Given to the Black King (Given to the Monsters #1)

Torgan

The north gate breaks before noon. I am standing under it when it falls.

Stone strikes the street hard enough to shake the boots of every man behind me. Dust rolls over us. My soldiers wait for the order.

I point through the breach.

“Granaries first. Leave the houses.”

They go.

Vessel’s garrison comes off the walls into smoke and finds my spears waiting. The fighting is short. Most men lose interest in dying once they understand the city is already taken.

By dusk, their lord is on his knees in his own hall.

His wine is in my cup. His blood is drying on my sword from the men he sent to hold the stair.

“The harvest failed,” he says. “The tribute would have starved us.”

“You sold the grain to the coast.”

His eyes lift.

“My collectors found the contracts in your counting room.” I set my cup down. “You lied about raiders. You kept the silver.”

“Great King, I can explain—”

“Say what you did.”

The hall is full. His gray-haired wife stands beneath the gallery with both hands locked around the shoulders of their two grandsons. His captains line the wall. Every lord who helped him cheat me is watching.

He looks at them before he looks at me.

“I gambled,” he says.

“On what?”

“That you wouldn’t come this far north for one season’s grain.”

I rise.

He swallows.

“You came.”

“Yes.”

I take his head with one stroke. His widow makes one sound and stops it with her teeth.

“Open the granaries,” I tell Ghenn. “Count what remains. Nobody eats from them until we know how much winter is left.”

A murmur moves through the hall. They expected fire. Slaughter. Something simple. Ghenn wipes a drop of blood from the table with his thumb. “And the lord’s household?”

“The debt is paid.”

The widow looks at me then. I leave her husband’s head on the floor and walk out into the city.

Smoke hangs low between the houses. My soldiers have the main square, the wells, and the storehouses. No one is looting. They know my rules.

At the granary steps, the widow catches up with me.

“Will you kill my grandsons?”

Her voice shakes. She does not.

“No.”

The older boy glares from behind her skirts. The younger one is crying without making a sound.

“My husband defied you,” she says.

“Your husband is dead.”

“And when they grow?”

“Teach them numbers.” I look at the older boy. “Their grandfather counted on my laziness. It was poor arithmetic.”

The boy’s glare sharpens.

Good.

“Feed them from the garrison stores tonight,” I tell Ghenn. “Tomorrow they eat with the city.”

The widow stares at me, uncertain whether to thank me. I do not wait for her to decide.

Ghenn finds me on the west wall after dark. Below us, wagons roll out of the granary yard under guard.

“Seven hundred sacks,” he says. “Less than the tribute. More than the town can spare.”

“Leave them seed grain.”

“I already did.”

That is why he is still my second after twenty years. He leans his forearms on the parapet. “Rider came through the south gate before it closed. Serathi colors.”

I look south, though there is nothing to see beyond the black hills.

“They finally want terms?”

“Peace, tribute, border guarantees.”

“They should have asked before my border lords smelled weakness.”

“They did. You ignored three letters.”

“I was busy.”

Ghenn glances at the city below. “Clearly.”

“What are they sending?”

“A minister. Six guards. A clerk.” He pauses. “The envoy is a woman.”

I turn my head.

Ghenn’s mouth moves as if he almost smiles. “That got your attention.”

“It got my suspicion.”

“On you, they look the same.”

A woman. Serath either believes I am more merciful to women or has found a woman it can afford to lose.

“Where are they?”

“Two days from the pass.”

“Then we ride now.”

Behind us, someone shouts.

Orange light jumps above the roofs. The tithe barns are burning. Not an accident. The wind carries sparks toward the houses, and men are already running with buckets.

Ghenn looks down at the fire. “Captain of the gate?”

“Find him.”

“You want to turn back?”

“Not until the city can hold without us.” I point to the third lane, where a dye house joins two rows of timber roofs. “Marrek takes the east bucket line. Pull that house down for a firebreak. Open two captured grain wagons in the square. Garrison blankets for every family driven out.”

Ghenn is already turning to relay it.

“Count the missing before dawn,” I add. “Dead by name. Grain by sack. Roofs by household.”

“And the man who set it?”

“A cell until law-day.”

Ghenn points a squad toward the south stair. “Take the gate captain alive. Bring every witness to the hold.”

By the time we reach the south gate, the fire has crossed into three streets, but the dye house is coming down. The garrison pulls people from the nearest homes while my wagons open in the square. Marrek raises one arm from the bucket line. He has the city.

The dead are not yet counted.

We leave before midnight.

The black country rises around us on the second evening. Bare moor. Basalt ridges. Villages built tight against the wind. My hold stands above the pass with no banner and no need of one.

The horns over the gate catch the last light. I go to the high wall while the column is still coming in.

South wind moves over the stone. Horse. Sweat. Leather. Road dust.

Then something else reaches me.

Warm skin.

Rain on leaves.

An orchard opening after winter. Pain drives through both fangs.

I grip the parapet.

One claw slides free from my forefinger and scores the stone.

“Torgan?”

Ghenn is beside me. I did not hear him climb the stair. The scent comes again, stronger now.

My mouth floods.

A pulse beats somewhere on the pass road, too far away for me to hear and somehow already inside my jaw.

“The delegation has been sighted,” Ghenn says. “They’ll reach the gate before full dark. Do you want the customary three-day wait?”

“No.”

He studies me.

“First audience tomorrow,” I say.

Another claw pushes out. Then another. Dark points against black stone. Ghenn looks at my hand. I force them back beneath my fingertips.

It hurts.

“What is it?” he asks.

I do not answer.

Below us, riders appear between the last two bends of the road. The scent thickens until I can taste it.

One figure rides at the front beneath Serath’s green banner. Small at this distance. Straight-backed. Alive. Both fangs throb with her heartbeat.

A fourth groove opens beneath my hand.