A Draw of Kings

39

REVELATION





AS HE PACED THE HALLS of Escarion’s fortress, Martin’s mind ran in tracks that trapped his thoughts the way rutted paths captured a cart’s wheels. By Deas and everything holy, he had no desire to shoulder the last decision of the war, perhaps the last decision of any archbenefice of Illustra.

“How did we come to this?”

“Your pardon, Excellency, what did you say?” Breun padded at his side like a faithful puppy, cheerful and attentive to his commands.

Martin shook his head. Had he spoken? “I’m not sure, lad.”

Luis and Willem met him at the door. Strange that Enoch Sten, the true primus of the conclave, was not there. He sighed. Everyone fought the war in their own way. For Sten, it seemed, the best thing to do was to let younger, stronger readers take the lead. Martin’s gut knotted as he thought again of the decision required of him.

“Breun,” Martin said. “Why don’t you visit the kitchen? If I remember correctly, boys your age are always hungry.” He met the solemn faces of the conclave’s leaders as his page loped away. “Do the questions have an answer?”

They nodded.

“Where and when?” His voice rasped like a saw struggling through wood.

Willem and Luis bowed. “Three hours after sunrise tomorrow morning, Archbenefice, at the ford just south of the fortress.”

The air turned thick in his lungs. “So soon?” They didn’t reply. He hadn’t expected them to. “Humph. It is like Deas to set the time and place so we could watch from the ramparts. He has a flair for the dramatic, I think.” He caught Luis’s gaze. “Are we still without an answer to the question of who?”

Luis nodded. “I cast for it less than an hour ago.”

Willem lent the secondus his support. “As did I. There is still no answer. Perhaps Deas has yet to decide who will be the soteregia.”

Martin could almost believe it. “I will have to crown the pair and send them both.”

“That may leave Illustra without a king,” Luis said. “What kind of war would we have then?”

Martin pulled at the muscles along his jaw. His teeth hurt. “Illustra can survive a civil war, but we must have the barrier. Errol and Liam understand this.” He sighed, his hope as thin as his breath. “I will serve them the sacraments at sunrise. If they wish.”



Rain soaked Adora’s cloak. The fabric surrendered to the water and grew sodden, heavy. She considered stopping to wring out the excess weight. How long could they push their mounts before the noble animals’ hearts gave out? Escarion lay another ten leagues to the east. She didn’t know if the horses would make it at any pace.

Thunder rolled to her right, but it continued to peal long after the lightning ceased. Horses. Rokha and Waterson drew as they steered their mounts to face the threat.

Rokha eyed the hills and shook her head, her hair shedding water.

“How many?” Adora yelled over the growing rumble.

Rokha threw her answer back over her shoulder. “Too many to guess.”

A line of shaggy ponies, tails and manes flying, crested the ridge, came pouring toward them, their hooves throwing gouts of mud.

“Morgols,” Waterson said. He looked toward Adora and Rokha. “I’ve heard stories from the war”—his eyes darted to the edge of his sword—“about what they do with women.”

Rokha slashed her sword through the air, making it whine. “I doubt they’ll want me alive.”

Adora left her sword in the scabbard. Another blade would make no difference, but more than hopelessness kept it in its sheath. “They can’t have come so far west from the passes in so short a time.”

Horses streamed around them, circling until she became dizzy with trying to see them all at once. At last they reined in, thousands of hooves skipping and prancing to a stop as their riders called to each other in ululating cries.

Their leader, mustache swirling in the air of their commotion, sought them, his dark brown eyes serious in a nest of sun-wrought wrinkles. He nudged his horse closer, his short saber by his hand but still sheathed. Next to him, riding one of the long-haired ponies as though born to it, sat a kingdom man, Karele. Adora released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

The leader reined in, paused just long enough to cast an inquiring glance at his companion, who spoke briefly in the Morgol tongue. He pointed to the three of them by turns. “You are far from the rest of your people.” He gave a pointed glance at their swords. “If you carry weapons, then should you not be where they are the most useful?”

Adora knew him. “We are headed for Escarion now, but there are weapons stronger than steel.”

Their leader nodded. “Truth.”

“How did you come to be here?” Waterson asked.

Ablajin nodded. “My son guided us along the paths of wind, bringing us to you. He tells me we must get to this place—Escarion—tomorrow, else your kingdom will fall.”

A fist closed around her heart. Tomorrow? Their horses would never make another ten leagues in that time.

“Can it be done?” Her voice cracked and broke.

Ablajin laughed. “The horses of the steppes do not have the stride of kingdom mounts, but they have been hardened by cold. They can take many more of them. We will make it.”

“You have to take us with you.” She didn’t pose it as a question.

To his credit, he didn’t take offense, but his eyebrows rose at the demand. “And what token can you give me of why this must be?”

She could not afford dissembling or intrigue. With trembling hands she jerked the cloth from the sculpted face of her father and held it so Ablajin and Karele could see. “I know who must be soteregia.”

Karele’s eyes widened, as if someone had given him the answer to a puzzle long attempted. He nodded. “They have to be there, Father, by sunrise.”

Ablajin stroked each side of the long, thin mustache that framed his mouth. “By sunrise? The issue is in doubt, especially with the rain. Come, Highness, choose ponies for yourself and your friends. Words are a waste of time.”



Martin’s messenger left Errol’s doorway to be replaced by one from Captain Rale a moment later. The watchman looked familiar, but Errol couldn’t place him.


“Do I know you?”

The proverbial stoicism of the watch slipped a notch as the craggy face drew to a lopsided grin. “Not so you’d remember. I was the second man you faced in your challenge to the watch, Captain Stone. I think you might have seen me for all of a minute before I was unconscious.”

Errol nodded, but the memory refused to come into focus. Too much had happened since. “I’m sorry for that.”

The man before him shrugged. “No need to be. Taught me a thing or two, it did.” He coughed and stepped aside with a beckoning gesture. “I was told to escort you to the captains’ meeting.”

Duke Escarion’s audience hall seemed much like the man himself: practical but with an understated elegance designed to invite candid conversation. A fire burned in a pair of large arched fireplaces on opposite sides of the hall, flanking a table that had been set up in front of the low dais at one end. Most of Illustra’s captains, those not guarding the north against the coming of the Morgols, surrounded the table as though a body, not a map, lay upon it.

Liam, his blue eyes somber, nodded to him in greeting. Escarion did as well, though his head dipped a fraction of an inch lower and he closed his eyes as he did so. Perhaps he thought the allegorical body on the table was Errol’s.

Cruk opened the meeting. “We’re all here. Everybody that’s going to show up, at any rate.”

Rale pointed to the area on the map that showed the region just south of Duke Escarion’s fortress. A section of the river had been rendered in pale blue, distinguishing the shallow depth of the ford from the rest of the river, affected in darker shades. “They’ll try to cross here. The malus have always commanded close to the front. From everything we’ve seen, they believe themselves immune to our attacks.”

“They did, at any rate,” Cruk growled, “until Captain Liam managed to relieve one of them of some excess head.”

Rale bit his lower lip. “It would have been better had he not. They might be more cautious now.”

Errol shook his head. “I don’t think one death will teach them humility, and our men have taken courage from the stroke.” He caught Liam’s gaze across the table. “They call you Demon Slayer now.”

“I hope you’re right,” Rale said. “If not, our challenge becomes difficult.”

Cruk snorted. “That’s not the half of it, Elar. It becomes impossible. There are more Merakhi arrayed against us than maggots on a thousand dead horses. Even if all of us could fight as well as Captain Liam, we would be hard-pressed to counter their numbers.”

Rale answered by using a thin piece of wood to point toward the map. “All we ever had, Captain Cruk, was hope. By the order of the archbenefice, the Judica, and the conclave, we are commanded to attack the enemy here tomorrow. Captains Liam and Stone will lead. They . . . they . . .” Rale exhaled, searching for words.

“We will fight until we have defeated the enemy or restored the barrier,” Errol said.

As if his words had somehow strengthened Rale’s resolve, his mentor continued. “We will form a wedge, captains and lieutenants of the watch close to the vanguard. Archers will be positioned behind us to clear Merakhi forces from the field until we engage. After that they’ll continue to fire at the back ranks of the enemy.” He paused to gaze at every man in the room. “They will do this regardless of any flanking tactics the enemy will use.”

Errol stared in horror. “You can’t be serious. Our forces will be slaughtered. They’ll pincer us from the sides.”

“We know that, Errol,” Cruk said. “I think we talked once or twice before about what needed to be done. If we don’t reestablish the barrier, every victory will be short-lived.”

Rale smiled at him as if he’d coaxed the expression from unwilling muscles. “If we win quickly, they won’t have to time to flank us.” He glanced down at the map, then up again. “That’s all, gentlemen.”

The captains didn’t waste time. Each turned and made his way to doors and hallways leading to whatever friends and family or solitude they needed.

Errol followed Liam from the room, pushed by instinct and a desperate need for some measure of hope. “Can I have a moment of your time, Captain Liam?”

The blue eyes twinkled at the use of the title. “You’ve learned formality in the last year.”

A surprised laugh exploded from Errol’s lips. “Along with a lot of other things.”

“Come. I have food in my quarters. I don’t think I’ll feel like eating tomorrow morning.”

Once there, they sat, but Errol couldn’t muster an appetite. He watched Liam dispatch the remains of a roasted chicken and a wedge of cheese with aplomb.

“Can I beat him?” Errol asked.

“Who?” Liam asked. He swallowed and moved the plate to one side.

“Belaaz.”

Liam took a handful of breaths to reply. “I don’t think so. I’m not bragging when I say I’m far more skilled than when we first came to Erinon, yet Belaaz’s inferior came within a hair’s breadth of taking me.” His gaze softened. “I’ve done nothing in any spare moment except work the sword. You must let me fight them.”

Errol forced his face to neutrality. “Gladly, but there will be more than one. If they come at us in a group, I will do what I can to keep them off of you as long as possible.”

Liam shook his head. “We don’t know which of us will die.”

His lungs needed prompting. “I know. I’ve always known.”

“Has Aurae told you?” Liam asked softly. “Have you succeeded in casting where the entire conclave has failed?”

Honesty forced him to shake his head. “No.”

“Then do not esteem yourself more lightly than you should.” Liam pulled the plate back in front of him, and Errol departed.

He set his path back toward his own chambers, but a sudden indifference overcame him, and he turned left to make his way to the archbenefice’s quarters. Only the occasional servant walked the halls of Escarion at this hour, and loneliness filled him. At the door reluctance stole over him, diminishing his knock to the barest tap. Instead of trying again, he turned away, but the door opened to reveal Martin Arwitten’s bluff features.

“Errol.” He smiled. “I thought I heard someone.” He stepped aside and motioned Errol into his apartments. When Errol entered his sitting room, he saw a chair perched in the glow of candles with a copy of the book of Magis on a reading stand in front of it.

Errol gestured toward the book. “How much have you read?”

Martin gave him a self-deprecating smile. “Not as much as I’d like. I’ve been skimming mostly, looking for some weakness in our enemy you and Liam might be able to exploit.”

Hope kindled in his chest, pounding in time to the racing of his heart. “Have you found anything?”

Martin lifted his shoulders. “Much of the language of the book is difficult to understand, written as it was untold centuries ago, but it is clear the malus are not omniscient, despite what they would have us believe. That is reserved for Deas alone.” Martin eyed him, his gaze intense. “Our own history tells us as much. If the malus had known of the covenant Magis made with Deas, they would never have killed him. It may be possible to use their incomplete knowledge of Deas’s intent against them.”


Errol leaned forward, eager. Perhaps, despite the answer of his lots, there remained some way to achieve victory. “How?”

Martin shook his head. “To answer that question, we would have to know Deas’s intent ourselves.” He sighed “We’re not even sure which of you is supposed to be king and savior.”

Martin didn’t say it, but within the vaults of Errol’s mind, he finished the archbenefice’s thought. And which of you therefore must die.

He wanted to leave, but fear and curiosity rooted him to the floor. “What does it say about . . . about dying?”

Martin’s eyes welled, but his voice remained steady enough. “Our knowledge is imperfect, lad, but Deas has made us eternal, hard as that may be to understand. Death is only a passage.”

Errol tried to grasp the truth within those words as he walked the halls of Escarion, but the fear remained—a bulwark within his mind impervious to hope. Back in his chamber he fashioned lots, as he did every evening to reassure himself Adora still lived. An ache to see her hollowed him out inside. “I hope she marries someday.” In the emptiness of his room, no one replied.