Kellanved's Reach (Path to Ascendancy) Read online

  ‘Yes. Just come to me if you have any questions.’

  She inclined her head, then jogged off.

  Nedurian watched the slim, vibrant young girl go and wished, for however brief an instant, that he was a hundred years younger.

  Chapter 4

  It was cold, raining, and dark when Gregar and Haraj came across an army encampment at the edge of the woods. Fires burned fitfully in the thin misty rain and troops moved between a jumbled patchwork of tents. Horses nickered from somewhere across the crowded field.

  Gregar looked to the skinny mage; the lad’s black hair lay flat and dripping, and as he wiped his nose, sniffling, he let the bundle of equipment he carried fall at his feet.

  ‘Where’s the shield?’ Gregar asked.

  ‘Dumped it. Too godsdamned heavy.’

  Gregar swore under his breath.

  ‘I’m cold,’ Haraj complained, stammering. ‘Can’t sleep out in the rain again – it’s fucking winter!’

  Gregar nodded. Neither of them knew how to survive outdoors. The wretched few scraps of food and water they’d looted from fallen Bloorian troops wouldn’t sustain them; they needed shelter. He couldn’t even feel his fingers or toes any more. Another night in the open might finish them – his sickly friend especially.

  He kept nodding, disgusted. ‘So, we turn ourselves in just to survive.’

  Haraj’s answering nod was a puppet-like jerking shiver. ‘Welcome to how things are for most nobodies.’

  Gregar gestured to the belt-wrapped bundle. ‘Fine. Pick it up and let’s go.’

  ‘Take it? Whatever for? Don’t need it no more, do we?’

  Gregar was already pushing his way through the low brush. ‘It’s a bribe now.’

  ‘Who are they, do you think?’ Haraj asked, following.

  ‘Doesn’t really matter any more, does it?’ But Gregar made a quick last check to make certain neither of them was wearing or carrying any colours or sigils – of any troop or side.

  They had to stand in the open for some time before one of the spear-carrying pickets noticed them through the rain. The skinny girl jumped and raised her spear. ‘Halt!’ she squeaked out, the spear quivering. ‘Raise your arms! Who – who’re you?’

  Gregar nudged Haraj, murmuring, ‘Raise your arms.’ He called out, ‘We’ve come to join!’

  The girl, in ragged old leathers, her long dark hair twisted high on her head, gaped at them. ‘Sarge!’ she called over her shoulder.

  Moments later a squat, fat-bellied fellow in leather armour came stomping through the rain. A sigil – a strip of cloth tied about his arm – was dark and soaked; Gregar couldn’t tell its actual colour. ‘What in the name of Hood’s bony balls is this?’ the sergeant bellowed as he came.

  The picket motioned her spear to them. ‘These two want to join up.’

  The soldier raised an astonished tangled brow at this. He looked them up and down, and what he saw, or believed he saw, made him sneer even more. ‘Useless deserters. Big bad world too mean for you, hey? Come crawling back hungry and wet.’

  Gregar and Haraj – both dropping their arms – exchanged a look, then hung their heads.

  ‘Sorry,’ Gregar mumbled, and pushed forward.

  The sergeant held out an arm. ‘Not so fast.’ He waved them closer. ‘Now look here – I’m supposed to report such things to the captain, but I don’t want to get you lads in hot water. What do you say, hey?’

  Gregar and Haraj sent one another bemused looks. Gregar shrugged. ‘I suppose so …’

  The sergeant clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Excellent. That’s the spirit. So hand over that gear and such.’ He gestured to Gregar’s mail shirt.

  ‘But it’s mine … been in the family …’

  The sergeant looked skyward. ‘And maybe I should report this to the captain …’

  Gregar let his shoulders fall. ‘Fine.’ He started undoing the leather straps.

  ‘Don’t fit you no how,’ the sergeant observed. He also gestured for Haraj to drop his bundled gear. ‘That too.’

  ‘But that’s all we got!’ Haraj complained.

  ‘What you get is your freedom and your lives. So drop it all. Even that,’ he added, pointing to Gregar’s belted shortsword.

  Gregar ground out a breath, but let it fall.

  The sergeant waved them away. ‘Now gawan with ya.’ He pointed to the girl. ‘Take them to your squad, Leah.’

  ‘What!’ the girl answered, outraged. ‘They’re useless.’

  ‘Go!’

  The girl, Leah, snarled under her breath, then waved them onward. ‘This way.’

  Leah’s squad, it turned out, occupied a floorless tent, a brazier banked at its centre. Haraj and Gregar crowded round the brazier, warming their hands. The rest of the squad lay asleep on the ground. Leah set her fists on her hips and eyed them, her disapproval obvious. ‘Dumbasses,’ she finally concluded, and, shaking her head, threw herself down on her own bedding.

  Gregar ventured, ‘Ah … what’s the pay, anyway?’

  The woman rolled her eyes. ‘Sarge would know. He’s gonna draw it.’

  ‘What?’ Gregar choked out, nearly spluttering.

  The girl’s laugh was mocking, but sadly so. ‘Just discovered life’s not fair, hey?’

  ‘And just who,’ Haraj asked, ‘are we with?’

  ‘You’re with the Yellows’ Fourth – the Seventh Lights,’ she drawled from her tattered horse-blanket. ‘And if the Bloorian League can be said to have an anus – you’re stuck in it.’

  Haraj and Gregar exchanged another look and Gregar shook his head. ‘Wonderful.’

  The next morning, after a hot meal that was hardly more than mere warmed broth, they mustered in the pattering rain. He and Haraj were issued spears, which they held straight up beside them as their sergeant – Teigan – walked up and down the lines heaping abuse on them. Though still fuming, it was all Gregar could do not to burst out laughing. It was all so clichéd and stupid.

  ‘Are we gonna fight?’ Haraj asked, dread in his voice.

  ‘Naw,’ Leah answered. ‘It’s raining, innit? Them Bloorian nobles won’t fight in the rain. Gets their fancy bird-feather helmet plumes all droopy.’

  Gregar snorted a laugh.

  Sergeant Teigan rounded on him. ‘Oh! The ingrate new recruit thinks this is all just hilarious!’

  Gregar struggled to contain a new bout of laughter. Closing nose to nose with him, Teigan yelled, ‘Maybe the new recruit would like the honour of being the colour-bearer!’

  Gregar had no idea what to say to that. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘if you think—’

  ‘Shut up!’ Teigan bellowed. ‘That’s yes sir!’

  Showing great restraint, Gregar merely clenched his lips. ‘Yes,’ he ground out, ‘sir.’

  ‘Hand the colours over!’ Teigan yelled.

  Another of the skirmishers came running bearing a tall spear from which hung a limp yellow silk banner. Teigan thrust it at Gregar. ‘There you go.’

  A touch befuddled, Gregar took it. ‘Yellow? Really?’

  ‘March!’ Teigan yelled, and the troop set off.

  As they went, Gregar murmured to Leah, ‘I don’t understand. Isn’t this an honour? Bearing the colours and all?’

  Leah just smirked. ‘The Grisians think it great sport to collect regimental colours. They think it’s noble and courageous or some such rubbish to ride down a farmer and take the flag. We go through two or three colour-bearers every battle.’

  Gregar shared another look with Haraj. ‘Wonderful. Fucking wonderful.’

  * * *

  Having finished his immediate orders recruiting a number of potential cadre mages, Tayschrenn found himself between duties and so sought out the Napan aristocrat, Surly, who – if anyone – was actually getting things done.

  He had to push past numerous bodyguards and layers of security in Smiley’s bar before gaining entry to the second floor. And by the time he did it appeared to him that the bar seemed more a nest of
spies, assassins and agents provocateurs than any drinking establishment.

  Upstairs, he was allowed, with some reluctance, to edge past a final layer of bodyguards and enter the presence of the woman herself.

  Standing, a sheaf of vellum sheets in her hands, Surly lowered the reports to eye him, a touch impatiently. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Timetable,’ Tayschrenn offered, being deliberately obscure.

  The faintly bluish-hued and quite muscular woman eyed him for an instant without comment. Then she allowed one curt nod. ‘Proceeding.’

  ‘And what of our glorious leaders?’

  She shrugged. ‘Irrelevant.’

  Tayschrenn gave her a sceptical look. ‘Really? The plan calls for—’ He paused here to peer about the room, crowded as it was with the woman’s bodyguards, staff, and various agents.

  ‘These are the people executing said plan,’ Surly explained.

  Tayschrenn coughed into a fist. ‘Ah. I see. Well, the plan calls for—’

  ‘I know the plan,’ Surly interrupted, not bothering to disguise her impatience. ‘Your point?’

  Tayschrenn decided that she was trying to goad him, so he clamped down on any reaction and eyed her impassively. ‘What if Kellanved does not show?’

  ‘Then a vessel will land the assault party outside the city and you will proceed from there.’

  ‘You? I mean, me?’

  ‘Yes. You will be among the party.’

  He peered about the room, searching for smirks or laughter, as if at a joke at his expense. ‘Me? Whatever for? There is nothing I could possibly contribute to such a mundane, ah, errand.’

  She gave him a hard stare, from one eye. ‘You are a mage … are you not?’

  Now he felt rather flustered. This curt woman was frankly intimidating him. ‘Well, yes. Of course. Just not that kind of mage.’

  ‘What kind? The useful kind?’

  Instead of slipping into anger or withering beneath such scorn, Tayschrenn stepped back from the conversation to study it from afar. Why such hostility? If this was hostility – perhaps this was the woman at her most people-friendly. He simply did not know. One thing he did know, or suspect, was that some sort of contest was being acted out here; one he had heretofore been unaware of. And there could only be a contest between rivals.

  And there he had it. If she could be said to be the head of her branch of this nascent organization they were pulling together here on this wretched island, then so too was he.

  They were, quite frankly, rival department heads, and their battles would be over what was always at stake: resources and prestige. And so he inclined his head in agreement. ‘You, however, will not be with us, I take it?’

  She scowled at this, unhappy. ‘No. It has been decided that I remain offshore and only come in when the situation has been stabilized.’

  ‘I see. Very well.’ He gave a faint bow. ‘You are busy. I will leave you to it.’ He turned and walked away without waiting for her reaction.

  When he reached the door she called out, ‘Tayschrenn … if you are not that kind of mage, then bring one who is.’

  Facing away, he gave the slightest inclination of his head as he pulled the door open and went out.

  * * *

  It was night, and as was her habit Iko walked the open-sided halls and colonnaded walkways of the rambling palace at Kan. Finest silk hangings of pink and pearl-white shimmered in the lamplight, all to celebrate the passing dusting of glittering frost. The wind brushed through the surrounding orchards and gardens; night insects chirped, and bats swooped in to feed upon them. The only unnatural sound was the shush of the fine mail coat hanging to her ankles where it hissed as she paced.

  She turned a corner of the open-walled colonnade and paused, half meaning to go back, as ahead came a gaggle of the local courtly Kan ‘ladies’, tittering and gossiping among themselves as they closed. She opted to remain still, and bowed as they neared. They passed, whispering to one another behind their broad fine brocaded sleeves, and laughing, eyeing her sidelong.

  She sighed. From among these her ward Chulalorn the Fourth was to choose a mate? She did not know whom to feel more sorry for. These spoiled cloistered creatures, or her ward who would have to put up with them.

  Still, she, captain of the select bodyguard, the Sword-Dancers, must no doubt appear as strange and exotic to them as they did to her.

  She started off again on her meditative walk, hands at her belt, head cocked as she listened to the sounds of the night. Two turns later she paused once more and turned back. Far up the hall a young servant now closed, her bare feet only faintly slapping the polished marble of the hall. The servant bowed to her. ‘M’lady. You are called to council, if you would.’

  ‘It is not m’lady,’ Iko corrected her. ‘You are new here, yes? I am not noble born. It is captain.’

  The servant bowed once more. ‘Yes captain, m’lady.’

  Iko let out a hard breath. ‘Council you say? At this hour? The king?’

  ‘Safe, ah … captain.’

  ‘Very well. I shall attend.’ The servant hurried off ahead to pass the word.

  For her part, Iko remained still for a time longer. She attempted to regain her sense of calm oneness with the gardens and the night, but the mood was broken. She hoped this was not word of some new border transgression from Dal Hon. The last thing Kan needed now after the losses at Heng was a war. Any war. Unfortunately, her enemies knew this also. So she adjusted the whipsword at her back and headed for the council chambers.

  The guards admitted her, opening the broad double leaves of the gilded doors. Within, she saw Mosolan, the regent, as expected, but she was surprised to find a newcomer, a rather striking figure. Tall she was, her hair a bunched silvery mane that reached all the way down to the back of her knees. This woman turned, and regarded her with captivating, equally pale-silver eyes. Her mouth, however, soured the striking effect, pulled down as it was in a lined frown. Bitch face, Iko had heard this sort of resting expression named.

  Mosolan extended an arm to the woman. ‘The Witch Jadeen. Iko, Captain of the Guard.’

  Iko’s brows rose in astonishment – and a touch of alarm. This was the terror of the south? The mage who many said kept the Dal Hon shamans in line? From her sour mouth alone Iko could almost believe it. She nodded a greeting; the woman did not deign to respond.

  ‘You will speak with us,’ Mosolan told Jadeen.

  The mage threw back her head, her spectacular mane of hair tossing. ‘I am come to demand action.’

  ‘What sort of action?’ Mosolan enquired. The old general, now regent of Itko Kan, crossed an arm over his chest and rested the other upon it to hold his chin. Iko knew enough of the man to know he was taking this meeting very seriously.

  The witch was about to speak when the doors opened again and in swept a tall middle-aged man in a silken robe, sashed at the waist, his long black hair loose. ‘What is this?’ he announced. ‘A council meeting without the nobles’ chosen representative?’

  ‘This is a consultation only,’ Mosolan answered wearily. Yet he extended an arm in introductions: ‘Leoto Kan, of family Kan. Leoto Kan – the Witch Jadeen.’

  Leoto flinched at the name, while Iko noted how the witch’s scowling mouth drew down even more in evident satisfaction at the response.

  ‘You were saying …’ Mosolan prompted Jadeen.

  She nodded, then tilted her head back, glowering imperiously. She slammed a fist into a palm. ‘You must crush Malaz Island. Now. Destroy it.’

  Iko almost missed her words in her surprise at seeing the woman’s nails were long, pointed, and entirely black.

  Yet Mosolan nodded, all seriousness. ‘Malaz Island? Why?’

  ‘A disturbing set of powers are gathering there. I have foreseen they could threaten the mainland. Threaten Itko Kan.’

  Iko cudgelled her brain to even recall that particular island to mind. All she could remember were tales of a pirate haven. She snorted. ‘Sea-raiders are no threa
t to the kingdom.’

  ‘Shut up, Sword-Dancer,’ the witch snarled. ‘There is more here than you can grasp.’

  Iko let out a hissed breath, but held her silence: Mosolan was regent, not she. She also noted a smirk of satisfaction similar to the witch’s earlier pleasure quirk the noble Kan’s lips.

  Mosolan had raised a hand to intervene. ‘Iko here was at Heng. She is not to be dismissed.’

  The witch tossed her mane once more to show what she thought of that. ‘I do not travel here and give my warnings lightly, regent. Do not dismiss me!’

  Mosolan raised a placating hand once again. ‘We would do no such thing, Jadeen. Your wisdom is appreciated.’ To Iko’s eyes the witch was in no way appeased. ‘Yet,’ Mosolan continued, ‘for such drastic action – what evidence can you provide?’

  A snarl twisted the woman’s thin lips even more and she glared. ‘I am not used to having to justify my advice, regent. But if you insist …’ She crossed her arms, grasping her black-nailed hands on either arm. ‘The Dragons Deck warns of the end of the Chulalorn line.’

  Iko was before the witch in an instant, her whipsword half drawn. ‘What is this!’

  To her credit, Jadeen did not so much as flinch; her gaze remained fixed upon Mosolan. ‘You are warned,’ she announced, and spun upon her heels to march from the chamber.

  When the door closed, Councillor Leoto coughed lightly into a fist. ‘Well, regent. I must attend your consultations more often. They are certainly not boring.’

  Iko slammed home her whipsword and turned upon the aristocrat. ‘Shut up, Leoto.’

  The head of family Kan offered her a cold smile. ‘A pleasure as always, Iko.’

  Mosolan paced the marble floor before the empty throne of Itko Kan, now draped in royal green silk. ‘Malaz?’ he wondered aloud. ‘A gathering of powers that could worry Jadeen?’ He shook his head, almost in wonder. ‘She warned against the Third’s march north, you know. And before that she gave warning of the Dal Hon invasion to the Second.’ He turned to regard them, amazement upon his features now. ‘I never imagined I would be the one to hear a prediction from her.’

  Iko cut a hand through the air. ‘She senses a rival to her influence in the south and would have us do her dirty work for her.’