The Scepter's Return (2 page)

The other two coins were shinier and more recent. They'd been struck by Sanjar and Korkut, Ulash's sons. Neither prince was willing to see the other succeed their father. They'd been fighting each other for years now, and the Menteshe to either side had joined in the war—at least as much to plunder what had been Ulash's realm as for any other reason.

Both Sanjar and Korkut had even appealed to Avornis for aid. That was a pleasant novelty for Grus; the Menteshe were more in the habit of raiding Avornis than appealing to her. The spectacle must have infuriated the Banished One, but not even he seemed able to stop the nomads from squabbling among themselves.

Pterocles put Sanjar's and Korkut's coins on top of Ulash's so that their edges touched. He sprinkled a little dirt over them. “Dirt from the south bank of the Stura,” he told Grus. The Stura was the last of the Nine Rivers that cut across the rolling plains of southern Avornis from east to west. Its southern bank was not Avornan territory at all, but belonged to the Menteshe.

To Grus, the dirt looked like … dirt. He didn't say anything. He trusted Pterocles to know what he was doing. So far, the wizard had earned that trust. Pterocles began to chant. The spell started out in modern Avornan, but quickly changed to the old-fashioned language only priests, wizards, and scholars like Lanius used these days.

As he chanted, the dirt began to swirl and writhe above the coins, as if caught up in one of the dust storms so common in the lands the Menteshe ruled. The coins struck by Sanjar and Korkut sprang up on their edges and started spinning. Round and round they went, faster and faster.

“Does that mean they're going to keep fighting?” Grus asked. Without missing a word or a pass, Pterocles nodded.

Suddenly, it seemed to Grus that
three
coins were spinning on the tabletop. He thought Ulash's silverpiece had gotten up from where it lay to join the dance, but it was still there. He wondered if his eyes had started playing tricks on him.

Pterocles' incantation slowed. So did the spinning coins—and there
were
three of them. The dirt and dust that had floated above the table settled back to its surface. Sanjar's coin and Korkut's settled down on top of Ulash's so that their edges touched once more.

The last coin, the one that appeared to have come out of nowhere, wobbled over and lay down covering parts of Sanjar's, Korkut's, and Ulash's. Pterocles raised his hands above his head. He fell silent. The spell was over.

Grus picked up that last coin. No Menteshe had minted it. His own craggy features, stamped in silver, stared back at him from the palm of his hand. He held the Avornan silverpiece out to Pterocles. The wizard stared at it. “Olor's beard!” he muttered. “I never thought—”

“Does this mean we're going to get mixed up in the fighting south of the Stura this year?” Grus asked.

More unhappily than otherwise, Pterocles nodded. “I can't see how it could mean anything else, Your Majesty. It wasn't part of the sorcery I planned. Where it came from …” He gathered himself. “Sometimes the magic does what it wants to do, not what you want it to do.”

“Does it?” Grus said tonelessly. He looked at the image of himself, there on his palm. “Is the magic telling us that we ought to get mixed up in the nomads' civil war, or just that we
will
get mixed up in it?”

“That we will, Your Majesty,” the wizard answered. “You may take that as certain—or as certain as anything magic can point out. Whether we will become involved in a big way or a small one, whether good or bad will come from whatever we do—whatever
you
do—I can't begin to say.”

“If I order my men to move against the Chernagor city-states in the north instead—” Grus began.

“Something will happen to make us fight in the south anyway,” Pterocles broke in. “You're bound to leave garrisons down by the Stura, to beat back whatever Menteshe raiders come over the border. Maybe some of your men will chase after the nomads. Maybe it will turn out to be something else. But we will meet Korkut's men, and Sanjar's, on land that once belonged to Ulash. So much, I would say, is clear.”

“And will we win?” Grus kept looking at the coin he held. “My silverpiece came out on top, after all.”

“I'd like to say yes, Your Majesty,” Pterocles answered. “I'd like to, but I won't. I simply don't know.”

“All right. I'd rather have an honest answer than a lie trotted out to make me feel good … I suppose.” Grus laughed. He supposed that was funny, too. But then the laughter froze on his lips. “If the Banished One is trying to look ahead, too, he'll see the same thing, won't he?”

“If he doesn't, Your Majesty, I'd be astonished,” Pterocles said.

“Huzzah,” Grus said somberly. Fighting against the Menteshe south of the Stura would be hard enough anyway. No Avornan army had successfully pushed south for more than four hundred years. How much harder would it be if the Banished One knew the Avornans were coming ahead of time?
Well, we'll find out.

Beaters and royal bodyguards surrounded King Lanius, Prince Ortalis, and Arch-Hallow Anser as they rode out of the city of Avornis to hunt. Chainmail jingled on the guardsmen. The beaters—Anser's men—wore leather, either left brown or dyed green. They looked like a pack of poachers. If they hadn't served the chief prelate of the Kingdom of Avornis, most of them probably would have been in prison.

Anser cared more about the hunt than he did about the gods. Grus' bastard son always had. But he was unshakably loyal to the man who'd sired him. To Grus, that counted for more than religious zeal. And Anser, along with being unshakably loyal, was also unshakably good-natured. There had been worse arch-hallows, though Lanius wouldn't have thought so when Grus made the appointment.

“Well, let's see how we do today,” Anser said, smiling in the sunshine. “Maybe you'll make another kill, Your Majesty.”

“Maybe I will.” Lanius hoped he didn't sound too unenthusiastic. He didn't care for the hunt, and went out every now and again only to keep from disappointing Anser. No one wanted to do that. Lanius always shot to miss. He was anything but a good archer. Not so long before, he'd hit a stag altogether without intending to.

“Venison. Boar. Even squirrel.” Ortalis sounded enthusiastic enough for himself and Lanius at the same time. Grus' legitimate son liked the meat the hunt brought in. He also liked killing the meat in the hunt. He liked killing
very
much. If he killed animals, he didn't need the thrill of hurting—or killing—people so much.

Of course, Bubulcus was still dead. Lanius' obstreperous servant
had
outrageously insulted Ortalis. People often thought outrageous insults reason enough to kill a man. And it did seem that Ortalis had killed in a fit of fury, not for the sport of it. All the same, he remained far too fond of blood for Lanius' taste.

The woods that served as a royal game preserve were a couple of hours' ride outside the city of Avornis. The hunting party hadn't gone a quarter of that distance before Lanius took a deep breath and said, “By the gods, it's good to get away from the capital for a while.”

Anser and Ortalis both nodded. So did the guards and beaters. Anser said, “The clean air would be reason enough to come hunting even without the chase.”

“Almost reason enough,” Ortalis said.

When they got to the woods, the new leaves uncurling from their buds were a brighter, lighter green than they would be once they'd been out for a while. Lanius pointed to them. “That's the color of spring,” he said.

“You're right,” Ortalis said. They nodded to each other. In the palace, they didn't get on well. That wasn't just because of Ortalis' streak of bloodlust, either. Grus' legitimate son wanted to be King of Avornis himself one day, and to have the crown pass to his sons and not Lanius'. At the moment, he had no sons, only a toddler daughter. But who could say how long that would last?

Here in the woods, differences of rank and ambition fell away. Lanius swung down off his horse. He rubbed his hindquarters when he did; he was not a man who made a habit of riding. Anser laughed at him. The arch-hallow loved horses only less than hunting. Even Anser's mockery was good-natured. What would have been infuriating from Ortalis only made Lanius laugh, too, when Grus' bastard did it.

Why couldn't they have been reversed?
Lanius wondered.
I would never have to worry about a usurpation from Anser. And Ortalis
—
Ortalis would have made an arch-hallow to set evildoers trembling in their boots.
Things were as they were, though, not as would have been convenient for him. He knew that only too well. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been a small, oft-captured piece in the great Avornan political game for so much of his life.

Carrying bows and quivers, he and Ortalis and Anser went in among the trees. The beaters spread out to drive game their way. Some of the guards accompanied Anser's raffish crew. Others stayed with the king, the prince, and the prelate. Lanius' boots scuffed through the gray-brown rotting leaves that had fallen the autumn before. Try as he would, he couldn't move quietly. Ortalis was far better at it. As for Anser, he might have been a poacher himself by the way he silently slid along.

A squirrel jeered at them from high in a tree. Ortalis started to reach for an arrow, then checked the motion. “No point to it,” he said. “I'd never hit him up there, not shooting through all those branches.”

One of the royal guards who'd gone on ahead came pounding back. Anser winced at the racket he made. The guards, however, refused to let Lanius go off without them. If that hurt Anser's hunting, they didn't care. This one said, “There's a nice clearing up ahead.”

That made the arch-hallow happier—it didn't take much. “Lead us to it,” he said. “Without too much jingling, if you can.”

“I'll do my best,” the guard said. And, no doubt, he did. That his best was no good … Anser was too kindly to twit him too much.

And the clearing was as good as he'd claimed. Fresh bright grass smiled at the sun. A magpie, all black and white and iridescent purple, hopped on the grass. It flew away squawking when Lanius stuck his head out.

Faintly embarrassed, the king drew back behind a tree trunk. “This does seem a likely spot,” he said.

“Well, yes, if you don't frighten away everything within five miles,” Ortalis said. Had Anser said the same thing, Lanius would have laughed and forgotten about it. From Ortalis, it annoyed him. Anser might have meant it just as much. He probably would have, as passionate for the hunt as he was. But the words wouldn't have stung coming out of his mouth. Coming out of Ortalis', they did.

What Anser said now was, “Don't worry, Your Highness. The beaters will make sure we don't go home empty-handed. Pity the antlers won't be as fine as they would in the fall.”

“I don't care,” Ortalis said. “I want the venison.” He sounded hungry, all right. Was it for meat? Maybe. Lanius thought it was more likely to be for the kill itself.

A deer bounded into the clearing. “Go ahead, Your Majesty,” Anser said. “First arrow of spring.”

Awkwardly, Lanius drew his bow, took aim, and let fly. The arrow whistled over the deer's head. That was where he'd aimed it, so he wasn't particularly unhappy. He liked eating venison, too, but he didn't care to be the one who'd killed it.

Killing didn't bother Ortalis. Even as the deer bounded away, he loosed his own shaft. Unlike Lanius, he always took dead aim. He was a good shot, too, also unlike the king. His arrow flew straight and true, and struck the deer in the side.

“A hit!” he cried, and was out of cover and running after the wounded animal. Anser ran after him, bow at the ready. So did Lanius, a little more slowly. “An easy trail!” Ortalis said, laughing with pleasure. Sure enough, the deer's blood marked its path.
Well, it will be over soon,
Lanius thought.
The deer won't suffer long. It won't wander through the woods a cripple.

There it was, thrashing in some bushes it hadn't had the strength to leap. Ortalis drew a knife that would have done duty for a smallsword. “Careful!” Anser called. “Those hooves are still dangerous.” If his half brother heard, he gave no sign. Avoiding the feet that flailed ever more feebly, he cut the deer's throat.

More blood fountained free. “Ahhh!” Ortalis said, almost as if he'd just had a woman. As soon as the deer was dead, or perhaps even a moment before, he flipped it over and began to gut it. Arms red almost to the elbows, he turned and smiled up at Lanius and Anser.

“Good shot,” Anser said, and clapped him on the back. Lanius managed a nod that didn't seem too halfhearted. But that avid expression on Ortalis' face as he wielded the knife chilled the King of Avornis.
Yes,
he thought, this
is why he hunts.

When Grus first got to know Hirundo, his general had been a bright young cavalry captain. King Grus himself had been a bright, reasonably young river-galley skipper. Now his beard was gray and the tendons on the backs of his hands all knobbly and gnarled.
How did I get to be sixty?
he wondered, as any man will with so many years behind him and so few probably ahead.

Hirundo was a few years younger, but only a few. He still had traces, though, of the dash he'd shown all those years ago. “South of the Stura, eh?” he said gaily.

“We've been looking at this for a while now—ever since Ulash's sons started squabbling over the bones of his realm,” Grus said.

“Oh, yes. We've been looking at it and thinking about it,” Hirundo agreed. “Most of what we've been thinking is,
This doesn't look like such a great idea right now.
And what do you think now, Your Majesty? Do you think Pterocles and the other wizards really can cure the thralls south of the Stura? Do you think they can keep the Menteshe from turning our army—and us—into thralls if we cross the river?”