King of Thorns (The Broken Empire 2)

Never open the box.

“Highness, the herald has returned.”

I snatched my hand back, almost guilty in the action. My herald stood at the doorway between two table-knights. He looked the part, handsome and tall in his livery, gold-spun and velvet.

“And what did the Prince of Arrow have to say to my offer?” I asked.

The herald paused, a gossip’s trick to draw in more listeners, though we could be no more intent.

“The Prince will meet you on the field of combat to decide the outcome of this battle,” he said.

I saw Makin shake his head.

“Well and good,” I said. “And did he name his ground, or accept my invitation to battle on the Runyard ridge?”

“The Prince felt the ridge to be constructed more from troll than from stone and has identified an area of flattish ground close to Rigden Rock, midway between the castle and the current position of his front line. He will bring five observers to watch from a distance of twenty yards and expects that you will do the same.”

“Tell him his choice is acceptable and I will join him there in an hour,” I said.

The herald bowed and set off to deliver my words.

“Makin, I’ll want you there. But first, get Olvin Green or if he’s dead then somebody good with arrow wounds. I want him and six strong men to get up to Coddin. Have them treat his injury there if he’s still alive and bring him down as soon as it is safe to move him.”

Makin nodded and left the throne-room without a word, just setting a hand to Kent’s shoulder as he passed.

“I’ll want Lord Robert with me, also Rike, Captain Keppen, and Father Gomst.”

Uncle Robert lowered his head in agreement, then stepping onto the dais and bending close, “Why a priest? Good swords are what’s called for in case of treachery.”

“The Prince of Arrow will bring five good swords. I’m bringing three, plus an archer in case the bastard runs for it, and a priest so that in times to come the truth may be told concerning what occurred.”

I let them strap me into my armour, pieces of silvered steel, well crafted and without adornment. I carried no crest, no emblems on this mail. Decoration is for peacetime, for people playing games but not understanding that they do.

The Hundred War, you must know, is a game. And to win it you must play your pieces. The secret is to know that there is only one game and the only rules are your own. With the memory box gone I had all my plans in mind now. The trick was not to dwell on them—to give no edge of them for Sageous to take hold of. One slip and the game would be over.

Whilst the pageboys bolted and strapped and sweated, I held the Builders’ ring to my eye. For a moment I saw Miana through it, across the room, and wondered if she might fit her hand through the ring and wear it as a bracelet on that tiny wrist of hers. And then the image formed. The whole world before me as a jewel of blue and white. A canvas on which even all of empire would not look large.

A small motion of my fingertip along the ridged edge of the ring and the point of my perception fell to earth, faster than an arrow. Faster than a bullet even. Oh yes—I know of those.

The imaged blurred with speed for a heartbeat, two, three, and then snapped into focus. However vast the telescope that must hang above us, it could offer no closer view than this, an image miles across in which the Haunt’s outline could be seen but the details lay hidden. The mass of the Prince’s army made a darker smear on the mountainside. I could see the shape of the larger siege engines, and the men around them like specks of dust. I moved my fingertip again and the image went black. By flickers I counted as it jumped through four voids where whatever eyes the Builders once had were now blind, and then, with my finger on the last of the ridges, a new scene. I could see the army and the smoking wreckage of my walls as if I stood on a nearby mountaintop. Stroking the metal side to side and moving my fingertip forward by hundredths of an inch I drove the view in closer, zeroing upon the ground by Rigden Rock.

In most places the Builders’ ring can see no closer than the miles- high bird’s-eye perspective I described, but in maybe one place in five there are other eyes it can use. By exploration and extrapolation I found the location of an eye that I now exploited. It sits on a high ridge in the Matteracks, entirely hidden from view when not in use. When I call upon it, a gleaming steel shaft rises from behind black doors set into the natural rock and lifts a black crystal dome into the air. I have stood below this dome and listened to the faint hum and whir as I change the ring’s view. Some mechanical eye must sit within and answer my needs. I left it as I found it. These eyes, in the vaults of heaven and down amongst us, burrowed into the living rock, are a work of genius. Even so, I wonder at a people who felt the need to be watched in every moment and at every place. Perhaps it was what drove them mad. I would not be spied upon so. I would blind such eyes.

Fexler Brews went mad. Fourteen years after his echo was captured and held in that machine, he took a gun and shot himself. A Colt four-and-five they called that gun, though it looks no more like a horse than the Horse Coast does. I found Fexler, but it wasn’t easy. I found him on my long and wandering return to the Renar Highlands and it cost me pain and lives. Lives I valued. A rare commodity. Fexler had put a bullet through his brain but even then the machines wouldn’t let him go. They held him trapped between fractions of a second. I pushed away the thought, the image of the weapon in his time-frozen hand, rubies of blood motionless in the air about the exit wound. I forgot about the stasis chamber…before Sageous saw my remembering.

They say God watches us in every moment. But I think, in some moments, when some deeds are done, he turns his face away.

“What do you see, Jorg?” Miana at my side now.

“That the killing ground is clear.” I took the ring from my eye.

“Can you win, Jorg?” she asked. “Against this prince? They say he is very good.”

I felt Sageous. I smelled him, picking at the edges of my thoughts, trying to filch my secrets.

“He is very good. And I…I am very bad. Let’s see what comes of that, shall we?” I made a wall of my imagination and kept my mind from wandering forward to what would happen. My hands knew what to do—I did not need to think of it.

There is a strong-box built into the base of my throne at the Haunt. Before they set my helm in place, I knelt in front of the throne and set the heavy key into the lock-plate. I lowered the side and reached in with my right hand, slipping it into the straps of the small iron buckler within, then drawing it out. I closed my fingers around the curious grip of the object that the buckler hid, and smiled. Imagine Fexler Brews thinking I would take “no” as an answer. I left the box open and stood, stepping off the dais so that the pageboys could reach to strap my helmet on.

“Move my sword belt round, Keven,” I said.

The boy frowned and blinked. He looked like a child. I supposed he was, no older than Miana. “Sire?”

I just nodded and still frowning he unbuckled the belt and refastened it with the hilt sitting on the steel above my left hip.

Some men name their swords. I’ve always found that a strange affectation. If I had to call it something I would call it “Sharp,” but I’m no more inclined to christen it than I would my fork at dinner or the helm upon my head.