‘Be sure to know that you will not outlive me, son of Caledor,’ Malekith replied abruptly. ‘And your people will die screaming soon after.’
‘The king has it right, Prince Imrik,’ Teclis intervened before Imrik could retaliate. ‘We must win Ulthuan to our cause and rob my brother of forces, so that when the confrontation that must happen occurs he is entirely outmatched. We must begin here, with a proper triumph, so that the citizens of Lothern can see who their saviour is and spread the word to the other kingdoms.’
‘I have seen the manner of reaction my presence provokes, in Tor Caleda,’ Malekith said sourly, flames rippling from his body to demonstrate his meaning. ‘My name is poison on the tongues of the asur, my image a vision of hate and dread.’
‘The first will be nullified by your title, King Malekith, the second…’ Teclis appraised Malekith for a while and then started an incantation. The Phoenix King felt the seven winds of magic binding around him, guided by the power of light, Hysh. He felt no physical change, but saw Imrik’s eyes widening in surprise.
‘A glamour?’ the king said, holding up his hand. He saw only dark, scarred metal and turned to Imrik. ‘What do you see?’
‘You, your majesty,’ the prince replied, his tongue faltering over the words. ‘The image of a king, the line of Aenarion, in golden plate.’
Malekith straightened to his full height, impressed by Imrik’s reaction.
‘Then let us share our triumph with the people of Lothern,’ the king declared. ‘Let them see the magnificence of Aenarion born again, and be glad in their hearts that the true Phoenix King walks amongst them.’
And with these words, Malekith set off for the city.
Thirty-One
A Heavy Crown
Malekith’s will held sway after the victory at Lothern, and his army spent the early winter restocking supplies and garrisoning towns and castles that had been abandoned by Korhil’s swift retreat northwards. He expected a counter-attack, either along the coast or across the sea, but none came. Concerned that his own forces, many of them corsairs of the fleet, would grow increasingly unruly if left to grow idle, he despatched several columns into Saphery and Yvresse, hoping to prompt a response from his foes.
It was not only Malekith’s armies that coped poorly with idleness. The king himself, now that he had revealed himself to friend and foe, was the centre of much attention. Princes of Yvresse and Eataine were keen to make audience, and under Teclis’s urging the king granted such meetings to foster fresh alliance and reveal Tyrion’s falsehoods. These affairs were tedious in the extreme, a succession of pontificating nobles that seemed to think they had the secret to winning the war, who deemed their opinions of any interest to Malekith at all.
Painfully aware that he could not simply have them killed out of hand – this was not the Black Council of Naggarond – Malekith tried his best to endure their bird-like twitterings and ill-informed grasps at politics and military strategy, but all too often his shortness of temper betrayed him and the emissaries left with stinging insults in their ears, if not bellowed threats following them out of the Sapphire Palace of Lothern, where Finubar had once ruled.
‘You cost us valuable friends,’ Imrik complained to the king a dozen days after Lothern had been saved. ‘Teclis has given you the appearance of a true king, but you have none of the nobility.’
‘You would talk to me of nobility?’ asked Malekith softly, wondering just how much longer he would require Imrik’s support. He longed for the day when the dragons answered to Malekith directly, and he could dispense with the swaggering, overblown descendant of the Dragontamer. ‘These princes try to tell me how to wage war, and seek to advise me on how best to rule my people. They are dolts and dullards, and it is a wonder that with such cretinous commanders your armies ever held against mine.’
‘A history it is best not to bring up with them,’ Teclis said smoothly, having entered unheard and unseen through one of the side doors of the great audience hall of the Phoenix King. He looked weary again, the flush of energy that had filled him following the defeat of Korhil now vanished. ‘I have spent the better part of the last two days salving the wounds your harsh words have caused, your majesty. Prince Imrik is correct, you must try to resist these intemperate moods.’
‘Moods?’ Malekith said the word slowly, with menace. ‘Lackwits try to surround me with their idiocy and I am prey to moods? The whole of the Naggarothi people were dedicated to my every word, they lived and died by my will and whim. They recognised my leadership and knew when to offer their opinions and when to listen. Perhaps I should make a few more obvious examples, so that these pretentious princes understand the nature of my kingship?’
It was in this state of mind that Malekith later received word that one of his corsair captains, Drane Brackblood, had led an attack on an outpost at Allardin, slaughtering all within and looting as was the nature of the black ark crews. Such violence against Malekith’s new allies was wholly unacceptable and the Phoenix King feared that unless he sent a strong message to the other druchii tensions between them and the asur would split apart the fragile alliance he had forged.
Turning in these troubled times to his most trusted companion, he despatched Kouran, who for some time had been working with the Caledorian princes integrating the armies of Naggarond and Caledor. The captain of the Black Guard’s orders were clear and would be carried out without hesitation – Brackblood and all of her officers, and any that took part in the killing at Allardin, were to be summarily killed.
Five days later Kouran returned to Malekith with the news that the deed had been done. The bodies of the dead were displayed from the battlements of Brackblood’s black ark Shadow Tide in the harbour of Lothern and Malekith delivered a speech to his court in which he told his allies that the perpetrators of the attack at Allardin had been apprehended and executed, and he told those from the druchii contingent that any violence against the asur when not in open battle would be punished in the same manner.
The show of strength had the opposite effect to that which Malekith had desired. Amongst his own ranks there were desertions as companies and commanders decided that Malekith no longer represented their best interests, hoping to find better understanding amongst those that had followed Morathi to Tyrion’s side. From the asur princes came an outcry against the king’s brutal actions, complaints about the tyranny of Naggaroth being brought to the homes of Ulthuan.
The following night fighting broke out in the Sapphire Palace. The battle was swift and one-sided and when it was concluded Malekith was visited by Kouran and Caradryan, whose bodyguard forces had combined to form the Shadowfire Guard, one sinister figure in black the other a bright hero in white, as though a telling embodiment of the Phoenix King’s own duality.
‘Prince Torhaeron rallied a company of the White Lions still in Lothern, your majesty,’ reported Caradryan. ‘They served once as Finubar’s bodyguard and were on their way to kill you.’
‘This Torhaeron, where is he now?’
‘Caradryan took his head, my king,’ Kouran replied, with a hint of grudging admiration in his voice. ‘The others all fought to the death too. There were no survivors.’
‘We can expect there to be other attempts on your life, your majesty,’ the former Phoenix Guard captain told him. ‘We have organised a standing guard of two hundred warriors that will attend to your security at all times.’
‘One hundred of mine and one hundred of his, my king,’ added Kouran, ‘regularly rotated from the rest of the companies.’