Circle of Reign (32 page)

Aiden’s rage was not tempered. He stood over the dying man, arrayed in the blood of hundreds and screamed with what was a release of terror and adrenaline of this night.

“Why are you here?” Aiden screamed. “Why have you come? Why are you seeking Lord Therrium? And what is the girl to you?”

“You do not—” The man coughed blood and struggled with breath. “You do not know what you have done. It has started.” He coughed again, this time more violently.

Aiden knelt down and grabbed the dying man, whispering vehemently, “What are you?” Blood and saliva dripped from his mouth between clenched teeth. To this, the man laughed, obviously in pain.

“You already know, Light Shepherd. This is—” he sputtered, coughing up dark bile from deep organ wounds. “A small glimpse of what is coming.” The man, Maynard, tried feebly but pointlessly to capture breath as he lay upon the earth, his mouth opening and closing reflexively. And then he died as the morning light came.

As Aiden was left wounded and weak, surrounded by still hundreds of black-clad soldiers, he knew he did not have the strength remaining to even lift his sword. He did not even try to raise himself up from leaning on Maynard’s corpse. The vibrations from the onlookers were clear to him. He felt the short archers drawing their bows back farther, preparing to fire. Glancing back up at Reign, still high in the Ayzish tree, he shook his head slightly, telling her to not to approach and to look away. He could see the glisten of tears in her eyes in light of early dawn.

And at last, he heard the whistle of an arrow loosed. But it was off somehow, not the right pitch. It was—Aiden smiled as he realized it was from a wood-dweller’s bow. Dozens followed, cutting the morning air with their reports.

General Roan’s men had arrived.

TWENTY-THREE

High Duke Emeron Wellyn

Day 29 of 4
^th
High 412 A.U.

EMERON WELLYN SAT TENSE
on a cold Granite Throne, wrapped in furs to guard against the chill of air and stone. The hour was early yet and the more mild temperatures of the High Season had given way a span and two days past to a chill from the glaciers that had gotten into Wellyn’s bones. The Dimming Season would be upon them in two days. Not for the first time, he cursed his forefathers for choosing the Northern Province as their ancestral home.

The Minister of Terran Studies, Roben Findlay, had just begun his report to the Ministerial Council. The High Duke had sat completely dazed through the previous two reports from the Ministers of State and Health respectively. His mind was elsewhere as he apprehensively waited for news.

Wellyn caught several passing phrases from the current report, details on the clear evidence of cycling beginning to take hold. The Southern Province had witnessed an increase in sandstorms from the Schadar and the desert’s borders themselves were expanding slowly but assertively. The Eastern Province’s soil, while still fertile, was showing signs of cycling as well, with a few small sections already too fallow to support crops or any growth. The Northern
Province’s Rising and High Seasons, while always short by a temperature’s measurement, were noticeably colder than previous decades.

You don’t need to be a terranist to know that!
Wellyn smirked inwardly. Balancing this somewhat more dire news was that the glaciers in the north seemed to be receding and revealing very fertile soil underneath. It would be decades before anything meaningful could be made of it, however.

“The Western Province, curiously, has shown no signs of cycling but rather continues to be fertile as ever,” Minister Findlay reported.

The High Duke raised an eyebrow at this comment and glanced over to Tyjil on his left. His closest advisor did not return the glance but continued to listen to the report with a placid look upon his face.

It’s as he said it would be
, Wellyn thought.
Either he’s not surprised at all or hides it extremely well
.

Josi’ah, the Archiver assigned to House Wellyn, stood to his right, observing and mentally recording all he witnessed. Wellyn knew he was connected to an elder or even the patriarch of the Archiver Order high in the Jarwyn Mountains. Josi’ah had not reacted with any surprise yet and Wellyn therefore knew that Hadik had not yet executed his part of the plan. It would be within hours, if he was on schedule. All had been set in place after years of planning. Despite his confidence in the scheme, he was still apprehensive as he tried to carry out his routine duties. He expected to receive word by wing later this day. The advantage of the night attack would be that Mithi’ah, Therrium’s Archiver, would have been asleep. Inevitably, Mithi’ah would be awakened from the commotion of the battle. But at the late hour, there was little chance an Archiver elder would be awake in the Jarwyn Mountains to connect with him through a Light Scry and be alerted to the ploy.

Mithi’ah would have been one of the casualties. The elders will not notice his absence for several more hours, perhaps not even for most of the day
. Wellyn hoped this was true. The longer the delay, the better.

Suddenly, Josi’ah reached forward and put a strong hand on the High Duke’s shoulder. The surprise of the touch startled Wellyn and the two Khans on either side of him stepped forward to remove Josi’ah’s hand, but the Archiver’s grip was iron. His eyes fluttered, obviously connected to an Archiver elder through a Light Scry receiving information, and his grip became even tighter on Wellyn. Josi’ah’s teeth gritted as the information he received flowed into him.

He knows!
Wellyn thought with a hint of panic.
The Archivers know!
It would matter little as long as Hadik made his work quick.

“Thank you, Ministers, but let us conclude early today,” Tyjil said. “A matter that requires the High Duke’s immediate attention has come to his knowledge.”

The Ministers began to stand and file out, but too slowly for Wellyn’s taste.

“Move!” he shouted, Josi’ah’s grip still strong upon him.

Silence followed the High Duke’s unusual outburst and there was a standstill in the room.

“Khans, reduce the presence of anyone by your steel who is still in my council hall in the next ten seconds!”

The Khansian Guards drew their swords and started to march toward the group of ministers. A frenzied and surprised commotion followed as the ministers made a hasty exit.

“Mithi’ah has reported that Hold Therrium has been attacked.” The announcement from Josi’ah was flat, almost monotonic. “Lord Therrium and his family live. All hold guards save one were killed. The Arlethian Army led by General Roan is at the scene. All of the enemy has been destroyed.”

All?
Wellyn thought? He could not believe that even Maynard—

“They are uncertain of who attacked but the enemy wore a sigil,” Josi’ah continued. “It was the sigil of—”

Josi’ah released his hold on Wellyn’s shoulder and his eye fluttering ceased. His face was ashen and the obsidian chin stud quivered with his lower lip.

“What have you done?” he asked in a low, hoarse voice. The next was a shout. “What have you done?”

The Archiver did not wait for an answer but fled the council hall through a rear exit.

“It appears,” Tyjil observed, “that all did not go according to plan.”

“Bring him to me,” Wellyn commanded.

“Whom shall I bring, your Grace?”

“The crazed one. Rembbran.”

Hadik climbed the sheer rock face of the Jarwyn Mountains. The bag slung over his shoulder, and over every shoulder of the twenty-nine Khans with him, was filled with four airtight pouches. Each pouch contained oxygen-rich air from the ground level, enough for roughly ten normal breaths, seven deep breaths. They would need the air not long after cresting the ledge that lead to the Archiver caverns. Only the Shrule, these Archivers as they were commonly known, could survive more than an hour in the thin air at the Jarwyn peaks. Even now, still more than a hundred paces from the landing, Hadik’s head was becoming dizzy. He could barely make out their destination as he looked up through the thin air, wispy translucent clouds obscuring his view.

He was tempted to put his lips around the thin metal tube extending from one of the bags. All he had to do was pry away the covering of southern amber wax on the end of the tube and inhale the thick, rich air.

It will allow me to climb quicker
, he rationalized. Nevertheless, he resisted. He knew he would need the air when the real work began.

The parchment tied to the foot of the raven from the previous night had given orders for the assault to begin at daybreak. Hadik had pressed High Duke Wellyn to allow him to begin his assault at night with the other Khans at Hold Therrium, but the High
Duke had forbidden it, knowing the ascent would be too perilous in the absence of daylight. Hadik had to admit he was wise in this decision.

He looked to his right and left. Slowly but confidently, his men made their way up the mountain as silently as possible. He made sure each hand and foothold was secure three times before trusting it to hold his weight.

A scream came toward Hadik and then passed him. Startled, he clung to the mountainside and peered down. One of his men had fallen and been swallowed by the thicker clouds below them. His scream was not heard for more than a second after, then perfect silence again. The Khansian Guard reached up with his right hand and searched. He found a suitable quoin and hoisted himself higher.

Rembbran sat with his knees against his chest, rocking slightly. His back grazed the cold stonewall of the Kail. Even through his thick hooded robe the wall’s chill could be felt. He held his head in his hands and traced the glyphs behind his left ear with a finger. He had long ago given up any attempt to decipher their meaning and now just tried to flatten the forged skin absent-mindedly.

The Kail did provide some relief from the incessant pain of his failed Charge due to the ancient incantation woven around this place by Hardacheon priests long ago, when the Helsyans had served them. The Dark Influence shielded his kind from the Light’s curse that had been placed upon them, but not completely. A place of gathering for the chase-givers, the Kail was a large round edifice of stone. It stood roughly twenty feet high but all one level. From the outside, it appeared as no more than a large mound of ice, blending in with much of the natural terrain of the Northern Province. The others of his order had found Rembbran too eccentric and unrestrained over the past half-decade. They had warned him that his antics and aggression threatened their secrecy as an
order. This cursed brotherhood of assassins had to remain a clandestine order within the Realm.

It had been nearly six years and the girl was still alive. She would be more than a girl now, a young woman. The fact that he knew she grew older, still breathing, added to the agony that had torn deep chasms within him that he was certain would never completely heal; not even after he killed her.

Rembbran had searched the Western Province extensively, then expanding throughout the Realm of Senthara. Never had he lost a quarry before. Never had any chase-giver he knew. It wasn’t thought to be possible. Perhaps some stroke of devious luck from the Cursed Heavens had caused the girl’s demise, but it could not be so. Rembbran would have been released from his Charge. Though not as satisfying as making the killing blow personally, a chase-giver’s Dahlrak stood nonetheless fulfilled once his prey lay dead, no matter the source. The pain that remained and tortured his soul told him she yet lived. He longed for that scent that was so intoxicating, so quickening, like no smell of fear he had ever tracked, so sweet it was. The memory alone of the Kerr youngling’s scent was enough to bring uncontrolled urges and spasms. What drove him madder, he wondered, the lack of understanding of how one’s emotional scent could disappear or the pain of such a long open Charge? Rembbran did not know. Perhaps this was not the work of the Cursed Heavens but of the Ancient Dark itself. But he was forbidden from delving there, even in his mind.

But Rembbran was gifted. Truly ruthless and without feeling. His strength was beyond any other living chase-giver, but he was not the most skilled. There, another had power over him. Roughly two span after his unsuccessful Charge for the young female Kerr, he had lashed out against Maynard. Though the leader of the Kail was seeking to calm and help him, Rembrran’s unfamiliarity with the pain that surged through him had driven him to a high degree of neurosis.