Blinded by the Sun (Erythleh Chronicles Book 4) (4 page)

In the privacy of her room, Lyssia swapped her dress for trews, a shirt, and her leather armour. She carried several knives when fighting, and strapped the blades into place before slinging her cloak over her shoulders. The last weapon that she armed herself with was her double-ended sword. The blades were wickedly curved, and sharpened on both edges. The grip in the middle had a guard that covered her knuckles, and in the middle of that wide, flat band of metal was fixed a short spine, just long enough to be deadly under the right circumstances. There was no scabbard for her blade; she always carried it by hand, carefully. She didn't use it for the raids of the trade caravans; it wasn't needed for such a simple task. The double-bladed sword was for fighting men who knew how to fight, men who could do worse than kill her. Satisfied that all her weapons were in place, she left her room and passed through the twisting corridors, down to the hall.

The usual group was waiting. Braedeth was wearing his long sword in its scabbard. The leather straps fastened around his shoulders, and the heavy weapon was settled on his back. It was one of his habitual gestures to roll his shoulder blades to keep it positioned it perfectly. Fett was carrying his spiked club; he was impatient, Lyssia could tell by his raised brow and his sneer. He thought that she'd taken too long. She saw him open his mouth, no doubt to make some snide comment insinuating that she'd been more caught up in primping than saving more of their people. Lyssia caught his eyes and flexed her wrist, brandishing her weapon in an elaborate flourish. It was a movement that would have been useless in an actual fight, but it made a point; she was armed, and aware of him.

Darron called for everyone's attention, and got it. His voice was deep and soft, and yet he never had to raise it to gain respect. He was from the deep south of Nari, the same region as Fett. It was widely rumoured that he had some giant blood in his lineage; certainly he was the largest man that Lyssia had ever seen. She thought that there might have been a good deal of giant blood in and around the villages that Darron and Fett had been born in, either that or the people there simply bred dark and huge.

The groups that attacked the trader caravans were usually much more democratically organised than those that attacked the slavers. Everyone was aware of the protocols for raids for supplies, and there was generally no serious resistance since the war in Litt had acquired the full attention of the Felthissian army. Beating the slavers required much more militant tactics. The slavers were vicious and brutal and would kill whoever they couldn't steal. For organised attacks and defences where fighting would be a certainty, Darron was the commander of the group.

The meeting before the fight was the same as it always was. They received scant information on the numbers and armaments they could expect to encounter, only that a village was being attacked, or about to be; meagre details on which to form a plan. The village had recently been struck down by a wave of sickness. It was no surprise that it had become the target of the slavers; it had little defence against an attack. Hoping that they would arrive in time, and knowing that they wouldn't, the exiled warriors set out to save any of their brethren that they could.

Chapter Four

Kavrazel regarded the scroll before him one last time, then tossed it down onto the polished wood of the desk. It tumbled amongst the other correspondence that was cluttering the surface. It was just one more problem in a never-diminishing pile of problems, but this one struck a deeper chord than most.

The primary source of trade, employment, and therefore income for Vuthron was the precious metals and stones that littered its black earth. Endless, maze-like networks of mines tunnelled under most of the country. Gold, silver, and platinum wove shining seams through the rocks. Diamonds, sapphires, emeralds, and rubies gave the stones they were hidden in a rainbow of multi-coloured hues.

Vuthron was an extremely rich country, and Kavrazel worked hard to manage that advantage to the benefit of his people. Sales of the gems and metals filled the country's coffers. Much of the profit was ploughed back into the country, into the schools, the roads and other necessities, and some of it was speculated to buy beneficial friendships. Vuthron had many alliances, forged in debt.

Illisrya, Queen of the Giants, had come to Kavrazel with a request. Her country had needed a loan. More than three lifetimes had passed since Morjay had become involved in a bitter feud with Veltharesh. No one could remember the trigger anymore, the reasons were lost to the fog of history, but the dispute had devolved into war. The cost of the battles had cut deeply on both sides, but Veltharesh had had their trade in flesh to fall back on. The giants had no such safeguard. It wasn't that Vuthroans didn't appreciate the blood of giants, it was just that housing and taking blood from a being more than four times an average person's height was somewhat impractical.

Morjay mostly earned its income from brawn. The giants were muscle for hire. They didn't deal often with the northern hemisphere of the realm of Erythleh. Felthiss, for example, had never called on them. Felthiss rarely even sought the skills of the Aelddean warriors, the most notorious race of assassins in existence. The easterners would call on the gryphons, since those beasts could provide them with wings, an advantage they didn't possess by themselves. The giants and the Aelddean warriors were different. They were human, just as the Felthissian warriors were. They might be bigger, they might be better trained, but they had two legs and two arms, and a head, just the same as anyone else.

Kavrazel had put his personal feelings and suspicions about the giants aside, and had struck terms for the loan. It was the prudent course of action to have that nation in debt to Vuthron. It had seemed to be a particularly shrewd investment when Erkas had threatened invasion. But now the giants were defaulting on the payments of the loan, leaving Vuthron without its money, and the newly negotiated peace had left the giants without any other course of redemption, at least in Kavrazel's eyes.

Illisrya had had her own ideas about negotiating an extension to the terms, possibly with a view to the loan being written off altogether. She had made advances towards Kavrazel. Despite his natural reticence to trust any of the giants, he was flattered that she considered him man enough to fill the role of consort to a giantess. The difference in size alone would have been considered insurmountable by most sane people, although there were plenty of half giants to attest to the fact that not everybody felt the same way. Certainly, Kavrazel had no intention of attempting something so dangerous as to lie with a giant, especially if the result of the relationship might be offspring, half-breed offspring who would then have a claim to the throne. It was obvious that Illisrya was seeking to join their kingdoms, rather than risk the reputation of her own, but Kavrazel had no interest in such a merger.

He twisted the signet ring that he wore on the smallest finger of his left hand. It was cast from platinum in the image of a skull minus the lower jaw bone. It had been polished to a smooth shine by constant wear, and Kavrazel had worn it for so long that it would no longer slide past the knuckle. He considered Illisrya's latest communication. The Queen of the Giants had informed him that she had no intention of even attempting to pay the debt. That could mean only one thing, she was attempting to provoke Vuthron into declaring war on Morjay.

Kavrazel hadn't trusted the giants since the death of his parents. King Zael and Queen Nylla had been invited to Morjay, supposedly for a pleasant visit to tour what was, without argument, a beautiful country. Their deaths had been explained away as a series of unfortunate circumstances and accidents, but Kavrazel had never believed a word of the excuses that the giants had offered.

Illisrya's father, King Ellsra, had been monarch of the country then, an aging man, desperate to ensure the protection and longevity of his nation. Kavrazel had always suspected that Ellsra had ordered the murder of the Vuthroan monarchs to destabilise Vuthron with a view to invading it and capturing the county's wealth for his own purposes. Ellsra hadn't expected that the new, young king would rise above his personal grief and inexperience to take the helm of the country as he had. Kavrazel wouldn't have been surprised to find that this latest situation - Illisrya's plea, her interest, and now her obstinacy - were all part of her father's plan: the same aim, just charted by a more circuitous route.

Morjay had tried taking Vuthron by removing its rulers and making it weak. It had tried by offering a union. Now it appeared that Morjay wanted to provoke a war, probably under the presumption that Vuthron could not possibly stand victorious against battalions of giants. Kavrazel's lips twisted in a grim semblance of a smile. Giants might be huge and powerful, but even their might could tire under an onslaught of the undead, especially if he took the war to them. He had a flash of arrogant pride, an urge to find out if he could raise their own dead from their own soil. It was a hubristic whim, and bound to precede a downfall, his pride always got the better of him, but it was a challenge he was intrigued by. For now, though, regardless of his own interest in the possibilities, he needed to give Illisrya an answer.

For most official business, the generally tedious kind, Kavrazel made use of a scribe, but the response to this latest missive would be written in his own hand. He took his quill, the feather of a golden eagle, plain in its colouring, but stately in its bearing, and a fresh roll of parchment. It was only a small piece, but his answer, whilst courteous, did not need to be expansive. He cleared a little space in the mound of bureaucratic detritus and began to write.

When he was done, he set the quill back on its rest. He rolled the parchment, and took a candle, a column of scarlet wax that was burning in the single silver candlestick at the edge of his desk. The candle wasn't there to provide illumination; there was plenty of light pouring into the room from the large window that overlooked the still waters of the moat and the thick forest beyond its banks. Kavrazel let the wax drip, as red and as viscous as fresh heart blood, over the join of the scroll. He waited a heartbeat, then pressed his signet ring into the puddle; it left a mark in the vague shape of a skull, the eye sockets, the nasal cavity, and the teeth: the royal insignia of Vuthron.

Kavrazel called for a hawk. It would be received as an insult that he was entrusting the missive to a bird rather than a courier, but now, especially considering the contents of the scroll, he couldn't guarantee the safety of a Vuthroan in Morjay. He would not send one of his own, no matter how lowly, so casually to certain death.

A servant preceded the Falconer into the room, and then left, shutting the door firmly behind them. The bird sat with impressive patience, its deadly ebony claws making visible marks in the thick hide of the leather glove that its keeper wore to protect his arm. It was hooded, as all the birds were when being carried. A spike of ivory, carved into a twist, was fixed to the top of the leather covering. Once Kavrazel had fastened the small roll of parchment in place, the hood was untied and removed, and bird was given its orders. It seemed that the Falconer only flicked his wrist towards the open window, and the bird took flight, its wings brushing the casement as it flew into the world beyond the castle.

Kavrazel watched the hawk become a speck, watched it disappear, and wondered what Morjay's response would be.

~o0o~

The king's evening meal was a lonely affair. It had always been so and there was no respite in sight. Girogis, as his guard, couldn't eat with him; he was supposed to keep watch. Kavrazel had never yet been attacked during a meal time, but as a careful king and experienced soldier, he knew that complacency would bring only dire results. Otal kept to his own schedule, and there were no others that Kavrazel would call on for company. Apart from Girogis, he was surrounded by staff, not by friends, or even acquaintances.

Kavrazel settled in his seat, not quite close to the table, and surveyed the platters spread before him. The food looked delicious, but his taste buds were dormant, his mouth was dry. There was only one option that would end the lonely meal times, and he wasn't yet ready to take that step. It was better to suffer the solitude than to be forced to share it in even more uncomfortable silence with a bride taken out of political necessity. He swallowed his heavy sigh as he contemplated the options before him, choices that amounted to more than whether he would opt for a slice of beef, or a slice of pork first.

The dining room was opulently barren. Kavrazel would have dined in his rooms every night if he could have, but it seemed even a king couldn't always do what he wanted to. There was apparently some sort of propriety to be observed, a routine of normality that had been set in stone for generations. So every night he found himself in the banquet hall of the castle, seated at the head of a table that could easily seat one hundred people. Polished silver platters would be arrayed before him, and the rest of the expanse of deep red mahogany would be completely empty. All would be polished to a gleaming shine that reflected the facets of the glassy walls, built of bricks of smoky obsidian, and the myriad tiny lights of the chandelier that floated over the table. There was not much call for the room to be used in an official capacity, nor did it seem any less wasteful to use it every night for one person.

One of the double set of doors at the other end of the room, elaborately carved affairs that stretched from floor to ceiling, opened silently on well-oiled hinges. Kavrazel watched Lathriss slip inside and shove the huge door closed. He watched her impassively as she hurried across the room, skirting the edge of the table. Girogis, standing to Kavrazel's left, smiled.

"You're late," Kavrazel stated.

"Sorry, Majesty." Lathriss' slight frame bobbed into a curtsey mid-step, and her long dark hair swung forward to hide the blush that coloured her face.

Kavrazel relaxed back in his chair. He thought about teasing her about her tardiness, but his thoughts had already stewed into maudlin and he wasn't feeling inclined to make jokes. Lathriss glanced up nervously through the curtain of her hair as she stopped by his side.

"Don't fret. I won't have you whipped for it."

Lathriss grinned. It was something of a standing joke between them. Besides the understandably initially rocky start to their relationship, he had never had to wield any sort of harsh authority over her.

Lathriss held her arm out; her fingers were curled slightly over her palm. The room was so quiet that Kavrazel could hear the rustle of the soft material of her dress as the folds shifted with the movement. The garment was in the traditional style for one such as Lathriss; the black material would have been almost transparent, except for the quantity of it. The folds were caught at her shoulders by ornate broaches, and cinched at her waist by a length of delicate chain. The hem of the fabric traced over the floor as she walked. There were no sleeves to the dress, an intentional quirk of the design, signifying the status of the wearer. There was no discomfort in being so exposed; Vuthron was a perpetually warm country.

Clothing was not the only mark that identified a slave from the native Vuthroans. Lathriss wore, as did all blood slaves, a thin metal collar around her neck. The collar was effectively a mark of an owner's status, too. Although always metal, most poor folk utilised only a simple band of silver, bare of decoration. Lathriss' collar was polished platinum, and it was etched with complicated filigree designs of the finest, most delicate workmanship.

Kavrazel ran his fingertips over the cold silver of his dagger. The blade had been resting on the table in readiness. He looked up at Lathriss and caught her proffered wrist in his left hand. He rubbed his thumb over the collection of scars there. Thin, delicate, white lines cut across her skin up to her elbow. He watched the goosebumps chase over her flesh in the wake of his touch. He picked up his dagger, selected an area of skin, and drew the blade lightly across it, just deep enough for the razor sharp metal to part the skin and allow a thin line of crimson to seep free.