Elizabeth Haydon - Destiny - Child of the Sky

The torches were just beginning to be lit in the darkening hallways of the Cauldron when Greevus knocked on the door of the council room behind the Great Hall. Achmed did not look up from the field map he had been examining; Grunthor waved him into the room, then turned back to the map as well.

Greevus waited in silence as the Sergeant-Major continued to confer with the king. Finally Achmed rolled the map into a tight scroll, irritation apparent in his sharp movements.

“Yes?”

Greevus cleared his throat. “M’lord, bird came in to Griwen Tower with message for you. Seemed strange.”

For the first time since the general had entered the room the king looked up; he fixed his disturbing gaze on Greevus for a moment, then extended a gloved hand. The soldier placed the small scrap of oilskin in the king’s palm, then bowed quickly and retreated to the dancing shadows near the wide hearth.

Achmed and Grunthor exchanged a glance; then the Sergeant-Major strode to the hearth, took a long twig of kindling from the woodpile, and caught a spark from the fireplace. He returned to the table and kindled the lamp on it while the king unrolled the tiny scrap of oilskin beneath it and bent over to read it. A moment later he did so aloud.

King Achmed of Ylorc

Your Majesty:

In great sorrow I have heard R’s tale of the terrible illness that has befallen your people and the tragic loss of your army. I extend my condolences and offer whatever assistance you may need in medicines or burial herbs.

The king and the Sergeant exchanged another glance; then Grunthor dismissed Greevus with a nod. The general bowed, then closed the door behind him.

After a moment Grunthor took off his helm and scratched his head, running his neatly manicured claws through his heavy hair.

“Well, what do ya make o’ that? What is it you’re thinkin’?”

Achmed held up the oilcloth before the fire and read the words again, watching the flames twist behind the paper, their colors and intensity muted. Finally he spoke.

“That I have been wrong about Llauron.” He tossed the oilcloth into the fire where it blazed brightly and vanished in a cloud of acrid smoke.

Grunthor waited patiently as Achmed dropped into a chair before the hearth, brought his fingertips together, and rested them on his lips. The king stared into the fire as if trying to discern its secrets.

“Llauron is not the F’dor,” he said.

“How d’ya know?”

“Rhapsody would never have said such a thing to Llauron—I doubt she even knows about this missive. The story of the illness, the decimation of the army is a lie, of course—and Rhapsody doesn’t lie. This is a message to her as much as to me; there is a coded subtext to it.”

The Sergeant nodded. “Can you tell what it is?”

Achmed’s brow wrinkled above his veils. “I believe so. For some reason of his own, Llauron has intentionally spread this lie; he doesn’t believe it himself. This is his way of making me aware of what he has done. If he were the F’dor, he would never have given me such notice.” Grunthor nodded as Achmed curled forward, staring even deeper into the fire. “Perhaps he is trying to flush the F’dor from its hiding place by disseminating the information that the Bolglands are vulnerable. That would explain the part about the destruction of the army.”

Grunthor’s face grew solemn in the flickering shadows.

“And ya know what that means, then.”

Dark rage burned in the king’s eyes. “Yes. He thinks the F’dor’s host is in a position to take advantage of the situation. I will have to think of a special way to thank him for using my kingdom as demon-bait—if we survive the attack that is no doubt massing at this moment.”

“Come in, Evans; it’s rude to lurk in doorways.”

Evans, Tristan Steward’s elderly councilor and court ambassador, had been standing at the entranceway to the dining room of the Regent’s Palace for some time. He exhaled and crossed the vast hall, his footfalls on the polished marble floor echoing loudly against the tall panes of the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, an architectural hallmark of the palace that was Bethany’s capital seat. The light from the hearth fire cast long shadows through which he passed briskly, musing.

He had swallowed his ire at the sound of the Lord Roland’s voice, thick with drink and self-pity; it was a timbre he had heard much too often over the last few weeks. Whether the regent was mourning the tragic turn of events at the winter festival, or feeling extreme pressure from his recent assumption of command of the Orlandan armies, or merely in a state of panic at his upcoming nuptials, Evans was not certain, but any of those cases seemed to warrant excusing.

The man was, after all, betrothed to Madeleine, the Beast of Canderre. The joke in ambassadorial circles was that Cedric Canderre produced fine, strong libations out of necessity to ensure that someone might one day be drunk enough to seek his daughter’s hand. Tristan must have consumed an entire full-cask by himself, and then some , Bois de Berne, the Avonderrian ambassador, had suggested mirthfully at the time the betrothal was announced. Evans remembered chuckling then; now the sound of the prince’s voice, and all that had happened since those days, only made him want to weep.

“I thought you might want to see this, m’lord,” he said as he approached the regent’s table, noting that Tristan’s supper was largely untouched, but the decanter next to his brandy snifter was empty. “It was discovered at sunset by one of the archers on the western inner tower in the .leg-sleeve of a bird, an avian messenger that most likely got caught in one of the recent storms and misdirected.”

Tristan stared into the snifter, swirling the last of the brandy around, watching the light from the fire dance in rings on the heavily carved dining table. He sighed as Evans held out the oilcloth scrap, lifted his snifter and tossed back the brandy, then held his hand out for the paper.

Evans watched the Lord Roland’s expression metamorphosing each time the shadows shifted on his face as he read the note. First confusion, then shock took hold, changing to wonder, then an almost manic glee. Evans ran his hands up and down his elderly arms to stave off the sudden cold chill that came over him as the prince put down the scrap of oilcloth, threw back his head, and laughed uproariously.

In the darkness of his study the holy man could hear the Lord Roland laughing; whether the sound was carried on the wind, or through the hearth fire, or just in the depths of his mind where he and Tristan were bound he did not know, but he could hear it cleanly, as surely as he could hear the crackle of the flames.

He had no idea why the prince was laughing, but the bloodlust he could hear below the surface of the merriment cheered him immensely.

The stream that flowed from the waterfall was crusted with ice, broken in patches by snowfall. Ashe knelt beside it beneath the boughs of the bare crabapple trees, lost in thought. He had come to cleanse the blood from his sword in the clear water of this place that he thought of as his own, as his safe haven, but was regretting the decision now. It seemed wrong, selfish even, to befoul the icy water, the pristine snow, with the gore he had carried since his last fray in the gently rolling forest of northern Navarne.

After leaving Stephen’s keep he had come upon a Lirin raiding party, small in number but keen in murderous intent. The villagers of the forest settlement, scarred still from the slaughter of the winter solstice festival, were making a good rally of it, fighting for their homes with pitchforks, harrows, and scythes. Ashe could smell the burning cinders from the thatched huts that the Lirin had set aflame from several leagues’ distance, and so turned his sword and his attention first to melting the snow that burdened the heavy boughs of the forest evergreens which sheltered the village. Kirsdarke’s blade had run in intense blue-white rivers as he held it above his head, commanding the element of frozen water to thaw and pour down from the trees, quenching the fire.