Roads of the Righteous and the Rotten (Order of Fire Book 1) (4 page)

Shahla chuckled and her eyes squinted in curiosity. “Father and I usually just bring the wares to the room with us.”

“Do you want to carry all that steel?”

Shahla shook her head and laughed.

“Then I’ll see you in the morning. Get a good sleep. I’ll be right outside.”

Zar scooted over the bundles of arrows and wrapped weapons and laid a blanket down in the wagon. It was the middle of the night when he awakened to the sound of footsteps. From what he could hear someone was standing outside the wagon, still, as if they had hesitated or were deep in contemplation. He laid there wearily for a while until the footsteps could be heard again, this time faintly diminishing until they deadened in the still of night.
The fool thought better
of it,
Zar thought, dozing off and recommencing the light sleep he had been pulled from.

They got back on the road in the morning. The woods dwindled to a sparse assortment of trees, littered sparingly across the sandy brown plains of the east, where the forests had been cleared by the people of old exposing the fields to the sun. They looked to have been under the sun for so long that they were turning its color, baked year after year and turning lighter each time, with scarcely any grass remaining, but only an awkward combination of what looked to be dried dirt, weeds, and sand. They came to Gara just before the dusk, heading straightaway to the house of Timber, Barek’s old friend and selling consort, to complete the delivery before the night crept in.

Timber had owned a shop in Gara’s market for years selling weapons and armor—weapons and armor that Barek delivered to him every year in the spring to make ready for the summer buyers. They had come to the arrangement years ago when Barek was still a young man, as he had told Zar. Timber had spent a summer reveling in Gara, and he happened upon the fact that the place was quite under stocked in quality arms despite being a merchant city. The arrangement had been far more profitable than either of them ever imagined.

“A flask of wine,” said Zar, pointing to the top shelf behind a woman’s head. “Lolia Red.”

She scurried back to the rack, rose up on the tips of her toes, slid the flask off the shelf, and uncorked it. Pouring a small bit into a wooden tasting cup, she handed it to Zar, smiling mischievously.

Zar drank. “Aye, that’s it,” he said, smacking his lips at the taste. “Just this one.”

“Anything else?” The woman asked, red lips puckering out as she leaned over the counter until her bosom did the same. “Anything else at all?”

“Just the wine,” said Zar, eyeing Shahla from the side of his vision and wondering what she was thinking. Perhaps she wasn’t surprised. The name of the shop was “Wine and Women” and it was almost twice as big as the inn they had passed. Zar shook his head and laughed silently.
Only in Gara does th
e one decent wine shop d
ouble as a whorehouse
.

“Tomorrow we take the main road home,” said Zar when they had made it back to the inn, taking a drink from the flask of Lolia Red in his hand.

“I know,” Shahla replied.

They sat in a room on a raised straw pallet, talking as they passed the flask of wine between them.

“It will take longer than the road by Blackwood.”

“We don’t have to go back,” the young woman stated.

“We could travel around awhile—and send a letter back to father—”

“He would kill me.”

“You’re wrong,” Shahla insisted. “He trusts you just as much as I.”

“It’s not what we talked about, though,” said Zar, “unless you’re asking me to break my word.”

“And what of your word to me?” Shahla teased, taking the flask from Zar and having a drink. She pointed a finger at him. “
You
said
one day I could join you.”

“Aye, but
one
day is not today.”

Shahla’s shoulders dropped and she scrunched up her face, kicking her feet up onto the bed and scooting back to lean against the wall. “And tomorrow?” she said, giggling.

“Not tomorrow, either, I’m afraid.”

“Sometimes I ride alone to Snowstone for supplies,”

said Shahla, “and I’ve been riding to Vlysa when father’s away, but don’t tell him. He doesn’t know.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Zar assured. “But be careful. If you’re going to sneak away from the meadow when your father’s visiting his paramour, at least do it during the day.”

“I don’t
sneak
off.

“If you’re hiding it from Barek, you’re sneaking.”

“As you say, Zar.” Shahla took a sip of wine. “You would do the same and you know it. You can’t blame me for wanting to see more.”

Zar scooted closer to Shahla and took the wine.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I want to see it all. There’s nothing wrong with you wanting to see a thing or two, either. As I said before, one day we shall have an adventure together.”

Shahla’s shoulders rose, her neck jumped, and her voice squeaked, “Truly?”

“Aye.”

“Careful what you say,” she continued happily. “I’ll hold you to your word.”

“Well, please do.” Zar smiled and lifted the flask of wine into the air. “To seeing the world,” he said, taking a long gulp then passing it to Shahla. Shahla repeated the words and did the same.

“I thought we might both die today,” she said after swallowing.

The two eyed each other for a few seconds before they started laughing.

“Die?” said Zar. “Did you see Leviathan flying overhead, then?”

Shahla showed a smile of scrutiny as she inquired to Zar’s meaning with squinting eyes. Not a moment later, she laughed.

“Oh, well then it must have been an army of Snowguards coming after us, yes?”

Shahla did nothing but laugh.

“Oh,
the bandit
s
,” Zar went on. “Yes, if I slipped and fell on my sword I could have very well been killed by those thieves.”

Shahla was still taken by laughter and Zar joined her in it.

“I should’ve known the great Zar wouldn’t be beaten by bandits.” He could tell by her voice that the wine was taking effect.

“Aye, you should’ve known.”

“You should’ve seen how quickly that man ran over to my horse,” said Shahla, taking a gulp from the flask.

Zar crackled out a chuckle. “I
did
see. I was right there.

What are you drunk?”

“No,” Shahla replied, laughing the whole time. She leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder. “Maybe a little.”

Zar laughed as he took back the flask. “Well, you certainly surprised me.”

“You didn’t think I’d use my bow?” Shahla reached out her golden arms and pulled back with one hand as if she were taking a shot.

“I didn’t. Your arrow came out of nowhere.”

Shahla’s cheek pulsed against his shoulder as she giggled, and it pricked Zar’s conscience to see how much joy she got out of being able to participate in the fight. His mind wandered a bit as they sat quietly, and after being lost in thought for a few moments he glanced down to find Shahla drinking freely from the flask.

“I think you’ve had enough of that.” Zar pointed to the wine. “Give it.”

Zar reached for the flask, but Shahla pulled away playfully and brought it low over the right side of her body. He stretched over her lap for it and she quickly turned away from him and guarded it with both hands, holding it as tight as she could while in the midst of laughing. She cried out as Zar pried it from her fingers, spilling a few drops of wine on her honeyed skin as she wrestled to claim back the container. She climbed about his body as he moved the flask high and low and just beyond her reach, her hair dancing and fluttering against his face as she attacked him. “Fine.” She pouted, giving up.

Zar lifted the wine to his lips for a drink, surprised how little was left, and tilted the container all the way up, finishing it off. As their breathing slowed from the wrestling, the two found themselves again with their backs resting on the wall, and Shahla once again leaning on Zar. They had been silent for a time and Zar thought the woman was drifting asleep, but as he peered down at her face her eyes lifted and met his. He rested his head back on the wall without saying a word.

Her hand rubbed his stomach, and Zar barely noticed. When he did become aware of it—the feeling of her palm rubbing across him, her fingers crawling over, her other hand dropping upon his thigh and moving over the surface of his leather pants—he was stunned. It wasn’t very often that he was with a woman and didn’t know what to do. But this was different. The girl he had once regarded as a sister, and that Barek, perhaps his best and only friend, had charged him to watch over was now all grown up—and very beautiful. Despite her busy hands, Zar thought that maybe he’d mistaken her intent, and felt some amount of shame and awkwardness over the fact that he so readily assumed what her intentions were, and that his body was already responding to them. A few short moments later he was forced to accept that there was no other meaning possible than the obvious.

It must be th
e wine
. He sat frozen, trying to think of a way to escape. He would tell her that he needed to check on Asha, or to grab another blanket from her saddle. As he prepared to tell Shahla that he needed to go outside, the woman’s hands stopped moving. He could hear her long, steady breaths in the quiet room, and he looked down to find her with her eyes closed and her smooth lips slightly open. She had fallen asleep.

Zar gently directed her body down, pulling the bed’s blanket from underneath her as he guiding her to the pallet. He watched her, remembering glimpses of old times spent with her. Those traces of memories ran awkwardly past as he thought about what had just happened. He didn’t make it to sleep until nearly an hour later, for the effects of the wine had further stirred his thoughts on the evening. How he wished to dwell on the casual way she’d touched him. The closeness they’d shared since younger days was now very different. After several of such thoughts had come and passed, the weariness from travel combined with the soothing effect of the fine Lolia wine finally called him to rest. He curled up next to Shahla on the bed and fell asleep.

4

Tharid shuffled into
the castle
, a letter clutched in his hand, twisting to the left and heading for the spiral stairs that rose in the corner. What he feared had finally come to pass. His father had stepped on Dandil’s toes for so long that the old king was threatening war. The Cyanans claimed that their newly discovered gold mine had been raided by Snowstone’s soldiers—and of course it had. Dandil swore he’d be the only one getting rich from that mine. Already he’d commanded that a fortress be built around it. When the walls were finished no one would see that gold except for old King Dandil, and if Snowstone was to have its share, now was the time to take it.

The miners in the camp separated the gold from the dross and stored it by the pounds in chests that often never made it back to Dandil. Raiding the place at the right time had been quite rewarding, and the southern king knew that only one man had the nerve and power to do that—King Tiomot of Snowstone.

Tharid stopped before he ascended the steps, and turned to gaze at the man who had just come down the corresponding staircase on the opposite side of the hall.

“Trinik!” He called out, “Where’s my father?”

The pudgy little man carried an empty flask of wine in his hand as he shuffled to the storeroom. “He is in his chamber, my prince,” he replied. “He doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”

“Of course he doesn’t,” replied Tharid, “but I have news he needs to hear.”

Trinik stopped in the middle of the hall and shook his hairless head softly. “But, my prince,” he called, “he has company.”

“His whores can listen too,” said Tharid, marching up the stairs. He ascended up past the great hall and over two floors of royal chambers that housed his Aunt Vacenia and Uncle Jorin and their daughters, Liina and Lana, and came to the sixth floor which held the grand chamber of his father. There were no other chambers on the floor, just one very large room that covered most of the level, one of the two royal grand chambers of the castle.

The prince stood before the grand chamber’s wooden door, knocked twice, then pushed it open without waiting. He was assaulted by the smell when he entered. The only window in the room was small, and the wind that passed through it did nothing to freshen the room. King Tiomot had been busy all morning, as he was most mornings, tangled in the sheets with his servant girls, playing in the silk.

“You’ve brought more wine already, Trinik?” the king called out without looking, his head still busy and buried beneath the sheets. “The tiny man is quick!”

“Your wine hasn’t come yet, Father,” said Tharid, closing the wooden door behind him. “I have something you need to see.”

The king wrestled his head from beneath the sheets, wild brown and gray bespeckled hair a mess over his face. “What, boy? You’ve come to my chamber without more wine?”

“This is an important matter, Father,” Tharid replied. “Do you know who this letter is from?” Tharid held up the parchment.

“I don’t care if it’s from Daan!” the king shouted. “You come into my bedchamber—
the king’s bedchamber
—and ask me to read parchments?”

“You will want to hear this news.”

The king sat up in his bed, pulling himself from the embrace of his servants for a moment. A girl with curled hair stayed shyly at the corner of the bed; the other two kept themselves occupied. “If you weren’t my blood I’d have you killed,” said Tiomot.

“None of your guards can best me, father.”

Tiomot laughed. “Do you hear that, girls? His tongue’s as sharp as his sword!” A few giggles came from among the sheets. “I’d kill you myself,” the king went on. “Barging in here while I have guests—if you wanted to join us you could’ve at least brought another girl.” The king chuckled at his own words.

“This is a letter from Dandil. He’s threatening a war,”

Tharid announced.

“I have here with me, uh, Laryl, Sania, and Viviin,” said Tiomot. “I’m not sure which is which, but you’re welcome to one.”

“I don’t need the names of your whores!” the prince exclaimed. “Dandil will march upon us!” His voice rang throughout the large room. The servant girls looked on solemnly from the bed.

Tiomot only smiled. “They are my concubines,” he said, chuckling. “If you don’t like them, convince your mother to bring me more sons.”

“If we do not send this letter, Dandil
wi
ll
send an army.” Tharid waved the letter in his hand. “What does he want?” the king asked.

“He wants a letter of assurance—your sworn testimony that our men had nothing to do with his mine being raided.”

Tiomot bellowed out in laughter. “But he knows it was us.”

“Aye, father,” Tharid replied, “but kings have their pride. I’m sure
yo
u
understand
that
. Permit me to send the letter. It’s a small matter. I’ll have a servant write it.”

“Bah!” Tiomot roared. “I rather prefer the idea of war. And I rather prefer to rule an empire than a kingdom. Only Dandil stands in my way.”

“Not yet, Father. We don’t want war with Dandil, not now.”

“Not now? Then when?” Tiomot thundered. “You don’t think we can win?”

“We can win,” Tharid replied, “but it would take everything we have! It would leave our kingdom so weak that a band of Turagols could take the castle!”

“Bah, Turagols can’t breach my walls! No one can breach my walls!” Tiomot lay back in his silk sheets, turning to the girl who sat idly beside him, and grasped her breasts. “Give the old fool what he wants,” he said. “I’ll keep peace with Dandil for now.”

The king gave his son a wave of dismissal, and Tharid took his leave. He headed back to the stairs where he ascended two floors, past the seventh floor where his chamber and that of his uncle, Kazakus, lay, and on to the eighth where there was the last royal bedchamber. It was as large as the king’s chamber, but two floors higher, sitting at the very top of the castle. It was refreshingly far enough from the king’s affairs, and therefore occupied by the queen. It was quiet and elegant and perfect for his mother.

Tharid knew his father was a terrible creature. He had come down from the north, pillaging every land he passed, and established his kingdom in the west. His vast rule spread nearly all the way east, and his arm of power stretched so far across Krii that only Dandil’s land in the south was exempt. Tiomot was a conqueror, and while he handled all affairs of war, all other affairs of the kingdom were handled by the queen. She had been the land’s true ruler for years, and while Tiomot regarded Snowstone as his, craftiness and perspicacity.

Tharid had always been close to his mother. He was just a small boy when he asked her why her and Father didn’t share the same bedchamber; and it was a few years later that he’d asked her if it made her upset when his father had other women. She told him that Tiomot the Bear was not a beast that could be tamed. He was good at taking lives, taking land, and taking women, and she had accepted that the day he had taken her as a wife. It had made Tharid angry to hear her say that; being just a boy, he’d wondered why his mother wasn’t good enough for his father. Though he had grown out of the naivety of those childish feelings, even still, he would be untruthful if he said it didn’t bother him just a little that his father so indiscreetly paraded about with other women— many women. At least he could have been quiet about it, for his mother was elegant and deserving of far more respect and honor than she received from her husband. It was true that she could no longer bare children, but that mattered not. Tiomot didn’t care for heirs, he had no heirs. He was a selfish ruler that once proclaimed he would rather knock the walls of Snowstone Castle to the ground before allowing it to be governed by any other than himself. Tiomot didn’t care for heirs, he had many heirs. He was known for taking maidens from all corners of the land into his bedchamber, then sending them away when he grew tired of them, and, especially, when they were with child. Not even Daan or Padiir knew how many illegitimate sons and daughters roamed Krii with the blood of the Bear King in their veins. Tharid wagered he had dozens of half brothers and sisters that would have no chance to grow into sovereigns, no claim to a throne, no place in the royal castle, not a silver cup to drink from. Tharid was still the only royal child—the first and last son of his mother.

“Is it Tharid?” the queen answered from within.

“Aye, mother,” the prince replied. “It’s me.”

Thae bid her son to enter. “So, was the king concerned with the letter?” said Thae, resting her hands on her hips; her tone made it clear that she knew the answer.

“Not in the least,” Tharid replied. “He barely stopped what he was doing. Mother, was it necessary to tell him now? When he’s with his whores we can hardly expect a sound decision from him.”

“It matters not
when
you tell him,” said Thae, taking a comb from her table by her bed. “And you of all men should know there will be no sound decisions from your father concerning diplomacy. What did he say?”

“Well, he wasn’t bothered by it,” said Tharid, taking a seat on his mother’s bed. “I had to convince him that war with Cyana would not be good for the kingdom.”

“He shouldn’t have to be told that!” Thae said firmly. “He seems to think he can wipe out Dandil like the tribes in the north.”

“Padiir have mercy!” The queen sighed, pulling her comb through a section of her boundless brown mane. The thick locks swarmed around her pale face before leaping all the way down to the ground past the hem of her garment, hanging there long and free like the leaves of a willow.

Tharid chuckled. “The man fears nothing,” he said. “At least that can be said.”

because he is foolish?” said the queen.

“That is a question I’ll let you answer, Mother.”

The queen rolled her eyes. “You
know my
answer.”

Tharid chuckled. “Here, let me comb the back for you.” He stood and took the comb from her.

“I don’t know why we even bother telling him of these matters.”

“Nor do I,” said Tharid. “He did finally agree to send his letter of assurance, but for a moment I thought we’d be going to war. I couldn’t let your hard work go to waste because father thinks himself invincible.”

Thae squinted a bit with a questioning grin.

“You’ve preserved us,” Tharid explained, “when Father’s scandals would have ruined this place.”

“Have I now?”

“Aye. When the people of Snowstone suspected it was father who was abducting the city’s women, before he had entrusted the job to the Condor, and there was nearly an uprising—do you remember?”

“I do.”

“It was
you
who addressed the people and, speaking like the graceful queen you are, convinced them most eloquently that their king had no part in it.” Tharid laughed. “You made them believe it was—”

“The Turagols,” Thae interrupted, laughing. “Like those savages could do anything quietly and in order.”

“Or how about the time when Father was sick with fever and we thought he might die. His bastard son with that eastern whore both showed up to lay claim to the throne. It was you who found out what they were up to, and you silenced the woman with a few drops of poison in her wine.”

“And you embraced the man as your elder brother and legitimate prince,” said Thae, ever smiling, “and gave him a horse and rode with him through the northern woods.”

“A ride he never came back from,” Tharid added with a smirk.

Mother and son both laughed for several moments, and Thae said, “
Se
e
, it was not only me. You’ve helped greatly.”

“Aye, but they have been your plans, and your ideas, and there are many other times than those. You are clever and you see things coming before I, and you always know how to handle them.” Tharid brushed his hand across his mother’s pale cheek and kissed her. “You’ve kept us in power.”

Thae’s eyes flickered.

“But Father doesn’t understand such things,” Tharid went on. “So let us make the decision ourselves next time. I’m afraid one day we won’t like the answer we get from him.”

“Aye, son,” Thae agreed. “These kinds of decisions must not be left to your father.”

Tharid pulled the large comb from his mother’s crown all the way down through the hair that rested on the ground in one fluid stroke, coming to a squat at the end of the motion. “Snowstone is great because Father is mighty,” he said, standing back up to repeat the motion. “If he was wise it would be even greater.”

Thae smiled at her son’s words. “
You
are wise. Even in your youth you are wise.”

“You flatter me, Mother.”

Thae patted down her hair with her hands. “Have I told you that you will make a fine king?”

“Aye, Mother, many times,” Tharid said, “though I never tire of hearing it.”

Thae beamed. “How does it look?” She stepped forward and turned slowly.

“Fit for a queen.”

Thae smiled as she walked over to her chamber window. “Banas and Krin are waiting in the yard. Go on down so I can watch you again.”

“Do I improve?” Tharid waited with a grin for the answer he knew would follow.

“With every lesson,” said the queen, nodding. “There was a time I thought Krin was the best man to swing a sword in Snowstone. Now I know it is you. As for Banas the Brute, if you can stand against him, you can stand against any man.” And Tharid did more than stand against him. He outmaneuvered him. Banas, big, burly, and positively intimidating to look upon, was his father’s most trusted retainer. His skin was dark as coal and etched generously with deep scars. His face was ever grim, eyes cold and mean. He had fought under Tiomot’s command since they were both young men of the Highlands, and now he was a lord of Tiomot’s making with his own castle in Sirith and some two- hundred odd men at his command.

Tharid parried a blade, shuffled out of the way of another, and darted in quickly, touching his sword’s tip to Banas’s ribs. A few movements later that same edge tapped against the other man’s neck—Krin, who was captain of the castle guard and had been appointed such when the previous captain Harol was killed over a decade ago. He was short and lean, but strong as an ox and dangerously adept with any manner of blade one was fool enough to let him get his hands on.