"Axiel," I said, keeping a wary eye on Tosten and Oreg. "Tell me about the siege at Famish Keep."
"Not Famish Keep again," gasped Oreg, ducking my brother's sword. "Please, anything but that."
Axiel was a better fighter than even Stala, and under his tutelage, I was fast improving. Better yet, he had a firm understanding of army tactics. Penrod was quick and clever. He quite often beat me in training bouts. At every opportunity I picked their memories for campaign stories about Oranstone, about fighting battles, and about strategies for winning. They teased me about it, but they talked until they were hoarse because I asked it of them.
Axiel began with the mistakes the defenders made. I listened and learned.
After breakfast and stories, we rode through grasslands all day. The travel was easier on the horses than the rough coastal roads had been, but it was disheartening for the riders. One mile looked much like the last and the next. It was difficult to believe we'd ever see Oranstone.
After practice and dinner, I stole the last hour before dusk to ride out alone on Pansy as always. Sometimes I used the time for hunting; sometimes I just worked with the stallion, teaching him the kinds of things a warhorse should know and a few others besides. It kept me fresh and gave me time to be myself—whoever that was. With the others, I was Seleg, my legendary hero, borrowing his calmness and leadership abilities, which only Oreg noticed with quiet sarcasm. And, as we approached Estian, I could see them responding to Seleg's calm confidence with confidence of their own—even Oreg. Only Pansy heard my doubts.
"So, Axiel," I panted, lying on the ground belly first and watching Oreg run Ciarra through her paces. "What do you think of us as a mercenary band? Are we big enough, or does someone need to travel to Estian and recruit?"
"Someone trained him as an assassin," he replied with a nod in Oreg's direction. Axiel wasn't nearly as worn out as I, but I gained some satisfaction from his sweat-dampened clothes.
"Oreg, an assassin?" I watched the fight more attentively.
"I wasn't speaking of Ciarra." His tone was dry. "He's modified them, but they're assassin's moves, all the same. Where did you find him? There can't be many assassin-trained mages scattered about."
"He found me," I replied truthfully. "He's a Hurog—a bastard, but still a Hurog. I don't know a lot about his background, but I'll be damned if I'll treat him the way my father did."
"Ah," said Axiel. After a moment he said, "I don't think we need any more men. Hit and run, midnight raids—that's the best work. More skill and less chance."
"Less glory," I said. "But I suppose I don't have the belly for close-fought battles won against the odds. Stala has seen to that."
"Never was a good general who won a close-fought battle," agreed Axiel, somehow managing to imitate my aunt's voice with his bass.
I finished the quote. "A good general never gets in a close-fought battle. Hit them where they are weak."
"Avoid them when they are strong," added Tosten, coming from the fire to sit cross-legged next to me. "Hit their supply trains and their payroll."
The fight between Oreg and Ciarra degenerated into farce when she broke into giggles at the fierce scowls he was sending her way. The sounds were atonal and odd, but they made me smile. Oreg hoisted her over his shoulder and spun around until he staggered.
6—ESTIAN: ERDRICK, BECKRAM, AND GARRANON
It was not just my story. Some of it I heard of much later. While we were still approaching Estian, events occurring in the city were to play a major role in what happened later.
The treatise he'd borrowed from the king's library would have been enough to keep his attention, but Erdrick found himself too busy trying to ignore the sounds coming from his brother's room next door.
He shifted in his bed to get comfortable and turned the page. "At least they could be quieter about it," he muttered as a particularly shrill cry came through the walls. "It's disgusting. The queen's older than Mother." But much better looking, he had to admit.
The sex didn't bother him; he'd been ignoring his brother's mating calls since their mother's maid had first seduced Beckram. It was the thought of his brother's neck under the headsman's ax which worried him—and that was probably the very thing that had led Beckram to the affair in the first place. As usual, Beckram played, and Erdrick fussed over the risks his twin took.
Erdrick snorted in self-disgust. He'd almost jumped out of his skin yesterday when the queen mistook him for Beckram. She should have better sense than to try a little hands-on in public. After all, it wasn't only Beckram who would die if the truth came out. The queen's adultery carried the death penalty for both.
And Erdrick had squirmed under the king's regard once too often this past week. A man whose most notable accomplishment was the number of farming manuscripts he borrowed from the king's library should not have attracted so much attention—unless the king thought he was looking at Beckram. Erdrick had no doubt that the king knew. He'd tried to warn Beckram, but his brother had just shrugged. Erdrick consoled himself with the thought that he hadn't seen anger in the king's eye, merely speculation.
Garranon turned from the softness of his pillow to look at his father's killer and softened his voice. "The word from my estate is that the raiding is getting bad in the west."
Jakoven, High King of the Five Kingdoms of Tallvenish Rule, waved a hand indifferently and pushed the embroidered velvet spread to the floor. "The Vorsag won't stay there. The land has no value to them; they're raiders, not farmers."
"Your majesty, it is your people they are killing. Your people and mine." Though his words were imperative, Garranon was careful to keep his voice indifferent as he pulled the linen sheets straight where the bedspread had tugged them.
"My boy," purred the king with affectionate dismissal, "you worry to much. Go to sleep. You're keeping me from my rest."
Garranon buried his face in his pillow and forced his body to relax. He took his hatred and stuffed it carefully back behind the barriers he'd learned to build years ago, when he'd been dumped in Estian at twelve with his eight-year-old brother to take care of because everyone else was dead, martyrs to the cause of Oranstonian freedom. He'd learned early that lack of caution got you killed. Worse, it got your wife and children raped and killed, too. He wouldn't be like his father. He planned and nudged, changing things a little at a time. If the cost was more than he could bear, at least his brother was alive and well. Garranon's efforts wouldn't harm his family, only his soul.
And his soul hurt now for what he'd done to poor Ward of Hurog. Garranon had destroyed a harmless boy's life, and it had accomplished nothing, because the boy had fled with Ciernack's slave. If it had been possible, Garranon would have told the king he had not delivered the writ; the king had left it to his discretion. But there were spies among his men, and too many of them knew he'd taken Ward with the intention of delivering him to the asylum. So Ward was a fugitive to be caught and caged, and Garranon had used almost every penny he had to buy his brother's life—if indeed he had: Ciernack wasn't exactly trustworthy. The gods knew what damage Landislaw would do to Buril, but he wasn't safe here.
Tension tightened Garranon's stomach until it burned. King Jakoven had declared Ward unfit as much to tighten the binding on Garranon as for the gold he'd given the royal treasury. Jakoven didn't care who ruled Hurog, a keep so poor it sent its taxes in kind rather than gold. With the old Hurogmeten dead, the powerful warrior who'd held everyone in awe, Hurog was of no consequence. But the king would care that Garranon cared.
If Garranon spoke up for Ward now, there was a good possibility that Jakoven would have the boy killed. The king was jealous of Garranon's affections, be it for a person or a cause.