David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

Almost immediately she regretted it. He was covered in dirt, and his ring mail was caked with mud. It would take someone hours to get her bedclothes clean.

“Ah, that will have to wait.” Borenson grinned. “But not too long, of course. Just until I get cleaned up.”

She stared up into his face. The melancholy she’d felt only moments before had dissipated completely. “Go wash, then.”

“Not quite yet,” Borenson chortled. “I’ve got something to show you.”

“You killed me a boar for Hostenfest?” she laughed.

“No boars this Hostenfest,” he answered. “The hunt didn’t go as anticipated.”

“Well, I suppose the lords at the table could make do with a rabbit,” she teased. “Though I shan’t want anything smaller. I never have developed a taste for field mice.”

Borenson smiled mysteriously. “Come on. Hurry.” He went to her wardrobe and pulled down a simple blue dress. Myrrima threw off her nightclothes, pulled on the dress, and began to tie the laces of the bodice. Borenson watched, delighted to be entertained by his new bride. She pulled on some shoes and in moments he had her rushing down the steps of the keep, trying to catch up.

“The hunt didn’t go well,” Borenson said, taking her hand. “We had some casualties.”

She wondered at that. There were still black-furred nomen prowling in the woods, and frowth giants. Raj Ahten had fled south from here more than a week ago, abandoning those troops that were too tired to flee. She wondered how the lords had been killed. “Casualties?

He nodded, unwilling to say more.

In moments they reached the cobblestone street. The morning air carried a keen cold bite, and Myrrima’s breath fogged. Borenson hurried her through the portcullis of the King’s Gate, rushing down Market Street to the city gate. There, just beyond the drawbridge, beside the moat, a huge crowd was gathering.

The fields before Castle Sylvarresta were full of bright pavilions that sprawled like a city of canvas. In the past week, another four hundred thousand peasants and nobles from Heredon and kingdoms beyond had gathered here, come to see the Earth King, Gaborn Val Orden. The fields were becoming an endless maze of tents and animals, enough so that now the tents covered nearby hills, and whole towns were springing up on the plains to the south and west.

Everywhere, merchants and vendors were setting up booths, creating impromptu markets among the host. The scent of cooking sausages hung over the throng, and because this was a feast day, hundreds of minstrels were already warming up their lutes and harps under every tree.

Four peasant boys ahead were singing so badly to pipes and lutes that Myrrima didn’t know if they were serious or if they simply mocked others’ poor efforts.

Borenson nudged aside some peasants and chased away a couple of mastiffs so that Myrrima could see what was at the crowd’s center.

What she saw revolted her: a lump of gray flesh as huge as a wagon lay on the grass, the eyeless head of a reaver. Its feelers hung like dead worms around the back of its skull, and the rows of crystalline teeth looked terrifying as they caught the morning sun. The thing was dirty, having been dragged for many miles. Yet beneath that grime, along the forehead, she could see runes tattooed into the monster’s horrible flesh—runes of power that glowed even now like dim flames. Every child in Rofehavan knew the meaning of those facial runes.

This was no common reaver. It was a mage.

Myrrima’s heart pounded as if it were trying to batter its way out of her chest. She found herself breathing hard, feeling faint. She went suddenly cold, and stood letting the heat of strangers’ bodies warm her while the mastiffs sniffed at the reaver’s head and wagged the stumps of their tails nervously.

“A reaver mage?” she asked dully. No one had killed a reaver mage in Heredon in over sixteen hundred years. She studied the thing’s head. The monster could have bitten a warhorse in half. Or a man.

Peasants tittered; children reached out to touch the horrible thing.

“We caught her in the Dunnwood, down in some old duskin ruins, far underground. She had her mates and offspring there, so we killed them all and crushed her eggs.”

“How many died?” Myrrima asked, dazed.

Borenson did not immediately answer. “Forty-one good knights,” he said at last. “They fought well. It was a fierce battle.” He added as modestly as he could, “I killed the mage myself.”

She wheeled on him, full of rage. “How could you do this?”

Surprised by her reaction, he sputtered, “It wasn’t easy, I confess. The mage gave me a hard time of it. She seemed loath to lose her head.”

Suddenly she saw it all clearly: why she had wakened every morning full of melancholy, why she could hardly sleep nights. She was terrified. She’d sought to wed a man for his wealth, and instead had fallen in love. Meanwhile, her husband seemed more interested in getting himself killed than in making love to her.

She turned and stalked off through the crowd, shoving away bystanders, pushing toward the castle gate, blinded by tears.

Borenson hurried after her, caught her at the foot of the drawbridge and turned her with one big hand. “What are you so mad about?”

The sound of his voice was so loud that it startled a fish down in the reeds of the moat. The water swirled as something large swam away. A throng of people heading into the castle made way for Borenson and Myrrima, skirting them as if they were islands in a stream.

She turned up to face him. “I’m mad because you’re leaving me.”

“Of course I’m leaving you in a few days,” he said. “But not by choice.”

Borenson had killed King Sylvarresta, and Myrrima knew that it shamed him, despite the fact that Sylvarresta had given an endowment to Raj Ahten, lending wit to the Wolf Lord. Though Sylvarresta had been a good man, one who had only given his endowment under duress, the truth was that in such a horrible war as this, friend could not spare friend. Brother could not spare brother.

By granting an endowment of wit to Raj Ahten, King Sylvarresta had made himself an enemy to every just man, and Borenson had felt bound by duty to take the life of his old friend.

Once the deed was done, the King’s daughter, Iome, was loath to punish Borenson, but neither could she forgive him. So in the name of justice she’d lain a quest upon Borenson, commanded him to perform an Act Penitent to go to the lands beyond Inkarra and find the legendary Daylan Hammer, the Sum of All Men, and bring him back here to Heredon to help fight Raj Ahten.

It seemed a fool’s quest. Though rumor said he lived, Daylan Hammer could not still be alive after sixteen centuries. Sir Borenson seemed loath to go, when he saw better ways to protect his people. Still, he was bound by honor to depart—and he’d do so soon.

“I don’t want to go,” Borenson said. “I have to.”

“It’s a long way to Inkarra. A long way for a man to travel alone. I could come with you.”

“No!” Borenson insisted. “You can’t. You’d never make it alive.”

“What makes you think you will?” Myrrima asked. She knew the answer. He was a captain in the King’s Guard, with endowments of brawn and stamina and metabolism. If any man alive could make it through the enemy territories, Borenson could.

Inkarra was a dangerous place: a strange land where northerners weren’t tolerated. Neither he nor Myrrima could blend in easily: the Inkarrans all had skin as pale as ivory, with straight hair the color of silver. Borenson and Myrrima couldn’t disguise themselves enough to hide their foreign birth.

For the most part, the Inkarrans were a nocturnal people. By day, they spent much of their time at home or in the shadowed woods so evading them would be nearly impossible. And if Borenson were captured, he’d be forced to fight in their dark arena.