Kydona

  Chapter 7

  Marked by Falltide, the last day of summer slipped away. The days were hot as ever, and the lack of morning frost promised a slow onset of winter. Peasant farmers rejoiced at the blessing and busied themselves with plowing, threshing and pruning their orchards and fields. In the city, children splashed gleefully in the public wells under their mothers’ stern eyes, while their husbands and fathers set off to Fort Arlimont for their seasonal drills. Nobles spread their gossip at court and had their nighttime soirees at the courtesans’ salons, savoring the finest of life’s luxuries. The wealthy Guilds—the masons, architects, weavers, carpenters, and of course the merchants—bickered among themselves in their great halls, looking always to wealth and opportunity.

  As for Marcus, he did as little as he could get away with. He sat wearily through his weekly stints in the Hearers’ Council. Fortunately, there were no more Jebril Carpenters to be illegally pardoned—something his fellow hearers constantly reminded him of whenever he dared voice his opinion. He bore their derision with gritted teeth, and when his duty was finished, he spent his frustration at the practice courts.

  Jacquelyn kept him sane. More often than not, she came to watch. She applauded, laughing, while he butchered practice dummies by the platoon. When he was done, she always had a waterskin and a fresh towel ready. They kept their nights open. There was always a pile of salon invitations sitting on Marcus’s desk, and they sometimes accepted. Just as often, they did something more exclusive with Vernon and Eliza, whom his friend had taken quite a liking to lately, though he insisted there was nothing more to it than old-fashioned, filthy, perverted fun. Though occasionally, it was just the two of them, Marcus and Jacquelyn, confined to his chambers or dining together in the kitchen, chatting about things that didn’t really matter.

  Then at night… well, he supposed her first time had impressed her enough to warrant some further experimenting.

  None of this was anything novel for Marcus. It was life as he had always lived it, more or less. But for Jacquelyn, everything was new—the palace, the soirees, the glamour all around. What was more, she had found a young man to explore it with, and she couldn’t have been happier. Her enthusiasm was infectious.

  He reckoned he was happy with her, too.

  But late at night, he abandoned her as she slept in his bed and crept out into the city. The wall repairs were well underway, but the tunnel had yielded no leads, no suspected parties. Neither had the assassin’s spiked head. Marcus wanted answers, and he suspected the best way to get them was to heed his mother’s final words.

  So he watched the common people. Hooded and cloaked, with only a plain sword for protection, he ventured deep into Ancellon, farther than any noble had business going. He wanted to see the very worst that Elessia had to offer, and the city was happy to oblige. He slunk down the narrow, winding alleys of the slums that huddled against the Anora River. He walked the stinking dockyards, slipping on rotting fish guts. He paid his way into the seediest brothels and sat at the dingiest taverns, shoulder-to-shoulder with thugs, thieves, beggars and whores.

  He spoke to everyone. What’s your name? Your profession? Are the goods you buy fairly priced? Do you think your taxes unfair? What’s your opinion of your betters—the nobility, the king? What grieves you most? How do you think your life can be improved?

  He suspected they knew who he was, because the only ones who tried to attack him were drunk or mad. The rest were surprisingly receptive. This noble lad was obviously among them asking these questions for a reason. They answered willingly, and it wasn’t long before he recognized a common pattern to their thoughts.

  Their perspective was a troubling revelation—but Marcus knew his only confidante was himself. He could tell no one—not Jacquelyn, not Vernon, because they wouldn’t understand, and beyond them, he had no idea who he could trust.

  He found himself wishing for another enigmatic letter. None came. His anonymous ally remained unwilling to reveal himself, or herself.

  Instead, not a month after the Falltide, King Audric returned.

  †††

  Marcus remembered when his father had returned from the Kydona War. He had only been a lad of six at the time, but the memory was still fresh. Lord Prince Audric de Pilars was every inch the conquering hero, bedecked in war plate, his gauntleted fist holding the reins of a magnificent black charger—the slain tsar’s own warhorse. Behind him came his victorious army, their segmented steel plate shining bright in the sun, their upright spears like thickets of trees. Row after perfect row of chevaliers marched down the Royal Way behind their general while the crowds cheered themselves hoarse. Every flower in the city was soon mashed on the cobbles beneath their hobnailed boots.

  Then came the spoils. There were armored Kydonian warhorses, herded miserably after the men who had slain their riders. They were beasts of burden now, straining to pull wagons that sagged under the weight of foreign treasure—jewel-studded weapons, silver plates and goblets, tapestries, chandeliers, all torn from the households of the hated foe’s nobility. Behind them was the ultimate humiliation: the captured enemy battle standards, each borne by a soldier who had distinguished himself through valor. Soon, a fresh list of heroes would adorn the square’s monuments.

  The army had marched the length of the Royal Way. They halted before the palace steps, which Audric ascended alone. His wife Geneva waited at the top. Held between her trembling hands was the royal crown, salvaged from the field where her father had died. Audric knelt before her, and she lowered the crown onto his head. Together, the new king and queen accepted their people’s acclamation. The soldiers rattled their shields and the people bellowed for so long that the young Marcus, standing there in his parents’ shadow, had forgotten that silence had ever existed at all.

  Yes, he remembered well.

  Today was entirely different.

  No army passed through Ancellon’s gates in triumph, because the laws now forbade it. No cheering crowds greeting the king—because he returned in defeat.

  Marcus stood at the top of the palace steps, just as his mother had fourteen years ago. The sun beat down ferociously on him and the assembled high lords, melting their patience as sweat gradually soaked through their clothes. Below them, the crowd was still gathering. They had been trickling into Heroes’ Square ever since the king’s banners had been sighted on the horizon.

  Beside him, Roslene fanned herself. “He should be in the city by now.”

  Marcus heard the suppressed excitement in her voice. He almost wished he felt the same way. He craned his head, but the shimmering air reduced the North Gate to a smudge of whiteness. “We’ll soon see.”

  They waited in the oppressive sun for another half hour before they caught their first sight of King Audric. Even at a distance, Marcus’s father was a sober sight. His cape and armor were filmed with dust from the long ride from Fort Arlimont, and his horse was no longer a proud stallion—merely a spare gelding from the fort’s stables, shambling along with its head bowed from thirst.

  “His dreadnaughts,” Roslene whispered, stunned. The king’s guard would normally have numbered twenty veterans; now they were reduced to half a dozen, their purple cloaks worn and patched, their once-burnished armor now dented.

  The crowd was muted as their king rode by. Every so often someone called out to him, perhaps remembering his past glories—but for most, those had been easily forgotten.

  At the bottom of the steps, Audric and his guard dismounted. They passed their mounts to waiting attendants and started up the steps with as much strength as their pride could muster.

  Once, the conquering general had been an energetic man, full of vigor and enduring youth. Each of the fourteen years since had taken its toll. His balding head was more grey than brown, and his normally-immaculate beard was an unkempt mess. His lively step was now a tired amble.

  But he gathered himself enough to smile as he reached them. “Son. My Roslene.” His voice was the only characteristi
c that hadn’t changed—deep and steady as it ever was. He embraced Roslene, breathing in the scent of her hair as she kissed his whiskered cheek. After a while he let her go, smiling wearily into her teary eyes, before turning to his son. “Marcus. I can’t say how good it is to see you again.”

  “Father.” Marcus bowed cordially, if only to avoid those eyes—deep blue, so unlike his own. “I’m pleased to see you as well.”

  Audric watched him with a sad smile. He did not attempt a hug, which was wise of him. “Yes. Pleased indeed.” With a deep breath, he stepped past the two of them to face the seven high lords. They bowed, but only Lord de Gauthier’s was as deep as it should have been. If King Audric noticed, he said nothing. He inclined his head—the lowest an Elessian king would ever bend—and addressed them, “My lords. It was a long journey and my body cries for rest. If you will forgive me for saying so, there’s no business to discuss that can’t wait until tomorrow. I thank you for—”

  But Lord de Martine swept in, “Please forgive us our prying, your majesty, but your army’s defeat is no small matter. If you could hold your strength for but an hour, we would hear what became of the campaign.” Despite himself, Marcus’s temper spiked. Roberte de Martine had interrupted the king, blamed him for the defeat, and called him a weakling all at once. It sounded like a mere polite request, but Marcus knew better. He saw disdain smoldering there in Roberte’s eyes, a shadow of the look he normally reserved for Marcus.

  Audric took a steadying breath. He nodded at the ground. “I’ll allow it,” he said, as if trying to sound as if he was the authority here. He walked into the Atrium, Roberte at his side.

  “What of the lord marshal?” Jaspar’s father asked, practically demanded. “Where is he?”

  “Arlimont, with a chirurgeon. We were attacked as we waited to cross the channel. He lost a hand. The stump’s gone bad.”

  “Will he live?”

  “With Elessa’s help.”

  There was no trace of the Falltide’s gaiety in the Atrium. The musicians’ stage, the couches, the false stream, all of it had vanished. Even the courtiers and courtesans were mostly gone, ensconced in their chambers to escape the heat. Those that remained paused in their business to stare.

  Four guards pried Keep’s doors open as they reached them. Behind them was an octagonal foyer. Its slit windows and torch sconces—like the city’s outer walls and even the Keep itself—were relics of a bygone era, when security had taken precedence over comfort. The thick grey stones kept the place unseasonably cool, and on the ceiling—six stories overhead—was a colored fresco of Ancel Triumphant, his armor and stylized halo done in golden leaf, now peeling with age.

  There were three hallways leading off in opposite directions. The right hallway led to the Blind Chamber; the left was the guest rooms, long deserted in favor of the palace suites; and at the end of the front hall was the Sanctum, concealed behind a pair of carved wooden doors.

  Without breaking step, Audric took them straight ahead. The doors ground open on old iron hinges. The Sanctum was a grand space, nearly as large as the Atrium itself. Enormous buttresses braced against the ancient walls. Gargoyles leered from crevices between, and angels saluted the pair of thrones at the end of the chamber. The galleries overhead were lined with oak benches. Parliament still sat there some days, but not as often as it had in days when minor nobles had not been quite as minor.

  Elessia’s assembled rulers had received tidings here in the nation’s darkest hours. The Blessed Lady herself had sat in one of the thrones at the far side of this chamber, somehow managing to calm the untried nobility in the uncertain days following Ancel’s disappearance. The mad King Lejeune had been named a tyrant here, and his death sanctioned. Barbarian invasions had been thwarted, plagues halted, famines brought under control.

  Here, King Audric delivered news of Elessia’s latest misfortune. A large round table was in the center of the chamber. He took the tallest of the eight seats, and the Council shortly took their own. They eyed Marcus with animosity as he circled the table to stand behind his father.

  “Your majesty,” Lord de Guiscard said in a low voice, as if Marcus couldn’t hear him, “it seems inappropriate for your son to be here. This is not his realm. Perhaps he should remain outside with the Lady Beauvais.”

  An angry retort rose in Marcus’s throat, but his father spoke before he did. “No,” he said with surprising finality. “He stays here. One day, my son will sit in this seat. Whether he faces you or the men who succeed you, he must gain experience in these matters.”

  One of them muttered, “I’ll bring my son next time, then.”

  “You have something to say, Lord de Villiers?”

  The man stared broodingly at the table, and Marcus did his best to kill a surge of pride. Maybe his father wasn’t as pathetic as he had thought.

  But Audric’s weary expression returned as he motioned at the side of the chamber. A dreadnaught came forward to unroll a large map on the table. As he put down paperweights on the corners, Marcus recognized it as a map of the Northlands.

  Audric hauled himself to his feet. “The North,” he said. “Glatland. The campaign started on steady footing. My three regiments landed here,” he pointed at a broad peninsula jutting into the Fell Channel, named for the fell barbarians who had raided the coastline there from ancient times. “We met no resistance. I left two companies to guard the landing zone, and then marched east, using these mountains to mask our movements. Meanwhile, Lord Marshal Gerant took the remaining regiment north from Beltonne, through the mountains, then crossed the ice here, at the Fell Channel’s narrowest point. The plan was for him to besiege one of their border towns, if possible take it, in order to draw out their main body. I would meanwhile advance to his position and destroy the enemy in a pincer movement, hammer and anvil. We would then move north and east to burn their coastal villages, which their raiding ships call home.

  “A risky strategy,” commented Lord de Isnell, his fat-slurred words detracting heavily from his credibility.

  “These were the men put at my disposal, my lord. I did what I could. Alas, you are correct. I had to hope that the increased raids on our coastline were a symptom of their clans’ rivalry, not unity. I pinned my entire campaign on that hope. History had given me no reason to think otherwise. But I was wrong.

  “I had scarcely been on the march for a week when I received word that the landing beaches were under attack. I was compelled to divert half a regiment to relieve them. I marched on, but my force was subjected to repeated attacks along the way. I took few casualties; the attacks were very small. But they managed to delay us by nearly three weeks. Gerant succeeded in taking a town in that time, but the Glats’ main force arrived, just as I’d expected. It was a much larger body than I had planned on—Gerant estimated four full clans.”

  The Lords murmured. The Northmen hadn’t assembled such a force in living memory. The clans were usually too busy infighting over cattle and territory to bother allying—but this time they had. Marcus ran an uneasy hand through his hair, knowing that even one full clan could bloody a whole regiment on its own.

  “Yes,” said Audric. “The Lord marshal held on through sheer tenacity, but after a week, the position was untenable. He was forced to fight his way toward me while the Glats harried him. We managed to join forces here.” Marcus grimaced; the ground his father indicated was open and featureless. It was the very last place an outnumbered army wanted to fight. “The enemy used light cavalry to block our retreat. We were forced to do battle with their main body.”

  The king scowled down at the map for a long moment, shaking his head. “It was a bloody day. I lost four companies’ worth of men. We held, barely. It was only timely action by our dragoons that saved us. They punched a hole through the enemy cavalry and held the gap long enough for us to make good our escape.

  “That was two months into the campaign. The rest was… ineffectual. We lost most of our baggage trains in the retreat, so we had to f
orage and hunt for food. By summer, my men were near starving. We raided villages for supplies and we managed to take down an enemy stronghold in this area, which gave us fresh horses, wagons, and grain. That enabled us to fight through the summer. But the Glats were too clever. They would not fight us on our terms. What we fought were little more than skirmishes. I could not bring their army to battle again. With the end of summer approaching, I called off the campaign. I took my army and returned to the channel.

  “That was when they chose to attack again. It was fortunate that the captain I left guarding the beaches was of sound mind. Without the fortifications he built in my absence, I would have lost many more than I did. I lost two hundred on the sea. The enemy committed their longboats to the attack. My transports were easily outmaneuvered, easily boarded. I lost another three hundred as we made our final withdrawal from the beaches. Lord Marshal Gerant lost his hand there. He will likely be dead of fever in a day.”

  “One thousand one hundred men?” Lord de Guiscard asked, incredulous. “That many dead for a failed campaign?”

  “No, my lord.” Dejection sapped the tone from Audric’s words. “Two thousand five hundred, counting disease. Out of eight thousand. Out of four regiments. More than a quarter of my force.”

  The table was completely silent. The high lords exchanged boiling looks.

  Lord de Martine slowly stood and put his hands on the table. “This is what you have delivered to us, your highness? A whole campaign season, and all Elessia can claim is two fighting retreats, at the cost of two and a half regiments?”

  “Outrageous!” another lord declared, with the rest in agreement. “Unacceptable!”

  “Perhaps I will think twice before committing so many of Ronery’s fine men to your command, King Audric,” Roberte said.

  Marcus stared at him in hatred. As if the man gave a damn about any of the dead, who even now were rotting on the northern plains—no proper burial, no grave with a sword and helmet to mark it. Those fields were cursed ground, now and forevermore. No Elessian would ever willingly fight there again.

  Audric’s face was colored with fomented rage. With exceedingly brittle calm, he pronounced, “So many, you say. At this time last year, I asked a full regiment from each of your holdings. What I got was half that. And fine men, you say.”

  “Fine men, I say, your majesty!”

  “They were boys! You gave me boys, fresh out of the Novitiate, thrown together into companies at the last minute and given armor that fell apart on the march, swords with nicked edges, bows with no twang! What sort of campaign am I expected to wage with such resources? If I am to hold the entire north at bay—”

  But Lord de Martine cut him off again. “So you dare to lay the blame at our feet? Blame for your failure as general?”

  Audric slammed a fist on the table. “Then next season I will ask for sixteen regiments! Perhaps then I will get a full eight!”

  And the Highest Lords threw all semblance of respect to the wind. The table descended into a shouting match, with all bitter fingers pointed at Marcus’s father. He couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, despite all his failings as a general, a king, a father. He had done his best at an impossible task—and his best was certainly more than any of these men had to offer.

  The men berated their king for a solid quarter hour before he had had enough. He raised his hand, and after a while, they settled into relative quiet. “Forgive me for the grim news I’ve brought, my lords. Next season, we will have the chance to redeem ourselves. For now, I must retire. I bid you good day.”

  They returned the farewell with soured voices, then began talking more quietly as Marcus followed his father through a side door and out of the throne room.

  “How could you let them talk to you like that, father?” Marcus demanded. “If it were my choice, I’d throw them in the dungeons and tax them until their coffers were empty.”

  Audric chuckled. His face was sallow with exhaustion, both physical and mental. “Times aren’t so simple anymore, son.”

  “They were yelling at you like you were some over-glorified general!” Come to think of it, that was what the kingship was. Not long ago, the king’s power had rested on his command over the Elessia’s armies. Training, equipment, muster, campaign—all had fallen under his authority. Between that and his family’s holdings, the king was the most powerful man in Elessia. After Kydona, that had changed. One by one, Audric had handed his powers over to the Council of Highest—and now, the only men under his full control were the Royal Watch: the full-time component of Elessia’s army. The rest of the nation’s men belonged to the high lords.

  Marcus quieted, realizing that his father was an over-glorified general—one who could be dispatched at will, should the Council of Highest ever choose to align against him.

  His father gave him a wry look. “This will pass. All these things do.”

  “I hope so.”

  They were walking through the wide hall that led to the royal suites. Audric looked over each statue as they went, as if reminding himself that each likeness had been a better king or queen than he was. Near the end of the hall, the niches were unoccupied. “I’ll stand here one day,” the man remarked, coming to a stop. “Next to her.”

  In front of him stood his wife, Geneva Demo de Pilars—her likeness, at least. The sculptor had been exceptionally talented. Even in marble, the warmth in her expression was evident. She held a breast basket on one crooked elbow, while her other hand extended toward some unseen person in need.

  Marcus looked down at the floor. Tears threatened.

  Audric reached out as if to cradle Geneva’s cheek. “She was such a beautiful woman, your mother. She…” His hand froze, then withdrew as he remembered that it was not his wife, just a statue. “I wish I could have loved her as she deserved.” He rubbed his eyes.

  “It’s alright. You’ll feel better when you’re done with Roslene, tonight.”

  With that, Marcus whirled around and stalked off, leaving his father alone and silent behind him.

  It was a small field, longer than it was wide, nestled between three hills. The guild-less smith—Horace Smithson, if memory served—had insisted on the location, and though there was quite a turnout, no one looked all that pleased with being lured this far outside the city. What was worse, the spectacle already verged on ludicrous, and the show hadn’t even started.

  All sorts of people sat on the stands around Marcus. There were Watch captains and their accompanying command sergeants, looking on with calm skepticism. A few bored nobles had ventured out in search of thrills, and they already seemed to be regretting the decision.

  Horace Smithson’s fellow metalworkers were in attendance as well, but they hadn’t come to encourage him. The masters frowned broodingly while their journeymen and apprentices sniggered in the background. It was rare for an independent craftsman to enjoy any kind of success; the guilds made sure of that. But this smith had slipped through their fingers, and without so much as an apprenticeship, he had managed to win an audience with some of Elessia’s premier military and political figures—Marcus included. All the Smiths’ Guild could do now was hope he failed.

  Right now, it seemed as if he had.

  “Well—um—I’d like to—to thank you all for—I do appreciate you all coming…” The poor fellow looked just as uninspiring as he sounded. He was still somewhere between young and middle-aged, but his strawberry hair was already half-gone, and he was remarkably thin, for a smith. He wrung his hands and glanced back at his apprentice—a girl, for God’s sake—who was tediously burning the stray fibers off a cord with her tongue stuck between her teeth. “In a moment—um—as soon as Clara is finished there—I will endeavor to show you a weapon that will change warfare—um—as we know it!” He grinned and threw his arms wide in excitement, but when that failed to provoke a response from the stands, he anxiously folded his hands and started mumbling to himself.

  Marcus ran his fingers through his hair. “God above,?
?? he muttered.

  “Say something?” Vernon asked through a mouthful of apple. He took another crunching bite.

  “If the man doesn’t pick this up soon, people are going to start leaving. Hell, I might be one of them.”

  “Aw, come on! Like you have something better to do! I, for one—” A tiny chunk of apple shot out of his mouth and landed in the curly hair of the journeyman in front of him. The lad stared ahead, oblivious. Vernon breathed a sigh of relief, which promptly sent another bit of apple into the lad’s hair to join the first. Hastily, Vernon gulped down the half-chewed remainder. “Fuck me, mate!” Wincing, he quickly swatted the mass of hair, scattering the apple’s remnants.

  The journeyman looked around angrily. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

  Vernon thought fast. He blurted, “But it’s so fucking fluffy!”

  “What?” He sounded horrified.

  “Can I just get another feel? Last one, I swear, then I’ll leave you alone.”

  Looking green, the journeyman turned back around and stayed that way. Vernon happily resumed munching on his apple. Marcus was too busy biting down on his fist to comment.

  “Dear lords and—and good sirs!” Horace was ready at last. “I will now unveil my creation! Um. Feast your eyes!” He half-jogged over to a cloth-draped table. Underneath, Marcus could just discern the outline of a long, thin object. Horace tore the cloth off the table and snatched up his new weapon. “Behold! The firelance!”

  Actually, it didn’t look much like a lance at all—more like an iron pole. One end tapered to a point. At the other end was a thick metal tube, with a hook protruding from the underside.

  “You mean a torch?” someone mocked. Laughter reverberated around the clearing.

  “Does look like a torch,” Vernon whispered. “Put in some tinder and you’re ready to go.”

  The flustered smith pressed on, “A firelance, gentlemen! It is a weapon which will pierce the thickest of armor and make cowards of the bravest soldiers! A revolutionary device, indeed!” He tapped the firelance’s strange tube-like head. “Here, I place the—the projectile.” He held up a lead marble, no larger than a silver trice. He was warming to the act by now. His stutter disappeared. “Pay no mind to the size. This tiny projectile is thrown toward the foe at such great speed that no armor can stop it. Anyone on the receiving end of this firelance will surely die, and those who do not perish will flee for their lives. The firelance’s roar will put terror into the stoutest of hearts!”

  The audience’s derision was now replaced by intrigue. The Royal Watch captains were leaning forward, and the nobles and guildsmen were whispering behind their hands.

  “Show us,” Marcus called. More than a few excited voices agreed.

  Horace nodded enthusiastically. “Indeed I will!” He rushed over to his assistant. The girl was waiting with a bulging waterskin, grinning with anticipation. Her master held the tube out to her, and she carefully started pouring. The skin contained not water, but some kind of black sand—like crushed charcoal, Marcus thought. “Now Clara is filling the firelance with what I call black powder. It is a clever concoction from the east…” People started muttering. Nothing from the east could be good. But Horace blustered on, “…a combination of three ingredients: charcoal, sulfur, and another which I must regrettably keep secret, for the time being. Exposed to flame, this concoction ignites and explodes with tremendous force.”

  As his assistant withdrew the waterskin, Horace fished into his pocket. He pulled out a wooden dowel and began ramming it into the tube. “I must make sure,” he panted, “the black powder is seated properly, or it will not ignite. Then,” he drew the metal marble from his pocket again, “I insert the projectile, like so.” He forced the marble it into the tube with visible effort. He used the dowel to bludgeon the marble down as far is it could go.

  Clara was at his side with the waterskin again. This time, she used a spoon to drop some black powder into a tiny hole at the base of the tube. “This is the ignition,” Horace explained. The girl passed him a cross-shaped stick with a smoldering cord wrapped around. Horace took it gingerly in one hand, leveling the firelance with the other. “Now, my lords and sirs…” Clara stuffed some balls of wax into her master’s ears. “I must warn you,” he shouted, deaf to his own voice, “to cover your own ears! The noise is tremendous!”

  Marcus put his fingers in his ears. Feeling foolish, he glanced around, but everyone else was doing the same thing.

  At the far side of the field was a blank canvas target the size of a shed. Horace steadied the weapon under his armpit and took careful aim. With excruciating slowness, he lowered cord’s burning end toward the weapon’s ignition hole. They touched—

  —and air split with a thunderous blast. Orange fire spat from the end of the weapon. Horace rocked back on his heels as the firelance bucked, struggling to break his grip—but the fight was quickly over. The fire almost instantly dissolved into a thick cloud of smoke, which began drifting off in the breeze.

  The audience sat there in shock for a moment. Then they were on their feet, applauding and cheering. The smith smiled at them, his teeth stark white against his soot-blackened face, and spread his hands. “Thank you! Thank you all!”

  “Amazing!” a nobleman babbled to his companion. “A revolutionary creation!”

  “No Northman will stand a chance!”

  “A thousand of them! Commission a thousand for the Watch!”

  The smith journeymen shook their heads while their masters sulked in their defeat.

  And a grizzled old sergeant said, “It didn’t hit the target.” Those quiet words silenced half the audience. The other half quickly went quiet as they saw everyone pointing at the not-so-distant target. It was blank.

  Horace peered at the mysteriously-untouched canvas. “Um… yes, well, that will happen sometimes, with my aging eyes…” he chuckled nervously, but no one seemed inclined to join him, so he summoned Clara back over in the awkward silence. She deftly filled the firelance with powder. Her master anxiously reloaded, took aim, and let the fire loose once more.

  The noise was just as terrific, but the result was the same: the target was untouched. People were snickering now. A pair of nobles vacated their seats, unwilling to commit their funds to such a futile operation. More followed. Guild apprentices cheerfully trotted after their smug masters. Captains consulted their sergeants and got up with dour expressions.

  Horace Smithson’s audience dissolved before his eyes. He gazed after them, mouthing in disbelief. “But—wait! Don’t go! There are—I can make adjustments! I…” He saw the futility and stopped talking. Dejectedly, he planted his rump on the table—which immediately collapsed.

  Clara helped him to his feet. He cursed bitterly, dusting himself off. “Damned fools! Why can’t they see—?” His eyes went wide. “Your highness!” He dropped to one knee.

  “For God’s sake, man, get up.” The smith rose, looking sheepish. Marcus found himself looking down; the man was much shorter than he had appeared from the stands. “That’s quite a contraption you’ve got there, Master Smithson.”

  He smiled without enthusiasm. “Yes… I wish they thought so.” He gestured at the audience’s retreating backs.

  “They do. They just didn’t see what I did.” Marcus pointed at the servants coming forward with the horses—more like laboring forward. The poor beasts were frightened out of their wits, and fighting with all their might. Their eyes rolled in terror, and their stamping hooves uprooted clods of grass as the servants dragged them to their masters.

  The smith gaped. “The firelance did that?”

  “The noise did that,” corrected Marcus.

  “That it did,” said a new voice. The triple diamonds and fortress wall on his shoulder tabs marked the tall man out as a garrison commander of the Watch. He had steel-grey eyes and a well-trimmed beard, brown like his hair. “Even the warhorses look skittish, don’t you think?”

  As he said it, a captain b
ounced comically on one foot, his sergeant hurrying to extricate the other from a tangled stirrup before his agitated horse galloped off.

  The commander smiled, but there was something worn about the expression. “Tell me, Master Smithson—have you ever fired your lance at something larger? Perhaps a wall?”

  Marcus glanced at the newcomer. He thought of Ancellon’s crumbling outer wall.

  “No,” the smith replied thoughtfully. “But it would be no use. There’s not enough force. The projectile… has… to be…” His eyes widened up at the commander.

  “Bigger? Precisely,” the soldier said with that same haunted smile. “My name is Commander Durand. I command the garrison at Fort Arlimont. And to one whose specialty is walls… well, your invention interests me greatly.” He stepped in and held out one hand. As the smith tentatively shook it, he said more quietly, “Make a bigger one. Then you come to me. That is, if the lord prince agrees that this project is worth royal funds.”

  They both looked at Marcus. He grinned wolfishly. “I don’t just want those horses scared. I want them running for their lives.”

  “It’s settled, then. You know where to find us both, Master Smithson. Good day.”

  The prince knew how to take a cue. He followed the garrison commander off as Horace the smith hugged his apprentice behind them. Durand really was tall; he had a good half-foot on Marcus.

  “Your job is to guard walls,” Marcus commented, “but here you are looking for a way to knock them down.”

  Durand looked down at him in mild amusement. “I merely play the game, your highness.”

  “Meaning?”

  “The game of war. A military leader’s greatest asset is surprise. Once perfected, this firelance will change the face of warfare, just as Master Smithson said. Before that happens, we must learn how to use it, and how to defend against it.”

  “Keep the initiative,” Marcus nodded. “I look forward to seeing where this goes.”

  “As do I.”

  They walked on toward their horses—slowly, because the servants were still wrestling with them, and Vernon was having a hell of a time getting on the saddle. “But that’s not the reason you wanted me to walk with you, commander.” He came to a stop.

  Durand paused as well, folded his hands behind his back in that distinctly military manner. “What do you imagine that reason would be?”

  His guarded tone made Marcus reconsider what he was about to say—but the look in his eyes made him say it anyway. “You sent me a letter, some time ago.”

  “What makes you think that?”“

  “My gut does.”

  Durand gazed down at him for a few moments, considering. That smile came back, creasing his mustache. “You get that from your mother. You have that instinct of hers—when you know something is out of place.”

  Then Marcus felt as if his gut had dropped out.

  “She always told me it was like those dreams you often have when you’re young. You see something in a dream, and it makes no sense at the time so you forget about it—and then what you saw happens in real life. Most people only recognize the moment once it is past. Your mother was different.”

  “That sounds like fate.”

  “Yes, but she never much liked the idea of fate. I doubt you do.”

  Marcus swallowed uneasily. “How did you know my mother?”

  “That, your highness, is a very long story.”

  “I have all day.”

  Durand looked almost casually over Marcus’s shoulder. “As do they,” he remarked. As he said, there were a number of nobles milling around still. “We can safely assume we’re being watched. More fool them. There’s nothing to see.”

  He smirked. “That’s right. We’re only talking about the good smith’s contract.”

  “True enough, your highness. All the same, we can only discuss that matter for so long before we draw suspicion. So.” He saluted, held it.

  Marcus snapped his heels together and swiftly brought his hand to brow. He dropped it, freeing Durand to drop his in turn. “So, commander.”

  “Will you be reviewing the garrison soon?”

  He had to know more. He had done everything his mother had told him, and he was no closer to the truth than before. Durand could change that. “I’ve been missing Arli lately, have to admit.”

  Durand chuckled along. “I can hardly leave her for more than an hour before she calls me back. In fact, there’s likely a mountain of parchment waiting on my desk right this moment.”

  “Then I’ll let you see to it, commander. Farewell.”

  “Farewell.” Garrison Commander Durand started off for his horse with a clipped gait, a soldier to his very core. Likely he had enlisted after his Novitiate and fought his way up the ranks—a self-made man, built on his own merit. Marcus barely knew him, but he found himself admiring him.

  Durand said over his shoulder, “They’ll arrive within the week.”

  “Who?” Marcus asked, bewildered.

  “Friends. I hope.”

  And then Marcus was alone, gazing after his elusive ally’s shrinking back—lost once again.