name was a badge of distinction. Perhaps she thought, like the decadent Skraelings, that glory could be passed on to one’s descendants the way you would pass down a sword or a shield. “Gold’s worth more than words any day,” she said. “Though it would please me to be called baronkiller, I confess.”
“Sorry, the price is nonnegotiable.” Morg laughed and stepped forward to place a hand on their shoulders. “I will give you each one thing for free, and that is my pride. You’ve both done very well.”
“We’ve done nothing yet,” Morget insisted, thrusting away his father’s hand. Perhaps there was a way he could turn this around-to downplay Morgain’s accomplishment and gain another chance to reap glory for himself. “The western half of Skrae is unconquered. My spies tell me of a new army massing against us, this Army of Free Men. They say it is led personally by the Burgrave of Ness. As long as he opposes us we have only temporary claim to this land.”
“You desire to march out of here again so soon?” Morg asked.
Morget began to answer. Then he bit his tongue. He’d been about to demand it for himself, but he remembered what Morgain had said outside the gate. Perhaps she had something to teach him after all. “I want nothing for myself. I am a chieftain, and it is what my clans want that matters.”
Morg nodded respectfully, as a man will who appreciates a move his opponent makes in a game of counters. That meant far more to Morget than his father’s pride.
“Winter is coming,” the Great Chieftain said. “This morning the water in my basin was frozen. I had to break it up to wash my face. It will be a hard thing, campaigning in a strange land in wintertime. I myself was going to suggest we spend the season here, and renew the fight only when the grass grows green once more.”
“My clans long to complete this war,” Morget insisted. “To crush Skrae while its leadership is in disarray. If we press the fight now, we face scattered troops hiding under their beds. Resistance in the eastern half of Skrae may be broken,” he said, waving one hand in the air as if to suggest this was no great thing. “Yet there are plenty of men to oppose us in the west, still. Right now they are an untrained rabble, the kind Morgain has proved so effective in dispersing.” Her eyes narrowed, and Morget wondered how far he could push her before she drew her sword and attacked him. Part of him would relish the chance to match his Ancient Blade against hers. “If we wait until spring there may be a real army prepared to stand against us.”
Morg shook his head from side to side. “Meeting even a scattered army on the battlefield means many casualties. Is it not better to let them come to us, where we have strong walls to aid us?”
“You assume they will attack if we do nothing. If it were wise for us to sit and wait, why would it be folly for them? They will not wish to fight in winter either. Let us use that to force them into a decisive battle.”
Morg looked up at the sky, as if trying to gauge when the first snow would fall. “You. Chieftess. You speak for one half of all my clans. What do you say?”
Morgain could not speak for a long while, as her skull-painted face contorted in rage. Clearly Morget’s gambit was working and he had robbed her of her glory. “My clans desire to hear the word of their Great Chieftain before they make a decision.” Morgain turned and stared into Morget’s eyes. “For myself, I desire many things. But of course, what I want does not matter.”
Morg nodded. “Very good. You’ve heard my decision. Take it to your chieftains, argue it all night over mead and contests of strength. Tell me tomorrow what you decide, and that will be our answer.”
There. It was out in the open. Morgain did want something. His own heart’s blood, probably. It did not matter, though.
If she refused to march west now, she would look the weakling. She would be begging the scolds to call her Morget’s cowardly sister. He knew Morgain could never live that down. She would offer her clans to accompany his because she had no choice. All the clans would agree that the war must be taken to the west, as far as Ness and the mountains beyond, all the way to the far sea, until all of Skrae was under their heel. As for Morg, he would never gainsay the clans when they were unanimous in their choosing.
And even if he tried to do just that-well, he could be replaced. And with Morgain on the defensive, able only to react to his own moves, there could be only one warrior ready and capable of being Morg’s replacement.
Morget walked away from the palace of justice with a vast smile deforming his face, despite how he’d been slighted by the Great Chieftain. No one dared ask him what he found so pleasant. He returned to the wall between the inner and outer baileys and collected Balint once more. As he headed toward his tent he told her all that had been said between father, brother, and sister. He wanted to know if she thought his plan to invade the West was brilliant or headstrong.
“Does it truly matter? It means more blood, and that’s what you’re really after,” the dwarf said, her jeering tone gone for once. She sounded afraid. “It means you get to kill more men of Skrae.”
As usual, when she wasn’t trying to be funny, she made Morget laugh the hardest.
“Oh yes,” he agreed, “that’s certainly a benefit.” He boomed out with laughter that shook the windows in the houses all around him.
Chapter Seventy-One
“The Godstone is cracked. The cracks need to be repaired. Only blood will do. Blood is what He wants! How can you not see this?” The madman, the child-killer, was chained to the bars of his cell in the gaol. He looked badly used. Bruises covered his chest and one eye was swollen shut. Clearly his keepers had been beating him.
Malden wondered if they had done so in self-defense or because they hated his crime. He supposed he couldn’t blame them for being angry. Still, he sighed. “I want him made as comfortable as possible. He’s beyond rationality-beyond knowing right from wrong. There’s no reason he should suffer because he’s lost his wits.”
“You could end his sufferin’ right now,” Velmont said. The Helstrovian thief didn’t look angry. He looked like he pitied the man. Yet it seemed he could imagine no better way to express that pity than slitting the madman’s throat.
The laws of Skrae-and the customs of Ness-agreed. If anyone but Malden had been in charge of his fate, the man would already be dead. But there had to be a better way-didn’t there? Mercy had to mean something.
“No,” Malden insisted. “There will be no executions while I’m Lord Mayor. The Burgrave hanged beggars for stealing a loaf of bread. Things are going to be different now.”
“There’s only six cells in this gaol,” Velmont pointed out. “There’ll be more like him, an’ soon enow.”
“Then we’ll build more cells,” Malden said, and headed up the stairs toward the ruins of Castle Hill. Velmont was right, of course. The gaol wasn’t going to serve his purposes for long. It was meant only for holding criminals until they could be brought to trial. It had not been designed for keeping anyone more than week at a time. The sanitary facilities were rudimentary. There was no air or light down there. Prisoners would sicken and perish if they were locked away in that hole for long.
Yet he knew he was right. Killing a man for a simple crime didn’t redress the original offense. It wouldn’t bring back the madman’s child. There had to be a better way, and it was up to him to find it.
Maybe, he thought for the first time, he’d been given this unwanted responsibility for a reason. Maybe he could use his power, instead of being used by it. Maybe he could change things for the better.
If he was only to be given a chance.
Up in the air again, he turned to Velmont and asked, “How much grain did we save from the stores?”
Velmont shrugged. “Enow fer a month, if we’re lucky.”
“We may have to ration it to last longer,” Malden said. He knew that would not be popular. In the two weeks he’d been Lord Mayor, the daily complaints he received about people unable to get flour to make bread had tripled. It was bound to get worse. Hungry people would want to know why he wasn’t feeding them. Starving people would start to think maybe they’d be better off with someone else. Every time he tried to explain the situation, he was met with blank stares.
The worst part was, he couldn’t blame the people of Ness. He couldn’t get angry with them when they didn’t understand. Back when he’d just been Malden the Thief, he would have had the same reaction. Living in a city, so far from farms and fields, people forgot that food had to be grown and harvested and brought to Ness and stored. When you could just go down to the market and buy a loaf of bread you never had to think about its provenance.
“Perhaps we should form details of men to go outside the walls and search the closer farms. There may be
