Fiona McIntosh - Royal Exile

valisar: book one

FIONA McINToSH

Voyager An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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Published by Voyager 2008

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Copyright © Fiona McIntosh 2008

Fiona McIntosh asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2009 ISBN:9780007287826

Version 2019-07-29

For Will McIntosh, Jack McIntosh, Paige Klimentou

and Jack Caddy…

start walking towards your dreams today.

Whatever the dream, no matter how daring or grand , somebody will eventually achieve it . It might as well be you . Bryce Courtenay

Copyright Prologue Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty One Chapter Twenty Two Chapter Twenty Three Chapter Twenty Four Chapter Twenty Five Chapter Twenty Six Chapter Twenty Seven Chapter Twenty Eight Chapter Twenty Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty One Epilogue Glossary Acknowledgments Books By Fiona Mcintosh About the Publisher

King Ormond’s face was ashen. He wore the sunken, resigned expression of a man who knew he had but hours to live. Nevertheless, sitting on his horse, atop the mound overlooking the battlefield, his anger flared, his jaw grinding as he watched the horde from the plains make light work of his soldiers. His attention was riveted on one man: the enemy’s leader, who was easy to pick out in the fray, even from this distance. For while his warriors wore the distinctive colours of their tribe, inked all over their faces and bodies, this man’s skin was clean. His features, like his age, were indeterminate from this distance, but he fought with the speed and physical force of a man in his prime. And he led his men from the front, a sign of his bravado and courage.

‘Look at the arrogance!’ Ormond said, disbelief ringing in his voice. ‘Are we so pathetic that he doesn’t even care to take the precaution of armour? Does he have no fear?’

‘Majesty,’ one of his companions replied wearily. ‘I believe Loethar is driven by something more complex than a desire for victory.’

‘General Marth, what could possibly be more desirable than victory when one goes to war?’ the king challenged, staring down his offsider.

The general looked momentarily lost for words. He looked away towards the carnage, then back to his king. ‘Your highness, this man is not interested in simply winning. He is not looking to conscript a new army from the devastation of ours, or even to preserve much of the realm for his own needs. I sense he is only after humiliation for his enemy. He has shown the Set that his pattern is to kill everyone who carries a weapon against him. There is no mercy in his heart.’

The king shook his head, despair now haunting his expression. ‘I can’t let this continue. It has gone on long enough. He’s been on the rampage for four moons now. Dregon and Vorgaven are conquered and Cremond simply capitulated.’ He gave a sound of disgust. ‘The other realms in the Set that have been attacked have fallen no matter what reinforcements have been sent.’

Clearly forcing himself to remain calm despite the sounds of death below, the general took a breath. ‘As I counselled previously, majesty, it is not that he has an inexhaustible supply of fighters but that he has used his men with great cunning and insight. There has been nothing disorganised about his attack on the Set’s realms; it has been very strategic and we have not accorded him the respect he deserved. We should have taken him seriously when his men first started appearing. We should have sent our own men to help the Dregons and Vorgavese —’

‘For Lo’s sake, man! If Penraven didn’t why would we? Brennus obviously thought Ranuld could hold Vorgaven.’

‘We’re all neighbours, highness. We are the Set. We should have combined all our resources. Penraven has the largest army, the most well equipped army, the greatest number of weapons —’

‘Yes but still he didn’t! King Brennus chose not to send his men. Why? Because he trusted Ranuld to keep his end strong against this rabble upstart.’

General Marth looked away again, and like his king his gaze was helplessly drawn to the horde’s ruthless leader as his sword swung, hacking into one of their men’s necks. They saw the spume of blood explode and watched another life be given cheaply to the insatiable ruler of the plains tribes. The general turned back, a fresh look of fury on his face. ‘No, majesty. I don’t think the Valisar king trusts any of us. Forgive me, I know you consider him a friend, but King Brennus is not coming to anyone’s aid. I suspect he has seen the error of his confidence, knows the threat to Penraven is very real. In light of that we are expendable. His priority always has been, always will be, Penraven. He is saving his men for the final confrontation.’

King Ormond’s gaze narrowed. ‘He sent men to Dregon, he even —’

Marth shook his head sadly. ‘A token gesture, highness. We needed to combine our armies to chase this barbarian from our midst. Instead we brazenly allowed him the chance for his early and shocking victory against Dregon and Vorgaven — his audacity to fight not only on two fronts and two borders but to take both cities. His men are not mere rabble, highness. These are warriors … trained ones. We should have crushed him the moment he took his first footsteps into the Set.’

‘We all agreed to wait and see what his intentions were.’

‘Not all of us, highness,’ General Marth replied and the bitterness in his voice was tempered by sorrow. ‘We didn’t act fast enough. We all left it to each other.’

‘But who would have thought Cremond would not even offer the slightest resistance? Why? Do they want a tribal thug as their ruler?’ Marth shook his head, seemingly unable to offer any light on the Cremond capitulation although it was a longheld belief within the rest of the Set that Cremond, rarely considering itself as close to the other realms, often tended to behave in a contrary fashion. ‘And then who in his right mind marches across the region, ignoring Barronel, in order to take Vorgaven at the same time as Dregon? None of it makes sense.’

‘None of it makes sense because that was his intention. Loethar constantly caught us off guard. If we’d acted with speed at the outset we likely would have cut him off before he even established a foothold. Now he’s had these four moons to put our backs to the wall, to somehow convince Penraven — in its own arrogance — to wait and see what happens. Did we really think he was going to say “thank you” and go home?’