The Blood King (2 page)

Back then, Algor the Tall nurtured relationships with the best mercenary companies, augmenting the modest army raised from Principality’s own sparse population. In return for the ability to operate freely, the mercenary companies swore their intent, if not quite their allegiance, to protect the small country and made an oath that their swords would never be purchased against Principality. It was an arrangement that served the kingdom well. The mercenary companies that operated from a Principality base were among the most trustworthy in an uncertain business, and the major powers con-sidered the land more trouble than it was worth.

For more than a candlemark, Harrtuck and Vahanian heatedly argued the merits of one compa-ny over another, punctuated by Soterius’s strong opinions and Mikhail’s more moderate views. Kiara chimed in more than once, revealing a knowledge of the mercenary groups and their fighting tactics which impressed Tris. Carina and Carroway sat at the far end of the table, insistent in their wish to be present but silent, watching intently. Royster, the librarian from the Sisterhood’s stronghold in Westmarch, chronicled the debate for history’s sake.

Tris leaned forward to catch every word, acutely aware of how sheltered he had been as King Bricen’s second son. Tiredly, he smoothed back a stray lock of white-blond hair that fell into his eyes. Anxious to learn, he willingly ceded the discussion to the professional soldiers. Darrath presided over the arguments with seasoned tolerance, adding his own impressions of the companies wintering in the area.

They determined that Harrtuck would command the mercenary troops, and ate their meal embroiled in debate over how best to contain Jared and his army.

Hant said little, observing the discussion with an uncanny silence, as if he were analyzing the essence of each of the people at the table. His dark eyes darted from speaker to speaker. Finally, Hant held up his hand for silence.

“Have you considered,” Hant began in a tone that clearly said he knew that his suggestion had not, in fact, occurred to them yet, “that there is an alternative to taking Margolan by force?”

Harrtuck frowned and sat back in his chair, cross-ing his arms. “How do you propose to do that? March in and ask Jared to kindly step aside?”

A cold smile flickered at the corners of Hant’s mouth. “Something like that, only perhaps less civilly. I suggest,” he said, “that the armies be engaged, but not cross into Margolan.”

“And just what good will that do?” Soterius demanded, running a hand back through his short-cropped, russet hair.

“You were the captain of the king’s guard, were you not?” Hant turned his cold stare on Soterius, who nodded. “Were your troops cold-blooded killers?”

Soterius looked troubled. “Margolan’s army was a disciplined fighting force. But they weren’t mon-sters.”

Hant templed his fingers in thought. “Do you know these men personally?”

Soterius nodded. “Many of them. I’d recognize even more by sight, although I couldn’t put a name to the face.”

“Then if they aren’t bewitched, might some of them accept the chance to stop the evil that grows in your homeland, if they thought they had a chance of winning?” Hant asked.

Soterius paused as he thought, his dark eyes sober. “I believe so,” he replied,

“unless Jared’s killed the good men and replaced them with his own ilk.” He was silent for a moment. “One of the hardest parts will be figuring out which soldiers have done the killing and looting—either on their own, or on Jared’s orders.”

“Orders or not, every soldier is responsible for his own choices,” Vahanian’s tone spoke of bitter expe-rience. “The soldiers you want will be outlaws by now—if they haven’t been hanged. The ones still in uniform are the enemy.”

“I have no desire to see Principality and Margolan locked in a war that may last for years,” Darrath said. “I believe I see where Hant is leading. If you were to slip into Margolan and recruit its troops against Jared, we may never have to march paid soldiers against your people. Are you willing to take that risk?”

Once again Soterius paused, then looked at Tris and looked back to Darrath. “I am.”

“I’ll go with him,” volunteered Mikhail to every-one’s surprise. The vayash moru seemed unperturbed at their reaction.

“I’d be glad for the company,” Soterius replied.

“And what of the mercs?” Harrtuck demanded.

“The mercenary companies would hold the bor-ders as a second line of defense,” Darrath replied, leaning forward as he caught the spirit of Hant’s proposal. “You can contain Jared between Margolan’s northern border and the river, and patrol the border.” He paused, looking at the map. “The magicked beasts Arontala sent to keep Tris from reaching Dhasson should cut Jared off to the east until they’re dispelled.”

“We don’t know what is going on in Isencroft,” Kiara added. “Carina’s brother, Cam, would certainly

have asked father to support Tris, but there’s no way to know what father will be able to do.”

“Perhaps there is,” said Staden from the doorway, where a page had urgently beckoned for his atten-tion. He stepped aside to reveal a tattered and dirty messenger. “This rider arrived from Isencroft not half a candlemark ago.

Whatever news he carries must be important, if it was worth so hard and dan-gerous a ride.”

Eagerly, Kiara and Carina sprang from their seats to meet the exhausted rider halfway across the room. From a pouch under his tunic, the messenger produced a sealed parchment which Kiara took with trembling hands. “Look,” she said to Carina, “it’s in father’s handwriting.”

“Read it!”

Kiara read the missive in silence, her auburn hair falling around her face, framing an expression growing by turns more serious and then relaxing, until she looked up, her dark, almond-shaped eyes shining. “The potion the Sisters sent with Cam made father able to bear up under the wasting spell,” she announced excitedly. “He’s taken back some of his duties. And he’s sent the army to the Margolan border to aid the defeat of Jared Drayke, given the limited resources of Isencroft.”

“There’s more. He sends his greeting to King Staden,” she said, glancing at their host, “and wish-es to give his official recognition to Martris Drayke, son of Bricen, the rightful king of Margolan.” She looked to Tris with amazement.

“Then we have him!” Mikhail said, rearranging the small wooden markers on the map of the Winter Kingdoms that stretched across the table.

“Mercs to the northeast, the river and Dhasson to the east, Isencroft to the west.

Trevath, to the south, has reason to be wary of interference. Jared will be bottled up on all sides, while we turn his own army against him.”

“Aye.” Harrtuck’s voice was sober. “And no small number of refugees will take up arms as well once they know what’s up, I wager. More than once I’ve seen a well-trained army fall to a mob of farm-ers with a cause and a sickle.”

“What you’re proposing makes sense,” Tris said slowly. “But what would you have me do? Wait behind the lines until Jared is defeated?” He shook his head, his green eyes worried. “That won’t work.”

Darrath regarded him once more in silence, and Tris thought he glimpsed the faintest flicker of approval in the hard-bitten man’s eyes. “What is it you would do, Prince Drayke, if not wait?”

“I have to confront Arontala,” Tris replied, meet-ing Darrath’s unyielding gaze.

“I have to return to Shekerishet and finish the matter.” “Alone?” Darrath mocked. “Not alone. I’ll go with him,” Kiara replied. “So will I,” Carroway added. “I’ve got an old score to settle myself,” Vahanian drawled. “Count me in.”

“Me too,” Carina said.

“Assuming you could cross Margolan alive,” Darrath said. “What then? Will you march up to the doors of the palace and demand to be let in?”

“No,” Tris said, shaking his head. “I’ve gone over this time and again since we left the palace, and there’s only one way in.” He paused. “From above.”

Vahanian raised an eyebrow. “You can fly?”

Tris grinned. “No. I don’t need to. Shekerishet is built out of a steep cliffside. No one has been able to attack from that angle, so Jared won’t expect it now.”

Darrath cleared his throat. “I don’t doubt your prowess as a Summoner, Prince Drayke,” the older man said. “But if no one has scaled Shekerishet’s cliffside walls before, how will you do it now?’

Tris exchanged knowing grins with Soterius. “Well, it would be a little more accurate to say ‘no one at war with Margolan’ ever climbed the cliff successfully.

I once bet Ban that he couldn’t do it, and he took the bet on the condition that I climb with him. He’s from the highlands, and they’re half mountain goat out there. We made it to the top and dropped in on the highest parapets, all before lunch. Neither Jared nor father ever knew, and we didn’t say anything about it ourselves, since father frowned on that sort of thing.” He chuckled. “In all its history, Margolan never was at war with the highlands.”

“And you believe you can do it again?” Hant asked, leaning forward.

Tris shrugged. “It’s the only way in. I’ll have to.”

“I’ve never really liked climbing,” Vahanian com-mented. Kiara elbowed him in the ribs and glared at him. He rolled his eyes. “I guess I could learn.”

“I’m up for it,” Kiara said gamely. Carina looked uncertain until Carroway spoke up. “I didn’t really picture Carina and me taking the castle by storm,” the minstrel said. “But if we could find some sympathetic hedge witches and my minstrel friends, I think we could make a diversion, stir up the mob, incite a riot, that sort of thing. Keep the guards distracted from the real action.”

Hant nodded, deep in thought. “It might just work. Yes, it just might,” he repeated.

“It’s much too risky,” Darrath said, shaking his head.

“Of course it is,” Hant replied with contrary glee. “That’s why I like it. Only a fool would try it.”

“I’m not sure I like the way that sounds,” Tris murmured to Kiara.

Hant looked up sharply, his keen hearing picking up Tris’s comment. “That isn’t what I meant.” He chuckled at the audacity of the plan. “They’ll never expect it.

Too bold. Too risky. They’ll be looking for armies on the border, and while they’re busy fending off our phantoms, you’ll be dropping in like so many spiders.” He rubbed his hands together. “Oh yes, this does have promise.”

“Easy for him to say,” Vahanian said under his breath. “He’s not going.” “Hush,”

Kiara admonished. Darrath nodded. “I have no better plan,” the gen-eral admitted. “And there is an element of surprise that I must admit I find intriguing.”

“Intriguing,” Vahanian commented dryly. “I’d feel better if you said ‘promising’

or ‘brilliant.’”

Darrath ignored him. “How long until you plan to depart, Prince Drayke?”

Tris had debated that question with himself the entire evening. “We have to reach the palace before the Hawthorn Moon,” he said. “That’s when Arontala will try to free the spirit of the Obsidian

King.” Darrath frowned. “Is such a thing possible?”

Tris nodded. “The Sisterhood believes so. I can’t take the chance.”

Darrath rubbed his chin. “That’s half a year from now.”

“Mikhail and I can start with the refugees. If we can get a few clusters of fighters in position, we can make sure Jared doesn’t send more soldiers across the border. The mercs can sweep up after us. The snow is bad here, but it shouldn’t be quite as much of a problem once we get a little further south into Margolan.

And we’re moving small groups, not a full army,” Soterius said. “We’ll need time to train the rest of you to climb. It will take more than two months to get from here to the palace in Margolan without taking the main roads.”

“It’ll also take time to raise the mercs,” Harrtuck added. “They’re wintering here, not looking for hire. They’ll need to get provisioned.”

It would also take time, Tris knew, for him to complete even a fraction of his training, to learn to channel the wild power that was only just begin-ning to come under his control. At the Library at Westmarch, Tris had learned that his grandmother, the great spirit mage Bava K’aa, had given him as much training as she dared, and then buried those memories deeply to protect him. With the help of the Sisterhood, Royster the head librarian and the other Keepers, Tris had accessed those memories and added what training time permitted.

Though he had been in Principality City for only one full day, word had already come from the Sisterhood, the shadowy council of high mages that Bava K’aa once led, that Tris and Carina were to journey to the Sisterhood’s citadel in the city for further training. That summons, and the implica-tion that his own training would require the services of an expert healer, weighed heavily on Tris’s mind. In the short time before the Hawthorn Moon, Tris knew he must master what the Sisterhood had yet to teach him. And in that same few months, Kiara and Vahanian would need to gain the skills of climbing a sheer rock cliff, Soterius must find and contact the refugees and Margolan defectors, and he himself had yet to take his fight-ing skills to the level which he knew he must reach in order to hold his own. It would all take time, Tris fretted, time they did not have but could not do without. Hant nodded. “It can be done.” Darrath nodded his assent. “Good.” He placed his palms on the table as he stood. “Hant and I will provide anything you require in terms of weapons or armor. Your horses will be the finest in Principality. And you will have gold enough for your mercenaries,” he nodded to Harrtuck, “suffi-cient to stir them from their winter sleep, I think.” “Thank you,” Tris said.

Darrath’s met his eyes evenly. “Make no mistake, Prince Drayke. I am not supporting this out of a love of Margolan. But what you say is true. For Principality to rest safely, we must put down the evil in Margolan, or lose everything.” He paused. “I don’t doubt that if Jared were to secure Margolan and invade Isencroft, he would eventually turn his eye toward the mines of Principality to replenish his treasury.”

Hant nodded. “I agree. For now, Margolan’s cause is our own.”

“Then it’s settled,” Staden said from the chair where he had watched the debate for more than a candlemark, his burly arms crossed across his chest. “Until then, you and your companions are welcome in my home.”