Chapter 41
41
M IKAEN STOOD ATOP the deck of the warship Tytan, named after the god of storms. The massive gasbag hung overhead, swaying like an anxious horse. The balloon’s draft-iron cables groaned all around. Six levels below and under the craft’s thick keel, men scurried about the docks, readying the ship for departure.
Across the field, a similar skirmish was waged around a second warship, the Pywll, christened after the giant who held up the skies. This morning, only one such craft had been scheduled to depart for Cloudreach, but after what his father had learned in the Shrivenkeep, King Toranth had ordered the Pywll to join the Tytan. He intended to stop this insurrection before it had a chance to start.
Mikaen appreciated his father’s resolve.
He watched a dozen Mongers, armored Gyn brawlers in leather and carrying axes and steel maces, file into the stern of the Pywll. They were followed by chained thylassaurs, even a pair of steel-helmed scythers, massive hunting cats with fangs jutting past their snarling lips.
He also knew each warship carried a full century of knights and a score of Vyrllian Guards, along with half again as many horses. The flanks of the Tytan, like its twin, bristled with draft-iron cannons and giant ballistas seated with iron-tipped spears. Along the ships’ lower flanks, small doors hid stocks of barrels, ready to rain alchymical fires on the lands below.
Mikaen knew such power was not solely to burn out the seeds of a burgeoning insurrection—but also to salt the ground afterward. After such a blazing show of force in the highlands, none would dare raise a voice, let alone a sword, against the king. Likewise, it would rally the people around the Massif flag. Mikaen had learned how a pageantry of force could flame the hearts of the common folk to a more fervent pride in their king and kingdom.
But Mikaen also knew this spectacle was not only for their own people—but also for the armies of the Southern Klashe. The act would be a fiery flag waved at the lands to the south. Hálendii had twenty more ships like the Tytan and Pywll, moored here and at strategic locations throughout the kingdom. Word would spread from the highlands to the Klashe, showcasing the king’s resolve and warning of the futility of any attack.
Mikaen rubbed a cuff of his sleeve on the breastplate of his light armor. He honed its surface to a silver sheen in the shadows of the massive gasbag, recognizing there was one final aim behind all this ferocity. It was why Mikaen had decided to follow Anskar’s lead and don his armor before striding across the war docks to the Tytan. His father wanted his son’s esteem to shine brighter. If war truly came, the people would know they had a thunderous king and a son forged of deadly silver to protect them.
Mikaen stared to the east, to the cliffs of Landfall. Maybe it was better that the assassination attempt on Kanthe had failed in the swamps. It would have been an ignoble end for his brother, the final tally of a debauched life. Now Kanthe’s death would serve a greater purpose for the kingdom. The Prince in the Cupboard would be cast as the dark usurper, slain by the kingdom’s shining heir.
Mikaen sighed toward those misty highlands.
Thank you, brother. Your blood will polish my armor even brighter.
The firm pound of boots drew his attention to the deck of the Tytan. His father approached, draped in full royal regalia, all dark blues and polished black leather. He looked like a storm cloud on the move.
Mikaen met his father, ready to drop a knee and say his good-byes.
Instead, Toranth grabbed his son and hugged him hard. “I know this is a hard task I ask of you, Mikaen.” He released the prince and held him at arm’s length, gripping his shoulders. “But know this. I would not be angry if you simply brought your brother home. I believe I would even welcome it.”
Mikaen bowed his head, trying to hide his disappointment in his father. Even now, faced with insurrection, the king refused to harden his generous heart. Mikaen fought to keep the bitterness out of his voice, reminding himself that he would be merciless steel in his father’s stead, wielding death where it was needed.
Mikaen cleared his throat to speak. “Father, I will do all in my power to return Kanthe to Highmount. This I promise.”
Toranth nodded, satisfied. “I know you will. As to the girl who was prophesied to bring ruin, she must be slain with no quarter given to those who aid her.”
Mikaen dropped to a knee. “It will be done,” he said, again hiding yet another lie in his heart, one recently seeded there.
After the bloody events in the Shrivenkeep, he had considered if there might be a better use for the girl, a young woman of mysterious power and shadowed lineage. I could keep her for myself. He sensed she could become a strategic piece in a grander game of Knights n’ Knaves. He even weighed bedding her, half-sister or not, and drawing her power into his own lineage.
The ship’s horn sounded and was echoed in turn by the dockmaster down below. The Tytan was readying to disembark. Across the field, the same resounding notes rose around the Pywll.
Mikaen stood back up.
His father clasped him by the forearm, finally saying his good-bye. “I know you will do me proud, Mikaen.”
“Thank you, Father.” He placed a fist on his breastplate, over where the Massif house sigil had been engraved into its silvery steel. “Long may you rule.”
His father offered a rare smile, like a sun through thunderclouds, then turned and headed off the warship.
Mikaen watched him depart, only to have his eyes drawn to Haddan and Wryth. The two had their heads bowed together by the other rail, looking like they were arguing. He strode across the deck. They both looked his way, straightening when he joined them.
“Is something amiss?” he asked the pair.
Haddan’s hard countenance was even stonier. “Once we reach Cloudreach, Shrive Wryth wishes to divert the Pywll to pursue his stolen artifact, which he believes to be somewhere northeast of Lake Eitur.”
Mikaen turned to Wryth. “The bronze woman?”
The Shrive folded his hands into the wide sleeves of his gray robe. His tattoo-shadowed eyes were narrow slits of fury. “I received word shortly ago from the Shrivenkeep. A refinement of calculations that offers a more precise location of this weapon. It must be secured before it vanishes again. With war pending, we cannot risk losing it, especially to the Klashe.”
Even as a prince, Mikaen could not command these ships. He was still only an eighthyear at the Legionary. His father had rightfully assigned Liege General Haddan to lead this assault. Still, both men looked to him to resolve this dispute, perhaps knowing he would be king one day, or maybe it was a measure of respect for how coldly he had dispatched Anskar. Most likely they looked to him because they needed a wind— any wind—to push their stalled sails in one direction or the other.
“Eitur lies to the immediate north of Havensfayre,” Mikaen said. “It seems a small diversion that could promise a far larger reward. Is that not true?”
Haddan answered with a begrudging frown.
Mikaen continued, “Surely the Tytan can handle anything at the forest town. And with the Pywll still close at hand to the north, it could be summoned back upon the swift wings of a skrycrow or the signal blare of a horn.”
Wryth withdrew his hands from his robe’s sleeves. Though stoic, the Shrive was clearly pleased with the direction of these winds.
Mikaen tempered such pleasure. “What about the other weapons you promised us, Shrive Wryth? Have those been loaded?”
“They were being stored below as I boarded.”
Mikaen nodded. “You will leave them here and ensure they are properly secured before you depart for the Pywll. Such weapons will be of little use on your quest, but they may prove vital to ours.”
“Of course. I don’t disagree.”
Mikaen looked between the two men. The pair nodded to one another, resolved on the matter for now. As the two departed in opposite directions, Mikaen stepped to the empty rails. Behind him, men bustled with final preparations, shouting and bellowing. All around, the draft-iron cables ground a mournful wail. Overhead, gusts snapped the balloon’s taut fabric.
The prince ignored everything.
He focused instead on the calming billow of clouds atop Landfall, knowing such peace would not last. Not here, not across the Crown.
A storm was coming.
And I will be its lightning.
A S A FINAL horn sounded, Wryth hurried toward the cabin buried deep within the Tytan. The weapons stored inside were too sensitive to the Father Above’s glare to risk storing them higher. Ahead, two massive Mongers stood to either side of the cabin door. The Gyn’s heavily browed eyes, further shadowed under iron helms, watched his approach, but the pair knew him and said not a word as Wryth reached the cabin and knocked on its door.
A thumping of a cane sounded from the other side, and the way was unlocked with the rasp of a key.
Wryth opened the door on his own and passed inside. The windowless room was sparsely furnished, just a narrow bed, a lamp on a hook, and a door on the far side.
“I do not have long,” Wryth said as he entered. “I wrested the Pywll away from Haddan, but I must be swift.”
Shrive Vythaas backed his gaunt body to the side and leaned on his bane-alder staff. His voice was a rub of stones. “Any further word from Skerren?”
“No, but if anything changes, he’ll send a crow.” He touched the heavy pouch hanging from the leather sash of his Shriven cryst. “Skerren also gave me a tool to trace those energetic winds back to our target. But it will only work once we’re close.”
“Then best you be on your way to the Pywll. ” Vythaas crossed to the bed and settled his withered frame atop it. His gaze swung toward the far door, one banded and latched in iron. “I will attend to the weapons here and aim them at our greatest threat.”
Wryth remembered the final words ripped from Prioress Ghyle’s throat. He whispered them now. “Vyk dyre Rha…”
Vythaas continued to stare at the other door. “The ancient name of the Klashean dark goddess. The Shadow Queen who is carried on wings of fire.”
Wryth knew this god was not one of the thirty-three that made up the Klashean pantheon, but a creature far older. Her name was written only one time, in the most sacred text of the Dresh’ri, secured in the Abyssal Codex of their order, a vault buried far beneath the Imri-Ka’s bright gardens. She was the daemon of the Dresh’ri, the god the Klashean order worshipped as devoutly as the Iflelen did Lord ?reyk. But unlike the Iflelen god, the Klashean daemon was never mentioned aloud, not even by the Dresh’ri. She had no symbols or sigils. She was worshipped in total silence and darkness.
Until now.
Ghyle’s scream still echoed in his head, especially her final words: Vyk dyre Rha se shan benya!
Vythaas seemingly read his thoughts and translated them aloud. “‘She is the Shadow Queen reborn.’”
“The Klashean prophecy…” Wryth muttered with an icy chill.
Vythaas’s gaze turned from the door and recited the prophecy aloud. “She who would be reborn one day, in flesh and form. Burning away all that She possessed, leaving only darkness and savagery behind. A dread being who will spread fiery ruin in Her wake, until all the Urth is consumed.”
Wryth remained silent for a breath, then voiced what he knew concerned them both. “Could it be true?”
He remembered fifteen years ago he had listened to the words of a soother, a witch who cast bones at the feet of a serf with a swelling belly. She predicted that a girl would be born to Marayn, which was all that Wryth had wanted to know at the time. He needed to be certain the child was not a boy who might obscure or challenge the Massif lineage. Then the soother had scooped up her bones far too quickly, her face ashen. Suspicious, he pressed the witch, who finally admitted a portent of doom and ruin shadowing the babe.
Back then, Wryth had not placed much weight upon the truth of these claims. Most witches and bone-readers were no more than charlatans. Still, her words were of great use. He used the witch’s prophecy to sow fear and frighten a reluctant king into killing both mother and child. This ruse also served to rip Graylin sy Moor away from the king’s ear, a knight who tempered Toranth’s spirit toward a kinder aspect, which little suited a kingdom with a hostile neighbor.
But in the end, the knight’s damage was done. Even after the betrayal by Graylin, Toranth waited too long to kill the mother, showed too much mercy toward an oathbreaker. Recognizing this, Wryth and Haddan had turned to the prince instead, a son under the liege general’s thumb at the Legionary. They had spent the past eight years forging Mikaen into a harder leader.
Yet, now the bones of a witch have found new voice in the screams of a prioress.
Vythaas matched Wryth’s concerned gaze. “It is truth or raving?” the man asked the room. “I do not know, but we cannot risk such a creature ever rising to power. When we cross to Cloudreach, you see to our lost talisman, and I will attend to this potential Vyk dyre Rha and make sure she is destroyed.”
“And those weapons you’ve forged against her?”
Vythaas turned to the other door. “All is ready.”
Wryth wanted reassurance before he left. He stepped to the back of the cabin and lifted the latch. He opened the door enough to let lamplight flow into the dark cell beyond. Two figures stood there, with heads bowed, their bodies wrapped in chains—but that iron was not what truly bound them.
The glow of lamps reflected off the rows of copper nodes shining across their shaved scalps, marking the site of a dozen needles, twice the number as had been used on the prioress. Vythaas wanted to ensure their wills were fully destroyed, leaving them shells who would do the Iflelen’s bidding. The pair had been secured by Anskar back at the swamps and dragged here with Prioress Ghyle.
Wryth stared at the two men’s slack faces and sent them a silent command.
Ablen and Bastan… you will be our dogs, to hunt and kill your sister.