King of Thorns

“You know a lot about heraldry, boy.” Eyes still calm. The man beside him moved his hand to his sword, gauntlet clicking against the hilt. “They call the man who rules there the Prince of Arrow.” He smiled. “But you may call me Prince Orrin.”


It seemed rash to be riding into another’s realm with fifty men, even fifty such as these. The very thing I had decided against for my own travels.

“You’re not worried that King Jorg will take the opportunity to thin the field in this Hundred War of ours?” I asked.

“If I were his neighbour, maybe,” the Prince said. “But killing me or even ransoming me to my enemies would just make his own neighbours more secure and better able to harm him. And I hear the king has a good eye for his own chances. Besides, it would not be easy.”

“I thought you came looking for a count, but now it seems you already know about King Jorg and his good eye,” I said. He came prepared, this one.

The Prince shrugged. He looked young when he did it. Twenty maybe. Not much more. “That’s a handsome sword,” he said. “Show it to me.”

I’d wrapped the hilt about with old leather and smeared that with dirt. The scabbard was older than me and shiny with the years. Whatever my uncle’s sword had been, it wasn’t handsome now. Not until I drew it and showed its metal. I considered throwing my dagger. Old blondie might not see so clear with it jutting out of his eye socket. He might even have a brother at home who’d be pleased to be the new Prince of Arrow and owe me a favour hereafter. I could see it in my mind’s eye. The handsome Prince with my dagger in his face, and us racing away across the slopes.

I’m not given to should haves. But I should have.

Instead I stowed the knife and drew my uncle’s sword, an heirloom of his line, Builder-steel, the blade taking the light of the day and giving it back with an edge.

“Well now,” Prince Orrin said again. “An uncommon sword you have there, boy. From whom did you steal it?”

The mountain wind blew cold, finding every chink in my armour, and I shivered despite the heat pulsing from Gog at my back. “Why would the Prince of Arrow come all the way to the Renar Highlands with just fifty knights, I wonder?” I dismounted. The Prince’s eyes widened at the sight of Gog left in the saddle, half-naked and striped like a tiger.

I stood on one of the larger rocks by the roadside, on foot to show I had no running in me.

“Perhaps such reasons are not for a bandit child by the roadside clutching a stolen sword,” he said, still maddeningly calm.

I couldn’t argue with the “stolen” so I took offence against the “child.” “Fourteen is a man’s age in these lands and I wield this sword better than any who held it before me.”

The Prince chuckled, gentle and unforced. If he had studied a book devoted to the art of infuriating me he could have done no better job. Pride has ever been my weakness, and occasionally my strength.

“My apologies then, young man.” I could see his champion frown at that, even behind his visor. “I travel to see the lands that I will rule as emperor, to know the people and the cities. And to speak with the nobles, the barons, counts…and even kings, who will serve me when I sit upon the empire throne. I would win their service with wisdom, words and favour, rather than with sword and fire.”

A pompous enough speech perhaps, but he had a way with words this one. Oh, my brothers, the way he spoke them. A magic of a new kind, this. More subtle than Sageous’s gentle traps—even that heathen witch with his dream-weaving would envy this kind of persuasion. I could see why the Prince had taken off his helm. The enchantment didn’t lie in the words alone but in the look, in the honesty and trust of it all, as if every man who heard them was worthy of his friendship. A talent to be wary of, maybe more potent even than the power Corion used to set me scurrying across empire and to steer my uncle from behind his throne.

The hound sat and licked the slobber from its chops. It looked big enough to swallow a small lamb.

“And why would they listen to you, Prince of Arrow?” I asked. I heard a petulance in my voice and hated it.

“This Hundred War must end,” he said. “It will end. But how many need drown in blood before the peace? Let the throne be claimed. The nobles can keep their castles, rule their lands, collect their gold. Nothing will be lost; nothing will end but the war.”

And there it was again. The magic. I believed him. Even without him saying so I knew that he truly sought peace, that he would rule with a fair and even hand, that he cared about the people. He would let the farmers farm, the merchants trade, the scholars seek their secrets.

“If you were offered the empire throne,” he said, looking only at me, “would you take it?”

“Yes.” Though I would rather take it without it being offered.