Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow 3)

Vaelin sent a throwing knife between the twin blades, the steel dart sinking into the large man’s eye socket up to the hilt. He staggered, his blades moving in an automatic counter that rebounded from Vaelin’s parry with a clang before Vaelin brought the Order blade up and round in a blurring arc. The blade made it perhaps two-thirds of the way through the Garisai’s thick neck, obliging Vaelin to withdraw it and deliver another blow to sever the head from his twitching corpse.

He raised his gaze to the ragged host of risen slaves. Instead of surging forward to avenge their fallen king, they had retreated several paces, each face displaying a gratifying level of shock and dismay. Vaelin turned and beckoned Astorek to his side.

“Translate every word as I say it,” he told him before addressing the crowd, “I hereby claim this province in the name of Queen Lyrna Al Nieren of the Unified Realm. Until such time as she makes provision for fair and just governance, you will conduct yourselves as free citizens of the Realm, refraining from murder and thievery. If you do not, the queen will be swift in making judgement, and”—he paused to nudge the large man’s head with the toe of his boot—“she is not so forgiving as I.”

He flicked the blood from his sword and returned it to the scabbard, walking back to Scar. “Now get out of the way.”

• • •

The land grew more populous farther south, but no less troubled. They would often catch sight of people on the road ahead, weighed down with goods, either their own or the product of looting. Most would flee at the sight of a large group of mounted warriors, scattering to the surrounding fields where, incredibly, some slaves continued to labour. Not all would flee however, some, mainly the old or those burdened with children, would shuffle to the side of the road and stare in dumb fascination as they rode by, the young ones shushed to silence as they pointed at the strange men. Nor were all so cowed, they endured many insults from the dispossessed, those who had lost everything to marauding slaves seemingly had little left to fear. One old man in a torn black robe assailed them with missiles drawn from a pile of horse dung, his face a mask of unreasoning fury as he spat unintelligible insults. Alturk rode forward to stare down at him, war club resting on his shoulder until the old man finally collapsed, sinking onto his odorous munitions as he wept.

“These people are very strange,” Alturk said, trotting back to the column. “Seeking out a good death then falling to tears when it’s offered.”

They covered two hundred miles over the next week, at no point encountering a single Volarian soldier, though they did find evidence of battle. They lay strewn across the road, perhaps over a hundred bodies, mostly men but women too, Astorek judging them as a mingling of slaves and free folk from their garb. Many had died in mid-struggle, hands still clutching throats or knives, one young woman lying with her teeth clamped onto the forearm of the black-clad who had killed her.

“If this continues for much longer,” Astorek said, “your queen will have nothing left to conquer.”

“Except land,” said the Ally, the entire company starting at the sound of his voice. He cast a dispassionate eye over the carnage before adding, “Land is the only true wealth in a world like this. Your queen will do rather well out of it all, I expect. Pity I can’t let her keep it.”

“You might speak differently,” Vaelin told him, “if you had met her.”

• • •

He couldn’t dream. Every night he lay down and slept, falling into slumber with barely a pause, and each time his sleep remained free of dreams. He had dreamt every night in the Emperor’s dungeon, of Dentos, Sherin, even Barkus. At the time he had thought it a torment, well-earned torture fulfilling a desire the Emperor resisted. Now he knew it as a blessing. Dahrena was gone, truly and completely, and he was denied even the delusion of a dream, the brief, precious lie that she still lived, even though the waking would be hard, when the knowledge descended like an axe blade as he reached for the cold, empty place beside him. Still, he yearned for it.

“She spoke of you.”

Vaelin rose from his bedroll, avoiding the Ally’s gaze. The hour was early and the sky not yet bright enough to see well, rendering the Ally a slumped, shadowed form on the other side of the still-smoking ashes of last night’s fire. “Don’t you want to know what she said?” he asked.

“Why choose now to speak again?” Vaelin countered. “Is it because we draw nearer to Volar?”

“No, just honest boredom. Also, you primitives are proving more diverting by the day. I may have bequeathed you an age of ignorance but you do make it interesting. Tell me, why didn’t you keep that man’s head? Presumably there was some ritual significance in taking it.”

“Can you really be so ignorant of us? You have orchestrated havoc in this world for centuries. How can you know so little?”

“I see only through the eyes of those snared in the Beyond, and even then the visions are often dim. Death does things to a soul, stripping away much that gives it substance. There was a philosopher in my time who argued that the sum of a soul is merely memory, the soul itself no more than metaphor.”

“Evidently he was wrong.”

“Was he? Haven’t you ever wondered why it is only the Gifted who reside in the Beyond? Can it be only they are worthy of soulhood and all these other unblessed condemned to slip into nothing when death claims them?”

“Life has taught me to be tolerant of mysteries, especially those with no answer.”

The Ally laughed, soft and sincere, then shuffled closer. His features became clear as he leaned forward, his gaze intent and questing, seeking understanding. “I am the answer. The Beyond is not the eternal domain of the dead, it is the result of folly and pride, it is a scab covering a seeping wound, eternally corrupted and corrupting. To exist there is to know the chill of death for all eternity, to feel yourself slowly ebb away until you are nothing but formless consciousness, shorn of memory but aware, knowing nothing but that endless cold.”

“And yet, somehow, you retain enough reason to plague us.” Vaelin rose, moving to the Ally’s side, crouching and leaning close to voice his demands in a harsh whisper. “What is your gift? What awaits us in Volar?”

The Ally said nothing for a moment, Vaelin seeing the calculation return to his gaze. “She spoke of how much she loved you, how you mended a heart torn by grief. Though she worried over the woman you loved before her, fearing when this war was done you would seek her out. But mostly she worried for the child you made together. She hoped for a girl but knew it would be a boy, a boy who might one day be tempted by his father’s martial ways . . .”

The Ally reeled from the blow, blood and teeth erupting from his mouth. Vaelin was only dimly aware of the feel of his fist pounding Erlin’s features into bloody ruin, or the torrent of hate that spilled from his mouth, and he never felt Alturk’s war club clip the base of his skull, sending him into the deepest sleep.

And this time the dreams came.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Lyrna

“Lord Lakrhil Al Hestian is hereby appointed Battle Lord of the Queen’s Host.”

She had called them to the temple’s tallest tower, far above the smouldering pyres that littered the plain. The dark red mass of slain Arisai could be seen, stripped of weapons then piled near the riverbank and left to rot. “These men had no souls,” she said when Brother Kehlan made a tentative suggestion some form of observance might be appropriate. “One cannot honour what does not exist.”

She scanned the faces of the captains, seeking sign of dissent, but whatever feelings they might have harboured towards the elevation of a man named a traitor were kept well hidden. They know me too well now, she surmised, oddly dismayed by their timidity. Only Lords Nortah and Antesh exhibited any clear reaction. The Lord Marshal gave a silent and weary shake of his head. He and Al Hestian had a tendency to ignore one another with the kind of rigid indifference that told of deep mutual enmity, the spike protruding from Al Hestian’s stunted right arm a constant and inescapable reminder of a long-unresolved grievance. The reaction of her Lord of Archers was more pronounced, his face tensed in suppressed anger.

No desire to follow the butcher of Greenwater Ford, Lyrna surmised. How fortunate I have another card to play.

“Lord Marshal Nortah will assume command of the Dead Company in his stead,” she went on. “The Queen’s Daggers are hereby enrolled in the Mounted Guard under command of Lord Iltis.”

She turned to Al Hestian, “Battle Lord, your report on the state of the Queen’s Host, if you please.”

“Our full losses amount to little over fifteen hundred men, Highness,” he replied. “Plus three hundred wounded and unable to fight. Three regiments besides the Queen’s Daggers were so badly mauled I must advise they be merged into one. However, our losses may be considered slight in comparison to the enemy. More than thirty thousand slain and a thousand captured, the remainder fled and in no state to fight again. Count Marven deserves great credit for such a victory.”

One of the Nilsaelin twins spoke up, the one with the red-enamelled breastplate though Lyrna still found it of little help in distinguishing between the two. “Our noble grandfather will ensure his memory is honoured the length and breadth of Nilsael. My brother and I will personally fund the construction of a statue in Meanshall.”