Blood Song (81 page)

Vaelin called to the Nilsaelin soldiers manning the gate. “Find him somewhere comfortable but secure, and make sure you take all his weapons.”

Frentis arrived with the scout troop, reining in beneath the arch of the gatehouse. “Couldn’t have been much of a fight,” he observed as the Nilsaelins carried off Hevren’s unconscious form.

“I’ve taken enough from him,” Vaelin replied. “His army’s nowhere in sight. Circle out to the west, see if you can pick up their trail.”

“You think they’re making for Untesh?”

“Either there or back to Marbellis. Stay out for one day only, and take no chances. If you’re spotted, ride back to the city.”

Frentis nodded and spurred his horse forward, the scout troop following close behind. Vaelin watched them ride towards the west and tried to ignore the faint trill of unease from the blood-song.

Night came with no sign of Frentis. He waited atop the gatehouse, gazing out at the desert, marvelling again at the clearness of the sky here, the vast array of stars shimmering above the night black sands.

“You worry about him.” Sherin appeared at his side, her fingers briefly touching the back of his hand before she folded her arms beneath her robe.

“He’s my brother,” he replied. “The captain still sleeps?”

“Like a child. He’s as well as a man could be after days in the desert with little water.”

“Don’t get too close to him when he wakes, he’ll be angry.”

“He hates you very much.” Her voice was heavy with regret. “They all do, these people, despite what you did for them…”

“I killed the heir to their empire and brought a foreign army to their city. For all I know the Red Hand too. Let them have their hate, I earned it.”

She moved closer, casting a wary glance at the guard nearby who seemed more preoccupied with the grit under his fingernails. “The mason heals well but his sleep is troubled, his burns still cause him pain. I dull it as best I can but still he rants in his dreams, speaking languages I’ve never heard for the most part, but some in our tongue.” Her gaze was intent, questing. “Some of the things he says…”

He raised an eyebrow. “What does he say?”

“He talks of a song, of singers, of a living wolf fashioned from stone, of a vile and deadly woman, and he talks of you, Vaelin. Maybe it’s just nonsense, delusions and dreams born of drugs and pain, but they scare me. And you know, I am not easily scared.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, ignoring her glance of alarm at the guard. “What does it matter, now?” he asked.

“Your position, your role here.”

“Let them mutiny, depose me if they like.” He had raised his voice so the guard could hear, although the man was now intensely interested in looking anywhere but at him. If he was any judge of soldierly gossip, it would be all over the barracks by morning. He found he couldn’t care a jot.

“Stop it.” She shrugged free of him, flustered but also suppressing a laugh.

The guard cleared his throat and Vaelin turned to find him pointing out at the desert. “Troop returning, my lord.”

The gates swung open to allow the scout troop to enter at a weary trot, Vaelin instantly alarmed that Frentis was not among them. “The Alpiran host was less than ten miles from Untesh when we found it, my lord,” explained Sergeant Halkin, Frentis’s second in command. “Brother Frentis elected to ride ahead and warn Prince Malcius of the danger. He ordered us to return here to bring word to you.”

Vaelin briefly clasped Sherin’s hand and strode off towards the stables, calling over his shoulder. “Fetch Brother Barkus and Brother Caenis!”

Chapter 10

“Well, that’s that,” Barkus said.

“Clever,” Caenis murmured. “We didn’t give this Alpiran enough credit, it seems.”

A thick column of smoke rose from the city of Untesh to stain the morning sky. Hundreds of corpses littered the ground before the walls where scaling ladders reached up to the battlements like stacked kindling. Through the smoke Vaelin could see a standard snapping in the breeze, crossed sabres of black on a red background, the same standard he had seen at the oasis. The Alpiran Battle Lord had eschewed siege for an all out assault, accepting dreadful losses to reclaim the city for the emperor. Untesh had fallen. Prince Malcius and Frentis were dead or captured.

I am a murderer…

“We should keep this from the men,” Caenis said. “The effect on morale…”

“No,” Vaelin said. “We tell them the truth. They know I won’t lie to them. Trust is more important than fear.”

“He could’ve made it out,” Barkus suggested, although his tone lacked conviction. “Got to a ship, maybe.”

Vaelin closed his eyes, trying to calm his thoughts, attempting to cast the blood-song forth as he had when he lost Dentos in the sandstorm. The note was even, unwavering, and found no answer. “He’s not there,” he whispered, hope surging in his breast. He had entertained a half-mad notion of waiting until darkness then finding a way over the walls to search for Frentis amidst the aftermath of the battle, although he was fully aware the most likely outcome would be a swift death.
But if he’s not here, then where? He wouldn’t have deserted the prince.

“Outriders,” Caenis said, pointing to the plain before the city where a body of horsemen was raising a thick cloud of dust as they galloped towards their position.

“Can’t be more than a dozen.” Barkus unhitched his axe from his saddle and unfastened the leather cover on the blades. “A little recompense, for the prince and our brother.”

“Leave it.” Vaelin pulled on Spit’s reins, turning him away from the city. “Let’s go.”

Another month passed as they waited for the storm. He trained the men hard, drilling them until they sagged with exhaustion, ensuring each man knew his place on the walls and was fit and skilful enough to at least survive the first assault when it came. He sensed their fear and growing resentment but had no answer to it but more training and sterner discipline. To his surprise, their mingled fear and respect held true and there were no desertions, even after Barkus returned from a reconnaissance to Marbellis with news that it too had fallen.

“Place is near a ruin,” the big brother related, swinging down from his horse. “Walls breached in six places, half the houses wrecked by fire and I lost count of the Alpirans camped outside.”

“Prisoners?” Vaelin asked.

His brother’s usually cheerful visage was entirely grim. “There were spikes on the walls, lots of spikes, each one topped with a head. If they spared anyone, I didn’t see them.”

The Battle Lord… Alucius… Master Sollis…

“What fools we were to let the old bastard send us here,” Barkus was saying.

“Get some rest brother,” Vaelin told him.

At night Sherin would come to him and they would make love, finding blessed relief in intimacy, lying coiled together in the dark afterwards. Sometimes she would cry small, jerking sobs she tried to hide. “Don’t,” he would whisper. “All be over soon.”

After a while her sobs would subside and she would cling to him, lips covering his face with a desperate urgency. She, like every other soul in the city, knew what was coming. The Alpirans would break over the walls like a wave and he and every other Realm subject in arms would die here.

“We can go,” she said one night, imploring. “There are still ships in the harbour. We can just sail away.”

His hand traced over her smooth brow, the fine curve of her cheek and the elegant line of her chin. It was wonderful to touch her face, to feel her shiver at his touch before a warm flush crept over her skin. “Remember my promise, my love,” he said, thumbing a tear from her eye.

He was touring the walls the next morning when Caenis came with word of Realm vessels approaching the harbour. “How many?”

“Near forty.” His brother appeared unsurprised by the turn of events. The idea that the king would leave them to wither unsupported seemed not to have occurred to him at all. “We’re to be reinforced.”

“There has been talk,” Caenis said as they waited on the quayside watching the first ship steer its way past the mole and into the harbour. His tone was uncomfortable but determined. “About Sister Sherin.”

Vaelin shrugged. “Well there might. We’ve hardly been discrete.” He glanced at Caenis, regretting his levity in the face of his brother’s discomfort. “I love her, brother.”

Caenis avoided his gaze, his tone heavy. “According to the tenets of the Faith you aren’t my brother now.”

“Excellent. Feel free to depose me. I’ll happily hand this city over to you…”

“Your position as Lord Marshal of the Regiment and commander of this garrison was given you by the King, not the Order. I have no power to depose you. All I can do is report your… transgression to the Aspect for judgement.”

“If I live to be judged.”

Caenis gestured at the approaching ship. “We’re being reinforced. The King has not failed us. I think we’ll all live a while yet.”

In the distance Vaelin could see the rest of the fleet bobbing sluggishly on the swell.
Why do they linger out there?
he wondered, a realisation dawning as the ship drew nearer and he saw how high it sat in the water. This vessel carried no reinforcements.

Sailors threw ropes to soldiers on the quay as the ship tied up to the dock, a gangplank quickly heaved over the railing. He had expected some senior Realm Guard Marshal to descend and was surprised by the appearance of a figure clad in the expensive garb of Realm nobility making an uncertain passage from ship to shore. It took a moment before Vaelin pulled the man’s name from his memory, Kelden Al Telnar, one time Minister of Royal Works. The man following Al Telnar was more to Vaelin’s expectation, tall and simply dressed in a robe of blue and white with a neatly trimmed beard and mahogany dark skin.

“Lord Vaelin,” Al Telnar bowed as Vaelin came forward to greet them.

“My Lord.”

“May I present Lord Merulin Nester Velsus, Grand Prosecutor of the Alpiran Empire currently acting as Ambassador to the Court of King Janus.”

Vaelin gave the tall man a bow. “Prosecutor, eh?”

“A poor translation,” Merulin Nester Velsus replied in near-perfect Realm tongue, his tone cool and his eyes tracking over Vaelin with predatory scrutiny. “More accurately, I am the Instrument of the Emperor’s Justice.”

Vaelin wasn’t sure why he started laughing, but it took a long time to subside. Eventually he sobered and turned to Al Telnar. “I take it you have a Royal order for me?”

“These orders are clear to you, my lord?” Al Telnar was nervous, a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip, his hands clasped tightly together on the table before him. But his clear satisfaction at being involved in a moment of such importance appeared to override any trepidation he might have harboured about delivering these orders to such a famously dangerous man.

Vaelin nodded. “Quite clear.” They were in the council chamber at the merchant’s guild, the tall Alpiran Grand Prosecutor the only other occupant. The lack of witnesses had peeved Al Telnar, making him enquire as to the whereabouts of a scribe to record the proceedings. Vaelin hadn’t bothered to answer.

“I have the King’s word in writing,” Al Telnar produced a leather satchel and extracted a sheaf of papers bearing the royal seal. “If you would care to…”

Vaelin shook his head. “I hear the King is unwell. Did he give you these orders himself?”

“Well, no. Princess Lyrna has been appointed Chamberlain, until such time as the King recovers of course.”

“But his illness doesn’t prevent him issuing orders?”

“Princess Lyrna struck me as a very conscientious and dutiful daughter,” Lord Velsus put in. “If it is any consolation, I discerned a considerable reluctance in her bearing when she reported her father’s word.”

Vaelin found himself unable to suppress a chuckle. “Ever played Keschet, my lord?”

Velsus narrowed his eyes, his lips curling in anger and he leaned across the table. “I do not understand your meaning, you ignorant savage. Nor do I care to. Your king has given his word, will you abide by it or not?”

“Erm,” Al Telnar cleared his throat. “Princess Lyrna did ask me to pass on word of your father, my lord.” He balked at the intensity of the gaze Vaelin turned on him but forged ahead valiantly. “It seems he too is unwell, the various maladies of age, I’m told. Although she wished to assure you she does all she can to sustain him. And hopes to continue to do so.”

“Do you know why she chose you, my lord?” Vaelin asked him.

“I assumed she recognised the good service I have provided…”

“She chose you because it will be no loss to the Realm if I kill you.” He turned to the Alpiran. “Wait outside. I have business with Lord Velsus.”

Alone with the Alpiran Grand Prosecutor he could feel the man’s hatred like fire, his eyes were alive with it. Al Telnar may have relished the import of the moment, but he could see Lord Velsus cared nothing for history, only justice. Or was it vengeance?

“I’m told he was a good man,” he said. “The Hope.”

Velsus’s eyes flashed and his voice was a hard rasp. “You could never understand the greatness of the man you killed, the enormity of what you took from us.”

He remembered the clumsy charge of the man in the white armour, the blind disregard for his own safety as he sped towards death. Had that been greatness? Courage certainly, unless the man had expected the fabled favour of the gods to protect him. In any case, the frenzy of battle left little room for admiration or reflection. The Hope had been just another enemy in need of killing. He regretted it but could still find no room for guilt in the memory, and the blood-song had ever been silent on the subject.

“I began this war with four brothers,” he told Velsus. “Now one is dead and the other lost to the mists of battle. The two that remain…” His voice faded.
The two that remain…

“I care nothing for your brothers,” Velsus replied. “The Emperor’s mercy is a great agony to me. If it was within my gift I would see your entire army flayed and driven into the desert as a feast for the vultures.”

Vaelin met his gaze squarely. “If there is the slightest attempt to interfere with the safe passage of my men…”