Ask of me what you will, Master.
Much better, Gavin thought, a fitful grin tugging his lips. He wanted to savor the Oracle’s defeat, but for some reason he found it rather unfulfilling tonight, even bitter. Irritated, Gavin rounded on the silver sphere. “The oldest histories claim your kind have been here since the founding of Targas.”
Much and much longer than that, Gavin. My ancestors, like your own, were once nomads roaming the frozen wastes in search of sanctuary. When they deemed such a secure place must not exist, they built one-first the vast warrens under the city, then the city itself.
“Do you love Targas?”
A pause. As if it were my own child.
“Then tell me how to restore Targas and drive to ground those who plot to destroy-” Gavin hesitated, calculating “-our city.”
To suggest to me that we share some common purpose proves you are the cruelest of all my former masters.
“Tell me how to succeed,” Gavin demanded.
Seek the man and his mark.
“What man? What mark-” Gavin’s breath grew thick as jelly in his chest as an image of a sinister-looking creature filled his mind. With the image came the face of a man, and with the face came a vision of Targas lit not by everlasting light but by leaping mountains of flame. With all the images came a sudden and complete understanding of the means Gavin must employ to save his city. It was terrible, unthinkable, but there was never a doubt in his mind that he would do what was required.
After the vision faded, Gavin stammered, “Th-Thank you,” his voice tinged with a reverence, and below that was something else. Boundless fear. The Oracle had never so fully invaded his mind as to show him visions as if they were his own, and he knew not what it meant.
I will do anything to save Targas, the Oracle answered. You must hurry, for the time between success and absolute loss is far narrower than you can imagine. Many already plot against you, and their utmost desire is to supplant the rule of the Munam a’Dett priesthood.
“Who would dare?” Gavin cried. “Reveal them to me!”
It is enough for you to know that there are more than you would believe, and far more than you could ever hope to defeat alone. Find the man who bears the mark of his namesake, or you shall lose Targas and all else you hold dear. Go with haste, Gavin. Go!
Gavin fled the Celestial Chamber, not realizing until later that he had gone forth with the eager swiftness of one commanded.
Chapter 1
Winds laden with fat snowflakes hooted mournfully over Valdar, over Queen Erryn, over torn fields filled with the dead and dying. Bitter that wind was, full of winter’s breath that tugged and gnawed at her cloak of dark leather and silver-gray wolf fur. Will I be remembered as the valiant Queen of the North, she wondered, surveying what her commands had brought upon her army, or will I be despised as the Queen of Blood?
Beyond the palisade, wounded Prythians waved slowly to their comrades, like men drowning in a mire. Some of her soldiers were more energetic, trying to kick and claw their way back to the walls, but they were betrayed by their shattered limbs. Swords, Erryn had learned, broke bones more often than they cut cleanly. Hammers and beaked mauls were worse yet, mutilating everything they struck. Some of the injured, such brave and strong men a few hours ago, now lay moaning, too damaged to do anything but wait for their brothers to load them into rickety carts as if they were a late and rather poor crop of gourds.
A treacherous gust brought a charnel scent to her. If that had been all she detected, maybe her guts wouldn’t have twisted so violently. But there were other smells to war, that of urine and excrement, which seemed to cling to to everything. Erryn swallowed, closed her eyes. I did this-I chose to do this-but I cannot surrender. Then as now, her decision was firm, her resolve true, because life north of the Shadow Road didn’t favor merciful hearts or weak stomachs. I did this, she thought again, this time with the same sense of righteousness that had filled her heart the day she, Queen Erryn of Valdar, formerly a simple orphan girl with too much fire in her heart, had begun her war….
Many weeks before, King Nabar’s emissaries had come in the plush and curtained comfort of gilded white carriages, each drawn by a six-horse team. Four mounted companies of Kingsguard formed a bristling wall around the carriages, the standard-bearers hoisting aloft the new banners of Cerrikoth’s Royal House. The single white rose of Qairennor had become many, and they wreathed the horned bull of Cerrikoth charging over a crimson field. This new banner proved that King Nabar had indeed wed Princess Mirith, the daughter of the Qairennoran witch-queen, who Nabar’s own father had made war against before his death.
Erryn marveled at the soldiers’ shiny clean breastplates and gold-trimmed crimson cloaks, at their burnished helms, and at their lances so long and sharp. Oh, and how their horses marched, as if they were as proud as their riders!
Just beyond Valdar’s weathered gray gate, the Kingsguard halted at a crisp command, banners fluttering in the gentle breeze. This was a proper army. Clean and orderly. Her Prythian forces, which Erryn had hired at Lady Nesaea’s suggestion, their scruffy wolfskin cloaks and armor of scale and boiled leather, looked and sounded like a horde of plainsmen in comparison.
The emissaries popped out of their carriages, clad all in rich finery better suited to the warmer southlands. When the chill of the north hit them, they huddled together and gazed about with expressions of horror.
With General Aedran on one side, her steward Breyon on the other, and half a hundred Queensguard at her back, Erryn marched through the gate to meet her uninvited guests. She did her best not to look overawed. As they walked, Breyon instructed her on the ways of highborn.
“They dip into each other’s puckered arseholes like they’re loaded with honey,” he assured her with a knowing wink. With his gray-whiskered face smudged in dirt, he seemed more a beggar than a steward.
“He has the way of it,” Aedran agreed.
“Surely you jest,” Erryn said.
Breyon shook his head. “They cannot get enough arse-licking. Only thing they like better than licking each other’s arses, is to have a lowborn on his knees with his tongue wagging. Reckon it makes ‘em feel all noble and charitable, like they’re givin’ us a treat.”
Erryn was not keen to have her arse licked, nor to lick these flowery arses before her. Nevertheless, she did her best to appear friendly and proper. Pleasantness was easier when you had a thousand blood-hungry Prythians guarding a fortress at your back, even if it was only a lowly wooden one. Her Queensguard, armed with great swords and huge iron axes, and well-known for their love of cutting foes to pieces for the sheer enjoyment of it, also helped keep a warm smile on her face.
Standing about in the dreary weather, recoiling at the soggy muck under their fine silken slippers, the emissaries shunned introductions and got right to business. They graciously offered to name her Reeve of Valdar, complete with a gold-and-ivory rod of office.
“Accept the stewardship of Valdar,” they told her, stumbling over each other in their apparent eagerness to insert their tongues into her bottom, “and King Nabar will overlook your trespass.”