Harshini Page 27

  “Let’s do it, then,” Damin said, pushing away all thoughts of the consequences of what he was about to do. He strode from the command post with an air of grim determination and ordered the horses brought out. He didn’t know how far he could get, but the further from the harbour he set the fires, the more people might have a chance to escape.

  The sounds of the battle could be clearly heard as he and Gaffen rode out. The streets this close to the harbour were already clogged with people fleeing the advancing horde. They pushed through the crowds for several streets until they broke through into a reasonably deserted street. The fighting had not yet reached this part of the city and it looked oddly peaceful, like a calm oasis in the middle of a raging sandstorm.

  That’s when he heard the trumpets.

  “What was that?” Gaffen asked curiously, his head cocked at the unusual sound.

  “I don’t know.”

  The trumpets came again, drifting on the early evening breeze. Damin listened with a feeling of total bewilderment until he recognised the sound. He last heard it on the northern plains of Medalon and had never, in his wildest imaginings, expected to hear it in Greenharbour.

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  He flew from his saddle and headed for the tallest building in sight, which was a gracious, four-storey residence belonging to some prosperous merchant. Gaffen followed him at a run. Damin kicked in the door, ignoring the screams from the merchant and his family sheltering within. He took the stairs two at a time with Gaffen on his heels, and finally burst onto the roof. He ran to the northern edge of the building and looked out over the devastated city.

  The sound of the trumpets reached him again, clearly this time. Panting beside him, Gaffen stared at the scene before him with a puzzled look.

  “What is that?”

  Wordlessly, Damin pointed north, at the perfectly formed ranks of red coats preparing to march on the city, too stunned and relieved to speak.

  There were two thousand of them at least.

  Two thousand fresh, disciplined and well-trained Medalonian Defenders.

  CHAPTER 34

  The battle for Greenharbour was ugly, but blessedly short once the Defenders joined the fray. Cyrus’ army broke and ran just after sundown. Conin Falconlance and Serrin Eaglespike died during the battle, but Cyrus survived and fled back to Dregian Province with the remainder of his scattered forces to make a last stand.

  Damin sent Narvell after him, with Gaffen and a force of Fardohnyans. It wasn’t that he thought Narvell needed the help so much as his desire to separate Adrina’s half-brother and Tejay Lionsclaw, who would rather have perished in battle than accept help from her despised enemies. She made no secret of her distrust of their new allies, so Damin thought it prudent to put as much distance between Gaffen and Tejay as possible until things calmed down a bit. Gaining entrance to the castle by the same hidden passage that he, Adrina and R’shiel had escaped through, Narvell and Gaffen took Dregian Keep with barely a man lost in the fight.

  Conveniently, Cyrus threw himself on his sword rather than face the consequences of his actions.

  Damin was privately glad that he had. It was always messy, following a civil war, to decide what to do with the miscreants. If he had executed Cyrus, there would always be a small core of resentment among the people that could be fanned into life in the future. If he left him alive, he left him free to plan further mischief. It was better this way. Cyrus’ widow and three-year-old son were back in Greenharbour as prisoners, but Damin was inclined to be generous towards them. It was hardly their fault that Cyrus had let his ambitions run away with him, and anyway, he doubted he could bring himself to order the execution of a child, no matter how sound the logic behind the decision.

  There were other issues to be resolved, too. Dregian, Greenharbour and Krakandar now needed Warlords, and everyone from Tejay Lionsclaw to the palace gardeners had an opinion on who should be awarded the positions. Although there were numerous candidates among the nobility, it was not uncommon for a Warlord to be appointed from the lower classes. Talent still counted more than bloodlines in Hythria, and Damin was seriously considering looking further afield for the new Warlords. He’d had enough of bored noblemen with delusions of grandeur. A few young bucks who were more interested in holding onto their own provinces than eyeing off his throne would let him rest much easier at night.

  Then there was the problem of the Defenders.

  Tarja wasn’t with his men, which worried Damin a great deal. Denjon had told him what Tarja had planned to do, but the fact that he had not returned from his mission to sink the ferries on the Glass River was a bad sign. Damin felt he owed the Defenders an enormous debt. With Tarja missing, and with an administrative and political nightmare ahead of him, he was tempted to drop everything, gather up his forces, head for Medalon and leave Adrina to sort out the details here at home. He smiled grimly at the idea. Trusting Adrina was still very new to him. He could not bring himself to tempt fate by handing her that much power.

  It was five days since the battle and his hope that things would improve had proved optimistic in the extreme. Although gradually being brought under control, disease still raged throughout the city. There were thousands of homeless, as many wounded, and another five thousand Fardohnyans and Medalonians to feed.

  Cyrus had stripped the countryside of what food there was close to the city. Damin had a vast number of his men out scouring the land for grain to tide them over until supplies could be brought in from the outlying provinces. The fishing fleet had put to sea again, which prevented the situation from becoming desperate, but he was so heartily sick of fish for every meal, that he was certain he would never be able to face it again once this crisis was over.

  The door to his study suddenly flew open and slammed against the wall. Adrina stormed into the room. The candles wavered in the breeze caused by her anger. She was shaking with fury.

  “Do you know what she’s done?”

  “Tell me who ‘she’ is, and I might be able to answer you,” he replied calmly. Adrina’s tantrum was a welcome distraction.

  “R’shiel!”

  “She sent your brother and three thousand men to save our necks?” he suggested.

  Adrina actually stamped her foot at him. He fought very hard not to smile.

  “Don’t be so bloody obtuse, Damin! She promised Hablet a son!”

  “I know. Gaffen told me.”

  “You knew about this? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I have been rather busy lately.”

  “Then what are you doing about it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You can’t do nothing! She has just cost you the throne of Fardohnya!”

  “Well, as I never actually wanted the damned thing in the first place, it hardly seems worth getting upset over the fact that I’ve lost it.”

  “How could you not want it?” she asked, genuinely puzzled by his lack of ambition.

  “Not everybody shares your desire to wear a crown, Adrina,” he told her. “Anyway, you were furious at me for being the heir to the throne. Now you’re angry because I’m not. Make up your mind.”

  She glared at him for a moment then flopped inelegantly into the chair on the other side of the desk. “I’m in no mood to be reasonable, Damin. Fight with me.”

  “I will,” he promised, “when the occasion warrants it. But in this case, it’s not worth it. I’ve got my hands full holding onto to Hythria. I don’t need your father’s kingdom as well. The whole idea of splitting Fardohnya and Hythria in the first place was because they were impossible to govern as one nation.”

  “We could have done it,” she grumbled.

  “We? Ah, so that’s what this is all about. If I don’t become the King of Fardohnya, you don’t get to be queen. I’m sorry, but you’ll just have to settle for being the High Princess of Hythria.”

  She smiled faintly, as if she understood how childishly she was behaving. “You have no idea how good it wou
ld have felt to return to Fardohnya as her queen. My father sold me like a side of beef to the Kariens because that’s all I was worth to him. And for no better reason than I was born a girl. It didn’t matter how clever, or well educated, or politically astute I was.”

  “Personally, I think your political acumen had a lot to do with it,” he suggested. “You are far too clever for a disinherited princess. If I was in your father’s position, I’d have shipped you off to a temple somewhere when you were five.”

  “I think he wishes he had,” she agreed. “But there’s more to this than me losing my chance to revenge myself on my father, Damin. Do you know what’s going to happen once this child is born?”

  He shrugged. “You mean other than a very big party?”

  “Once my father has an heir, he will remove any threat to the child’s claim on the throne.”

  “But there are no other claimants to the throne.”

  “I have thirteen living baseborn brothers, Damin. Hablet was quite prepared to legitimise one of them if he couldn’t get a son. Each of them is a potential threat.”

  Damin looked at her aghast. “Are you telling me he’ll kill his own children?”

  “He’ll kill them and not lose a moment’s sleep over it. This may be hard for you to understand—Hablet loves every one of his bastards—but they know as well as he does what fate will befall them should he produce a legitimate heir.”

  “You’re right. I don’t understand.”

  “It’s tradition. When Hablet was born, his father had seventeen baseborn children and his three unmarried daughters put to death. When my father took the throne, every pregnant concubine and court’esa in the harem was executed. His own sister committed suicide as proof of her love for him. She was hailed as a heroine.”

  “And you call me a barbarian.”

  She shrugged, helpless to make him understand. “It’s the Fardohnyan way.”

  “Then I’m glad I won’t ever have to sit on a throne that is soaked in so much innocent blood.”

  “Don’t you see the irony? You would never have countenanced such slaughter. I think that irks me more than anything else does. We could have put an end to that dreadful custom.” She rose to her feet and smiled at him sadly. “I’m sorry to burden you with this, now. I know you have a lot to do. Is Gaffen back yet?”

  Damin nodded. “He arrived back with Narvell this morning.”

  “Then I’ll go find him and leave you in peace. As soon as I’ve slapped him around a few times for being such a pig to me when he arrived, I shall endeavour to make the most of what little time we have left together.”

  Adrina walked to the door, leaving Damin staring at her back. It wasn’t learning of the fate awaiting her siblings that disturbed him as much as her quiet acceptance of its inevitability.

  “Adrina, wait!”

  She turned and looked at him questioningly.

  “If you can’t be queen, would you settle for Regent?”

  “Regent of Fardohnya? How?”

  “Your father’s how old? Sixty? Sixty-five?” he asked, suddenly excited as the idea formed in his mind. “He’ll live another ten years, perhaps, less if we’re lucky. His son won’t be old enough to take the throne when he dies.”

  “He would never appoint me Regent.”

  “He will if we make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

  “Like what?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I’ll renounce the Wolfblade claim on the Fardohnyan throne. I’ll remove forever the threat of Fardohnya having a Hythrun king.”

  She nodded thoughtfully. “And in return, he appoints me Regent? You know, that may actually work. But what of your plans for unity between Fardohnya and Hythria?”

  “That will be up to you. This child will be as much your brother as Gaffen is. If you manage to get along with him half as well as you do with your bastard siblings, there’ll be no danger of war between us. For that matter, he’ll only be a few months younger than our child. If we’re smart about this, they’ll grow up the best of friends.”

  “And you’d do this? You’d renounce a throne for me?” She appeared to be putting a rather romantic slant on something he considered a coldly rational and practical course of action. But he didn’t correct her.

  “Yes. I’d renounce a throne for you, Adrina.”

  With a sob, she ran to him, threw her arms around his neck and buried her head in his shoulder. He could feel the slight swell of her belly pressing against him.

  “Gods, you’re not crying, are you?”

  Adrina sniffed and looked up at him with glistening eyes. “No.”

  He gently wiped a tear from her cheek. “If I’d known this was going to reduce you to tears, I wouldn’t have suggested it.”

  “Nobody ever loved me enough to renounce a throne for me, Damin.”

  “That probably has more to do with lack of opportunity, rather than you being unloved,” he told her with a smile.

  “Can’t you be serious? Even when I’m trying to be nice to you?”

  “I’m sorry. You bring out the worst in me.”

  She kissed him then leaned back in his arms with a sigh. “I don’t like admitting it, but I suppose I must feel something for you, Damin Wolfblade.”

  “Well, I won’t tell if you don’t,” Damin promised with a smile.

  PART 3

  HOMECOMING

  CHAPTER 35

  The high plains of Medalon were a riot of colour, caught in the burgeoning grip of spring. R’shiel reined in her horse and studied the scattered clouds that dotted the pale blue sky. Wildflowers carpeted the plains, and the day was so mild she had shed her cloak some leagues back. As the tall white towers of the Citadel appeared in the distance an odd feeling came over her and she found herself strangely reluctant to go on.

  “What’s the matter?”

  She shrugged and leaned forward to pat the neck of her gelding. He was a sturdy, deep-chested grey they had purchased in Vanahiem. R’shiel missed the magnificent speed and stamina of the Hythrun horses she had grown accustomed to riding, but he had been a reliable mount, if more stolid than spirited.

  “I’m scared, I think,” she admitted, thoughtfully. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “You’re only half-Harshini, R’shiel,” Brak reminded her. “You’ll find your human emotions have a nasty habit of jumping out and biting you at the most inopportune moments. What were you expecting to feel?”

  “I’m not sure. Some overpowering sense of righteousness, I suppose.”

  Brak laughed sourly. “You have a lot to learn, demon child.”

  “I wish you’d stop calling me that. You know how much I hate it.”

  “I thought you were growing quite enamoured of the title. You certainly threw it around enough in Fardohnya.”

  “In Fardohnya I wasn’t likely to be hanged for it.”

  He nodded silently. They both knew the risk they ran by returning so openly to Medalon. In fact, even more than the mediocrity of their mounts, it was the need to travel through Medalon by conventional means that had taken them so long to reach their destination. Had they been willing to risk using their power, R’shiel and Brak could have been at the Citadel weeks ago, but they were too deep into Karien-occupied territory to tempt fate by openly using demons.

  Hablet had provided them with a ship, which had delivered them to Bordertown. Then they had taken passage on a river boat as far as Vanahiem. With news that the Testa ferry had been destroyed and the river boat captains understandably nervous about approaching the Citadel, it proved quicker and easier to complete their journey on horseback.

  R’shiel turned in her saddle at the sound of other horses approaching. Brak followed her gaze and muttered a curse. The road they travelled from Brodenvale was almost deserted this late in the afternoon. Earlier, it had been crowded with refugees fleeing the Citadel and the occasional Karien patrol.

  “We’d best get off the road.”

  “Founders! They’re everywher
e!”

  Brak urged his horse into the long grass on the shoulder of the road. R’shiel followed him as the approaching patrol drew closer. She gripped the reins until her knuckles turned white as she watched them. The troop of Kariens passed by without sparing them a glance, pennons snapping from the tips of their lances, the armoured knights claiming the road with the arrogant assurance of conquerors who have nothing to fear from their vanquished foes. It was the third Karien troop they had seen in the last few hours. Southern Medalon was still relatively free of them, but the closer they got to the Citadel the more they saw.

  “There are no priests with them.”

  “They’ll be at the Citadel. Mathen probably doesn’t want to scare the population into thinking they’re going to be forced to worship the Overlord,” Brak speculated.

  “But isn’t that exactly what they’re planning?”

  “Undoubtedly, but Squire Mathen is too smart to do it openly.”

  “Squire Mathen?”

  “Don’t you remember him? Terbolt left him in charge of the Citadel.”

  “I don’t remember much of anything from the last time I was at the Citadel,” she admitted with a frown. “Except Loclon.”

  “Mathen’s not a nobleman,” Brak told her as the Kariens moved slowly past them. Behind the knights trundled several wagons carrying loot from some outlying village that had been the victim of their foray out of the Citadel. “That in itself is a bit odd for the Kariens. But he appears to be a very astute politician.”

  “I think I’d prefer a good old fashioned noble-born moron,” she said, noticing the grain-filled wagons, but she decided against saying or doing anything that would bring them to the attention of the knights. She had learnt that much restraint over the past few months.

  “One has to work with what one is given, I’m afraid. Still, we won’t have to worry about him too much.”