Энтони Райан - Queen of Fire

“If this continues for much longer,” Astorek said, “your queen will have nothing left to conquer.”

“Except land,” said the Ally, the entire company starting at the sound of his voice. He cast a dispassionate eye over the carnage before adding, “Land is the only true wealth in a world like this. Your queen will do rather well out of it all, I expect. Pity I canʼt let her keep it.”

“You might speak differently,” Vaelin told him, “if you had met her.”

He couldnʼt dream. Every night he lay down and slept, falling into slumber with barely a pause, and each time his sleep remained free of dreams. He had dreamt every night in the Emperorʼs dungeon, of Dentos, Sherin, even Barkus. At the time he had thought it a torment, well-earned torture fulfilling a desire the Emperor resisted. Now he knew it as a blessing. Dahrena was gone, truly and completely, and he was denied even the delusion of a dream, the brief, precious lie that she still lived, even though the waking would be hard, when the knowledge descended like an axe blade as he reached for the cold, empty place beside him. Still, he yearned for it.

“She spoke of you.”

Vaelin rose from his bedroll, avoiding the Allyʼs gaze. The hour was early and the sky not yet bright enough to see well, rendering the Ally a slumped, shadowed form on the other side of the still-smoking ashes of last nightʼs fire. “Donʼt you want to know what she said?” he asked.

“Why choose now to speak again?” Vaelin countered. “Is it because we draw nearer to Volar?”

“No, just honest boredom. Also, you primitives are proving more diverting by the day. I may have bequeathed you an age of ignorance but you do make it interesting. Tell me, why didnʼt you keep that manʼs head? Presumably there was some ritual significance in taking it.”

“Can you really be so ignorant of us? You have orchestrated havoc in this world for centuries. How can you know so little?”

“I see only through the eyes of those snared in the Beyond, and even then the visions are often dim. Death does things to a soul, stripping away much that gives it substance. There was a philosopher in my time who argued that the sum of a soul is merely memory, the soul itself no more than metaphor.”

“Evidently he was wrong.”

“Was he? Havenʼt you ever wondered why it is only the Gifted who reside in the Beyond? Can it be only they are worthy of soulhood and all these other unblessed condemned to slip into nothing when death claims them?”

“Life has taught me to be tolerant of mysteries, especially those with no answer.”

The Ally laughed, soft and sincere, then shuffled closer. His features became clear as he leaned forward, his gaze intent and questing, seeking understanding. “I am the answer. The Beyond is not the eternal domain of the dead, it is the result of folly and pride, it is a scab covering a seeping wound, eternally corrupted and corrupting. To exist there is to know the chill of death for all eternity, to feel yourself slowly ebb away until you are nothing but formless consciousness, shorn of memory but aware, knowing nothing but that endless cold.”

“And yet, somehow, you retain enough reason to plague us.” Vaelin rose, moving to the Allyʼs side, crouching and leaning close to voice his demands in a harsh whisper. “What is your gift? What awaits us in Volar?”

The Ally said nothing for a moment, Vaelin seeing the calculation return to his gaze. “She spoke of how much she loved you, how you mended a heart torn by grief. Though she worried over the woman you loved before her, fearing when this war was done you would seek her out. But mostly she worried for the child you made together. She hoped for a girl but knew it would be a boy, a boy who might one day be tempted by his fatherʼs martial ways…”

The Ally reeled from the blow, blood and teeth erupting from his mouth. Vaelin was only dimly aware of the feel of his fist pounding Erlinʼs features into bloody ruin, or the torrent of hate that spilled from his mouth, and he never felt Alturkʼs war club clip the base of his skull, sending him into the deepest sleep.

And this time the dreams came.

“Lord Lakrhil Al Hestian is hereby appointed Battle Lord of the Queenʼs Host.”

She had called them to the templeʼs tallest tower, far above the smouldering pyres that littered the plain. The dark red mass of slain Arisai could be seen, stripped of weapons then piled near the riverbank and left to rot. “These men had no souls,” she said when Brother Kehlan made a tentative suggestion some form of observance might be appropriate. “One cannot honour what does not exist.”

She scanned the faces of the captains, seeking sign of dissent, but whatever feelings they might have harboured towards the elevation of a man named a traitor were kept well hidden. They know me too well now, she surmised, oddly dismayed by their timidity. Only Lords Nortah and Antesh exhibited any clear reaction. The Lord Marshal gave a silent and weary shake of his head. He and Al Hestian had a tendency to ignore one another with the kind of rigid indifference that told of deep mutual enmity, the spike protruding from Al Hestianʼs stunted right arm a constant and inescapable reminder of a long-unresolved grievance. The reaction of her Lord of Archers was more pronounced, his face tensed in suppressed anger.

No desire to follow the butcher of Greenwater Ford, Lyrna surmised. How fortunate I have another card to play.

“Lord Marshal Nortah will assume command of the Dead Company in his stead,” she went on. “The Queenʼs Daggers are hereby enrolled in the Mounted Guard under command of Lord Iltis.”

She turned to Al Hestian, “Battle Lord, your report on the state of the Queenʼs Host, if you please.”

“Our full losses amount to little over fifteen hundred men, Highness,” he replied. “Plus three hundred wounded and unable to fight. Three regiments besides the Queenʼs Daggers were so badly mauled I must advise they be merged into one. However, our losses may be considered slight in comparison to the enemy. More than thirty thousand slain and a thousand captured, the remainder fled and in no state to fight again. Count Marven deserves great credit for such a victory.”

One of the Nilsaelin twins spoke up, the one with the red-enamelled breastplate though Lyrna still found it of little help in distinguishing between the two. “Our noble grandfather will ensure his memory is honoured the length and breadth of Nilsael. My brother and I will personally fund the construction of a statue in Meanshall.”

Lyrna pushed away the image of Marvenʼs bleached, panicked face, weeping as she pressed the cloth to his burning brow. He would rather have just gone home to suffer his wifeʼs cutting tongue.

“A thousand prisoners?” she asked Al Hestian.

“Indeed, Highness. I intended to ask what you wanted done with them.”

“The riverʼs deep and fast-flowing,” Baron Banders pointed out. “Spare us the effort of cutting so many throats.”

The other captains exchanged nods and murmurs of agreement, though she noted Nortahʼs grimace of disgust. “No,” she said. “They are to be preserved. Wounded are to be cared for and food provided. I understand from Brother Hollun most hail from this province.”

“They do, Highness,” Al Hestian confirmed. “Theyʼre an uncommonly poor lot for Volarian soldiery, I must say. Few veterans among them, most little more than boys conscripted barely two months ago.”