Reign of Ash (9 page)

Reese put down the map fragment and stared at Pollard intently with a gaze that made Pollard acutely aware of the
talishte
’s power. “I’m counting on you to stop him.”

“If you hate him so much, why not kill him yourself?” Pollard asked.

Reese paused as if debating whether to consider the question curious or insolent. “His alignment with Penhallow complicates the matter. Much as I dislike Penhallow, I have no desire to attract the attention – and meddling – of other
talishte
. Your actions are much less likely to be noticed. I don’t want the Elders involved – at least, not yet.”

Reese fixed Pollard with a glance that chilled him to the bone. “Bring me Blaine McFadden, and when I’m through with him, you may be the one to kill him.”

Pollard found Nilo already waiting in his tent when he returned. A supper of stew, hard biscuits, and baked apples with a tankard of ale sat ready for Pollard, and he picked at his food, distracted by his thoughts.

“What did you find out?” Pollard asked when he pushed his plate aside.

“One of our men who returned on the ship from Velant confirmed that the barkeeper in Edgeland had once been an assistant to Lord Arrington’s mage,” Nilo replied. “We also know that another man, Silas Lum, was a scholar who was banished to Velant some years ago. Both men, while not mages themselves, would be quite knowledgeable about magic and possibly about the rituals used at Mirdalur.”

Pollard nodded. “Good. What else?”

“There’s a rumor that a
talishte
-mage by the name of Arin Grimur was sent into hiding in Edgeland by Lanyon Penhallow.”

“The king drove the
talishte
from court,” Pollard mused, drawing out old memories. “It was a dangerous time for the
talishte
, and Grimur wasn’t the only one to disappear. But he is the only mage-
talishte
to take up residence on Edgeland, and it’s more than a little suspicious that his maker was Penhallow.”

“My spy confirmed that McFadden and Grimur were acquainted. Grimur kept a very low profile, but he was seen with McFadden in Skalgerston Bay after the magic failed, and it was likely Grimur who killed your assassin,” Nilo said.

“So it’s quite possible that McFadden knew about the Lords of the Blood before he left Edgeland,” Pollard mused. “How interesting.” He set his jaw firmly. “Reese grows increasingly unstable.”

“Agreed.”

“The longer he remains fixed on Blaine McFadden, the more distracted he is from the more important goal: gathering an army that can dominate this broken land.” He paused. “We need to consolidate Reese’s hold on the kingdom.”

“And move you one step closer to the crown?” Nilo mused. “What do you propose?”

“We need to step up the program to capture McFadden,” Pollard said, his voice cold. “Put one of our men in every place legend links with magic. McFadden’s a step ahead of us, and it’s time to bring him to heel.” He paused. “And I still intend to have Glenreith for my own, no matter what it takes.” Pollard smiled. “A final humiliation for the McFadden family.”

“Blaine McFadden didn’t succeed in raising the magic at Mirdalur,” Nilo said. “Why do you think he’s a threat?”

Pollard settled back in his chair. “My mother told me a tale on her deathbed. She said that when my father was dying, mages came to the manor. I was off on campaign with the army. The mages demanded to see my father, and to her surprise, he permitted them a private audience. Something about their visit was so urgent that my father rose from his deathbed to take them to the family vault. He would not permit any servants to accompany him, nor would he allow my mother to assist him. They were gone briefly, and the mages helped my father back to his room. They left with a small velvet bag, and my father would permit no one to question them. He died soon afterward.”

Nilo met his gaze. “The mages took something away, but what?”

Pollard leaned forward intently. “My father was a Lord of the Blood. By that time, he had no heirs but me, and he knew my mother had been unfaithful. Despite that, he left me the lands and title. What if he knew there was another inheritance, an inheritance of blood, that could never be mine?”

“Meaning?”

“I think the mages carried off magical items they knew could only be used by a true Lord of the Blood. Since my father’s line, by blood, ended with him, there would be no more Pollard males who inherited whatever magic was linked to that old heritage.

“I am betting that whatever they took from my father was something each Lord of the Blood had. McFadden knows – or guesses – what that is. But he didn’t have enough of what it takes to raise the magic when he went to Mirdalur.” He tented his fingers. “So he’s going after what he needs. And when he does, I want your men to be there.

“When the time comes, we’ll capture McFadden and break him,” Pollard continued, “and he’ll tell us what he knows. Let him collect whatever he thinks he needs to work the magic, and we’ll present a rich package to Lord Reese with no loose ends – and there’ll be no remaining Lords of the Blood to challenge my claim to the crown.”

“What if Penhallow is protecting him?”

Pollard shrugged. “Reese doesn’t fear Penhallow, and neither do I.”

“Velant didn’t break him. Prokief couldn’t kill him. What makes you think we can?” Nilo asked.

“McFadden’s weakness is what sent him to Velant,” Pollard replied. “He’s willing to sacrifice himself for those he loves. Strike at them, hurt them, endanger them, and his honor will demand that he risk himself to protect them. He’ll give us the opportunity.”

Nilo poured ale for both of them and lifted a tankard.

“Here’s to the future,” he said.

Pollard grinned. “Here’s to the future – as we decide to make it.”

“Y
ou’ve been back to Glenreith then, since you returned to Donderath?” Niklas asked as he rode next to Blaine. Behind them followed Dawe and Kestel, who were deep in their own conversation, and then Piran and Verran, with the rest of Niklas’s soldiers riding in ranks of four. Geir had gone to ground for the day, promising to meet them when they stopped for the night. Carr, Blaine noted, had disappeared among the soldiers, though Blaine had invited him to ride with the group at the front.

“We made for Glenreith as soon as we could,” Blaine replied, pulling his attention back to the conversation. “I wanted to see if there was anything left.”

Niklas nodded. Temperatures had fallen during the night, a reminder that winter was at hand. A chill blast of wind ruffled his horse’s mane and swept his hood back, exposing his face. Blaine got a better look at his friend in daylight, surprised to see the difference six years had wrought.

Before Blaine’s exile and before the war, it had been Niklas’s boyish charm that had won him the attentions of many a pretty girl. Years of war and hardship had given Niklas a weathered, rougher look. But it was his eyes that had changed the most. Before, there had been a careless good cheer that made Niklas a favorite at the local pub or village festival. Now, the look in Niklas’s blue eyes was harder, shuttered, weary. And after six years of his own hardship in the mines of Velant and the wastes of Edgeland, Blaine wondered if his friend saw the same changes in him.

“I’ve been gone for a long time,” Niklas said. “Three years on the war front, and most of another year trying to get home.” His smile was sad. “Can’t believe you made it back first.” There was a pause.

“How did Glenreith fare?” he asked, and Blaine realized he had fallen silent for several minutes. “And what of Arengarte?” Niklas’s father, Lars Theilsson, had been a wealthy farmer and landowner who managed the rise to prominence without a title or family connections. Arengarte, the Theilsson family home, was less grand than Blaine’s manor at Glenreith, but still large and comfortable.

Blaine sighed. “The original manor house at Glenreith was destroyed in the Great Fire. The new house suffered some damage, but it was spared.” He drew a deep breath. “We have reason to think the strike that leveled the old manor was deliberate, a plan by the Meroven mages to wipe out the Donderath nobility. What they didn’t realize, at least what we don’t think they knew, was that the manors and the eldest heirs to the titles of the thirteen oldest noble families were also the anchors for usable magic.”

“So when they destroyed the manors, and then if the eldest heirs died —”

Blaine nodded. “The magic also died.”

“Except for you,” Niklas said quietly. “The last Lord of the Blood.”

“So the theory goes,” Blaine replied.

“Glenreith was livable?” Niklas asked.

“Habitable, yes. But far from its better days.” Blaine looked away. “I played a part in that, I’m afraid. My exile, and the scandal over killing Father, fell hard on the others. Aunt Judith downplayed it, but Carr was brutally straightforward,” he said. “I may have saved Mari and Carr from Father’s beatings, but at the cost of the family fortunes.”

Niklas was watching him closely, perhaps making the same assessment of how the years had treated Blaine that Blaine had just made of him. “I remember some of that,” Niklas said quietly. “Father never liked Ian McFadden, thought you did the world a favor by killing him. But there were some who had a different opinion.” His voice was angry. “Those people made it hard for Judith.”

“I never meant to make it more difficult,” Blaine said, looking into the distance. “But someone had to stop Father. The beatings… and worse… it had to end.”

“Would you do it again, knowing the cost?”

Blaine was silent for a long while. “To stop him from hurting Mari and Carr, yes. I thought that I’d be executed, that it would be over quickly. I didn’t count on Merrill being merciful and sending me into exile. And for several years, I didn’t see the mercy in his sentence. Velant deserves its reputation.”

“What of Carensa?” Niklas asked, his voice quiet. “She mourned you long after you were sent away. For years, she defied every attempt her father made to marry her off. But I’ve been gone for a long time, with no real news from home. Did Rhystorp survive?”

Blaine looked down and swallowed. “Rhystorp burned to the ground in the Great Fire,” he said slowly. “Aunt Judith told me that Carensa’s father finally arranged a marriage for her with an older man who needed the Rhystorp fortune badly enough to overlook the taint of her association with me,” he added bitterly. “When the manor burned, they found the bodies of Carensa’s husband and son. She’s presumed dead, but no one ever found the body.”

“I’m sorry, Blaine.”

Blaine shrugged, uncomfortable. “My sentence ended our betrothal. I begged her to renounce me, to go on with her life. I fully expected to die in Velant.”

“But you didn’t.”

Blaine shook his head slowly. “Not for lack of wishing, sometimes. But I guess I was too stubborn to give in. I survived three years in the prison stockade, and in the ruby mines, before I earned my Ticket of Leave to become a colonist. I met Verran on the boat to Edgeland, and Piran and Dawe and I were chained together in the mines. Kestel, I met in the prison. When we got our Tickets, we pooled the pittance sum and the land grant each freed prisoner received, and we built a homestead together. We’ve had each others’ backs for a long time now.”

“And you and Kestel?” Niklas said, with a glance over his shoulder where Kestel was talking with Dawe.

“Very good friends,” Blaine said, the hint of a smile touching his lips. “When we all moved into the homestead together, Kestel made it clear that none of us would be getting any special favors.” He chuckled. “So there we were, four men living with one of the most notorious courtesans from the royal palace, completely out of luck.”

Niklas laughed. “Although everyone assumed —”

“Uh-huh. Which only made it worse,” Blaine replied. He paused. “The year I got out of Velant, I married a girl named Selane. Sweet girl, sent to Velant on false charges. She died of fever.”

Niklas regarded him in silence for a moment. “Offhand, I’d say you’ve paid your price several times over. But you and your mates came all the way back to Donderath on the rumor that you might be able to save the magic. After all Donderath cost you, why would you, of anyone, care?”

Blaine’s gaze found the horizon, and he did not answer for a moment. “It wasn’t just Donderath,” he said finally. “The magic died in Edgeland, too. It’s a brutal place, but we’d managed to find a way to make it livable, and in the best moments, it was home. Without magic, I don’t know if the colony can survive, especially with the storms growing worse. There are two thousand people up there who have no place left to go, no part back here in Donderath, who paid for their homesteads with blood and tears. If I can save that, well, it’s worth the cost.”

Niklas studied him carefully, as if weighing all his friend had said. “So everything you told me, about Pollard and Reese, and the vampire who was helping you —”

“Penhallow.”

“All this about bringing back the magic, you mean to try again.” It was not a question. Niklas looked at him intently.

“If I can,” Blaine replied. “Penhallow’s long overdue. We got separated from him and Connor, the fellow with the map and pendant, when we were attacked by Reese’s men. Geir believes they escaped, but they’ve been delayed, maybe even detained.”

“You went to Mirdalur. It didn’t work. What next?”

“I don’t know. We’ve got some old books, and one of the maps. Maybe there’ll be a clue.”

“You’re going on hunches?” Niklas asked, skepticism clear in his voice.

Blaine shook his head. “More than that. There’s information in the books and maps – we just have to decode it. Penhallow knows more, I’m sure of it. It’s like putting a puzzle together with some pieces missing. We’ll gather as much information as we can and plan our strategy from there.”

“Not so different from war,” Niklas agreed. “You never have all the information you need, so you do the best with what you’ve got.”

“Either way, we need to go back to Glenreith, recoup. And let your men recover.”

Niklas grimaced. “Don’t remind me. Your
talishte
friend mounted an effective assault. I’m glad he’s on our side.” It was Niklas’s turn to be quiet for a few moments. “You never answered me about Arengarte.”

Blaine sighed. “We rode past on our way to Mirdalur. I didn’t have the chance to stop and explore. From what I saw, the main house was still standing. It was damaged, but it didn’t look like a direct hit by the Great Fire.”

“If your theory’s right, the Meroven mages wouldn’t have bothered with us. We certainly weren’t descended from the old, noble families,” Niklas replied.

Blaine nodded. “It looks abandoned. When Aunt Judith said you’d gone to war and not returned, I feared the worst.”

Niklas swallowed hard. “It hasn’t been the best few years for any of us. My father died a year or so after you were exiled. Bad heart. I tried to keep the lands going, but when the war came, and so many of the lads who worked the land were conscripted to the army, I couldn’t handle the farm alone. So I agreed to soldier up myself.”

“And you took Carr with you,” Blaine added, an edge to his voice.

The look on Niklas’s face gave Blaine to realize that his friend had some inkling of how Blaine’s reunion had gone. “Don’t be too hard on Carr. If I have to guess, he’s more of a mind that he failed you than the other way around.”

“How so?” Blaine asked, frowning.

“He was just a boy when they sent you away. He tried to be the man of the house, take care of your sister and aunt. But he was too young. Then Mari found a young man and got married, and Carr figured they didn’t need him anymore. He badgered me into letting him sign on, and I finally said yes. But Mari’s husband wasn’t a noble, and he was conscripted into my unit. He died on the first day we saw battle, just a few feet away from where Carr was standing.”

Niklas shook his head. “Gods help us, but the fighting was vicious. Even the seasoned soldiers said it was bloodier than they had ever seen. Donderath was losing badly, hemorrhaging men. Carr was in the thick of it and somehow he survived. But he blames himself for the death of Mari’s husband, and I’ve always suspected he felt responsible for you killing your father.”

“That was on no one’s head but mine,” Blaine said sharply.

Niklas gave him a knowing look. “Ah, but part of the reason you did it was to keep your father from thrashing Carr and taking liberties with Mari.”

“No one was supposed to know about what happened to Mari,” Blaine said, meeting Niklas’s eyes.

“Carr took a bad sword wound in one of the battles, and it poisoned his blood. He was fevered, dying. The healers almost didn’t think they could save him. I sat with him, because he was calling for you and you couldn’t be there,” Niklas said with a forced smile. “You and me, growing up, we were thick as brothers, so I let him think I was you. That’s how I found out what really happened. Carr wasn’t talking out of turn. He believed he was talking with you.”

Blaine looked away, struggling with his feelings. “Yeah, well. He hates me now. Pretty clear about that.”

“Give him time,” Niklas said. “He’s still young, and he’s been through a lot. After all, for us, it’s a bit like having you back from the grave.”

Blaine sighed. “Let’s talk of something else, shall we? What are your plans, when we reach Arengarte?”

Niklas sighed. “I stopped making plans when we lost the war. We’ve spent the last six months foraging our way across a scorched landscape, fighting off highwaymen, dodging magic storms.” He gave Blaine a sideways glance. “It’s not just the storms. So many strange things have happened since the magic went bad. Nightmare creatures, men gone mad.” He sighed. “It’s taken all we had in us just to survive. I never really got farther than leading them home, because to tell you the truth, I didn’t think we’d make it.”

“Then you won’t mind if Kestel made a few plans on your behalf?” Blaine said and smiled at Niklas’s astonishment.

“Kestel?”

At the mention of her name, Kestel left Dawe with a nod and urged her horse to catch up, flanking Niklas. “Is it arranged?” she asked, her eyes alight. Her tunic and trews were cut for a man, but they could not completely hide the contours of her figure. Kestel had bound her red hair back in a braid, and she wore neither cosmetics nor jewelry, but her green eyes sparkled like emeralds, and the winter wind brought a glow to her cheeks.

“Why don’t you tell him, since you’re the one who had the idea?” Blaine urged.

Kestel smiled broadly, and despite the dust from the road that smudged her features, it was impossible to overlook the fact that she was a beautiful woman. Intelligence and cunning glinted in her eyes, the traits that had made her equally skilled as a spy and assassin at court. Blaine knew that any man who overlooked her abilities for her beauty did so at his own peril.