David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

As Gaborn studied the swirling miasma of humanity, his mouth gaped open in astonishment and horror.

Iome understood now. He was so new to his power, so unused to it, that he wielded it clumsily. He could not afford to wield it so. His power was like a sword, a weapon that was only useful if the arm that wielded it could parry and thrust with accuracy. He was trying to learn his strokes now.

And so much depended on those strokes—the lives of every man, woman, and child in this vast throng.

But even as she watched, she realized that he witnessed an even greater horror. As Earth King, he had power to warn his people, but he could not force them to obey. He could not compel them to act in their own best interests.

With the issuing of his second command, the confusion began to ease. Gaborn sent them a third warning, asking them to calm themselves and care for one another. People all took a moment to stop and stare up at Gabon. Tents and pavilions still fell with marvelous rapidity, but now parents raced back to their children, while strangers went to help the elderly. Iome no longer worried that people in the lead might be crushed under the feet of those behind.

Gaborn nodded in approval, turned to Iome and hugged her.

“Are you leaving now?” she asked, not wanting him to go.

“Yes,” he said. “King Orwynne and the others are already mounted, and we have far to travel today. Few of the horses will be able to handle such a pace. I’ve sent messengers to Queen Herin the Red and on into Beldinook, asking them each to host us for a day. We’ll travel without cooks or any other camp followers.”

Iome nodded. It would be a hard march without any camp followers, without cooks or washwomen or tents or squires to care for the armor and animals. Yet if they were to travel quickly, they’d have to make do. In troubled times like these, no lord would dare refuse to feed his company. They’d be glad for the reinforcements, and a night’s food and lodging would be small recompense.

Then Gaborn asked something unexpected. “Will you ride with me?” It was not common for a lord to take his wife to war, but it was not common for a lord to desert his wife within six months of the wedding, either. She suspected that it was a hard thing for him to ask

“You ask me to come now?” she said. “You could have asked me hours ago. I’d have been ready.”

“I looked in on you hours ago. You slept fitfully, and you don’t have the stamina to go without sleep and then ride all day. So I had the idea of asking Jureem to stay a few hours this morning and take notes, watch the camp and learn what he can, so that next time I must warn a city to flee, I’ll know how to do it. I thought that you could stay with him, then ride later this morning. Your horses are fast enough so that you should catch up quickly.”

“May I bring Myrrima?” Iome asked. “She’ll want to come, too. I’ll need a lady to keep me company.”

Gaborn frowned slightly. He would not want to take another lord’s wife on what might prove to be a dangerous journey, but saw his wife’s need to follow the rules of propriety. “Of course.”

He stared, his dark blue eyes gauging her. “I saw the pups in bed with you.”

“You weren’t there,” she said in her own defense. “I needed something to keep me warm.”

“Are the nights so cold?”

“‘The Knights are Hot in Heredon,“ ‘ she said, quoting the title of a bawdy ballad that she’d never heard openly sung in her presence.

Gaborn laughed uproariously and his face reddened. “So, my wife wants to be a wolf lord and slouch about alehouses now, singing bawdies and showing her legs!” Gaborn said. “Queen of the byways! People will say I’m a bad influence.”

“Do you disapprove?”

Gaborn smiled. “No. If I did not have my endowments already, I might have slept with some pups last night. I’m...relieved that you accepted Duke Groverman’s gift. He will be delighted that he has served you so well.” Gaborn considered for a moment. “I’ll have the treasurer set aside forcibles for your personal use. A hundred should do.”

“I will have Jureem bring some extra puppies for you, too, then,” Iome said. “You are going into battle soon.”

Iome grabbed him and kissed him on impulse, then suddenly realized she was kissing him here on the tower, while probably not less than ten thousand eyes were watching. She pushed back in embarrassment. “Sorry,” she said. “The people are staring.”

“They saw us kiss at the wedding,” Gaborn said, “and as I recall, some cheered.” He kissed her again. “Until this afternoon, then?”

“Thank you,” she replied.

Gaborn bit his lip, smiled worriedly, and said, “Never thank a man for taking you into battle until after the war is over.”

Then he turned and raced down the hatch at the top of the tower. In moments she saw him striding out of the keep, along the cobbled streets to the King’s Gate, then he was lost as he moved down to the blackened corner of Market Street, where he’d killed the flameweaver last week. Masons had been hard at work repairing the damage to the buildings there, but cleaning and replacing the stone faces of the market would take months or years, and already the place was being referred to by the locals as the “Black Corner.” Iome imagined that four hundred years from now, strangers getting directions to some establishment would be told, “Aye, the silversmith’s shop is up on the Black Corner, toward the portcullis,” and everyone would understand what it meant.

If we are lucky enough to live so long, she thought.

Then she got to work. She packed her own things, then had some servants and a new guardsman—a powerful young lad named Sir Donnor out of Castle Donyeis—go with her to the King’s treasury to remove all the gold and precious spices and armor and forcibles.

Gaborn had taken twenty thousand forcibles south to return to Raj Ahten, in hopes that the Wolf Lord would agree to his terms for a truce. Yet he still had ten thousand forcibles in the treasury, along with other gifts that had been given recently by lords of Heredon. The gifts included plate mail for Gaborn and barding for Gaborn’s horse given by Duke Mardon upon their wedding, but which Gaborn would not take into this battle, because of its onerous weight. In addition, there was a good deal of gold and spices given in revenue, for the harvest taxes were normally paid during the week of Hostenfest. The sum total amounted to several thousand pounds of treasure. So she had the servants quietly haul it all up to the tombs, where she locked it in the vault among the bones of her grandparents.

This feat in itself took her two hours, and when she had finished, the thought struck her that she ought to check on Binnesman, for she had not yet seen him, and she worried that he might need the help of some servants before they all left the city.

When she went to his room down in the basement of the keep, he was not there, though a fire burned in an old hearth, and the air smelled heavily of simmering verbenaan herb with a lemony scent, often decocted to make perfumes. Indeed the fresh fragrance filled the whole basement, and smelled like liquid sunshine. In the buttery Iome found Chancellor Rodderman’s daughter, a sharp-eyed girl of eight, who had stayed in the keep while her father made certain that it was properly evacuated. The girl reported that Binnesman had left at dawn, saying that he would search the manor gardens down in the city for goldenbay, succory, and faith raven.

Iome abandoned that concern for a moment. Instead she made her way to the Dedicate’s Keep, to make sure that the Dedicates had been evacuated

In the past week the keep had become a different place. Sir Borenson, acting upon the orders of Gaborn’s father, had slain all of the Dedicates here, for Raj Ahten had forced her father’s troops to grant him endowments, thus seizing attributes from thousands of Sylvarresta’s people. Borenson’s had been a horrific deed, and though part of Iome was grateful that someone had had the courage to do it, another part of her was still shocked and saddened. Many of the Dedicates had been servants who’d offered the use of their minds or brawn, stamina, or metabolism into the service of King Sylvarresta. Their only crime had been to love their lord and seek to serve him as best they were able. Yet when the knights to whom they had granted endowments were captured, forced to grant endowments of their own, the Dedicates had become converted to the use of a monster like Raj Ahten. Since no one could hope to slay Raj Ahten, his enemies best hope was to weaken him which meant slaughtering the enfeebled and innocent Dedicates. Borenson’s feat had been a grisly task, killing fools who did not know that their own deaths were upon them, butchering those who had given metabolism in their endless slumber, murdering those so weak from having given brawn so that they could not even raise their hands to ward off a blow.