The Broken Realm Read online

  “I’ll nay disagree that Jesse is more his ma, but he is still your son and a fine man.”

  Hamish shook his head. He hadn’t ever planned to make this confession, but he needed Khallum to wear another look than the guilt-laden grief painting his sorrowful face. “Ye know how I loved my Yanna. I didnae care what others said, ’bout her. Tha’ she didnae belong. I never let a word hit me any deeper than the flesh.”

  “Salt and sand,” Khallum whispered. “Not all are born to it. It is a way of life. Yanna understood our way. She was one of us.”

  “Aye, she did. She embraced it, as I once embraced her when I learned of the man who had harmed her.” Hamish bowed his head. The words were harder, even, than volleying the appreciation of apology. “Who had befouled her, and taken her very honor.”

  “What are you saying, Hamish?”

  “Yanna was already with child when I married her. Aye, I knew it. Before that, even, for when I met her, her belly ware already swole. She’d said I needed to know what I was askin’. What she was now that he’d done what he did.”

  “Jesse,” Khallum said. He exhaled, looking away. “He’s nay your son at all, is that what you’re saying?”

  “He’s my son in all ways tha’ matter, my lord. I’ll nay tell him, ever, for it doesnae concern this or tha’, nae does it? Jamesan is my son and my heir. Doesnae make a whit of difference who sired him. I reared him from a bairn.”

  “Do you know who his father is?”

  Hamish shook his head. He blubbered the unwelcome snot into his closed fist. “I nay asked. For if I knew of the name of the ratsbane who had harmed my Yanna, I would’ve taken his heart out with my teeth, and I’d ha’ been no good to anyone. Ye ken?”

  Khallum’s eyes were wide as he nodded. “I ken.”

  “So as ye see, Jesse is my heir, but Ryan is my boy. My baby.” Hamish’s lower lip trembled with his hard breath. “I’ll nae survive hearing the dead-given rite read over him, Khallum. It will be the end of me.”

  Khallum pushed to his feet and approached Hamish. He laid both hands upon his shoulders. “Ryan took the herbs knowing the risks. He took them knowing the reward. And there isnae a better way, as I see it, to honor his sacrifice than seeing his work through to the end. Will ye see it done with me, brother?”

  Hamish lowered his head and sobbed. Nodded.

  “Aye, ye will. For there is none as beloved to me as my Hamish Strong,” Khallum said. “And I cannae think of a better way to wake Ryan from his wee slumber than having the ratsbane’s head upon a pike in Sandycove for all to see.”

  * * *

  Gathering at all was a risk. They had to be prudent with their time. If they let their words linger well into the night, there’d be whispers. Whispers of what Khallum Warwick was doing by moonlight with three of his top men and one of Stewardess Rutland’s convalescents.

  Darrick chose to say nothing. He didn’t give his reason for volunteering his silence, but Khallum understood it nonetheless. Darrick trusted him to lead them forward into this plan, even if Khallum himself wasn’t certain it was the right way. But Khallum’s men would follow Khallum before they would follow Darrick, no matter what they’d risked to rescue him.

  “We haven’t long,” Khallum said. He stood by the fire. Hamish lingered by the stone wall, their lookout. Law and Rutland hovered across from Khallum, stealing glances at the prince sitting upon the log in silence. “So I’ll say this but once. And if ye donnae want a part in it, then so it is, for the lot of you have already delivered more than I could ask for if it were to come to pass again. But if you’re in, we leave before first light.”

  “You’ve led us fair thus far, Khallum,” Law said. “We’ll see it done, whatever you ask now.”

  “Aye,” Rutland replied, his face lit only be the flickering flame. “As he said.”

  Hamish knew already. He’d been the first to know, for it was but a small show of faith for the man who had sacrificed his son for this cause. He kept his eyes divided between Khallum’s small band of men and the perimeter.

  “He’s recovered here long enough,” Khallum said, with a nod Darrick’s direction. He dared not say his name, not out here, in the dark, where even Hamish could not catch every wandering ear. “He’s ready to move.”

  “Move?” Law asked.

  “As he and I see it, we’ve two problems standing between us and restoring the crown. Both caused by The Deceiver.”

  “Aye,” Rutland whispered.

  “Until they are answered, any effort of ours will not last long,” Khallum went on. His hands were shaking. Shaking! His hands had never shook, not before his men, who he had no cause for nerves with. He buried them in his leather vest. “We must snuff out The Deceiver’s hold upon the Westerlands. They’ve solicited our aid. There is a cabal of men, gathering, ready to fight.”

  “I thought we’d decided this was not our fight, my lord,” Law said. “As the other Reaches have always reminded us.”

  Khallum ground his teeth. He’d made this very argument. Believed it still. It rooted around like shards of glass in his soul, that the Warwicks had asked so many times, and had been told it was their own fight, their own problem. But it was always the fight of the realm, when one was under attack. For one was never enough. “We must put aside the bad blood of the past, Law, much as it aggrieves me to think of these past slights. If the Westerlands falls, we fall with it. The whole realm will descend to chaos. And if we donnae rise to see this prevented, when we have... when we have this...” Khallum pointed his hand at Darrick. “Then we are naught but fools! We donnae deserve victory if we would put it second to the quarrels of our past.”

  Law and Rutland both nodded, each considering this in their own ways.

  “What of the bairn in the north?” Law asked.

  Khallum hadn’t shared his concerns about the situation in the Northerlands even with his own men. “He is but a bairn, and ’tis a man we have here, with us, ready.”

  “The Westerlands, then,” Rutland said.

  “Aye, the Westerlands. To where they’ve gathered the vestiges of their rebellion, a place I dare not say aloud. But we cannae travel as we are, men. We cannae allow our presence to draw Aiden’s eye.”

  “Some may remember his face,” Rutland said with a nod at Darrick. “Our secret may not stay so for long.”

  “Aye,” Khallum said. “It’s a truth that must come out, and he knows the risks of sharing it now. But the men of the Westerlands have no friend in Duncarrow. They will join with us, after we have restored order in the Reach. As will the others in the kingdom, when they receive the ravens we sent earlier this day.”

  “What ravens?” Rutland asked, frowning.

  “We begin this war by spreading the horrors that befell the Saleen at the hands of The Pretender and The Deceiver. This truth belongs to the kingdom, and now they shall have it. Will only make the other truths easier to swallow, when the time comes, I ken.” He looked at Hamish. “Your place is with your son, Hamish. But I will send for you, to lead the Warwick Guard to the Westerlands, when the time comes.”

  Hamish nodded.

  “I’ll have word sent that we’ve traveled north. It will not stay the attention of spies for long, but perhaps long enough,” Law said. He kicked at the coals, roaring the flame back to life. “It will be nothing for us to travel as common men. Rutland and I are quite versed in the efforts by now.”

  “Aye, ye making a joke, Law? ’Tis a first, it is,” Hamish said with a laugh. Law’s lip twitched.

  “Should we send word ahead? That we’re coming?” Rutland asked.

  “Nay,” Khallum replied. “Ravens fall into hands of the enemy too often these days for them to be trusted with our secrets.” He glanced at Darrick. “And I’ve so few joys in life now that I’ll take the one coming to me when these men see who we’ve brought them.”

  12

  The Blackwood Banners

  The tavern reeked of old wood stained with the ale and sweat of t
he men who had moved on for the evening. Kaslan busied himself behind the bar, tidying after the departure of fifty or so who had just shuffled out, returning to the abandoned shacks they called home until theirs was again safe.

  The few who lingered behind were what Easlan had lovingly begun calling The Blackwood Banners, the men most trusted with words spoken by moonlight alone. Jesse had become one of these men without meaning to, these bannermen of Brandyn who the young heir drew counsel from and gave trust in return.

  Both James men were in this group, as the recognized leaders of the gathering, but so was the enigmatic Rush Rider, Arturo Blackfen, and his unusual choice in companion, the highest man of the clergy in the Westerlands, Grand Minister Rhydian Tyndall. Jesse trusted less the presence of the Enchanter, Joran Rosewood, but Brandyn was blind with love for his mother’s principal confidante. Some whispered it was a way to feel close to his mother again.

  “This tavern won’t be big enough, men keep arriving as they do,” Easlan remarked. He leaned against the bar in his black coat, watching the others from beneath the wide brim of his hat. “Standing room only, as it is. Even the ale’s running dry.”

  “I’ll make more,” Kaslan said. “I can wake earlier than I have been, double the barrels.”

  “They’ll drink faster than you can brew. They’ve already run through our stores in the cellar.”

  “Doesn’t mean I can’t try.”

  “Trying isn’t enough, Kaslan. We’re here for more than trying, or I should hope.”

  “Then what do you suggest, Father? We bail water from the streams and have an uprising when we serve that instead?”

  Jesse felt the sting of the backhand his own father would have sent for speaking to him that way. But Easlan gave no indication of irritation at his son’s insolence. His eyes were fixed, already, on the near-empty room, where the ghosts of the resistance lingered. It was as if he could still see them all, their bodies hot with readiness to move, to see their world restored as the tips of their swords. “We’ve lingered to discuss what comes next. Sent our spies who have not returned to us, and may never. Greystone has been a fine enough gathering point, but we won’t save this Reach from our sad corner of the map. And it won’t remain a haven forever.”

  “More will come, Steward James,” Brandyn said. He stepped forward, his face lighting under the metal crown of the candlelit chandelier. “They come slowly, to keep eyes off their travels, but they would all come, every last one, if they could do so safely.”

  “Young Lord Blackwood, by the time they did, this would be a land fully under Quinlanden rule. Perhaps irreversibly so.”

  “You think we should go to battle now? As we are?” Kaslan asked. His eyes passed around the room with a bemused grin.

  “That’s why I asked some of you men to stay a spell longer this eve. It’s what I’d like to propose for discussion.”

  “An old refrain,” Joran muttered to himself. “One without answer.”

  Kaslan was aghast. “But we have perhaps fifty men. Not more than seventy. We’ll show up to a battle and gift them with a rout.”

  Brandyn looked at Arturo. “In your travels, Rider Blackfen, what have you seen?”

  “There is nowhere now that Quinlanden’s men are not stationed in numbers larger than ours. Nowhere but here, and as Steward James says, it’s only a matter of time now.”

  “And the Easterlands?” Brandyn asked.

  “It seems impossible he’s left enough for its defense, from the numbers I’ve seen here. But that would be a dangerous assumption without confirmation.”

  “I have also heard this,” Rhydian replied. “If it is so, then the Guardians have willed it.”

  “Grand Minister, begging your pardon, but the Guardians work for the Rhiagains these days, in case no one told you. Forgive me if that leaves me absent of faith in what they’ve willed and not,” Kaslan said.

  Rhydian was unruffled by Kaslan’s words. “The Guardians existed long before the Rhiagains. What they have forced upon us is structure of that faith, not faith itself. The Guardians do not answer to anyone, and they do not make mistakes. If the Easterlands is undefended, then this is the work of the Guardians.”

  “I suppose we should just let them fight this war then, aye?”

  “There doesn’t have to be a war if we can find the heart.”

  “Eh? The heart?” Kaslan scrunched his face. “What nonsense is this?”

  “The heart is in Duncarrow, languishing in some delight or another while his men await his word,” Easlan said. “Without the heart, the body is weak. Weaker each day. When the heart returns, so does the strength.”

  “They do not lack in strength, I assure you,” Arturo said. “They grow anxious and restless without word from their lord, but this has only led to further attacks upon what should be out of limits for them. They’ve crossed the bounds of decency that we have always followed. They’re attacking sons, raping daughters. And they’ll do worse, if left without the master to bring them to heel.”

  “It’s that evil doer. Mads Waters,” Joran said, breaking his silence. “Oh, he’s a foul one! Aiden may be a cruel boy, but Mads provides the meals that feed the cruelty. He sees an opportunity, he takes it! He has taken it!”

  Kaslan rolled his eyes at Jesse from across the dim room.

  “Then we come for Mads,” Brandyn said. “If the heart is in Duncarrow, we take the hand.”

  “He’ll be surrounded by men to prevent this very thing,” Arturo said.

  “After what he did to my father, he should have one eye cast over his shoulder until his last breath leaves him,” Brandyn said. “Where is he now?”

  “Whitechurch. He hasn’t left.”

  “How many men?”

  “I cannot say. I have not left the Westerlands, for fear of being denied a return.”

  “The Deceiver is in Duncarrow, and his dog is in the Easterlands, so who is directing these men who have taken our home?” No one answered. “No one knows? Is that it? What say you, Joran? What future have you scryed for the Blackwoods that you haven’t shared?”

  “Lord Blackwood, you know I would tell you if I’d seen anything.”

  Brandyn smirked. “As you were always so faithful to my mother.”

  “My lord, I don’t believe I know what you mean. I was always faithful to Lady Blackwood.”

  “Then you forget that I, too, am a seer, Enchanter Rosewood, and even in my inexperience I’ve seen more men coming. Men of importance. A seer of your great wisdom and practice must have seen so much more.”

  Perhaps the young lord was wiser about Joran than he seemed, Jesse thought.

  Joran fumbled his bony hands, rolling them over the silver fabric of his robe, looking distressed. The seer might have a true gift of magic, but his acting was also something to behold. “Nothing clear, I’m afraid, and as I know they’ve taught you at the Sepulchre, we are to nourish a vision until we have clarity, not seek to scry the meaning without the full picture.”

  “Lord Blackwood, you said men of importance.” Jesse stepped away from the bar, toward the small cloister of men. “Did you see who? Or from where?”

  “No,” Brandyn said. He looked so small in his leather armor, but his thoughts were bigger than all the men there. He wore the weight of his family, his entire Reach, upon him, a task Jesse had no envy for. “But Magi Dereham... that is, Christian Dereham, Lord Dereham’s son, promised to stir his father to our cause. The Northerlands are our allies. The Southerlands, too, though they have refused our invite. And I struggle to believe that Lord Quinlanden does not have men in his own Reach who would disavow what he’s done.”

  “And did you see numbers? Will we get many more?” Jesse pressed.

  “I don’t know. I had hoped Joran would.”

  Joran cast a pitiful look at his hands.

  “Numbers against time,” Easlan interjected. “Do you think that The Deceiver’s men will grow weaker as we grow stronger? Time provides strength for all. We ca
n act with fifty, or five hundred, but the five hundred will come at a cost, for our enemy will have used the time same as we have. If they have not already defeated us.”

  “You can say this because you have not seen them with your own eyes, Steward James,” Arturo said, stepping out of the shadows. “Ahh, but I have. I put a sword through the one who defiled Lyria Tyndall, and Rhydian carried her brother, Jonah’s, broken form to be mended by his mother. And those are highborn children. What of those less fortunate left rotting, discarded, in the beds of cabbage? What of those homes burned and razed to the ground? Our strongest defense, my brotherhood, the Rush Riders, are scattered throughout the kingdom, searching for allies, finding mainly seclusion and fear. You present a stirring cause, Easlan, one I am all too eager to join you in, if I could push all I know and have seen to the back of my troubled mind. But I cannot. We will crush The Deceiver with our cunning, not our count.”

  “Well, we must do something!” Kaslan cried. He slammed both palms upon the bar. “We have toiled here for weeks, promising these men action. They drink our ale, sleep in the cold beds of the men who left us for better ventures. Father is right, it will not be the watered down ale that drives them to madness, but the lingering! The nothing!”

  “And what do the Guardians say, Grand Minister Tyndall?” Joran asked, his words tinged with the same dripping cynicism others leveled upon him when he spoke of magic. “What do they advise?”

  “As you know, they are not a mechanism for answers, only strength. They prompt men to find within them the solutions needed, rather than stepping in to see the tasks done themselves.”

  “Hmph. You may as well beseech the air, for all the good to be done from that.”

  “Cunning,” Jesse said, repeating Arturo’s word from a moment ago. “Seems we are not in short supply of that, so why not discuss how to employ it?”

  Easlan James scoffed in disgust. “Cunning is for women, Jamesan. With their vials of poison and their tricks of magic. We are men, and there will be war, and if none of you have the belly for it, then I’ll lead it myself, lead it for Lady Blackwood, for all of us, even if all that awaits me at the end of this cursed path is death!”