From Across the Clouded Range (100 page)

In his six years as a royal courier,
Cary had never carried a red pouch, had never even heard of a red
pouch. But he did not need to be told what it meant. When he’d
received it in Ostholm from the hand of a man whose lathered horse
was collapsing beneath him, he had stared at it, eyes bulging,
until his commander slapped his horse’s flank and sent him on his
way. He was on his eighth horse now, and this one was near its end,
labored breaths rising even over the thunder of its hoof beats,
lather dripping from its sides and spraying from its mane. Cary was
equally exhausted. He had ridden at a full gallop for twelve hours.
Had not eaten, had not stopped even to piss. From horse to horse,
aching legs driving spiked spurs, making the poor beasts run until
they were on the verge of death. All for the glory of delivering a
red pouch into the hands of his most Exalted Majesty, Elpert
Risbourg de Nardees, King of Liandria.

Horse dangerously close to stumbling,
Cary bolted from between the last of the great manors and started
up the hill to his destination. Before him, poised upon the great
city’s lone hill, was Liandrin Palace, a five story circle, marked
with six equal towers, surrounded by acres of gardens and a
thirty-foot wall. A phalanx of guards waited at the gates, stood in
place of the great bronze doors, long spears pointing to the
heavens. Cary charged toward them, and four of the men broke ranks,
stepped behind their fellows, opening the way for him alone.
Obviously, the main gate had sent the signal. The King would know
that he was coming, would be ready to receive him.

His heart skipped at the chance he had
been given. He had grown up in this palace. His parents had spent
their lives in service to the King, Cary had practically lived in
His stables, yet he had never been closer than a hundred feet from
the King. In a few minutes, he would be standing before
him.

He raced between the guards and on
through the lavish gardens – the perfume of flowers nearly strong
enough to overcome the musk of his dripping horse. He looked up.
The palace loomed above him, a veritable mountain of grey stone.
Then he heard it, horses hooves out of rhythm with his own. He
turned just in time to see the rider closing behind him, passing
him.

Impossible!
Cary kicked his horse in the flanks, dug his
spurs into its already bloody haunches and felt it leap beneath
him. He carried a red pouch. No other messenger could be allowed to
overtake him. The shame of it would mark him forever.

He caught the other rider, saw the
palace steps through the last line of hedges, pulled back on his
reins, and leapt to the ground. The horse fell away beneath him. He
landed hard, felt the cobblestones all the way to the base of his
skull, but did not pause. His hand clutched the red pouches by the
leather strip that connected them. He swung the empty end toward
his rival. Another red pouch arched toward him. The pouches struck
one another. The riders stared at each other, at two sets of
crimson satchels shining like blood in the light of the rising
moon.

They recovered simultaneously and
sprinted like mirror images up the white marble steps. Cary’s knees
nearly buckled as his exhausted legs adjusted from riding to
running. He stumbled. A servant – Cary barely noticed him beyond
the black suit – moved to catch him, but he brushed the man aside
and focused on his rival now two steps ahead. Gritting his teeth,
he forced himself to run, to ignore his aching legs and burning
lungs. By the time they reached the engraved doors, Cary was on the
other man’s heels. He caught him by the first turn – a servant in a
black suit and tall hat pointed the way – and caught an elbow in
the gut as he pushed to pass. He lost a step, cursed, and followed.
The other messenger was not as fast, but he had twenty pounds on
the slight Cary. And his elbows were damned sharp.

Luckily, Cary had grown up in this
palace, knew all its secrets. He held back until they arrived at
the next intersection. The servant there pointed to the right.
Cary’s rival followed his directions. Cary continued straight, hit
the latch on the nearly invisible door and was through it without
losing a stride. Somewhere behind him, a butler’s voice yelled
admonishments.

“
Clear the way!” Cary
screamed as he sprinted down the corridor of the servant’s
quarters. Maids, butlers, couriers, cooks threw themselves against
the walls, dispersing their gossiping clusters. Cary flew by the
closely spaced wooden doors of the high servants, cut through a
dormitory that housed the lowly, and burst into the kitchen, the
epicenter of any estate. Dodging bakers, leaping racks of dough,
and spinning around the head cook, who was too fat to move, he
threw open the server’s door, angled around the long table of the
King’s private dining room, and dashed into the King’s private
audience room. He came through the side door at the same moment his
rival stepped through the main entrance.

This room was small relative to those
surrounding it. It was windowless and dark with only the two oil
lamps framing the King having been lit. The wood paneled walls,
sanded and stained to show every intricacy of the grain, absorbed
what little light radiated from the lamps, leaving most of the room
in shadow. But Cary could see the king clearly. Lamplight sparkled
from the gold circlet on his brow. White hair flowed from it, down
his back – undone, barely combed – to an extravagantly embroidered
robe of shimmering gold and cobalt blue. His short, square beard
looked frazzled. His brow was crumpled in concern, his mouth a
stern line, but his clear, blue eyes sparkled, as alive as
ever.

Flanking him were his sons, the
general and the exchequer. Each fit his template – one hard as a
statue, the other soft as the dough being formed in the kitchens.
The final man in the room – beyond the half-dozen guards – stood at
the base of the dais, hands folded before him, face indifferent.
The chamberlain was a young man for his position, a contemporary of
the princes, but he had been raised to his position, and he lived
it with every fiber of his being. He wore the robe and pendant of
his office – married to it every bit as much as a counselor is
married to the Order – and looked washed and ready as if it were
the middle of the day. The lamplight shown off his bald head as he
nodded toward the men sprinting into the room.

The couriers slid to his shiny black
shoes on their knees, arms stretched above their heads, red pouches
extended. Sweat dripped from their brows, running off noses and
chins to brighten the tiny tiles beneath them. Cary kept his eyes
down, suppressed his adulation as the Chamberlain lifted the
pouches first from his extended hand and took them to the
King.

“
Please, rise,” the King
ordered as the Chamberlain dialed letters into the cryptic that
protected the pouch’s contents from prying eyes. One letter wrong
and the vials hidden within would break, their contents would mix,
and fire would engulf the bag. Cary rose but remained at attention,
eyes fixed, seeing nothing, awaiting orders. He glanced to the side
at the same moment as his rival. They caught each other’s eyes and
nodded imperceptibly.

The Chamberlain handed Cary’s letter
to the King. It was a single page. From the light reflecting
through, it was only a few lines long. As he read, the King’s eyes
grew narrow and dark. His expression became stern. He handed the
letter to his oldest son, the general, as the Chamberlain opened
the second satchel. The second letter was longer than Cary’s,
several pages of tight script, and he felt slighted by the
inequity. If that were not enough, this letter had more effect on
the King. He ground his teeth and mumbled, “That idiot fool. Of all
the people to claim that throne, and at a time like this.” Reading
some more, his mouth quirked. “Rammeriz alive. That, at least, is
something.”

He finished and handed it on – the
first letter had long ago made its way back to the Chamberlain. The
Prince was not so restrained as his father. “They wouldn’t dare!”
he yelled. “They won’t last a month.”

“
They don’t have to,” the
King replied. “It can only mean that the new Emperor has allied
himself with the invaders. They know we can’t face them both. They
will make us chose, or splay us down the middle and pick our
bones.” Cary tried not to hear the conversation. It was not his
place. He should not even be in this room. Yet he could not help
but feel his pulse quicken at the confirmation of the rumors that
had been sweeping through Ostholm.
So
there was an invading army. It was true. And they were allied with
the Empire?

“
So what do we do?” the
Prince asked. “From Thoren, the invaders could be at Lethbridge in
four, maybe even three, weeks, and there’s the other army advancing
on Wildern. If it falls as quickly, the invaders could be at Lianne
on Alta at almost the same time. And we must meet the Empire. We
cannot allow those vultures to run unchecked behind us.”

“
Calm yourself!” the king
growled, gesturing to the messengers still standing before them.
“Gather your generals. We will decide on the specifics in council.
But we will deploy. Within the week, we ride with all our forces to
meet the invaders.” Then, with a sigh, he turned to his other son.
“And you, prepare to open your vaults. I want these men to carry
our offers to the Fells by tomorrow’s dawn.”

#

Nyel ut Torswauk was teaching her
granddaughters to read. Fourteen girls aged five to fifteen sat on
cushions around her. The fifteenth and youngest was on her lap,
nestled close, a book spread across her lap. The room’s log
shutters were open, but it was never really hot in the Fells, and
the breeze this day seemed to hold none of the summer’s warmth. The
girl in her lap shivered. A black fly landed on her bare arm. She
slapped it away with a squeal – the biting flies of summer were
almost worse than the biting winds of winter. The other girls
looked at the windows, at the flies buzzing around them, then at
their grandmother, but Nyel did not relent. The air smelled fresh,
of wildflowers and grass. Goose bumps and bites were a small price
to smell something other than wood smoke, fur, and
leather.

Despite that diversion, despite the
sweet child in her lap, Nyel could not escape her dark thoughts,
could not stop worrying about the days to come. There was a new
Emperor on the Throne of Dawn, one who was not blind to the world,
one with ambitions and a great store a wealth. Already he had sent
emissaries to the lodge at Pada Por and the two in Okotok, had
offered their men the gold that had been sitting stagnant in his
palace for centuries. Soon emissaries from Liandria or Pindar would
respond. Eventually, one would arrive here.

And the men would not
hesitate to take their gold. After a generation of peace, of
raising animals and crafting metals, the men were aching for war.
Lodges would sell themselves gladly to the outsiders. Morg would
fight Morg, and twenty years of peace would be shattered. Her sons
would die, her daughters would be widowed, and no amount of gold
would bring them back or quench their tears. And, for all her
power, Nyel could do nothing about it. War was the purview of men.
If every man in the Fells suddenly marched off to fight the
Maelstrom itself, she could do nothing but pray for their return.
It was the curse of a mercenary people, that their women must
forever watch their men march away and wonder when they will fail
to return.Nyel drew a deep breath to ease her spiraling emotions.
Something wasn’t right. She smelled a man, and a ripe one at that.
She glanced at the windows, but they were in the carved-out top of
the great hill, in the highest room of the lodge. Outside was a
fifty foot drop to the roof below. The smell had to be coming from
within the lodge. But no man would dare bring his scent into her
quarters. Then, in the next room, one of her sons announced the
arrival of a runner. With the release of a bolt, her daughter
opened the top of the door, and a strange man spoke.
With an accent.
He
subjugated himself, begged forgiveness for entering their
lodge.
From a different lodge!

That was as much as Nyel needed to
know. She lifted the child from her lap and crawled to the small,
circular hole that separated the common area from the women’s
quarters. The passage was designed to keep men out, and it almost
had the same effect on the aging Nyel. She tucked her shoulders and
climbed down the ladder to the meeting room. The runner’s smell
grew stronger as she entered. She fought the desire to cover her
nose against the unaccustomed invasion as she eyed the sweat-soaked
uhrm. Only his head and shoulders shown through the top third of
the door – the bottom remained barred – framed by the faces of four
of her sons. His head was cast down as was appropriate in the
presence of a mother. Sweat streamed from his damp hair, ran down
his face and soaked into his thick, black beard. The dark hair and
accent suggested that he was from the west, but Nyel only confirmed
it when she found the tattoo on his neck. The mountain with a ring
around its top marked him as a son of Stermspek Lodge, the farthest
west of all Morg lodges. He must have run for weeks through wild
terrain to deliver his message. And then to come here himself,
still sweating and winded. . . .

Nyel drew a breath to calm her
pounding heart. Her long, grey hair hung down her back in a great
braid. Her simple tan dress was unadorned, tied at her sturdy hips
by a leather cord. Only a diamond-encrusted pendant in the shape of
the great bear revealed her position. She rose to her full height
and threw back her shoulders, left no doubt as to her importance,
to the power she held over these men. The Mother of Torswauk lodge,
Nyel was, without doubt, the most powerful woman in the Fells.
Within this lodge, her word was law. And Torswauk was the oldest,
largest, richest, and most powerful of the Morg lodges. It alone
held fully a quarter of all Morg daughters in a single, sprawling
building that stretched over acres of land in the center of Morgvel
– a word outsiders put on their maps to fulfill their need to fit
Morg customs into their own definitions.