The battle raged in the breaches for near an hour, Volarian soldiery thrashing in an arrow-lashed knot that seemed to be making little forward progress. Having judged the time right, the general had his flag-men signal the Kuritai to begin their assault. The single battalion advanced across the causeway at the run, scaling ladders held aloft. Although the general had been correct in deducing most of the Cumbraelin defenders would be concentrated at the breaches, the Kuritai were still subjected to a fierce arrow storm, over two dozen falling before they reached the walls, the ladders swinging up to rest on the battlements. It seemed to me they lost at least half their number as they attempted to climb the ladders, one tumbling to the ground every second or so. Eventually though, a solid knot of them managed to claw their way onto the battlements, a small cluster of black amidst the grey-green throng of Cumbraelins seeking to throw them back. The general watched the scene through a spyglass for a moment then barked a command to his flag-men. “Send the reserve!”
Two battalions of ladder-bearing Free Swords advanced across the causeway. They lost fewer men to the Cumbraelin archers as the Kuritai kept the defenders on the wall occupied. The Free Swords scaled the wall in two places, drawing more defenders away from the Kuritai, who were now hacking their way inwards. There was a sudden convulsion in the Cumbraelin ranks and they drew back, disappearing from the walls in the space of a few moments. At one of the breaches there came a great shout of triumph as the throng of Volarian attackers finally broke through.
“And so it ends,” the general mused with a studied lack of outward triumph. He handed the spyglass to a nearby slave then went to sit down, stroking his chin in a display of careful reflection. “The greatest siege in Volarian history, concluded thanks to nothing more than sound planning and a few hours’ work.” He glanced at me to be sure my pen was still busy.
“Perhaps the Council will let you name the city,” Fornella said. “Tokrevia?”
The general flushed and made a show of ignoring her.
“Though Burning Ruin would appear to be more appropriate,” she went on, gazing at the numerous columns of smoke rising from the city.
“We’ll rebuild,” the general snapped.
There was no triumph on her face as she gazed at the city, just a faint melancholic repulsion. “If your soldiers leave us any slaves to do the work.”
Another two hours passed as the general waited for confirmation that the city had fallen, growing more impatient by the minute, pacing the deck and ordering the overseers to hand out beatings for minor offences committed by the slave-sailors. Finally a boat approached from the shore, bearing a man in the all-black armour of a Division Commander. The man climbed onto the deck with fatigue etched into his face, features blackened with smoke and a bandaged cut on his upper arm. He saluted the general and bowed to his wife.
“Well?” Tokrev demanded.
“The walls are ours, Honoured General,” the officer reported. “However it seems the Cumbraelins never intended to hold them. They have constructed barricades within the city, houses demolished to bar the roads and create a killing ground, archers thick on the rooftops. We’ve lost more men in the streets than we did in the breaches.”
“Barricades!” Tokrev spat. “You come before me and whine about barricades. Tear them down, man!”
“We broke through the first an hour ago, Honoured General. But found another a hundred yards beyond. And all hands in the city are raised against us, men and women, old and young. We have to fight for every house, and their witch seems to be everywhere.”
The general’s voice became very quiet. “Say one more word about the witch and I’ll have you flayed as an example to your men.”
He walked to the prow of the ship, staring at the city.
“Perhaps an order to rest and reorganise might be appropriate,” Fornella said. There was an edge to her voice that told me she wasn’t making a suggestion. “Consolidate our gains.”
Tokrev stiffened and I saw his fists clench behind his back. He turned to the Division Commander. “Halt the advance and reorder your ranks, and gather all the lamp oil you can. We attack again when it gets dark, and when we do we won’t fight for every house, we’ll burn them. Understood?”
◆ ◆ ◆
That night the city of Alltor had gained a great orange crown, the glow reaching up to obscure the stars. The general had ordered me to remain on deck and record the spectacle, retreating to his own cabin with a pleasure slave he had brought from the shore, a girl of no more than fifteen years. Fornella lingered on deck, her shawl wrapped tight about her shoulders. If the sounds emanating from below caused her any concern, she gave no sign, joining me at the prow to regard the city with the same sombre expression.
“How old is this place?” she asked me.
“Almost as old as the Fief of Cumbrael, Mistress,” I replied. “At least four centuries.”
“Those twin spires are a temple to their god, are they not?”
“The Cathedral of the World Father, Mistress. Their holiest site, I believe.”
“Do you think that’s what inspires them to such feats of resistance? A holy mission to defend the home of their god?”
“I couldn’t say, Mistress.” Or perhaps they realise that all you can offer is slavery and torment, so they prefer to die fighting.
“That man today,” she said. “The stinking fellow. Don’t you want to know who he was?”
“It is not my place to ask, Mistress.”
She turned to me with a smile. “So convincing in your role, and yet a slave for just a few weeks. You must want to live very badly.” She turned her back on the city, resting against the prow with her arms crossed. “Would it surprise you to know that he wasn’t a man at all? Merely a shell filled with the ghost of something fouler than his stench.”
“I . . . know nothing of such things, Mistress.”
“No, you wouldn’t. It’s a well-kept secret, known only to the Council and a few, like me, too important not to be told. Our filthy, shameful secret.” There was a distance in her eyes as she spoke, a spectre of unwelcome memory.
She blinked, shaking her head slightly. “Tell me about this Al Sorna,” she said. “Who exactly is he?”
CHAPTER ONE
Vaelin
“I miss her too.”
Alornis glanced up from her wood carving, dark eyes hard, as they had been for the past four weeks. Compelling her on this journey had done little to endear him to her, and Reva’s disappearance had only made things worse. “You didn’t even look for her,” she said.
Despite the accusation in her tone he was encouraged by the fact that this was the most she had said to him since the morning she woke to find Reva gone. The long journey through Nilsael, and their time on this ship as they voyaged to the Northern Reaches, had been marked by a refusal to engage him in anything more than the most basic conversation.
“What choice did I have?” Vaelin asked her. “Tie her up and bind her to a horse?”
“She’s alone,” Alornis said, returning to her carving, the short curved knife whittling away at the figure. She had started it when they first boarded the ship, a distraction from the sea-sickness that had her heaving over the rail for the first few days out from Frostport. Her stomach had settled in the week since, but her anger hadn’t, the knife chiselling at the wood in quick, tense flicks of her wrist. “She had no-one,” she added softly. “No-one but us.”
Vaelin sighed and turned his eyes to the sea. These northern waters were much more fractious than the Erinean, the waves rising steep and the unceasing wind possessed of a cutting chill. The ship was named the Lyrna in honour of the King’s sister, a narrow-hulled, two-masted warship of some eighty hands, augmented by Vaelin’s company of Mounted Guard who had been ordered to stay with him for the next year. The guard captain, a well-built young noble named Orven Al Melna, was punctilious in affordi
ng Vaelin every measure of respect his lordly status required, acting as if he were in fact under his command rather than the more truthful role of gaoler; the King’s insurance against any changes of heart.
“What did you tell her?” Alornis had moved to his side, her expression still guarded but not quite so fierce. “You must have told her something to make her leave us.”
This had been a worry for some time now; what to tell her. What lies to tell her, he corrected himself. I lie to everyone, why not her? He would tell his sister, his trusting sister who didn’t know he was a liar, that Reva had fled due to her god-worshipping shame, born of her acceptance of his tutelage and her feelings for Alornis, feelings the bishops held as a sin. It was perfect, mixing in enough embarrassment to forestall further questions on the matter.
He opened his mouth but found the words died in his throat. Alornis still regarded him with angry eyes, but there was trust there too. She looks at me and sees him. Did he ever lie to her? “What did Reva tell you about her father?” he asked.
And so he told her, all of it. From the day he was taken to the House of the Sixth Order to the night he returned to his father’s house. Unlike the tale he had told the Alpiran scholar on the voyage to the Isles, this was his unvarnished and complete account, every secret, every death, every tune from the blood-song. It took a long time, for she had many questions, and another week had passed before it was done, the shore of the Northern Reaches appearing on the horizon the morning he finished.
“And the song lets you see her?” she asked. They were in the cabin the first mate had given up for the Tower Lord and his sister. She sat cross-legged on her bunk, the near-completed carving resting in her lap. She had continued to whittle away as he told his tale, the figure becoming more refined with every passing day, in time revealed as a statue of a tall, lean man with a bearded face. She had borrowed some varnish from the ship’s carpenter and was carefully applying it to the wood with a small sable brush, making it shine like bronze. “Sherin, wherever she is?”
“At first, when I had learned how to sing,” he replied. “But the visions faded over time. It’s been more than three years since I had any sense of her at all.”
“But still you try?” His sister’s gaze was intent, entirely lacking in disbelief. There had been some initial scepticism when he first told her of the blood-song but he borrowed a trick from Ahm Lin’s tale of his apprenticeship and had her hide his belt-knife somewhere on the ship whilst he stayed in the cabin. He found it within a few minutes, slotted into a gap between two ale barrels in the hold. She tried again, this time enlisting the help of a sailor to hide it in the crow’s nest. Vaelin had opted not to climb up after it, simply calling on the look-out to toss it down. She hadn’t required any further demonstrations to trust his word.
“Not for some time now,” he said. “Hearing the song is one thing, singing is another. It’s very taxing, possibly deadly if I put too much effort into it.”
“That thing that had taken Brother Barkus, you searched for it?”
“I catch glimpses now and then. It’s still free in the world somewhere, deceiving, killing at the command of whatever it serves. But the images are vague. I suspect it can mask itself somehow. How else could it hide in Barkus for so long? It’s only when it thinks of me that the glimpses come, its hatred enough to burn through the mask.”
“Will it come for you again?”
“I expect so. I doubt it has much choice in the matter.”
“What happened when you called at the Order House?”
Again he was tempted to lie to her, the information garnered during his visit left a bitter taste and he had no desire to voice it. But instead of a lie he chose concealment. “I met the Aspect.”
“I know that. What did he tell you?”
“Not just Aspect Arlyn. I met the Aspect of the Seventh Order. And no, I won’t tell you who it is. For your own protection.” He leaned forward, holding her gaze. “Alornis, you must always be careful. As my sister you are a target. That’s why I brought you with me, that’s why I’m telling you this tale. The Northern Reaches are safer than the Realm, but I’ve little doubt that thing and its cohorts can reach for us here if they choose to.”
“Then who can I trust?”
His gaze dropped. I’ve told her nothing but truth so far, why stop now? “Honestly, no-one,” he said. “I’m sorry, sister.”
She looked at the statue in her hand. “When father died, did you . . . ?”
“Just the echo of it. He’d already passed the day I sang for you. You were watching the pyre with your mother. It was snowing. There was no-one else there.”
“No,” she said, with a small smile. “You were there.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The North Tower came into view two days later. It was an impressive structure, wider at the base than the top, some seventy feet tall, surrounded by a stout wall half as high. It had the look of the older castles Vaelin had seen in Cumbrael, no hard angles and a general lack of statuary or ornamentation, a fortification from another time, after all it had stood here for near a century and a half.
The port was busy with fishing smacks and merchant vessels, their crews hauling ropes and oars to make way for the Lyrna as she made a stately progression to the quayside. Captain Orven ordered his men down the gangplank first, lining them up in two ranks, polished armour gleaming. They made something of a contrast to the line of twenty men in dark green cloaks standing at the opposite end of the wharf. Their line was somewhat uneven and their armour, mostly of hardened leather rather than steel, had a non-uniformity to it that wasn’t exactly ragged but neither was it particularly tidy. Most of the green-cloaked men were dark-skinned, the descendants of exiles from the southern Alpiran Empire, and none seemed to be less than six feet tall. Standing in front of the line was an even taller man, also in a green cloak, and a diminutive dark-haired woman in a plain black dress.
“How do I look?” Vaelin asked Alornis at the head of the gangplank. He was dressed in a fine set of clothes supplied by the King’s own tailor, a white silk shirt embroidered with a hawk motif on the collar, trews of good cotton and a long dark blue cloak trimmed with sable.
“Very lordly,” Alornis assured him. “You’d be even more so if you actually wore that thing rather than just carry it around.” She pointed at the canvas bundle in his hand.
He placed a smile on his face and turned to walk down the gangplank, approaching the dark-haired woman and the tall man, both giving a formal bow.
“Lord Vaelin,” the woman said. “I bid you welcome to the Northern Reaches.”
“Lady Dahrena Al Myrna,” Vaelin returned the bow. “We’ve met before, although I daresay you don’t remember.”
“I remember that day very well, my lord.” Her tone was carefully neutral, her handsome Lonak features lacking expression.
“His Highness sends his warmest regards,” Vaelin went on. “And sincere gratitude for your dutiful labours in continuing to administer this land for the Crown.”
“His Highness is most kind,” Lady Dahrena replied. She turned to the tall man at her side. “May I present Captain Adal Zenu, Commander of the North Guard.”
The captain’s tone was less than neutral, and absent of any note of welcome. “My lord.”
Vaelin glanced at the line of mismatched men. “I assume this is not the entirety of your command.”
“There are three thousand men in the North Guard,” the captain replied. “Most gainfully employed elsewhere. I didn’t think it appropriate to gather more than was strictly necessary.” He met Vaelin’s gaze, waiting a while before adding, “My lord.”
“Quite right, Captain.” Vaelin beckoned to Alornis. “My sister, the Lady Alornis Al Sorna. She will require suitable quarters.”
“I’ll see to it,” the Lady Dahrena said. Vaelin was heartened to find she managed to summon a smile for
his sister as she bowed. “Welcome, my lady.”
Alornis returned the bow a little awkwardly; noble manners were new to her. “Thank you.” She offered another sketchy bow to the captain. “And you, sir.”
The captain’s bow was considerably more accomplished and his tone markedly warmer than when he had addressed his new Tower Lord. “My lady is very welcome.”
Vaelin looked up at the tower looming above, a dark mass against the sky, birds flocking around the upper levels. The blood-song rose with an unexpected tune, a warm hum mingling recognition with an impression of safety. He had a sense it was welcoming him home.
◆ ◆ ◆
The base of the tower was surrounded by a cluster of adjoining stone-built buildings comprising the stables and workshops required for the smooth functioning of a castle. Vaelin guided the horse they had given him through the main gate and into the courtyard where the servants of the tower had been arrayed in welcome. He dismounted and made an effort to speak to a few, finding only clipped responses and a few obvious glares of hostility.
“Friendly bunch, these Reach dwellers,” Alornis muttered as they made their way inside. Vaelin patted her on the arm and kept smiling to all they met, though it was starting to make his face ache.
The Lord’s chamber was situated on the ground floor of the tower, a simple unadorned oak chair sitting on a dais looking out on the large circular space. Against the wall stone steps ascended in a spiral to the next level. “Remarkable,” Alornis said, drinking in the sight of the chamber with evident fascination. “I didn’t think a ceiling of such size could be supported without pillars.”
“There are great iron beams in the wall, my lady,” Captain Adal told her. “They reach from the foundations all the way up to the top of the tower. Each floor is suspended from the beams, counterweights stop them from falling in on themselves.”
“I didn’t know our forebears were such skilled builders,” Vaelin commented.