A Facet for the Gem (3 page)

Felkoth lifted his chin while taking in a long breath. “And, on the day we are enemies,” he mused, “will we settle our differences, just the two of us? Will these fine specimens who follow you see fit to follow me, after it’s finished?”

With the speed of a trained battle archer, Prince Ivrild set an arrow to his bow and pointed it at Felkoth’s chest. “Enough banter,” he seethed. “I’ll do what we all know needs to be done, right now.”

Hundreds of swords hissed from their scabbards as Felkoth’s closest men rallied around him, ready to charge if so ordered. But Felkoth held up a hand to stay them, fixing his watch on the young challenger. Mouth curling upward, voice smooth, he said, “Quite shrewd of you. But, careful you don’t make more enemies than you know what to do with.”

Valdis turned to Ivrild. “Not yet!” he steamed. Then, as he sternly faced Felkoth again, his tone left no room for objection on either side. “Not today.” With reluctant obedience, Ivrild lowered his bow.

“Charitable, Valdis,” said Felkoth. “A prince assaulting a king. Much too barbaric, even for my taste.”

“You are not king,” Valdis resounded. “Not of Korindelf, or any other part.”

“You and my father may be the only ones who share that view,” Felkoth replied, pausing to let Valdis take in his vast forces. “Until tomorrow, at least, when he can finally rest easy in his infirmity, and step down. Then, you may find yourself all alone.”

Valdis sought any recognizable humanity in Felkoth’s stare, turning away after finding none. “I bid you safe journey to Korindelf,” he said, “and we will gladly return to our own country without loss of man or beast.” He remounted his eagle gracefully, letting the dizzying pain in his old joints remain a well-kept secret. Then he leaned forward to address Felkoth one last time. “We’ll be watching, and you’d do well to keep in mind that no matter what you tell your father, he knows the Eaglemasters will still fight for Korindelf any day.

“And,” he said as he prepared to leave, “should you ever find yourself on the battlefield with us, remember: we’re deadlier on the ground than in the sky.” With that, their trumpets sounded again, and they lifted off in one elegantly woven flock, flying far toward the West, the way they had come.

Felkoth soaked in the wafting notes of their departure, seated at the head of thousands who would rather choke on the enclosing ash than complain. Nefandyr, his lieutenant, rode slowly forward to wait at his right, careful to halt inches before aligning side by side.

“He suspects a great deal, my lord,” said Nefandyr, his white hair caked in soot. “Should we fear their eyes see farther than we anticipated?”

Felkoth’s colorless lips stretched in a thin smile. “Fear.” He savored the word. “Fear is ten thousand mouths that would devour you were it not for the single solitary whip that splits any tongue out of turn. Fear is a ruler long past his prime who shields himself with one arm, asks for aid with the other, and finds both severed. Fear, Nefandyr, is very much on our side.”

Pulling his horse around to address the awaiting soldiers, Felkoth announced, “We return to our forts! Save your strength. We must prepare for tomorrow’s celebration at Korindelf.”

Quick to obey, every battalion left the long-dreaded South scorched far behind, its distant tower a flaming ruin in lands littered with rubble and dust—but not one corpse, no trace of the creatures that called it home.

The three princes flew closely around King Valdis now, their battle-hardened faces distinctive reflections of his own, each troubled by questions that none dared voice. After leading the army back over the mountainous northeastern corner of his realm, Valdis broke off toward a nearby peak with his sons in tow, and they landed together as every battalion returned to its respective outpost.

Unwilling to wait any longer, and assuming it his duty as next in line, Verald braved the silence caused by their father’s harsh expression, which threatened to unleash fire at the very mention of Felkoth. “Six years, Father.” He spoke tentatively, gauging the king’s reaction. “Six years since we last fought the South with them. All that time surveilling, strategizing, waiting for the enemy to make one move. He violates our pact, and we indulge his deception? We return home, just like that?”

“All we know for certain is that his army hadn’t yet advanced when the fire began,” young Ondrel replied. “We don’t know who or what sparked it. They may very well have moved in afterward, and the shriekers would have been smoked out like gophers, right into their trap.”

“We won’t know until the smoke clears, will we?” chided Ivrild. “Clearly it wasn’t his design that such a screen be lifted before our eyes, leaving us no choice but to watch from afar or really get our noses deep into whatever was unfolding, and maybe not come out to tell about it. I should’ve finished him when I had the chance, and we’d be extracting the truth from his men. Believe me when I say the three goblets I reserved for us at the Broken Beak are all mine tonight.”

The king somewhat relaxed as he exhaled loudly, silencing his sons. “Six years,” he repeated. “Six years since the shriekers poured out from the South in full force, since I flew to reinforce Korindelf’s blockade with all Eaglemasters. Your first battle away from home,” he added, tilting his head toward Verald, who gave a light nod in acknowledgment.

“Felkoth’s first battle as well,” he went on. “A mere princeling determined to prove himself. We arrived as the horde was a mere hundred yards out, and dropped volleys to suppress their advance. You two should consider yourselves lucky you were too young to go,” he said to Ivrild and Ondrel. “You’d be surprised the shots they can take… the kind of shots that would put a ferotaur down. The things you can do to their flesh, and still they keep coming for more. And the sound they make when your arrow pierces them, as though out of the thousands of men swarming above, they know it was you.

“They were becoming so intermingled with the blockade that soon we’d have to descend into the fray, and that is when a lucky death is by the sword. But then, like the ripples of water from a dropped stone, they all abruptly moved back, centered around one man.

“It was when I saw that this was none other than Felkoth, who stood whole before the legions that had once swallowed my own father, scattering them back to their master’s wasteland, that I suspected he would have a larger role to play in the war ahead. And now, six years since he was named commander, after corrupting the army beside which I once proudly fought, he’s shown that he had but to eliminate the threat at their borders—or assimilate it.”

The brothers exchanged earnest looks, each hoping another knew the answer that seemed to dangle at the end of their father’s words, though it remained elusive. “So which has he done?” Verald broke their collective silence with an impatient tone.

The king’s sight reached the broad Speaking River, which under cleaner skies sparkled like a road paved with sapphires, stretching beside the dense forest that extended for miles northward to the snowcapped Eagle Mountains, at the base of which glistened their capital. Looking out on his kingdom lovingly, he pitied his people, who hoped to soon meet the beginning of a new age.

“Tomorrow will tell,” King Valdis answered before taking off again, and they followed. “I shall have to send word to Korindelf detailing our account of what transpired today. But, regardless, I think it is more than sound to assume that our alliance will soon be at an end.”

Felkoth led the army an hour north, and the smoke was thinner now than what had surrounded them the previous night. It had blinded even the keenest eyes then to those who crossed the border unchallenged for the first time, those whose concealment was imperative. Coming at sundown to the fortress line that had protected Korindelf for centuries, Felkoth halted and faced his men once more, finding them instantly quiet.

“Korindelf’s people urgently await their saviors,” he announced. “They see destruction carried on the wind from their most threatened territory, and realize what emerges shall mean life or death. Undoubtedly now they place far greater value on the luxury they have so long taken for granted, passing all responsibility for their own security, for their very livelihood, to us alone.

“The Eaglemasters feel Korindelf owes them a great debt, for services rendered long before any of us ripped our way into this world. And make no mistake, what we do not offer, they will try to take, and the thousands we’ve guarded with our lives will merely yield to the stronger pull. And so, we must protect the people from themselves. We must teach them we are all that has ever stood between them and the grave, even if it means burying those who resist. We must let none wander so far that he might be taken by those who wish to topple us, and the Eaglemasters will wish it, of that I’m certain.

“That is why I acquired our new allies last night, those who are loyal to my bloodline alone. Before, though they would not harm me, neither would they obey my command. Now they have no master left but me. And henceforth, I assure you, they will obey.

“Tomorrow, those who have reaped the fruits of our vigilance shall finally pay us dearly, and even before I am named king, they will recognize beyond doubt who has ruled them all along. But, with our homecoming imminent, I wish first to know that every link in our ranks is strong and unshaken. So let any man who objects to my design step forward now, and be heard.”

All battalions remained rooted to the ground, every soldier subduing even the slightest breath that might set him apart. Soon it became clear that any man with the gall to voice dissent would likely be run through by those nearest him, and be concealed long before Felkoth cast one scornful eye in their direction.

Taking their unified silence as a clear answer, Felkoth’s expression lightened. “Then water your horses and go to quarters,” he ordered. “Eat, and gather all the provisions you can carry. We won’t need them here any longer.”

With that, the army broke off, making ready for its overnight march to Korindelf while Felkoth withdrew to the central fort, descending into its deep tunnel that had been secretly dug in the years since he assumed command. Dank, with a palpable stench of flesh on the cusp of decay, it ran for dozens of miles, and its tall, hairless, emaciated occupants sniffed anxiously at his arrival with broad snouts over twisted, elongated fangs.

Proudly facing the shriekers as they drooled down gray, scaly stretched necks, he unsheathed from within his cloak the ancient Dark Blade, taken from those who had once commanded these dreaded masses. It collected an aura of arrested torchlight like dust to a corpse the higher he brandished it, and the humanoid brutes gazed with obedient wonder, jaws open, panting excitedly.

“Heed me well, and you will never know hunger,” he promised, inciting a chorus of yelps. “Remain here, out of sight, and listen for my call, as it will come when I have the greatest use for you. And, with the greatest use, follows the greatest reward.”

Then Felkoth left his new servants in hiding, relishing the images of their impending emergence. The densely packed channel reverberated with their tantalized frenzy, opening under wide fields just a mile outside the gate of Korindelf, which would soon open to welcome the conquering heroes, for as long as they wished to stay.

Chapter Three

The Tree and the Goldshard

M
orlen reached Korindelf
late the next morning, having allowed his faltering horse a pace slow enough not to be a death sentence. The city was shaped like an engrailed crown with its high walls curving to bridge six encircling hills, each of which was capped with an ornate watchtower. Its two southern walls slanted sharply inward, forming a narrow corridor that led to the gate.

He slowly advanced into the tapering channel while several bowmen lining the battlements above trained their weapons on him, a reception that was no precaution for what approached from the South. There would be no questions as to his business here or his place of origin—he was a citizen they recognized well. And the report they must have gotten from the other returning hunters clearly left no room for rebuttal.

As he neared the sealed stone entrance, a rectangular hatch creaked open at eye level, through which a guard’s inhospitable glare accompanied a protruding arrow. “Any closer and you’ll be a stain on that sagging hide!” the voice reverberated coarsely.

“I was attacked on the road,” he said. “I’ve come back for shelter.”

“You’ll find none here,” the watchman scathed. “We’ve just seen what you did to the boy, heard what you made the horses do. You think we’ll permit your corruption inside these walls again? We should’ve shut you out long ago.”

“I have no intention to stay,” Morlen insisted. “But I need provisions. All that I had was taken. And this horse—I borrowed it, with a promise to bring it back.”

The guard scoffed. “Then whatever you traded for it was too much. I suggest you turn around, ride that beast as far as it’ll go, and then eat it. The people are stirred up enough as it is— word has only just begun to travel that the shriekers have been defeated. Now that those foul wretches are gone, your face is the last any will want to see.”

“Defeated?” Morlen whispered, looking back at the surrounding lands, still bathed in a residue of battle. “And the army?” he asked, wondering what kind of force could have possibly exterminated such an enduring threat.

“Soon to arrive,” the man replied with greater hostility. “And you’d better be gone before they approach! If Prince Felkoth finds the gate closed to his procession of triumph because of you, starvation will be the least of your worries. Now off with you! I’ll give no more warning!”

A drawn bowstring put more power behind the arrow aimed at Morlen’s throat, and he pulled his horse around. From his waterskin he took a weary swig that did little for an empty stomach. Wiping his mouth, he surveyed the open expanse and doubted he would get far. But, while he made his way out all disgruntled mumblings around him fell quiet, as though every guard now cast their attention on someone else, inside.

“You will admit him at once!” a familiar voice echoed out from behind the closed barrier.

Daring to halt and pivot back, Morlen waited for any sign of change, listening for a defiant retort that never came. Silence kept him firmly in position, and he suspected that any sudden movement might trigger a nervous shot from one of the archers, until finally a great winch began to crank on the other side. Korindelf’s gate slowly swiveled open into the city, revealing a host of guards who spitefully lowered their weapons. They parted along either side of the central road in which a single man stood, hooded in silver-blue robes, old and of tall stature, with a thick pale beard projecting far past his chin.

“Nottleforf.” Morlen breathed a sigh of relief, trotting closer to the threshold though stopping short at the disdain from each sentry before him.

“You may enter now, young Morlen,” said Nottleforf, his tone prohibiting any action to the contrary.

No longer hesitating, Morlen quickly rode past them, cantering a safe enough distance to ensure no further interference, and was smothered by the bitter attention of many onlookers. Soon he dismounted and strode between Nottleforf and the horse in a way that shielded him against the dozens who would not let him pass so easily.

“You don’t belong here!” scolded several beside the road, pushing closer through the crowd.

“Now he turns our animals against our children!” screamed another. “He brings danger wherever he goes!”

Morlen kept his head low while maintaining a brisk pace, dodging debris and brown clumps of lettuce flung in his direction, though Nottleforf seemed unfazed, refusing to bend.

“Well, Morlen, only sixteen years old and you’re the talk of the city. In case you’ve not yet ascertained as much, the people of Korindelf are not exactly comfortable having you here among them anymore. Since your most recent altercation, there is a growing call to exile you permanently.”

“I’ll save them the trouble,” Morlen replied. “I came back for supplies, food, that’s all. I was going to trade everything I gathered on the hunt—you should’ve seen it. I was going to have all I’d need to make it for years out there, but…” He trailed off, expecting little consolation. “I’m still leaving, today if possible, with whatever I can get. I might go north of the Quiet Waste. Maybe you could help me.”

“Ah yes, the wide frontier,” said the old man. “So beckoning to the young and adventurous of heart, and so littered with their bones.”

“I’m not staying here! I never asked these people for anything, never disagreed when they said something about me wasn’t right. But they never gave me a chance to change.”

“A man may consider himself changed,” replied Nottleforf, “merely after finding what was always hidden in him.”

Morlen sent over a suspicious look, uncertain toward what course he was being nudged. He did not understand why Nottleforf had tried to aid him through most of his early life, when many would have left an infant of low birth to follow its mother to the grave. Whether would-be guardians came and went, or humble households offered scraps and a cold night’s sleep, Nottleforf had always brought him from one to the next. And now that he was grown, they were quite distant. Yet there was an ever-present impression that, while Nottleforf purposely remained detached, he was secretly watchful.

“When I was younger, one of the families that took me in had two other boys close to my age. Do you remember?” he asked.

“I do,” said Nottleforf.

Morlen was certain the wizard had heard the stories that had circulated about him over the years, though he’d never been asked for his own accounts. “The father was a blacksmith, strict,” he continued. “But the mother was kind, and told her sons to treat me like their brother. After a month had gone by, I thought I might finally be home. Then one day, the boys were sparring too close to the hearth, and the one with his back to it didn’t see that his tunic had caught fire. I pushed him out of the way, even though his brother saw what had happened and did nothing, and he hit his head. His parents came and found him unconscious with me batting out the smoke at his side, and his brother told them I’d done it all on purpose.

“The father cornered me against the fire and tried to beat me, and I was so panicked that I grabbed the iron poker from the flames and hit his hand with it. His fingers broke and were badly blistered. He screamed that he’d never be able to work in the smithy again, and I ran out and never looked back. After that, I’ve always sensed something in the way people look at me, and it’s as though I can only be what they think I am.

“You used to take such an interest in my welfare.” Morlen laughed, shaking his head. “Looking in on me, like someone who wants to be seen but not needed. All I need is to not be this, anymore,” he said, rigidly crouched beside the horse, wiping more refuse from his hair.

Seeing Morlen’s snapped bow dangling toward the dirt from around his neck, Nottleforf withdrew the broken arc, untied the string and delicately balanced both halves in wrinkled yet nimble hands. Interlocking the jaggedly split pieces with slight pressure between his thumb and index finger, he plucked a long hair from his ample beard and wrapped the grayish strand twice around the fracture. Then he applied more force that sent a popping heat from his fingertips, melting a now luminous thread to flood every gap in the break, until, with no scar to be found, the bow was whole.

“You were lucky with this,” said Nottleforf, offering it back to him. “There is much I cannot mend so deftly.”

Morlen accepted the weapon slowly with raised brows, surprised by the greatest amount of care Nottleforf had displayed in many years, and restrung it securely. Then, he drew back on the bowstring to find it sprang with strength and flexibility renewed.

“If you are to leave Korindelf,” Nottleforf went on, “why not head due south?”

“South?” Morlen muttered. “There’s nothing but miles of fields, a little too close to here for comfort. And then”—he stopped, realizing what Nottleforf meant—“the Forbidden Isle?”

Nottleforf’s ageless eyes sharpened. “Not forbidden to all.”

Suddenly a chorus of horns at the gate announced the sighting of Prince Felkoth’s army, which would soon funnel into the city in a victory march. Conversation now proved difficult under eruptions of cheers, but Morlen was glad to no longer be the focus of everyone’s attentions.

Knowing that Nottleforf would have matters to attend to in the castle, as he often served as King Fendon’s advisor in military and diplomatic affairs, he was content to take his leave with a gracious nod. Then he went as inconspicuously as possible toward the stables, to return what might be the best transport out of Korindelf he could ever get.

Felkoth grew restless as Korindelf lay only a short stretch ahead, his rightful seat that victory had now secured while lineage alone may have left some doubters whispering. None would doubt him after this day, though, not even Valdis and his bird-keeping squires, whose intrusive presence adjacent to his own realm would have to be swept clean. But, he now had only sufficient strength to repel them here, if they dared interfere with his rule. To overwhelm them in their own territory, choking them with a tireless grip, there was one more thing that he needed. And he would have it, very soon.

Studying the thick blue mists that surrounded the Forbidden Isle south of the city, he recalled the story of its most renowned inhabitant, who had struck the first blow in the Battle of Korindelf nearly a thousand years earlier. Many accounts described a warrior emerging from the vapors leading a great horde of lions, driving the shriekers away from Korindelf for good.

The following generations who lived behind those same enchanted borders were always reputed to fight when needed, but their power and influence seemed to have dwindled; they had not been seen in years. If any still survived, surely they were too weak or few to show themselves, or they would have done so long before now.

The mysterious domain eventually shrank far behind, and thoughts of potential threats it posed vanished from his mind when he entered the gateway of Korindelf, where many throngs cheered overhead. He led his army on horseback, filing through the narrow opening in a celebrated parade flanked by people of the nearby territories. Droves had flocked to the city as the smoke rose, not knowing whether friend or foe would soon be coming.

The glorified cavalrymen rode tall along Korindelf’s central road, a path scattered with flowers by those applauding their passage. Lined by rows of wooden and stone huts that composed numerous bustling villages, it ran for about eight miles, linking the gate at the western edge to the castle of Korindelf far on the other end.

“Do you hear that, Nefandyr?” Felkoth asked his lieutenant. “Those are the cries of thousands who crave authority as though without it they would be lost. We will give it to them. We will ensure that their efforts serve a greater purpose than they ever have before, just as we served them for so many years.”

“I doubt many will resist, my lord,” Nefandyr replied. “It is as if they already know their true king has come home.”

Felkoth grinned. “The throne’s current occupant does seem to have faded in their minds. I became king the moment that gate opened. Any other notion is a lie.”

“You’ve called him your father all this time. One lie in exchange for another, then let him see the power you’ll use to rebuild the kingdom that grew soft under his feet.”

Eyeing the citadel that rose high in the distance, Felkoth knew he would soon gaze out from its towers and watch his borders spread each day, until finally no other borders remained. “There was a time when I tried to be the prince he wanted me to be,” he admitted. “I played the diligent pupil to his tedious advisors, who spoke of loyalties and traditions that I would be duty-bound to uphold. But they painted a future that would see me a slave, not a ruler, shackled to distant allies who could strike no blow better than I, and obligated to expend my resources for their betterment.

“And after years of their lessons in diplomacy, I realized allegiance is for the fearful, who hold it up like a quivering shield to an indifferent storm. But if you are that storm, you owe nothing to the world of men but a thrashing of its feeble structures, which, when broken, reveal it as the absurd collision of flesh and dirt it always has been. And when it lies peeled and exposed, unable to deny its powerlessness, you can mold it again as you see fit.”

Gradually picking up speed now, he broke out ahead of his men, letting them fill the city while he made for the castle. The dying monarch awaited him, unable to turn a blind eye to his arrival. And their reunion was long overdue.

After returning his borrowed horse to the stables, humiliated to have no spoils to show from his excursion, Morlen pushed through dense crowds that clamored on tiptoes to salute the army’s triumph. Getting out of Korindelf now would be nearly impossible, especially with all the supplies he’d hoped to acquire.

He moved on through the city, where hives of decrepit shacks in which he’d spent most of his childhood gave way to modest cottages, with merchants on every corner selling questionable meat on spits, and pelts big enough to be used only for shoes and caps. Farther in, loftier houses were spread up the road, with spacious gardens tended by those who profited off their surplus crops, while often trading what was near-spoiled or worm-eaten to the poorer quarter. More stately places of limestone rose on either side as the road stretched farther toward the citadel, marking sections of the city where people of low class seldom gathered.