David Farland - Wizardborn

Rahjim shrugged. “The reavers have built a fortress. The fell mage who guards it is mightier than the beast you faced in Carris. But all is not lost. Pusnabish has prepared well for the battle tomorrow.”

Raj Ahten stood rubbing his numb left hand, trying to increase the circulation.

The flameweaver Az nodded toward it. “You are feeling worse?”

“I’m well enough,” Raj Ahten said.

“I can heal you,” Az offered. But Raj Ahten wanted none of his healing—not at the price of his humanity.

Raj Ahten cast a cold eye on his army. These were troops of old Indhopal, dressed in simple breastplates with spiked helms on their heads, and round targets clamped to their left forearms. They bore weapons fit to kill reavers—oversized longspears, warhammers, and axes. But men without endowments would not fare well with such weapons. Even if a man could swing these warhammers, he’d tire quickly.

Three hundred thousand common troops would be ineffectual against the reavers. But Raj Ahten could think of some use for them. At the battle for Carris, when confronted by masses of men, the reavers balked. They could not detect which men might be Runelords and which were commoners.

The reavers’ ignorance might be his best weapon.

Raj Ahten called upon the powers of his Voice and his glamour, and shouted. “Honorable warriors of Indhopal, I salute you! Now is the hour we have feared. Desolation is upon us. Only your strong arms and brave hearts can save the day. Tonight the kingdoms of Indhopal live or die by our valor. Tonight I will lead you in a war like none that mankind has ever known! Ride with me now, ride for Indhopal!”

The power of his Voice surprised even Raj Ahten. The weary men raised their weapons and cheered like berserkers.

He leapt on his camel and raced before them so that even the wind could not catch him.

In the winter, snow fell heavily in the Alcairs, leaving the mountains white. It melted throughout the summer, feeding the rivers that tumbled over the green slopes. In the Valley of Om on the southern verge of Kartish, twelve waterfalls spilled down from the hills.

It was Raj Ahten’s favorite place in the world. Every year on the first day of the month of Poppies, he would journey to Om. Always the pecan blossoms were in bloom, and the new grass grew lush and fragrant, and the red poppies covered the valley while the waterfalls spilled from the freshets into languid pools, misting the air above the Palace of Canaries.

The grounds around the palace were pristine. No man or animal was allowed to trample them, and the palace itself was a gem.

Its walls were made of thin slabs of yellow marble, and at night when the lanterns were lit within, the whole complex shone like burnished gold beneath the starlight. On such nights the palace earned its name: for the palace took its name not from canaries, as some supposed, or even for its yellow walls—but rather from the songsters who vied for the honor of performing within its great arching acoustic hall.

Many were the pleasant nights that Raj Ahten had spent listening to songsters in the jasmine-scented hall, wandering the pristine poppy fields, gazing at the waterfalls and the palace in the moonlight, seducing young women.

He’d lain with Saffira here.

Raj Ahten shook the memories away. There was nothing for it. The joy of his life was gone.

Among the Jewel Kingdoms, blood-metal mines had always made Kartish the richest. The kaifs of the land had grown fat over the centuries. They had controlled the blood metal, and could set the prices they saw fit. Beyond that, they knew precisely how many forcibles each lord purchased over the years, and thus by regulating shipments ensured that no one ever built a force powerful enough to strike against them.

Over centuries they acted as puppetmasters, orchestrating the rise and fall of nations that they knew only by rumor. The fat old men had kept their knives to the jugular vein of the world, and congratulated themselves on their cunning.

Of course, they made mistakes. From time to time, shipments would fall into the wrong hands, and the kaifs of Kartish would be slaughtered wholesale. The world hardly noticed, for the sun set on one despot only to rise on another.

Raj Ahten had killed them all easily enough.

When Raj Ahten reached the Palace of Canaries, the palace itself shone as usual, and the falls tumbled like a silver mist in the starlight.

But on his pristine grounds, an army had settled, blackening the land with tents and bodies. The valley would never heal from the double curse of the reavers’ blight and the damage done by the troops.

Dingy fires guttered in the vale. No fewer than two million men bivouacked for miles around the palace. The stench of men, horses, and elephants was unbearable. All through the camps, horses whinnied and elephants trumpeted in hunger while men short of rations sounded loud and raucous in turn. So the valley filled with a noise of pandemonium.

Raj Ahten rode down through the hills while an army of three hundred thousand men raced to keep up.

As he did, heralds bore torches on either side of him, both ahead and behind. Men beheld his countenance, and were cowed by his glamour.

He shouted to the common troops huddled below, his voice a roar. “Men of Indhopal, how can you sit here idle while the reavers call us to war? Rise now! Grab your weapons and armor. We go to battle at dawn. I promise you victory!”

He met Warlord Aysalla Pusnabish at the palace gates. Pusnabish dropped to his hands and knees and did obeisance.

“O Great Dawn of Our Lives,” he said, “we thank you for delivering us.”

“My Dedicates are safe?” Raj Ahten asked.

“We hastened them away at the first sign of trouble, O Great One. By now they have reached the coast, and are sailing north for the Palace of Ghusa in Deyazz.”

Raj Ahten felt weak, disjointed. His left hand trembled.

“What of my forcibles?”

“They are in the treasury, O Sun of Our Morning,” Pusnabish said.

Raj Ahten did not want to hear more. His troops were preparing for battle, and he had enough men that he suspected he could swarm the hills, take the reavers in their lair.

He pushed past Pusnabish and strode through the gilded halls of the Palace of Canaries, up toward his treasury.

“I’ll need my facilitators,” Raj Ahten said, “and men to grant me stamina.”

Pusnabish snapped his fingers at a servant, and the man ran to get the facilitators.

“There is some good news,” Pusnabish insisted, running in his wake. “Our miners struck a new vein of blood ore. It is quite promising, as you will see.”

Raj Ahten smiled grimly.

Myrrima didn’t fancy being followed. It was doubly worrying that she wasn’t sure whether the creature tracking them was human or not.

Borenson did not speak as they rode. He peered about, his bright blue eyes alert. Each time she started to open her mouth, he would raise a hand, begging her to be silent. So she held her tongue.

She was a wolf lord now, with endowments of scent from a dog, and sight from a man. Borenson’s nervousness kept her wary, and she strained her senses, sniffing the air and keeping her eyes open for signs of danger.

In the Westlands, the barren plains gave way to woods where hoary trees grew among craggy rocks, limbs heavy with moss. The trees were tall and dark, with only a few ragged gray leaves clinging to them. The earth smelled of mold and fungus. Toadstools thrust up from the detritus in the fens.