’t been mean or abusive, but he often hadn’t much been there, either. Maintaining several mistresses tended to be draining. Against the grain she had loved him, and she mourned for him. She could remember the scent on his clothes even now.

Alis took her hand. It felt good, the young, honest warmth of it. She looked at the girl, a pretty brown-haired creature of twenty.

“Robert came one night,” Muriele said. “When I was alone. When he thought you dead. He was drunk and even more cruel than usual, and he told me how William died.”

“He might have lied,” Alis said.

“He might have,” Muriele agreed. “But the details make me think he was telling the truth.” She took a step so that they stood at the edge of the cliff. She looked at the waves breaking far below.

“It was an ambush, and William had fallen wounded from his horse. Robert dragged him here and meant to gloat and kick him over the edge. But William managed to enrage him with taunts, tricked him into stooping down, and then Wil struck him in the heart with his echein doif. That was how Robert learned he could not die.” She squeezed her friend’s hand. “Why would Robert tell a lie so unflattering to himself?”

“Robert does not like himself very well,” Alis said. Her voice sounded odd, and when Muriele looked up, she saw tears in the younger woman’s eyes.

“You loved my poor husband,” she said.

“I don’t know,” Alis admitted. “But I miss him.”

“Well, at least he has Gramme to keep him company,” Muriele said, feeling suddenly mordant.

“Muriele…”

“Hush. It’s past. To tell the truth, if I could have him back, I wouldn’t mind if you were his mistress. At least not so much as I did before.”

“I hope your next husband feels the same,” Alis said lightly.

Muriele gave her a hug, then turned back to the sea.

“Good-bye, William,” she called.

Together they walked back to where the others waited.

Neil watched the two women stride toward the party, remembering his own recent ghosts: Fastia, Muriele’s eldest daughter, who had died in his arms; Erren, the coven-trained assassin who had protected the queen when he first had met her. He had loved the first and respected the second, and both had been lost to the lands of fate the same day King William was slain.

Erren and Muriele had been together so long when he met them that they had seemed sisters to Neil. Alis was something different. She had been one of William’s mistresses, for one thing. And now, suddenly, she was Muriele’s maid, bodyguard, best friend. Aside from Muriele, he was the only one in the party who knew the girl claimed coven training. But what coven? Who was her mestra? She wouldn’t say. “Thank you, Aradal, for that detour,” Muriele said to the archgreft.

“It hardly took us out of our way,” the Hansan replied. He gestured north and east. “The old Nean Road is just over that hill, and that will bring us to the Vitellian Way in a few bells.”

“Thank you just the same.”

“William was a good man,” Aradal said. “An opponent, usually, but I liked him. I am sorry for his loss, Muriele.”

She smiled a thin smile Neil had come to understand was her alternative to screaming.

“Thank you,” she said. “And now, by all means, let us go. I would not have us miss the feast you describe that awaits us at the inn at Bitaenstath.”

“I would not have you miss your first taste of Hansan hospitality,” the duke replied.

Muriele’s smile tightened, and this time she did not reply.

And so they went on, the road taking them through fields of spelt and wheat that rose high enough to hide an army of murderers. Neil saw a malend high on a hill, its four great sails turning rather quickly in the breeze from the sea. It was the first he had seen since leaving Newland, where they were used to keep water out of the poelen. But what was this one doing? Why was it here?

As promised, within a few bells they met the Vitellian Way, the longest road in the world. It had been built by the Hegemony a thousand years before, and it stretched more than a hundred leagues from z’Irbina in Vitellio to Kaithbaurg in the north.

Neil had traveled the southern portion of the road and had found it well kept, stoutly embanked, and wide enough for two carriages to pass.

Here it was hardly more than a pair of deep wain ruts. The old Vitellian bed of the road seemed barely there.

The women stayed in saddle for a bell or so and then retired to the carriage that the Hansans had brought along with their twenty horses.

Why only twenty?

He became aware of another rider at his flank.

“Sir Neil,” the young man said. “I don’t know if you remember me.”

“I know the name of every man in this party, Sir Edhmon,” Neil assured him. “When I saw that you had joined the Craftsmen, I picked you for this duty.”

“But you hardly know me, Sir Neil.”

“You fought on my left flank at the battle of the waerd,” Neil replied. “I do not need long walks in the gardens with you to know what I need to know.”

The young man blushed. “It was my first battle,” he said. “You inspired me to something I never dreamed myself capable of.”

“Whatever you are, it was in you before you met me,” Neil replied.

“I don’t know about that,” Edhmon said, shaking his head.

“Well,” Neil said, searching for a reply.

They rode on in silence.

They reached the looming fortress of Northwatch while the sun was settling into a bed of high western clouds. The sky was still blue, but the slanting light was copper and brass, and the white walls of the castle, the verdance of the fields, and the still-blue sky made such a pretty picture that war seemed very far away.

And yet Northwatch, despite its sunset patina, had been built for nothing but war. Its walls were thick and from the top it would appear as a six-pointed star, so that the outside of each section of wall was defensible from the inside of another. It was a new design, and Neil reckoned the ramparts were no more than ten years old.

The keep was a different story. Its weathered and vine-etched stone formed four walls with a squat tower at each corner. Clearly a fancy new fortification had been thrown up around a very old castle. Six riders met them, four of them in lord’s plate. As they approached, they doffed their helmets, and the oldest-looking one let his horse step forward.

The carriage door swung open, and Muriele stepped out. The riders dismounted and knelt.

“It’s good to see you, Marhgreft Geoffrysen,” Muriele said. “Please rise; let me embrace you.” The marhgreft looked to be sixty-five at least. His iron-gray hair was cropped to his skull, and his eyes were that blue that always startled.

“Highness,” he said, rising. Muriele crossed to him and gave him a perfunctory embrace. Then the marhgreft bowed again, this time to Aradal, with a good deal less enthusiasm.

“My lord,” Aradal acknowledged.

“I rather expected to see you riding in from the other direction,” Geoffrysen said.

“Well, if one comes, one must go back,” Aradal replied.

“Not necessarily,” Geoffrysen said with a wicked little smile.

“But today,” Aradal replied, wagging a finger.

“Today,” the marhgreft agreed. “And I’d be pleased if you would take the hospitality of my house.” “We’ve accommodations arranged in town,” Muriele told him. “But your offer is more than kind.” Geoffrysen looked surprised. “In town? Not in Suthschild?”

“It will be too dark before we reach Suthschild and past the dinner hour,” Aradal said. “No, we shall be at the Wexrohzen.”

“On the Hansan side.”

“I suppose it is. But can you think of a better accommodation?”

“Mine,” the marhgreft said stubbornly.

“I am in good hands, Marhgreft,” Muriele assured the old man. “Aradal is my escort to Kaithbaurg. I leave these matters to him.”

“Better leave the watching of piglets to a wolf,” Geoffrysen blurted. “Stay here, Majesty, and tomorrow let me escort you safely home.”

Neil tensed and with a sidewise glance caught Sir Edhmon’s eye.

“Marhgreft,” Muriele said softly, “that is uncalled for. For one thing, I am not a piglet.”

“Majesty, they have gathered troops at Suthschild. They are marching even now in the north.”

“That will be enough, my lord,” Muriele said. “I hope to enjoy your hospitality on my return.” Geoffrysen was red in the face. He swallowed hard, then nodded. “As you say, Highness.”

“It is,” Muriele gently agreed.

Neil could almost hear muscles relaxing. He nodded a salute at the marhgreft as they rode past. After a moment’s thought, Neil rode up alongside Aradal.

“Sir Neil,” Aradal acknowledged.

“My lord. May I have a word with you?”

“Of course.”

“What did the marhgreft mean by ‘the Hansan side’?”

“Ah. Never been to Bitaenstath before?”

“No, my lord.”

“Well, there it is.”

They had been riding over an old earthwork, probably the remains of an earlier castle, but now Neil could see houses and shops. Most of them hugged the road closely, but some sprawled out from it. Beyond, perhaps a third of a league distant, he saw the towers of another castle.

“That’s Suthschild, our counterpart to Northwatch,” he said. “The border of our countries is out there. I think long ago there were two towns, one near each fortress, but over the years they’ve grown together. After all, a miller doesn’t care which side buys his flour, nor a whore whose soldiers she’s servicing.” “But what happens during war?”

“It hasn’t come up in a hundred years,” Aradal pointed out. “But castles always have villages, and villages are always at risk when war comes.” He nodded. “This is Southmarket. When the marhgreft needs beer or broadcloth, it’s here he’ll likely get it. But if he throws a feast, he’ll want mead or svartbier, and to get that he’ll send to Northmarket.”

“There are no border guards?”

“Do you see a border?”

Neil didn’t. There was no wall, no standing stones, no pickets to mark where Crotheny became Hansa. Most of Southmarket seemed to be shutting down for the evening, except for the inns and bierrohsen, from which issued cheerful singing and the savory scents of roasting beef. Some of the patrons had taken their cups into the street and stood in little circles, talking and laughing. Many looked like farmers, still in their sweat-soaked shirts. Others were cleaner and more neatly dressed and seemed likely to be tradesmen. The few women he saw appeared to be working, not drinking.

As they moved toward the center of town, the look of the people appeared richer. The taverns had tables and chairs outside and lanterns to keep the night away. The houses and shops were grander, too, some with glass windows. The road went from dirt to gravel to paved, and not much later they found themselves in a largish village square, which at one end had an imposing, high-timbered hall with great doors swung open and dance music playing within.

“Just in time,” Aradal said, pointing up.

Neil looked and saw the first stars appearing in the rose sky.

“That’s our destination?”

“The Wexrohzen. I promise you, you’ll find no better bread, butter, pork, or ale in the world than right there.” He slapped his rotund belly. “And I’ve looked.”

“Not even in Kaithbaurg?”

“Fancier. Not better. Too many dumplings.”

“This hardly seems the place for the queen,” Neil said, lowering his voice. “Too busy, too crowded.” “William stayed several times,” Aradal said. “Muriele was with him at least once, and I don’t think she complained.”

Neil felt a hand settle on his shoulder.

“It’s perfectly fine,” Muriele told him.

“Majesty…”

“As I told Geoffrysen, we’re in the archgreft’s care now.”

“Yes, Majesty.”

And so they entered the Wexrohzen, and the music dropped away as every head in the hall turned toward them.

Aradal raised his voice. “Welcome, all, Her Majesty Queen Muriele.”

To Neil’s surprise, a great shout went up, and flagons were raised as the crowd answered with a welcome.

Aradal patted his shoulder and leaned close to his ear. “They don’t, after all, know who will win the war,” he said.

“I suppose they don’t,” Neil replied, but he already was frowning as some commotion seemed to be moving toward them, and space suddenly was cleared on the dance floor.

And in that space stepped a man with close-cropped red hair and a sharp beard. He wore a sable tunic displaying a lion, three roses, a sword and helm.

The hairs on Neil’s neck pricked up, because he knew the man.

The fellow lifted his chin and addressed Muriele.

“Your Majesty, I am Sir Alareik Wishilm af Gothfera, and your knight and I have unfinished business.”

8 The Nature of a Swordsman

Anne found Cazio in the hen yard of the monastery, thrusting and stamping on the packed, swept earth. The chickens at the edge of the yard clucked protests but kept a respectable distance.

He hadn’t noticed her yet, and Anne waited a moment, watching his graceful movements. If she hadn’t seen him kill so many people with those deft, clever movements of his feet, she might think he was practicing some sort of dance.

She remembered the first time she had seen that dance, when two armed and armored knights had attacked her. Against such machines of war, Cazio had stood little chance, yet he’d put himself between her and them, anyway, and since then he’d never stopped.

But it hadn’t just been her, had it? Austra had been there, too.

The color of the sunlight seemed to change, becoming less like gold and more like brass.

He is Austra’s love, but he is my man, she thought.

“Cazio,” she said.

He stopped in midaction, turned, and saluted her with his sword.

“Majesty,” he said.

For a moment she felt breathless and silly. Her attempt to seduce him flashed vividly in her mind’s eye. She cleared her throat. “I’m told it requires three days to walk the faneway of Mamres, and as you know, I am pressed to return to Eslen.”

He nodded, an odd look on his face, but didn’t answer. She felt a flash of pique. Surely he understood what she was getting at. Did she have to make everything clear?

Apparently.

“You need to start walking the faneway today,” she said. “Within the hour.”

Cazio sheathed his sword.

“I don’t want to,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

But he didn’t sound apologetic.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“You said I could walk it if I wished,” he replied. “I don’t wish.”

Now she thought she understood his tone. “You’re angry?”

He paused, then stared her in the eye. “I’m offended,” he replied. “When has my sword failed you? When have I not defeated your enemies with my own strength and skill?”

“You would have failed yesterday if I hadn’t helped you.”

You will fail when he comes. You will die; I have seen you dead. But she couldn’t say that. He flushed brightly. “Maybe so,” he admitted. Then: “Probably. But I am a dessrator, Majesty. I am not a killer or a mere swordsman but an artist. Would you give a singer a different voice? A painter a different pair of eyes?”

“If they could make better work, yes.”

“But it wouldn’t be theirs, would it?”

“Cazio, with the skills you already have and the blessing of Saint Mamres, you could be invincible.” “I have beaten such invincible men. Their physical abilities made them foolish.”

“But you are not so foolish.”

“I think if I had that power I might become so.”

“Cazio…”

“Majesty, whatever gifts this faneway can give me, I do not want and I do not need.”

“But I want them, Cazio. I want them for you. I’m sorry if I’ve offended your pride. You are certainly the greatest swordsman I have ever known. I only want you to be the best swordsman you can be. How else can you guard me against the things that are to come? How else can you survive them?”

“The way I always have. With my blade and my wits.”

“That is no longer good enough,” she said softly.

“If you wish another bodyguard—”

Something had been welling up in her throughout the whole conversation, something hard in her belly and throat. She felt deeply shaken by something, frustrated by Cazio’s inability to listen. Now she suddenly convulsed and felt tears on her face.

“Cazio,” she managed. “Do not be so selfish. I need you. I need you with the blessing of Mamres. Would it be so bad to be lustrated by a saint? How is that wrong?”

He stepped toward her. “Don’t cry,” he said.

“I’m angry,” she snapped. “Sometimes I cry when I’m angry. Do not mistake these tears. I’m offering you something, something—you aren’t afraid, are you?”

“Afraid?”

“Of the faneway. Afraid you might die?”

One of his eyebrows lifted. “You’re calling me a coward?”

“Ten of my Craftsmen are walking it as we speak. Three of them are already dead.”

“That’s terrible.”

“They just weren’t worthy, Cazio. You are. By the saints, if anyone was ever worthy of the blessing of Mamres, it is you.”

“Who has died, Majesty?”

“I told you. Some of my Craftsmen.”

“Which ones? What were their names?”

It hit her like a punch in the gut, pushing the anger out of her. Her knees went weak, and she felt as if there were no longer anything in her at all. She put her hand against the wall, but it would not support her, and the next thing she knew, she was on the ground.

What was happening to her?

But then Cazio had her cradled in his arms. He smelled both clean and sweaty, which seemed odd. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“No,” she managed. “I should know, shouldn’t I? I should know who died. I don’t understand what’s wrong with me, Cazio.”

“There’s a lot going on,” Cazio said. “A lot to worry about.”

“I feel—I’m sorry I asked you to walk the faneway, Cazio. I’m sorry. I couldn’t bear to lose you.” “I want you to understand—” he began.

Something suddenly tumbled into place, and Anne nearly gasped with understanding.

“No, hush,” she said, knowing what she needed to do. “We won’t talk of this again.” She tapped his shoulder. “You can put me down now,” she said. “I’m fine. Pack your things. We’ll leave for Eslen by noon. Time for me to really act like a queen.”

Cazio cast a look back over his shoulder at the monastery. Besides the Craftsmen still walking the fanes, they had left it invested with nearly two hundred men. The Church was sure to attempt to take it back. He glanced at Anne. Her face was composed and freshly powdered. He had no idea what she was thinking.

He wasn’t sure what he was thinking. First the sudden kiss, then her request that he make himself unnatural.

It had been very simple once. He had pledged to keep two girls alive, and with the help of his mentor, z’Acatto, he had managed to do it. But since Anne had come back into her kingdom, surrounding herself with knights, lords, and Sefry, he had been less sure of his footing. He had found his place in continuing to be her bodyguard, and he thought he had done tolerably well at it.

But she didn’t seem to think so. He had shocked her into withdrawing her request, but she had made it and could not take it back.

He glanced back again. Should he?

But the mere thought sickened him.

They traveled all day, following the banks of the Warlock River, stopping for the night at Tor Aver, a small castle just beyond the edge of the forest. They had stayed there a few nights before when preparing the assault on the monastery, and the knight who had charge of it, Sir Robert Taverner, had a feast prepared for them by the time they arrived. It wasn’t bad, but one of the discoveries Cazio had made in his travels was that good cooks were vanishingly scarce in this part of the world. The meat was heavy, greasy, more often boiled than roasted, and rarely provided with a proper sauce. The bread was grainy and dull, fruit nonexistent, cheese depressingly similar from place to place and meal to meal. The fare was better and more varied at court, of course, but then, he had spent hardly any time at court.

The wine was often undrinkably sweet, especially the white, and so far he hadn’t found much to like about beer or mead, which tasted to him like rotted bread and bear piss, respectively. Not that he had tasted bear piss, but now he didn’t have to.

Sir Robert’s meal did not set itself above the standard, but Cazio managed to fill himself without any unpleasant incidents. He didn’t feel much like talking, so he watched Anne, trying to gauge her mood. He had known her for more than a year and in many trying circumstances, but he had never known her to be so suddenly changeable as in these last few days.

But she seemed at ease, chatting with Sir Robert and the guests he had invited. The anger and remorse of the morning seemed forgotten.

And so, feeling heavy with the sweet wine, he excused himself to the chamber provided for him and lay there, wishing he were drunk on a better vintage, wishing for other things.

He was nearly asleep when the door cracked open. Blinking, he saw Anne’s face in the candlelight, and with a guilty start he realized that one of his wishes had come true. He opened his mouth to attempt another denial, but the words glued themselves there.

“Cazio?”

“Majesty.”

“Just Anne, for the moment,” she said.

“Ah,” he managed. “Anne.” How was it he once had felt comfortable saying her name?

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I haven’t come to test your virtue again. May I enter?”

“Of course.”

He was still in his clothes, but he somehow felt he ought to cover himself.

She stepped in, shuffled her feet another half step, and stopped.

“I was wrong to ask you to walk the faneway, Cazio. I want you to know I understand. There are so many people around me I don’t really know, much less trust. But I trust you. Today you’ve only proved that I can trust you to protect me, even against myself.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

She nodded, and something odd worked behind her eyes. She cleared her throat softly. “So,” she said. “I need you to go to Dunmrogh.”

Cazio blinked, wondering what he had missed. His king’s tongue was still not so good.

“Dunmrogh.”

“Yes. I want you to take a garrison there to guard the fane. I want you to command it.”

“I don’t understand,” Cazio said. “I’m not a commander. I’m a swordsman, that’s all.”

“You’re a swordsman I trust,” she said.

“To guard you,” he said.

“I have my Sefry,” she said. “And the Craftsmen.”

“Mamres knights.”

“Two or three of them might make one of you,” she said. “But I shall have to make do.”

“This doesn’t make sense to me,” he said. Was she trying to shame him into walking the faneway? “It’s only for a while,” Anne said. “I know you’ll miss Austra, but I’ll send her to be with you. I know you want to guard me. But I’m asking you, as my friend, to do this.”

Cazio struggled for something to say. His chest was tight. This felt like an attack from nowhere, one he had no parry and riposte for.

“Won’t you reconsider?”

“Cazio,” she said softly, “you aren’t one of my subjects. Everything you’ve ever done for me, you did because you wanted to. I’m not ordering you to do this, just asking.” She sighed and closed her eyes. “I had a vision. I need you there.”

Her eyes remained shut for a long moment, and he examined her face, thinking how familiar it had become and how strange that was. How had he come to this place? Shouldn’t he be back in Vitellio, sunning himself in some piato, seducing girls and starting duels? Guarding her was one thing, but this war—was it really his? Did he care about it if Anne and Austra were removed from the equation? He didn’t know.

But he nodded when she opened her eyes. “Very well,” he sighed. “I shall do as you ask.”

Even as he said it, he felt something turn in him and knew that he had never agreed to anything in his life that felt more wrong.

9 Zemlé’s Tale

Stephen woke paralyzed, a shriek of terror fused in his throat. Invisible things crawled in the darkness, and just at the corner of his vision a hard red light sparked. He couldn’t look at it because he knew that whatever it was was so terrible that his heart would stop from the sheer horror of it. He felt tears start in his eyes as he tried again to scream but could not.

Then, abruptly, the light vanished, and his whole body seized. He flailed his arms at the dark things, and finally the shriek tore from his throat.

Something grappled at his arms, and he sobbed another low howl, striking frantically at his attacker. “Stephen! Stephen!”

At first he couldn’t identify the voice, but he was suddenly free of groping fingers.

“Why?” he heard himself shout.

“Stephen, it’s a Black Mary. Do you understand? It’s me, Zemlé. It’s me.”

“Zemlé?”

“It’s me, meldhe,” she said more softly, using her lover’s name for him. “It’s only me. You were thrashing in your sleep.”

“Where are we?”

“In our bed,” she said. “Wait, let me kindle the lamp.”

A moment later, features appeared and the darkness backed into the distance.

But it wasn’t Zemlé’s face.

When he woke again, every lamp and candle in the room was glowing. Zemlé sat across the bed from him, looking concerned.

“What?” he murmured.

“Well, at least you didn’t scream at me this time,” she said.

“It wasn’t you,” he tried to explain.

“Black Mary follow you back, then?”

Stephen nodded without understanding. Zemlé offered him a cup of something that smelled minty. “Saint Weylan’s root and siftras,” she explained. “That will chase off the Mary.”

He nodded and took a sip. “There’s something wrong with me,” he murmured.

“Everyone has bad dreams.”

He shook his head. “Do you remember what I saw in the scriftorium in Demsted? The face in the flame?” She nodded reluctantly.

“And the thing that passed through our room a few months ago?”

Her brow crinkled. “Meldhe, that might have been a dream, too,” she said softly.

“I wrote something in someone else’s hand,” he said, knowing it sounded quite mad. “It was a warning against that thing, I think, against something evil come into the mountain.”

“Who do you think was warning you?”

“Kauron,” he said. “I think he’s helped me before, on the way here. Maybe before that. And these Black Marys—I’ve had those before, too.

“I know,” she said. “More and more often. Almost every night now. But not usually so violent.” He nodded and took another sip of the tea, then noticed something.

“What happened to the side of your face?” he asked.

She turned away, but it was too late to hide the red mark that by the morning would be starting to purple. “I did that?” he asked.

“You did not mean to.”

“That’s no excuse!” he cried. “Saints, Zemlé, I’ve hurt you.”

“You were in a terror. You didn’t know me.”

“That’s…“ He reached forward, “I’m so sorry,” he said.

He was afraid she would flinch, but she let him touch her face.

“I know,” she said. “Believe me, if I thought you did it on purpose, you would know it.” She touched his arm lightly as she said it. “Now, tell me more. About today.”

“I found the journal.”

“The journal. Virgenya Dare’s journal?” Her voice pitched up.

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“In the shelves, like any other book. I thought it would be hidden away in a secret compartment, but I just happened upon it.”

“That was lucky.”

He shook his head. “I don’t think it was luck. I think I was led to it. I started reading it, and when I stopped, I found that I had been writing.”

“And that was a warning about something come into the mountain.”

“Yes. And not to tell anyone about finding the journal.”

“Which you just did,” she pointed out.

“Well, yes. But if I can’t trust you…”

The remainder of the thought cloyed before it reached his tongue.

“What?” she asked softly. “Do you think you’ve made a mistake?”

He stared at her for a moment, then stood and paced across the room, hands folded behind his back. Maybe he had.

“Stephen. Talk to me.”

He turned. “When we first met, you told me you had attended a coven. A coven not sanctioned by the Church.”

“And you didn’t believe me.”

“I believe you now. Tell me about it.”

Her face went blank. “This whole time you’ve never asked me about that. Why now?”

“Why now? A very good question. You talked me into coming here. No woman has ever shown all that much interest in me, but you were kissing me the first night we met. That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

“Stop it, Stephen,” she cautioned. “Don’t walk that trail. Think. Why are you suddenly so angry with me?”

“I’m not angry,” he said. “But it wouldn’t be the first time you kissed a man to—”

“Stop it right there,” she said. “You don’t want to say that.”

You slept with Hespero, his mind urged him to continue, but part of him knew she was right, and so he stopped.

“Sorry,” he said.

She nodded. “You’re not entirely wrong,” she said. “I wanted to win your trust. But I kissed you because I wished to. Maybe no one was ever attracted to you before, but more likely you were too inexperienced to see it. I am bolder than most women, Stephen. I don’t wait for the things I want.” He sat on a stool and passed his palm across his eyes.

“I know,” he said. “I know. I told you there’s something wrong with me.” He looked straight at her then and saw a tear on her cheek.

“Look,” he sighed. “When you met me, you had an interest in all of this. You may have liked me, but you still had an agenda. And you weren’t working alone. Zemlé, I need to know who you work for. If the coven isn’t the place to start…”

“It is,” she said. “It’s the place to start.”

“Well, then please start.”

She wiped the tear away and pulled the covers about her like a cloak.

“It was the Coven Saint Dare,” she said.

“As in Virgenya Dare.”

“Yes.”

“Go on.”

“You know that Virgenya Dare unlocked the secret of the sedos power and used it to defeat the Skasloi. You know that she ruled the first Kingdom of Man and that one day she walked away from it and never came back.”

“Everyone knows that story.”

“It’s easiest to start there, Stephen, because here is where the story my coven tells is different from the one your Church does. According to canon, Virgenya left the throne to her husband, and it was he who founded the Church and became the first Fratrex Prismo, Niro Promom.”

“You dispute that?”

“My order does, yes. According to our teachings, Saint Dare had a council of four women and two men known as the vhatii. She left them in charge when she vanished. For half a century, the majority of highest officials of the Church were women.”

“The Revesturi told me a similar tale,” Stephen said. “Except they mention only one woman ruling, like a fratrex.”

“That’s true. When the vhatii finally understood that Saint Dare would never return, they elected a mater prisma, because Virgenya taught that a woman must rule the church.”

“Why a woman?”

Zemlé frowned. “I don’t know. The sisters believed that women rule with more mercy, but I can’t recall any text that says that. Doesn’t the journal say?”

“I haven’t gotten that far. She’s still a girl, a Skasloi slave.”

“How can you resist skipping to the end?”

“It’s in cipher, and the cipher changes as I go along. Besides, I don’t want to miss anything.” “Well, read faster.”

“I will. Go on with what you were saying.”

“The arrangment didn’t sit well with some of the men, but the older generation respected Virgenya’s wishes. But eventually a mater prisma was elected who was really little more than the mistress of a powerful sacritor named Irjomen. She died soon after—murdered, probably—and he assumed the title of Fratrex Prismo. The vhatii objected, and war followed, but Irjomen had been planning his rebellion for some time. The loyal were slain, the male vhatii joined the fratrex, and the women fled into exile. Women were eliminated from all positions of power, and the covens where they once had been trained became their only homes in the Church. Certain covens remained true and were destroyed or went into hiding. Mine was one such coven.”

“And your mission is to bring women back to power in the Church?”

“No. The church is hopelessly corrupt. Our mission was to watch the heirs of Virgenya Dare until the arrival of the next Born Queen, the woman who will re-create the Church, remake the world, and set all right.”

“Anne Dare?”

“So my coven believes. When the sedos throne emerges, she must take its power and rule.”

“But what has that to do with me?”

“You’re supposed to find the throne,” she replied. “Her throne. And keep him from claiming it.” “Him? Who would that be? The Blood Knight? The Demon Lord you mentioned when we first met?”

“The Vhelny is your great enemy, Stephen. He wants to destroy the world, all of it and everyone in it. But there is another foe, a man who would claim the sedos throne for himself.”

“Hespero.”

“That’s what I think,” she replied.

“Well, Fend says he’s found Hespero and is off after him. If that’s true, we won’t have to worry about him much longer. But if he’s lying, if he’s gone to join forces with him…”

“If he was going to do that, why wouldn’t he have done it months ago instead of battling him?” “Maybe they needed me to find the journal. Maybe the battle was a ruse to make me feel safe and in charge. Maybe Fend is stark raving mad. That wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

“Or maybe, as some of the legends say, the Blood Knight is your servant and ally,” she said.

He nodded. “That’s his claim.”

“The thing in the mountain—suppose that’s the Vhelny? What if it’s here, watching, waiting?”

She paled. “I hadn’t considered it. I’ve thought of all of this as prophecy for so long, as an ancient and distant thing. In my mind’s eye, the Vhelny would come like a dragon, all flame and shadow, not sneak about like a thief. But no tale or legend describes him.” She rubbed her forehead. “Saints, it’s likely, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, reaching for his clothes.

“Where are you going?”

“To read more of the journal. Virgenya Dare found this place. She walked the faneway I’m supposed to walk. Let’s see what she has to say about it.”

SLAVES HAVE SECRETS, AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM, THIS CIPHER. WILL AND I INVENTED IT TO WRITE EACH OTHER. WILL’S MASTER MAKES LEAD TISSUE, AND SO HE FINDS IT IN PLENTY.

WILL’S MASTER BROUGHT HIM HERE WHEN I WAS TWELVE, BY MY FATHER’S RECKONING. THEY PUT US IN A ROOM TOGETHER, AND WE KNEW WHAT WE WERE SUPPOSED TO DO. THE MASTERS WERE WATCHING, BUT THEY COULDN’T HEAR WHEN WILL WHISPERED AND TOLD ME IT WOULD BE OKAY. HE WHISPERED A LOT ABOUT HOW OUR FATHERS KNEW EACH OTHER, ABOUT WHERE HE LIVED. IT HELPED ME FORGET WHAT WAS GOING ON AND HOW SCARED I WAS. AFTER THAT I WASN’T SCARED. I LOOKED FORWARD TO OUR WHISPERED CONVERSATIONS. IT WAS LIKE MY BODY WASN’T THERE AT ALL. WILL STARTED TEACHING ME THE SECRET LANGUAGE THE SLAVES IN HIS FORTRESS HAVE, AND I MADE UP THESE LETTERS FOR IT. WE PASS EACH OTHER NOTES WHEN WE MEET. I’LL SEE HIM AGAIN NEXT WHEN THE MOON IS FULL.

I DIDN’T BLEED THIS MONTH, AND WILL DIDN’T COME. THE MASTER SAYS I WILL HAVE A YOUNGLING. THE HOUSE SLAVES TELL ME THAT A LOT OF WOMEN DIE WHEN THEY DO THAT. I DON’T WANT TO DIE, BUT I AM OFTEN SICK. MY FATHER SAID WE ESCAPE THE MASTER WHEN WE DIE. I WONDER IF THAT IS TRUE.

I HAVE SEEN WILL AGAIN. THEY RACED HIM, WITH FIFTY OTHERS. THEY DROVE THEM WITH CHARIOTS, AND IF ANY FELL, THEY CUT THEM TO PIECES. WILL RAN HARD; THEY DIDN’T CATCH HIM. MY MASTER KEPT ME CHAINED AT THE FRONT OF HIS FLYING BARGE, SO I WOULD HAVE TO WATCH HIM, BUT I DIDN’T WANT TO LOOK AWAY. TWO DAYS THEY RAN, WITHOUT SLEEPING OR EATING. BY THE END OF THE SECOND DAY, ONLY THREE WERE LEFT, AND ONE OF THEM WAS WILL. I WAS SO PROUD OF HIM. I WAS PROUD TO HAVE HIS DAUGHTER IN MY BELLY. SIX MOONS HAVE WAXED AND WANED. MY BELLY IS LARGE, AND THE MASTER HAS TAKEN ME TO THE MOUNTAIN FORTRESS FOR THE REST OF MY PREGNANCY. IT IS A HABIT FROM THE OLD DAYS, WHEN MASTERS COULD HAVE CHILDREN. I HAD NOT SEEN MOUNTAINS BEFORE, AND I LOVE THEM. THEY MAKE ME THINK STRANGE, LOVELY THOUGHTS. AND THERE IS SOMETHING IN THE FORTRESS, OR DEEP BELOW IT, SOMETHING THAT MAKES MY BELLY TINGLE AND SOMETIMES SETS MY TEETH ON EDGE.

I HAD A DREAM LAST NIGHT. I DREAMED I WAS A MOUNTAIN, AND MY FEET PULLED LOOSE OF THE EARTH, AND I WALKED, CRUSHING EVERYTHING BENEATH ME. I CRUSHED THE MASTER. WHEN I WOKE, I WAS FRIGHTENED HE WOULD FIND OUT AND PUNISH ME, BUT HE DIDN’T. I ALWAYS THOUGHT HE COULD SEE MY DREAMS. HE HAS TOLD ME WHAT I DREAMED BEFORE. BUT THIS DREAM WAS DIFFERENT. I THINK SOMEHOW THE MOUNTAINS HAVE TAUGHT ME HOW TO DREAM IN SECRET. THAT WOULD BE NICE.

IT HURT, JUST AS THEY SAID IT WOULD. IT HURT SO MUCH, I ALREADY CAN’T IMAGINE THE PAIN. AND THERE WAS BLOOD, A LOT OF IT. EVERYTHING WENT DARK, AND I THOUGHT I HAD DIED AND WAS IN A STRANGE PLACE. THERE WERE TWO RIVERS THERE, A BRIGHT BLUE-GREEN STREAM AND A BLACK ONE. I STOOD WITH A FOOT IN EACH, AND I WAS TALL, LIKE A MOUNTAIN. I WAS TERRIBLE. THEN I WOKE, AND THERE WAS MY DAUGHTER, AND I FINALLY UNDERSTOOD WHAT MY FATHER MEANT BY THE WORD “LOVE.”

I WON’T WRITE WHAT THEY DID. I WILL NOT. IT IS DONE. But I’m going to kill them. I’m going to kill all of them.

Stephen gasped and pulled his fingers away as the lead scrift was suddenly too hot to touch. The purest hatred he had ever felt scalded through him, so uncontainable in its fury that he found himself shrieking. And as that awful rage trembled through him, he turned and caught a motion from the verge of his eye. He spun to find a boiling, kinetic darkness like black oil poured in water and almost a shape. Then his gaze rejected it and turned his head away, and when he was able to look again, it was gone.

The anger burned away as quickly as it had come, replaced by shivering fear. He sat, quaking, for long moments, his brain refusing to tell him what to do. Where was the thing? Was it still here, perhaps a fingers-breadth from him, hiding in the air itself, waiting to strike?

You don’t have to be afraid, a voice whispered. You never have to be afraid again.

“Shut up,” Stephen muttered, rubbing his shaking hands together.

It took a long time for him to manage to stand, and when he did, his body felt light enough to blow away on the wind.

He flipped through the journal until he found what he was looking for.

A little later he heard a slight scuffing and saw that Zemlé was watching him from the stairwell. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

He closed his eyes. “Enough,” he said. “Enough.”

“What?”

“Call Adhrekh. I’ll start walking the faneway. Tonight.”

10 Three Thrones

Aspar shifted his grip on the knife a bit and licked his dry lips. He’d heard—or thought he’d heard—something coming through the dense bottomland forest, but now all he could make out was the rushing of the stream and the scraping of branches in low wind.

But then, behind him, he caught the faintest hiss of fabric on wood and whipped around to face whatever it was.

He found himself staring down an arrow shaft at Leshya’s violet eyes.

“Sceat,” he muttered, sagging against the rough, twisty bark of a willow.

“I took the longer way down,” she explained.

“Yah.”

She glanced at the corpse of the utin. “You’re still alive,” she said.

“Yah.”

“I’ve lived a long time, Aspar White, and been almost everywhere. But you, my friend, are unique.” She shook her head. “Any open wounds need stopping? Broken bones?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I noticed a rock shelter not far from here. Let’s go there and take a look.”

He nodded wearily.

He winced as her fingers prodded the tissue of his leg, but actually it almost felt good, like sore muscles after a hard hike.

“Well, you didn’t break it again,” she said.

“Well, Grim must love me, then,” he said.

“If he loves anyone, I’d say so,” she replied. “Now let’s have your shirt off.”

He didn’t feel like he was capable of doing much more than raising his arms, but she shucked it off with a few sharp tugs. He felt a jagged pain in his side.

“Need a bath,” she said.

“Sefry bathe too much,” he replied. “Unhealthy habit.”

“But we smell good,” she said.

In fact, she smelled of sweat and leather, and it did smell good.

“Ah, there’s a home for gangrene,” she said.

Aspar looked down and saw a ragged but not particularly deep cut on his ribs. Blood had glued his jerkin to the wound, which was what he’d felt when she had dishabilled him.

He took deep breaths and tried to stay relaxed as she cleaned out the gash with water and then pressed some sort of unguent from her haversack into the cut.

“You saved my life,” she said, her voice sounding oddly soft.

“Yah. You’ve saved mine a time or two.”

“You’re important, Aspar. You’re worth saving.”

Without thinking, he caught her hand. “You’re worth saving, too,” he said.

Her startled gaze met his and settled there, and he felt a sort of jolt, and in an instant he was gazing into the deepest forest in the world, more impossible to enter than the Sarnwood, even less possible to leave. He felt beaten, and happy to be beaten, happy to finally go home.

He saw the path in for perhaps ten heartbeats, and then the trees closed ranks. She pulled her hand away, and he knew that if she had just squeezed his fingers, he would have acted foolishly.

Sceat, he thought. At a time like this he was thinking about women? Two of them? Was he seventeen? “I don’t think we have all that long,” Aspar said. “The utin said Fend sent him. If Fend is leading that motley up above—”

“He is the Blood Knight, then.”

“Yah, whatever the sceat that means.”

“I’ll tell you, I promise. But right now we need to go. And quietly.”

“Soon,” he said.

“Soon.”

The valley narrowed to the point where they were always on a slope. Aspar’s leg ached even with the new crutch Leshya had cut him, and as the way turned more and more downhill, his knees began to hurt as well.

In the back of his mind he’d always reckoned that after a while he’d be back to his old self, but now he was starting to wonder. He was past forty winters, and at his age, when things broke, they didn’t necessarily get fixed.

They came at last to steep, shallow shoals with nothing but cliffs on either side.

“We’ll be getting wet,” Leshya said.

They went down basically sitting, letting their boots find the rocks. The mountain water already had winter in it, and before they were a third of the way down, Aspar’s extremities were numb. Halfway, his boot slipped and the current got control of him, sweeping him down until he lodged hard against a log. The sky was wider there. Two white-tailed eagles turned high above. Treetops peered down at him from the gorge’s rim.

It’s still alive here, he thought. Despite the monsters. Why should I go back to the King’s Forest, where everything is dead? Why not stay here, fight, die, sink into the earth?

It was only when something struck him across the face that he realized there was water in his mouth and lungs. His body understood then, and he started hacking it up in long, painful coughs.

“Get up,” Leshya said. “You’re not done, Aspar White.”

They made it the rest of the way down, and he took a few minutes to finish clearing his lungs. “Sceat,” he managed weakly.

“You’ve got to help me more than this, Aspar,” Leshya said. “You’ve got to try harder.”

“Sceat on you,” he muttered, and for a moment he wanted to kill her just for seeing him like this. It was the most humiliating thing he could imagine.

Up until now, at least. Now he could envision more worlds waiting for him as the years crept by. Why, there was Winna, still young enough to bear children, rolling him over to change the linens under him, the ones he’d just soiled…

He pushed himself up with the crutch, then threw it away.

“Let’s go,” he said.

The valley broadened out into a gentle, ferny glen where the warmth of the sun took the chill from his bones. Dragonflies whirred over the water and its sedge of horsetails. Snakes and turtles lazily quit their perches as the two travelers neared them. The cliffs became slopes, and trees walked down them; soon they were able to move out of the marsh and travel on drier ground.

He also began seeing more signs of man. Some of the forest bore old farming terraces, and they passed several hunting shelters. The rinn was joined by several others, and some had the scent of manure in them.

He felt the geos of the Sarnwood in his belly, cold, waiting. Who would it be?

All the while, the terrain turned them south.

It was getting dark when they heard dogs and smelled smoke. Soon they saw, on a rise some distance from the stream, a fenced yard and a large cabin built of split cypress.

To Aspar’s relief, Leshya gestured away from that and upslope, where in time the trees thinned into pasture. The stars began to appear, although the sun was barely gone behind the mountain they just had come down from. Aspar found himself looking back often, and once something caught his eye. He thought at first that it was a bat, but then he kenned he’d misunderstood the distance; if it was a bat, it was a very big one.

He suddenly felt like a hare on a broad plain.

“Ah,” Leshya said. He found her staring at the thing as it vanished into shadow.

“Any ideas what that might be?”

“No. But I reckon we’d better sleep in tonight.”

“Go back down to the cabin?”

“No. This is winter pasture. There ought to be something up here.”

She was proved right before the darkness was total; they found a small sod house in good repair. It was even sparely furnished with firewood, a cooking pot, a cask of somewhat weevily oats, and a little dried meat. Cobwebs testified that all of it was from the last season.

They didn’t build a fire, and so the oats stayed where they were, but the dried meat proved hard to resist, thievery though it was.

“Blood Knight,” Aspar said as he lay back on a straw mat and pulled the ragged bits of a blanket over his legs.

“Right,” she said.

He couldn’t see her at all in the darkness. “And you can throw in as a bargain where you got this witchy knife.”

“That’s easier,” she said. “I found it on a dead man back at the mountain. One of Hespero’s men.” “Where are they getting those things?”

“Old places,” she said. “There were once quite a lot of them.”

“When your folk ruled the world.”

“When we were being beaten by yours,” she replied. “The fey weapons were forged by humans. Virgenya Dare found the knowledge of their making. The Skasloi wouldn’t use such weapons.”

“Why?”

“Because they draw on the sedos power. The Skasloi wouldn’t have anything to do with that.”

“Why?”

She sighed. “You know we don’t really write things down, we Sefry. But we live a long time. Seventy generations have come and gone for your kind since you won your freedom. But my mother was born four hundred years ago, and her mother was born six hundred before that. Three more generations back—”

“You were Skasloi. Yah.”

“So our memories are better. But there’s still a lot we don’t know. Things our ancestors intentionally didn’t pass on and others they may have lied about. So understand that everything I’m about to tell you might not be true.”

“I grew up with Sefry, remember? I know a thing or two about their lies.”

She shrugged. “We couldn’t have survived all of these centuries without a talent for dissembling. If we had been found out—if the Mannish races ever knew what we really were—we would have been slaughtered.”

“Yah,” Aspar said drily. “I reckon.”

“Anyway, what I was getting to. My ancestors did use the sedos power once. But they discovered that using it isn’t without cost. Each time it’s drawn on, it leaves a poison behind it. The pollution builds up over time like dead fish in a stream, and things begin to die. Almost everything died once, before my ancestors understood the consequences of the sedos power and forswore its use.”

“But the Skasloi were supposed to be demons, with lots of strange shinecrafting.”

“The Skasloi had magicks, yes. They found another source of power, one without the same ill effects as the sedos. But by that time the world was a wasteland. They discovered a way beyond the lands of fate to another place, an otherwhere, and they brought plants to make the world green again. They brought animals, too, and in time they brought your people.”

“To use as slaves.”

“Pets at first. Curiosities. But eventually slaves, yes.”

“Until the pets found the sedos power.”

“Exactly.”

A thought struck him. “So the monsters, the black thorns, the things destroying the world—that’s from using the sedos power?”

“Yes. You told me about the boar you saw in the Sarnwood, how it gave birth to a greffyn. The sedhmhari are born from natural things poisoned by sedos power. Some say they are shadows of the elder beasts that walked the world before the great dying, the ancient life trying to push through the new, but tainted by the venom of the sedos.”

He remembered the Sarnwood again, the strange plants that grew in its heart. “The Sarnwood witch,” he murmured.

“We don’t know what she is, but she is very, very old. Older maybe than my race.”

“She’s from the old forest. The one your people destroyed. The one my forest replaced.”

“Maybe,” she said cautiously. “As I said, we don’t know much about her.”

“What does she want?”

“We don’t know.”

Aspar nodded, but he had an idea he already knew. If he was the witch of the Sarnwood, he knew what he would want.

“What’s all this got to do with Fend?”

“That’s another legend, a prophecy, really. There are seasons larger than the ones you know, seasons that last hundreds and thousands of years. The powers—we call them thrones—of the world wax and wane with those seasons. When Virgenya Dare found the sedos power, it was strong. But over time it weakened, and the other thrones waxed, bringing on the Warlock Wars and all sorts of havoc. But now the sedoi swell very powerful, more powerful than ever. They say that whoever controls the sedos throne at its peak will be able to subjugate the other thrones forever and end the long, slow change of seasons.” “And these other powers—these thrones—what are they?”

“There are only three. The sedos we’ve been talking about. The second is the power your folk call shinecraft and witchcraft, and it comes from the abyss beneath the world. It makes unlikely things likely and the certain impossible. It can bring a rain of fire from heaven or stop water freezing even though it is bitter cold. It brings things together that belong apart and pushes things apart that belong together. That was the throne the Skasloi mastered, and after them the warlocks. We called that throne the Xhes throne.”

“And the third power?”

“That’s the one you’ve felt in your bones every day of your life, Aspar White. Generation and decay. Death and birth. The energy that makes life into dirt and dirt into life. We called that throne the Vhen throne.”

“The Briar King’s throne.”

“Not anymore,” she said softly.

“Because Fend killed him. Why did he do that?”

“According to the elders, the master of the Xhes throne is a creature we know as the Vhelny, a demon. The Blood Knight is said to be his servant. He is the foe of the masters of the other thrones.” “So now that he’s slain the Briar King, he’ll go after the sedos throne. Who is the master of that?” “No one. The Church has used the sedos power, but the throne hasn’t been occupied since the time of Virgenya Dare. But it will be soon. That’s what all of this is about.”

“The Briar King was fighting the sedos power.”

“Of course. It was destroying his forest.”

“But the Xhes throne wasn’t, yah? So it seems like he and this Vhelny should be allies against the sedos throne when it rises. Why kill the Briar King now?”

“Because the Vhelny wants all the thrones, of course.”

“Ah,” Aspar murmured, rubbing his forehead. He wished he could see Leshya’s face, but he knew he still wouldn’t be able to tell if she was having him on.

“You don’t know how much of this is pure sceat?” he finally said.

“Not really,” she said. “You asked, and I told you what I know. I’ve never lied to you, have I?” “Knowing all this and not mentioning it earlier is very much like a lie, I maun,” he replied.

“To have told you earlier, I would have had to tell you what the Sefry really are. After that, you wouldn’t have listened to anything I said. But after Fend let the secret slip, and after all the time we’ve been together…”

“You reckoned I’d be more gullible.”

“I didn’t ask you to believe it,” she snapped.

“Yah,” he muttered, waving at the darkness. “So Fend’s after me because he works for the Vhelny thing and he’s afraid the Briar King might have told me something or other.”

“Either that or Fend’s just using his power to indulge a personal vendetta. You did take one of his eyes.” “Not a lot of love between us,” Aspar admitted. “Not much at all.”

“Any other questions?” Leshya asked, her voice sounding stiff.

“Yah,” he said. “Just what are you hoping the Briar King passed on to me?”

She nodded and was still for a long moment. “We made the Briar King,” she finally said.

“What?”

“The Skasloi. The Xhes and sedos thrones existed before any history I know. We may have created them, or some elder race, but we believe they were created.”

“I thought the saints created the sedoi.”

“Not the saints as your people worship them. We simply don’t know. But the Vhen—the essence of life and death—that was in everything, and it had no throne, no being that controlled it. After we brought the world back from the brink of death, the Skasloi decided that the Vhen needed its own guardian, its own focus. So they created the Briar King—or, more specifically, they created the Vhenkherdh, the heart of life, and from that he was born.”

“And you hope he told me where that place is?”

“Did he?”

“No.”

But suddenly he did know.

She saw it on his face. “You’ve been there. That’s why you want to go back. Not to just die there.” “It’s only a feeling,” he said.

“Of course. I’ve been stupid. He wouldn’t have put a map in your hand.”

“But he’s dead. What can we do now?”

“Without his protection, everything will die. But if he is reborn, we might have a chance.”

“You think that’s possible?”

“I don’t know. But it’s something, isn’t it?”

“Then why haven’t you been in more of a hurry to leave?”

“Because I think you’re the key to whatever must happen, and I didn’t want you to die before you knew where to go or die on the journey from starting too early.”

“Well,” he said. “Well. I need to chew on all of this for a while.”

“Fine. Shall I take first watch?”

“I’ll take it.”

She didn’t say anything else, but he heard the rustle of her situating herself. He suddenly felt heavy and stupid. He listened to her breathing.

“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t always mean to be like I am. I just—I like things simple.”

“I know,” she replied.

He went outside. The stars were out, but the moon was no more than a faint glow in the west. He studied the sky, watching for something dark moving against the constellations, straining his ears for any distant warning.

The Aitivar had been mounted. If they stayed that way, they would have to go back up and out of the pass and wind their way here. That could put them far behind, but if he really had seen some sort of flying beast…

But he didn’t see or hear anything, so he let his thoughts wander ahead. Tomorrow they ought to be out of the hills and into the river plain of the White Warlock. If they were where he thought they were, another day or two would get them to Haemeth, where he’d left Winna and Ehawk.

But if he was dragging a war band of monsters after him, was that really what he wanted to do? What did he want to do?

That hardly mattered, did it? Because he would have to do what the Sarnwood witch had geosed him to do.

He hadn’t told Leshya about that, had he? Why?

He didn’t have the answers, and if the stars and the wind did, they weren’t telling. And so his watch passed, and then he slept.

The next morning he and Leshya marched across the Fells, hugging the thin tree lines that followed streams for cover, keeping their thoughts to themselves. But at midday they were working their way down the last line of leans, and he caught a glimpse of the Warlock in the distance before they slipped beneath the comforting branches of a small wood. There wasn’t much old growth. Wood was cut here, and often. Mannish trails were everywhere. Still, it kept them out from under the sky, at least for a little while.

But after about a bell, things went quiet—all the birds, even the jays—and a shadow passed. Aspar looked up and caught a glimpse of something big.

“Sceat,” he said.

They crouched beneath huckleberry bushes and waited for it to return, but instead, after a moment, Aspar heard a shriek. Without a thought, he suddenly found himself running and wondering why.

“Aspar!” Leshya snapped, but he ignored her.

He bounded down a series of old terraces and broke into a clearing, and there was the thing, gleaming black and green, its wings folding down as its claws came to earth. But in that terrible moment, that was not what held his attention. It was Winna, coming shakily to her feet next to a fallen horse, her eyes wide, a knife in her outstretched hand.

She was in profile, and so he could see the round bulge of her belly.

11 A Challenge

The Hansan knight stepped nearer, and Neil tried to keep his hand off Battlehound’s hilt. A hush settled over the room, more profound by far than the earlier pause in the revelry that had greeted his lady. “Sir Alareik,” Neil acknowledged. “We’ve met before, it’s true. I can’t recall any unfinished business between us.”

“Don’t you? The Moonfish Inn at the docks in Eslen?”

“I remember,” Neil said. “I was Sir Fail’s squire, and he sent me to ask you to dine with us. You refused.”

“You insulted me. Since you were a squire, honor forbade me taking the field against you. That is no longer the case.”

It didn’t stop you sending three of your squires to ambush me in the stables, Neil remembered, but he didn’t think it best to bring that up.

In fact, before he could reply at all, Aradal broke in.

“Sir Alareik, this man is a member of an embassy and therefore a guest of our king. You will treat him with all the respect that comes with that position. Whatever grievance you have with him can be settled later.”

“I’ll not attack him out of hand,” the Wishilm knight replied. “But there’s nothing in the old code that says he can’t agree to meet me with honor. There’s no law in the world that forces a man to hide behind skirts and pretty words rather than step out and take arms like a knight. Well, maybe in Crotheny that’s how they do things, but I’d rather think that even there knights are knights.”

A general mutter went up at that, and a few shouts of agreement. Neil sighed.

“Sir Neil,” Muriele whispered in Lierish.

“It’s too late,” he replied in the same tongue. “I can’t refuse this.”

“You certainly can,” she said. “Your injuries—”

“Don’t matter, Majesty. Don’t you see? It’s not the insult to me that’s the problem; it’s the insult to you and to Crotheny. If we’re weak here, we’ll be weak before Marcomir. There’s no helping it.”

“Nonsense. We just show we won’t be distracted from our purpose. You’re not that wise in politics yet, Sir Neil.”

“Maybe not, but I know men of war, Majesty. I know knights, and I know Hansans.”

“What’s your mother say there, sir knight?” Sir Alareik shouted to general laughter.

Muriele lifted a glare at the man. “You’ve no manners, sir,” she replied. “You’re no better than a beast. You’ve interrupted a perfectly fine evening in the most boorish manner possible.”

“I’ve approached your knight in an honorable way, Your Majesty,” he replied. “Which is more than I can say about how he dealt with my poor squires, whom he set upon from hiding. What sort of satisfaction can I have if I can’t fight him?”

To Neil, Muriele seemed to pause for an instant.

“Oh, you can fight him,” she replied. “I was only pleading with him to spare your life when the moment comes.”

The Wishilm knight’s brow arched in surprise, and then he smiled. But Neil saw something in the man’s eyes. It looked like worry.

He thought I would refuse, Neil realized. He doesn’t want to fight me.

“Shall we wait for the sun?” Neil asked. “Or would you rather have it now?”

“The morning is fine,” Alareik replied. “On the green. Mounted or not?”

“Your choice,” Neil replied. “I don’t care.”

Alareik stood there for a moment.

“Was there something else?” Muriele asked.

“No, Majesty,” the Wishilm knight replied. He bowed awkwardly and vanished into the crowd. The music struck up again, and the rest of the evening was all beer, food, and song.

Neil lifted himself from bed after the midnight bell tolled. He put on his gambeson, took up Battlehound, and made his way back down to the great hall and through its doors to the dark street. He took the sword and made a few passes, trying not to wince at how weak the arm felt. An arrow had struck him from above, piercing bone and muscle, and even after the head finally had been withdrawn, fever had nested there for more than a nineday.

Experimentally, he shifted to a left-favoring hold, but that was worse, because the muscles in his upper arm seized into a ball of pain. He’d taken a spear there, and the blade had cut one of the tendons that attached muscle to bone. Apparently those didn’t grow back.

He saw something move from the corner of his eye and found a silhouette watching him. Not surprisingly, the shadow had a familiar hulking shape.

“Good evening, Everwulf af Gastenmarka,” Neil said. “Come to do your master’s dirty work again?” He couldn’t see the face, but the head moved from side to side.

“I’m much ashamed of that,” the man growled. “You taught me a proper lesson that night. You could have killed me, but you didn’t.”

“You were never in danger of that,” Neil said.

“Ney, nor was I ever in danger of beating you,” the fellow said, “not even with my friends to help me.” “I was lucky.”

“Oh, no. I was there. And who hasn’t heard of the battle on Thornrath? You butchered our men there, and one of them was Slautwulf Thvairheison. You’ve made a large reputation in a small time.”

“It’s the past, Everwulf. No need for you to worry over it.”

“Oh, but there is. My lord sent us after you, do you understand? To punish you and affront Sir Fail de Liery. And when you beat us, two of us quit him and went in search of more honorable masters. That’s the humiliation that stings him now, that forces this fight, even with you injured.”

“What makes him think I’m injured?”

“The battle for the waerd is famous, Sir Neil. And the tale says that you were bleeding from six wounds and lay three months abed. That’s not long enough, Sir Neil. You can’t be fully mended.”

“It is if I didn’t really bleed from six wounds,” he replied.

“His squires watched you approach. Do you really think he would fight you if he didn’t think you were infirm?”

“I think he thought I would back down, and now he isn’t sure I’m injured at all.”

“Yah. I’m sure you’re right there. He’s trembling. But he’s challenged you in public. He’ll fight you.” “There’s no talking him out of it?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ll fight him, then.”

Everwulf’s voice dropped a bit lower. “Rumor is your legs are good, that your worst injuries were to shoulder and arm. If that were me, I would choose to fight on foot. Quick feet can make up for a slow arm, and I know you have quick feet.”

“Thank you,” Neil said.

“May the Ansus favor you,” Everwulf replied, taking a step back. He paused, then turned and walked quickly off.

“Well, that was interesting,” another voice murmured from the darkness, this one feminine. Heat flashed through Neil’s veins, and he lifted his blade before recognizing the voice.

“Lady Berrye,” he acknowledged.

“You might as well call me Alis,” she replied softly.

“You were here for all of that?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Shouldn’t you be guarding the queen?”

“I am,” she replied.

“By watching after me?”

“I never thought she ought to be on this fool’s errand in the first place,” Berrye said, “and I think it was a mistake to bring you. The embassy is hardly under way, and already you’ve endangered it just by being who you are. Every knight between here and Kaithbaurg is going to want to fight you.”

“I know,” Neil replied.

“Well, then put a stop to it now. Admit your injuries and withdraw.”

For a moment Neil honestly thought she was joking, but then her tone registered.

“That’s impossible,” he said. “That’s what Sir Alareik wants.”

“Yes. It’s what I want, too.”

“Is this the queen’s word?”

“No. She bleeds the same hot island blood you do, and you convinced her. I think she really believes you will win.”

“And you don’t?”

“You can barely move your sword arm. Even a little exertion leaves you gasping.”

“Well, then I’ll lose,” Neil said. “That’s still better than not fighting.”

“You’re her champion. If you fight and fall, it weakens her. If you refuse to fight, it shows she’s really determined to carry out this embassy, to avoid distraction, that she has you under control.” “If she orders me to withdraw, I will.”

“She won’t.”

“She won’t because you’re wrong,” Neil replied. “Anything I do other than fight and win will weaken her. So I’ll fight and I’ll win.”

“That’s pure genius,” Berrye said, her voice larded with sarcasm.

He didn’t see much point in replying, and after a moment she sighed.

“Very well. This fellow you just spoke to—was he really trying to help you? If you chose to fight on foot, won’t that just let Wishilm know about the trouble with your arms?”

“Probably. But I don’t think Everwulf came to trick me.”

“Why, then?”

“To make his peace with me and tell me good-bye.”

“You can still stop this,” Alis murmured.

Muriele nodded absently. The sun was breaking through the mist, crowning the poplars and firs at the edge of the green, which lay on the eastern outskirts of town. It wasn’t, of course, very green but rather an expanse of muddy ground churned up by horses and wagons, soldiers practicing, and children playing games. There were bits of grass here and there, but on balance Muriele thought it probably ought to be called a “brown.”

There was no seating as such, although a chair had been provided for her. Everyone else—and it really did look as if it might be everyone in town—was standing or squatting around the perimeter, waiting expectantly. The Wishilm knight was already on the field, his suit of lord’s plate beginning to pick up the gleam of the rising sun. Neil hadn’t appeared yet.

“He’ll be killed,” Alis pursued.

“He’s a knight,” she replied.

“A badly injured knight. A knight the leics said should never fight again. A knight you brought along to ease into less martial professions.”

“He will be of no use to me if I allow Hansa to brand him a coward,” Muriele said.

“I cannot believe you are so cold,” Alis said.

Muriele felt a flare of anger but let it flicker down.

“I love that boy,” she said after a moment. “He has more heart and soul than any man I have ever known, and I owe him more than I can possibly say. But he is from Skern, Alis. I could make him turn from this, but it would wither him. It would destroy him. For a man like him, death is better.”

“So you send him to his death?”

Muriele forced a little laugh. “You did not see him at Cal Azroth,” she said.

The crowd suddenly erupted in cheers and heckling that were nearly matched, and Muriele wondered if Neil’s hounds were from the south part of town and his ravens from the north. But nothing about Bitaenstath seemed so neatly divided.

Neil wore armor easily as bright as Sir Alareik’s. It should have been: It never had been worn before. His last harness had had to be cut from him after the battle of the waerd. The new armor was very plain, made in the style of the islands, without ornamentation, formed for battle and not for court.

He was mounted as Wishilm was, but something about the way he sat seemed strange.

Alis caught it first. “He’s got it in his left,” she said.

That was it. Neil had his lance couched under his left arm. His shield rested heavily on his right. “That doesn’t make sense,” she said. That puts point against point. His shield is useless; it’s on the wrong side of the horse.”

“The same is true for Wishilm,” Alis pointed out.

“What is this?” Sir Alareik muttered as they raised visors. “You’ve got your spear in the wrong hand.” “It’s the hand I want it in,” Neil shot back.

“It isn’t done.”

“You challenged me, and yet I let you choose the place and the weapons. Now you’re going to begrudge how I choose to wield my spear?”

“This is some trick. It won’t work.”

Neil shook his head. “It’s not a trick,” he said. “My right arm is hurt. I think you know that. I can’t hold a lance in it, and in fact I don’t think I would be able to hold a shield up to take a blow.”

Alareik’s puzzlement was plain. “Do you wish to withdraw?” he asked.

“Withdraw? No, Sir Alareik. I’m going to kill you. This isn’t a formal list; I’ll stay to your left, where your shield won’t be of any use to you. If you try to bring it around, you’ll hit your horse in the head, won’t you? So we’ll come together point to point, and I’ll drive my spear through one of your eyes, and that will be that.”

“I’ll do the same.”

Neil smiled thinly. He leaned forward, keeping his gaze fixed on the man’s smoke-blue eyes.

“I don’t care,” he whispered.

Then he turned his horse and rode for his end of the list. He reached it, turned, and waited.

He patted his horse’s neck. “I don’t care,” he confided to his mount.

The horn blew, and he gave Ohfahs the heel. His left arm was starting to hurt. If he lifted or extended it, he knew it would cramp, but it worked just fine for couching a lance. As the stallion gathered speed, he let his shield fall away, concentrating only on putting the point where he wanted it.