David Farland - Wizardborn

In South Crowthen, King Anders had been entertaining guests all night. Among them were a dozen fierce old warlords from Internook with their sealskin capes and horned helms. They’d sailed on ships painted like gray serpents, and the smell of sea salt clung to their beards. Their silver-gold hair was braided; the wind had burned their faces raw.

Any lord but Anders would have sought to buy their loyalty. The warlords of Internook were notoriously cheap. But Anders offered no money. He merely filled them with strong drink and tales of the treachery of Gaborn Val Orden. By midnight they were pounding the wooden tables with their silver mugs and shouting for the boy’s head. To celebrate their decision, they killed a hog and dyed their braids in blood, then painted their faces with streaks of green, yellow, and blue. They’d take no pay for their services other than the spoils of war.

Thus Anders bought half a million berserkers for less than a steel eagle’s worth of strong ale and a butchered sow.

Beside them the Lady Vars, counselor to the queen of Ashoven, watched how Anders worked the warlords of Internook with a reticent smile. She refused to touch even so much as a drop of his best wine. She was a stately woman, beautiful and cunning, with flashing gray eyes the color of slate.

As he urged the warlords to dispatch their ships to the Courts of Tide, the lady’s lips drew tight. Though she tried to appear neutral, King Anders knew she stood against him. Too bad for her.

When the warlords were deep in their cups, she excused herself from the dining hall and fled to the docks, no doubt feeling lucky to escape his realm with her life.

But a storm was brewing in the northern sea, Anders knew. He went out into the night as Lady Vars sneaked away. From the door Anders could hear the wind singing over the whitecaps miles away, could smell ice in the salt air.

The beast within Anders stirred at the smell. It circled in his breast like a restless dog. It suggested a small spell that would insure that wind would fill the sails of the counselor’s ship, and urge it onto the rocks. Ashoven’s queen would no doubt find the wreckage on her own shores. She’d mourn her faithful servant’s demise, never knowing what warning she might have borne. Perhaps the next counselor Ashoven sent would be more malleable.

Anders stood for a long moment in the doorway of his keep, listening to the receding hooves of Lady Vars’s horse as it clattered over the cobblestone streets of the King’s Way. Thick clouds above sealed out the starlight, and the fires in the great hall cast a ruddy glow over the cold ground that seemed to strain to reach beyond the courtyard. Somewhere down in the city below, a dog began howling. Soon, a dozen others joined their voices with its keen wail.

He whispered the spell that would end the lady’s life, and sauntered back to the Great Hall.

A one-eyed warlord named Olmarg watched him knowingly as he returned. Olmarg stood at the table, leaning over the roast pig. He cut an ear off, chewed as he said in his thick accent, “She bolted on us.”

“That she did,” Anders admitted. Several other lords looked up through bleary eyes, too far gone into their cups to bother speaking.

“Knew she would,” Olmarg said. “The ladies of Ashoven have no taste for wine or war. Now that she’s gone, we won’t have to bridle our tongues.”

Anders smiled. Moments ago he’d have thought the man too drunk to think clearly. “Agreed.”

Olmarg said, “Our land is a cold one, and in the long winters our young men have naught to do but huddle in the keeps under the furs, warming the wenches. For as long as our old ones remember, we’ve sold our sons to the highest bidder. We need this war. We need the plunder. More than that, we need lands in the south. And there’s none better to be had than Mystarria. Do you really think we can hold it?”

“With ease,” Anders assured him. “Gaborn’s forces are in disarray. There is far more than just the reavers for them to worry about. When Raj Ahten destroyed the Blue Tower, he killed the vast majority of Gaborn’s Dedicates. Though there be many lords in Mystarria, few of them are Runelords.”

He let those last words settle in. Mystarria was the wealthiest land in all of Rofehavan. For centuries it had been well protected from attack—not because its castles were unassailable, but because of the number and power of its Runelords. With their wealth, the kings of Mystarria bought forcibles—magical branding irons—made from rare blood metal. They used those forcibles to draw attributes such as strength and wit from their subjects.

Now, without Runelords to protect it, the kingdom of Mystarria would not be able to stand for long.

“What’s more,” Anders continued, “to your advantage the vast majority of Gaborn’s troops have marched west to drive Raj Ahten from Mystarria’s borders. They’ll have a tough job of it, for Raj Ahten has leveled several castles, and his men hold the strongest that remain. Gaborn will have to spend his men to dislodge Raj Ahten. With any luck the two are already at one another’s throats. That leaves Gaborn open to attack. Now his coastline is Gaborn’s soft underbelly.”

“Soft, maybe,” Olmarg said, “but soft enough? Mystarria’s men outnumber mine twenty to one. Even with your help—”

“Not mine alone,” Anders assured him. “Beldinook will sweep down from the north, joining us.”

“Beldinook?” Olmarg asked, as if he could not have hoped for such a boon. Beldinook was the second-largest kingdom in all of Rofehavan. “You think old King Lowicker will bestir himself?”

“Lowicker is dead,” Anders said with finality.

At that, several warlords gasped. “How?”

“When?” One fellow downed a mug in the old king’s honor.

“I got word only hours ago,” Anders said. “Lowicker was murdered today by Gaborn’s own hand. His fat daughter is a surly creature. Surely she will demand vengeance.”

“Poor girl,” Olmarg said. “I have a grandson who is not particular about his women. Perhaps I should send him to court her.”

“I was thinking of sending my own son.” Anders grinned.

Olmarg lifted a mug of ale in salute. “May the better man win.”

At that, Anders’s wife got up from her seat at the dinner table and shot Anders a glare. She’d been so quiet the past hour, he’d all but forgotten her. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “I can see that you gentlemen will be up all night trying to figure out how to carve up the world.” She lifted the skirts of her gown and walked stiffly upstairs to the tower loft.

There was a long silence. A burning log shifted in the hearth, as it steadily crumbled to ash.

“Carve up the world...” Olmarg intoned. “I like the sound of that!” The unabashed greed that shone from his single eye gave Anders pause. There was a hardness to his jaw that Anders found chilling. Olmarg was a man without compunction. “And Gaborn is still a pup. It will take little to strike off his head. If I can take a few key cities quickly—dispatch his remaining Dedicates...Gaborn would never be able to retaliate.”

Anders smiled. Olmarg saw things more clearly with one eye than most could with two. The world was turning upside down. It was true that Gaborn’s forces vastly outnumbered them, but without Runelords to lead those forces...