A flameweaver named Rahjim sat upon a black horse and gazed hungrily toward the ruins of Tal Rimmon, toward the sheets of flame twisting up into the sky. This was the third castle his master had destroyed in a single night. He breathed rapidly in excitement, vapors of smoke issuing from his mouth, an unnatural light gleaming in his eyes. He had no hair, even on his eyebrows. “Where to now, O Great Light?” the flameweaver asked.
As Raj Ahten drew near, he felt the dry heat of the creature’s skin. “Now we ride to Carris,” Raj Ahten answered.
“Not to the Courts of Tide?” the flameweaver pleaded. “We could destroy their capitol before their lords ever learn of the danger!”
“Carris,” Raj Ahten said more firmly, determined to resist the flameweaver’s arguments. He did not wish to raze all of Mystarria yet.
Mystarria’s king was still safely secluded far to the north in Heredon, holed up deep within the Dunnwood, protected by the spirits of his ancestors.
“To strike down the capitol at the Courts of Tide would be a fell stroke,” Rahjim urged.
“I shall not attack it,” Raj Ahten whispered in a deadly tone. “The boy will not come if I leave him nothing to save.
Raj Ahten leapt onto the back of his warhorse, but for a long moment he did not ride for Carris. Tal Rimmon could be seen bright as day beneath columns of fire lit smoke.
Distantly, people screamed and tried to throw water upon their burning homes or to pull the fallen from beneath collapsed buildings. He could hear the children crying.
Raj Athen watched the city burn while reflected flames danced in his dark eyes.
Book 6
Day 30 in the Month of Harvest
A day of choices
1
The Voices of Mice
As King Gaborn Val Orden rode toward Castle Sylvarresta on the last day of Hostenfest, the day of the great feast, he reined in his horse and peered up the Durkin Hills Road.
Here the trees of the Dunnwood had been cleared back from the road, three miles from town. The sun was just rising, casting a sliver of silver light over the hills to the east, and the shadows of leafless oaks blotted the road ahead.
Yet in a patch of morning sun around the bend, Gaborn spotted three large hares. One hare seemed to be on guard, for it peered up the road, ears perked, while another nibbled at sweet golden melilot that grew at the margin of the road. The third just hopped about stupidly, sniffing at freshly fallen leaves of brown and gold.
Though the hares were over a hundred yards distant, the scene looked preternaturally clear to Gaborn. After having been underground in the darkness for the past three days, his senses seemed invigorated. The light appeared brighter than ever before, the early morning birdsong came clearer to his ears. Even the way the cool dawn winds swept down from the hills and played across his face seemed new and different.
“Wait,” Gaborn whispered to the wizard Binnesman. He reached behind his back, untied his bow and quiver from his saddle. He gave a warning glance to his Days, the skeletal scholar who had followed him since his childhood, bidding the Days to stay behind.
The three were alone on the road. Sir Borenson was following some distance behind them, bearing his trophy from the Hostenfest hunt, but Gaborn had been in a hurry to get home to his new wife.
Binnesman frowned. “A rabbit, sire? You’re the Earth King. What will people say?”
“Shhh,” Gaborn whispered. He reached into his quiver, pulled his last arrow, but then paused. Binnesman was right. Gaborn was the Earth King, and it seemed fitting that he should bring down a fine boar. Sir Borenson had slain a reaver mage, and was dragging its head into town.
For two thousand years, the people of Rofehavan had looked forward to the coming of an Earth King. Each year during the seventh day of Hostenfest, this last day of the celebration, the day of the great feast, served as a reminder of the promise of the Earth King who would bless his people with all “the fruits of the forest and of the field.”
Last week the Earth Spirit had crowned Gaborn, and charged him to save a seed of humanity through the dark times to come.
He’d fought long and hard these past three days, and the reaver’s head belonged as much to Gaborn and Binnesman as it did to Sir Borenson.
Still, if Gaborn brought in nothing more than a single hare for the great feast, he could imagine how the mummers and puppet-masters would ridicule him.
He braced himself for the mummers scorn and leapt lightly from his charger, whispering “Stand” to the beast. It was a force horse, his fine hunter, with runes of wit branded along its neck. It stared at him knowingly, perfectly silent, while Gaborn put the lower wing of his bow on the ground, stuck a leg between the bow and the string, then bent the bow and pulled the upper end of the string tight into its nock.
With the bow strung, he took his last arrow, inspected the gray goose quills, and then nocked the arrow.
He crept forward, staying low along the brushy side of the road. Wizard’s violet grew tall here by the roadside, its flowers a dark purple.
When he rounded the corner, the hares would be in full sunlight. So long as he stayed in the shadows, they’d not be likely to see him; if he remained silent, they’d not hear him; and while the wind blew in his face, they’d not smell him.
Glancing back, Gaborn saw that his Days and Binnesman remained on their mounts.
He began stalking down the muddy road.
Yet he felt nervous, more nervous than mere hunting jitters could account for. He sensed a vague apprehension dawning. Among the newfound powers that the Earth had granted him, Gaborn could sense danger around those people he’d Chosen.
Only a week ago; he’d felt death stalk his father, but he’d been unable to stop it. Last night, however, that same overpowering sense had enabled him to avoid disaster when the reavers staged an ambush in the Underworld.
He felt danger now, but vaguely, distantly. Death was stalking him, as surely as he stalked these rabbits.
The only weakness of this newfound power was that he could not know the source of the danger. It could be anything: a crazed vassal, a boar lurking in the underbrush.
Yet Gaborn suspected Raj Ahten, the Wolf Lord of Indhopal, the man who had slain Gaborn’s father.
Riders on force horses had brought word from Mystarria that in Gaborn’s homeland, Raj Ahten’s troops had taken three castles by subterfuge just before Hostenfest.
Gaborn’s great-uncle, Duke Paladane, had marshaled troops to contain the problem. Paladane was an old lord, a master strategist with several endowments of wit. Gaborn’s father had trusted him implicitly, and had often sent him out on campaigns to track down criminals or to humble haughty lords. Because of his success, he was called the “Huntsman” by some, the “Hound” by others. He was feared throughout Rofehavan; if any man could match wits with Raj Ahten, it was Paladane. Surely Raj Ahten could not march his troops north, risk the wights of the Dunnwood.
Yet danger approached, Gaborn felt certain. He placed his feet carefully on the dry mud of the road, moved as silently as a wraith.
But when he reached the bend in the road, the hares had left. He heard a rustling in the grass by the roadside, but it was only mice stirring, scampering about under dry leaves.
He stood a moment wondering what had happened. Ah, Earth, he said in his thoughts, addressing the Power he served. Could you not at least send a stag from the forest?
But no voice answered. None ever did.
Moments later, Binnesman and the Days came trotting up the road. The Days bore the reins of Gaborn’s dun colored mare.
“The hares are skittish today, it seems,” Binnesman said. He smiled slyly, as if pleased. The morning light accentuated the creases in the wizard’s face and brought out the russet hues of his robes. A week ago, Binnesman had given part of his life to summon a wylde, a creature strong in the earth powers. Before that, Binnesman’s hair had been brown, and his robes the green of a leaf in summer. Now his robes had changed color, and the fellow seemed to Gaborn to have aged decades in the past few days. Worse yet, the wylde he’d sought to summon had vanished.