She rode at the head of ten thousand people from out of Groverman and the villages round about. Many of the women had already turned back, heading for their own hearths, their own homes. Their work here was done.
But others followed Iome, particularly people who'd lived in Longmont, who had come to see what was left of their homes.
As they neared the ruined castle, saw the empty fields with wolves slinking about the hedgerows, many women and children began crying for what they'd lost.
They'd deserted their homes three days ago, but a few days of huddling under ragged shelters at Groverman had shown them just how difficult it would be to make do once the snows fell.
Certainly, most of them hoped to come home, to rebuild. But in hard times, with war approaching, Iome's people could not rebuild without some nearby fortification.
The castle was nearly ruined. Huge blocks of stone that had lain in place for twelve centuries now lay cracked and shattered.
Almost subconsciously, Iome began calculating what it would take to repair the fortress: five hundred stonemasons out of Eyremoth, for they were the best. Carters to drag the stones, Frowth giants hired out of Lonnock to place them. Men to dig moats. Lumberjacks to cut trees. Cooks and ironsmiths, with mortar, chisels, saws, awls, axes, and...the list went on and on.
But to what purpose? If Raj Ahten could simply shatter the castle with a shout?
She looked up on the hill, saw Gaborn kneeling in a patch of snow, in the field. Gaborn had laid his father's body out on the hill above the castle, beneath a great oak tree. A huge limb lay near them.
Gaborn had collected dozens of spears, and he ringed these about his father's corpse, creating a fence of sorts, to keep out the wolves.
In the tree above his father's corpse, he had hung his father's golden shield. He took his father's helm, laid it in the snow at his father's feet—a sign that his father had fallen in battle.
She turned her horse, went to him, leading her father's stallion. Behind King Sylvarresta followed the three Days: hers, her father's, and Gaborn's. King Sylvarresta had verged on falling dead asleep in his saddle a few minutes before, but now stared about, grinning broadly at the snow through bleary eyes, a child filled with delight.
Gaborn looked up at Iome as she approached; his face looked bleak, desolate. Iome knew then that she would find no words to comfort him. She had nothing to offer him. In the past few days, she'd lost nearly everything—her home, her parents, her beauty...and things less tangible.
How will I ever sleep again? she wondered. In her mind, the castle had always been the supreme icon of security. In a world fraught with danger, it had always been a safe haven.
No more.
She felt now that she'd lost her childhood, her innocence. Her peace of mind was torn from her.
Not just because her mother lay dead and one of her castles lay in ruins. As she rode that morning, she considered what had happened. Yesterday, she'd feared that Borenson would sneak into Castle Sylvarresta, kill her Dedicates. She imagined that secretly she'd known what he would do, though she hated it.
By not challenging him, not confronting him, Iome had agreed to it. The horror of it had all been creeping up on her since noon yesterday. Now she found herself defenseless. She hadn't slept for two nights. She'd felt dizzy for hours, had feared she would topple from her horse.
Now it seemed as if a great invisible beast, lurking beneath her consciousness, suddenly sprang and seized her.
Iome had meant to say some word of comfort to Gaborn, but suddenly found icy tears coursing down her cold cheeks. She tried to wipe them, began shuddering quietly.
Gaborn had prepared his father's body well. The King's hair was combed, his face was pale in death. The glamour he'd worn had died with him, so that the man she saw was not the King Orden who had seemed so regal, so powerful, during life.
He looked like some aging statesman, with a broad face, skin somewhat weather-beaten. He smiled enigmatically. He was dressed in his armor, and lay on a plank. His richly embroidered cape of shimmering samite covered him like a robe.
In his hands, he clasped the bud of a single blue rose, perhaps taken from the Duke's garden.
Gaborn turned to look up at Iome, saw the expression on her face, then stood slowly, as if the effort pained him. He walked to her, grabbed her shoulders as she slid from her horse, and held her close.
She thought he would kiss her, tell her not to weep.
Instead his voice sounded hollow and dead as he whispered fiercely, “Grieve for us. Grieve.”
Borenson thundered into Longmont in a red fury. From the moment he had crested a ridge five miles back and seen the ruined towers, the crowd milling on the downs outside the castle, he'd known the news would be bad. Among the crowd, many colors flew, but none for Raj Ahten.
He wished Raj Ahten were dead, wanted to strike against him with a rage so burning that Borenson had never felt its like.
So he was still in a frustrated rage when he galloped down the north road into Longmont and met the ragged commoners milling about by the thousands. He looked among the crowd for the colors of Orden, saw them nowhere.
He rode up to a pair of teens who scrambled among the snow outside the castle, robbing the corpse of one of Raj Ahten's soldiers. One young man was perhaps fourteen, another eighteen. At first he thought the vermin were stealing money pouches or rings, and he'd have belittled them for doing so. Then he recognized that one lad was wrestling the armor from the corpse, while the other helped lift the dead weight.
Good. They sought armor and weapons that they could never otherwise purchase.
“Where is King Orden?” Borenson asked, trying to keep the emotion from his voice.
“Dead, like all them buggers in the castle,” the youngest lad answered. He had his back to Borenson, hadn't seen to whom he was speaking.
A sound escaped Borenson's throat, something like a growl or a snort. “Everyone?”
Pain must have sounded in his voice, for the lad turned and looked up, eyes widening in fear. He dropped the body and backed away, raising a hand in salute. “Yes—yes, sir,” his older friend said formally. “Only one man lived to tell the tale. Everyone else is dead.”
“A man survived?” Borenson asked distantly, though he wanted to cry out, call Myrrima's name and see if she would answer. Myrrima had been in this castle.
“Yes, sir,” the older lad said. He staggered backward, afraid Borenson would strike. “You—your men fought bravely. King Orden made a serpent, and fought the Wolf Lord man-to-man. They—we won't forget such sacrifice.”
“Whose sacrifice?” Borenson asked. “My king's, or the buggers'?”
The young men turned and ran as if Borenson would strike them both down, and he very nearly did, but he felt little anger toward them.
Borenson scanned the downs wildly, as if Myrrima might stand on the brow of a hill waving to him, or as if he might see one of Raj Ahten's scouts crest a ridge. Instead, as he looked up, he spotted Gaborn beneath an oak.
The Prince had laid out King Orden's body, ringed it with spears from his fallen guards, as was the custom in Mystarria. He just stood there, over his dead father, hugging Iome. The Princess had her back to Borenson, and wore a hood, but there could be no mistaking the curves of her body. A knot of three Days all huddled a few yards off to the side, watching the scene with studied patience.
The idiot King Sylvarresta had come off his horse, was in the circle of spears, fawning over King Orden, gazing about dumbly, as if to beg for help.
A sense of horror and desolation swept Borenson, so that he cried out in astonishment and despair.
The fallen castle, the fallen king.
I may have killed him, Borenson thought wildly—my own king. Orden had fought Raj Ahten hand-to-hand, and lost. I could have followed my king's orders, slain all the Dedicates. Had I obeyed in every detail, perhaps it would have changed something. Perhaps Raj Ahten would have died in that battle.