Soil and grass flew in chunks beneath the flashing hooves of Baleron’s stallion. The horse’s black flanks were frothy with sweat, its running panicked. Baleron threaded his way between low green hills faded by summer. The sun blazed down from above, but—strangely—that didn't deter his pursuer.
He glanced over his shoulder.
“By the dugs of Mogra!”
The Grudremorqen was closer. It was huge, a serpent of flame perhaps two hundred feet long, its eyes black holes in its terrible face. The rest was flame-bright, burning flame. The behemoth left a blackened, smoking ruin in his wake. The Grudremorqen were the spawn of Grurdremorq, the god of flame who had dwelt in Oksil—who had been Oksil—for countless years. Now, like their father, they were loosed, though they were thought to be under his command.
Baleron only looked for a moment (that was enough), then faced front again. His horse leapt a boulder, and his stomach heaved. He tasted blood in his mouth.
Behind, the Grudremorqen roared, a great, earthshaking sound.
“On, damn you!” Baleron shouted to his horse. “Faster!”
They thundered around a rocky hill and came into view of the gorge through which the wide white Naslym River raged, snaking its way northward down from the Aragst Mountains. A sturdy wooden bridge spanned it. On the other side waited the haggard ranks of the army.
Baleron heard the Naslym’s watery rumble and grinned tightly.
“Almost there,” he growled to his horse as they approached the bridge.
The Grudremorqen roared again behind, bellowing out its wrath at the thought of Baleron’s escape. It belched fire at his backside, and he felt the heat of the blast through his armor. His horse neighed in fear and pain. The plume faded behind.
Baleron could feel the vibrations in the earth as the fire serpent gave one final burst of energy, meaning to overtake and destroy him, then cross the bridge and devour the remains of the Havensrike Army, one score of soldiers at a time.
Baleron brought his horse at a swift gallop onto the wide bridge. Archers on the other side were already shooting arrows of fire to embed in the sturdy planks. With a little help from the army’s only surviving wielder of Light, Logran, the flames quickly engulfed the bridge.
Baleron plowed through the bright hot tongues, glaring about him. Sweat ran in rivulets beneath his burning armor.
He was over halfway across. Smoke wreathed him, filled his lungs, and he coughed it away.
Just then, the Grudremorqen, throwing aside all caution in the service of its Lord, slithered onto the bridge. It opened its awesome jaws and belched another gout of fire at the retreating rider, who just narrowly escaped it. The behemoth charged on. Just another few seconds and it would be upon Baleron and then across—
Baleron made it to the other side and wheeled about to face his pursuer. He snatched the bow off his back and sent a shaft hurtling into one great black eye.
He never knew if that made any difference, as just then the Grudremorqen gave one last roar as it felt the timbers beneath it giving out. Screaming in rage, it plummeted into the Naslym a quarter of a mile below. The creature was a long, glittering ribbon of fire that sank into the deep rushing river, blue and foaming. Water boiled up at its impact and the steam hid its death throes from view. Its final roar shook stones loose from the cliff side, and the army drew back.
Baleron tore off his helmet and let the cool breeze caress his sweaty, stubbled face, as he took in great gasps. Beneath him, the stallion panted, ready to collapse. Baleron slipped off him and patted his flanks.
“Water!” he demanded. “Bring my horse some water!”
Servants hurried to obey.
Soldiers gathered around the man, hailing him, thanking him, and he nodded tiredly. The Archmage approached and clapped him on the back.
“Well done, Baleron.”
Baleron shrugged. “I hadn’t intended to get chased, you know. I just stayed behind to trigger the avalanche. I was really rather hoping that would do the trick.” He turned wistfully to the flaming remains of the bridge. “You know, these damned bridges have caused me more trouble—”
The royal horn blew, the King summoning his troops.
Obediently they came, Baleron and Logran among them. The host was a grim and ragged group, but a fire seemed to kindle in them when they looked on the stony face of Lord Albrech Grothgar, Baleron’s father, sitting astride his brown steed.
“Well done, men!” he said. “We’ve made it. We’re officially in Havensrike now. We’re almost home.”
* * *
Baleron paused when he crested the hill and sucked in a breath.
“Home,” he breathed.
Before him stretched the hills and fields that surrounded Glorifel, capital of Havensrike. After the wonders of Clevaris, City of Light, Glorifel looked rather pedestrian—human, he thought—and its somber gray walls did not look out over garden-forests or vibrant green plains but on the rocky, scrub-covered hills of the region. However, even more than Clevaris, Glorifel was a city of water, as it was built on a network of interconnected streams and rivers, and it was famous for its gondolas and water festivals. The sturdy domes and spires that rose between the canals sparkled under the sun.
Baleron had longed to see this sight for years—long, grim years.
The men of Havensrike had departed Clevaris grimly and made their way out of Larenthi with haste. They’d barely escaped the flaming jaws of Grudremorq’s host—this by mere hours—and passed through Felgrad, where they had come across several roving bands of Borchstogs, whom they had put to the sword. There they learned just how dire the situation was for Felgrad, especially its southern regions, such as Fiarth, and some debate was held on how they could aid the beleaguered kingdom. A messenger was sent to the new lord of Thiersgald, the nearest free city, asking if he needed aid, but Baron Raugst Wesrain responded that the hosts of Wegredon had been driven back for the moment and that no further help was required.
Relieved, the army, which had in all honesty been too tattered to accomplish much on behalf of Felgrad, resumed its journey. (Little did they know that Vrulug’s spies were watching, and that it had been Vrulug who had sent winged messengers to Grudremorq, who had dispatched one of his mightiest sons to deal with the host of Havensrike).
The bridges over the Naslym had been rebuilt in the last three years, and so finally the men under King Grothgar’s command entered Havensrike itself. The month-long journey had taxed everyone, including Baleron, who, unable to help it, spent much of his time brooding on the nature of his Doom. It is wrapped about your very soul, Queen Vilana had told him, and the words haunted him. The prophecy of ul Ravast might be a lie (might be), but his Doom, it seemed, was very real, and as long as it was so was ul Ravast, he who would usher in the Dark Times, the time of Gilgaroth’s supremacy.
But, seeing Glorifel before him, Baleron began to feel lighter, easier. He prayed that his Doom wouldn’t follow him within the walls of the city, but of course it would. He only hoped that whatever good he could do here in organizing a defense against the Shadow would be enough to outweigh whatever his curse would bring to bear in support of it; that’s why Vilana hadn’t destroyed him (as he’d asked her to), after all.
“Don’t stop now,” said King Grothgar, just passing on his brown stallion. “We’re not there yet.”
When the host passed through the Gates, the city gave them a hero’s welcome. Home to some half million people, Glorifel had much welcome to give. The soldiers were greeted with much cheering and music and more. Hot plates of steaming food were thrust at them, and the unmarried girls went around giving kisses on the cheek to weary troops. But even in the faces of the girls and the cheering shopkeepers and peasants was a look of disbelief and dread at the small number of survivors. Nearly forty-five thousand Havensri had left for war: only thirty-five hundred now returned.
His horse clip-clopping on the cobbled streets, King Grothgar led his ragtag army through the broad avenues, over long bridges and at last into Kings’ Square, which lay before the forbidding peaks and spires of Grothgar Castle, that massive gray structure that reared starkly above the shining city of white and gold and burnished red, of amber and blue and sunset orange. Amidst the warm splendor, it loomed solemn and forbidding.
Riding at the king’s side, Baleron wondered how Lunir fared. He hadn’t wanted any of the townspeople to attack the glarum thinking it an enemy, so he’d asked the Master of Horse to look out for the great crow-like bird rather than let him fly overhead, where he would surely get shot down. Baleron wished he had been riding Lunir when the Grudremorqen broke through the avalanche, but lately he’d been trying to fit in with the Havensri, to become one of them again, and riding a winged steed of the enemy would do more than raise a few eyebrows.
King Grothgar stopped before the statue of his forefather, King Grothgar I—the source of so much of the tension between the First Men and the Second—and dismounted. He ascended the flight of stairs to the platform where the towering figure of the old king reared on his mount, sword thrust at the heavens, and turned to address the crowd, who waited expectantly, glumly.
“Thank you for the warm welcome,” he said, nodding to his eldest living son, Prince Rilurn, who stood surrounded by a few guards. “I wish I could receive it with a likewise warm heart, but I cannot.”
Baleron watched the faces of the townspeople as his father went on to describe the war against Gulrothrog and the unexpected assault of the Omkarog known as Grudremorq, Lord of Flame, of whom Ungier had been custodian. The Glorifelans wept at the news of the holocaust, and they grew ashen when Albrech described the fall of the White Tower of Celievsti and the breaching of the White Shield that had protected Larenthi for more than a thousand years.
The music had died and so had the happy chatter. All was silence, save for Albrech’s grim, inexorable voice. With every word he uttered, another nail pounded into the people’s collective coffin. They’d surely heard rumors before of what had happened, but until now they’d still fostered some hope.
After he finished, Albrech added, “These are dark times, my friends, perhaps the Dark Times, and we can only expect them to grow darker. Queen Vilana said that war would come to us here in Glorifel, and that we must prepare. To that end, I need to call more troops into service. I will begin recruiting or drafting from among the populace immediately.”
One bold merchant declared, “I volunteer! You can enlist me right now, m’lord!
People cheered, and another hand went up. “Aye! Join me up, too!”
“And me!”
“Good,” Albrech said, quieting them. “Very good. For unless Queen Vilana can hold Grudremorq off, Larenthi will fall and the Crescent will be broken. If Havensrike and Larenthi both fall, the Crescent will crumble utterly and the Beast will be loosed upon the world.” He added, “We have much to do. But with spirits like yours, we may just get it done.” He cleared his throat. “Now, if I may address my soldiers.”
The survivors of the army looked up. They were weary, dirty and gaunt, but there was still a touch of reverence in their eyes when they looked upon their king.
“You have done well,” he told them. “You have fought the Shadow and survived. We faced some unexpected challenges, and I won’t say that we overcame them, but we endured. We came out the other side. That is well. We have been through a lot together, you and I. Hard days. Hard nights. We have seen many friends die. I will give each of you survivors a special honor in the days to come, a medallion, a medal, so all will know who you are, what you lived through. And I will hold a special event every year for the veterans of Oksil, of Larenthi. But that is only if we make it through the days ahead.
“I think after what we’ve been through it would be all too easy to wallow in despair, to give up, to surrender to our nightmares, our memories. So I want all of you to bear in mind the trials ahead. Stay sharp. Stay focused. Havensrike needs you now more than ever.” He swept his hard gaze about the assembly, and everywhere his eyes touched, men straightened. “Well done,” he said. “That is all. Go to the barracks, lads. Follow your troop leaders. And troop leaders, let them get some rest. I will have further orders for you shortly. Good day.”
He stepped down from the stage and the people cheered him, though softly, and there was a current of fear behind the cheers. Albrech mounted his horse beside Baleron, and Baleron noted that his oldest brother Rilurn’s face was not a happy one. The thought that the Heir might fear Baleron taking his place in the king’s favor amused the youngest prince. Baleron had for so long been the lowliest member of the family that he did not think it petty to enjoy his father’s favor while it lasted. Surely it would be a fleeting thing.
He and Albrech led their horses to the royal stables. The smell of hay and horse dung was comforting, the stables pleasantly musty. After handing his horse over to a groom, Baleron saw that Lunir was given a stall of his own. The glarum squawked and fought, evidently not liking the smell of horse in close quarters. He snapped at his handlers with his long dark beak, and they cringed back. One held his arm where the beak had gotten him, and blood trickled out.
“Let me,” Baleron said. He patted the Great Crow and eased him into his stall. “Good boy,” he said in Oksilon, the language Lunir had been raised around, and threw some birdfeed onto the floor. Mollified, Lunir pecked at it without much enthusiasm. He wanted meat ... rotten meat.
Baleron turned to see his father regarding him oddly. “You are a strange one,” Albrech mused. In mild tones, he went on, “A curse. A dark prophecy. An unholy sword. A great crow. Ah, and you’re an Elf-lover, how could I forget?”
“She’s dead, Father. Don’t speak ill of her, or I will—”
“You’ll what?”
“I will leave.”
Albrech studied him in silence. At last he took Baleron by the shoulder and steered him out of the stables. The fresh air smelled of flowers as father and son walked through the gardens in back of the Castle. Further off, toward the rear of the estate, was the atrium where Queen Anora lived. Baleron saw its golden dome, but he dismissed the sadness that came with it. His mind was on other things. The air was warm and laden with pollen and the scents of various floras. Oaks and pines and spruce rose about, casting shade. The walls of the garden muted the sounds of everyday life, but they could still be heard. Merchants hawked their wares. Horse-drawn carriages trampled by. Somewhere a church bell tolled.
“The Castle will seem dreary without Rolenya,” Albrech mused as he threaded his way between high, flowering bushes. “I remember when she would walk through this very garden, singing to herself, and everything would seem so ... alive ...”
Baleron didn’t interrupt. He’d rarely ever spoken to his father like this, one-on-one, and to hear him speak of Rolenya ... Ever since her disappearance and supposed death, Baleron had felt numb and hollow. But thinking of his sister-who-was-not-a-sister, remembering her here in this garden, one of her most favorite places, reawakened something warm inside him.
“I’ll miss her,” Albrech said in a voice almost too low to hear, then turned a glance on his son. “You were the closest to her, Baleron. You were her best friend, and some part of her is still with you, I can feel it. Thus I must content myself with reading her echo in your eyes, pale and dim though it may be.”
Baleron almost smiled at this slight, though he’d heard it before.
“That is why I favor you now,” Albrech added.
“I know.”
“Good. I want you to have no illusions.”
“What position of command will you give me? Remember, it’s why I returned with you.”
Albrech nodded thoughtfully. “You said you wanted a weapon with which to fight the Enemy. I said I would think on it, and so I have. But I have a problem.”
“Yes?”
“I’m left with a question.”
“Tell me.”
Albrech stopped and faced Baleron, staring unflinching into his son’s eyes. “Will men follow you?”
Baleron blinked.
“Think hard on that, son, and you’ll understand my reluctance.” Albrech cast a sad gaze at the atrium. “Now I must go to your mother. She won’t know me, but I would see her.”
Baleron watched him go sadly. He did not envy his father’s reunion with the queen. At last, still turning over his father’s words, he faced the Castle. It was stark and dreary—even more so without Rolenya, as his father had said—but it was home. Now that he was here, he wondered how long it would stand. Was he really doing the right thing by returning?
... wound about your very soul ...
He entered the castle through a rear door. Here the air lay cold and dusty. Torches blazed along the walls and the smoke stung his eyes as he navigated his way up through the tunnels to his old room. A guard stood at the door, and he saluted Baleron’s royal clothes more than he saluted the prince himself, with a fist over his heart and a perfunctory half-bow. He likely didn’t even recognize Baleron. Baleron didn’t recognize him.
“Good day, Lord Grothgar,” hailed the soldier.
Baleron smiled ruefully. “You are my one and only guard, eh? Before I at least ranked three.”
“No guard has been assigned you yet, my lord. Prince Rilurn just posted me to this station until such time as a guard would be tasked with you.”
“Tasked?”
The guard swallowed nervously. “No offense meant, my lord.”
“No offense taken.” Baleron frowned. “Tell me, has my room truly been kept for me for three years and more?”
“Indeed it has, my lord.”
“Surely you all thought me dead.”
“We all did, my lord—”
“No more ‘my lords’. I’m the lord of only one thing, and that’s me, and I’m barely lord of that. Go on.”
“Yes, my—ah—”
“Baleron.”
“Yes, my Baleron, as I was saying, we all thought you dead and gone, certainly. None came back from the wedding caravan, and we had no news. The border fortresses sent out parties to follow your trail, but Wegredon beat them all back. Vrulug has grown restless these past few years, and his captain Asguilar with him. They’ll strike at anything.”
Baleron stretched his lips in a thin smile. “Aguilar will strike at nothing now.”
“Pardon, my lord?”
In his mind’s eye, Baleron remembered hacking the vampire into pieces. Unconsciously, he patted the hilt of his sword, Rondthril, taken from the fiend. “Never mind. Continue. And it’s Baleron.”
The soldier nodded. He looked sweaty. “Well, so we had no word, an’ when the Naslym bridges were rebuilt and communication resumed with Felgrad we learned you’d never reached the palace—or anywhere. We had to think you’d all been slain, my, ah, Baleron. But the king refused to let either your room or Rolenya’s be changed or used. He kept ‘em for you. Well, until your deaths could be confirmed.”
Baleron looked at him skeptically. It did not surprise the prince that his father would have held Rolenya’s room, but his?
“Am I free to—?”
The guard moved aside. “By all means, Baleron. And welcome back.”
Baleron entered his suite. Thick fur rugs covered the stone floors and antlered deer heads popped out from the walls. Candelabras crouched about the room, tapers expectant. His stand-alone fireplace dominated the living area, and before it stretched his best rug, the thick dark shag of a bear he’d brought down himself. Many women had loved that rug. Could he ever go back to that life?
His father’s words echoed in his head, again and again. Each time he heard it differently.
WOULD anyone follow him? Would anyone FOLLOW him? Would anyone follow HIM?
He tried to shake it off. As the youngest—the sixteenth—child of the King, he’d never been given any more than token responsibility growing up, never given a chance to prove himself, even though he’d yearned for it, until Rolenya saw a chance to help him by asking him to lead the caravan that would see her to her wedding in Felgrad, and that had led to tragedy. Before that point, he’d long given up on being a respected figure in the family, in the country. He’d fallen into a life of drinking, gambling, carousing, and sleeping with the wrong men’s wives.
After all he’d been through, he knew he wasn’t that person anymore, for good or bad. That person had been carefree, with no weight on his shoulders other than a bit of notoriety.
The weight was greater now. Baleron could almost feel it, his Doom, crushing him ... down, down, down. A sliver of ice, of shadow, buried deep inside him. I’m the godsdamned spider of Gilgaroth!
He poured himself a glass of brandy from his miraculously maintained liquor cabinet. The first sip stung his throat, but he drank another. It had been too long.
The suite had been kept tidy in his absence—tidier than he’d left it, actually. It almost didn’t seem like home, he thought. He shrugged off his clothes and tossed them on the floor. Better.
“I’m back,” he said to the empty room. “Gods help me, I’m back.”
He found his bed and collapsed. He was asleep before his head hit the pillow. Despite his doubts and misgivings, it was the best sleep he’d had in years ... until he saw a slim white figure running. Her wide blue eyes were full of fear, and black hair streamed back from her pale face. Rolenya! It was Rolenya, beautiful Rolenya, and she was fleeing from something great and dark, with fire burning in its eyes.
* * *
In the morning, clammy with sweat from his nightmares, Baleron took a long hot bath and cleansed himself of the dirt of the road. He told himself that it was just a dream.
He went down to the stables and visited Lunir, but first he helped himself to the oldest slab of meat he could find in the kitchens. He brought it to the glarum’s stall, situated as it was at the end of the row. The stall adjacent to the glarum’s was empty, and Baleron didn’t wonder why; he could not imagine that the glarum got on well with the other residents. Lunir would sooner eat a horse than share a stable with one.
The glarum squawked when he saw the prince and ate heartily when Baleron tossed the meat on his floor, even if it was still a bit too fresh for him. Baleron would have to ask the cooks to set a hunk aside every day to age it. Lunir was a carrion bird, after all.
Baleron brushed his feathers and patted his neck. “Have you missed me?” When the glarum seemed more interested in the food than conversation, Baleron laughed.
He saddled Lunir and took him for a ride through the skies above Glorifel. Word had gone out about the bird, and no one fired on them even as they swept past the towers along the city wall. The soldiers there regarded the prince and his mount strangely.
It was an odd decision, flying Lunir, and it troubled Baleron. By doing so he was driving a further wedge between himself and the people of his country. It was simply that he’d come to the conclusion that to avoid such things would be to deny who he had become, and that wasn’t something he was prepared to do.
Finally, as the sun shone down on him and wind blew through his dark hair, Baleron began to feel like there might be a glimmer of hope, not just for Havensrike and the world, but for himself, too.
Yet he didn’t like the thought of a dark prince riding a foul winged steed and carrying an unholy sword while a black curse wound about his very soul. Thus he returned Lunir to his stable after a lengthy ride, gave him some more food (birdfeed, this time), brushed him down, then made his way to Logran’s Tower, the largest and tallest of Castle Grothgar’s spires—nowhere near the majesty of Celievsti, of course, but a comforting sight nonetheless.
Baleron ascended the spiral stairs within the Tower and knocked at the door to the sorcerer’s chambers. He waited anxiously, a knot in his stomach. He did not want to be that dark, cursed figure, not if he could help it. And if anyone could aid him, it was the Archmage.
Logran opened the door himself. He looked old and befuddled, his brown eyes bleary. Doubtless he still grieved for Elethris, Lord of Celievsti, his mentor. Or perhaps he was merely beginning to look his age at last.
He smiled, surprised at seeing the prince on his doorstep, and clapped Baleron on the shoulder. “Well, it’s good to see you here. Neither of us has been home for a long time, have we? It does the heart well.”
Logran wore loose, comfortable robes that looked due for a wash, and he carried no staff and wore no pointy wizard’s hat. He could have been just another old man. He was tall, and for all his life Baleron had always considered him hale and vigorous, but now he looked frail and his complexion was wan and sickly. The prince wondered if this was all due to grief ... or something else. Surely Logran would be fine; he was at least two hundred years old, possibly much older, having extended his life through sorcerous means, and Baleron fully expected the Archmage to live to meet his own grandchildren and possibly theirs as well. But now he wondered.
“You look sharp as steel,” said the Archmage. “Fine indeed. I wish I felt half as fine as you look, my prince.”
Baleron clasped the wrist of the sorcerer’s bony hand gripping his shoulder. It did so with a strength that belied the sorcerer’s dilapidated appearance.
“What’s wrong?” Baleron asked. “You don’t look yourself.”
Logran laughed ironically. “Maybe I’m not. You never know, these days. It seems the Wolf’s agents abound everywhere, and you never know what mischief they might be up to. Just the thought of them is enough to make an old man older.”
He leaned close and whispered in Baleron’s ear, “Did you know that at least two members of the Grand Council are suspected of being spies?” When Baleron looked properly aghast, the sorcerer nodded grimly. “We’ve called a session of the Council to determine the best course of action, but it will be a week or more before all the diplomats arrive, and that’s on Swan-back and more. It’s got me worried, Baleron. How many of them might be the Enemy’s agents?”
“We should adopt the methods of the Elves,” Baleron said. “Examine everyone we’re not sure of.”
“We will,” Logran assured him. “We have in the past, but the Elves have perfected their techniques, and ours have stagnated. At least, till now.”
“You’ve done it?”
“Well, not all on my own, of course. Over the past five years at Celievsti, I’ve made it my business to learn those techniques. That’s one of the many things Elethris taught me. One of the many reasons I went to be tutored by him. But ... well, it didn’t save him, did it? He died by the hand of an assassin even his arts could not detect.” He scratched his gnarled and stained beard. “No, that’s not the answer to end all answers, I’m afraid. No matter what, they seem to find a way to slip through. Yet if nothing else we will be more vigilant.”
He ushered the younger man into his suite and, as he talked, led him through the halls, which were clean but messy, and well lit, either from torches, braziers or from large windows that dominated walls and looked out on the wonders of Glorifel.
“For years,” Logran said, “I’ve tried to convince your father to allow a more prevalent use of magic, but he’s been too heavily indoctrinated into his forefathers’ way of thinking. He sees sorcerers as inhuman because we possess at least a faint echo of Grace. Men typically make poor sorcerers—that is, we can’t very well channel power directly like the elves—but a few of us can at least manipulate some of the binding forces of the earth. We may not be able to draw them out and funnel them through us, but at least we can learn to wield the already existing energies to some extent.”
He clapped Baleron on the back. “But your father’s a stubborn man, as you know all too well. He won’t allow me to fully utilize my gifts, at least not publicly. But privately,” he added, “he’s allowed us more leniency. Glorifel is actually rather well protected already, and especially this castle. Now, with what I’ve learned from Elethris, and what I’ve been given, I can make us all even safer.”
“What were you given?”
Slyly, Logran pulled an odd vial from out of his robes. The flower within shone with a white light, and Baleron felt a warmth emanating from it.
“What ... what is it?” he asked.
“This, my prince, is a gift from Elethris. This is going to be the thing that saves us. The Flower of Itherin, he called it.”
“Itherin, his wife?”
“Just so. It grew from her grave.”
Baleron’s mouth went dry. “What can it do?”
“It’s a thing of great power. Elethris believed it contained a very real echo of his wife’s Grace, that it resonated with her being.”
“What will you use it for?”
“I’ll wait to see what your father’s orders are, of course. The King’s Council should be meeting in an hour. We’ll find out then.”
“We?” It had been Baleron’s dream since he was very little to attend the council meetings with his father, the generals, sorcerers and the other princes.
“I believe so. We shall see.” He laughed at Baleron’s expression.
While the prince daydreamed, Logran rummaged about until he found a bottle of what looked look apple cider and poured himself a healthy dose into a dirty glass. He offered a glass to Baleron, but the prince shook off the offer. The grimy glass reminded him (unfairly) of his depravations at Gulrothrog. He thought of how he’d had to slop up gruel from a trough like a pig for three years and frowned.
Taking a breath, he said, “I need your help.”
“Ah, do tell.” The sorcerer plopped down in a chair and was nearly lost in the folds of its plush if musty cushions. Baleron had to cough away the dust. Attendants may have kept Baleron’s suite clean and tidy during his absence, but they had either feared or been forbidden from stepping foot in here.
“Sit, sit,” the sorcerer bade him, swirling the cider around his mouth.
“Not yet.” Baleron drew out his sword and laid it on the table that the chairs were arranged around. A huge window bathed the room in light and warmth, though the light was murky.
Logran frowned at the sword. “The Fanged Blade ...”
“Elethris spoke of it?”
The sorcerer nodded, his bushy eyebrows arched severely. “Indeed he did. The sword of Asguilar, Ungier’s Firstborn, forged by Ungier himself before the Breaking of the World.” His eyes regarded Baleron curiously, warily. “What, exactly, can I do for you, my prince?”
Baleron said simply, “I want you to de-fang it.”
* * *
After meeting with Logran, he decided there was no putting it off any longer: he would have to make the dreaded trek to the atrium.
Steeling himself, he went down to the rear of the castle. Here stretched the large and very famous Alida Gardens—Alida being the wife of King Grothgar II. She’d been famous for her love of flowers and gardens, and she’d led the movement to beautify the city in the wake of the elvish exodus.
Artful little streams ran through the sprawling gardens and walkways, and there were not less than three rainbows that arched from little hilltop to little hilltop, where the springs originated. Their bright colors fell softly across the vibrant green of the grass. Logran had made them at Baleron’s mother’s request some thirty years ago, despite Albrech’s objections, and they still leapt and sprang to this day. In the center of it all loomed a large and equally famous (if not notorious) aviary whose glass walls and white columns shone in the sun. Its golden dome glinted, rising from the tantalizing horticulture, and to the prince it seemed like a dream.
Time slowed. As a bee passed nearby, he could hear every beat of its wings and hear its bass hum and see the wax on its feet and smell the honey in the air. Wet green grass crunched underfoot.
As he stepped through the atrium’s archway, the chirping of thousands of birds assaulted him. Their peculiar odors were overwhelming—and not all good. Yet he smiled; the birds were his mother’s passion.
He passed many huge rooms full of hundreds if not thousands of varieties of birds, from the smallest hummingbird to the largest eagle, from owls to parrots to pheasants and more, many more, with an emphasis on the bright tropical varieties. The riot of their colors clashed loudly, and the effect jarred him. Whole chambers were grouped by color so that his mother could visit different areas when in different moods; other areas were grouped by the style of singing or vegetation requirements. He enjoyed the ones by the stream the most; he found the running water soothing. Queen Anora even boasted some magical varieties, such as the phoenix, which burned, a creature of fire, on a high branch, the flames not scoring the wood. Other birds kept their distance from it.
He entered a certain network of chambers and ascended tall trees, leaping from rope to branch to ladder, until finally he reached the carefully constructed tree house in which the queen lived. So skilled were the craftsmen that the house almost seemed to meld with the tree it was set in, but it was far too artistic to be an accident of nature.
He spied Anora up in one of the balconies, leaning on the railing and gazing with dreamy eyes upon her colorful flocks. He expected her to burst into song at any moment.
Well dressed and cared for, she was a woman of medium height and build who’d kept her looks; her makeup was light and her hair arranged in delicate chestnut buns behind her head. She was a pretty woman, if not beautiful. With the innocent delight on her face, she could almost be a child—and in some respects she was.
Letting himself into the house from a trapdoor below, he made his way through the well-furnished rooms to the balcony where she stood. She turned at his approach and half-smiled at him.
“Mother,” he said and went to her.
She accepted his hug warmly if a bit distantly, and patted him on the back. “And how are you today?” she asked gaily, but he sensed the distance in her tone, as if she were asking this question of someone she hardly knew, or perhaps someone she did not know at all.
“I’m fine,” he told her. “How are you?”
“Oh,” she assured him, “I’m quite well, thank you so for asking. Why don’t you have a seat? I don’t get enough visitors. Can I make you some tea?”
“That would be nice,” he told her.
She nodded brightly and disappeared inside her cabin. He heard her speaking with a servant, and she returned shortly bearing a tray laden with two cups of hot tea.
She sat it down on the little table on the balcony and proffered him a cup. He accepted gladly and reclined on a chair, while she took one for herself and leaned against the railing.
“Ah,” she said, sipping gingerly. “They make the finest teas here.”
“They do.” Steam rose from his cup.
She smiled at him mildly. “Now what did you say your name was?”
He suppressed a grimace. “Baleron. We’ve ...” He cleared his throat. “ ... we’ve met before.”
“Oh? Good. I feel so uncomfortable meeting strangers.” She paused, then smiled majestically. When she smiled she was gorgeous, especially to her son’s eyes. “Would you like to hear me sing?”
“I would love to.” It was she who’d taught Rolenya, after all.
His mother lifted her head, and a melodious sound sprang from her lips and filled the chambers of the aviary with joy and longing and sadness and faded glory. The birds quieted their own songs to hear it. Baleron listened, as he had many times before, while he sipped his tea and wondered why.
A middle-aged soldier interrupted the reunion.
“Good afternoon, my lord,” he said, as the queen sang on, oblivious, “Your father suggested I might find you here. Pardon me for intruding.”
“Not at all,” Baleron said. “Let me guess; you’re my new captain of the guard. Salthrick’s ... replacement.”
The soldier nodded and stepped closer, offering his hand. “Rafael Quinton, my lord. At your command.”
Baleron shook his hand and said, “Good to meet you, Captain. You’re of higher standing than Salthrick was.”
“Yes. It seems you’re more important now than you used to be, sir, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Important to my father, anyway. I’ve always been important to me.”
Rafael Quinton actually smiled. “It will be an honor to serve you, my lord. Your father suggested I escort you to the War Room. A meeting is about to start. Briefings will be held twice daily now that war has begun, if not more often. You are to attend every one.”
Logran had been right. Baleron’s enthusiasm was dampened, though, by the knowledge that if not for him none of this would be necessary. There would be no war.
He bid his mother goodbye, and she hugged him politely, still not at all sure she had met him before, even though it had been his birth that had driven her mad all those years ago, and told him to come back soon, that she always enjoyed visitors.
* * *
Riding a two-hundred-foot-long ebon serpent, Ungier led his vast host on through the endless jagged peaks of the Aragst. On and on they marched, sometimes chanting or singing, sometimes roaring out their joy at the prospect of the war to come. Storm clouds shielded them from the sun, and lightning blasted the dark slopes. The wind sighed and moaned.
At last Ungier rode between two high peaks and beheld the awesome might of Qazradan, the largest mountain of the Black Shield. Within that mountain waited a dark power, and mighty towers rose from the great bastion there. Ungier led his host over a shoulder of rock, around a deep chasm, and toward the high archway boring into the mountain. A tower rose to either side of the tunnel, and the guardians there did not open the gate for the army. Yet they perceived that a high son of their Master was present, and to him they granted entry. This was the greatest temple to Gilgaroth beyond Oslog proper—an entire mountain and the deep labyrinths beneath it.
Ungier asked for volunteers to be sacrificed, and an ancient Borchstog general was among those to step forward. Ungier accepted his offering and one other, then led the way inside, accompanied by a Gilgarothan priest. Deep, deep into the mountain they journeyed, and moisture dripped from the stalactites overhead and slicked the black walls so that they glistened. The air grew cooler and cooler until finally even Ungier shivered. The air turned putrid.
At last they entered the audience chamber for the High Priest. The room was a vast black gloom with an even blacker abyss. Ungier’s eyes could see well here, though, and he bore witness to the mighty presence of the High Priest, with all his writhing tentacles and towering immensity. His innumerable mouths, lined with fangs, sang out a song of love for the Master and a greeting to this mighty son come on the first stage of the Final Crusade.
Ungier sacrificed the lesser Borchstog to the priest, who then granted him entry into the Temple, deep in the dark heart of the mountain. This was a grand affair with wide-spaced pillars vanishing upwards, and downwards too, and it pulsed with power gathered over the ages. Only Gilgaroth’s highest supplicants were allowed to enter here and worship his majesty.
It turned Ungier’s stomach to be here, to have to pretend at love and obedience, when for an age he’d been his own master, answering to no one but Ungier. But here he was, and he would make good, and someday he would be restored to glory.
The sacrifice lay himself upon the altar and Ungier slit his throat with the jeweled dagger he normally used for these rituals. The soul of the Borchstog general was drawn like a wisp of black smoke up to the giant stone wolf head that had been carved from the rear of the cavern and which loomed above the altar.
Ungier took a last glimpse of the face, staring into those cold stone eyes. Such times were the only occasions he could ever stare his father in the eyes without feeling ashamed.
The soul disappeared down the gullet of the Wolf’s mouth, and smoke wreathed up from between the long dripping fangs. The eyes awoke and blazed with fire, lighting the temple with the flames of Illistriv.
The eyes of hell stared down at Ungier and narrowed.
Ungier lowered his gaze. “Father, I’ve come to give my final report before descending on Havensrike. I had hoped to receive Your blessing.”
A deep growl issued from the stone mouth, and Gilgaroth said, “You do well, My son.”
“Thank You, Father.” This was rare praise, and Ungier relished it.
“So well that I must see it in the flesh.”
Ice touched Ungier’s spine. Panic. “What ... what was that, Father? I mean, aren’t you at the Black Tower of Your vision, letting it bask in Your glow—to make it strong? Surely it requires Your presence.”
A pause. All Ungier could hear was the crackle of the flaming Eyes. Then:
“Fear not, son. I seek not to usurp your command. I seek only sport. Too long has it been since I have seen War.”
“Then ... You are truly coming here?” Ungier felt sweat bead his brow, and he detected a tremor in his voice. This was the worst possible development.
“No,” said the Voice.
Ungier sagged in gratitude.
“I am here already.”
There was a thud from the black ceiling as if something awesome landed on the mountain above, and a stalactite broke off and plummeted to the floor hundreds of feet below. Ungier just barely scrambled out of the way in time.
* * *
“Clevaris is now well and truly under siege,” Archmage Logran Belefard said gravely. Now that he was back, he had resumed his position as Chief Royal Advisor. “I have just communed with Queen Vilana and she’s told me the grim tidings herself. And while Clevaris is paralyzed, Grudremorq sends his excess host out to the other Larenthin cities, burning them one after the other. Even now his Grudremorqen raze Ethinil. Before long all Larenthi will be aflame save for Clevaris. It will stand the longest, but it too will fall.”
“We must help them,” Baleron said.
He sat beside his next-oldest brother Larik at the Council Table in the war room. The king sat alone at the head of the table, while on his right side his six surviving sons (save Jered) sat in order of their birth, with Prince Rilurn closest to him and Baleron furthest. On his left side sat his most senior advisors in descending order of their rank. Of them, of course, Logran sat closest to the king. And at the foot of the table sat the kingdom’s three highest generals.
Baleron felt nervous and awkward. He had to speak past the lump in his throat. He couldn’t believe he was actually here, couldn’t believe he was being allowed to speak, but whether he would be listened to remained unclear.
“We must not,” the king said.
“But we can’t let Grudremorq rape Larenthi!” Baleron said, as though it were obvious.
Albrech’s voice was bitter. “We can do nothing else.”
Baleron glanced around the table to see if he had any support, but the others’ faces were inscrutable. The only expression he read was curiosity: they wanted to know what oddities the notorious Baleron might give voice to.
“It’s the only honorable thing to do,” he added, somewhat exasperated.
“Honor is the first stepping stone to the grave, as they say.” The king’s voice was flat. “We simply don’t have the men. Grudremorq’s force is too strong, and the might of the Omkar goes with him.”
“But we can rouse the other states! If the entire Crescent unites to drive him off, we could succeed. In any case, it would be better than allowing him to pick us off one by one. When he finishes with Larenthi, he’ll turn his eyes on us, or smaller prey like Felgrad—which has enough problems.”
“Helping the elves is what got us into this trouble in the first place,” the king reminded him coldly. “We’ve done our part. What’s more, remember the queen’s warning: we too will be attacked soon. Grudremorq is but one general prosecuting his master’s war.”
“Your father’s right,” General Kavradnum, head of the Army, told Baleron. “Going to their aid now would be a mistake. We’d have to take all available fighting men with us, even from the border forts, leaving Havensrike virtually undefended. All of us know the ways of the Wolf: he never reveals his true strength. He would trick us into aiding the elves of the Larenth, trick us into committing our forces in foreign lands, while he brought in another as-yet-undisclosed host, even bigger than that which Grudremorq wields, and drive it right through our borders, burning and razing all in his path until he reached this city and made it his—and that’s if he would leave it standing at all.” The General sat back, scowling but his tone carefully neutral, as if not to cause insult to the prince. “We can’t afford to fight. We must marshal our strength and work on defending our borders.”
“Exactly,” said the king. “Your instincts are noble, my son, but they would betray your people and deliver them into the hands of the Enemy.”
“On that issue,” Logran said, changing the subject kindly, “I learned much under Elethris’s tutelage, ways to safeguard the city.” His brown eyes turned sad, and he stroked his long, dark gray beard. “He taught me much that I can apply to strengthening our fortification spells and defenses—and preparing new ones.”
“Then I want you to begin those immediately.” Albrech seemed ready to turn to the next order of business.
“But wait!” exclaimed Baleron. “I can’t believe you’re going to let the Shadow sweep Larenthi away like so much refuse because you imagine there to be some phantom army out there. The elves need us, and we possess the finest military in the Union.”
“A military now gone!” shouted a suddenly livid Albrech. He glared at Baleron, took a deep breath, and forced himself to calm down. He slicked back his hair, adjusted his crown, and in a more steady voice said, “A military now gone. Or at least crippled. Besides, you yourself heard Vilana tell us to go home and defend our borders, not hers. Now—for the defense of Glorifel.”
His tone brooked no argument, and Baleron held his tongue, chastened. He noticed that Prince Rilurn wore a satisfied smirk.
“Sorcerer,” the king was saying. “I’m most concerned about aerial threats such as glarumri. We haven’t had to repel an all-out attack from the skies since before the reign of King Grothgar the First. I don’t care what sort of resources you expend in the doing, but I need the city protected from above if at all possible. Can it be done?”
Logran wore a small smile. “I think I have just the tool,” he said.
“Good.” Albrech breathed a sigh of relief. “Now—for military matters.”
The meeting moved on. When the day’s business was concluded, the king dismissed the gathering, then gestured for Baleron to remain behind. When the others were gone, Albrech looked soberly at his youngest son. “Be careful what you say, Baleron. People will listen to you and weigh your words more heavily than someone else because of who you are. What you are. Think before you speak. You appeared foolish and rash today.”
“Maybe you’re right, Father. But when I think of the elves being butchered and enslaved by Grudremorq ... their souls snared and taken to his master to be devoured and cast into the Second Hell ... And remember, I’ve seen sacrifices being given to him, time and again. I lived within him, if you can believe it, for three years, with his stink in my nose, his fire making the air so hot it burned the lungs, slew the old and weak—”
“I know, my son. But these are dark times, and dark decisions are called for. There’s nothing we can do for Clevaris save coach the other states in how to aid it. I need you to understand that, and understand my decision. Do you?”
Slowly, Baleron nodded.
“And there’s something else,” Albrech said slowly.
Baleron felt a tug of apprehension. “What?”
“Only I and Logran know of your ... Doom. I don’t know how much sway it has over you—I haven’t seen you behave in any way other than that which you would not have behaved before—yet I know you ... well, not as well as a father should. Logran knows you better, and he is watchful.” He paused. “Both of us are wary.”
The prince understood. “You think the Doom may have prompted me to advise aiding Larenthi.”
Albrech rocked his head, just slightly, in a pondering gesture, and pursed his lips. “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.”
“Then why let me on the Council if my advice is to be ignored?” When Albrech just looked at him steadily, not blinking, Baleron thought he understood that, too. He almost laughed. “You want to see what I say, to hear what the Enemy wants. You think ... you think that will help you act against him!”
Baleron rose to his feet. Suddenly his limbs shook, and he felt a heat burn his face. His fists clenched and unclenched at his side.
Suddenly a look of nervousness crossed Albrech’s features.
Baleron took a step back, forcing himself to breathe deeply. “If you will not listen to me, I will not come to these meetings.”
“No, Baleron. You must come. Don’t you see? You can aid us. If your instincts are influenced by this ... thing ... then we merely need do that which is opposite to your leanings. Or at least weigh it carefully.”
“If that’s true, then you shouldn’t have told me this. Now my Doom knows.”
Albrech’s lips curled up. “It can know, can it? Can it juggle and do tricks, too?” But there was something chastened, even frightened, in his voice. “Now off with you.” He began to rise.
“Wait,” said Baleron. “Will this affect your giving me a command of my own? It must. How can you give me a command if you think I’m an agent of the enemy? That’s why ... Not because men wouldn’t follow me. Because my Doom would.”
Albrech took a ragged breath. “Partly, perhaps. But, as I said, I’ve seen no sign of this so-called Doom, unless this thought of yours to aid Larenthi is it. But of your infamy I have seen and heard much, and I have not forgotten Haben. That is why I deny you a command. Though, I admit, the other is worrisome.”
* * *
That night Baleron went carousing, or tried to. He entered the Fighting Stag, a tavern he’d often frequented with Salthrick, and sat himself at the bar. Drinking a glass of mulled wine, he gazed about at the revelers lifting their mugs and shouting rude jests. A harpist strummed his instrument in a corner. Smoke haze hung against the ceiling. All was wood and fur and noise.
Before the doomed caravan set out, Baleron and Salthrick would come here (among other like places) to clink mugs and sing bawdy ballads. Other men would join in, and the eligible women would flock to them. Baleron had been well liked among the regular townspeople, if not the nobility, and he always enjoyed himself amongst them. He had his pick of girls.
But now he just gazed dully about the room, nursing his drink. His father was right, but that didn’t ease his mind. Without aid, Clevaris, the City of Light, would fall. And he had to sit here and wait for it! He ground his teeth.
He tried to search for some sign of his Doom, as he had on many occasions before, to find it within himself. Sometimes he thought he felt a coldness, an icy shadow in his breast, but that was all. It was veiled from him, he supposed; his groping mind couldn’t penetrate it, to the point where he wasn’t altogether sure he wasn’t imagining it entirely.
He drank, and drank some more. At last he tried to turn his mind outward, not inward. Tried to let himself become one with the patrons of the tavern, as he used to, to lose himself in old comforts.
Try as he might, he did not feel one with the crowd as he ought to. The happy din was an alien sound, one he was not part of. He was separate. Other.
At last some of his old mates recognized him and approached him, smiling and hailing him. “The Black Prince returns!” they laughed, clapping him on the back. “We’d heard you’d come back an’ wondered if y’might stop in on us. But we hardly recognized ya.” “What’s this, gray in your hair? And your face! You look ten years older,” said another. “Nay, twenty!” said the third.
“I feel it, lads,” Baleron said.
“Ya look as though y’ve stared into th’Eye of the Beast ‘imself!”
“That he does!”
Baleron did not reply. He remembered the shadow that had leapt out at him from those horrible, fiery eyes—the shadow that was even now wound about his soul and helping to orchestrate the overthrow of everything good left in the world.
The first speaker lowered his voice. “Is’t true y’were a slave o’Ungier all this time?”
Baleron remembered white-hot whips searing his back, remembered the stench of death and the howls of tortured slaves. Somehow to speak of it, here, now, to these young men, would trivialize it. He said nothing.
His old friends looked at him strangely, and then at each other.
“It’s a tragedy what happened,” one said in sober tones. “Oksil and all. Hard to imagine. Y’hear those names all your life, Ungier and Oksilith and Celievsti, and y’think o’em like mountains, ya ken. Never changin’. Then all o’a’sudden they’re moving, things are happening, an’ y’realize they’re not jus’ names. An’ somewhere out there, b’yon’ those mountains, those real mountains, there’s Oslog, an’ it’s real. An’ out in’t summere there’s ... him.” His voice was a hush now. “Him ... an’ he’s hungry.”
The others looked grim. “But he won’t come this way,” one said. “His fight’s with the Elves, right? With th’Light. We’re safe. We’re not Light, we’re not Dark.”
“Yeah, but we’re on this side o’ the mountains. An’ that’s the wrong side, know it.”
“Ha! I’d like t’see him come after us. We’ve got the best troops in all the land. Isn’t that right, Bal? You were there. You musta seen them do plenty o’fighting. I bet you even got in a few licks yerself, knowin’ you.”
“Maybe,” Baleron said. “Maybe.”
At something in his tone, or maybe his face, the others took a half step back, looking at him as if in fear.
Shortly they left him, shooting him odd looks and muttering to themselves. He ordered another glass. Sipping on it, he reflected that his old life was gone.
He remembered how the demise of the wedding caravan came about largely because of his poor reputation, and his poor reputation had come about largely because of his carousing. That must end, he thought, if men were to follow him.
He left the noise and the smoke and returned to his quiet room at the castle, where he had many bottles of liquor. As he sampled them, he thought of Rolenya, and tears burned his eyes. He pounded a wall and his fist came away bloody. Was she truly dead? He couldn’t bear the thought. He felt guilty for not grieving over Shelir and Elethris and Felias as much as for Rolenya, but there it was.
He drank.
In the morning he awoke with a terrible headache. He breakfasted with the royal family, and it was good to see his brothers and sisters again, even though they peppered him with questions. He was in no mood to talk, and his answers were short and sullen. Afterwards he went to the stables and took Lunir for a ride through the skies. The fresh wind against his face helped clear his mind, though his stomach did not appreciate the tilting, heaving land below.
Later he attended the meeting in the War Room. The councilors listened to him little more than they had the day before, but whether they actively acted against his leanings he could not say.
And so it went. During the next days, he got to see more of that room than he had ever wanted, and every day the news turned grimmer. Larenthi’s southern half was now a ruin. Spies and assassins had sprung up among the other Crescent nations. They were all werewolves that had been posing as Men or Dwarves or Elves, some for prolonged periods. All had “escaped” from various strongholds of the Shadow within the last three years—an interesting coincidence. Perhaps they’d all been made into werewolves at once? If so, it suggested a well-laid plan, one difficult to evade, and that was not good.
Diplomats began to arrive from the other Crescent states. Those from the farthest nations already had ambassadors here, and they communicated with their leaders via seeing stones and mirrors and pigeons and the like. Shortly all would be here, and then the Great Council could be held. Hopefully then the Crescent states could reach a consensus on what action to take.
Each day after his session in the War Room Baleron would return to his suite, but he would not drink himself into a stupor. Those days were behind him, he resolved. He would not be seen drunk or rowdy. He must project the image of a worthy leader, a man who deserved to be followed.
This did not mean that he abstained from all pleasures. Far from it. During that time he acquainted himself with a courtesan named Amrelain. Young and lovely, she filled his bed and furs with her heat, and she took the doubts and despair from his mind. He would no longer allow himself to brood. He would enjoy his life—well, as much as he could—but privately. He would do his duty and let the rest be swallowed in lust. It seemed healthier than the alternative, and he found himself responding to his siblings with more friendliness. He even began to smile and laugh, though not long and not often.
After two weeks spent with days of war and nights of flesh, he returned one evening from the War Room to find his rooms transformed. Incense burned from stalks on his mantle and scented candles filled the air with honey and vanilla. A fire blazed in the fireplace, and a naked and beautiful Amrelain lounged drowsily on the thick bear rug before it.
The firelight reflected on her oddly shiny skin. Anointed with heady oils, her body shone enticingly.
Hearing his arrival, she sat up slowly, languidly. A gold collar made her elegant neck look even more so. Her murky brown eyes burned into his, and her dark hair hung in silky waves down her back and framed her small ripe breasts. She was young, long and lean and narrow-hipped, and his for the taking.
“Good evening,” she said. Cat-like, she smiled, almost purring.
He loosened his collar. “It wasn’t good until now.”
“Bad news today?” She looked at him carefully, sensitive to events in the outer world. She knew as well as he that these were ominous times and like everyone else was fearful. Yet she seemed glad to be able to aid the effort in the only way she could, by relaxing one of the members of the King’s Council, and a prince at that.
He shook his head, approaching her. “No worse than usual.”
She had two glasses of cinnamon-spiced liquor on the rug beside her, and he plopped down and took a healthy drink after she kissed him.
“Clevaris still stands?” she asked.
“For now.”
She just looked at him with her large, dark eyes. Her lashes were long, her lips full. Her tawny body shone with oils. Her nipples were erect. The shaven area between her legs smelled of vanilla. She ran a hand up her thigh, tracing the side of her hip, then up to a breast. Her finger circled the nipple once, twice, thrice, then squeezed it. She let out a little moan.
“Let me ease your mind,” she whispered. “Let us forget the world for now. Tonight, right now, it’s just the two of us, and what can we do but offer each other pleasure?” She kissed his chest, his neck, gently bit the lobe of his ear.
“Excellent points all,” he agreed. He downed the drink and lay himself beside her. Her skin was hot. He enveloped her in his arms and met her lips with his, and, just as she had promised, the world fell away.
Afterward, as he lay drowsily by the fire, her next to him, she fingered the many marks on his body.
“So many scars,” she marveled, tracing her fingers over his chest. The light reflected off of her soft brown eyes, and she wore a tender expression. One of her breasts, warmed by the fire, pressed against his arm. Sweat beaded her forehead and cheeks, and her beautiful face was flushed.
He took her hand and brought it to his mouth. He kissed her fingers, one by one.
“What did you think about, when you were a slave?” she asked solemnly.
He sighed and leaned back, gazing up at the elk-horn chandelier. He decided that, in her presence, talking of the experience was somehow more appropriate than with his old mates. “I thought about what Ungier would look like with my hands around his neck.”
One of her silky legs caressed him. She began tracing his scars again with her fingers.
“Are all of these from whips?”
“Most of the ones on my front I got in the torture pits.”
Her fingers played lightly over a big knot of scar tissue. “How did you get this one?”
“Pliers.”
“And these?” She indicated some shiny spots where his flesh had been seared.
“White-hot pokers.”
“And these small ones?”
“Needles. They would put needles in certain places—nerve centers—and the pain would ... well, they were masters at the Art.”
“The art?”
He took the last sip of his liquor. A pleasant burning slid down his throat and warmed his belly. “Oh, yes, the Borchstogs very much consider it an art. Ungier even more so. When he would direct my sessions ... ”
“Is it true you were a slave there for three whole years?”
He ran a hand through her long, dark hair. “Why don’t you make us more drinks?”
She rose obediently and sauntered off, naked and glistening. With a smile, he watched her go. Soon she returned with two more glasses of cinnamon-spiced liquor and sank next to him.
“To freedom,” she said, and they clinked glasses and drank it all down in one swallow. It burned his throat and fired his belly, and a pleasant fuzzy sensation swept his mind.
He pulled her down and kissed her, and she wrapped her legs about him. The fire was hot on his backside, and she was hot to his fore, and the drink was swimming in his head. He felt good. He felt alive. He almost felt—
Someone knocked on his door. He tried to ignore it, but whoever it was would not be denied, and at last Baleron barked for whoever it was to enter.
Logran did, grim and worried. Amrelain let out a little squeak and threw the bear rug about her, hiding her nakedness from the sorcerer.
“What is it?” Baleron demanded. “Have you purified Rondthril?”
“Glorifel is under attack. It’s Ungier. He has an army, and it’s already broken through the border outposts. He’s almost here.”