“Through the forest and into the Realm. I assume you have a plan for when we get there.”
“Yes. I intend to defeat the Volarians then come home.”
“Home? That’s how you think of this place?”
“Don’t you?” He looked beyond the camp at the town and the tower rising beyond, framed by the dark northern sea. “I’ve felt it since we got here.”
“I do like this place,” Alornis replied. “I wasn’t expecting to find it so interesting, so many colours. But it’s not my home, my home is a house in Varinshold. And if Lady Dahrena has it right, it’s now most likely a burnt-out shell.” She looked away for a moment, eyes tight against fear-born tears. When she spoke again her gaze was hard, the words repeated several times over the preceding days. “I will not be left behind. Tie me up, lock me in a dungeon. I’ll find a way to follow.”
“Why?” he asked. “What do you think you’ll find there, besides danger, death and suffering? It will be war, Alornis. Your eyes may find beauty in everything you see but there’s none to be found in war, and I would spare you the sight of it.”
“Alucius,” she said. “Master Benril . . . Reva. I need to know.”
Reva . . . His thoughts had turned to her many times, his song surging at every instance, the note one he knew well, the same note from the night assassins came for Aspect Elera, the note that had impelled him through the Martishe in pursuit of Black Arrow, and through the High Keep in search of Hentes Mustor, implacable in its meaning. Find her. He had resisted the impulse to sing, seek her out, fearing becoming trapped in the vision once again, this time for good.
“As do I,” he said. “Present yourself to Brother Kehlan in the morning, I’m sure he’ll be glad of another pair of hands.”
She smiled, coming closer to press a kiss to his forehead. “Thank you, brother.”
◆ ◆ ◆
He held a council of captains every evening, reviewing progress in training and recruitment. Seven days on and their numbers had swollen to well over twelve thousand men, though only half could be counted as soldiers.
“We’ll have to train on the march,” Vaelin said as Adal pleaded for a month’s delay. “Every day spent here costs lives in the Realm. Brother Hollun reports the full complement of weapons and clothing will be ready in just five more days. It seems an enterprising merchant kept a warehouse full of halberds and mail as a speculative investment. When every man is armed and armoured, we march.”
He dismissed them shortly afterwards, Dahrena waiting with a bundle of papers in her arms.
“Petitions?” he asked.
She gave an apologetic smile. “More every day.”
“I’ll happily defer to your judgement if you’ll set aside those requiring my signature.”
“These are those requiring your signature.”
He groaned as she placed the bundle on the map table. “Did your father really do all this himself?”
“He would read every petition personally. When his eyes started to fail him he’d have me read them aloud.” Her fingers played on the papers. “I . . . could do the same for you.”
He sighed and met her gaze. “I can’t read, my lady. As I assume you deduced at our first meeting.”
“I do not seek to criticise. Only to help.”
He reached out and took the topmost scroll, unfurling it to reveal the jumble of symbols on the page. “Mother tried to teach me, but I was always such a restless child, unable to sit in a chair for more than a few moments, even then only if there was food on offer. When she did force me to try I just couldn’t make sense of the letters. What she saw as poetry or history was a meaningless scrawl to me, the letters seeming to jump about on the page. She kept at it for a while, until eventually I could write my name, then the sickness took her, and the Order took me. Little need for letters in the Order.”
“I have read of others with similar difficulty,” Dahrena said. “I believe it can be overcome, with sufficient effort. I should be glad to help.”
He was tempted to refuse, he had little time for lessons after all, but the sincerity in her voice gave him pause. I have won her regard, he realised. What does she see? An echo of her father? Her fallen Seordah husband? But she doesn’t see it all. His gaze was drawn to the canvas bundle in the corner of the tent, still unwrapped despite all the woeful tidings. Every time his fingers touched the string he found his reluctance surging anew. She has yet to see me kill.
“Perhaps for an hour a night,” he said. “You could tutor me. A welcome diversion after the day’s march.”
She smiled and nodded, taking the scroll from him. “‘The Honourable Guild of Weavers,’” she read. “‘Begs to inform the Tower Lord of the scandalous prices being charged by crofters on the western shore to maintain the supply of wool . . .’”
◆ ◆ ◆
An encampment at night was always the same, regardless of the army or the war. Be it desert, forest or mountainside, the sights, smells and sounds never altered. Music rose from amongst the canvas city, for every army had its quota of musicians, and voices lifted in laughter or anger as men came together to gamble. Here and there the quieter knots of close friends clustered to talk of home and missed loved ones. Vaelin felt a certain comfort in the familiarity of it all, a reassurance. They become an army, he decided, walking alone along the fringes of the camp, beyond the glow of the many fires. Will they fight as one?
He halted after a few moments, turning to regard the saw-toothed outline of the tree-line a short distance away. Skilled with a blade, but not so light on his feet, he thought as the blood-song’s note of warning began to rise. “Do you have something to discuss with me, Master Davern?” he called into the shadows.
There was a pause then a muffled curse, Davern the shipwright appearing out of the gloom a moment later. He wore his sword at his side, hand tight on the handle. Vaelin could see a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip, however his voice was even as he spoke. “I see you continue to go about unarmed, my lord.”
Vaelin ignored the comment. “Have you rehearsed this moment?”
Davern’s composure suffered a visible jolt. “I do not understand . . .”
“You intend to tell me your father was a good man. That when I killed him I shattered your mother’s life. How is she, by the way?”
Davern’s mouth twitched as he fought down a snarl. The moment stretched, Vaelin sensing the man’s desire to abandon pretence. “She burned with hatred for you until the day she died,” the shipwright said finally. “Gave herself to the sea when I was twelve years old.”
The memory returned in a rush of unwelcome sensation. The rain, beating down in chilled sheets, the sand streaked with blood, a dying man’s whisper, “My wife . . .”
“I didn’t know that,” he told Davern. “I’m sorry . . .”
“I do not come for your apology!” The young man took a step forward, his snarl unleashed.
“Then what do you come for?” Vaelin asked. “My blood to wash away all the grief? Remake those shattered lives? Do you really imagine that’s what you’ll earn here, rather than just the noose?”
“I come for justice . . .” Davern advanced further, placing his free hand on the scabbard, ready to draw, halting as Vaelin voiced a laugh.
“Justice?” he said as the mirth faded. “I looked for justice once, from a scheming old man. He gave it to me, and all I had to give him was my soul. All that I did for you and your mother. Didn’t Erlin tell you?”
“Mother said he lied.” There was a faint note of uncertainty in Davern’s tone, but his snarl remained in place, the note of warning taking on a deeper pitch. A lifetime’s hatred can’t be dispelled with a few words.
“Erlin sought to soften her anger, with lies,” Davern went on. “To deflect me from my cause, and my cause is just.”
“Then you should kill me now and have done.” Vaelin spread his hands. “Your cause being just.”
“Where is your sword?” Davern demanded. “Fetch your sword and we’ll settle this.”
“My sword isn’t for the likes of you.”
“Curse you! Fetch your sw—”
There came a faint snapping sound from the tree-line, no louder than a breaking twig.
Vaelin charged Davern, catching him about the waist, his sword half-free of the scabbard as they tumbled to the earth. The air made a groaning sigh a foot above their heads.
Davern thrashed, kicking out as Vaelin rolled away. More snaps from the tree-line. “Roll to the right!” he barked at the shipwright, jerking himself to the left as at least ten arrows thudded into the earth about them.
“What?” Davern shouted in confusion, stumbling to his feet.
“Down!” Vaelin commanded in a fierce hiss. “We are attacked.”
Another snap and Davern threw himself flat, the arrow a black streak against the dim sky.
Not him, Vaelin realised, eyes fixed on the infinite void of the trees. The song’s warning wasn’t for him.
“Run for the camp,” Vaelin told Davern, removing his cloak. “Raise the alarm.”