“ My brother Hentes is a fanatic,” Lord Mustor replied with a shrug. “When it became clear my father was going to bend the knee to King Janus he called him to a secret meeting and stuck his sword in his heart as a service to the World Father. No doubt the more vehement priests and followers would have approved but Cumbrael is not a land that could tolerate a Fief Lord who ascends by the murder of his own father. Whatever the thoughts of the commoners, the vassals who followed my father would not follow Hentes. They’ll fight your army, they have little choice after all, but only in defence of the fief. My brother will be at the Keep, he can go nowhere else.”
“ And once the usurper is… dislodged?” Vaelin asked Prince Malcius.
“ The reason for this war will have disappeared. But it all depends on time.” He turned his attention back to the map, his finger tracing the route from the Brinewash bridge to the pass where the High Keep waited. “Best guess, the pass is two hundred miles distant. If we are to accomplish our goal we must get there in sufficient time to allow word to be taken to the Battle Lord.” He reached for a sealed parchment on the table. “The King has already set down a command for the Realm Guard to return to Asrael in the event we are successful.”
Vaelin quickly calculated the distance between the pass and the Cumbraelin capital. Nearly a hundred miles, two days ride for a fast horse. Nortah could do it, maybe Dentos too. Getting to the keep in time, that’s the hard part. The regiment will have to cover at least twenty miles a day.
“ Can it be done, brother?” the Prince asked.
Vaelin’s gaze turned to the Cumbraelin villages laid out on the map in precise, neat lines. He wondered how many people in those hamlets along the Western Road had any notion of the storm that would soon descend. When this war was done perhaps another map would have to be drawn. In Cumbrael you will see many things. Many terrible things. “It will be done, Highness,” he said with flat certainty. I’ll whip them all the way there if I have to.
And so they marched, four hours at a stretch, twelve hours a day. They marched. On through the grass lands north of the Brinewash, into the hills and valleys beyond and the foothills that signalled entry into border country. Men who fell out on the march were kicked to their feet and hounded into movement, those who collapsed given half a day on the wagon then put back on the road. Vaelin had decreed the only men left behind would be ready to join the Departed and counted on their fear of him to keep them moving. So far it had worked. They were sullen, weighed down by weapons and provisions, their mood soured by his order cancelling the rum ration until further notice, but they were still afraid, and they still marched.
Every night Vaelin would seek out Alucius Al Hestian for two hours of training. The boy was initially delighted by the attention. “You honour me, my lord,” he said gravely, standing with his long-sword held out in front of him as if he were holding a mop. Vaelin slashed it from his grip with a flick of his wrist.
“ Don’t be honoured, be attentive. Pick that up.”
An hour later it had become obvious that as a swordsman Alucius made a fine poet. “Get up,” Vaelin told him, having sent him sprawling with a flat bladed blow to the legs. He had repeated the same move four times and the boy had failed to notice the pattern.
“ I, um, need some more practice…” Alucius began, his face flushed, tears of humiliation shining in his eyes.
“ Sir, you have no gift for this,” Vaelin said. “You are slow, clumsy and have no appetite for the fight. I beg you, ask Prince Malcius to release you and go home.”
“ She put you up to this.” For the first time, there was some hostility in Alucius’s tone. “Lyrna. Trying to protect me. Well I won’t be protected, my lord. My brother’s death demands a reckoning, and I will have it. If I have to walk all the way to the usurper’s keep myself.”
More boy’s words. But there was a strength to them nonetheless, a conviction. “Your courage does you credit, sir. But proceeding with this will only result in your death…”
“ Then teach me.”
“ I’ve tried…”
“ You have not! You’ve tried to make me leave, that’s all. Teach me properly, then there will be no blame.”
It was true of course. He had thought an hour or two of humiliation would be enough to convince the boy to go home. Could he really train him in the time left? He looked at the way Alucius held his sword, how he held it close to his body to balance the weight of it. “Your brother’s sword,” he said, recognising the bluestone pommel.
“ Yes. I thought it would honour him if I carried it to war.”
“ He was taller than you, stronger too.” He thought for a moment then went to his tent, returning with the Volarian short sword King Janus had given him. “Here,” he tossed the weapon to Alucius. “A royal gift. Let’s see if you fare any better with it.”
He was still clumsy, still too easily fooled, but at least had gained some quickness, parrying a couple of thrusts and even managing a counter stroke or two.
“ That’s enough for now,” Vaelin said, noting the sweat on his brow and his heaving chest. “Best if you strap your brother’s sword to your saddle from now on. In the morning, rise early and practice the moves I showed you for an hour. We’ll train again tomorrow evening.”
For nine more nights they trained, after an arduous day’s march, Vaelin would try to turn a poet into a swordsman.
“ You don’t block the blade, you turn it,” he told Alucius, annoyed he sounded so much like Master Sollis. “Deflect the force of the blow, don’t absorb it.”
He feinted a thrust at the boy’s belly then swept the blade up and around, slashing at the legs. Alucius stepped back, the blade missing by inches, and countered with a lunge of his own, it was clumsy, unbalanced and easily parried, but it was quick. Despite his continual misgivings, he was impressed.
“ All right. That’ll do for now. Sharpen your edge and get some rest.”
“ That was better wasn’t it?” Alucius asked. “I am getting better?”
Vaelin sheathed his sword and gave the boy and pat on the shoulder. “It seems there’s a warrior in you after all.”
On the tenth day one of Brother Makril’s scouts reported the pass less than half a day’s march distant. Vaelin ordered the regiment to camp and rode ahead with Prince Malcius and Lord Mustor to locate the tunnel entrance, Makril’s command riding as escort. The green hills soon gave way to boulder strewn slopes on which the horses could find scant purchase. Spit grew fractious, tossing his head and snorting loudly.
“ Foul tempered animal you have there, brother,” Prince Malcius observed.
“ He doesn’t like the ground.” Vaelin dismounted, taking his bow and quiver from the saddle. “We’ll leave the horses here with one of Brother Makril’s men, proceed on foot.”
“ Must we?” Lord Mustor asked. “It’s miles yet.” His sagging features showed the signs of yet another night’s indulgence and Vaelin was surprised he had managed to remain in the saddle for the duration of the march.
“ Then we had best not linger, my lord.”
They struggled upward for another hour or so, the dark majesty of the Greypeaks an oppressive, dominating presence above. The summits seemed ever shrouded in mist, hiding the sun, the muted light making the landscape uniformly grey. Although it was late summer the air was chilled, possessed of a cloying dampness that seeped into their clothes.
“ By the Father I hate this place,” Lord Mustor gasped when they had paused for a rest. He slumped against a rocky outcrop and slid to the ground, unstoppering a flask. “Water,” he said, noting the prince’s disapproving glare. “Truth be told, I had hoped I’d never see Cumbrael again at all.”
“ You are the heir to the Lordship of this land,” Vaelin pointed out. “It seems an unlikely ambition never to return to it.”
“ Oh, I was never meant to sit on the Chair. That honour would have been afforded Hentes, my murderous sibling, whom my father loved dearly. Must’ve broken the old bastard’s heart when he lost him to the priests. He was always the favoured son, you see. Best with the bow, best with the sword, quick of wit, tall and handsome. Sired three bastards of his own by his twenty-fifth year.”
“ He doesn’t sound like the most devout of men,” Prince Malcius observed.
“ He wasn’t.” Lord Mustor took a long gulp from his flask causing Vaelin to suspect it contained more than water. “But that was before he took an arrow in the face during a skirmish with some outlaws. My father’s surgeon removed the arrowhead but my brother took a fever and lay near death for several days, at one point it’s said his
