David Chandler - Honour Among Thieves

“Not anymore,” Mörgain said, and smiled to show her teeth. Matched with the painted teeth on her lips, they looked like vicious fangs. “I rode here, driving my horse to the point of death by exhaustion. It took me two days. My clansmen are coming on foot. It will take them a little longer. But only a little.”

“So it’s true, what my scouts have told me,” Ulfram said, his voice hollow. “When Cloudblade fell, it cleared a new pass through the mountains.”

“One near as flat as the plains of my birth,” Mörgain agreed.

“And you’ll cross that pass to invade Skrae. For conquest.”

“As is our right. We are stronger than you. We’ve always been stronger than you,” Mörgain said, “and the strong should rule the weak. For centuries now you’ve hidden behind those mountains, just as you hide behind the walls of your cities. It seems even mountains can fall. Where will you hide now, little king?”

Ulfram bristled but he was enough of a statesman not to rise to an obvious taunt. Mörgain might be bigger than him but he didn’t have to fight her himself. “This is an act of aggression. A bald-faced move of conquest.”

Mörgain shrugged. “I am to let you know we were provoked.” She reached inside her wolf-fur cloak and took out something round and coated in tar. She turned it around and Croy saw it had a face on one side. A human head, hacked off and preserved in gruesome fashion.

It was enough to churn his guts. Even worse, he recognized the face. It belonged to a holy man who had once lived in an old fort just west of the Whitewall. Herward was his name, and he was one of the gentlest souls Croy had ever met.

“This one crossed the new pass a week ago. He came to where we were camped for the autumn and spread lies amongst my people. The Great Chieftain of the clans considers this an act of invasion on the part of Skrae.”

“Herward? An invader?” Croy cried out in disbelief. “He was a devotee of the Lady! Perhaps he was not entirely sane.” In fact the hermit had been driven mad by visions and black mead. Still—“He was no threat to you.”

“He spread lies,” Mörgain said again. “He spoke of a god called the Lady. He demanded we give her our worship. In the east we have only one deity—Death, mother of us all. We will not be converted to your decadent religion.”

The king went and took the head from her. He looked down into the distorted features. “This is base rationalization and you know it, Mörgain. One crazed preacher is not an invasion force.”

“I have come for two reasons only,” Mörgain said, “and they are both now achieved. I came to give you warning, for among my people, only base cowards attack without warning. We are coming. You have been warned.”

“And the other reason?” Ulfram asked.

“To prove I have more courage in my heart than any man.”

The king nodded sadly. “I imagine you must. Because you would make an excellent hostage. I could seize you right now and force your clansmen to return to their steppes in exchange for your safety.”

Mörgain laughed.

Croy knew that laugh. He’d heard a deeper, slightly louder version before. Mörget had laughed like that. It was the laugh of one who found violent death to be the ultimate jest.

“Any man who touches me will die. Perhaps some man will kill me, or even take me alive,” she said. “But he will still die. I will be avenged, even if it takes fifty thousand warriors. If it takes every clan of the east, their bodies piled up outside these walls to make siege towers. If it takes the last drop of blood in the last vein of my people, the man who touches me will die. Now. Dare you take me hostage?”

Croy turned to watch the king’s face. There was no fear there. He refused to be intimidated—or at least he refused to let Mörgain see that her threats had worked. Croy felt a certain pride at that. This was the man he served.

“Not when I have a better use for you. Go from here in peace,” Ulfram said, “and take word to your Great Chieftain. I’ll meet with him under the flag of parley, in a place and time of his choosing. Go. I will not stay you. Frankly I don’t want you in my home another second.”

After Mörgain left, no one spoke for some while. Croy grew uneasy, standing against the wall with his hand on his sword hilt. The king, his liege, was clearly distressed—Ulfram sat in his chair, chin in hand, deep in thought.

“It’s far worse than I thought,” the king said, at last. “I thought they would give us a chance to pay tribute in exchange for peace.” He shook his head. “Croy—Sir Croy. You were there. You saw the mountain come down. How wide is this pass? How many men can march abreast through it?”

Croy’s brow furrowed as he considered that. “When the mountain fell, it wreaked terrible damage on the surrounding land. The pass is perhaps a quarter of a mile across.”

“That big? That big!” Ulfram got up and ran to the door. He waved outside and Croy heard footsteps in the hall. “My scouts told me it was passable, but they forgot to mention it was wide enough to march an entire army through. Incompetence everywhere! A hole that big in my kingdom. The barbarians will flood through. There’ll be no stopping them.”

“Your majesty,” Sir Hew said. “I suspect you knew this was coming.”

The king looked up at his Captain of the Guard. “I knew they were massing the clans just east of the mountains, yes.”

“Already you’ve begun the process of conscription. We’ll have an army ready before they arrive,” Hew went on.

“An untrained rabble,” Ulfram told him. He waved one hand in frustration. “And only a few real knights to lead them.”

“We could send to the northern kingdoms, to hire more soldiers.” The kingdoms of Skilfing, Ryving, Maelfing and Anfald were constantly at war with each other, and in times of peace they hired their soldiers out as mercenaries.

“Already done,” the king said. “Skilfing has promised to come to our aid as soon as they’re finished making their own war on Maelfing. They won’t arrive for many weeks, though—and the barbarians are only days away.”

“What of the Old Empire?” Croy asked.

The king shook his head. The first settlers of Skrae had been exiles from the continent across the southern sea, a land ruled for thousands of years by a grand imperial court. “I sent an envoy as soon as I heard about the new pass, of course,” Ulfram said, “but the Emperor there has no love for us, not even after all this time. And I wouldn’t trust him if he did send us troops. They’d probably beat the barbarians, then stick around to conquer us as well. No, we’ll have to rely on the army we have. But we’ve had too much peace, for too long! Barely any man in Skrae remembers how to lift a sword. We’re fat and soft. The barbarians—if they’re anything like her—will run roughshod over us.”

One by one, the king’s councilors filed in from the hall. The exchequer, the seneschal, the chancellor, the Duke of Greenmarsh, the Archpriest of the Lady, many more Croy had never met. The Baron of Easthull nodded in a friendly way to Croy, but was quickly drawn into conversation with a man who wore the golden chain of the keeper of the royal seals. These were the most powerful men in Skrae—and unlike their king they all looked terrified.

A table was brought in and maps unfurled across its surface. Croy was asked a thousand questions, very few of which he could answer, but he did his best. Cythera had a few more answers, but she lacked any military training and couldn’t speak to strategy. Yet the need for information seemed endless. Even Malden was interrogated about what he’d seen of the land near Cloudblade’s ruin.