ULREM RODE DOWN towards the river. The land rolled in lazy lines that avoided easy naming. What might be a hill of its own was joined as a shoulder to some other slope, which in turn slouched off. The only common thread among them was they all sagged inward toward the waters, and pinched off at the mouth of the river. It was all carpeted by wild grasses, short and coarse where the sea spray got to them, but up in those roaming hills, the grass grew long and wild and shook puffy heads under the blue sky. There was hardly a tree in sight, though. They all seemed to cluster by the river, as if afraid to venture out and claim the moors flanking the river head. What few there were seemed twisted, gnarled things, set at odds with the swaying grass.
His horse, Terror, was a big bastard of a beast. Ulrem had picked the black stallion out of the Arthoni royal stable on the night of his victory. The others had feared him, but what Terror needed was a firm and strong hand to guide his willful energy. Under Ulrem’s watch, he had danced down the streets of Arthon at the head of the victory parade. It was one of few things he cared to remember about that bloody debacle.
He relished being alone. The quiet that wasn’t a quiet, but the heartbeat murmur of the living world around him. In his youth, long days and weeks had passed between his speaking or hearing another man’s voice. In silence, he had communed with the land itself, listening to the subtle speech of river and tree, and the droning hum of bird and insect.No more. Now his days were filled with gruff argumentation and appeal, and as king, he was forced to hear the droning hum of men whose lives turned around lesser ambition. These same squabblers put up a braw fight when Ulrem announced his intention to meet with Caolais alone. He put an end to that, though, and left the camp behind. A mile bled under Terror’s hoofs, and then another, until he couldn’t even smell the smoke of the cookfires that spread across the grassy spread just south of Ennon Field. A third mile stretched, a little slower as the grasses grew coarser, and the ground trickier.
By the time Ulrem reached the water, the day was near gone, though it had been little more than a few grizzled, gray hours promising rain. Winter was on the horizon, and so close to the western sea, it was due to come early. Ulrem knew he would be lucky to add Luathon to his chain of crowns before the snows fell and the campaining drew to a halt. But perhaps Caolais would listen to reason.
A wolfish grin spread across his face at that thought.
Dogs with their backs to the wall will gnash and tear. The thought slid across his mind, not his own, but an echo of the golden ring upon his finger. It sparkled now in the thin, fading light of day. Patterns deep in the metal seemed to shift slowly like the waves in the firth out near the larger swells, evading the eye.
Pines stood like a wall where the firth closed to the mouth of the river. One might chart the progress of the river, cutting for more than a hundred winding miles by those trees. The River Laur was the dividing line between Luathon and Arthon. Only a single bridge crossed it, for in most places the river was broad and the banks steep. But just a mile up past Ennon Field, the banks drew near enough, and high enough over the water, that a stone bridge spanned the gap. That was what Caolais and his Low Kings had summoned their might to defend. If they held that bridge, they could hold out for the season, forcing Ulrem to march his army further inland, or to commit to transport by ship. Either would stretch the unified force of Arthon and Nuadon under his lion banner.
He had to have that bridge. Going any other way would cost weeks.
Were he truly alone, he would swim the river. But to move thousands of men, and horses, and the endless trains that followed…
Caolais must be made to see reason.
Terror passed under the foremost trees, and in the blue shade of the pines the chill of the season played along Ulrem’s cheeks like a premonition of winter. The fishermen who plied their trade and lived along the water had a path here, not quite wide enough to be a road, but easy to follow.
The horse plodded along while the barbarian king’s mind wandered, though by old habit, his eyes and ears probed the shadows, alert for hidden threat.
The path was clear enough for an easy canter, and it threaded up past several slouching timber huts where flimsy piers of roped logs stuck out into the brown waters. He saw no boats tied up or dragged ashore. They would have fens and holes to retreat to, hidden coverts along the water where they could wait out the clashing armies in the hills above their homes. Better to go to ground and hide, than be pressed into service, or see your wives and daughters taken off to serve and satiate the soldiers.
The road passed through what might have been a village, a little knot of seven or eight sheds packed up against the trail, but these were shuttered and dark, and no doubt stripped of any iron or valuables they might contain. He wondered how Culrann had found ‘the fishers’ he spoke to, but Ulrem knew that no king, however stern, would pry such a secret from Culrann. He was too wild, too close to his wolves.
Indeed; the soldiers whispered what Ulrem knew. Culrann knew way of their mourning song; he was what they called a wulvere, a wolf-brother.
The Imidians called such creatures duon canguian. Two-bloods.
Culrann was not the first such Ulrem had encountered, but he was the most civilized, the most able to think and talk like a man. Culrann owed Ulrem no true allegiance, and yet he followed where the barbarian went, committing himself to no cause greater than service to the Lion. There was no oath, or vow. Ulrem demanded none. Wolves came and went, and it was a common understanding. In that, he could trust. And his eyes now bore the same golden luster Ulrem’s did, a sure sign of the bond between them.
The other wulven, however… Ulrem had put them to the sword. Culrann knew this, but they were not of his pack, not his blood. They were nothing to him.
So it was that Ulrem trusted Culrann’s direciton implicitly. What the man saw, he spoke, and did not dissemble. Ulrem rode until he found what the wolf-brother had described: a stoneworks rising in the distance just above the treelines. It was built on a bluff of stone that towered over the river, too stubborn and old for even the great forces which had carved the firth and channeled the river to grind away.
It was destroyed, damaged beyond any real use without extensive repair. He had no time, nor inclination, to fortify this place, yet he could not help but look with the eyes of a king, a commander in whose trust were placed six thousand lives. Repair of the outer wall would take months, and the inner fortifications longer yet. He was not a man who thought in terms of gold, but in iron and flesh, in the raw manpower required to see a task done. This was a task that did not want doing. The derelict leaned precariously, stooping towards the river, threatening to tumble what little remained of its proud crown down into the languid waters below. The lower reaches of the wall, nearest the road, had the carrion look of well-picked places. He did not doubt that the floors and walls of the houses he passed were paved with the stones that once surrounded the fort.
And it was choked with undergrowth. Bushes and small trees grew in the hollow spaces between the broken bones that once traced out proud ramparts and defenses. It had the wild, tangled look of a forgotten place. Taboo, Culrann had called it. It certainly had the look of it.
There was no path up to the place. He reined Terror in, and listened to the woods for a long time. The shade was cool, but the season was late, and there were no insects to pester or bite. A wind bearing the salt smell of the sea raised a chorus in the dark leaves overhead, and rattled branches against one another like warding chimes, the dull clacking of a shaman pacing off his shrine. The Luathi would be coming from the other direction; no hope of catching their scent on the air.
Ulrem slid from Terror’s back and tied him up off the roadside. The slope up to the castle would be treacherous for a man. It was no place for a horse. With a final pat on the snout, and a habitual loosening of the sword on his back in its sheath, Ulrem left the black beast and started the climb up toward the foot of the outer walls.
He moved like a panther through the wood by fading light. The clouds were too thick for even the boldest stars, and true dark would fall soon. He grinned as he slid under black limbs, feeling the skin of the earth through the thin leather of his boots. Ulrem’s wild blood thrilled with the feeling of it, a hunter bearing down on unsuspecting prey.
He heard voices from ahead, leaking from the heart of the castle. The tension of command, and an uncertain answer.
Without making a sound, Ulrem slid over the wall, wondering whether Culrann had passed this very way. The rocks were pitted with age, and netted by thick cords of broad-leafed ivy that muffled his passage. Beyond, across the thatched garth, stood the broken face of the tower, most of its walls pulled down in ancient rage.
He knelt a while, listening, but could make no sense of the words. There was an argument of some sort, gruff and low. He listened for other movement, watched for the subtle shine of eyes in the dark from shadowed recesses. He fell so still that even his heart stilled, until he might have been a statue kneeling in a forgotten garden.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Nothing.
And yet, he felt the echoes of the ring stirring on his finger. He listened to them, too, for the ring’s strange prescience had seem him through long years and narrow odds. But they too were quiet. Watchful, but quiet.
Perhaps he was a fool coming here alone. His generals—the Arthoni in particular—would have thought so. None of them would have given it so honest a name, perhaps, save Culrann. Yet, this was what he was made to do; to hunt and stalk and live by the beat of blood in his breast. He grinned wolfishly and crept forward, acutely aware of the sword on his back. His fingers craved the hilt, the comfortable weight of the bronze blade.
He moved closer yet. The foot of the tower was cleared of rubble, certainly carted off as easy pickings, and beyond the ragged break where it had halfway fallen down was a drop of perhaps five strides. A lower level, the floor largely cleared away. A torch stood in an iron stand at the center, below which he saw two men, heads close together in open disagreement.
One he knew could be none other than King Caolais. He bore the heavy crown of Luathon on his brow, and a cloak of fine velvet over a coat of polished, oiled mail. He looked the very image of a king, with white-blond hair that seemed to have a ruby sheen by torchlight. His high brow spoke of inner intelligence, but he possessed the rugged jaw of a born fighter, as well as the muscular build. Opposite the king was a tall man shrouded entirely in black. He had all the austere severity of a headsman, and, Ulrem suspected, that’s what he was. The king’s bodyguard and escort, no doubt.
Ulrem drew himself to his full height. The bodyguard saw him immediately, and the scowl on his pale face drew down to naked hatred. His hand went to the haft of the heavy sword at his hip. Ulrem gave him a long, steady look, and then dropped to the floor below.
Caolais turned to face him with neither the urgency nor indolence. His pale blue eyes were nearly white by the unsteady torchlight. The High King of Luathon held out one hand to the side, neither inviting, nor spurning. Ulrem bared his teeth, letting Caolais have the moment.
“Give us space, Raim,” the Luathi said after a long moment.
Ulrem flicked his golden gaze over the bodyguard. The man shifted back several paces. Enough to retreat into shadows, though the dancing firelight glimmered in his sullen eyes.
“I would talk with you,” said Caolais directly. “Man to man. No dissembling.”
Ulrem drew forward a few steps. He was taller than Caolais, but not by much. Among the Luathi, the king must have been renowned for his height. He did noted the jeweled hilt on the man’s hip, a gaudy bauble meant to catch the wandering eye, and impress.
“Speak then,” said Ulrem.
Caolais nodded gravely. “We lost many men on Ennon Field, you and I. Good boys, brothers and sons whose graves will go unmarked and unremembered.”
“You lost more than I,” Ulrem answered.
The corner of Caolais’ eye moved. Anger there, but held in tight check. “And we held the bridge.”
“For how long?” The words came unbidden, a challenge as naked as bared steel. “I will have that bridge.”
“And then what?” snarled Caolais.
“Then Luathon,” answered Ulrem.
The other king took a deep, heaving breath. “Where does it end?”
Ulrem spoke what he felt in his heart: “It doesn’t.”
“It is as they say, then. You seek all of Celba. Are you Aertharil reborn?”
“No,” said Ulrem, but a part of him, a lone voice from deep within the ring felt the truth of it. A memory, buried centuries, of a tall gaunt man whose hand had guided seven kingdoms and alloyed them into one. And on his hand, a ring of vast power. The same ring Ulrem wore now, lost and found through the ages, an echo of itself. He fought the urge to clench his eyes shut until the echo faded. He was an Oron, born of the seas and iron isles where the wolves roamed free. And yet… there was more.
The words came unbidden, “All of Celba will be mine! What was shall be again!"
Caolais laughed. It exploded out of him, sudden and hot, pouring scorn on Ulrem. The big man snarled, and behind Caolais the bodyguard took a half-step forward. “Do you know this place, Ulrem of the Oron? These walls were once known as Dioram Head by my forefathers.” Caolais gestured around at the tower.
Ulrem’s golden eyes followed the suspiciously. The stones seemed to twist, to be wrong somehow. The ring stirred on his finger, and he tightened his fists, straining to find the trap. But Caolais kept talking, his voice large, inspired, filling the space with his performance. “It was here that my own ancestor, Olean, brought the lady Neath seeking refuge. Brought her as a wife of passion, because her father refused to speak to a son of Luathon. Even then, the hatreds were deep and old. But the heart rides its own currents, does it not?”
“I am done here,” said Ulrem dangerously. He turned his back on Caolais and made to stalk away. “I will see you on Ennon Field.”
“They said the Oron were godless, arrogant thieves!” The golden-eyed king stopped in his tracks. “I came to treat with you, Ulrem. To see if a bridge between us might be found. But I see there is none. The raider, the reiver, runs too deep in your blood. You come to take what is not yours, to meddle in the lives of those whose blood you do not share. You cannot help it, can you? You are a slave to your nature.”
“I am no slave,” said Ulrem, but Caolais wasn’t listening.
“Will you burn all down in your blind ambition? Will you be a lord of Celba-of-Ashes? A king of cinders?” With each point, the man’s voice grew harder and higher.
Ulrem turned to face him with iron silence. When the other man’s raving finally came to an end, he said “There is a way. A single bridge over the river of blood between us, Luathi.” Caolais’ eyes narrowed. “Submit to me. Here. Kneel now, and pledge yourself to the Lion Banner. Fetch your little kings of the hills and marshes, and bid them submit unto me. This is the bridge you seek, Caolais. It is the only way across the water.”
The hollow in the belly of the tower rang loud with the silence of Caolais’ shock. He stared in open horror at Ulrem. Then, slowly, his brows drew low into a glare that matched his bodyguard’s own scowl.
“No,” Caolais said, voice sharp. “Celba will never kneel to an outlander king! The Oron are dead and gone, Lion. I bid you go and join them!”
Ulrem knew that for a signal, and grabbed for his sword, but an arrow struck him in the chest, high near the join of his left shoulder. The sudden shock of it was all the time Raim, the bodyguard, needed. He leaped forward with a bloodcurdling shout and tore his sword from its sheath. The man set upon Ulrem like a starved dog, hacking and slashing. Caolais danced back a step, removing himself from the man’s wild assault.
Ulrem caught the first blow on the bronze bracer he wore over his forearm, turning aside the blade. It sliced his arm, but he ignored the bright pain and pushed headfirst into the subsequent flurry, evading the blade by old instinct deeper than bone. He delivered two brutal punches to Raim’s side, and felt the satisfying crack of bone beneath his fist. The man cried out and fell back, but he was no weakling, either. Probably bred and tortured himself, forged by pain and fear to single-minded service of the king. Such men were terrible foes, for they cared not a wit for their own safety.
He danced back, ducking under a sideways slash that might have torn him in two, had it caught him. He tore his own sword free of its leather scabbard and caught Raim’s blade on his own. The blades screeched terribly, but Ulrem was already in motion, twisting around and free of the bodyguard’s reach, his blade tearing around in a killing blow.
Something hit him in the shoulder, and bright pain lanced up his arm and neck. It slowed him, enough that Raim was able to twist and evade the strike. Ulrem roared and snatched at his back, but he couldn’t reach it. His fingers brushed an arrow shaft, just out of reach.
Another struck home, low on his right, above his hip. And a third on the same side, higher up.
“Bastard!” he snarled. Raim leaped at him, sword raised to deliver a hammer blow with the pommel. Ulrem got his arm up under the blow, dampening it. Still, the force behind it was considerable; the pommel smashed down on his shoulder, tracing every nerve in his right arm with fire.
Something buckled deep within him, and he grit his teeth against the wave of nauseating agony. His fingers found the man’s half-cloak, and he grasped it, dragging Raim back and off balance. Of Caolais, he lost sight.
“Coward!” spat Ulrem, though he could not see the other king. He ignored the arrows that buried themselves in his leg and arm, the slash the bodyguard had dealt him, slicking his left arm with hot, sticky blood. Ignored the pain within, the cruel iron grinding against bone, tearing at his flesh with every movement.
The arrows in his back gave an agonized, animal scream, or perhaps he did. Ulrem plunged his sword down into Raim’s chest, driving it through the breastbone and out past the shoulder. Raim spit hot blood in his face. The killer’s sword fell from nerveless fingers.
Move! the ring roared across his mind, a swell of fury rising from the depths. Archers!
But before he could react, another pain erupted in Ulrem’s side, just below the ribs. He reeled, dropping Raim, and found Caolais standing beside him. The High King of Luathon held his jeweled dagger in one fist. Blood dripped from it; Ulrem’s blood. The Lion’s blood.
He staggered back, clamping a hand to his side. The foot of the tower split into two, even as the echoes of the ring swarmed up into his mind like a thousand screaming bees.
Sorcery! The words thundered across his mind like a war drum. The will of the ring surged, nearly driving him aside in sudden fury. The rats hide in false shadows! Stand and fight!
But he couldn’t. Caolais’s treacherous dagger had bit too deep. The arrows burned in his back, and a chill was spreading up his spine. His knees went out from under him. Desperate to fight, he drove his sword down, leaning on it, heaving great breaths that shuddered like guttering flame.
The walls seemed to shiver, and high above them, curtains of air shimmered and faded, revealing men crouched on crumbling platforms and outcrops of the ancient stone walls. Archers dressed in executioner’s black, their faces all covered but for their deadly eyes.
“We do this for all of Celba,” said Caolais, emerging from the swirling dark. “We do this for our homes.” A new pain broke through the cloud of confusion: Caolais buried his knife into the meat of Ulrem’s shoulder. The jewels pressed into the gold hilt sparkled in torchlight that shone out of ages. He roared and tried to grab hold of the Luathi bastard, but his arm would not answer.
We do not kneel, hissed the ring. He felt the force of generations in that accusation, and it crushed him. He reached for the ring, for its golden promise of strength, but it was too late. He was a pupped whose strings were cut, no more than dead wood.
Ulrem fell to the ground and gasped for breath.
The last thing he saw was Caolais kneeling before him. The king’s pale eyes met his. There was no vindication, no viperous joy. Just grim determination. Someone called the king’s name, and a woman swam into view. She was robed in deep violet, almost black. She had a hood up over her head, but only halfway. Flaxen hair spilled out over a pretty face. But he found no sympathy there, either.
Ulrem held her black eyes with his own as the world faded around him.