Текст книги "Blood Song"

Автор книги: Anthony Ryan

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Текущая страница: 38 (всего у книги 44 страниц)

Vaelin glanced back at the mansion as they continued to bicker. A dim light was burning in one of the upstairs windows, vague shadows moving behind the blinds. Sherin at work, most probably. He felt a sudden lurch of concern, feeling her vulnerability. If her curative failed to work she was naked before the Red Hand, like Sister Gilma. He would have sent her to her death… and she was so angry.

He rose and went to the gate, eyes locked on the yellow square of the window, helplessness and guilt surging in his breast. He found he was already turning the key in the lock. If it works then there is no danger, if it doesn’t then I can’t linger here whilst she dies…

“Brother?” Caenis, voice heavy with warning.

“I have to…” The blood-song surged, a scream in his mind, sending him to his knees. He clutched at the gate to keep from falling, feeling Barkus’s strong hands bear him up.

“Vaelin? Is it the falling sickness again?”

Despite the pain throbbing in his head, Vaelin found he could stand unaided, and there was no tang of blood in his mouth. He wiped at his nose and eyes, finding them dry. Not the same, but it was Ahm Lin’s song. A sudden sick realisation struck him and he tore away from Barkus’s grasp, eyes scanning the dark mass of the city, finding it quickly, a bright beacon of flame shining in the artisan’s quarter. Ahm Lin’s shop was burning.

The flames were reaching high into the sky when they arrived, the roof of the shop was gone, the blackened beams wreathed in fire. The heat was so intense they couldn’t go within ten yards of the door. A line of townsfolk relayed buckets from the nearest well, although the water they cast at the inferno had little effect. Vaelin moved among the crowd, searching frantically. “Where’s the mason?” he demanded. “Is he inside?”

People shrank from him, fear and animosity on every face. He told Caenis to ask them for the mason and a few hands pointed to a cluster of people nearby. Ahm Lin lay on the street, his head cradled in his wife’s lap as she wept. Livid burns glistened on his face and arms. Vaelin knelt next to him, gently touching a hand to his chest to check he still drew breath.

“Get away!” His wife lashed out, catching him on the jaw, pushing his hand away. “Leave him alone!” Her face was blackened with soot and livid with grief and fury. “Your fault! Your fault, Hope Killer!”

Ahm Lin coughed, lurching on the ground as he fought for breath, eyes blinking open. “Nura-lah!” his wife sobbed, pulling him close. “Erha ne almash.”

“Thank the Nameless, not the gods” Ahm Lin rasped. His eyes found Vaelin and he beckoned him closer, whispering in his ear. “My wolf, brother…” His eyelids flickered and he lost consciousness, Vaelin sighing in relief at the sight of his swelling chest.

“Get him to the Guild house,” he ordered Dentos. “Find a healer.”

Caenis came to him as they carried Ahm Lin away, his wife clutching his hand. “They found the man who did this,” he said, gesturing at another knot of people. Vaelin rushed over, pushing through the cordon and finding a battered corpse lying on the cobbles. He kicked the body onto its back, seeing a bruised and completely unfamiliar face. An Alpiran face.

“Who is he?” Vaelin asked, his gaze tracking the crowd as Caenis translated. After a moment a swarthy man stepped forward and spoke a few words, glancing uneasily at Vaelin.

“The mason is well thought of,” Caenis related. “The work he does is considered sacred. This man shouldn’t have expected mercy.”

“I asked who he is,” Vaelin grated.

Caenis relayed the question to the man in his halting but precise Alpiran, receiving only a blank shake of the head. Questions to the rest of the crowd elicited only meagre information. “No one seems to know his name, but he was a servant in one of the big houses. He took a blow to the head when they tried to break out a few weeks ago, hasn’t been the same since.”

“Do they know why he did this?”

This produced a babble of seemingly unanimous responses. “He was found standing in the street with a flaming torch in his hand,” Caenis said. “Shouting that the mason was a traitor. It seems the mason’s friendship with you caused some bad talk, but no one expected this.”

Vaelin’s scrutiny of the crowd intensified under the blood-song’s guidance. The threat lingers. Someone here had a hand in this.

The sound of falling masonry made him turn back to the shop. The walls were crumbling as the fire ate the timbers inside. With the walls gone the many statues inside were revealed, gods, heroes and emperors serene and unmoving amidst the flames. The murmur of the crowd fell to hushed reverence, a few voices uttering prayers and supplications.

It’s not there, Vaelin realised, sweat beading on his brow as he moved closer to scan the blaze. The wolf is gone.

In the morning he searched amidst the wreckage, sifting ash under the impassive gaze of the blackened but otherwise undamaged marble gods. It had taken hours for the fire to subside, despite the countless water buckets heaved at it by the townsfolk and gathered soldiery. Eventually, when it became clear the surrounding houses were in no danger, he called a halt and let it burn. As dawn lit the city he sought out the block with its vital secret, finding nothing but ash and a few shattered pieces of marble which might have been anything. The blood-song was a constant mournful throb at the base of his skull. Nothing, he thought. This has all been for nothing.

“You look tired.” Sherin stood nearby, grey cloaked and pale in the lingering smoke rising from the charred ruin. Her face was still guarded but he saw no anger there, just fatigue.

“As do you, sister.”

“The curative worked. The girl will be fully recovered in a few days. I thought I should let you know.”

“Thank you.”

She gave barely perceptible nod. “It’s not quite over yet. We need to keep watch for more cases, but I’m confident any outbreak can be contained. Another week and the city can be opened once more.”

Her eyes surveyed the ruins then seemed to notice the statues for the first time, her gaze lingering on the massive form of the man and the lion locked in combat.

“Martual, god of courage,” he told her. “Battling the Nameless great lion that laid waste to the southern plains.”

She reached up to caress the god’s unfeasibly muscled forearm. “Beautiful.”

“Yes, it is. I know you’re tired sister but I would be grateful if you could look at the man who carved it. He was badly burned in the fire.”

“Of course. Where do I find him?”

“At the Guild house near the docks. I’ve had quarters prepared for you there. I’ll show you.”

“I’m sure I can find it.” She turned to go then paused. “Governor Aruan told me about the night you took the city, how you secured his co-operation. I feel my words may have been overly harsh.”

She held his gaze and he felt the familiar ache in his chest, but this time it warmed him, dispelling the blood-song’s sorrowful dirge and bringing a smile to his lips, though the Departed knew he had little to smile about.

“You have been released on the king’s orders,” he said. “Brother Frentis brought a royal command.”

“Really?” She arched an eyebrow. “May I see it?”

“Sadly, it has been lost.” He gestured at the smoking mess around them by way of explanation.

“Unusually clumsy of you, Vaelin.”

“No, I’m often clumsy, in my deeds and my words.”

A brief answering smile lit Sherin’s face before she looked away. “I should see to this artistic friend of yours.”

The gates were opened seven days later. Vaelin also ordered the sailors released, though only one crew at a time. It provoked little surprise when most chose to leave port with the earliest tide, the Red Falcon amongst the first to depart, Captain Nurin hounding his crew with desperate urgency as if afraid Vaelin would attempt a last minute retrieval of the bluestone.

Some of the richer citizens also chose to leave, fear of the Red Hand did not fade quickly. Vaelin managed to intercept the one-time employer of the man who had set fire to Ahm Lin’s shop, a richly attired if somewhat bedraggled spice merchant, chafing under guard at the eastern gate as Vaelin questioned him. His family and remaining servants lingered nearby, pack horses laden with assorted valuables.

“His name was carpenter, as far as I knew,” the merchant said. “I can’t be expected to remember every servant in my employ. I pay people to remember for me.” The man’s knowledge of the Realm tongue was impeccable, but there was an arrogant disdain to his tone Vaelin didn’t like. However the fellow’s evident fear made him suppress the urge to deliver an encouraging cuff across the face.

“He had a wife?” he asked. “A family?”

The merchant shrugged. “I think not, seemed to spend most his free time carving wooden effigies of the gods.”

“I heard he was injured, a blow to the head.”

“Most of us were that night.” The merchant lifted a silken sleeve to display a stitched cut on his forearm. “Your men were very free with their clubs.”

“The carpenter’s injury,” Vaelin pressed.

“He took a blow to the head, a bad one it seems. My men carried him back to the house unconscious. In truth we thought him dead, but he lingered for several days, barely breathing. Then he simply woke up, showing no ill-effects. My servants thought it the work of the gods, a reward for all his carvings. The next morning he was gone, having said no words since his awakening.” The merchant glanced back at his waiting family, impatience and fear showing in the tremble of his hands.

“I know you were not complicit in this,” he told the merchant, stepping aside. “Luck to you on your journey.”

The man was already moving away, shouting commands to put his household on the road.

He lingered for days, Vaelin mused and the blood-song stirred, sounding a clear note of recognition. He felt the familiar sense of fumbling for something, some answer to the many mysteries of his life, but once again it was beyond his reach. Frustration seized him and the blood-song wavered. The song is you, Ahm Lin had said. You can sing it as well as hear it. He sought to calm his feelings, trying to hear the song more clearly, trying to focus it. The song is me, my blood, my need, my hunt. It swelled within him, roaring in his ears, a cacophony of emotion, blurred visions flicking through his mind too fast to catch. Words spoken and unspoken rose in an incomprehensible babble, lies and truth mingling in a maelstrom of confusion.

I need Ahm Lin’s counsel, he thought, trying to focus the song, forcing harmony into the discordant din. The song swelled once more, then calmed to a single, clear note and there was a brief glimpse of the marble block, the chisel resuming its impossibly rapid work, guided by an unseen hand, the face emerging, features forming... Then it was gone, the block blackened and shattered amidst the wasted ruin of the mason’s home.

Vaelin moved to a nearby step and sat down heavily. It appeared there had been but one chance to know what message the block contained. This verse was over and he needed a new tune.

Chapter 8

He was called to the gate at midnight, Janril Norin limping to his room in the Guild house to wake him.

“Scores of horsemen on the plain, my lord,” the minstrel said. “Brother Caenis requested your presence.”

He quickly strapped on his sword and mounted Spit, galloping to the gatehouse in a few minutes. Caenis was already there, ordering more archers onto the walls. They climbed the stairs to the upper battlements where one of Count Marven’s Nilsaelins pointed to the plain. “Near five hundred of the buggers, my lord,” the man said, voice shrill with alarm.

Vaelin calmed him with a pat to the shoulder and moved to the battlement, looking down on a small host of armoured riders, steel gleaming a faint blue in the dim light from the crescent moon. At their head a burly figure in rust stained armour glared up at them. “You ever going to open this bloody gate?” Baron Banders demanded. “My men are hungry and I’ve got blisters on my arse.”

Shorn of his armour the baron was smaller in stature but no less bullish. “Pah!” he spat a mouthful of wine onto the floor of the guild house chamber which served as their meal hall. “Alpiran piss. Don’t you have any Cumbraelin to offer an honoured guest, my lord?”

“I regret my brothers and I are guilty of exhausting our reserves, Baron,” Vaelin replied. “My apologies.”

Banders shrugged and reached for the roasted chicken on the table, tearing off a leg and chomping into the flesh. “I see you managed to leave most of this place standing,” he commented around a mouthful. “Locals couldn’t have put up much of a fight.”

“We were able to effect a stealthy seizure of the city. The governor has proved a pragmatic man. There was little bloodshed.”

The Baron’s face became sombre and he paused for a moment before washing down his food and reaching for more. “Couldn’t say the same about Marbellis. Thought the place was going to burn forever.”

Vaelin’s disquiet deepened. The Baron’s unexpected appearance was unsettling, and it seemed he had dark news to impart. “The siege was difficult?”

Banders snorted, pouring himself more wine. “Four weeks of pounding with the engines before we had a practical breach. Every night they’d sally out, small parties of dagger men, sneaking through our lines to cut throats and hole the water barrels. Every bloody night a sleepless trial. The Departed know how many men we lost. Then the Battle Lord sent three full regiments into the breach. Maybe fifty men made it out again, all wounded. The Alpirans had set traps in the breach, spiked pits and so forth. When the Realm Guard got held up by the pits they sent bundles of kindling rolling in, all soaked in oil. Their archers set them blazing with fire arrows.” He paused, eyes closed, a small shudder ran through him. “You could hear the screams a mile away.”

“The city is not taken?”

“Oh it’s taken. Taken and taken again like a cheap whore.” Banders belched. “Blood Rose licked his wounds and drew his plan well. In truth I think his assault on the breach was a grand ruse, a sacrifice to convince the Alpirans they were facing a fool. Two nights later he drew up four regiments opposite the breach, making ready to assault. At the same time he sent the entire remaining Realm Guard infantry against the eastern wall with scaling ladders. He gambled the Alpirans were concentrating their strength at the breach and didn’t leave enough men to defend the walls. Turns out he was right. Took all night and the cost was high but by morning the city was ours, what was left of it.”

Banders lapsed into silence, concentrating on his meal. Vaelin let him eat and found his gaze lingering on the baron’s perennially rust stained armour. On seeing it up close for the first time he noticed those parts of steel plate not besmirched with corrosion gleamed with a polished sheen and the rust itself had an odd waxy texture.

“It’s paint,” he said aloud.

“Mmmm?” Banders glanced over at his armour and grunted. “Oh that. A man should try to live up to his legend, don’t you think?”

“The legend of the rusty knight?” Vaelin asked. “Can’t say I’ve heard it, my lord.”

“Aha, but you’re not Renfaelin.” Banders grinned. “My father was a boisterous, kind hearted fellow, but over fond of dice and harlots and consequently unable to leave me much more than a crumbling hold-fast and a rusty suit of armour, which I was obliged to wear when answering the Lord’s call to war. Luckily my father had managed to pass on something of his skill with the lance and so my standing grew with every battle and tourney. I was famed as the Rust Knight, loved by the commons for my poverty. The armour became my banner, made me easy to find in the melee, something for the peasants to cheer and my men to rally to, once I had fortune enough to hire some of course.”

“So this is not the original armour?”

Banders laughed heartily. “Faith no, brother! That’s all rusted to uselessness years ago. Even the best armour rarely lasts more than a few years in any case, battle and the elements take their toll. We have a saying in Renfael: if you want to be richer than a lord, become a blacksmith.” He chuckled and poured himself more wine.

“Why are you here, baron?” Vaelin asked him. “Do you bring word from the Battle Lord?”

The Baron’s expression sobered once again. “I do. I also bring myself and my men. Three hundred knights and two hundred armed retainers and assorted squires, if you’ll have us.”

“You and your men are most welcome, but will Fief Lord Theros not have need of your services?”

Banders set aside his wine and sighed heavily, meeting Vaelin’s eyes with a level gaze. “I have been dismissed from the Fief Lord’s service, brother. Not for the first time, but I suspect the last. The Battle Lord bid me offer my command to you.”

“You quarrelled with the Fief Lord?”

“Not with him, no.” His mouth was set in a hard, unyielding line and Vaelin sensed it was best to let the matter drop.

“And the Battle Lord’s word?”

Banders pulled a sealed letter from his shirt and tossed it on the table. “I know the contents, to save you reading it. You are instructed to make the city safe against imminent siege. Order patrols from Marbellis spied a great host of Alpirans making its way north. They appear intent on bypassing Marbellis and seizing Linesh with all dispatch.” He took another, deep gulp of wine, wiping his mouth and belching again. “My advice, brother, commandeer the merchant fleet and sail your men back to the Realm. There isn’t a hope of holding this place against so many.”

“At least ten cohorts of infantry, another five of horse and assorted savages from the southern provinces of the Empire. Near twenty thousand in all.” Banders’s voice was light but all present could sense the weight behind his levity. Vaelin had called a council of captains in the Guild house, having had Caenis search the city archive for the largest and most accurate map of the northern Alpiran coast.

“I thought there would be more,” Caenis said. “The Emperor’s army is supposed to be beyond counting.”

“Indeed there are more, brother,” Banders assured him. “This is just the vanguard. The few prisoners we took in Marbellis were happy to confirm it. The force marching on this city is the elite of the Alpiran army. The finest infantry and cavalry he can muster, all veterans of the border wars with the Volarians. Don’t underestimate the savages either, all warriors born. It’s said they spend their lives worshipping the emperor like a god and fighting each other over petty insults, which they’re happy to put aside when he calls them to war. Seems they like the taste of defeated enemies.”

“Siege engines?” Vaelin asked.

Banders nodded. “Ten of them, much taller and heftier than anything we have, can sling a boulder the size of musk-ox over three hundred paces.”

Vaelin glanced around the table gauging the reaction of the other captains to the baron’s words. Count Marven was rigidly controlled, seemingly wary of betraying any emotion which might undermine his jealously guarded status. Lord Marshal Al Cordlin had paled visibly and kept clutching his recently healed arm, a faint sheen of sweat beginning to show on his upper lip. Lord Marshal Al Trendil seemed lost in thought, stroking his chin, eyes distant. Vaelin assumed he was calculating if he could escape with all the spoils he had looted at Untesh. Only Bren Antesh seemed unaffected, arms folded and regarding Banders with only a mild interest.

“How long do we have?” Caenis asked the baron.

“Brother Sollis put them here.” Banders tapped a finger to the map spread out on the table before them, picking out a point about twenty miles south-west of Marbellis. “That was twelve days ago.”

“An army that size couldn’t cover more than fifteen miles a day,” Count Marven mused in a deliberately measured tone. “Less in the desert.”

“Gives us maybe another two weeks,” Lord Marshal Al Cordlin said, his voice was pitched slightly high and he coughed before continuing. “Ample time, my lord.”

Vaelin frowned at him. “Ample time for what?”

“Why, evacuation of course.” Al Cordlin’s eyes cast around the table, seeking support. “I know there aren’t sufficient ships remaining to carry the whole of the army, but the senior officers could be got away easily. The men can march to Untesh…”

“We are ordered to hold this city,” Vaelin told him.

“Against twenty thousand?” Al Cordlin gave a short and somewhat hysterical laugh. “More than three times our number, and elite troops at that. It would be madness to…”

“Lord Marshal Al Cordlin I hereby relieve you of your command.” Vaelin nodded at the door. “Leave this room. In the morning you will be escorted to the harbour where you will take ship for the Realm. Until then keep to your quarters, I don’t want the men infected with your cowardice.”

Al Cordlin rocked back on his heels as if struck, beginning to babble. “This is… Such insults are unwarranted. My regiment was given to me by the king…”

“Just get out.”

The stricken lord cast one more final glance at the rest of the captains, finding either indifference or wary discomfort, before moving to the door and making his exit. “Any more suggestions of evacuation will receive the same response,” Vaelin told the council. “I trust that’s understood.”

He turned his attention back to the map, ignoring the chorus of affirmation. Once again he was struck by the barrenness of the region, marvelling that three large cities such as Untesh, Linesh and Marbellis could exist on the fringes of such trackless desert. All dust and scrub, as Frentis had said. Haven’t seen a tree since we landed… “No trees.”

“My lord?” Baron Banders asked.

Vaelin gave no reply and kept his attention on the map as something stirred, the seed of a stratagem nurtured by a faint murmur from the blood-song, building to a chorus as his eyes picked out a pictogram about thirty miles south of the city; a copse of palm trees surrounding a small pool. “What’s this?” he asked Caenis.

“The Lehlun Oasis, brother. The only sizeable source of water on the southern caravan route.”

“Meaning,” Count Marven said, “the Alpiran army will have to stop there on the way north.”

“You mean to poison the water, my lord?” Lord Marshal Al Trendil asked. “An excellent notion. We could spoil it with animal carcasses…”

“I don’t mean to do any such thing,” Vaelin replied, continuing to let the blood-song feed his design. The risks are great, and the cost…

“We should seal the city, my lord,” Count Marven said, breaking the silence which Vaelin realised had lasted several minutes. “The southbound caravans will surely pass word of our numbers to the enemy.”

“People have been leaving by the dozen since the threat of the Red Hand faded,” Vaelin said. “I’d be greatly surprised if the Alpiran commander doesn’t already possess a full picture of our numbers and our preparations. Besides, letting him think us weak could work to our advantage. An overconfident enemy is prone to carelessness.”

He gave the map a final glance and moved back from the table. “Baron Banders, I apologise for asking you to take to the saddle again so soon after your arrival, but I require you and your knights on the morrow.” He turned to Caenis. “Brother, have the scout troop assemble at dawn, I will take command personally. In my absence the city is yours. Make every effort to deepen the ditch around the walls and double its width.”

“You intend to ambush an army of twenty thousand with a few hundred men?” Count Marven was incredulous. “What can you hope to achieve?”

Vaelin was already moving to the door. “An axe without a blade is just a stick.”

Further inland the northern desert sands rose into tall dunes, stretching to the horizon like a storm swept sea frozen in gold under a cloudless sky. The sun was too intense to permit marching during the day and they were obliged to travel by night, sheltering under tents in daylight whilst the knights grumbled and their war-horses nickered and stamped hooves in irritation at the unaccustomed heat.

“Noisy buggers, this lot,” Dentos observed on the second day out.

Vaelin glanced over at a clutch of knights, bickering and shoving each other over a game of dice. Nearby another knight was loudly berating his squire for the lack of polish on his breast plate. He had to agree the knights were hardly the most stealthy soldiers and he would have gladly exchanged them all for a single company from the Order, but there were no brothers to be had and he needed cavalry for this to work.

“It shouldn’t matter,” he replied. “They only have to make one charge.” Though, I couldn’t say how many will be left after that.

“What about patrols?” Frentis asked. “The Alpirans would be fools not to scout their flanks.”

“This far out from the city, I’m hoping they’re foolish enough to do just that. If not, we’ll only have to linger for one day in any case. Any patrol that finds us will have to be silenced and we’ll hope they aren’t missed by nightfall.”

It took another two nights before the oasis came into view, shimmering into solidity amidst the baking dunes. Vaelin was surprised by the size of it, expecting little more than a pond and a few palms, but in fact found a small lake surrounded by lush vegetation, a near irresistible jewel of green and blue.

“No sign of the Alpirans, brother,” Frentis said, reining in with the scout troop at the foot of the dune where he had halted to survey the oasis. “Seems we beat them to it, like you said.”

“Caravans?” Vaelin asked him.

“Nothing for miles around.”

“We saw scant sign of traders on our journey north, my lord,” Baron Banders commented. “War is never good for commerce. Lest your trading in steel o’course.”

Vaelin surveyed the desert, spying a tall, almost mountainous dune two miles to the west. “There,” he said, pointing. “We’ll camp on the westward slope. No fires, and it would be greatly appreciated, Baron, if your men refrained from excessive noise.”

“I’ll do what I can, my lord. But they’re not peasants, y’know. Can’t just flog them like your lot.”

“Maybe you should, milord,” Dentos suggested. “Remind ‘em they bleed the same colour as us peasants.”

“They’ll bleed well enough when the Alpirans come, brother,” Banders snapped back, his already flushed face colouring further.

“Enough,” Vaelin cut in. “Brother Dentos, go with Brother Frentis. Fetch as much water as you can carry, leave as little sign as possible. I don’t want our foes to think anything bigger than a spice caravan has passed here in weeks.”

It was two more days before the Emperor’s army appeared, heralded by a tall column of dust rising above the southern horizon. Vaelin, Frentis and Dentos lay atop a high dune to observe their advance to the oasis. The cavalry appeared first, small parties of outriders followed by long columns riding two abreast. Vaelin counted four regiments of lancers plus an equal number of horse-borne archers. Their discipline and efficiency was impressive, evident in the speed with which they established their camp, tents and cooking fires appearing amidst the palms of the oasis within an hour of their arrival. He borrowed the spyglass from Frentis and picked out officers and sergeants amongst the throng, marking their stern visage and easy authority as they posted pickets in a tight and well placed perimeter. Veterans indeed, he decided, regretting he hadn’t had time to say his goodbyes to Sherin before they left. Although he had sensed a softening in her regard at their last meeting, he still had much to explain.

He tracked the spyglass away from the oasis and focused on a second dust cloud rising to the south, the wavering, stick figures of the Alpiran infantry materialising out of the desert heat with unwelcome clarity.

It took over an hour for the infantry to file into the oasis and make camp. Master Sollis’s estimate had been conservative; there were in fact twelve cohorts of infantry, swelling the Alpiran force to at least thirty thousand and making him consider, for only the briefest second, if Lord Marshall Al Cordlin hadn’t been right after all.

“See there?” Frentis pointed, lifting his eye from the spyglass. “Battle Lord maybe?”

Vaelin took the glass and followed his finger to a large tent pitched to the north of the oasis. A group of soldiers were erecting a tall standard bearing a red banner adorned with an emblem of two crossed sabres in black. They were overseen by a tall man in a gold cloak with hard ebony features and grey peppered hair. Neliesen Nester Hevren, Captain of the Tenth Cohort of the Imperial Guard. Come to keep a promise.

He watched the captain turn and bow to a stocky man with a pronounced limp. He wore old but serviceable armour and a cavalry sabre at his belt. His skin had the olive hue of the northern provinces and his head was shaved bald. He listened to Hevren for a few moments as the captain appeared to make some kind of report, then cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand, stomping off to the tent without sparing him another glance.

“No, the limping man is the Battle Lord,” Vaelin said. He noted the weary slump of Hevren’s shoulders before he straightened and marched away. Shamed, he decided. Shunned because you lost the Hope. What were you suggesting, I wonder? More patrols, more guards? More regard for the cunning of the Hope Killer? Wouldn’t listen would he? For the first time since leaving the city, Vaelin felt his mood begin to lighten.

It was early evening by the time the siege engines came into view. He had been nurturing the faint hope that Banders had exaggerated Sollis’s report with the telling but knew now the Baron had spoken true. The Realm Guard had engines of its own, mangonels and catapults for slinging boulders and fire balls at or over castle walls, but even the largest and most carefully crafted could not compare to the obvious power of the devices the emperor had sent to bring down the walls of Linesh. Lumbering giants in the gathering gloom, their weighted arms swayed as great teams of oxen drew them onward.