Part 6 (1/2)
”I know how it sounds, but I'm telling you, I can sense where everything is around us.”
”I don't doubt you, my lord,” said the captain.
Laysa was far more concerned. ”Do you feel well? Do you have a fever?” She held the back of her hand against his forehead. ”Are you sure these dreams haven't made you jumpy? That you're seeing things you want to see?”
”Yes, I'm sure. Something's happening to me. I don't know what it is, but it's real. I wish Gerin or Hollin were here. They might be able to explain it.”
She took his hand and held it between her own. ”I don't know what to tell you.”
”I know you doubt this, and that's fine. I would doubt it, too. But tomorrow I'll show you.”
”And if what you hope to show us doesn't work?” she asked.
”Don't worry. It will.”
Rundgar was shoveling dirt onto their fire while Therain stared off into a line of trees to their left. ”There's a wild dog in there that's been following us for a few days,” he said. ”It's hungry, and it's been hoping to find sc.r.a.ps in our camps.”
”And you know this how?” Laysa asked.
”I told you. I can feel it. The way I sensed the deer. I'm going to call it to us.”
She regarded him with a look of worry tinged with more than a little fear. She's concerned her new husband is insane. It's time to show her I'm not.
At least he hoped that's what would happen. Maybe he truly was crazy. Did crazy people ever understand that about themselves? Wasn't that lack of critical insight one of the signs of being crazy to begin with?
Enough of this. He could sense the dog keenly, hunched down just inside the tree line, waiting for them to leave.
Come here, he called out with his mind. Willing his thoughts toward the hidden presence in the trees. Come to me. You won't be hurt. Remain calm. Do not attack.
An undernourished, scraggly dog burst from the trees and raced toward him. He heard Laysa gasp. Rundgar watched its approach impa.s.sively, though Therain noticed the captain kept his hand on his sword hilt. G.o.ds above me, the man doesn't even trust a dog.
The mangy dog stopped in front of Therain and prostrated itself, its tail thumping in the gra.s.s. Therain bent down slowly and scratched it behind the ears.
Laysa was wide-eyed. ”You called to it?”
”Yes, with my mind.”
”My lord, perhaps the wizard blood in your family is causing this,” said the captain.
”Maybe, though I'm no wizard, at least according to Hollin's crystal.”
Laysa stepped forward and carefully extended her hand toward the dog. Therain cautioned the animal that she meant no harm and that it was not to bite or growl. It obeyed him, and he sensed contentment and happiness from it as she, too, scratched its ears.
”I'm amazed,” she said. ”It's like a story come to life.”
Therain got some food from his pack and fed the dog, which devoured it greedily. ”I'm going to keep him,” he said. ”I'll call you Kelpa.”
”Why that name?” asked Laysa.
”When I was a five, I got a dog and named him Kelpa. He was one of the few things in our house that did not favor Gerin or Claressa. They both hated him, and he hated them. Which was why he was my favorite.”
5.
The walled city of Urkein on Hreldol, the largest of the Pelkland Islands, still bore the scars of the siege it had endured at the hands of King Bessel Atreyano and his eldest son Abran more than two decades past. The ma.s.sive stones flung from the Khedes.h.i.+an trebuchets had crushed the battlements in a score of places and gouged enormous pits in the face of the wall. A section of the northern expanse had completely collapsed after Khedes.h.i.+an sappers dug their way beneath the foundations and lit a ma.s.sive fire beneath them. After King Qadir's surrender, the Pelklander stonemasons did their best to sh.o.r.e up the sagging section, but in the end they decided to demolish it and rebuild. The new section, and the repairs to the pits and gouges in the wall's face, were easily spotted, even from s.h.i.+ps out in Heldekar Bay, like the mottled flesh on an old man's hands.
King Daqoros had been a child when the siege occurred and his father shamefully surrendered to the b.a.s.t.a.r.d king of the mainlanders; he himself had been taken as a hostage for five years to ensure Qadir's compliance with the treaty. When Daqoros first returned to Hreldol the repairs in the walls galled him, visible monuments to his people's everlasting shame. The sight of them never failed to make his breath catch in his throat, his heart thud almost painfully in his chest. He begged his father to tear down the entire northern face of the wall and rebuild it so it was complete and whole, the scars of the siege erased completely, obliterated from the physical world if not from his memory. But Qadir refused. The walls were strong, he said. That was all they needed. And the cost to do what Daqoros asked, on top of the tribute they were forced to pay to the Khedes.h.i.+an throne, would bankrupt them.
If the walls were so strong, Father, why did you surrender? Daqoros thought as his carriage rolled along the cobbles of the Tureld Road toward the city's main gate. If the walls were strong enough, why was I taken away into bondage for five years to be humiliated in the house of a foreign king?
He kept the curtains of his carriage closed. He had no desire to see the walls that had failed them, though even without seeing them, the shame still burned hotly within him.
In one respect his father had been right. To level and rebuild the walls was too costly. The treasury could not support such an undertaking. Not with his other plans already in place and moving quickly to fruition.
Daqoros's well-guarded carriage reached the Tuothon, the palace built upon the very spot where their legends said the G.o.d Murakos had fas.h.i.+oned Father Hrona, the first Pelklander, from the mud and stone of the island. Murakos had cut open his wrist and let the blood drip on the lifeless statue, infusing it with life and will. Daqoros knew the tale. ”You will be the father of a mighty people,” the G.o.d said to Hrona. ”I grant these islands to you and your descendants. Remain true to my faith and they will be yours until the end of time.”
When settled in the palace, Daqoros summoned three of his wives to his bed, where he relieved himself of the s.e.xual urges that had been building in him so he could clear his mind. After spilling his seed into Jyunel, he sent them away, bathed, then retreated to his council chamber and sent for the Darom.
The four men who comprised the king's advisors arrived shortly and seated themselves after bowing low to Daqoros. He knew they had been gathered with their spies, who recently returned from the mainland, and he was eager to hear what they learned.
”Tell me, Kadahm, what is happening in the land of our enemies?” he asked.
The senior advisor of the Darom, an old man with a wind-burned face and a beard the color of rusty steel, inclined his head toward his ruler. ”Your Grace, our most recent intelligence indicates the Khedes.h.i.+ans are vulnerable. Despite breaking the blockade of the Havalqa invaders and repelling the land invasion, they are fearful of incursions. The bulk of their fleet now patrols the waters north of Gedsengard, and the king's eyes are on the Threndish border.”
”Are the rumors that these Havalqa invaders have taken Turen to be believed?”
”Yes, Your Grace,” said Kadahm. ”But I believe Ormo has more information in that regard.”
”Your Grace,” Ormo began, ”these foreigners have indeed taken Turen, and much of Threndellen as well.” He absently tapped his fat, bejeweled fingers on the table as he spoke. ”They have not yet taken Trothmar, though it appears only a matter of time before it falls or King Kua'tani surrenders. These Havalqa are fearsome soldiers, and have not lost a battle since their defeat at Almaris. They have pushed all the way to the Bedan Plains in Armenos.”
Daqoros clenched his jaw at the mention of a king surrendering to an enemy, even if the king was a despised fool. ”Where are these Havalqa getting their men? They cannot have brought so many with them, even if their fleet is as big as reported. Are they using conscripts?”
Ormo leaned his round face over the table, as if about to impart a great secret. ”No one knows for sure, Your Grace, but my spies have heard rumors of a magical door that opens into the heartland of these Havalqa far across the sea. Through it, they bring a nearly endless number of soldiers.”
”Bah,” said Kadahm with a dismissive wave of his hand. ”Your spies are drunkards or liars, or both.”
Ormo bristled. ”I tell you, I heard from more than one of my men that soldiers march out of the royal compound of Turen day and night, but none go in! There is some black conjuring happening with these invaders, I am certain of it.”
Kadahm rolled his eyes but made no further comment.
”What else do we know of these invaders?” asked the king. ”Why are they here? Will they turn their eyes toward us?” The thought chilled him. If the Pelkland Islands were to face an invasion of their own, all of his plans would be for nothing.
”Unfortunately, we know little, Your Grace,” said Kadahm. ”They do indeed seem to have come from lands across the Maurelian Sea. They appear particularly interested in the Khedes.h.i.+ans, especially their new king, Gerin Atreyano.”