King of Thorns (The Broken Empire 2)

For long moments the wonder of the living rock held me and when it let me go I found myself alone, an island of light in the ancient dark. Quick glances along the path confirmed it. No men of the watch, no Brothers, not even footsteps in the distance.

Something is wrong.

“Jorg.” And Sageous stepped from behind a pillar of stone, the light within him writing his tattoos across the walls in shadow, sliding, moving, wrapping over every fold and curve of the cavern.

“Heathen.” I kept my eyes on his. “You have more churchmen you need killed perhaps?”

He smiled. “You’ve been so hard to reach, Jorg. A hedge of thorns around all your dreams.” A frown. “…or a box? Is it a box, Jorg? There’s another hand in this. Someone has been keeping you from me.”

I kept my hands still, my eyes on his, but I felt the weight at my hip and his gaze wandered there.

“Interesting,” he said. “But no matter. Now we’re so close I can touch you again.”

“Have you come to play me, heathen? To set me on the path of your choosing?” I drew steel but he seemed unimpressed. “Don’t tell me—you’re not here again?”

Again the smile. He inclined his head a fraction. “I’m beyond your reach, Jorg, and you still walk the path I placed you on long ago. All you have left to choose is the manner of your death. I took Katherine from you. She would have made you strong. Yin to your yang, if you like. And now you are weak, and she serves instead to place in my hands an Arrow I can point where I will.”

“No.” I shook my head and took a step toward him, careful of my footing.

In the caves a wrong step can leave you broken at the bottom of a long fall. Yet however I chose my steps the heathen had always made me doubt my footing. He carried doubt with him, doubt of self, doubt of motives, the kind of uncertainty that eats at a man like cancer.

“No.” I repeated myself, hunting confidence. “Gloating is for fools. If I were playing your game you would leave me to play it.” I quested toward him with the point of my sword. “Perhaps those gentle touches didn’t work quite so well as you had hoped and you come in desperation to turn me more boldly from the path I’m walking. Gloating is for fools, and I have never counted you a fool.”

The light flickered across his skin. “You can’t win, boy. You can’t win. So why are you still here? What are you planning? Where are you hiding your secrets?” His eyes fell to the box again, though it made but the slightest bulge at my hip.

A quick step and I thrust at him. He hissed as the blade bit in, with no more resistance than if only his robe hung before me.

“I’m not here!” Through gritted teeth, as if insistence made it true. And he was gone.

“Jorg?” Makin at my side, a frown on his brow, his hand on my arm. “Jorg?”

“Heh. Dreaming on my feet.” I shook my head. “Lead on!”

* * *

The sally tunnels connect to separate cellars beneath the Haunt, their exits disguised as huge wine barrels. I elbowed my way among the Watch and found Hobbs.

“Do what you can about the ram,” I said. “It looks to be well covered but it needs fresh men to swing it, so shoot a few of the bastards as they come up to take a turn. Also, you’ll find there’s not much incoming at the moment. At least not of the pointy kind. They’ll still be slinging rocks at us. So take advantage and just kill as many of his men as you can.”

Next I took myself to the courtyard where my levies, subjects, and bannermen waited, crowded rank upon rank before the gatehouse. Knights from Morrow to the left of the portcullis, armour gleaming, swords in hand. To the right more knights, plate-armoured, the noblest sons of Hodd Town, my capital down in the valleys to the north. No doubt they had come to win the king’s favour and honour for their houses. Young men in the main, soft with gold and more used to lance and tourney than blood and ruin. I saw Sir Elmar of Golden among them, his armour radiant as his name implied. A warrior, that one, despite his finery.

They had some strength among them. Crowded on the gallery and stairs, crossbow men from the Westfast under Lord Scoolar, hard-eyed and wind-burned. Packed before the splintering gate, men of the Hauntside, tough fighters from the hills, in leather and iron, axes honed, round wooden shields layered in goat-hide. Behind these, warriors from Far Range, their iron helms patterned with silver and tin, each man armed with hammer and hatchet. And to the rear, ranked before the keep wall, Cennat shield dancers, their warboards taller than a man.

I walked among them, Makin at my shoulder, amid the stink and heave of bodies, the tension a taste in the air at once both sour and sweet. I hadn’t words for them, no kingly gestures, no speech to shout above the screams from beyond the wall and the crash of the ram. When you fight alongside Brothers you bind them with word and deed. When you fight among subjects you are a figure, a form, an idea. Men will die for many things; lives hoarded with care can be spent for the strangest of reasons. What bound us here, we men of the Highlands, was defiance. All men will dig their heels in if pushed enough. All men will reach the point that they say “no” for no reason other than opposition, for no reason other than the word fits their mouth, and tastes as good as it sounds. And in the Highlands, among our mountains, the heights breed men who will give no single inch without defiance.

I walked between the men of the Highlands, the old and young, some bearded, others clean-cheeked, some pale, some red, the trembling and the steady, and came to stand before the portcullis, iron-bound timbers splintered, the rush of the ram beyond, the savage cries of the hundred wrestling it toward me. My fingers found my knife hilt and I pulled it clear. Laid against my unburned cheek the metal felt like ice. The portcullis shuddered and groaned before the ram. Men of Arrow screamed and died as missiles rained upon them. The knife blade cut skin soft as a kiss. I took the blood on scarlet fingers and wiped it over the gate timbers. I turned my back on the gate, crouched before my men, and smeared a line of blood across the flagstones. As I returned to the keep I set my hand to a score of warriors, the eager ones, the ones in who I saw an echo of the same hunger that made me want that gate open every bit as much as those men on the ram.

“King’s blood!” Sir Elmar of Golden raised his axe, the crimson smear of my fingers left across his shining helm.

“King’s blood!” A hairy Hauntside warrior pressed the heel of his hand to the red imprint I set across his brow.

“King’s blood!” A Cennat dancer twirled the huge shield where my handprint sat scarlet across the white moon of his house.

“King’s blood!”

The roar pulsed back and forth, following us within the keep. A king is a sigil, not a man but an idea. I thought they had the idea now.

I took myself up to my throne-room with Makin at my side, and called for my table-knights, Red Kent, and the captain of the contingent from the House Morrow, Lord Jost.

Lord Jost arrived last, with a second knight and Miana. Queen Miana I supposed I should call her. She still wore her wedding dress, though with the train and veils taken off and a shawl set with pearls added against the cold. Lord Jost looked rather embarrassed by her presence at my council of war.

“Gentlemen,” I said. “My lady.”

I sat in the throne. Slumped would be more accurate. It felt good to take the weight off my feet. I’d done more running and climbing and descending than I wanted and was ready to sleep for a week.