King of Thorns

I laid Miana on my bed and left her there. She had proved tougher than expected so far and it looked as if she’d just been knocked out. Habit put the lidless box back in my hip pocket.

Although I couldn’t see the fires in the courtyard, I could feel them. When I woke the Builders’ Sun beneath Mount Honas its power had ignited Gog’s talent. It seemed that releasing the ruby’s fire-magic in one blast had woken in me what echoes of Gog and his skills had lodged in my flesh when he died beneath Halradra. I pushed back against the feeling. I remembered Ferrakind. I would not become such a thing.

The Haunt’s keep has four towers, my bedchamber being at the top of the eastmost one. I went to the roof. A young guardsman sat hunched on the top steps just below the trapdoor. A new recruit by the look of him, his chainmail shirt too big for his slight frame.

“Waiting here in case giant birds land on my roof and try to force an entry?” I asked.

“Your Majesty!” He leapt to his feet. If he weren’t so short he’d have brained himself on the trapdoor. He looked terrified.

“You can escort me up,” I said. He would have plenty of time to die on my behalf later on. No point chasing him down the stairs myself. “Rodrick is it?” I had no idea what the coward’s name was but “Rodrick” was popular in the Highlands.

“Yes, Your Majesty.” A relieved grin spread over his face.

He unbolted the door and heaved it open. I let him walk out first. Nobody shot him, so I followed.

From the tower battlements I could see the Prince’s army on the slopes, in even more disarray than my own troops. It would be an hour and more before his captains imposed order, the units reformed and merged, before the dead were heaped, the injured carted to the rear. A haze of smoke hung across the remains of the shantytown that had stood before the Haunt’s walls. The brisk wind could do little to shift it.

Despite the fires in the courtyard below, it felt cold on the tower. The wind had teeth up there and carried the edged threat of winter. I crept to the east wall and looked out toward the ridge where the Prince had the bulk of his archers positioned. They seemed to be in some confusion. Trolls had emerged from several still-undiscovered exits and were busy parting the lightly-armoured bowmen from their heads again.

I ducked down. I’d had my head up for two heartbeats. It took an arrow three beats to fly from the ridge to the keep. And sure enough, several shafts hissed overhead. They all missed Rodrick, who hadn’t had the wit to get behind cover. I knocked him flat. “Stay there.”

I took the Builders’ view-ring from inside my breastplate and held it to one eye. Making the image zoom in to one area still made me feel as if I were falling, plunging from unimaginable heights. I knew it must be a matter of moving lenses, as Lundist had shown me in my father’s observatory, but it felt as if I rode the back of an angel falling from heaven.

“Jorg! Jorg!” Makin’s voice from down below. He sounded worried.

“We’re up here,” I called.

A moment later Makin’s head poked into view. At least I assumed it was him in the helmet.

“You didn’t burn up then,” I said.

“Damn near! I couldn’t find Kent. I think he’s gone.”

“Watch this.” I waved him over to my side. “It should be good. But don’t stick your head up too high.”

I took Makin’s shield from him and held it over my head for extra cover. We peered over the battlements. The battlefield had fallen almost silent after the explosion, still with the screaming of course, but without the crash of weapons, the war-cries, the twangs and thuds of siege machinery. The drums were voiceless too—Uncle’s six great battle-drums, brass and ebony, wider than barrels, ox-skinned, now burned-out and smouldering among the corpses in the yard. Beneath it all though I could hear a new drumming, a faint thunder. Makin cocked his head. He could hear it too. It sounded almost like another avalanche.

“That’s cavalry! Arrow’s brung up his cavalry, Jorg.” Makin started to crawl for the wall overlooking the Haunt’s ruined front.

I pulled him back. “There’s only one place for miles a horse can charge, Sir Makin.”

And they came, in a rushing stream of blue and violet cloaks, silver mail, thundering past Marten’s hidden troops, the foremost with their lances lowered for the kill.

“What?” Makin almost stood up.

“I once told Sim about Hannibal taking elephants across the Aups. Well, my uncle has brought heavy horses across the Matteracks in the jaws of winter.”

“How?”

I made quick circles with my hand, as if trying to spin the cogs of Makin’s mind a little faster.

“The Blue Moon Pass!” Makin grinned, showing more teeth than a man should have.