The Conqueror's Shadow (53 page)

For hours that felt like minutes—or perhaps minutes that dragged like hours—Lorum surveyed the broken, ravished, and desecrated body of what had been Imphallion's second greatest city. Men, women, and children who would never again rise, never laugh or cry or work, lay scattered about the wreckage of once magnificent temples and ancient halls that were very nearly as irreplaceable.

And Lorum, who had already seen too much of the horrors of war for his age, found his tears evaporated by the growing heat of his fury. Soldiers and emissaries appeared and disappeared through the wall of guards, delivering reports and making requests, and the regent's expression grew ever harsher, ever more
brittle. Abruptly he spun his warhorse with a terribly cry and broke into a gallop, practically trampling his own guards before they dived desperately from his path. Espa ordered the soldiers to remain while he and the sorceress followed.

Some streets away, in an alley almost blocked by Lorum's anxious horse, they found him. He stood at the end of the filthy byway, where even the stench of human misery nearby had not overwhelmed the reek of rotting garbage, slamming his fist over and over into a broken stone wall until blood began to leak through the joints in his steel gauntlet.

“Your Grace?” Rheah began, sliding from her horse and moving down the alley, Espa two steps behind. “I know that this is horrible, but you need—”

“Horrible, Rheah? Is that what this is?” The young regent spun, and where the sorceress and the knight expected tears, they found a jaw clenched in murderous rage. “I think it's a damn sight more than horrible!”

“I understand, Your Grace,” Espa said gruffly. “This is among the worst I've seen. But it's over. Rebaine's fled. He—”

“You don't understand.” Lorum sighed and slumped back against the wall, staring at something over their heads that only he could see. “This isn't about the bodies and the burning and the destruction, Nathaniel. I've seen enough of that in this godsdamn war.”

“Then what—?” Rheah began.

“It didn't have to happen!” Lorum leaned forward, gesticulating with his right hand before clutching it painfully to his chest. “We've known he was heading this way for weeks, maybe months! If the damn Guilds hadn't dragged their feet, if they'd bloody well let us—let
me
,” he corrected with a glance at Espa's glower, “take command when we should have, we could have intercepted him before now!”

“You don't know that, Lorum,” the knight said gently. “And if we'd faced them before Rebaine fled, before they were demoralized and disorganized, there's no telling—”

“And that, too,” the regent interrupted. “Word of Rebaine's disappearance
is only just now spreading through the armies—and I've
already
had two Guild emissaries demanding I return command of their forces. We haven't even
secured
the damn city, let alone started to help the people rebuild, but do they care?

“Maybe …” Lorum sighed and looked down at his feet. “Maybe Rebaine should have won.”

He heard the both of them gasp, looked up into Rheah's horrified eyes and Espa's furiously furrowed brow. “At least someone would damn well have been in charge,” he growled. “It can't have been worse than the Guildmasters' games, can it? Maybe then all this death would at least have meant something.”

“He's young,” Espa said swiftly as Rheah spun away. “He's angry. He'll learn better.” But the sorceress was already gone. With a glare, Espa waved the regent toward him. Not speaking, neither meeting the other's gaze, they rode slowly back toward Lorum's soldiers.

NATHANIEL ESPA
, as it turned out, had been
mostly
right. Lorum had calmed down quickly enough, and he'd come to truly understand, in the weeks, months, and years that had followed, why the Eastern Terror could not have been allowed to win, that a warlord like Corvis Rebaine could never be permitted to rule. The regent had swallowed his distaste and worked alongside the Guilds—though it had been a near thing—even learning to argue against those nobles, like Jassion of Braetlyn, who believed as he once had.

But even to this day, Lorum didn't think he'd been
entirely
wrong, and wondered how much better things might be if
someone
—the
right
someone, not someone like Rebaine—were truly able to rule.

And right now, the Guilds certainly weren't doing a whole hell of a lot to change his mind.

“Can I have your attention please? Can I … ladies and … Ah, the hell with it. Rheah, would you mind?”

As she'd done once before, Rheah Vhoune stepped to the front of the dais, traced several intricate patterns in the air with her fingers, and
spoke her words of power. And as before, the shock wave blasting through the crowd—setting flesh to stinging and ears to throbbing—instantly grabbed the undivided attention of what was previously an unruly, unlistening mob.

Where she'd last been forced to take such measures in the hall of a single Guild, she stood now upon the podium in Mecepheum's great Hall of Meeting. Where she'd previously addressed the disorderly mass of humanity that was the Merchants' Guild, she now faced an entire pack of Guildmasters and nobles, representing every Guild of influence and every major territory throughout Imphallion. And where she'd once come near to deafening a similar crowd for the sake of a single Guildmaster, she now drew their attention to the Regent Proper of Imphallion, His Grace, Duke Lorum of Taberness.

When the sudden booming finally rebounded off the far walls and faded away, Lorum nodded politely to Rheah and stepped to the fore. Dressed again in formal navy, the great bear and broken crown gleaming gold upon his tabard, he looked every inch the noble.

To his right sat Rheah Vhoune and Nathaniel Espa, to his left, Baron Jassion of Braetlyn and Duke Edmund of Lutrinthus. Before him, crowded into various chairs, benches, and pews, was the hostile and unwavering sea of men and women, all of whom were determined that, regardless of what was happening outside these city walls, the regent himself was the real enemy.

Only a single chair, deliberately pushed apart from the rest of the room, remained vacant in the otherwise congested chamber. A ceremonial seat, coated in dust, it had lain empty at every meeting of the Guilds for hundreds of years. It stood as a symbol, intended to remind them that they were incomplete, that even the power of the Guilds was not unbreakable. Most of them considered it a misuse of space.

Once upon a time, it housed the representative of the Sorcerers' Guild, until the day Selakrian threw down that organization, declaring that such a gathering of powers was dangerous to all, wizard and common man alike. Some thought it heroic; others felt that the greatest magic user ever known had simply considered the Guild a threat. Whichever the case, that day saw the last attempt at organization among the wizards' community.

Lorum watched Rheah Vhoune's eyes flicker, as they so often did, to the old and decrepit red cushions. It was, she'd once told him, why she had joined the Merchants' Guild, why she was so determined to master the ins and outs, the nooks and crannies, the tiniest details of Guild operation. Soon—when this nonsense with Audriss and Corvis Rebaine was over—she intended to seat herself in that chair, the first members of a fledgling Sorcerers' Guild around her.

Lorum wasn't entirely certain how he felt about that idea, but that was for later. The stubborn, mule-headed morass of Guildmasters and lords was
now
.

“Now that I have your attention,” Lorum said, hands clasped behind his back, “I have something to say. We—”

“Why are you bothering, Lorum?” a voice shouted from the rear. Salia Mavere, priestess of Verelian the Smith and councilwoman of the Blacksmiths' Guild, rose to her feet. A large woman, with the heavy musculature common to the profession, she wore her dark hair short, and dressed in the formal robes of her religious office, emblazoned with the hammer and anvil. “You know damn well the Guilds won't hand over our armies to you. You've asked us about three dozen times now over the past months, and you still refuse to accept our answer. I've worked with solid iron bars less dense than you seem to be.” There was general acclaim and no small amount of chuckling from the crowd.

“And the fact that Audriss is nearly here, his armies no more than a few days' march from our gates, isn't enough to make you reconsider?” Lorum asked calmly.

The laughter died away, and Salia's face grew tight, but she shook her head. “Lorum, no one here denies the need to defend ourselves. But we can do it without granting you full command over the armies. We made that mistake once, remember? You took three years to give us back our rightful authority.”

“And if I had not done so at all,” Lorum snapped, his patience giving way, “we wouldn't be in this predicament now!”

With a deliberate exhalation, he forced his features to relax, clasping his hands once more behind him. “But that's behind us,” he said
more calmly. “So even the threat of the Serpent will not make you reconsider?”

“As we've told you time and time again, Your Grace,” Salia told him.

“Then what of Corvis Rebaine? Surely you acknowledge the need for a unified authority to defend against the Terror of the East!”

“Rebaine,” the priestess scoffed, her sentiments once more echoed in the mumbling of those around her. “We've all heard that particular rumor, Lorum. There are those,” she continued slyly, “who have accused you of making it up yourself to give some extra weight to your case. I'd never believe such a thing myself, of course, but I felt you should know. If you continue to insist on this, it may erode what support you
do
have. I … What's that?” She gaped, as did the entire assembly, at the dull black object Rheah Vhoune produced from nowhere and placed in the regent's hand. Smiling grimly, Lorum held it over his head for all to see:

A dark metallic shape, with a yellowed bone spike protruding from it, the mirror image of the spaulder Espa hurled from the battlements at Pelapheron.

“Is there anyone here,” Lorum asked simply, “who does not know what this is?”

Had the silence grown any thicker, the duke's ears must surely have burst from the pressure.

“Is there anyone here,” he began again, his voice suddenly harsh, “who truly believes I, or Lady Rheah, would fake or forge something of this magnitude?”

Surreptitious gazes danced through the assembly. A few present were suspicious enough to believe just that. But none was willing to speak out on his or her own, and none willing to be the first. So each turned from the imploring glances of compatriots, and the chamber remained silent.

“Rebaine was
here!”
Lorum told them, his voice thundering through the room. His right hand gestured violently, chopping downward in cadence with his words as though he would batter the very air into submission. “Imprisoned in the cells beneath my own castle!”

The silence finally shattered as the throng erupted into disjointed
exclamations, oaths, questions, and demands. Like a wall, Lorum stood, letting the confusion and rage and fear of the crowd wash over him. Then he signaled, a simple crook of a finger. Rheah Vhoune rose once more, hands raised.

It was, as the duke anticipated, sufficient. The throng quieted once more, glaring balefully at the sorceress.

“Rebaine
was
held here,” he reiterated, speaking calmly but clearly. “He is here no longer. He escaped.”

The crowd buzzed angrily but restrained itself from another full outburst.

“Escaped, with outside help.” The regent's piercing gaze swept the room. Several of the onlookers could have sworn they felt their hair rustle as it passed over. “A small group of men—we don't know exactly how many. But we
do
know they killed several guards on the way out, guards found drained of blood.” He scowled darkly. “I think we all know what that means. And who was behind it.”

“Then it is all true!” The voice belonged to Bidimir Vrenk, a scrawny, whiny-voiced scarecrow of a man. Dressed to make even a rainbow look subdued, he carried a gold-engraved harp slung over his shoulder. Vrenk represented the Minstrels' Guild, and as much as for his skill with harp and lute, he was known for his unfortunate habit of speaking as he believed the heroes of yore spoke, inspired by the hundreds of ballads and epics he'd read in his time. Vrenk either failed to realize he sounded the idiot, or simply didn't mind. “The Terror and the Serpent are in league, one with the other! Can we do nothing to avert the doom creeping upon us from the long night?”

Lorum rolled his eyes. “Audriss has been spotted leading the main body of the troops. Rebaine himself travels with a smaller division, less than a day behind the main force. An elite division, we assume.

“The bulk of the army will be here in a matter of days. We are facing not only a force numbering upward of twenty thousand, accompanied by ogres, gnomes, and the Endless Legion. We are facing the combined might, the combined magics, and the combined knowledge of Rebaine and Audriss.”