Crown of Vengeance

vanquished enemy. “Go to bed, my son,” he said with surprising gentleness. “Tomorrow, we begin our siege.”

He was wrong.

INTERLUDE FOUR

INVASION AND INFAMY

Mist rose over the surface of the blood in the obsidian bowl. With the Obsidian Mirror shattered beyond re- creation, Virulan had to find new ways of seeing beyond The World Without Sun. This one combined business and pleasure.

He gazed at the images of blood and slaughter forming within the mist and smiled, baring gleaming fangs. The Elflings were so proud of their armies, of the skill of their warriors. Virulan knew the truth. Skill was meaningless when confronted with power.

The dainty banquet of death was a pretty sight nonetheless.

“They are so confident,” he murmured aloud. “Century upon century, they have bred like the vermin they are, refining their arts of war, believing themselves the greatest power in their world. They slaughter brother, sister, their own children. They make war upon those creatures whose lands they have claimed. And they look to a time when they will be victorious over all. But that time will never come.”

And best of all, a faint echo of true Darkness had found a home within their hearts. He had watched, gleefully, as fear and ambition caused them to cast aside the rules of chivalry by which they had lived for so long, watched as expediency tempted them to commit greater and greater atrocities. Only the Elfling Mages had stood aside from that rush to infamy.

Until now.

Now, at last, one of the Elfling Mages had followed his brethren down their twisted path. Anger and cheated ambition had gnawed at his soul since childhood, and slowly—oh, so slowly—it had led him to … compromise. From the moment Virulan had found the Elfling, drawn by the sweet scent of moral rot, he had watched avidly as Ivrulion of Caerthalien made bargain after bargain with himself.

At first, the Elfling Mage had acted to further the ambitions of his House, holding himself above the promises he had made to his teachers. He had done what he thought best, never realizing that from the moment he placed his will above that of his masters, all was lost.

Always, Ivrulion chose the logical, the expedient, the efficient over oaths and honor. Virulan was charmed. No Brightworlder could ever hope to equal the majesty of the least of the Endarkened. They were too cowardly, too weak. But the spark of Darkness Virulan saw in Ivrulion grew in unexpected ways. Sometimes the Elfling lied to himself about his motives. Sometimes he saw them clearly and rejected anything that might curb his desire.

Ambition was the link between the Endarkened and the Brightworlders, the one thing that could cause Virulan to name those evanescent bags of meat his distant kin. Ambition led them to war. Ambition led them to treachery. Ambition led them to betrayal.

Ambition led them into the Dark.

Virulan could not know where this would ultimately lead. He could know Ivrulion’s intentions, it was true— they were so clear that only his blind, foolish, Brightworld kin could remain in ignorance—but he could not see What Would Be. Still, he could watch as, sennight by sennight and moonturn by moonturn, Ivrulion expanded the catalogue of things his ambition found acceptable.

He could watch as Ivrulion led his people to war.

It was delicately done, the work of a lifetime of idle remarks and casual observances. His colleagues and his masters drank his poison as if it were sweet milk, certain of his loyalty and his honor. Certain of the presence of all the things he had abandoned so long ago. Soon every death among the Hundred Houses could be laid at his doorstep.

Soon the end would come.

Soon it would be time for the Light to dim, and then gutter out entirely.

The images faded away.

Send me a sign, Elfling, Virulan breathed over the cooling blood. Send me a sign that the day has come for the Endarkened to ride to war.

To war, and to triumph.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE FALL OF THE HUNDRED HOUSES

It is said the High King gained her throne through seven great battles: Oronviel, Aralhathumindrion, Jaeglenhend, Niothramangh, Cirdeval, the Barrens, and the Shieldwall Plain. Oronviel was a Challenge Circle, Aralhathumindrion only a skirmish, and the Barrens was not a battle at all. But Storysingers shape history as cabinetmakers shape wood, and it is left for Loremasters to decide the truth.

—Thurion Lightbrother,

Vieliessar’s Tale

It was nearly dawn. The fortress the Warhunt’s Magery had made echoed with emptiness; its tents and pavilions, herds and flocks, wagons and all who would not take the field this day, were gone. The last of the wagons labored through the pass; the sound of hooves on stone, the creak and thump of wagons, was loud in the night silence.

For nearly a sennight, her folk had passed through Dargariel Dorankalaliel into the Vale of Celenthodiel. Reports had trickled back of a vast, lush, deserted domain ringed by mountains, of a deserted Great Keep atop a spire of rock, of Flower Forests too vast to map.

Vieliessar had not yet seen it. It would be hers—if she could win the day.

She had thought that claiming the Unicorn Throne would be enough to gain her the victory, and it would—but only if she could show her enemies what she held. The pass stretched for miles. The Alliance would not follow her through it—Arilcarion taught that such a tactic was suicide, and the Alliance Warlords would heed that ancient counsel.

And so she’d planned this battle, the words Princess Mieuroth of Gerchiliael had spoken moonturns ago echoing through her mind: My lords, we are not alone in this! There are many who would choose to join your cause—but how can it be, when each knows any they abandon will be cruelly punished?

Today those lords and those princes would have their chance. All they need do was throw down their swords and ride to her lines. Let enough of the Alliance army pledge to her, and the victory was hers.

The only way to get them to do that was to offer her enemy a show of battle.

Her commanders had tried to argue her out of taking the field in her own person, but she’d never considered agreeing. Perhaps there was wisdom in their words, but how could she ask her foot knights to stand against charging destriers, ask the Lightborn to believe she would never lead them to flout Mosirinde’s wisdom, if she did not trust in being Child of the Prophecy as her armor and shield?

She’d never had any other choice. She had never forgotten her vigil in the Shrine of the Star.

“You have come to end Us … for you are Farcarinon. Death in life. Life in death. You will be known when We are forgotten.” The Starry Huntsman had spoken, and within that vision had come another: a cold and darkling plain, a balefire burning star-pale with magic, a creature neither alfaljodthi nor Beastling standing tall and proud beside a komen in whose veins her own blood coursed. “The Land calls you. The People call you. I call you. He Who Is would return to the world, and so we summon you.”

“And will you spill your own blood to save the land?”

I will. The question had not been asked of her, but every day she had answered it. I will. I will.

“I will,” she whispered aloud.

“I still think you’re an idiot,” Thoromarth said quietly. “My liege.”

“Think what you like; it’s too late to change my mind,” she said. “Are you ready?” she called.