Blade of Empire Read online

  “Haldil will grow bold, shown such forbearance,” Rithdeliel pointed out.

  “Then Haldil will grow bold,” Vieliessar said. She tapped the map of the Uradabhur on the table before her. The borders had been erased between those domains whose fealty she held, but that did not mean those lands were yet at peace. “I cannot be everywhere,” she said in frustration. “I will not move east until the Uradabhur and the West are both secure.”

  “You won’t achieve that by this War Season, or even the next,” Master Kemmiaret of the Silver Swords said. He nodded toward the map whose edge protruded from beneath the one showing the Uradabhur. “The West may well be in the same state as the Uradabhur. And it has had longer to fall into disarray.”

  “Because all its War Princes and their meisnes are here—except of course, for War Prince Hamphuliadiel Astromancer—and most of their chattels are not,” War Prince Annobeunna said.

  Vieliessar made a face, though there was as much truth as mockery in that naming. “Aradreleg—” she began.

  “From the West, nothing,” Aradreleg answered instantly. “Only the Western Shore answers when we call.”

  And that should not be, Vieliessar knew. Momioniarch Lightsister still serves at the Sanctuary of the Star. She has taught nearly as many Lightborn as Rondithiel has. All the Lightborn know her. If she hears when we call—and she must—why does she not answer?

  “Then we must await word from the Lightborn Iardalaith has sent,” Vieliessar said. “Rondithiel says another moonturn will see him at the Southern Pass. And as he must cross the West to relieve Amrolion and Daroldan, at least I will have fresh news of it.”

  “My lord King, I know you tire of hearing these words of me,” Ivaloriel said, “but I must say them again: my counsel is that you leave Celenthodiel. The Fireheart Pass can be held with a great-taille at most. In the Uradabhur you would be better placed to move west when the time comes. And the Uradabhur itself could be pacified more quickly if you were there in person.”

  “Your words are wise, Lord Ivaloriel, and I will never tire of hearing wisdom,” Vieliessar answered promptly. “But I ask you this: What moonturn is it now?”

  “Rain Moon, of course,” Ivaloriel answered.

  “And when do the Farmfolk plant their first crops?” she asked.

  “As early as Storm Moon, if the weather softens early.” It was Nadalforo who answered this time. “It is milder here in the Vale of Celenthodiel than it is to the north; the Farmfolk who have come to us have been clearing land and planting for sennights already.”

  “And if they are here, they are not in the Uradabhur,” Ivaloriel said, but Vieliessar knew he did not fully understand even yet.

  “They will hardly return to the Uradabhur until we have set it at peace,” she said. “But even were I to accomplish that in this instant, my lord, they would find there no seed grain to plant.”

  “Not in the south, at any rate,” Rithdeliel answered. “What we didn’t take, brigands will have. And brigands won’t have saved it for planting.”

  “There won’t be a crop this year,” Nadalforo said. “Not in most of the Uradabhur. In the northern foothills—perhaps.”

  “Nor can the Windsward supply the lack,” Thurion said, “for your loyal houses ride Westward. And west of the Mystrals … there is silence.”

  “Do not look to Nantirworiel to replenish your granaries,” Methothiel said. “Our fields and orchards are few. Were few. I know not what is there now, but I took tithe in grain for good reason.” Nantirworiel’s wealth had been in gems, precious metals, and furs; it had been one of the few domains to regularly import food.

  “As you say, Lord Methothiel. And one cannot eat gems, or gold, or elvensilver, which speaks to my point. Ten domains out of thirty may,” Vieliessar said, gesturing at her map, “and only may be able to plant and harvest this year. In the West, I know not. We did burn most of it,” she added with an air of faint apology. “My lords, I must hold Celenthodiel—and farm it. If I do not, as many will starve in the winter to come as have died already.”

  “It is a new sort of war you wage,” Ivaloriel said quietly.

  “Oh, we fought across farmland often enough,” Rithdeliel said. “But never across all of it at once.”

  And if the outcome of your sport meant hunger and want for the least of your people, you never knew it in your Great Keeps. It was unfair of her, Vieliessar supposed, to think so harshly of Rithdeliel. A Warlord could not choose whether to fight, only how to fight. He had served Caerthalien, Farcarinon, Oronviel, and Farcarinon again as a loyal vassal, but he had never known the folk sent into outlawry or starvation by his summer wars as she did. To the lords and princes, they were invisible. Obstacles on a battle map at most.

  “And now we all learn what the Farmholders and the Landbonds have always known,” Vieliessar said. “All we have and all we are rests upon the back of the plowman at seed-time.”

  Ivaloriel shrugged in acceptance. “Then here we remain,” he said. “But I tell you this: I do not look forward to another winter spent in a tent.”

  “No more do I,” Vieliessar said. “But it is many sennights until winter comes again. Before it does, perhaps I will have a better answer for you.”

  “Perhaps you will know how matters stand west of the Mystrals,” Ivaloriel answered. And that was no answer at all.

  * * *

  Soon enough the rest of her council departed to their own work, for no matter what the degree one had been born to, there were more tasks here in the Vale of Celenthodiel than there were hands to accomplish them. Of course, Helecanth’s place was always at her side, but when Thurion lingered behind the other councillors, Vieliessar knew what was to come. She did not give him the chance to begin his argument.

  “I am not wasting time and resources on an Enthroning,” Vieliessar said flatly.

  “Don’t then,” Helecanth said agreeably.

  “You must,” Thurion said, nearly in the same breath.

  Vieliessar bit back her irritated response with an effort. Helecanth did not often add her voice to the discussions that went on in her presence, though Vieliessar had said many times that she would welcome her counsel. If Helecanth spoke out now, no matter how frivolously, it was a warning to Vieliessar that she must give serious attention to what was about to be said.

  “I am already High King,” she said needlessly.

  “In name,” Thurion said. “And by right of vassalage over sixty of the Hundred Houses. Sixty is not all.”

  “I can count,” Vieliessar grumbled. “And the rest will come as soon as it is safe for them to travel.”

  “Save of course for the nine Houses of the Windsward Kingdom, so called,” Helecanth commented.

  “Gonceivis is having an Enthroning,” Thurion said in exasperation.

  “And I suppose if Gonceivis flung himself from the highest tower of Haldil, I should do the same,” Vieliessar said under her breath. She got to her feet and stepped away from the map table, presenting her back to both of them.

  “If you wished to rule the Windsward, perhaps,” Helecanth said from behind her. “Many are still unsettled by your new ways—”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” Thurion muttered.

  “—and wonder if you mean to hold what you have taken, and build a world for their children and great-children to live in,” Helecanth finished implacably.

  You mean, they want me to marry. Vieliessar did not speak the words aloud. It was only to be expected. She had won her throne by force of arms, not force of argument. Most of the nobles hadn’t read The Song of Amretheon. Those who had did not necessarily believe in the Prophecy. And even those who do believe in the Prophecy do not understand it, Vieliessar thought forlornly. Including me.

  She turned back. Thurion and Helecanth were regarding her with identical expressions of determined concern.

  “Say what you will say,” she said quietly.

  “Show them what they wish to see. What they expect to see. And
then you can do with the princes and the Lords Komen as you wish,” Helecanth said. “An Enthroning, the foundation of the High King’s House … What you intend does not matter, for they will make their own stories from what they see. Show them a prophetess with a sword instead of an enthroned King, and I say this: it does not take Lightborn Magery to foresee a realm in flames and ashes before the next snows.”

  “It will make things easier, my lord King,” Thurion said gently.

  “It is a waste of time and resources I could put to better use!” Vieliessar cried in exasperation. She walked back to the map table and seated herself again. “I am not making the right choices,” she added quietly. “I must discover what they are.”

  These were words she would not dare to say even among the trusted members of her Council. But Thurion was her friend. And Helecanth …

  She trusted Helecanth, whose loyalty to her was as unswerving as had been her loyalty to Runacarendalur. And if, as Vieliessar suspected, Helecanth’s heart still belonged to her former liege, then she was Vieliessar’s twice over, for Vieliessar held Runacarendalur’s life in her unwilling hands.

  “You will not discover the nature of the Darkness upon a battlefield,” Thurion said. “Nor discover how to fight it.”

  “I know,” Vieliessar said wearily. “Bring peace to the Uradabhur and the Arzhana this Wheelturn. Cross the Mystrals next spring and see if there is anything left in the West to salvage—and hope Rondithiel and the Lightborn with him can hold the Western Shore until I can reach it. Were there a thousand candlemarks in each sunturn there would not be time enough for me to do all that I must do. And none of it matters if I am not ready to face my true enemy.”

  “Rondithiel should reach Amrolion by Sword Moon. And then you will have fresh news of the West,” Thurion said.

  “What I should like is fresh news of the Sanctuary,” Vieliessar said tartly. “But you shall have what all have asked, for I know you have both nagged me at Rithdeliel’s urging. There shall be an Enthroning of the High King at Harvest Court.”

  She glanced at the object that stood in the far corner of the pavilion. It had been brought here from Amretheon’s palace so that all who came to see the High King would see also the object for which ten thousand years of war had been fought.

  The Unicorn Throne.

  It was as stark and simple as a building block meant for the wall of a Great Keep: a cube of some unknown white stone, its backrest the width and depth of the seat. The stone’s surface had the faint roughness of the skin of a ripe peach, and even in shadow it sparkled like fresh-fallen snow in the moonlight, though Thurion said no Light had been used in its making. It would be uncomfortable to sit on, Vieliessar had thought the first time she saw it, for the seat was so deep one couldn’t rest one’s back while sitting. Perhaps it had once had cushions; it was impossible to know now.

  There was only one thing that redeemed it from its austere ugliness, and proved that it was indeed the object in whose name such oceans of blood had been shed. Where the armrests of a Presence Chair would have been, the throne’s unknown maker had carved two unicorns, one on each side. Vieliessar had once seen a unicorn in the Flower Forest in Tunimbronor; these images were not only lifelike, they were life-size. The delicate cloven hooves gleamed with bright metal, and just as with the fountain outside, the long, spiraling horn was carved of a different stone. Not crystal, as the horns of the unicorns in the Unicorn Fountain were, but opal, for the two horns gleamed with iridescent rainbows. Surely those who made this must have seen unicorns. I would almost think these statues could draw breath and take flight …

  But if they did, they would find flight difficult.

  “I have wondered since the first time I saw it,” Thurion said quietly. “Why they are in chains.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  RAIN MOON TO FLOWER MOON: THE EYES OF THE FOREST

  In the beginning we welcomed them, for we did not have the wit to know what our ancestors across the Sea of Storms had known when they first looked upon the Children of Stars, nor did we know their fate. The Children of Stars came to us as exiles and suppliants, and so we thought they had no power to harm.

  —Chronicle of the Nine Races

  Until two moonturns ago, Runacar had never known what it was to be alone. From the first moment he drew breath there were always people around him. Even if he’d somehow found himself alone in Caerthalien without servants or komen, there were still people nearby. But now he’d ridden sennight after sennight through emptiness, and when he reached Jaeglenhend—he knew where he was by the sight of the Dragon’s Gate high in the Mystrals—War Prince Nilkaran’s domain was as deserted as all the rest. The desolation was disturbing in a way he had no words for. Jaeglenhend was a ghostlands.

  Not for the first time, Runacar wondered what madness had possessed the Hundred Houses all to strip their domains to follow Vieliessar into the east. He remembered all the arguments—she must be stopped before she could claim the Domains of the Uradabhur, the Arzhana, the Windsward—but they no longer seemed compelling. It was as if he had awakened from a long fever to find himself clear-headed at last.

  The forty Houses of the West were the oldest and richest domains in all the world. And now they are nothing. This we needed no help to compass. This we did to ourselves.

  Even the border towers were deserted. There were no people here anywhere.

  And yet …

  He was being followed. Or at least he thought he was, though no matter what he did, he could not discover the source of the invisible watchers he’d sensed ever since he’d left the northern bounds of the Ghostwood behind him. Brigands would have made camps, and left some sign of their presence, but he’d seen nothing—no matter how many clever traps he laid, no matter how he circled and back trailed. He’d begun to hope, rather desperately, that it was Beastlings.

  Rather monsters of blood and bone than that I am followed by Ivrulion’s vengeful spirit. Rather that, than that I am so disordered in my wits that I cannot tell a stone from an enemy.

  But if he were a Beastling’s prey, Runacar could not imagine why—or even how. Gryphons and Hippogriffs and Aesalions filled the skies above the Grand Windsward. Selkies haunted secluded streams and lakes, fish-tailed Nisse were the terror of Great Sea Ocean. But Bearwards, Centaurs, and similar forest-dwellers had been swept from the Uradabhur long ago. Though not from the forests beyond, he thought uneasily, remembering the skeletons he’d seen in Janglanipaikharain.

  It was with a deep sense of unease that Runacar approached the tower in the Tamabeth Hills. It was set there to watch over the Dragon’s Gate and all who passed through it, and he thought—he hoped—that War Prince Nilkaran had stripped it of its defenders early enough that they had left their provisions behind, thinking to return. And that the bands of brigands who had overrun the lands to the east might have so far overlooked something this far from the fighting.

  He was right.

  The sortie gate was locked and barred, but the main door of the tower—from which he learned its name was Wintereyes—was not. Runacar led Nielriel through the door, and when he barred it behind him, something inside him relaxed for the first time since he had ridden from the battlefield. No matter what followed him, he was safe here.

  The ground floor of Wintereyes—like all Border Towers everywhere—was stabling for the defenders’ horses. It smelled of grain and leather and old horse dung. Two tailles of empty stalls awaited occupants, and the inner gates to the sortie passage were drawn neatly shut; the defenders had left their tower in good order, clearly expecting to return in candlemarks or sunturns. Though the chamber was windowless, the lamps in the wall niches—cylinders of crystal that glowed with eternal Silverlight—were still there, and there was quite enough illumination for Runacar to see clearly. Water still ran through the trough in the center of the stables, courtesy of Lightborn Magery, and he scooped up a few handfuls for himself before leading Nielriel to drink and then into the first clean stall he fou
nd. Now he was free to look around to see what had been left behind.

  A wooden compartment was built along one wall, a combination tack and feed room. The tack had gone with the horses, but a few blankets, some Lightless remedies, and a few sets of grooming tools in their baskets remained. The feed bin was still half full, and beside it, safe and dry, were a couple of bales of hay. He made up his mind then and there to stay until all of it was gone—Nielriel should have the chance to regain the flesh that the moonturns of hard traveling had stripped from her. And if there were no other supplies here, the feed would do as well for him as for her, especially if he could find some way to cook it.

  After so long fasting, he dared not let Nielriel gorge herself on rich feeding, but he took a flake of good grass hay and a basket of grooming tools back to the stall where she waited. The mare ate hungrily while he brushed her until she was smooth and shining again—and the floor of her stall was covered with thick tufts of winter coat. When he was done grooming Nielriel, Runacar brought her a second bucket of rich food and a flake of hay, then took one of the lamps from its niche on the wall and went up the stairs.

  The chamber above the stables was the barracks for the garrison, which he passed through after determining that it, too, was untenanted. The floor above held the larder for the garrison, and here again was proof that Wintereyes’s occupants had expected to return, for here in abundance were salt, wine, oil, fruit, provisions of every kind. Some were preserved by Lightless craft, some had been stored in chests and barrels upon which (he knew from experience) preservation spells had been cast. And as well as food, the chamber held spears, bows, axes … every sort of weapon Runacar might need to supplement the sword and dagger he carried. Stunned by his good fortune, he sat down at once to feast upon cheese and apples and one of the flat square campaign loaves that was still as fresh as the day it had been baked and packed for transport. He could not remember a more savory banquet, not even at Caerthalien’s High Table, and gorged himself until he could eat no more. Here was food enough to see him across the Mystrals and back to Caerthalien High Keep, if he could only figure a way of transporting it. Perhaps he could contrive some sort of saddlebags from what was here; there would be time to think about that in a sunturn or two.