“Father!” A tall, fine featured young man stood nearby, his expression strained with embarrassment. He wore the uniform of a captain in the Twenty-seventh cavalry, a crow’s feather fluttering from the top of his breastplate, a longsword with a bluestone pommel strapped across his back. At his belt he wore a Volarian short sword. “The enemy,” Alucius Al Hestian said, inclining his head at the host advancing across the plain, “doesn’t seem inclined to dally.”
Vaelin expected the Battle Lord to explode at his son but instead he almost seemed chagrined, biting his anger back, nostrils flaring in frustration. With a final baleful glance at Vaelin he strode off to stand beneath his own standard, an elegant scarlet rose at odds with the character of its owner, his personal guard of Blackhawks closing protectively on either side, casting suspicious glances at the Wolfrunners surrounding them. The two regiments shared a mutual detestation and were like to turn taverns and streets into battlefields when encountering one another in the capital. Vaelin was keen to ensure they were kept well apart in the line of march.
“Hot day’s work ahead, my lord,” Alucius said, Vaelin noting the forced humour in his voice. He had been disappointed to find Alucius had taken a commission in his father’s regiment, hoping the young poet had seen enough slaughter at the High Keep. They had met infrequently in the years since, exchanging pleasantries at the palace when the king called him there for some meaningless ceremony or other. He knew Alucius had recovered his gift, that his work was now widely read and young women were eager for his company. But the sadness still lingered in his eyes, the stain of what he had seen in the High Keep.
“Your breastplate should be tighter,” Vaelin told him. “And can you even draw that thing on your back?”
Alucius forced a smile. “Ever the teacher, eh?”
“Why are you here, Alucius? Has your father forced you to this?”
The poet’s false smile faded. “Actually my father said I should stay with my scribblings and my high-born strumpets. Sometimes I think I owe my way with words to him. However, he was persuaded that a chronicle of his glorious campaign, penned by the Realm’s most celebrated young poet no less, would add greatly to our family’s fortunes. Don’t concern yourself with me, brother, I’m forbidden from venturing more than an arm’s length from his side.”
Vaelin looked at the oncoming Alpiran army, the myriad flags of their cohorts rising from the throng like a forest of silk, their trumpets and battle chants a rising cacophony. “There will be no safe place on this field,” he said, nodding at the short sword on Alucius’s belt. “Still know how to use that?”
“I practice every day.”
“Good, stay close to your father.”
“I will.” Alucius offered his hand. “An honour to serve with you once again, brother.”
Vaelin took the hand, more firmly than he intended, meeting the poet’s eyes. “Stay close to your father.”
Alucius nodded, gave a final sheepish smile and walked back to the Battle Lord’s party.
Design within design, Vaelin concluded, pondering the Battle Lord’s words. Janus promises him my death in return for victory. I get to save my sister, the Battle Lord gets vengeance for his son. He calculated the many bargains and deceits the king must have spun to bring them to these shores. The entreaties made to Fief Lord Theros to bring so many of his finest knights. The unnamed price agreed with the Meldeneans to carry the army across the sea. He wondered if Janus ever lost track of the web he wove, if the spider ever mislaid one of his threads, but the notion was absurd. Janus couldn’t forget his designs any more than Princess Lyrna could forget the words she read. He thought about the Aspect again, about the orders he had been given and how, for all its complexity, the old man’s web amounted to nothing.
“ERUHIN MAKHTAR!”
The shout went up from every man in the regiment, loud enough to carry to the oncoming Alpirans, loud enough to be heard above their own chants and exhortations.
“ERUHIN MAKHTAR!” The men brandished their pole-axes, steel catching the sun, shouting as one the words they had been taught. “ERUHIN MAKHTAR!” On the summit of the rise Janril was waving the standard on a pole twenty feet high, the running wolf rippling in the wind for the whole plain to see. “ERUHIN MAKHTAR!”
Already the Alpiran cohorts nearest the hill were beginning to react, the ranks wavering as soldiers increased their pace, their drummers’ steady beat unheeded as the Wolfrunners’ taunt drew them on. “ERUHIN MAKHTAR!”
The Battle Lord was right, Vaelin decided seeing the discipline of the leading Alpiran cohort give way completely, ranks dissolving as the men broke into a run, charging the hill, their own shouts a burgeoning growl of rage. The guardsman gave us a weapon. The words and the banner. Eruhin Makhtar. The Hope Killer is here, come and get him.
And they came. The cohorts on either side of the charging men broke ranks and followed suit, the madness spreading rearwards as more and more formations forgot their discipline and charged headlong for the hill.