David Farland - The Sum of All Men

Orden wondered. He did not want to kill Sylvarresta. Yet if Sylvarresta succumbed to Raj Ahten, then it became Orden's duty. The Kings of Rofehavan needed to know that no one could give endowments to the Wolf Lord. No one would be permitted to do so and live. Not even Orden's best friend.

“We will do what we must to our friends, our kin,” King Orden said to himself as much as to Borenson, “if they serve the enemy. That is our duty. This is war.”

Shortly before dawn, the sounds of many clanking chains preceded Binnesman into the King's audience hall; then the guards dragged the herbalist in to face Raj Ahten, as Iome watched.

She shuddered and hid in a darkened corner, afraid somehow that Binnesman would spot her, would loathe her very existence. In the past few hours, she'd had time to inspect the rune of power branded into the skin of her breast. It was a complex thing, a horrid thing that tried to draw far more than mere beauty from her. It tried to draw her pride, her hope.

Though she fought the influence of the rune, though she denied this boon to Raj Ahten, still she felt less than human. A mere rag in the corner, something that cringed and watched.

Legend said that long ago, the facilitator Phedrosh had created a rune of will, a symbol that sapped the strength of mind from its victims. Had Raj Ahten had such a magic symbol built into the rune that had branded Iome, she'd not have been able to deny him.

Now she felt grateful that Phedrosh had destroyed that rune of power and the secret of its making, before he fled to Inkarra.

As Binnesman was dragged to the room, his shackles rattled. Strong irons bound Binnesman neck to foot, hand to hand. Two guards merely lugged him across the plank floor, threw him at Raj Ahten's feet.

Four of the Wolf Lord's flameweavers walked beside the herbalist, all hairless, dark of skin. Three young-looking men and a single woman, all with that peculiar dancing light in their eyes that only flameweavers have. The male flameweavers had donned saffron silk robes, the woman a crimson mantle.

As the woman drew near, in the lead, Iome could feel the heat of her skin, a dry heat, as if her flesh were a warming stone to put in a bed on a cold night.

Iome felt the woman's powers in another way: a feverish lust came with her, mingled with a curious intellectual arousal. This lust was nothing like the earthy sensuality that Iome felt in Binnesman's presence—a desire to bear children, to feel small lips suckling at her breast. No, the flameweavers carried a consuming need to rape, to take, an undirected rage all finely controlled by keen intellect.

Poor Binnesman looked a dirty wreck. He was covered from head to foot in grimy ash, yet his sky-blue eyes showed no fear as he looked up.

You should fear, Iome thought. You should. No one could withstand Raj Ahten, the light in his face, the power of his voice. In the past few hours, she'd seen things she could not have imagined: Two hundred of her father's guard had granted endowments. Most needed little persuasion. A look at Raj Ahten's face, an encouraging word, and they gave themselves.

Few even thought of resisting. Captain Derrow, of the palace guard, asked to forbear swearing fealty to Raj Ahten, saying he was oath-bound to serve House Sylvarresta. He therefore begged to serve as a guard in the Dedicates' Keep, pointing out that other great houses would now send assassins to dispatch Sylvarresta. Raj Ahten agreed, but only on the condition that Derrow give a lesser endowment, one of hearing.

Another who begged no boon faced rougher treatment. Captain Ault refused the Wolf Lord entirely, had cursed him and wished him death.

Raj Ahten had heard the reviling with patience and a smile, but afterward, the woman in crimson had taken the captain's hand, tenderly. Then her eyes flashed in laughter as the captain burst into flames from toe to head and just stood, screaming and writhing as the fires consumed his flesh, melted his armor. The room had echoed with his shrieks. The odor of charred flesh and hair clung to the walls of the room even now.

Ault's blackened corpse was placed downstairs at the entry to the King's Keep.

So humbly now the people of Castle Sylvarresta came to stand before their new lord and give obeisance. Raj Ahten spoke calmly to them, his face shining like the sun, his voice as unperturbable as the sea.

All night long, Raj Ahten's troops had been marshaling the richest of the local merchants into the keep, seeking tributes of gold and endowments. The people gave to him whatever he asked, would give all that they had.

Thus, Raj Ahten had finally heard the name of the young man who had killed his giants, his outriders, and mastiffs on his errand to warn King Sylvarresta of the impending invasion. Even now, Raj Ahten's trackers scoured the Dunnwood, searching for young Prince Orden.

King Sylvarresta sat on the floor at Raj Ahten's feet. His neck had been tied to the foot of the throne, and King Sylvarresta, with all the naivete of a kitten, kept pulling at the rope, trying to chew it in half. The idea of untying himself did not occur to the King. Iome watched her father at Raj Ahten's feet, and even to her, Raj Ahten seemed great. His glamour so affected her that somehow she felt it fitting that her father should be there. Other kings kept dogs or great cats at their feet as pets. But Raj Ahten was more than a common leader. He deserved to have kings at his feet.

At Raj Ahten's side stood his personal guard, two counselors, and the fifth of his flameweavers, a woman whose very presence made Iome tremble, for she could sense the flameweaver's power. She wore a midnight-blue robe, loosely tied over her naked body. And she stood now before a silver brazier, like a large platter on a pedestal, on which she had placed twigs and knots of fiery wood. The green flames rose some three or four feet above the brazier.

Once that night, the woman had looked up from her brazier, her eyes shining with fierce delight, and said to Raj Ahten, “Good news, O Shining One, your assassins seem to have slaughtered King Gareth Arrooley of Internook. His light no longer shines in the earth.”

On hearing this, Iome felt awed. So Raj Ahten was attacking more than one king of the North. She wondered at the depth of his plans. Perhaps we are all fools compared with him, she thought, as ignorant as my father tied at Raj Ahten's feet.

Now Raj Ahten gazed down at Binnesman in the light thrown from the pyromancer's brazier, and thoughtfully scratched at his beard.

“What is your name?” Raj Ahten asked the wizard.

Binnesman looked up, “My name is Binnesman.”

“Ah, Binnesman. I know your work well. I've read your herbals.” Raj Ahten smiled at him, patiently, glanced up at the pyromancer. “You bring him in chains? I would not have it so. He seems harmless.”

The flameweaver beside the Wolf Lord gazed at Binnesman as if in a trance, eyes unfocused, staring past him, as if she sought to work up the nerve to kill him.

“Harmless enough, Your Lordship,” Binnesman answered in a strong voice. Though he still crouched on all fours, he watched the Wolf Lord casually.

“You may rise,” Raj Ahten said.

Binnesman nodded, struggled to his feet, though his chains kept him bowed so he could not raise his neck. Now Iome could see more clearly that he wore manacles at his feet, that his hands were cuffed, and that a short, heavy iron chain led from manacles to cuffs to neck. Though Binnesman could not stand upright, the bowed stance did not bother him. He'd hunched over plants for so many years, his back had become stooped.

“Beware of him, my lord,” the pyromancer at Raj Ahten's side whispered. “He has great power.”

“Hardly,” Binnesman chided. “You've destroyed my garden, the work of master gardeners for over five hundred years. The herbs and spices I'd have harvested are all lost. You are known as a pragmatic man, Raj Ahten. Surely you know these were things of no small benefit!”