King of Thorns

I find the blade and I’m moving toward him. I try to run but it’s like wading through deep snow.

“Silly boy. You think I’m really here?” He makes no move to escape.

I try to reach him, but I’m floundering.


Schnick.

Makin’s hand on the box. The closed box.

I found myself cold, short of breath, hands tight around each other instead of Sageous’s neck. He gone. Just a memory. And I’m in the mountains. Still running.

“What the hell are you doing?” Makin panted.

I looked around. I stood waist-deep in powder snow. Rock walls loomed on either side. The men of the Watch marched behind me…a hundred yards behind me.

“You can’t open that. Not now, not ever. Certainly not now!” Makin shouted. He retched and sucked his breath back. He must have run hard to catch me. I snatched the box back from him and buried it in a pocket.


It’s rare for Blue Moon Pass to be open in the winter. Very rare. A good avalanche will clear it out though, and for a few days before new snow chokes it again, a man can escape across the back of Mount Botrang and then, by a series of lower passes that parallel the spine of the Matteracks, that man can leave the range entirely and the empire is his to wander.

“Run.”

A whisper in my ear. A familiar voice.

“Run.”

“Sageous?” I asked, voice low to keep it from Makin.

“Run.”

Drops of pure nightmare trickled down the back of my neck. I shivered. “Don’t worry, heathen. I’ll run.”





38





Wedding day


“So, will we go to Alaric?” Makin asked.

I kept walking. The sides of the Blue Moon Pass rose shear around us, caked in ice and snow, the black rock showing only where the wind scoured it clean.

“I guess the roads to the Dane-lore will be difficult in winter. But she did want you to come in winter, that girl of his. Ella?”

“Elin,” I said.

“Your grandfather would offer you sanctuary,” Makin said.

He knew we’d lost. The dead men stretched out behind us on the mountain, under stone and snow, didn’t change that.

I kept walking. Underfoot the snow left by the avalanche lay firm, creaking as it recorded my footprints.

“Is it good there? On the Horse Coast? It’d be warm at least.” He hugged himself.

There are two paths up into the Blue Moon Pass; it’s like a snake’s tongue, forked at the tip. The avalanche had opened both of them. I’d had the Highlanders place their boom-pots to ensure it.

“What?” said Makin. “You said ‘up.’”

I carried on making the hard right that led back down the second fork of Blue Moon Pass, picking up the pace. “Now I’m saying ‘down.’ I had Marten hold the Runyard for a reason, you know.”

And so with the surviving third of the Watch trailing me I led the way down through the Blue Moon into the high valley above the Runyard. And when the slope lessened and the ground became firmer…we ran.

We saw the smoke before we heard the cries, and we heard the cries before we saw the Haunt. At last, far below, the Haunt came in view, an island of mountain stone in a sea of Arrow’s troops. His forces laid siege on every side, attacking with ladders and grapple ropes, siege engines hurling rock at the front face of the castle, a covered ram pounding the gates, a legion of archers on the high ridge sending their shafts over the walls.

To my mind siege machinery is more an act of show and determination than it is a well-judged investment of time. Look! We hauled these huge bits of wood and iron to your castle—we mean business, we’re here to stay. The Renar Highlands were perhaps that rare place where there really were enough big rocks lying around for a castle to be reduced to rubble by trebuchets, though it would take forever. But the ram! The ram is the queen of sieges, especially where walls may not be undermined. No mechanics, no counter-weights and escapements, just a simple direct force applied with vigour to the weakest point so that you may set your men against theirs, and that after all is the aim of it all. If you didn’t outnumber the foe you wouldn’t have marched to their castle and they would not be hiding behind walls.


Marten’s men sheltered at the margins of the Runyard, as long and gentle a gradient as could be found in the Highlands, running down from our valley to the left of the Haunt. The ridge from which the Prince’s archers gained their vantage broke the Runyard at its far end.

We could see Marten’s troops, but from lower down the slope they were almost invisible, sheltered by rocks and hidden in their mountain greys. Marten posed little threat to the enemy, though. His hundred men would make no impression on the three thousand occupying the ridge, even if they weren’t shot down as they advanced.

“Why?” Makin asked.

“Why is it called the Runyard?” I chose to answer the wrong question. “Because it’s the only place for miles that you can actually have a horse run without breaking its legs. I’ve seen you at the gallop there many times.”