He moved on, touching a hand to each corpse in turn, pausing at the fourth, judging by the lines on his face the eldest of the group. “Better,” he said. “All a bit red and cloudy, but sane, after a fashion.” He looked up at Vaelin. “Does my lord have a particular point of interest? It’ll make things easier.”
“A priest,” Vaelin said. “And a lord.”
Marken nodded, placing both hands on the dead man’s head, eyes closed. He remained in the same position for several moments, unmoving, breathing soft, face placid beneath the beard. After a while Vaelin wondered if he was still present in his own body or, like Dahrena, able to fly beyond himself, except he burrowed into the mind of a corpse rather than soaring above the earth.
Eventually the big man opened his eyes with a pained grunt, moving back from the corpse, a sense of accusation in the gaze he turned on Vaelin. “My lord could’ve warned me of the nature of the thing I sought.”
“My apologies,” Vaelin replied. “Does that mean you found it?”
◆ ◆ ◆
“The hair’s a little thicker on the sides of his head,” Marken told Alornis, pointing at her sketch. “And his mouth is not so wide.”
Alornis’s charcoal stub added a few fluid strokes to the image, wetting her finger to smudge some lines. “Like this?”
“Yes.” Marken’s beard split to reveal a brace of white teeth. “My lady is the gifted one here.”
“That’s him?” Vaelin asked as Alornis handed him the sketch. It showed a broad-faced man, balding, bearded, eyes narrow. He wondered if Alornis had indulged in Master Benril’s liking for artistic licence in adding a cruel twist to the mouth.
“As close a resemblance as memory allows, my lord,” Marken said. “That’s the face of the thing’s mask all right.”
“You felt it? When you saw it in the dead man’s memory?”
“I saw it, behind the mask. We always see more than we know, but it lingers.” He tapped a stubby finger to the side of his head. “Especially when we see something we don’t really understand.”
“You have a name for this face?”
Marken’s beard ruffled in an apologetic grimace. “My gift is limited to what they see, my lord. What they hear is beyond my reach.”
Vaelin placed the sketch next to the one Alornis had already completed, showing a younger man of handsome aspect, though his sister had opined his nose and chin were a little too sharp. “And this is the priest?”
“Can’t say for sure, but he’s the one the dead man and the others deferred to. His most vivid memory, besides Snowdance bearing down on him, was of this man talking. They were on a dock somewhere, about to board ship.”
Vaelin stared at both sketches for a long time, hoping for a note from the song, hearing nothing.
“Shall I show master Marken to the meal tent?” Alornis said, breaking his concentration.
“Yes, of course.” Vaelin offered a smile of gratitude to Marken. “My thanks sir.”
“We are here to help, my lord.” The big man got to his feet with a groan, rubbing his back. “Though I wish this war had come a few years earlier.”
◆ ◆ ◆
He found Nortah at the butts they had arrayed along the riverbank. He had brought his own bow, an Eorhil weapon similar to their old Order strongbows. It seemed his skill had actually increased since their service, the shafts flying towards the target with unerring speed and precision, the other archers pausing to watch the spectacle.
“You’ve drawn an audience,” Vaelin observed.
Nortah glanced at the onlookers and sent his last arrow into the centre of the butt. “A small one. You don’t have many archers in this little army.”
“Mostly hunters and a few veteran Realm Guard from the settlements,” Vaelin acceded. “How would you like to be their captain? Perhaps pick out some likely extra hands from the recruits.”
“As my lord commands.”
“I don’t command anything from you, brother. In fact I’m sorely tempted to send you home.”
Nortah’s expression became sombre, upending his bow and resting his hands on the tip. “It wasn’t only Lohren who had a dream, brother. She just dreamt of you fighting many men with bows. She thought it so exciting. Sella . . . Sella dreamt she watched us die. Me, Lohren and Artis, and the twins yet to be born. All of us, taken, tortured and slaughtered before her eyes, as Nehrin’s Point burned. If you had heard her screams, you would know why she sent me and why I came, though I relish no part of what we are about to do.”
“Can you . . .” Vaelin hesitated then made himself say it. “Do you think you’ll still be able to kill?”
Nortah raised an eyebrow and for an instant the bearded teacher disappeared, replaced by the caustic youth with the bitter tongue. “Do you? I have a shiny new sword. Yours seems to be wrapped up and hidden from the world.”
Maybe I’m worried unsheathing it will loose something worse than an invading army. He left the thought unsaid and changed the subject. “These companions of yours. I know Weaver’s power, and I’ve seen what Marken can do. What of the other two?”
“Cara can call the rains, though you’ll want to think long and hard before asking her to do so. The effect is . . . dramatic, but the consequences unpredictable.”
“And the boy?”
“Lorkan can’t be seen.”
Vaelin frowned. “I can see him.”
Nortah just smiled. “It’s . . . difficult to explain. No doubt, before this is over there’ll be plenty of opportunity for a demonstration.”
“No doubt.” Vaelin reached out to clasp his brother’s hand, finding the grip strong, and warm. “I’m glad you’re here, brother. Be quick about picking your men. Tomorrow we march for the Realm.”
CHAPTER THREE
Lyrna
Water . . . Falling . . . A slow, regular liquid beat, birthing an echo.
Am I in a cave? Later, she would remember this as her first coherent thought as Queen of the Unified Realm. Her second being the fact that she was now queen. Her third would be a silent wail of despair at the agony searing its way into her mind, summoning horror and making her thrash and scream . . . The flames spouting from the Volarian woman’s hands, Malcius, Ordella, Janus, little Dirna, the stench of her skin and hair as it burned . . . She choked as the scream spluttered to silence. There was something in her mouth, something hard and unyielding clamped between her teeth. She tried to pull it free but found her hands unwilling to respond, restrained somehow. It occurred to her that she should open her eyes.
Darkness, broken by a dim shaft of light, hazy shapes huddled in catacombs. A cave after all. But why is it swaying so? And why do chains dangle from the ceiling?
A jerking movement from one of the huddled shapes commanded her eye, a loud retching reaching her ears along with the spatter of vomit. Silence returned, save for a faint whimpering, the occasional jangle of linked metal, and the creak of protesting wood.
Not a cave. A ship.
“So,” a soft, gravelled voice muttered in the shadows to her left. “The screamer’s awake again.”
Her eyes peered into the shadows, seeking a face, seeing only the dim outline of a shaven head, blocky and gleaming from the light above. A grunt as the blocky head tilted. “Don’t look so mad now. Pity, you’ll soon wish you were.”
Lyrna tried to speak, but found the words caged by whatever was clamped into her mouth, secured in place by leather straps about her head. She looked down at her hands, seeing a faint glint of old metal on her wrists. She gave a tug, chains snapping taught, the shackles chafing her skin.
“Overseer thought you were a nuisance,” the voice said. “Wanted to toss you overboard. The master wouldn’t have it. My Volarian isn’t good, but I think he said something about breeding stock.”
Lyrna heard no malice in the voice, just indifferent observation. She
grimaced as the pain returned, closing her eyes as tears seeped forth, the agony sweeping across her scalp and face in waves. Her skin, her hair, burning . . .
She abandoned herself to the sobs that wracked her, collapsed to the damp wooden planking, shuddering in sorrow, drool flowing around the gag. It could have been hours, or days even, before exhaustion took her. She was always grateful there were no dreams lurking in the void that claimed her.
◆ ◆ ◆
She jerked awake as something hauled on the gag, straining her neck as she was dragged to her knees, staring up at a very large man in a black leather jerkin. He leaned close, eyes staring into hers in appraisal, grunting in satisfaction then reaching behind her, undoing the straps and removing the gag. Lyrna coughed, retching and gasping, then choking off as the large man enclosed her face with his hand, pulling her eyes back to his. “No . . . screaming,” he said in broken Realm Tongue. “You. No more screaming. Or.” He raised something in his other hand, something long and coiled with an iron handle. “Understanding?”
Lyrna managed to move her head in a fractional nod.
The large man grunted again and released her, moving away, boots splashing in the bilge water. He paused to nudge a huddled shape with the handle of his whip, voicing a tired curse, leaning down to unlock the shackles with the key hanging around his neck then barking something over his shoulder. Two men, not quite so large, appeared from the shadows to lift the shape between them, carrying it towards the steps above Lyrna’s head, the only feature of the hold to be fully bathed in the light from above. Lyrna glimpsed a face through the gaps in the steps as they took the body aloft, a woman, her features slack and pale in death, but Lyrna had a sense she had been pretty.
The overseer, as Lyrna had intuited him to be, found two more bodies amongst the host of huddled shapes, both also dragged aloft, presumably to be cast overboard. She couldn’t tell how many others were shackled here, the furthest reaches of the hold were too shrouded in shadow, but counted over twenty within view. A space of ten yards square, holding twenty. The average Volarian slave ship is eighty yards long. There are perhaps one hundred and fifty people in this hold.
Off in the gloom the key rattled anew followed by a fearful sob. The overseer appeared again, pulling a stumbling figure behind him, a girl, slender, young, dark hair veiling her face, tears audible as she was led aloft.
“Third time for that one,” the shaven-headed shadow said. “Not a good place to be pretty, this ship. Lucky for us eh?”
Lyrna tried to speak, finding the words stuck in her sand-dry throat. She coughed, summoning as much moisture to her mouth as she could, and tried again. “How long?” she asked in a rasp. “Since Varinshold.”
“Four days, by my reckoning,” the voice replied. “Puts us maybe two hundred miles across the Boraelin.”
“You have a name?”
“I did, once. Names don’t matter here, my lady. You are a lady, are you not? That dress and that voice don’t come from the streets.”
Streets. She had been running through streets, screaming, the pain taking all reason as she ran from the palace where all was flame and death, ran and ran . . . “My father was a m-merchant,” she said, a tremor colouring every word she spoke. “My husband also. Though they hoped to ascend one day, by the King’s good graces.”
“I doubt anyone will ascend again. The Realm has fallen.”
“The whole Realm? In just four days?”
“The King and the Orders are the Realm. And they’re gone now. I saw the House of the Fifth Order burning as I was led to the docks. It’s all gone.”
All gone. Malcius, the children . . . Davoka.
Her gaze was drawn upwards as more feet sounded on the steps. One of the overseer’s not-so-large servants led a slim young man down into the hold, securing him to a free set of manacles a few feet from Lyrna.
“Another popular pretty face,” the shaven-headed man muttered.
“Necessity breeds forbearance, brother,” the young man replied in a light tone that jarred on Lyrna’s ear. She had to agree he was pretty, his features delicate, reminding her of Alucius, before the war and the drink.
“Filthy degenerate,” shaven-head said.
“Hypocrite.” The young man grinned at Lyrna. “Our screaming lady has regained her senses, I see.”
“Not a lady after all,” the gravelly voice replied. “Just a merchant’s wife.”
“Oh. Pity, I should have liked some noble company. No matter.” The young man bowed to Lyrna. “Fermin Al Oren, Mistress. At your service.”
Al Oren. Not a name she knew. “Your f-family has property in Varinshold, my lord?”
“Alas no. Grandfather gambled away every bean before I was born, leaving my poor widowed mother destitute and me obliged to restore our fortunes through guile and charm.”
Lyrna nodded. A thief then. She turned to shaven-head. “He called you brother.”
The shadowed face gave no response but Fermin was quick to reply in his stead. “My friend is fallen from the sight of the Departed, Mistress. Cast down amongst the wretched for his grievous attempt on the . . .”
The shaven head lunged forward, chains straining, the slatted light revealing brutish features and a misshapen nose. “Shut it, Fermin!” he ordered with a snarl.
“Or what, exactly?” the noble thief returned with a laugh. “What can you threaten now, Iltis? We’re not fighting over scraps in the vaults any more.”
“You were in the dungeons together,” Lyrna realised.
“That we were, Mistress,” Fermin confirmed, grinning at Iltis who had slumped back into the gloom. “Our hosts came for us the morning after the city fell, killed the guards that had been foolish enough to linger, killed most of the prisoners too. But preserving the strong and”—he winked at her—“the pretty.”
Slave, Lyrna thought, crouching to peer at the bracket to which her chains were fashioned. I am a slave-queen. The thought provoked a shrill giggle, threatening to build to more screams. She forced it down and concentrated on the bracket, her fingers describing a half loop and plate of iron, secured into the oak beam with two sturdy bolts. She couldn’t hope to work it loose. The only way these shackles were coming off was via the overseer’s key.
“You have a name, Mistress?” Fermin asked as she reclined against one of the beams supporting the steps.
Queen Lyrna Al Nieren, Daughter to King Janus, Sister to King Malcius, Ruler of the Unified Realm and Guardian of the Faith. “Names don’t matter here,” she said in a whisper.
◆ ◆ ◆
The following day the overseer found no further corpses which seemed a signal to begin giving them better food, thick porridge with berries replacing thin gruel. Weeded out the weaklings, Lyrna surmised. And starved slaves are no use.
She watched the overseer closely during his visits, her eyes constantly on the key about his neck as he stooped to examine his stock, the key dangling, but never low enough to grab. Even if I could, he would beat me down before I could use it. She glanced over at Iltis slurping his porridge, meaty fingers scooping out the dregs from the bowl, licking them with gusto. Fourth Order, she decided. One of Tendris’s Ardent brutes. Not so easy to beat down.
She dropped her gaze as the overseer stopped beside her, leaning down to unlock the chains from the bracket. “Up!” he commanded, nudging her with his whip handle.
She rose, swaying on unsteady legs, muscles shuddering with cramp. The overseer pulled her into the light, taking hold of her face and turning her head from side to side, eyes narrowed in scrutiny, lip curled in disgust. “Too much damage,” he muttered in Volarian. “Even the crew won’t fuck you with a face like that.” Without a pause he reached down to lift her skirt, rough hands mauling, exploring. Lyrna choked back vomit and kept as still as possible. “Or maybe they would,” the overseer mused, rising and unlacing her bodice, hands and
eyes exploring her breasts.
No screaming, Lyrna thought, closing her eyes and clenching her teeth as his thumb traced over her nipple. No more screaming.
“Not stupid either,” the overseer said, turning her face to him again. “What were you I wonder? Rich man’s whore? Prize daughter of a wealthy house?” He searched her face for understanding as he spoke. Lyrna stared back with eyes wide, her fear only half pretence.
The overseer grunted, stepping back and gesturing with his whip. “Sit!”
Lyrna slumped back to the boards and he relocked her manacles, leaving her fumbling at her bodice as he stomped up the steps. Davoka would have slit his belly and laughed as his guts spilled out. Smolen would have hacked his head from his shoulders in a trice. Brother Sollis would have . . .
THEY ARE NOT HERE!
She breathed deeply, forcing the tremble from her hands, leaning down to lace up her bodice with deliberate care. You have no protectors here. No servants. You must serve yourself.
◆ ◆ ◆
Nighttimes were the worst, the other captives often given to terrors, calling out in their sleep for lost loved ones or begging for release. Lyrna slept only fitfully, waking often thanks to the pain and the memories. This night it had been the Volarian woman again, but instead of flame it was water that gushed from her arms, great torrents of it, filling the throne room . . .
She rose to her customary crouch, waiting for her heart to calm itself. The dreams were vivid, no doubt because she had repeatedly forced herself to examine every facet of what she witnessed in the throne room, realising for the first time that her fearsome memory could be a curse as well as a gift. She spared herself nothing, every word spoken by Brother Frentis, every nuance of expression, every lick of flame.