Blood Song

“Hardly likely, Highness,” Lord Mustor said, reaching for the bottle again. “I’m sure my brother will make every effort to martyr himself in service to the World Father. Still, I daresay Brother Vaelin and his band of cut-throats are more than up to the task.”

“I am puzzled, Lord Mustor,” Vaelin said. “Your brother has murdered your father in order to claim the fief as his own, yet he secludes himself in a remote castle whilst the Realm Guard marches on his capital.”

“My brother Hentes is a fanatic,” Lord Mustor replied with a shrug. “When it became clear my father was going to bend the knee to King Janus he called him to a secret meeting and stuck his sword in his heart as a service to the World Father. No doubt the more vehement priests and followers would have approved but Cumbrael is not a land that could tolerate a Fief Lord who ascends by the murder of his own father. Whatever the thoughts of the commoners, the vassals who followed my father would not follow Hentes. They’ll fight your army, they have little choice after all, but only in defence of the fief. My brother will be at the Keep, he can go nowhere else.”

“And once the usurper is… dislodged?” Vaelin asked Prince Malcius.

“The reason for this war will have disappeared. But it all depends on time.” He turned his attention back to the map, his finger tracing the route from the Brinewash bridge to the pass where the High Keep waited. “Best guess, the pass is two hundred miles distant. If we are to accomplish our goal we must get there in sufficient time to allow word to be taken to the Battle Lord.” He reached for a sealed parchment on the table. “The King has already set down a command for the Realm Guard to return to Asrael in the event we are successful.”

Vaelin quickly calculated the distance between the pass and the Cumbraelin capital. Nearly a hundred miles, two days ride for a fast horse. Nortah could do it, maybe Dentos too. Getting to the keep in time, that’s the hard part. The regiment will have to cover at least twenty miles a day.

“Can it be done, brother?” the Prince asked.

Vaelin’s gaze turned to the Cumbraelin villages laid out on the map in precise, neat lines. He wondered how many people in those hamlets along the Western Road had any notion of the storm that would soon descend. When this war was done perhaps another map would have to be drawn. In Cumbrael you will see many things. Many terrible things. “It will be done, Highness,” he said with flat certainty. I’ll whip them all the way there if I have to.

And so they marched, four hours at a stretch, twelve hours a day. They marched. On through the grass lands north of the Brinewash, into the hills and valleys beyond and the foothills that signalled entry into border country. Men who fell out on the march were kicked to their feet and hounded into movement, those who collapsed given half a day on the wagon then put back on the road. Vaelin had decreed the only men left behind would be ready to join the Departed and counted on their fear of him to keep them moving. So far it had worked. They were sullen, weighed down by weapons and provisions, their mood soured by his order cancelling the rum ration until further notice, but they were still afraid, and they still marched.

Every night Vaelin would seek out Alucius Al Hestian for two hours of training. The boy was initially delighted by the attention. “You honour me, my lord,” he said gravely, standing with his long-sword held out in front of him as if he were holding a mop. Vaelin slashed it from his grip with a flick of his wrist.

“Don’t be honoured, be attentive. Pick that up.”

An hour later it had become obvious that as a swordsman Alucius made a fine poet. “Get up,” Vaelin told him, having sent him sprawling with a flat bladed blow to the legs. He had repeated the same move four times and the boy had failed to notice the pattern.

“I, um, need some more practice…” Alucius began, his face flushed, tears of humiliation shining in his eyes.

“Sir, you have no gift for this,” Vaelin said. “You are slow, clumsy and have no appetite for the fight. I beg you, ask Prince Malcius to release you and go home.”

“She put you up to this.” For the first time, there was some hostility in Alucius’s tone. “Lyrna. Trying to protect me. Well I won’t be protected, my lord. My brother’s death demands a reckoning, and I will have it. If I have to walk all the way to the usurper’s keep myself.”

More boy’s words. But there was a strength to them nonetheless, a conviction. “Your courage does you credit, sir. But proceeding with this will only result in your death…”

“Then teach me.”

“I’ve tried…”