A Kingdom Besieged Read online

  ‘Why did we leave?’

  ‘The Darkness came and our Lord Dahun was gone and no one knew how to fight it.’

  ‘Darkness?’ asked Child.

  Lair’ss was so weak now that she sensed this might be her last conversation with her daughter. ‘I know little, but this much is what is known. The Darkness came from the Centre.’

  The child tilted her head as if remembering something. ‘Ah, yes, the Centre. The Ancient Heart.’

  ‘I do not know it by that name, but the Old Kingdoms, Despaira, Paingor, Mournhome, Abandos and the others held sway since the first days after the Time Before Time. Our lord Dahun paid tribute to the Old Kingdoms, and we stood as a bulwark against the Savages.’ Lair’ss inclined her head behind them. ‘There, to the east, where we go now. But we were told a bad thing happened.’

  ‘What, Mother?’

  ‘I do not know,’ Lair’ss said wearily. ‘So much of what has happened is a mystery.’ She stared out towards the distant city. ‘I have been told we once lived like the Savages, spawning in pits, fighting for survival from the first moment. Each death returned us to the pits and the struggle was endless.

  ‘I have been told that the Kings brought order and taught us how to live a new way, how to build as well as destroy, how to care for one another without constant killing. We were told these were good things.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Again, I do not know,’ she said with a long sigh. ‘But what the King wills is law.’

  The younger female was quiet for a while as the sun to the east grew brighter. ‘Where do we go?’ prodded Child.

  After a moment, her mother answered, ‘To the east, towards the lands of the Savages and the Mad Ones.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Child.

  ‘Because there is nowhere else to go,’ answered her mother softly.

  A smile crossed the child’s lips and she said, ‘No, there is another place to go.’ Suddenly she lunged forward and her fangs closed around her mother’s throat and with one pull, she tore it open. Blood fountained and she drank deeply as the light faded from her mother’s eyes.

  Thoughts came with the feeding, not her own, but those of the being whose life she ended.

  A time of calm, with a male, by the name of Dagri, who was her father. He had vanished with the King.

  Images flashed, some understandable and some not, places, faces, struggles and quiet. And some of the holes in her knowledge were filled in as the more abstract knowledge she had gained from the Archivist blended with her mother’s experiences.

  There are been a stable time, a time of Dahun’s dominion. Then word had come of a struggle to the west. Dahun’s kingdom was not one of the Old Kingdoms, but one of the Second Kingdoms, those that ringed the five original Kingdoms.

  Then there had been a war, not here, but in some other place, against a king named Maarg, and her father and others had gone with Dahun to fight him. No one had returned, leaving only the City Guardians and those who knew magic to face the Darkness when it appeared. No one knew what had become of the Old Kingdoms.

  Bits and pieces of knowledge of those times and places seemed to float around the periphery of her thoughts, almost understood, tantalizingly so, but still not coherent. She knew one thing, though: if she were to survive, she needed more knowledge and power.

  She regarded what was left of her mother’s body, then consumed what was left. She kept feeling odd sensations as she did so and tried to put a name to them, but couldn’t. In a strange way she regretted the need to feed on the female who had brought her into this world, but her abstract knowledge of her race’s breeding history made it difficult to understand why she would feel a bond with this female more than any other. She paused; the Archivist thought of their collective society as ‘the race’, but her mother had been taught to consider herself a member of ‘the People’. She understood that this was a distinction, but why it was important eluded her.

  She crawled out from under the overhang, peering about for any threat. In the distance she saw a group of flyers frantically beating towards her, so she ducked back under the overhang until she was certain they had passed. Peering to the west, she saw a dark spot on the horizon. From the knowledge she had inherited from her feeding she knew it to be something fundamentally wrong, and a radical and terrible change in the order of her world, yet it remained abstract to her. She had no feelings about that.

  Feelings?

  She paused. Strange sensations in the pit of her stomach and rising up into her chest and throat visited her, but she had no name for them. For an instant she wondered if she was in danger from them, like poison or exposure to dangerous magics.

  Something tickled the edge of her consciousness. She paused and considered this unfathomable material. From the knowledge she had gained from the Archivist, she understood that memories were either there or not. To have memories from those devoured, yet be unable to reach them, was unheard of; so this must be something else.

  But if it was something else, then what was it?

  Still not enough knowledge, she thought, and certainly not enough power. She must hunt. She must grow stronger, more powerful.

  There was a stirring above and suddenly another flyer dropped out of the evening sky. Without thought, she reached out a hand, but not in the clawed defensive position. Instead, her palm faced the attacker and a searing bolt of energy shot from it and slicked cleanly through his neck, severing the head, which dropped at her feet as the body crashed into the rocks a few feet away.

  The child felt only mild hunger, but knew she needed more food to become more powerful than she was.

  She hunkered down to begin eating the flyer’s head. ‘Magic,’ she said softly to herself. But she had not encountered a spell-caster, let alone devoured one. Even more softly she pondered, ‘Now where did that come from?’

  Then she set about eating the creature’s brain.

  Chapter One Hunt

  THE HORSES REARED.

  The two young riders kept them under control, their long hours of training used to good effect in the face of the unexpected attack. From the brush behind them came the shouts of the men-at-arms and the baying of the dogs, signalling that relief would be there in minutes. Until then, the two youthful hunters were on their own. The two riders had come through an upland scrub of gorse and heather, growing in a swathe of sandy soil that had been denuded of trees in ages past.

  Searching for wild boar or stag, the brothers from Crydee had stumbled upon something both unexpected and terrifying: a sleeping wyvern.

  First cousin to a dragon, the green-scaled beast was far from its usual mountainous hunting grounds, and had been asleep in a deep gully masked from their approach by tall ferns and brush.

  Now, disturbed from its rest, the angry beast rose up, snapping its wings wide to take to the sky.

  ‘What?’ shouted Brendan to his elder brother.

  ‘Don’t let it get away!’ replied Martin.

  ‘Why? We can’t eat it!’

  ‘No, but think of the trophy on the wall!’

  With a grunt of resignation, the younger brother dropped his boar spear, threw his leg over his horse’s neck and dropped to the ground, nimbly removing his bow from his shoulder as he did so. His horse, usually a well-trained mare, was all too happy to run off as fast as possible from the large predator. Brendan drew a broad-tipped arrow from his quiver, nocked his bow and drew and fired in a matter of seconds.

  The arrow flew truly, striking the emerald creature squarely at the joint of shoulder and wing, and it faltered. Slowly, the wing drooped limply.

  Martin leapt off his horse, gripping his boar spear tightly, and his horse sped off after Brendan’s mount. The injured wyvern snarled and reared up and inhaled deeply, making a strange clucking sound.

  ‘Oh, damn!’ said Brendan.

  ‘Down!’ shouted his brother, diving to the right.

  Brendan leapt to the left as a searing blast of flame cut through the air where he
had been standing only a moment before. He could feel the hair on his head singe as the flames missed him by bare inches. He kept rolling, unable to see the wyvern, though he could hear it roar and smell the acrid smoke and blackened soil as it attacked wildly.

  Having clutched the spear to his chest, along the same axis as his body so that he could come swiftly to his feet, Martin launched himself upright. The wyvern seemed momentarily confused by having two antagonists moving in different directions. Then it fixed its eyes on Brendan and started to suck in more air. From what Martin knew of wyvern behaviour, his brother was about to be targeted again with another blast of flames. He cast the spear despairingly, but the range was too far: it fell agonizingly close, but short of the creature.

  Suddenly, miraculously, an arrow sliced through the space between the brothers, taking the wyvern in the throat. The creature gagged, choked, and staggered backwards, then shuddered and began to thrash in pain. Reprieved, the brothers raced forward. Martin retrieved his spear and impaled the creature upon it, while Brendan took careful aim and loosed an arrow into the exposed joint between the wyvern’s neck and torso, straight at the creature’s heart. It thrashed for another long moment, then fell still in death.

  Looking to see the author of the saving shot, the brothers saw a young woman in leather breeches and tunic, knee-high riding boots, standing a little way away from them. She wore a short rider’s cape thrown back over her left shoulder for quick access to the quiver slung across her back. Her bow was a double recurved, compact and easy to shoot from horseback or on foot, evolved from an ancient Tsurani design, but no weapon for a beginner. Only the traditional hunter’s longbow had more power and range.

  Brendan’s face lit up at the sight of her. ‘Lady Bethany, a pleasure as always.’ He shouldered his own bow and wiped perspiration from his brow and grinned as he glanced over at his brother and saw how Martin attempted to rein in his expression of annoyance and replace it with a neutral expression.

  Born a year apart, the two brothers might as well have been twins. Unlike their older brother, Hal, who looked liked their father, being broad of shoulder and chest, dark of hair and six inches above six feet in height, these two brothers took after their mother. Their hair was a lighter brown, their eyes were blue rather than dark brown and they were lithe in movement, slender of frame, and four inches shorter than both their father and Hal. They had a whipcord strength and resilience rather than brute power.

  Bethany’s dark red hair fell to her shoulders and her face was elegant and finely formed. Her smile carried a hint of something akin to condescension as she walked in measured steps, leading her horse towards the fallen beast. ‘You looked as if you could use a little assistance,’ she said with barely veiled humour. Like the brothers she stood on the verge of adulthood, glorious in her youth and taking it for granted. She would be nineteen years old at the next Midsummer Feast, as would Martin. The three of them had been friends since babyhood. Her father was Robert, Earl of Carse, vassal to their father, Lord Henry, Duke of Crydee. She was the tallest woman in either Carse or Crydee at six feet.

  Martin frowned. ‘I thought you said you found hunting a bore?’

  ‘I find most things a bore,’ she said with a laugh. ‘I changed my mind about hunting and decided to catch up with you louts.’

  Noise from behind her indicated that the rest of the Duke’s hunting party was closing in. A moment later, three horses burst through the underbrush and the riders reined in as they regarded the three young hunters and the dead wyvern.

  The rider in the middle was Duke Henry, known as Harry, since his father had also been named Henry. He grinned at the sight of his two boys and the daughter of his friend standing without injury over the fallen monster. His face was sunburned and weathered, making him look older than his forty-nine years, his dark beard showing shots of grey. ‘What do you think of that, Robert?’ he asked the rider on his right.

  Robert, Earl of Carse, reined in. His blond hair had turned grey at an early age, so it looked nearly white in the mid-afternoon sun. Like his companion, his face was sunburned and weather-beaten. That his daughter was as good an archer as any man in the west pleased him. ‘I think my daughter’s arrow did the honours,’ he answered. Then his expression darkened. ‘But riding unattended from the castle was the pinnacle of foolishness!’

  The woodlands around Crydee had been pacified for generations, but they were still not without risk. He took a deep breath of resignation; Bethany was his only child and had been much indulged. As a result she was wilful and impetuous at times, much to his despair.

  Bethany smiled at her father’s ire; she had been a nettle as often as a balm since her mother had died. Raised in a household of men, she had developed a combative nature. ‘I grew bored with the chatter of the ladies of Crydee.’ She smiled and nodded at the Duke. ‘No offence is intended, my lord, but I have only so much interest in needlework and cooking, to my mother’s chagrin. My limit was reached, so I decided some sport was needed.’ She glanced at the fallen creature. ‘Though this sport did end abruptly.’

  ‘Ha!’ said the Duke, and he laughed. ‘so one should wish, Lady Bethany. A wounded wyvern is a dangerous beast. Most would give the creature a wide berth.’

  The trackers and beaters and dogs had arrived, and Huntmaster Rodney motioned for the beast to be secured.

  Brendan said, ‘We all took a hand in killing the wyvern, Father, but I’ll concede honours to Bethany. Her arrow spared me a scorching, I’ll avow.’

  Martin nodded in agreement, as if who claimed the kill was of no importance to him.

  ‘What do you intend to do with it?’ asked Robert. ‘You can’t eat it.’

  The brothers glanced at the repeat of the oft-repeated joke. The nobility in the east might hunt the big predators for sport, but along the Far Coast they were nothing more than a nuisance, a menace to herds and farms. Years of controlling the population of big cats, packs of dogs and wolves, and dragon-kin such as the wyverns, had kept their incursion into the lowlands a rare occurrence. Most of the Duke’s hunting was for giant boar – as it was today – elk up in the foothills, deer in the forest, and giant bears.

  ‘I think its head on the wall would make a wonderful trophy for my room, Father,’ said Bethany, shouldering her bow.

  Lord Robert glanced at his host, who shook his head, barely containing his mirth. ‘Not one for finery?’ asked the Duke.

  ‘Silks and oils, gowns and shoes are lost on my Bethany.’ Turning back to his only child, he said, ‘It will hang in the trophy hall in the keep, not your quarters.’

  Martin cleaned off the head of his boar-spear in the tall grass, then handed it to one of the men-at-arms.

  Brendan grinned. ‘Remembering her attire at the last Midsummer Feast of Banapis, I don’t think finery is entirely lost on her.’

  Even the usually dour Martin was forced to smile at this. ‘It seems you took note.’

  Now it was Bethany’s turn to look slightly annoyed, and the colour rose in her fair cheeks. It was a poorly-kept secret that everyone expected the Earl’s daughter eventually to become the next Duchess of Crydee when Henry’s eldest son, Hal, became Duke. The politics of the Kingdom required all such alliances to be approved by the King, but as the Duke and his family were distant kin to the Royal House of conDoin it kept things simpler if no strong alliances were formed between those nobles on the Far Coast and the powerful noble houses in the distant Eastern Realm.

  ‘How fares young Hal?’ asked Robert of his host.

  Harry’s expression revealed his pride in his eldest. ‘Very well, according to his last missive.’ The younger Henry was away at the university on the island kingdom of Roldem. ‘His teachers grade him well, his presence in the Royal Court does honour to our house, and he only loses a little when he gambles. He writes that he intends to enter the Tournament of Champions.’

  ‘Bold,’ said Robert, watching as the three youngsters retrieved their respective horses and mounted
up. ‘The best swordsmen in the world vie for the title Champion of the Masters’ Court.’

  ‘He’s a fair hand with the blade,’ offered Martin as he rode over to his father. Martin often understated things, sometimes from a dry sense of humour, at other times from a sceptical view of the world. He was always reserved in his praise or condemnation, rarely smiled or displayed displeasure, keeping his own counsel on most matters.

  Brendan could barely contain his delight. ‘He’s the finest blade in the West. Only Martin here can press Hal. According to family lore he’s a match for our ancestor, Prince Arutha.’

  Brendan was the youngest, seemingly set loose in the world with but one purpose, to plague his siblings. He had been a happy baby and a rambunctious child, always striving to keep up with his older brothers. There was rarely a circumstance that found him unsmiling or unable to wrench humour out of the situation.

  ‘A legendary name,’ said the Earl with a polite nod.

  ‘Now, if he could only learn to master the bow . . .’ Brendan added with an evil grin. Martin had never been well suited to the weapon and had shunned it for the sword.

  Robert saw the brothers eyeing one another. He had known all three sons of the Duke since they were born and was used to their constant rivalry. Should this discussion continue, he knew it would become an argument with Martin growing more frustrated by the moment, to Brendan’s evil delight.

  Sensing that his sons were on the verge of another of their many confrontations, the Duke shouted, ‘Bearers, bring the head of the beast to the keep. We’ll make a trophy of its head for Lady Bethany!’

  Her father’s scowl caused a grin to return to the girl’s face.

  The Duke continued. ‘And you two—’ he pointed at first Martin then Brendan ‘—behave yourselves or I’ll have you riding night patrol along the Eastern border.’

  Both boys knew their father wasn’t joking as each had had to endure more than one night with the garrison’s night patrols, wending their way through treacherous forests in the bitterly cold dark. ‘Yes, Father,’ they replied, almost in unison.