Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow 3)

“Good evening, my lords,” she called to Fief Lord Arendil and his grandfather.

“Forgive me, Highness,” Banders called back, his broad features slick with sweat. “But are we to land soon? One more week at sea and my knights are like to hang me.”

Lyrna turned to survey the scene, the sky now black and the only illumination coming from the many blazing ships. The tumult of combat had faded though she could still hear men screaming somewhere, voices calling for help in Volarian mingled with the odd gurgling sound that accompanied a sinking ship.

“Indeed, my lord,” she called to Banders. “A landing is overdue.”

• • •

The ship sat on the beach like some great wounded beast, her masts sheared away and much of her sides stripped of timber, exposing the complex web of beams that somehow contrived to hold her together. It was Benten who recognised her as the Fief Lord Sentes; his sea-trained eyes had a knack for discerning the slight differences that distinguished one ship from another. “Seems she’s been driven too far up the beach to be taken off by the tide,” he said. “It’s a marvel she’s still in one piece.”

The short voyage to the bay had yielded only five ships from the thirty that had sailed with Lady Reva, all severely damaged and barely afloat, though their precious cargo of troops and supplies were mostly intact. The Sentes brought the total to six, but she could hardly be described as seaworthy. In all just over two-thirds of the Queen’s Fleet had survived the storm, though casualties had been heavy and the battle with the Volarians had claimed at least another thousand lives. Although Lyrna saw the flush of victory of many faces, she knew the battle had in fact been indecisive, Ship Lord Ell-Nurin estimating they had captured or sunk no more than half the Volarian fleet.

“Whoever commanded them was wise enough to withdraw under cover of night,” he surmised. “One of our scout ships reported seeing sails on the southern horizon.”

She took the first boat to the shore, overriding all objections with a silent glare. The time for caution had died in the storm. For all the acclaim shouted at her from the surrounding ships as the boat wended its way towards the beach, she knew their morale would still plummet like a stone when the reality of their situation became apparent. They need to see a queen.

She was accompanied by Lord Marshal Nortah and a full company of Queen’s Daggers. Off to the north Brother Sollis led another cluster of boats filled with all that remained of the Sixth Order whilst Count Marven took his best Nilsaelins to secure the southern approaches. They were obliged to row their way through several corpses en route, Lyrna surprised to find most were Volarian, bobbing in the swell with arrows protruding from their armour.

The tide was low and the beach free of breakers as they scraped to a halt, Lyrna leaping free of the boat before Iltis could raise an objection. She heard him smother a curse as he splashed into the waist-deep water behind. She laboured through the surf towards the hulk, eyes scanning the part-ruined hull and finding numerous faces staring down at her, though there were no voices raised in awed acclaim now, most just seemed pale with exhaustion. She noticed a dark cluster of more Volarian bodies on the beach, perhaps two hundred men and horses liberally seeded with arrows.

“Thought we were easy meat,” a voice called down from the Sentes, Lyrna’s gaze finding a stocky man standing in one of the rents in the ship’s hull, holding a longbow and looking down at her with a stern regard that contrasted with the usual cautious respect shown to her by Cumbraelin soldiery. “Proved them wrong.”

Lyrna stared up at him, holding his gaze until he added, “Highness,” in a clipped voice.

“Lord Antesh,” she said. “Where is Lady Reva?”

He sagged at her words, head lowered and eyes tight closed. “I take it, Highness, you have no news of her either?”

Lyrna turned to watch the first wave of troops coming ashore, the Queen’s Daggers spreading out to sweep the dunes whilst a Realm Guard regiment grounded their boats, more following in a seemingly unending tide. “Lord Antesh,” she turned back to him, finding a man now visibly shrinking in grief. “Lord Antesh!”

He straightened at her shout, a spasm of anger flashing across his face before he forced himself to a neutral expression. “Highness.”

“I hereby name you Lord Commander of the Queen’s Cumbraelin Host. Please remove your soldiers from this ship and proceed inland. There will be a council of captains this evening where I shall require a full accounting of your numbers.”

She moved on without waiting for an acknowledgment. They followed the Blessed Lady, she knew. I can leave no doubt that they must now follow me.

• • •

The woman must have been quite beautiful in life, possessed of a dancer’s litheness and features of porcelain delicacy. But, as Lyrna had witnessed many times now, death always seemed to rob the body of beauty, bleaching the skin and leaving the features a slack echo of the soul that had once made those rosebud lips smile. Brother Sollis had discovered more bodies in the dunes a short distance away, slaves judging by their clothing, each with their throat cut. The once-beautiful woman, however, showed no sign of any injury despite the dried blood that discoloured the flesh around her eyes and nose.

Brother Lucin was the oldest member of the Seventh Order she had met so far, stick thin and almost totally bald save for a tuft of white hair that sprouted from the top of his head like a forgotten weed. He wandered around the woman’s body for a time, frowning in concentration, occasionally muttering to himself. During her fruitless search for evidence Lyrna had interviewed a number of people arrested on suspicion of Dark practices, finding them all charlatans or victims of malicious accusation. One, a charming but terrified young man, had been all too happy to explain how he would gull rich widows into parting with coin or jewels by claiming to commune with long-dead relatives, providing a demonstration not entirely dissimilar to that now performed by Brother Lucin. In recognition of his honesty, Lyrna had persuaded her father to commute the charlatan’s sentence to ten years in the Realm Guard.

“How long will this take?” she asked Aspect Caenis, failing to keep the dubious note from her voice.

“All places have history, Highness,” he replied. “Brother Lucin is obliged to sort through a haze of images to find the right event.”

“Ack!” the elderly brother exclaimed, his face drawn in a grimace of equal parts disgust and fear.

“Brother?” Caenis said, stepping closer.

Brother Lucin waved him away with an irritated flap of his bony arms. “I felt it,” he said, casting an accusatory glare at Lyrna, as if she had led him into some kind of trap. “The thing inside her. Are you trying to kill me?”

“Watch your mouth, brother,” Iltis growled, his face dark with warning.

Brother Lucin barely glanced at him. “The past is real,” he said to Lyrna. “Not some mishmash of shadows. It has power.”

“My apologies if I have placed you in danger, brother,” Lyrna replied, realising an insistence of propriety would avail her little with this one. “But our current circumstance requires that we all take risks.” She nodded at the corpse. “Was that her?”

The brother looked down at the dead woman with palpable reluctance, edging away as if in expectation she might suddenly spring to life. “There were soldiers with her. They called her Empress. She had a mighty gift, I could feel it, rushing out of her all at once to bend the wind to her will.”

“Then she’s dead,” Count Marven said. “She gave up her life to destroy us. The enemy are leaderless now.”

Brother Lucin gave the Battle Lord a withering glance. “This was just a shell, chosen for its gift. You can bet she’ll already have woken in another.”

“Why kill the slaves?” Marven asked.

“Witnesses,” Lyrna replied, looking again at the dead woman’s face. Where did she find you? Did you ever have a name of your own? “Few if any Volarians will know the true nature of their new Empress. Have the bodies taken to the pyres, I doubt they have anything more to tell us.”

• • •

“Pretence will avail us nothing now,” she told the surviving captains of her army and fleet, gathered together on the high ground beyond the beach where the troops still laboured ashore, the sands dotted with blazing pyres for the dead. “We have suffered a grievous blow. Lady Reva is missing and most likely dead as is Fleet Lord Ell-Nestra. A full fifth of our army has been lost due to my misjudgement. Accordingly, I am bound to ask if there are any here no longer willing to follow my commands.”

She scanned their faces, finding most patently baffled by the question. The Meldeneans regarded her with the same surety that had marked their attitude since the Teeth where, she knew, many believed their gods had invested her with some form of divine insight. Far from undermining their faith the events of the previous evening seemed to have cemented it; who but the gods could have snatched victory from such assured defeat?

Similarly, Fief Lord Arendil and Baron Banders exhibited no sign of distrust as did Wisdom, who had come to speak for the small Eorhil and Seordah contingent. The only clear expressions of unease came from Lord Marshal Nortah, which was typical, and Lord Antesh, still evidently in the grip of his grief. But, like the others, he remained silent.