David Farland - The Sum of All Men

Raj Ahten brought his spy balloon out, tied its basket to a stout tree, and set a flameweaver to heating the air for it.

Then the Wolf Lord let the remainder of his men eat and relax. Raj Ahten himself rested in the shade of the single huge oak tree on the hill, thirty feet from his Dedicates' wagon. He sat on pillows covered in purple silk, and ate dates and rice while he studied Longmot's defenses.

He counted only some four thousand men on the walls—a haphazard collection of nobles, young boys, and ruffians. The wizard Binnesman was not with them. Nor did Raj Ahten see Jureem.

“A king is coming, a king who can destroy you!” The words rang through

Raj Ahten's memory. King Orden was all shimmering in green samite, with his gold shield.

The king of one of the world's most powerful nations. It gave him pause. The men here on the walls would fight like berserkers for such a king. This was the kind of battle songs were made of. And if Raj Ahten was right, Orden was the Earth King.

Raj Ahten's Invincibles would normally take such a castle with relative ease. Yet, today, he felt uncertain.

Though he did not tremble at the sight of the warriors on the wall, something about their positioning bothered him—a wrongness that left him unbalanced. He studied the men, checking their spacing, armaments, armor, and expressions. He could see worry in their faces, saw that those who had no armor were evenly spaced between those who did. The men were clustered in fighting groups—pikemen and swordsmen together, archers at their backs.

Nothing he saw explained the worry that gnawed him.

The moat around the castle was brackish and foul this time of year, a breeding ground for mosquitoes and disease. A corpse floated in the moat. Despite the fact that the water was stagnant, Raj Ahten knew from his own measurements that it was quite deep—some forty feet. Too deep to let sappers easily dig at the castle's founding stones.

There had been a city here last week, a small city of five thousand souls. Over generations, the walls of the city had crept within bowshot of the castle. One could have moved siege engines up behind those homes, tossed rocks over the battlements. But Orden's soldiers had wisely burned the city, cleared the ground of cover in preparation for battle.

No, this castle could not easily be taken, not with four or five thousand men on the walls, others waiting in the baileys and towers. The castle's armaments were well stocked. He'd seen arrows piled in the armory not a week ago.

He sighed. If Raj Ahten laid siege to the castle through the winter, Orden's men might be forced to burn some of those arrows just to stay warm. But, of course, this siege would not last so long.

An hour before noon, General Vishtimnu still had not arrived, and the first six catapults were built. Raj Ahten's men fashioned a hundred crude siege ladders and brought them to the hill, laid them out, ready for battle.

The far-seers in the balloon could spot few men inside the castle—most held the walls, though several hundred knights waited on their mounts in the inner bailey. None of the inhabitants from the city were inside the gates. The only exception was possibly the Dedicates' Keep, where two hundred of Orden's elite guard watched the keep. Perhaps Orden had drained some of the people of this city for endowments, and hundreds of Dedicates secreted in the keep. Yet the keep could not hold many.

This was good news. Though Orden had captured the forcibles, he did not have forty thousand or even four thousand people here who could have granted endowments.

It meant that the vast majority of the forcibles might still be within the castle, unused.

Raj Ahten had four hundred forcibles remaining in his possession from the hoard he'd taken to Castle Sylvarresta.

He called his facilitators and studied his assets. Most of the forcibles were worthless to him. The irons bore only runes of the senses. He had no use for more endowments of hearing or smell or touch.

He'd used most of the forcibles for taking major endowments in subduing Sylvarresta. None in his hoard bore runes of strength or grace. He had many of wit.

To his surprise, he found only twelve forcibles that bore the runes of metabolism.

He wished now that he'd brought more. A cold uncertainty took him as he pondered. His pyromancer had gazed into the future, warned him that a king in Heredon could slay him. He'd already humbled Sylvarresta. So it was Orden.

And Orden had surely taken endowments of metabolism. A Runelord of his stature would not need more grace or brawn in battle. He would not need more wit. Stamina would be of some help. But the only attribute that would let him defeat Raj Ahten would be metabolism.

But how much had Orden taken? Twenty endowments? Orden was chronologically in his mid-thirties, but if he had taken the customary endowment of metabolism after rearing his family, he'd have a physiological age close to forty-five. Even a dozen endowments of stamina could not completely ameliorate the effects of his advancing age. So he'd have endowments of brawn, grace, stamina, and wit to counteract his aging.

Raj Ahten's spies had told him that as of a year ago, Orden had had over a hundred endowments to his reckoning. How many over a hundred, Raj Ahten could not guess.

At any event, Orden would be a worthy adversary. So how many endowments of metabolism had he taken? Five? No, that would be too few. Fifty? If so, he'd have taken his death. He would age and wither within a year. Raj Ahten would not even need to fight today. He could simply withdraw his troops for the winter, and Orden would age. By spring he'd be a dotard.

It was said that in the days of Harridan the Great, the messenger Marcoriaus had so needed speed to deliver news of the impending battle at Polypolus that he'd taken a hundred endowments of metabolism—enough so that he ran barefoot across the Caroll Sea, relying only on the surface tension of the water to keep him aloft. Marcoriaus had died within three months, of course.

But the idea of such phenomenal speed attracted some men. Yet, such speed could be a great danger. A Runelord who moved too suddenly, too sharply, could snap a leg. The force of an object seeking to remain at rest was too great. It took a great deal of wit and grace to learn how to move with control.

Orden had that wit and grace, and now he might have the metabolism to go with it.

So, King Orden would have taken between ten and twenty endowments of metabolism, Raj Ahten decided.

He would need to match him.

Or, I could take endowments of metabolism, then kill my own Dedicates afterward.

He had used the tactic before. However, in order to maintain the proper fighting spirit among his men, he'd made certain that he left no witnesses.

“Call to me the twelve Invincibles who have great endowments of metabolism,” Raj Ahten told Hepolus, his chief facilitator. “I need them.”

The facilitators left the tent, hurried back a few minutes later, bringing the desired Invincibles—elite guards and assassins who each had at least three endowments of metabolism. They were all big men, strong of bone, so that they could handle the stress of great brawn and metabolism. And they were strong in wit and grace. He would sorely miss any one of them.

Raj Ahten knew his men well. The man he least valued was Salim al Daub, an old household guard who had been elevated in status several times, despite the fact that Salim had failed him as an assassin. Twice he'd gone to kill Prince Orden, and twice he'd returned a failure, with only the ears of women and children.

“Thank you for coming, my friends,” Raj Ahten said when he'd decided. “You have all served me valiantly for many years. I ask now that you serve me once again, for I need your metabolism. You, my friend Salim, will have the honor to serve as vector.”