The Crown of the Usurper (The Crown of the Blood), Page 3

  He took a few steps down the corridor and stopped as he heard the creak of the door by the stairs opening. He heard a heavy thump on the floorboards and had half-turned when something large slammed into him, sending him face-first into the floor. Before he had time to think, Leraates was pinned down by a massive weight.

  He smelt old sweat and heard deep breathing as the point of something sharp nicked at the side of his throat.

  "The man in the red shirt, yes?" said Leraates.

  "Ullsaard can go fuck his ailur," said a voice beside Leraates left ear. The man spoke good Askhan, but with a Salphorian accent. "Sending assassins dressed as Brothers after me now, is he? He'll have to do better than that."

  "I assure you, I am a Brother," Leraates managed to wheeze. The man on top of him really was quite heavy and the breath was being crushed from the Brother's lungs. His ribs were starting to ache. "Please could you let me up?"

  "You're a polite one, I'll give you that," said the big man. "Manners are all well and good, but I don't take kindly to folks that want to see me dead. Luckily, lovely Haanah downstairs told you exactly what I wanted her to. You see, a man in my position doesn't take chances. I've got enough money to make sure everybody in this building wants me to stay alive and well."

  "That is very good, but I do not wish you dead," said Leraates. He was beginning to feel quite faint from lack of air.

  "Everybody wants me dead, Brother." Leraates felt the man shift and the point that digging into his throat was withdrawn. "Don't try to deny it. I'm the most wanted man in all of the empire. Ullsaard would give away two of his wives to have me caught and killed."

  "Really?" Leraates was genuinely surprised. "I was not aware that the empire wanted anybody quite that much."

  There was a strangely high-pitched giggle and the weight lifted slightly from Leraates' back.

  "Well, if anyone knew who I was and that I am alive, I'd be the most wanted man in the empire," said the stranger. "Now that I see your face, I recognise you. You might not know it, with your creeping about while you conspired against me, but I marked you early on. You knew Furlthia."

  Leraates knew the name well. Furlthia had been one of the cabal led by Leraates dedicated to halting Ullsaard's expansion into Salphoria. There was only one other man still alive who could have known anything about the conspiracy: Anglhan Periusis. The former Governor of Magilnada had somehow escaped the utter destruction of his city. Here he was, as real in the flesh as anything, and Lakhyri wanted to hire him to kill Ullsaard.

  "Well, fuck me," was all Leraates could say.

  ASKH

  Autumn, 213th year of Askh

  I

  Allenya stood looking duskwards at a window in the palace, a crumpled, tear-stained tatter of parchment in her hand. The bustling city below seemed muted, the colours faded and the noise distant. Her gaze lingered on the mountains in the distance, but she did not see them. Her mind was much farther away, in the wilds of Salphoria, where somewhere her husband's body lay.

  The letter in her hand had arrived twenty days ago, but it still seemed unreal. Ullsaard could not be dead, she had told herself again and again. He was too full of life, too stubborn and too good at fighting to be dead. She knew the words of the letter by heart, but she opened it again and read them, tears welling up in her reddened eyes once more. The script was formal, the ink strokes crisp and precise. The words were sharp too; a simple message declaring that the king and his bodyguard had been ambushed by Salphors whilst on campaign, and all had been slain.

  Allenya tried to take some comfort from the assumption that had been made. Nobody had seen the king fall, because nobody had returned to the camp. It was possible that Ullsaard had escaped or been captured.

  It was false hope, and Allenya despised herself for clinging to it.

  "Come and sit with me, sister," said Meliu. Allenya's youngest sister sat with her needlework in her lap, on one of the couches arranged on the carpet at the centre of the chamber. Vases of wilting flowers stood on tables around the room, and a bright blue bird perched in a cage close to the other window.

  Moving without conscious volition, Allenya walked slowly across the room and sat on the couch opposite Meliu. Her sister's hair was shorter, she realised. Allenya wondered about her own appearance for a moment; she had sent away her handmaids when the letter had arrived and they had not been allowed to attend her since. She had dressed herself and brushed her hair, but she knew that she probably looked a sorry state.

  She did not care.

  "What are we now?" Allenya asked quietly. "Useless widows of a dead fool."

  "We are still queens, my sister," replied Meliu. "And Ullsaard was never a fool. Urikh needs us now."

  Allenya could not find it in herself to condemn Urikh's swift coronation, though it pained her that Ullsaard's heir had moved so quickly to install himself as king. Luia had spoken much of the need for continuity and stability in a time when the empire was still recovering from upset. The Blood were still on the throne, and Greater Askhor would continue to grow and prosper. All sound reasons, and yet they left Allenya hollow, as if Urikh did not care in the slightest that his father was dead. Even Luia had cried at the news, and she had been less than an ideal wife to the king. Urikh had been solemn and dignified as he had praised Ullsaard's achievements and accepted the Crown of the Blood, but Allenya could sense the delight hidden beneath the veneer of decorum.

  "We should go for a walk later," said Meliu.

  "Why?" Allenya picked up her own embroidery and looked at it. In one corner was a lake, and the start of a garden, green grass and trimmed trees petering out into whiteness. Not a stitch more had been made for twenty days, and the creased linen was spotted with stains from her tears.

  "We cannot stay in here forever, sister," said Meliu. "We need to get out and breathe fresh air. It will be winter soon. We can go to the markets and pick out woollen dresses and thick gloves."

  "Perhaps," said Allenya without enthusiasm. The simple thought of looking at dresses, Meliu gushing about new designs and beadwork, sent a shudder through her. It was so false; so pointless. "He was always away for so long, but I always knew he would come back."

  "Yet we always lived with the knowledge that this day might come," said Meliu. Crossing the room to sit next to Allenya, Meliu gently stroked her sister's brown curls. "Ullsaard was a warrior when we met him, and he died a warrior-king."

  "And Jutaar…" Tears came again as Allenya thought of her son, slain by the treachery of Anglhan, who had kept Allenya and Meliu hostage without their knowing. The tears were hot with anger as well as grief. She buried her face in the shoulder of her sister, wetting the cloth of her pale yellow dress. "Salphors took my two beautiful men from me, Meliu. They've taken both of them."

  Meliu continued to run her hand over Allenya's head, whispering words that meant nothing.

  II

  The chamber was well-furnished, with carpeted floor and tapestries on the walls, but it was no less a cell than if there had been bars and bare stone. Sitting on a bench constructed to take his huge bulk, Erlaan-Orlassai fumbled at the pages of his book with multi-jointed, taloned fingers. Eyes etched with golden runes tried to focus on the words of Sanctities of Lawmaking, but he could not concentrate. He needed to stretch, to run, to fight. His immense body was eating away at his resolve, demanding platters of food every day to be sustained. If he wanted, he could have drained the life force from the blind Brother that brought the tray of meat and bread every few hours, but Lakhyri had warned him against such behaviour.

  Erlaan-Orlassai put the book on the table in front of him and flexed arms as thick as tree trunks. His muscles rippled beneath iron-hard skin scarred with more of Lakhyri's runes. Bronze plates were riveted into his flesh, creaking as he moved and scratching him. There was nothing physical stopping him from leaving his chamber; not a Brother nor a door could bar his path if he really wanted to leave.

  It was no way to be treated, he thought. He was the t
rue heir of the Blood, and ruler of the Mekhani tribes. The empire was his by right, and there was not a day that passed without the temptation to quit the Grand Precinct and take the Crown for himself.

  He daydreamed a lot; of the time when he had led a horde fifty thousand-strong, and brought Ullsaard to the brink of defeat. The humiliation gnawed at him. He had so much time to himself, without distraction, that he relived the moments again and again: the spears that had pierced wrist and ankle and arm and leg, pinning him to the ground; Ullsaard's sword a hair's breadth from his throat; the chains that had bound him and the thick cord that had stitched his lips together.

  For nearly a year and a half he had been confined in the Grand Precincts, at first in genuine bonds, and later by promise to Lakhyri to bide his time. The High Brother's plans were coming to fruition. Erlaan-Orlassai had to believe that. When the time came, when Urikh's mock rule had served its purpose, Erlaan-Orlassai would ascend to the throne as he should have done before.

  A growl escaped from Erlaan-Orlassai as he contemplated the future. It was with a mixture of happiness and disappointment that he thought of Ullsaard's death; happiness for the fact, blighted by the knowledge that it had not been by ErlaanOrlassai's hand. He contented himself with dreaming up the ways he would visit pain on Ullsaard's heir, and inflict misery on Urikh to match the misery Erlaan-Orlassai had suffered at the hands of the former king.

  With a sigh, Erlaan-Orlassai reached for his book and started reading again. He would not be a tyrant, he told himself, as he tried once more to understand the principles of Askhan property law. He would be a proper king and the people would accept him as such, despite his monstrous appearance.

  RUINS OF MAGILNADA, SALPHORIA

  Early Winter, 213th year of Askh

  I

  A few scattered stones and hillocks were all that remained of the once-mighty city of Magilnada. The ground was still bare, turned over and salted by the vengeful legions of Ullsaard. Dark earth spread like a bloodstain from beneath the white cliffs at the coldwards extent of the Altes Hills. A few miles to duskwards were the blackened mounds of the pyres, where the bodies of thousands of men, women and children had been burnt. Their bones littered the grassless hills, broken and picked clean by scavengers.

  Gelthius was confronted by a slew of memories as he looked across the barren lands, and none of them particularly happy. There had been a short time when the Thirteenth had been stationed in the city, before the big thrust towards Carantathi, when he had been amongst friends and family, and there had been laughter and drink and comfort.

  In all, Magilnada had become a place of misery. It had been built by dissidents to rival Askh, but the Askhans had long memories and the Salphors had coveted the prize, so that the city had a bloody history. Now all of that was ended. No chieftain would ever rule Magilnada again, and no children would run through its streets. The ghosts of the dead haunted this place, and the good spirits shunned it.

  Two hundred years of life and death, politics and culture, brought to ruin by the decision of one man.

  That man, King Ullsaard, sat astride his ailur a short distance away, gazing to dawnwards. The rest of the guard company, one hundred legionnaires including Third Captain Gelthius, was breaking the night's camp. Their trek across Salphoria had been swift, and Gelthius' early departure from Carantathi had been a disappointment. After nearly fifty years, he had finally seen the capital of his former king – albeit as an Askhan legionnaire rather than a Salphor – and he had been chosen amongst those who would leave just two days later.

  Carantathi had been a bit of a letdown, in reality. After seeing the cities of Greater Askhor, including glorious Askh itself, the wood and stone huts of Aegenuis' city had seemed rather ordinary. It was a nice enough place, set high in the mountains that gave unrivalled views of the surrounding landscape, but Gelthius knew that within a year it would look no different from the dozens of Askhan towns he had passed through in his travels. Building by building, thatched roofs would give way to tiles, and crudely hewn stone would be replaced by painted brick. The wall itself, the labour of thousands of Salphors, would be pulled down and a new, higher, stronger barricade built.

  The same would be happening all over Salphoria, Gelthius realised; at least to those towns and villages that had survived the invasion. He was a trailblazer of sorts, he concluded; one of the first of a new generation of Salphor-Askhans. The Ersuans and Nalanorians and Enrairians and Anairians and Maasrites and Okharans had all gone through the same painful inclusion into the empire, and now it was Salphoria's turn.

  He had made third captain without trying, and it would not be long until a Salphor was made first captain, perhaps even before he died, if the spirits granted him enough years.

  He chastised himself for thinking of the spirits. He had been careful not to talk about them with his legion comrades, but it still rankled at Gelthius that the Askhans destroyed the spirits wherever they went. They called it superstition, a distraction from the civic duties of the people. The Brotherhood espoused dedication to the empire above all other things, and to pledge money and time to bodiless entities that – they insisted – did not exist was considered foolish.

  Nobody had ever told Gelthius outright that the spirits did not exist, and as far as he could tell there were no laws, legion or otherwise, that said a man could not offer praise or appeasement to them. There was just an assumption that the spirits did not exist and any man who thought otherwise was not right in the head and likely to be shunned.

  The men he had sent out to draw water from the nearby river were returning and Gelthius would have to go back to the camp. A small, rebellious part of him did not want to go back. None of his men paid any heed to the notion that Gelthius might have feelings about the occupation of Salphoria. In a way it was good that they saw him only as Third Captain Gelthius, bringing him into the faceless homogeny of the legions. On the other hand, their crude jokes about Salphorian women and their graphic stories of the Salphor warriors they had killed bit deep.

  Gelthius was forced to content himself with the knowledge that he had managed to save his family, bringing them to safety before the ire of the Thirteenth had fallen on the village of Landesi. They had not passed back through the lands of the Linghar, and he was glad of that. It would test his new loyalties to the limit to see the blackened remains of his own house and the crow-gnawed bones of his cousins and former friends. His wife, Maredin, had been set up in a new home in Thedraan, close to the border. Gelthius hoped that he would have a chance to see her and his children on the way back to Askh, though it was the lot of the legionnaire to be far from his family for years at a time.

  A call attracted his attention. Looking back towards the camp, Gelthius saw that the abada carts were being filled. He raised a hand to acknowledge the shout and took one more look at the waste of Magilnada and the king who had ordered it.

  For all that he was saddened by the fate of Salphoria, it was better to be on the winning side than not.

  II

  As the small column of men and carts headed along the road – now a paved, Askhan road instead of a packed dirt trail – Ullsaard sat to one side of the men on Blackfang and considered his plans. It was two days to the border with Ersua and the empire proper. If Urikh really had made a grasp for the kingship, it would be now that his son would have to strike. Ullsaard had considered bringing all of the Thirteenth back with him, and several other legions too, but the risk of giving the Salphors cause to rebel outweighed the king's concerns for his own wellbeing. There was little point in returning to Askh to restore his authority if it lost him his greatest conquest.

  It reminded Ullsaard very much of the last time he had crossed back into Ersua, avoiding Anglhan's Magilnadan legions. Many of the men he had taken with him on that journey were with him now. There was no hiding this time. Urikh was expecting him and would have schemed accordingly if Ullsaard's worst suspicions were correct. It was just a question of getting one step ahead of the
usurper. If Ullsaard could reach Askh he would be able to deal with the matter quickly and quietly, and the rest of the empire could carry on as it had been. The great drama of the war against Lutaar did not have to be repeated.

  Slapping the reins against Blackfang's shoulder to urge her into a walk, Ullsaard fell in behind the last group of legionnaires following the carts. Within two days, Ullsaard would have to choose a course of action and a route.

  He could march straight to Askh, relying on speed to get him to his goal. There was much to be said for haste, but Urikh's first concern would be the speedy appearance of the true king. He would have patrols, or at the least spies, on the border looking for Ullsaard. The most direct route would be the most closely watched.