Crown of Vengeance

He’d begged Ivrulion, humbling himself before his faithless witchborn brother. Ivrulion had laughed.

He tried to murder Ivrulion in a thousand ways. Poison failed and assassins vanished. Runacarendalur couldn’t even seek his own death in a Challenge Circle: Aramenthiali had gotten the War Council to forbid personal challenges. With nothing to occupy them—no entertainment, no comforts, and only the faintest chance of fighting— the komen were becoming increasingly restive. It was one thing to use a break in the winter weather to go hunting, another to spend sennight after sennight living in a freezing pavilion and slogging through snow all day.

There wasn’t any game to hunt anyway. Vieliessar’s army devoured everything in its path like a raging fire. Even the border steadings the Alliance reached were nothing more than stones and beaten earth. The night watches had been doubled and doubled again, not because there was any likelihood of an attack, but because the laborers and servants kept slinking away in the dark.

At least with half the camp on watch, they could be sure the komen weren’t going to run off as well.

Each morning we arise to see nothing ahead but trackless white; each night there is no fire or Silverlight to be seen but ours. The only way to truly know she still flees us is to send out a sortie party to catch up to her. But no! The War Council is as bored as I am! It wishes an entertaining surprise, whenever the High King chooses to deliver it!

And soon, whether she could claim victory or not, the Alliance Army would be destroyed. Runacarendalur growled low in his throat at the thought, gaining him a startled look from a Household servant. It was just dawn, and the encampment was readying itself for another useless day of following Vieliessar Farcarinon, who seemed to have the ability to make an army numbering nine thousand tailles vanish like windblown smoke. If not for the impossibility of provisioning such a force, he wouldn’t put it past her to have laid a trail into the teeth of the first heavy snow and then have settled somewhere to spend the winter in comfort. Laughing at them.

At least today the weather was clear. And while no one in command of this ill-starred expedition would consider permitting another sortie party after Inglethendragir’s disastrous defeat, the War Princes knew entirely forbidding their komen to ride out would cause them to go into open revolt. Runacarendalur pulled the hood of his stormcloak further over his head as he reached the Caerthalien horselines. He meant to spend his day—and his foul temper—schooling his new destrier. Bentrain would never be the match of his beloved Gwaenor, but he’d been lucky to replace Gwaenor at all. There were already komen in the army without warhorses.

Bentrain stood waiting placidly. Runacarendalur unhooked the destrier’s halter and led him to the saddling paddock. With the ease of long practice, he tossed the heavy war saddle onto the stallion’s back, buckled the twin girths into place, brought the chestpiece around, buckled the upper strap to the saddle, and ducked under Bentrain’s neck to thread the lower strap through the ring on the forward girth.

When he straightened again, he saw Ivrulion leading his own mount into the saddling paddock. The palfrey mare was a grey as pale as ice, and every line of her spoke of speed and fire. It no longer surprised Runacarendalur that Ivrulion had managed to keep one of the best animals in the entire army for his personal use.

“I thought I might ride out with you this morning, dear brother,” Ivrulion said dulcetly. An ostler hurried forward with the palfrey’s saddle—green leather stamped with the Caerthalien stars in gold—and began saddling the mare.

“You must be feeling unusually brave this morning, brother,” Runacarendalur replied acidly. He turned his back and worked at making Bentrain accept the double bit.

“Merely desirous of a morning’s exercise,” Ivrulion replied easily. “It grows tedious to spend my days trudging from nowhere to nowhere.”

“Then why don’t you tell Lord Bolecthindial so, and we’ll all go home?” Runacarendalur snapped. He set his foot in the stirrup and swung into the saddle. Bentrain took his usual side step away, but Runacarendalur was already used to the animal’s tricks. He gathered the reins, took the bit away from Bentrain, and trotted him out of the paddock.

Ivrulion caught up to him even before he passed the wagons. They rode in silence for nearly a candlemark, until the sound of horns and whistles behind them indicated the army was finally ready to move.

“Are you planning to turn back, or do you mean to ride all the way to Utheleres this morning?” Ivrulion asked.

“I have work to do with Bentrain,” Runacarendalur said curtly. “I can’t do it if I’m constantly being overtaken by the army.”

“Small chance of that,” Ivrulion answered lightly. “We seem to be slower to get under way every morning. I believe it may be the cold,” he added guilelessly.

More likely the laziness and rebellion of servants their masters will not punish! With a growl of exasperation, Runacarendalur set spurs to his stallion’s sides. There was one thing he and Bentrain could agree on: galloping.

The wind pulled Runacarendalur’s stormcloak from his head and shoulders and the air was freezing, but the sensation of freedom was too sweet to ignore. He let the pounding rhythm of iron-shod hooves against iron-hard ground lull him for what seemed all too brief a time, then—reluctantly—reined Bentrain in.

Ivrulion cantered up to them before Bentrain had slowed to a trot. “If he fell and broke a leg, you’d have regretted this,” Ivrulion said.

“You’d Heal him,” Runacarendalur answered. “You must be good for something.”

The remark earned him one of Ivrulion’s faint, cool smiles. “I’m good for a great many things. I simply won’t do what you want me to.”

“Why not?” Runacarendalur shouted.

“You die, she dies, what changes?” Ivrulion answered, apparently moved to candor for once. “We don’t know where she is. Her lords aren’t likely to come begging forgiveness if they lose their precious High King. They’ll simply become utterly unpredictable and far more dangerous.”

“True now,” Runacarendalur snapped. “A moonturn or two ago we could have had them!” We could have kept the War Princes’ households alive until we were sure we’d won, instead of giving two dozen domains every cause to seek vengeance on us forever.

“Maybe,” Ivrulion said. “And you would be dead, Caerthalien would be in disarray—and we would all still be here. If you think retracing our path across three domains in utter anarchy is a safe and simple matter, I do not.”

“It would be easier if we did it now!” Before our mounts are starving, before some gaggle of hedge knights goes into revolt, before this so-called Alliance shatters into a million shards. He ground his teeth to keep the words behind them; if Ivrulion was loyal to anything but himself, it was not to Runacarendalur. I lost all hope of his loyalty when I told him I’d never live to rule. The thought was bitter, but far from new.

“You won’t argue me to your side now any more than you could before; stop trying,” Ivrulion said patronizingly. “Would you feel better if I told you the idiotic ‘council’ is as little inclined to follow my suggestions as it is to follow yours?”

“And you our father’s pet!” Runacarendalur jeered. “I’m shocked, Prince Ivrulion, I truly am.”

The horses had slowed to a walk now. Runacarendalur glanced behind him. The army was tiny with distance. I’ve probably already covered as much ground as it will all day, he thought in frustrated anger.

“All I say is—” Ivrulion broke off sharply.

Runacarendalur glanced quickly around, searching for some movement, some enemy. There was nothing. Then—

“What’s that?” he asked, gesturing toward the trees.

“A problem,” his brother answered grimly.

They spurred their horses forward again.

* * *

“I don’t believe— How could she—?” Runacarendalur sputtered.

“If by that you mean to ask ‘Did Lord Vieliessar’s army come this way?’ the answer is yes,” Ivrulion answered. The undisguised irritation in his voice would have cheered Runacarendalur at any other time.