Blade of Empire Read online

  “Perhaps,” Nindir said doubtfully. “Lady, I pray you, let me go with you. Surely Ulvearth Lightsister will follow as soon as she may. If she can,” Nindir added, in a low voice not meant for Ciadorre to hear.

  Ciadorre hesitated. Nindir was Ulvearth’s servant, but she was also Ciadorre’s responsibility. She thought of the ragged figures toiling in the fields she had seen as she approached the Sanctuary. Such labor might well be Nindir’s lot if she remained.

  And in her heart, Ciadorre knew Ulvearth was not coming back.

  “So be it, then,” she said. “Now come. I wish to be far from the lands Hamphuliadiel claims before the sun sets.”

  * * *

  “What shall become of us?” Alras asked.

  They had been three candlemarks upon the road, circling wide around Areve itself before finally striking the Sanctuary Road once more, and had stopped for a rest. Ciadorre wished with a longing sharp and bitter that she’d had the wit to leave the servants and supplies at last night’s camp—or even send Ulvearth to the Sanctuary by herself to petition the Astromancer. But who could have known how demented he had become?

  No sword is keen enough to slay the past, she reminded herself, and turned her mind to Alras’s words. She knew his question was not of his own fate, or hers, or Nindir’s.

  “Why, we shall return to Amrolion to give the Astromancer’s word to War Prince Leopheine, and await the High King’s return,” she said staunchly. “What is true beyond all things is that Lord Vieliessar will not fail to ride to our aid as soon as she can. Perhaps even now her great meisne passes through the Dragon’s Gate to reclaim the whole of the West. And once the Beastlings are driven off, be certain that the Astromancer’s comeuppance will not ride far behind,” she added with grim glee.

  “Of course she will come,” Alras said. Ciadorre knew from his tone that he was doing his best to convince himself, and was not succeeding.

  “She will come,” Ciadorre repeated. “We are her vassals, and she is pledged to us, as we to her. Is that not so, Nindir?”

  Nindir smiled a little wistfully. “Indeed it is so, my lady. The High King has come to free both lord and Landbond, and never has she said a thing she has not done.”

  “And so we have naught to fear,” Ciadorre answered. “Come. We have rested long enough. We shall go on until we find some happy spot to make our beds—and then I will hunt our dinner.”

  The three travelers rose to their feet and walked on. In another sennight, they were deep within what had once been Farcarinon lands.

  None of them lived to cross into Ullilion.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  STORM MOON: THE GOOD OF THE LAND

  The world itself must bow to the will of the Lightborn. If we choose, we can drain the life from every leaf and flower, take the beasts of the fields, the birds of the air, the fishes of Great Sea Ocean itself. For the good of the Land Itself, we pledge we will never draw so much Power from the land that it sickens and dies, nor will we draw power from the shedding of blood, nor from death, nor from any breathing thing.

  —Mosirinde Astromancer, The Covenant of the Light

  Even though Ivaloriel Telthorelandor—one of the few Alliance War Princes to have survived the day—could recount every word of the bargain Ivrulion Lightbrother had struck with the War Princes of the Alliance, that was only the shape, not the content. The source of the madness that had made Ivrulion break the Covenant had trickled from the events like water from a broken jug, leaving behind a mystery.

  And more than a mystery.

  Any Lightborn not protected by the boundary stones of Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor had been touched by Ivrulion’s Banespell, and many did not survive. The loss of so many of their brethren bound them together, as did the shame that one of their own should do such a terrible thing. But the thing that set the Lightborn apart from the Lightless now was more than shame and loss: it was fear.

  The fear the Lightless now felt upon seeing their green robes.

  * * *

  Thurion Lightbrother walked from the dim warmth of the Healing Tents into the bright chill of the day. The work was light, with Tildorangelor Flower Forest’s inexhaustible bounty to draw upon. It only went on so long because they were so few.

  And the injured were so many.

  So many and so few, he thought sadly. Seventy Houses and all their arrays fought barely three Sunturns ago. Without the Lightless Healers to keep them alive, half of the injured would have died before Healers could ever have come to their aid. I would give praise to the Light we do not have more injured to tend, except for the reason: the mazhnune slaughtered the wounded upon the field to increase their numbers.

  His steps took him along a familiar path, from the Healing Tents to the encampment deep within Tildorangelor the Lightborn had made for themselves. At first the Lightborn had only sought a place to tend their own injured. The longer a Lightborn had been exposed to the Banespell, the worse its effects. More than half the High King’s Lightborn had been on the field and now a third of the Warhunt was dead. The Alliance Lightborn had been without sanctuary of any kind. One in four of them had died.

  A third of a half of this. A quarter of that. Distinctions which mean nothing, for we are all subjects of the High King now, if we are subjects of anyone at all.

  “Master Thurion!” A familiar voice hailed him. “Our world turned upside down, and you unchanged: Where is your cloak?”

  Thurion blinked, drawn from his reverie, and regarded Denerarth as if he had never seen him before. The Lightborn were children of Landbonds and farmers, and used to hard work; they had no need of servants. And yet, there were a few Lightless who found the bonds of honest love more enduring than the sudden lure of freedom. He’d commended Denerarth into Vieliessar’s care when he went as her envoy to the Grand Windsward. From all Thurion had heard since he returned, Denerarth was lucky to be alive.

  “I have told you a thousand times and more,” Thurion said mildly. “I am not your master. And my name is Thurion.” He could not repress a smile as he said it, for the argument was an old one between them.

  “And, not-Master Thurion, once again you have left your cloak in the Healing Tents,” Denerarth said. “And are like to freeze before you reach your own hearth.”

  “It is warm here in the Flower Forest,” Thurion protested. “And I am always so hot in the Healing Tents.”

  “Come and have tea,” Denerarth said, gesturing toward their pavilion. “And I shall go and fetch your cloak. In my own good time, of course, as I am not a servant. Servants have masters, even now.”

  Thurion smiled, as he was meant to. “Lord Vieliessar has changed so much already. Don’t you think she will change that as well?” he asked.

  “Oh, aye, very likely. When the great lords learn how to brew their own tea and cook a griddle cake. I am certain of it,” Denerarth said with ponderous irony. He lifted the flap of the pavilion to usher Thurion forward.

  Though the pavilion was as large as Vieliessar’s own, Thurion would not have kept a lord’s great state even if he could. A dozen other Lightborn lived here with him, and as he entered, he saw that most of them were gathered here around the table in the outer room. Aradreleg, raised up as Chief Lightborn when Vieliessar took Oronviel. Iardalaith of Daroldan, born a prince, leader of the Warhunt Mages. Harwing Lightbrother, foremost of Gunedwaen’s spies, still bitterly mourning his lover’s death. Dinias Lightbrother of the Warhunt, whose Keystone Gift was Transmutation. Isilla Lightsister, whose Keystone Gift was Overshadowing. Rondithiel Lightbrother, who had been first teacher to all of them, expert in Mosirinde’s Covenant, who had left the Sanctuary of the Star to join Vieliessar, by his presence in the Warhunt assuring all Lightborn everywhere that the Covenant—the true Covenant—would be kept.

  Each of them, all of them, close to Vieliessar, who had been Vieliessar Lightsister before she became Vieliessar High King.

  “I thought you’d be with her,” Thurion said to Aradreleg, seating himself. D
inias poured a cup of tea and passed it to him without waiting for him to ask.

  “I have seen enough death,” Aradreleg answered, her eyes dark and haunted. “She gave no order that I must go.”

  Lady-Abeyant Glorthiachiel’s execution was today. He’d forgotten. Should I have been there? But no. The work of the Healing Tents was more important, and something there were few enough to do.

  “I think she would’ve been just as happy if no one was there,” Iardalaith said wearily. “Why couldn’t the damned woman swear fealty and shut up?”

  “You speak of the Hawk of Caerthalien and ask that?” Isilla replied mockingly. “Meditate upon your words and learn wisdom, young one.”

  “Hatred is as intoxicating a passion as love,” Rondithiel said. “I think she could not bear to set it aside.”

  “I’m glad she’s dead,” Harwing said flatly. “It was her son Ivrulion—he who must ever style himself Light-Prince lest we forget his rank—who brought us all to this day. Adder and son of adders. We should erase the whole of his blood.”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “Huthiel is dead,” Thurion said. “Slain by his own father. Bethamioth died on the field. Only Rondaniel is left, and she is outside the succession because her father was Lightborn. She and all Glorthiachiel’s household will be asked to swear, now. If she does, she will live.” He knew his words were in some sense, a lie: if Vieliessar lived, so did Heir-Prince Runacar. No, he thought. He is Runacarendalur Caerthalien now. Even if Caerthalien is gone.

  “Our High King is generous,” Harwing said bitterly.

  “Kings and princes have to be,” Iardalaith said gently. “Do you think she did not love Gunedwaen as deeply as you?”

  “I think if she had, he would still be alive,” Harwing snarled. He pushed himself to his feet and strode from the tent.

  “But he isn’t and she is,” Isilla said into the silence that followed. “And we must all ask: What now?”

  “Better we ask a different question,” Rondithiel said. “One to which we may be able to deduce an answer.”

  “What question?” Aradreleg asked in a dull voice.

  “What next?” Rondithiel answered.

  * * *

  Ice Moon became Storm Moon.

  The last of the dead were washed and anointed and ceremoniously placed upon the field called Ishtilaikh in the only funerary rite that could accommodate so many thousands of dead. The bodies lay side by side for leagues, each stripped of arms and armor, of blazons of rank and emblem of House. Landbond lay beside War Prince, outlaw beside komen. There they would remain until the soil had called them back into itself.

  In an ordinary war, a summer war such as the Hundred Houses had fought for thousands of years, the honoring of the dead would be the conclusion of the war, but for Vieliessar High King it was only a beginning. She could not summon the War Princes to swear their fealty to her if she could not promise them safe passage, though the six houses of the Arzhana had found a simple and elegant solution to that need. The War Princes of Sigoric, Adovech, Mallereuf, Gucerich, and Rodiachar had all pledged themselves to House Thadan as her true vassals, and now Shanenilya Thadan rode west with all her court to lay their submission at the High King’s feet. But to gain more than endless promises and delay from the surviving Houses of the Uradabhur, Vieliessar must bring peace, for the war she had fought against the Hundred Houses had left the land between the Mystrals and the Bazhrahils starving and leaderless.

  The aftermath of that campaign had also been a grim lesson in what would happen if she simply abolished the traditional governance her people had come to expect, yet Vieliessar could not retain the structures against which she had fought for so long—nor would they serve her when she had so many souls to govern. Becoming High King was not the end of her task, but the beginning, and her need was as urgent as it had been since the day she left the Sanctuary for the last time. If she did not have an army—a unified army—to lead against the forces of the Darkness when it came, they would all die.

  Each night she sat with her great map, marking off the lands she hoped to hold. In her war and her victory she could now claim more than half of the thirty houses of the Uradabhur, but there were nearly as many she could not. As word of her victory reached them, pleas for aid returned. The refugees of the war-torn domains had fled north seeking aid—and what was not given freely, they tried to take. To each Vieliessar returned the same answer: Cast down your boundary stones, pledge fealty to me, and I will send you aid.

  But refugees fled also along the track two armies had forged. By the time they reached Celephriandullias-Tildorangelor, they were injured, sick, starving—and wild with abandonment. Once again Vieliessar must set aside her plans of forging her people into an army—or even a single people—to deal with this new disaster. Somehow, she must find a way to keep the promises she had made to those who had followed her when her cause seemed madness. They’d done so as much out of despair as of hope, for the War Princes had ruled with arrogant cruelty. She must do better. All who came must be fed, clothed, housed—and convinced to live peaceably in Celenthodiel. That was the hardest, for among many of the refugees and the dispossessed the idea had taken root that the coming of the High King meant an endless holiday.

  Her first priority was to find a way to rule over her War Princes. She must give them as little cause as possible to unite against her, yet she could not leave them as they were. Her solution was to adapt a common practice among the Craftworkers, and to make of her Lords Komen a new guild: the Guild of the Lords of War. The former War Princes still held positions of rank above those they had once ruled, but now they held them as Guildmasters, and all of them were, by her decree, equal among themselves. Like any guild, the Lords of War had the right to meet in council, choose two of their number to speak for them, and present that council’s opinions to the High King.

  As Rithdeliel Warlord had predicted, the Princes’ Council was still arguing over who would lead it when Vieliessar called her first War Council, which was a very different thing than the Princes’ Council of the Lords of War.

  For one thing, she actually intended to listen to the advice of her War Council.

  * * *

  “Telthorelandor, Cirandeiron, Aramenthiali, Nantirworiel, and Vondaimieriel,” Rithdeliel said in disgust, having come to escort her to the first meeting of her War Council and taking this last chance to share his views on those she had chosen to advise her. “The three surviving houses of the Old Alliance, and two of the greatest equivocators among the Twelve. A pretty selection.”

  “There is no Twelve,” Vieliessar said simply. “There is only one.”

  Rithdeliel waved that aside. “You burden your War Council with those who have lately been your enemies.”

  “I do not,” Vieliessar protested mildly. “There is Annobeunna—”

  “Keindostibaent is a Less House of the Uradabhur.”

  “Iardalaith, Nadalforo, Thurion, Aradreleg, Master Kemmiaret, Caradan, Tunonil—” She ticked the names off on her fingers, while thinking privately no group so large would ever reach consensus. Just as well they need not. They are a council. I am king.

  “Lightborn and mercenaries and the Commander of the Silver Swords. And Tunonil is Landbond.”

  “I fight wars with infantry and archers. Should I ignore the counsel of their captains? Iardalaith is by birth a prince of Daroldan, so you can hardly object to him. Rithdeliel, I have never made any secret of what I would do if I won. I have won. Now I am doing it.”

  “Yes,” Rithdeliel said. “And you would not have won without such vows. I only say you must expect little of this council. It will be too busy fighting with itself to listen.”

  “Then I shall cover my ears and spend a pleasant morning without anyone asking my opinion on any matter!” Vieliessar said lightly. “Come, old friend. Let us go forth to see if we may marry high and low to our advantage.”

  * * *

  Every thread of the War Pavil
ion’s golden fabric was woven with spells: of silence, of durability, of protection from heat and cold. But most of all, it was bespelled against the use of Magery within it. It was little loss for Vieliessar to surrender the ability to hear the thoughts of her council; far greater was the advantage she gained by showing her War Council it was safe from spellcraft, for if they had learned to use the Lightborn as weapons of war, they had also learned to fear them.

  She and Rithdeliel were the last to enter. Though she was dressed plainly, Vieliessar did not disparage her rank: she wore the Vilya-blossoms that should have adorned her hair-combs—had she not cut her hair as a death-offering to Gunedwaen—on a coronet instead. The elvensilver gleamed in the dim light.

  No one was seated yet, of course—they could not do so until she arrived. She stopped Rithdeliel before he announced her presence: Gatriadde Mangiralas was speaking and she wished to take the temper of the council before it realized she was here.

  “The pasturage here is good,” Gatriadde said, “and we have been fortunate. Much of the Mangiralas bloodstock remains intact. There are many young horses ready for training. With the help of the Lightborn, we may bring the mares into season, and in a year or two, by the favor of the Silver Hooves, we may replace all our losses.”

  Vieliessar was aware of Ivaloriel’s attention upon her. She thought, not for the first time, that waging the victory was going to be more difficult than waging the war had been. Even now, she found herself looking for those who would never be here again. Thoromarth. Gunedwaen. So many others. Comrades. Friends.

  “So Mangiralas is to be Horsemaster to the High King,” Lord Sedreret sneered. “And clean the stables, too, no doubt.”

  Gatriadde regarded him mildly. “And of what use will Aramenthiali be?” he asked blandly. “I am eager to hear.”