There was a mist that silent morning. It shifted like a living thing in the darkness before dawn, insinuating pale tendrils between the trees with an icy intimacy. Sluggish coils eddied away as Evthan eased from the high bracken, then flowed back to wrap his buckskinned legs in a clammy embrace. The hunter shivered slightly as he knelt to study the vapour-shrouded ground; then his eyes narrowed and he paused, listening.
Somewhere in the gloom a bird twittered and burst into song. Evthan’s eyebrows drew together at this ill-timed intrusion—thick brows, which met above his hawk nose even without the frown to join them. He was the best hunter and tracker in the Jevaiden, commanding high fees from the noblemen who came here in late summer seeking game; men said that the lanky Jouvaine could even think like a beast. Right now his thoughts were centred on what he had seen in the damp turf. Nocking an arrow to his bow, he slipped back into cover more quietly than he had emerged. Evthan was not afraid… not yet. Just very cautious.
There was a clearing ahead, edged by a stream running down from the edge of the Jevaiden plateau; he knew it well as a place to find deer, where they might come to drink. At first it seemed empty, and then the hunter realised that he faced a wall of fog. Even nearby trees were vague and uncertain through the milky trans-lucence, and he was uncomfortably aware that in the denser patches anything at all could lie unseen. Even the Beast.
His mouth twisted, sneering at the half-formed hope.
It could not be his luck to have that target here today; as it had not been his luck this month or more. That was why Darath had sent him out. To find help. Another hunter. Someone who could kill the Beast. The headman did not know how he had wounded Evthan’s pride with that command. Or perhaps he did…
The hunter’s hands began to tremble. Darath’s family had not been spared a visit from the Beast…
Evthan remained hidden in the undergrowth while the eastern sky brightened towards sunrise. A faint breeze thinned the fog. That small movement of the air brought a prickling of woodsmoke to the hunter’s nostrils and his brooding was abruptly set aside. His thumb hooked more tightly around the bowstring as silhouettes emerged in the clearing, soft unreal forms still half-veiled by the mist. Evthan’s held-in breath hissed smokily between his teeth. Tethered to the roots of a long-fallen tree, a packhorse and a sleek black courser unconcernedly cropped the grass.
Standing near the same tree was a young man dressed in leather and fine mail. As Evthan watched curiously, the stranger secured a bandage around his left arm and flexed the limb experimentally, then nodded in satisfaction and began to buckle on more metal: scaled leggings, sleeves of mail and black polished plate, a cuirass laced with white and dark blue silk. He drew the last strap tight, picked up a sword which leaned against the tree trunk, then faced the dawn and knelt, laying the long sheathed blade across his armoured thighs.
Sitting straight-backed on his heels, the young man gazed full at the newly-risen sun for several minutes, heedless of its glare or of the drifting skeins of mist. They had become a haze of glowing gold, and he was himself outlined in countless points of light from the lacquered scales of his lamellar harness. These rustled faintly as he bowed low from the waist, and their leather strappings creaked a little as he glanced towards the trees. Then he shrugged and rose with easy grace to tend his horses.
Aldric had suspected for some time that all was not quite as it should be. More than ever now, he trusted such warnings when they pushed into his mind. The watcher, whoever he might be, had not used his advantage of surprise; if he was an enemy, that mistake would be fatal. Literally. But if he was a friend… ? Aldric dismissed the notion. He had no friends in the Jevaiden—or anywhere else in the Drusalan Empire, for that matter. Not since Youenn Sicard had been killed by the “bandits” whose motives the Alban was now sure had not included simple robbery. Especially when their victims likely carried—he grimaced sourly at his saddlebags— nothing but the Empire’s worthless silver coins. Once five hundred florins would have made him a wealthy man… but not now. That was what sickened him about his guide’s death; if, despite all appearances to the contrary, the attackers
had
been merely thieves, then the little Vreijek had died for nothing.
But that was why the half-seen shadow in the forest made him so nervous; there was no longer any honestly dishonest reason for an ambush—only intrigue and assassination. And counter-assassination, said a still small voice in the silence at the back of his mind. It was as if someone knew what King Rynert had commanded him to do, for all the elaborate secrecy surrounding it…
Aldric felt a bead of apprehensive sweat crawl from his hairline, and knew that beneath the armour his back was growing moist and sticky. The arrow wound in his left arm began to sting as salty perspiration bit at it like acid, and acting calmly required a conscious effort. Even then there was nothing calm about the memories of events two months past which tumbled through his skull…
“
Mathern-an arluth
, lord king, I have just regained this fortress—and now you tell me I must leave again. I have the right to know your reason for such a command.” There was, perhaps, more outraged protest in Aldric’s voice than proper courtesy permitted used toward the king, but Rynert let it pass. They were alone in the great hall of Dunrath-hold, in the donjon at the citadel’s very heart, and the king’s footsteps were echoing in the emptiness as he paced to and fro.
“Aldric-an,” he said, his soft words barely carrying to the younger man’s ears, “the only reason that I am obliged to give is that I am your lord…” Several silent seconds passed while .Aldric digested this unpalatable fact and his consequent emotions ran the gamut from anger to resignation. For what Rynert said was no more than the truth, “there is another way of viewing this, of course,” Rynert continued. “Despite your youth you are still a high-clan lord—and
ilauem-arluth
Talvalin deserves at least the privilege of respect due his rank.”
“I thank you for it,
mathern-an”
Aldric responded, carefully neutral, inclining his head in acknowledgement. There was nothing that a glance could read from the thoughts which drifted in the hazel depths of Rynert’s eyes, and simple caution forbade staring.
“You know of course what is said in the Empire about the warriors of Alba, my lord?” asked Rynert suddenly. Aldric did not—he shrugged and shook his head to prove it. “They simplify—” the king hesitated, correcting himself, “—they oversimplify the Honour-codes: all the rules of duty and obligation which make us what we are. They say: if his lord commands a
kailin
to kill, he kills; and if he is commanded to die, he dies.”
Aldric considered the stark statement for a few seconds. Then he shrugged again. “Stripped to the bones, Lord King, but accurate enough.”
“Then you accept this, Aldric-an? You accept this bare simplicity of
kill
and
die
?”
Uneasy now, not liking the trend of conversation, Aldric nodded once. “I have seen both sides; I can do nothing save accept it. Lord Santon and…And my own brother…” The recollection hurt like an open wound and his voice faltered into silence.
“Their honour commanded them to die and they died,” said Rynert. “The oath made to your father commanded you to kill.” He paused in his incessant pacing and gazed at the wall, looking beyond it to the battlefield of Radmur Plain and the great mass pyres which still smouldered there, streaking the sky with smoke. “And you fulfilled your oath. Oh, yes. No man can deny it— least of all Kalarr.” His voice hardened. “And Duergar. After the way you dealt with him…”
So that was it, thought Aldric grimly. Use of sorcery.
A clan-lord might well be expected—or indeed ordered— to perform
tsepanak’ulleth
for so flouting the cold laws of the Honour-codes. Santon had. Baiart had. Was it Rynert’s intention that he should follow them along the same self-made road into the Void? “What is your word,
mathern-an
?” he said aloud to break the silence and the gathering tension. “Die… ?”
“Kill.”
It gave Aldric little comfort. “Do I know the name?” he asked, and within him was a sickness, a rising terror that the answer would be
yes
.
“I doubt it. Crisen, the son of Geruath Segharlin. An Imperial Overlord. The father is an ally, the son… not. It is time that the account was settled. With finality. I trust Lord Crisen considers the gold he stole is worth its price.”
“Gold… ?” echoed Aldric. Rynert missed the subtle nuances of that single word, missed too the flicker of disgust on Aldric’s face as the younger man realised he was being commanded to kill a stranger for the sake of money, when bare minutes earlier he had been steeling himself against the thought of his own suicide for such an intangible thing as honour. He would have done that… but he was less sure about this. Something would have to be said, even though he did not now how to begin to say it. “I… I am
kailin-eir
again,
Lord
King”—Rynert’s head jerked round sharply at the betraying stammer—”and you yourself said that I am
ilauem-arluth
Talvalin. But I cannot—”
“Cannot what?”
“Cannot…” and then the words came out in a rush, “... cannot be your executioner or your assassin. Not for gold. That would make me no more than a—” Aldric bit his tongue before it could betray him.
Less than four weeks past, he had been accidental witness to an exchange which neither he nor any other man apart from Rynert’s bodyguard, Dewan ar Korentin, was meant to see. His king, his honourable lord, had given money to a masked and black-clad
taulath
mercenary. Within half an hour this same king had informed his War Council that the Drusalan Emperor was dead. Perhaps the two events were mere coincidence— or perhaps not. Aldric had kept silent and had drawn his own conclusions.
He knew very little about
tulathin
—shadow-thieves, as they were called on the rare occasions when decent men spoke of them—but he knew enough. They had no honour. Only a love of gold which bought them. Gold hired their unique talents of subtlety and secrecy and ruthless violence for whatever task that ambition, politics or simple hatred might require fulfilled. A
taulath
would spy on, steal, kidnap or kill anything or anybody for anyone who could pay the price.
A king could pay it easily…
Keeping such thoughts from his face and eyes with an effort, Aldric said softly, “That would make me no more than a man without honour.” And let Rynert take what he would from the toneless voice.
“Your honour, my lord Aldric,” snapped the king, “requires obedience above all else. Obedience to duty, to obligation—to me! So obey!”
It was not the reaction which the younger man had expected. “
Mathern-an
,” he protested miserably, “why choose
me
to be a murderer?”
Rynert stopped pacing at last. He turned to face his unruly vassal and jabbed an accusing thumb at him. “You speak as though you had never killed before. I choose you because I choose you!” Then his taut, almost-angry face relaxed and he flung both arms wide in a helpless gesture. “And I choose you because I must.”
The king stalked to a chair, sat down heavily and leaned back, steepling his interlaced fingers and staring at them through hooded eyes before touching their tips thoughtfully to his mouth. One booted foot hooked another chair and dragged it closer. “Aldric-an, sit down,” he said. “You and I must talk.”
Aldric hesitated a moment, then did as he was told, perching uneasily on the very edge of the seat in a nervous fashion that ill-suited the third most powerful lord in the realm.
Rynert gazed at him, noting stance, posture, carefully neutral expression and involuntary betrayals such as di-
lated pupils and bloodless lips. “Aldric Bladebearer Deathbringer,” muttered the king. “You have something of a reputation already, my lord. A reputation for strangeness, too; one that borders almost on eccentricity. You are… unusual. And you dismay people.”
“People?” Aldric wondered, as suspiciously as he dared.
“My other lords. The way in which you recovered this fortress and fulfilled the oath made to your father was unconventional. You have—and now I merely report what I have been told—an unsettling, un-Talvalin, un-Alban aptitude for sorcery and no compunction about using it. Furthermore, you are a wizard’s fosterling”— Aldric’s eyebrows drew together and his mouth opened—”which is nor meant as an insult, so think before you say something you may regret…” Aldric subsided. “But it means that this past four years you have lacked the support and the protection of your clan. You have learned to think for yourself, and the uncharitable see a young lord who appears to owe nothing to his king—no obligation, no duty and perhaps no loyalty.”
Aldric nodded. Rynert’s statements were logical and reasoned, beyond argument. “But why choose me for this… assassination?” he repeated.
“Because you have a better chance of success than any other man in my realm.” The king said it flatly, without the warmth which would have made his words a patronising compliment. He merely spoke what he saw as a fact. “Those very reasons which require me to choose you, also incline me to choose you. My lord, your behaviour is not that of a
kailin
, or a clan-lord. But you are a man who holds to his Word of Binding, once that word is given—even if it is not a word strictly based in what my lord Dacurre regards as Honour…” Rynert allowed himself a smile at that: Lord Dacurre, Elthanek master of Datherga, eighty years old and inflexibly opinionated, was a by-word in his own lifetime for blinkered conservatism.
“And
mathern-an
—what if I refuse?”
The king’s smile vanished. “Then you would forfeit”— he glanced around the hall, and by implication at the fortress and the wide lands which surrounded it—
“everything. For the sake of the men who died here, keeping faith. If you cannot be seen as equally loyal, you cannot be seen to rule.”