Prisoner of Fate (36 page)

H
ordemaster Fist stood at attention in the presence of Prince Shadow and Seer Word, awaiting their response to his report. A breeze toying with the lavender curtain in the palace War Room distracted him and he was suddenly conscious of Prince Shadow at his shoulder. ‘The task was simple enough. How can you explain why your quarry escaped?’

‘Natives, Your Highness. They interfered,’ he replied.

‘Shesskar natives with spears and bows, Fist,’ Shadow reminded him. ‘Your men had thundermakers.’

‘Numbers and unfamiliar territory, Your Highness,’ Fist explained politely, but he was struggling to restrain his anger at being subjected to a humiliating interrogation in the Seer’s presence.

‘And what’s this talk of a witch?’ Shadow asked.

‘Excuses, I suspect, Your Highness,’ Fist replied.

Shadow moved from Fist’s side to the table at the centre of the War Room and studied the map. ‘So, our assassin and thief have both escaped into the eastern lands.’ He looked at Word. ‘That’s almost as convenient as killing them.’

‘Almost,’ Word replied.

‘Is that all, Your Highness?’ Fist asked, keen to leave the room.

Shadow paused, nodding to Word, before saying, ‘No. I have another task for you.’ He went to the window and stared over the palace grounds. ‘Any word from our Ranu friends?’

‘The shipment of arms and mercenary soldiers will arrive in three days,’ Word informed him. ‘The Ranu are happy to support our cause so long as they are not implicated.’

‘The mercenaries?’

‘Men from various parts. No Ranu.’

Shadow turned towards Fist and said, ‘Are you listening to this, Warlord?’

Fist blinked, comprehending the title suddenly bestowed upon him. He bowed his head. ‘Thank you, Your Highness.’

‘Aren’t you going to ask what is happening?’ Shadow asked. Fist looked up. ‘You will command an army charged with meeting and defeating my brother’s returning forces. Thirdson is bringing half of the force home by sea. Unfortunately, they will be lost, circumstances unknown.’ Shadow looked to Word.

‘The Ranu have made the appropriate arrangements,’ Word confirmed.

‘River is marching with the rest of the army across the North Coast plains. You will take your mercenaries there and destroy them. No one must be left alive. No prisoners. I want to see River’s head.’

Fist felt excitement rising at the prospect of leading an army into battle for the first time. His devotion to the prince was finally paying the dividends for which he’d worked.

‘When that is done, you will return to Port of Joy and oversee the changes under your new king,’ Shadow concluded. The prince approached Fist and
reached up to place his hands on the new Warlord’s shoulders. ‘I have put my faith in you to serve Jarudha as dutifully as you have served me,’ he said, locking eyes with Fist. ‘We are about to begin a new world, a better world, free of sin and corruption, a world more suited to Jarudha’s disciples, and you have been chosen to help make it so. When you return, I will personally bring you before His Eminence for consideration to enter the promised eternal Paradise.’ He clapped Fist’s shoulders once and ordered, ‘Go. An army awaits you a day’s journey to the north on the coast. Be Jarudha’s Warlord.’

Fist bowed and withdrew, barely able to contain his joy. Outside the War Room, in the wide corridor, he clenched his fist and punched the air, grinning ecstatically, but he restrained his voice in case he might be heard. When he realised he was being observed by three palace guards and a pageboy, he scowled at them and strode towards the stairs.
I am the new Kerwyn Warlord
, he lauded silently.
Who will dare mock me now
?

Seer Word lowered his glass of water and eased back into the red leather chair in Shadow’s private chamber. ‘When will you attend to your brother?’ he asked.

‘As we speak now,’ Shadow replied, smiling. ‘I’m confident that you will soon hear lamentations from the palace.’

‘There can be no connections made to us.’

‘None. There are those with long-standing grudges against my brother for acts of cruelty they imagine him to have committed who have gained access to the palace in a bid for revenge. They will get their revenge, of course, but then they’ll also be punished.’

‘Are these men reliable?’

Shadow chuckled quietly. ‘Circumstance breeds reliability.’

‘What about the palace guards?’

‘Somebody very foolishly gave them all leave today by mistake,’ said Shadow, shaking his head. ‘Except for my brother’s bodyguards, and they just received word to attend to an incident at the northern gate.’

‘And the item we seek?’ Word inquired, leaning forward.

‘Mrs Merchant arranged for it to reach my brother this morning. Shortly, you will have it returned as promised.’

Word smiled and made the holy circle before Shadow’s face. ‘You will make a truly great king,’ he said.

‘I will,’ said Shadow confidently, ‘with Jarudha’s blessing.’ Both men looked to the door as shouting started deep inside the palace.

Inheritor stood in his chamber, studying the beige canvas bag that Mrs Merchant’s bodyguard had delivered to him earlier in the day. It was heavy for its size, and when he pressed and prodded it he discerned what could be either a cross or a sword hilt stowed within. The old and heavy padlock was pitted and chipped, testimony to many attempts to break it open, but it was sound in structure. The canvas was unmarked and he considered that the bodyguard told him how he’d tried to cut it open but that blades failed to affect the fabric. The enigma aroused his curiosity. He laid it on a table and crossed the chamber to a tall cupboard, from which he retrieved the king’s sword.

Forged in the Thunder Mountains by his great-grandfather, the blade had seen a host of battles, serving as the symbol of Kerwyn military might over the generations. The pommel was crafted in the head of a
bear and encrusted with emeralds. As a child, he’d been tempted to play with it every time he saw it in his father’s room. Of all that came with being king, owning the sword was the only thing he craved. Now it was his. He held the blade high to catch the sunlight from his open window and admired the rays sparkling along the finely polished edge. In a fit of whimsy, he imagined he was facing three opponents and he lunged, parried and blocked their desperate attempts to bring him down, while he remained in masterful control until he despatched each one. Catching his breath from the boyish outburst, he self-consciously checked that no one had observed his play before he returned to the table and the bag.

He prodded the canvas with the sword point, testing the fabric’s strength, but the point made no mark. He lifted the blade and let it fall on the bag, but it did not cut through. He sawed at the canvas. He stabbed it. It remained unscathed. He shook his head in wonder and hoisted the bag to again feel its weight. ‘You
have
found a puzzle, Mrs Merchant,’ he remarked, and lowered the bag to the table.

Sword in hand, he sauntered across the room to the window and looked out, startling a magpie that had been resting on the ledge. Watching the bird fly away, he wistfully wondered if he could ever fly away from the responsibility he had inherited. ‘Inheritor,’ he murmured. ‘How apt of my father to give me that name.’ Beyond the palace walls, his window looked west, across the ocean. Grey clouds were piled on the horizon, but the weather was sunny above Port of Joy. His brothers, Thirdson and River, were on their way home from a successful campaign in the north. ‘Father would have been very pleased,’ he mused.

The Ranu ambassadors had caused a flurry, but he was confident that they would accept his generous
offer of open trade rights. As for their request to be allowed to establish a garrison in Port of Joy, he was far less enthusiastic. Ranu foreign policy in the west had led to the rapid expansion of their empire, initially through trade and then by invasion. He did not trust them. His father would have already sent them packing, daring them to attack at their peril, but Inheritor saw the danger in that response. The Ranu were a military might, technologically superior in almost every way. Their strange metal ships that travelled the oceans without sails, the huge airbirds that they called dragon eggs, the sleek peacemaker weapons were all clear evidence that a war with the Ranu would be disastrous for the Kerwyn kingdom. Negotiation, barter, treaties, conciliation—those were the only sensible pathways open, now that the Ranu were on the Kerwyn doorstep.

A solid thump outside his chamber startled him and he turned just as the door burst open. Several men barged into his chamber and he took a moment to realise that they were armed. ‘Who are you?’ he asked, taking a firmer grip on his sword.

‘Debt collectors,’ a man with a surly face replied.

He wondered how the intruders got to his chamber unheralded and why there was no sign of his bodyguard or palace soldiers. ‘Guards!’ he yelled.

‘Just you, Your Highness,’ the surly-faced individual informed him. ‘Time to pay some old debts.’ The men came forward.

There were three exits from the chamber, Inheritor thought, as he assessed his odds. The main entrance? No. Too many men to get through. The secret door? Possibly, but he had to wheel the intruders halfway around the chamber before he could access it. The window? Desperation only. It was a long drop to the garden.

He parried a thrust by a man with a spear, his heart racing wildly. Thirdson was the military man. River liked killing. Personally, he’d been trained rigorously with a sword as the first son of the family, but he’d never used one in a fight for his life. The surly-faced man swung at him with a short sword and he blocked and stabbed in defence. A chair hurtled over the heads of the closest men and he ducked to let it smash against the wall. The surly man attacked again, but this time, instead of blocking the blow, Inheritor swayed to avoid the blade and swung his sword recklessly, letting its weight and reach do damage. The surly man yelped and fell, and a second man stumbled backwards with a deep slice across his chest. The rest of the group stepped back, realising that the man they had cornered was dangerous. The spearman heaved his wooden spear, but Inheritor deftly sidestepped it. How they had got into the palace without being stopped by the guards puzzled him.
Someone let them in
, he suddenly realised.

Regrouped, the men’s courage returned and they charged the solitary king. Inheritor hefted his sword and swung it in a broad sweep, his arm jarring as the blade hit home. Before he could see what he had done, he was hit with a club on the left shoulder, a thumping blow that numbed his shoulder immediately. Bellowing with rage and fear, he hacked and stabbed, feeling a sharp sting across his left knee as he kicked out and another on his sword arm as he blocked a blade. The attackers stumbled back, leaving three more of their number groaning on the floor at the king’s feet.

Inheritor saw blood pooling in a deep cut and dribbling down to his wrist. Blood flowed down his left leg. He was already tiring. Another rush and they would drag him down. He couldn’t make it to either the entry door or the secret one behind his wardrobe, but he definitely had no desire to die.
The window then
, he
decided. He flung the sword at the men and ran for the window. At the last instant, he grabbed the ornamental balcony rail to slow his fall, the rail snapped, and he dropped into the bushes directly below with a breath-crushing thud.

Shadow watched the corpses being carted from the palace by the guards. According to the official news being spread through the city, eleven men from the Foundry Quarter broke into the palace, murdered King Inheritor and attempted to kill the other princes. Worst of all, they were employed by the absent princes, Thirdson and River, who were bringing armies to Port of Joy to complete their treacherous bid to usurp the throne. It was an ambitious and complicated plot, but just absurd enough for the general population to believe it possible. Shadow was proud of his machination. When the news arrived in the coming days of the defeat of River’s army and the destruction of Thirdson’s forces at sea, the people would rejoice and his ascension to the throne would be legitimate.

The only flaw was Inheritor’s absence. After his wild leap from the window and despite his injuries, Inheritor had escaped. There were several possibilities and he would follow up each, but the most logical was that Inheritor somehow made it to the old tunnels beneath the palace and was hiding, hoping to re-emerge when it was safe.
Except it will never be safe for you again
, Shadow mused.

‘So you made it to king,’ said a familiar voice. Shadow turned from the window to greet his brothers, Lastchild and Gift. ‘There is the problem of no body,’ Lastchild observed casually.

‘I’m certain a body will turn up,’ Shadow assured him.

‘And if it doesn’t?’

Shadow smiled. ‘We’ll burn another one for show.’

‘And what do you plan to do with us?’ Gift asked.

Shadow opened his arms wide to embrace his brothers. ‘I plan to love you as I should love any of my brothers. Jarudha has blessed us and brought us together, and for that we should be grateful.’

C
rystal urged Hunter to move quickly along the narrow tunnel, the flickering lantern light throwing the walls into shadowed distortion. The news of the king’s murder had distressed her, especially since it coincided with the passing of the mysterious bag to him, and she was afraid that Shadow had stolen the very item that her grandfather had entrusted her to keep from him. Inheritor’s death meant Shadow automatically became the new king and their endeavours to prevent the bag from falling into the Seers’ hands had failed miserably.

Then, a reliable informant from the palace kitchen told Crystal’s cook overnight of rumours that the king wasn’t dead but that he’d escaped into the labyrinth of tunnels beneath the palace. Cook told Apple and Apple told Crystal while she was cleaning the house. ‘It’s true, Mrs Merchant,’ Apple insisted, as she dusted a mantelpiece. ‘They say the king is going to haunt the palace until his body is found.’ The apparent absence of a body and the rumour of the king’s escape were enough to convince her to go into the tunnel that connected her network to the palace in the hope of finding Inheritor. It was a slim chance, but it was a chance she couldn’t let slip.

Hunter and she reached the junction where her smugglers’ tunnel joined the much older labyrinth beneath the palace. She was familiar with the solitary and solid tunnel along which her goods travelled secretly to the palace, especially to Shadow and the Seers, but not with the older tunnels that were dug over centuries by successive palace inhabitants. ‘Which way?’ Hunter asked, holding up the lantern.

‘Left,’ she guessed.

The tunnel she chose quickly deteriorated into a low, narrow and winding affair, made all the more disconcerting by the number of side tunnels running from the one they were following. ‘This is a maze,’ Hunter grumbled when they reached another junction.

‘What would you do?’ she asked.

Hunter shrugged. ‘If it was my choice, I wouldn’t be here, Mrs Merchant,’ he replied.

‘Let’s try that way,’ she suggested, pointing to the right.

They travelled along a different tunnel, stopping periodically to shine light into offshoots and recesses on the chance that the king was hiding in them. ‘These are all old,’ Hunter said. ‘You’ll never find him down here.’ As he finished speaking, a shadow leapt from a side tunnel and knocked him sideways. His lantern span from his grip, rolled along the ground and went out. Crystal screamed.

Crouched against the wall in the smothering darkness, she heard men grunting and scuffling and a sickening crunch. Someone groaned. More grunting followed. Then she could only hear a man breathing heavily. ‘Shit,’ a voice bemoaned. Metal rattled. A spark flashed and the reassuring lantern flame flickered to life, driving back the shadows. Hunter’s dirtied and bloodied face appeared above the lantern.

As the light spread, Crystal could see more blood on
the bodyguard’s shirt. ‘You’re hurt,’ she said, coming forward.

Hunter lifted the lantern to fan the light wider, revealing a body in a red Kerwyn uniform slumped against the wall. Another was lying at Hunter’s feet, still twitching along one leg. Crystal caught her breath. ‘Tunnel rats,’ Hunter muttered. ‘Someone else is looking for your king.’

‘How badly are you hurt?’ Crystal asked.

‘Nothing serious. I’ll live,’ he assured her. ‘Let’s not run into any more of these, though.’

‘A little longer,’ she urged. ‘Just two more tunnels. If we don’t find him, we’ll head back and I’ll bring more people down with us. We have to find him before Shadow does.’ Hunter shrugged, rubbed his head with his free hand and led the way forward.

‘Did you get the bag?’ Word asked eagerly. Shadow nodded. ‘Where is it?’ the Seer continued.

‘Safely locked away,’ Shadow replied.

‘Where?’

‘Where no one will ever find it again.’

Word’s brow furrowed. ‘That wasn’t the plan. Show me where you’ve hidden the bag.’

‘No.’

The Seer’s rage ignited. ‘What are you doing? The bag belongs to Jarudha!’

‘And Jarudha has it,’ Shadow quietly affirmed.

‘I order you to give me the bag!’ Shadow shook his head. ‘This is heresy!’ Word yelled. ‘You will burn in the hells if you don’t obey me!’

‘And you will never see the bag,’ Shadow answered, unruffled by Word’s vehemence.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Ensuring that my kingship is secure and peaceful,’ Shadow explained. ‘My promise to you is that I will
keep the bag permanently safe. Your promise to me will be that you will keep me permanently safe from unnecessary harm. That way, we will all see Jarudha’s Paradise blossom in the kingdom.’ He smiled diplomatically as he finished.

Word’s anger heightened in his reddened face and dark eyes. ‘You’re playing a very dangerous game. His Eminence will not be happy.’

‘I don’t play games,’ Shadow stated flatly. ‘And His Eminence should be grateful that his servant has taken every precaution to ensure the bag will never see daylight again.’

Word strode towards the door, pausing as he opened it to say, ‘For Jarudha’s sake, I hope you do not live to rue this day.’

‘I won’t,’ said Shadow as the door closed. ‘I’m the king.’

The shipmaster’s urgent call puzzled Prince Thirdson, and he tried to reason what had troubled the man as he climbed the creaking steps from his cabin onto the deck. The weather had been pleasant since embarking from port, the campaign against the rebels successfully completed, and he was looking forward to returning to Port of Joy despite the news of his father’s death. Inheritor was the automatic successor to the throne and his relationship with his eldest brother had always been positive. Shadow, however, was another matter, and he was glad to be heading home to support Inheritor whenever Shadow tried to be politically difficult. Inheritor would court his brothers’ advice and Thirdson appreciated that trait. Under Inheritor, the kingdom would thrive. The salty air invigorated him as he climbed to the wheelhouse deck where Shipmaster Hightide was waiting. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

‘There,’ Hightide indicated, pointing south.

Thirdson lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight. Sitting directly in his fleet’s path, silhouetted against cloud on the horizon, were three dark shapes, each with smoke drifting from squarish structures towards their sterns, each many times the size of an ordinary ship. ‘What are they?’ Thirdson murmured.

‘I don’t know,’ Hightide replied. ‘They’re not flying an ensign and I’ve never seen craft like that anywhere.’

‘Have you tried to signal them?’

‘Yes,’ Hightide replied, glancing up at the semaphore post on his ship’s front mast. ‘No reply.’

‘Now what?’

‘That, Your Highness, is up to you,’ Hightide said quietly. ‘I don’t have a good feeling about this.’

Thirdson gestured for Hightide’s nearseer and when it was placed in his hand, he lifted it to his eye and focussed on the leading vessel. It appeared to be made of metal, its studded grey hide dully reflecting the sunlight. There were no masts for sails, only a massive waterwheel at the stern. Along its side were a host of portholes with what looked like thundermaker muzzles protruding as if prepared for battle. Sailors in white uniforms were visible at strategic places along the deck. He lowered the nearseer, saying, ‘It’s a Ranu ship. My brother sent word that they’d come to Port of Joy just after we departed.’

‘We have no cause with the Ranu,’ said Hightide.

‘So we sail by,’ Thirdson decided, ‘but have your men at their battle stations, just in case.’ Hightide looked as if he was going to make comment on the prince’s warning, but instead he began barking orders to his crew.

Thirdson surveyed the fleet scattered behind his flagship—ten Kerwyn warships laden with battle-hardened soldiers. Ten ships to three were odds that ought to discourage the Ranu if they intended to pick
an unprovoked fight. Metal-armoured ships that relied on manpower in their bowels to drive their waterwheels could not possibly match nimble sailing ships built for fighting, he assessed. It was just an unusual encounter through which they would sail to reach Port of Joy within a day. So when he heard a faint, emphatic boom and turned towards the Ranu ships, the clouds of white smoke enveloping the metal ships surprised him. So did the explosion that suddenly tore through the bow of his ship. The blast threw him to the deck and when he tried to stand his ship was already listing towards the bow, fire leaping from the deck, the forward mast snapped in half and hanging crazily by ropes over the port side. Screams, cries and shouting filled the air. Shipmaster Hightide helped the prince to his feet. ‘We’re sinking, Your Highness!’ he shouted above the din. ‘We’re lost!’ Thirdson shook his arm from the shipmaster’s grip and steadied against the rail. To the south, out of what he would have considered even the longest Kerwyn thundermaker range, the three Ranu ships vanished in another white cloud, while around him four Kerwyn vessels were already on fire and sinking, sailors and soldiers leaping into the ocean for their lives. The world he thought he understood had suddenly gone crazy.

Prince River listened to the scout’s report with a bemused smile and when the man had finished he dismissed him and turned to his Hordemasters. ‘It seems my brother intends on making a play for the throne,’ he said, an edge of excitement in his voice. ‘A mercenary force, led by one of your rebellious colleagues, is marching towards us from Westport. We should be in for an interesting battle.’

‘How big is the force?’ Hordemaster Bricklayer asked.

‘Half our number,’ River replied.

The Hordemasters grinned at the news. ‘Then when do we begin?’ Hordemaster Ironhand asked.

‘Tomorrow morning, if we wait for them here.’ River surveyed the landscape, his eyes resting on a long ridge to the west. ‘We’ll set up over there,’ he decided. ‘Let them tire themselves by marching to us. Have the two airbirds sent aloft this afternoon to keep watch. Coming from Westport, they’ll arrive on the plain somewhere over there,’ he indicated, pointing to the north-west. ‘Set a scouting party to watch that area and to report what they discover when the mercenaries arrive.’ He dismissed his Hordemasters and remounted his horse, a satisfied feeling soothing him.

The excursion into the northern mountains to suppress the rebels had been fun, but it was over too soon for his liking, before he could spill enough blood. The news that Hordemaster Fist was marshalling a mercenary force to march against him confirmed his suspicion that his brother, Shadow, wouldn’t wait long after their father’s death before trying to take the throne from Inheritor, but he was mildly surprised that Shadow had chosen to make an overt military play. Shadow was more attuned to secretive treachery and murder—at least that was his opinion of his older brother—so he wondered what new event in the city during their absence had encouraged Shadow to alter his methods.
Something interesting must have happened
, he mused, as he rode towards the ridge.

A thick morning mist covered the North Coast plains at sunrise and the frost underfoot was crisp. The night had been icy and still, so quiet that River’s army witnessed the arrival of the mercenary force just before midnight, the distant clank of metal and orders being shouted, campfires blinking into being. ‘They will be tired and
exhausted,’ River told his Hordemasters as he briefed them while they waited for the mist to dissolve. ‘The scouts report that there are two thousand to our five thousand, almost three to one odds in our favour. This will be a good day,’ he concluded.

With the Hordemasters dispersed to their assigned positions, River mounted his horse and sat patiently at the head of the Kerwyn cavalry. Overhead, attached to cables down which vital messages could be raised and lowered, the two airbirds floated above the mist, both glowing red in the bright sunlight. Three squads of thundermakers were squatting along the front-line, ready to fire consecutive volleys into the enemy’s front ranks to kill, maim and demoralise. A bank of ten giant thundermakers was ranged along the ridge, preparing to bombard the enemy’s rear ranks.
The impending battle would be a useful exercise
, River decided.
I can try some interesting tactics.
He eased a small hand-held thundermaker from its holster at his waist and checked that it was primed. As he sighted along the barrel, he saw the mist evaporating and the enemy marching towards his lines.
Eager to die
, he noted with a smirk. Then he heard a high-pitched whistling coming through the air and the earth erupted beneath his horse.

Hordemaster Fist smiled gleefully as he personally stuffed Prince River’s severed head into a hessian bag. He had nearly lost his prize to a direct hit from one of the peacemaker cannons, but a diligent search by his retainers after the battle unearthed the hapless prince’s corpse.

The battlefield was littered with bodies, mainly Kerwyn soldiers. Those who escaped the initial bombardment from the cannons had charged into a hail of bullets from the single and multi-muzzled peacemakers the Ranu supplied to the mercenaries.
Where Kerwyn thundermakers could fire one round before reloading, the Ranu peacemakers held ten rounds and the multi-muzzled weapons fired ten bullets in a round for up to ten rounds. The battle had been woefully uneven and relatively brief, a slaughter on a scale that startled Fist as he watched it unfold from his command post. He remembered how his first battles as a youth had lasted up to a day before a result, men hacking and slashing at each other, dodging stray thundermaker shots, tiring long before they were cut down. The minor insurrections he quelled in the city quarters for Warlord Roughcut were quicker affairs because of the improved accuracy and availability of thundermakers to the soldiers, but the Ranu technology shifted the rate of mass killing to an unbelievable level of efficiency. He was glad he no longer had to fight in the common ranks if the future was going to be like the battle he’d witnessed this morning.

He had one disappointment. Warlord Roughcut’s body wasn’t among the dead. His mercenaries searched every corpse, killing every wounded Kerwyn soldier and prodding the dead to make certain they were dead, but no one located the Warlord. He’d looked forward to a personal confrontation with Roughcut to show his former leader that his time had come. Instead, it seemed Roughcut had chosen the soft option of sailing to Port of Joy with Prince Thirdson.
Too bad
, thought Fist, gazing across the battlefield where the crows were already feasting.
The crows won’t get you, but the fish will.