Crown of Vengeance

“I’m not afraid of anything!” she shouted. “My father—”

“Isn’t coming,” Rithdeliel answered, and a great noise rose as everyone began talking at once. He waited for it to stop, then said, “He is with the army that came from the west. We are here. How many days’ provisioning have you there in the castel, Princess of Jaeglenhend?”

Princess Telucalmo didn’t answer him. Rithdeliel didn’t think she knew. It would have been amazing if she had. He knew such things because it was a Warlord’s business to know them. Harvesttide—the end of War Season—was the time when larders were barest. And the castellan had to know that most of their spell-preserved stores were rotting, though Rithdeliel didn’t know if the Court did.

The question was asked for show, and it did its work. Soon enough the battlements were cleared of spectators and only the castel guards were left. “I do not recognize your livery,” one of them called down. “Is that what bandits and oathbreakers wear in the west?”

“Perhaps you can tell me that—if you make it across the Mystrals alive!” Rithdeliel called back. “I will take your surrender, but only if it is made without a fight.”

“As the princess says—we are in here!” the guardsman answered, grinning.

Half of any battle was waiting. Rithdeliel had never much cared for it. He sent most of the army back to the village. The craftworkers had left their livestock behind, and the herds driven up from the manorial estates had followed close behind the army. Soon the savory scent of roasting meat filled the air. Someone brought him a piece of meat wrapped in a piece of bread, and water for his destrier. Someone on the wall—he couldn’t see who—loosed a few arrows. They struck nothingness and fell harmlessly to earth.

It was late afternoon, and the shadows were stretching long, when Rithdeliel finally saw and heard what he’d been waiting for: galloping horses and the flash of armor, the drumming of hooves. The group must have fled through a siege gate on the far side of the castel. He spurred Varagil toward them, and the double-taille he’d kept mounted and waiting through the long afternoon followed, but the Warhunt was quicker still. Rithdeliel and his meisne had barely rounded the near wall of the castel before two of the horses in the party broke away, turned, and began galloping toward Rithdeliel’s forces. One palfrey carried a slender figure in blue-lacquered armor; the next, a woman carrying a small child before her on her saddle. A third figure followed almost at once—the guardsman Rithdeliel had seen speaking to Princess Telucalmo on the battlements.

The rest of the riders could have escaped, but they were guardsmen, leaving the Great Keep in an attempt to get the princess and the Heir-Prince to safety. After a moment’s confusion they came galloping toward Rithdeliel and his meisne.

Rithdeliel plucked Heir-Prince Surieniel from his nurse’s arms and flung the startled child to the nearest of his komen. Surieniel screamed as he was carried away and Rithdeliel closed with Princess Telucalmo.

If she’d been riding a destrier, if she’d been a seasoned knight, it wouldn’t have been nearly so easy, but she was still hammering her heels into her palfrey’s sides and sawing at the reins, unable to understand why it would not obey her. She saw the danger too late: he dragged her from her saddle and the Warhunt released her palfrey. With no rider to control it, the beast sped away.

Rithdeliel passed Princess Telucalmo to one of his komen despite her shrieks and struggles. As the knight galloped away, Rithdeliel drew his sword and spurred Varagil into the castel guardsmen. They should have retreated as soon as they saw their cause was lost, but every disaster the High King had faced in Jaeglenhend had originated in Nilkaran’s lords being more terrified of him than they were of death. Outnumbered more than ten to one, palfreys and chain mail against destriers and plate armor, Jaeglenhend’s guardsmen fought to the death.

* * *

After the battles, the flight, the privation of the past days, the surrender of Jaeglenhend Great Keep was almost anticlimactic, but here at last Nilkaran had done their work for them. The castel’s servants and remaining defenders all knew that having lost the Heir-Prince to the enemy meant their deaths. Opening the castel gates was their only chance for life, so they took it.

The keep was not large enough to house even the portion of Vieliessar’s army which had taken it, and its larders were in as much disarray as Rithdeliel had suspected. But it offered shelter, and the surrounding farms had given them supplies, and there was no harm in being crowded if one was warm and fed. He set the craftworkers of the village to replacing the army’s lost supplies, and the commons who had followed them from the manor farms to building an earthworks that encompassed the nearer fields and the castel itself. He did not expect it to provide a great deal of defense, but it would break a charge, and it would keep them busy.

Then he set about gathering the army back together.

Lord Vieliessar’s army.

The High King’s army.

* * *

The Alliance army prepared for march three full candlemarks before dawn. Its enemy’s baggage train followed behind its own, and the mingled herds followed both. Vieliessar’s Lightborn, in disgrace for their rebellion, were set to ride between her supply train and the herds, where the komen who guarded the herdsmen could guard them as well.

It was still snowing.

The Houses of the Alliance took turns supplying the rear guard, and today House Rolumienion had that dubious honor. Since the end of the disastrous Surrender Parley Theodifel of Rolumienion had heard nothing but talk of the High Houses banding together and their lords cherishing each other as kin. And he had never been so grateful to be the eldest child of a minor lord, for the Lords Komen and their princely masters had done nothing but feud among themselves, and it had been a rare day, even on the march, when a Challenge Circle was not drawn.

When the herd beasts stampeded—first the goats, then the sheep, then even the cattle and the palfreys— there were many signs made against sorcery, for the herders suspected the rebel Lightborn had been responsible. Theodifel galloped up to the Lightborn and rode beside them. But he could not tell if any of them were working Magery, so he summoned his komen and went to give aid to the herders, for the loss of the herds was the loss of food, remounts, and draft animals.

It was noon before the herd beasts were finally collected and calmed and willing to be driven quietly at the rear of the caravan once more. On his return to the tail of the caravan, Komen Theodifel saw at once that the Lightborn were no longer there, but his first thought was that they’d taken advantage of the confusion to ride ahead, for who would follow a baggage train if they did not have to? A moment’s reflection told him such an easy answer was folly: the loyal Lightborn would not permit the rebels to join them, and if they were simply riding beside the wagons farther up the column …

… the hoofprints of their palfreys should be visible in the snow. And they were not.

They were gone.

* * *

Heir-Prince Runacarendalur of Caerthalien was an excellent knight, a skilled general, a loyal vassal, and a reasonably dutiful son. He was kind to the servants of his household, courteous to his vassal knights, and gracious to the nobility of his father’s court. He held his temper when he would rather lose it, he was tactful when he would rather be honest, and he told the truth when he would prefer to lie. He did not mistreat beast or child, he did not create factions, or join them, or permit them to form about him, and he did not—usually—drive Lord Bolecthindial to threaten to lay him in chains and throw him in the nearest dungeon.

“Will you ask Lord Nilkaran to grant you the loan of Jaeglenhend, Father? For if you mean the dungeons of Caerthalien, they—”

“Be silent!” Lord Bolecthindial roared. “I will not be mocked by my heir!”

They stood facing one another, scant handbreadths between them, in Lord Bolecthindial’s pavilion. Lord Bolecthindial’s servants, attendants, and guards had all been dismissed, and the door-flaps were laced shut. Their conversation was utterly private.

Fortunately.

“No—you let Prince Serenthon’s heir do that!” Runacarendalur shouted back.

Bolecthindial struck him with a closed fist. Runacarendalur staggered back, falling to one knee. Blood dripped from his mouth and soaked into the pattern of leaves and flowers in the thick carpet. He stayed down, digging his