David Farland - The Lair of Bones

The bridles and saddles of their horses and camels flashed with gems, and their swords and lances were tipped with the finest steel.

So they rode, their animals’ hooves splashing. Riding across the salt sea was easier than riding around it at this time of the year. In the winter, it would deepen and become impassable by horse, but for now the water was less than a foot deep and barely covered the white salt pan of the lake. Still, it stretched for as far as the eye could see. The noonday sun beating upon distant wavelets sparkled, so that every horizon seemed to beckon with empty promises of silver. Beyond the sea, to the north, a line of mountains could be descried.

Raj Ahten rode in the lead all dressed in white silk, upon the back of a gray imperial warhorse. With each step, the horse’s hooves splashed. The water quickly dried on its belly and legs, leaving a crust of white salt. Raj Ahten wore a white kaffiyeh to keep off the midday sun and to hide the scars on his ruined face.

As he rode, in the distance he spotted a single rider making his way across the sea toward them. The rider, swathed all in black, leaned forward like an old man, and rode a black force horse that nearly stumbled beneath the weight of its saddlebags.

Raj Ahten had over a thousand endowments of sight. His eyes were keener than an eagle’s, for no eagle can spot the heat that radiates from a human body at night. Nor could it count the hair on a fly’s legs at twenty paces. Though the rider was but a distant blur to a common man, Raj Ahten knew his name: Feykaald, his faithful servant.

“O Light of the World!” Feykaald shouted, when at last he rode near. “I bring a gift, a treasure stolen from the very camp of the Earth King!”

He reached back into his saddlebags and pulled out a handful of forcibles, like miniature branding irons, each as small as a metal spike with runes engraved into its head.

“My forcibles?” Raj Ahten brought his army to a halt with a raised hand. Feykaald nodded. Gaborn’s father had taken nearly forty thousand of them from Raj Ahten’s trove at Longmot. “How did you get them?”

“They were on a wagon full of treasure, in the king’s retinue,” Feykaald said. “He had nearly twenty thousand left! The Earth King was hunting reavers yesterday at noon, south of Mangan’s Rock, doing battle with the horde that destroyed Carris, when I managed to get these.”

“What did he plan to do with them?” Raj Ahten asked.

“He is taking them to the Courts of Tide, I think,” Feykaald said. “There, he will use them to strengthen his army.”

“And what of his troops?” Raj Ahten asked. “Who does he have in the way of champions?”

“Langley of Orwynne is his only champion, a lord who has taken hundreds of endowments. Other than that, Gaborn’s army is in ruins. Your strike at the Blue Tower devastated them. His warriors are weak, broken. And to the north, Lowicker’s daughter prepares to strike against him in revenge for her father, whom Gaborn slew.”

Foolish young King Orden, Raj Ahten thought.

The forcibles were invaluable. If Gaborn had dared use them properly, had invested a dozen of his finest men with endowments, he could have created some champions capable of stopping Raj Ahten. As it was, only this Langley stood between Raj Ahten and Gaborn.

“You have done well, my old friend,” Raj Ahten said. “The news you bear gladdens me as much as the treasure. For your reward, you shall have a hundred forcibles. Go now, take them to the facilitators at the Palace of Ghusa, in Deyazz. Tell them that in two nights, my army will ride down into Mystarria, like reapers in a field of wheat. Have them transfer endowments to me through my vectors. I must have them by nightfall.”

“All four thousand?” Feykaald asked.

“Indeed,” Raj Ahten said. It would take twenty facilitators working around the clock for nearly two days to transfer so many endowments.

“O Radiant One,” Feykaald objected, “Ghusa is a lonely outpost. Where will your facilitators find the Dedicates?”

“Have them raid the villages nearby,” Raj Ahten said. “There should be plenty of orphans about who would sell their wit or brawn for a bellyful of rice.”

“As you please,” Feykaald said with a bow. He looked to the east. “The forcibles will be in Deyazz by dawn.” He turned his horse to the west, kicked its flanks, and was gone.

Erin Connal rode throughout the day in the retinue of King Anders. The king kept the Nut Woman on her mount to his left, where squirrels darted about on her saddle and made a game of hunting for hazelnuts in the pocket of her gray robes. Celinor rode to the king’s right, tall and regal, so that the three of them took up the whole of the road. Thus, Erin Connal was forced to ride behind them, with Captain Gantrell on one side, and the king’s Days on the other. Fifty knights in silver surcoats with the black crow of South Crowthen rode at her back. Erin was surrounded.

The party snaked south through the mountains, with their green hills and sprawling oaks and scenic cottages. King Anders did not press his force horses for speed, for at every cottage and every village he would stop and peer at the inhabitants. After a moment, he might raise his left hand and utter solemnly, “I Choose you. I Choose you for the Earth. If ever you hear my voice giving you warning, heed me, and I will lead you to safety.”

Sometimes he would look at a man or a woman, and after a long moment he would merely drop his head sadly, and pass them by.

Thus, because Anders Chose his people, the ride south went by at a creeping pace, making less than ten miles every hour.

The day was cool, and the clouds began creeping toward the south, high and sere, a gauzy veil that hid a sun that seemed to be as cold and lifeless as the blind eye of a dead man.

Erin felt that the day was somehow strange, surreal. To her it almost seemed as if the line of clouds was following them. Ahead, on the horizon, a thin line of blue sky still held a promise of fair weather. But above them and at their back, the billowing vapors followed, like a dog wearily treading at the heels of its master. It did not matter if the party rode fast or slow. The clouds matched their pace.

Heedless of the strange signs in the heavens, Celinor talked to his father. Over a period of several hours he calmly related all that had befallen him since he’d gone to Heredon. He began with his first meeting with Gaborn, then told of his and Erin’s battle with the Darkling Glory, and rendered his account of their race to Carris where Gaborn found Raj Ahten’s troops occupying the city while a dark sea of reavers surrounded it. He related how Gaborn had used his Earth Powers to Choose Raj Ahten and his men along with all of the citizens of Carris so that they might defend themselves from the reavers. But even after Gaborn summoned a world worm to kill the fell mage that led the reaver horde, Raj Ahten would not bend the knee to Gaborn. Instead, like a dog he sought to ambush Gaborn after the battle. Gaborn used his powers to try to kill Raj Ahten, and for that act of sacrilege, the Earth withdrew them. He told how Gaborn could now sense danger to his Chosen, but could no longer warn them how to avoid it. Instead, he had to suffer as his people were slaughtered and torn from him.