David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

Gaborn had not used the Earth Sight to gaze into the hearts of every man and woman in the horde. He’d looked into the heart of only one. Marshal Skalbairn—and had sworn never to Choose him.

Now he repented of that vow, but not for the sake of Skalbairn. He hoped only that if Skalbairn fought valiantly, his deeds might save the lives of a few hundred or a thousand common folk who were more worthy of life than was Skalbairn.

As the lines of power formed between Gaborn and thousands of new subjects, Gaborn silently whispered words that only the High Marshal could hear.

“That is right,” Gaborn said, shame making the blood rise hot to his face. “I Choose you, though you have slept with your own mother and fathered your own crippled, idiot sister. You have committed abomination and have loved the deed as you love your own child. Though I abhor what you have done, I Choose even you.”

I am free to do this, Gaborn told himself. I am free to Choose. He felt in his own heart, wishing that he could know the Earth’s will in this matter.

If the Earth objected, Gaborn was not aware. He did not feel his power drain from him or notice some other sign of the Earth’s reprisal. All he felt was death’s heavy hand waiting to smite every man, woman, and child in the valley before him. And with it he felt the Earth’s command, still vague and as yet undefined: “Strike! Strike now!”

Gaborn spoke to the heart of every man and woman in his army, relaying his message.

High Marshal Skalbairn nodded, signifying that he had heard Gaborn. Then he turned and blew his greathorn, sending his warriors to charge into battle.

Gaborn’s eyes look haunted, Erin Connal thought as she rode for Carris. Erin had often seen that same expression, that same heavy weight on her mother’s brow. Everyone thinks Gaborn is invincible because he is the Earth King, she realized. They don’t know how many nights he sits awake, worrying for them.

Erin guessed from his expression of horror that little good would come from this battle. She resolved to stay at his side, to protect him to the last. I could use my body to shield his, she thought, if I have to. I might be able to trade my life for his.

Erin glanced from Gaborn to her left, to the wizard Binnesman at his far side. Binnesman rode a great gray Imperial warhorse that he’d stolen from Raj Ahten more than a week ago. The beast had so many endowments of wit and brawn that it hardly looked like a creature of flesh and blood. Fierce intelligence shone in its eyes, intelligence equal to a man’s in measure but not in kind. No, his mount looked not at all like an animal. It looked like a force of nature, or like a creature of granite.

Though the brown mists that smelled so much of rot made Erin feel weak, she still wanted to kill something. Not one something, she told herself. Many somethings. Raj Ahten, her father’s assassin, for one. She wanted to slay reavers, enough reavers to wash away her cold anger.

The sky overhead was leaden, the sun fading like a cinder over the hills. Her mount breathed deeply, its nostrils flaring, its breath coming out cold. It wanted to run, knew it was time to fight.

Yet she had to keep the pace slow to accommodate the footmen of the Righteous Horde. She had not yet seen a reaver.

The smell of horseflesh came strong all around her, and the knights trotted along wordlessly, the ching of ring mail singing in the wild autumn air, the sound of the occasional lance or shield clacking against armor, the thud of hooves, the snorting and neighing of horses.

Erin bore no lance, for she’d not wanted to carry one all the way from Fleeds to Mystarria only to have it break on her first pass with some knight.

Now, with all the reavers ahead, she wished she were better armed. A reaver’s crystalline bone was hard as rock, and many a weapon would shatter on impact with one of the monsters. But it would be hard to kill a reaver with anything smaller than a heavy lance.

She wheeled her mount, headed back toward the carters’ wagons, looking for a wain with a long bed. “Lance?” she cried.

Ahead, a boy in a long-bedded wagon got up from his seat and jumped into a wagon bed to get a lance while the driver at his side continued to drive.

Erin grabbed the heavy lance.

Prince Celinor raced close to her on a mount borrowed from her mother’s stables.

The young man was ashen-faced, his jaw set. “Lance?” he called to the boy, getting a weapon of his own.

He glanced Erin’s way, patted a sheathed Crowthen war axe with its six-foot-long handle and huge single spike. It was a clumsy weapon for fighting men, but it had never been designed for men. The great prong was ideal for cracking a reaver’s carapace.

“Don’t worry,” Celinor said. “I’ll protect you.”

His sentiment astonished her.

You’ll protect me? she wanted to mock. He was not Chosen, after all. Of the entire horde racing toward Carris, she realized, he alone had not been Chosen. Gaborn had raised his hand, Chosen every last blacksmith’s helper and whore in the company. But Gaborn’s back had been to Prince Celinor at the time.

No, if anyone would be needing protection it was, Celinor.

It will be up to me to watch out for him, Erin thought. Her loyalties were divided. She gritted her teeth and nodded toward Gaborn. “Stay by him!” she begged.

Celinor smiled wryly, adopted the tone of a patron dickering with a street vendor. “So, I have been wondering, Horsesister Connal, what deed today would convince you that I’m worthy of a night in your bed?”

Erin merely laughed.

“I’m serious,” he said.

“I’d not be worrying about it, if I were you. How could your head be so woolly as to think of such things now?”

“War and women: I find them both exciting. Is it valor you want? I’ll be fearless. Is it strength and cunning you seek in a man? I’ll give it a try. What if I, saved your life today? Would that earn me a night in your bed?”

“I’m not some serf from Kartish. I’d not be your slave just because you save my life.”

“Not even for a night?”

Erin studied his eyes. Celinor smiled at her as if he jested, but behind that smile she saw concern, as if she looked into the eyes of a child.

He did not jest: He wanted her desperately, and he feared her rejection. He was not a bad man, she knew. He was handsome, and strong enough. He had fine composition. If she’d been looking for a man to sire a child on her, she’d have considered him.

So she dared not reject him out of hand. But although she found his looks and build captivating, it impressed her more that he understood the political consequences of what he asked, yet asked it anyway. He was not seeking a mere night of diversion; he wanted to court her as best he knew how. She was not some tender flower of a girl, after all, she was a horsewoman of Fleeds.

“All right,” Erin said. “Prove yourself in battle today—save my life—and maybe I’ll have you for a night.”

“Agreed,” Celinor said. “But that brings to mind another question. What does it take to prove myself worthy as a husband? If perhaps, let us say, I saved you three times?”

Erin laughed aloud, for she thought that unlikely. “Save me three times, and you will be having three nights in my bed,” she teased. But then she spoke softly, provocatively. “But if you want to be my husband, you must prove yourself not on the battlefield...but in my bed.”

Erin turned her gelding and drove on into the gloom. Her face burned with embarrassment. She watched the leaden skies fade as the sun rode down in the west. It was not a beautiful sunset, not a roaring sky of flame or gold just a dimming of the day into night.

She glanced back at Celinor, who hurried to keep up.