Sovereign (46 page)

'Lynan, my love, no, help me, Lynan, my love…'

He pulled out the sword and drove it into her neck. She jerked up on her shoulders, slumped. Her mouth opened one more time and said a word Lynan did not understand. The air around them funnelled into the sky. Lynan felt his clothes and hair whip around him, and the vampire's wings flapped uselessly.

Then all was still.

Lynan went to Jenrosa, gently turned her over. She was gasping for breath. Blood speckled her lips.

'I was wrong,' she wheezed.

'Don't talk,' he said.

She grabbed his arms. Her eyes were bulging, staring at his face. 'I was wrong. I am the end point. Not you. I thought I had to kill you. I thought that was my destiny.'

Lynan was crying again. 'Please, Jenrosa, don't talk. Stay with me. Don't go.'

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I'm so sorry.'

Lynan put her down gently, took her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. 'Don't leave me, Jenrosa. I love you.'

Her body arched in pain.

'What can I do?' he asked her, his voice pleading. 'Can I help you do magik?'

'Nothing,' she said. 'I understand now. There is no Jenrosa after tonight. That is why it was all dark. I thought the blood was your cruelty, your madness, but it was
my
future. The whole time it was
my
blood.'

'Blood,' Lynan repeated. 'God.' He scrabbled over to the vampire's corpse and dipped his hand in the wound in her chest. He brought it out, his fingers dripping with her black gore. He returned to Jenrosa. 'Here,' he said, lifting her head.

'No!' she cried and frantically slapped his hand away. 'No!'

'It will save you!' Lynan cried. 'You will be like me!'

She twisted pathetically away from him. When he tried to hold her she grabbed his bloody hand and forced it down with all her strength and said into his face: 'I would rather be dead than be like you!'

Lynan reeled back.

'Please,' she whimpered. 'Please.'

He nodded, and she let him come to her again. He lifted her into his arms and cradled her, rocking back and forth.

'I love you,' he told her again.

'I know,' she said, then closed her eyes and died.

CHAPTER 28

'This must be the most peaceful corner of the whole continent,' Galen said, not entirely happy. Charion smiled to herself. A warm sun was climbing in a clear blue sky; a gentle breeze wafting up from the valley below brought with it the smell of freshly baked bread; birds chirruped in trees. It was perfect. But Galen did not want perfect.
Neither do I
, Charion admitted to herself.
We both want battle. But just now it's almost possible to believe there is no war
.

Behind them snaked the column of knights, riders sitting easy in the saddle. Ahead of them a gentle crest eventually met higher land in the far northwest of Chandra. The valley east of them was quilted by fields and orchards. A couple of towns clustered around crossroads. To their west the edge of a forest limned the horizon. Charion pulled out the map Barys had given them. Drawn on it were the geographical features of their patrol area. The valley was called Arran; it marked the easternmost range. The Forest of Silona marked the southwest limit. The border with her own province marked the north limit, which is where they were heading now. To patrol the entire area would take five or six days, and then they would start again. 'We could cross the border,' Galen mused aloud.

'We told Tomar we would take on this duty,' Charion reminded him. 'He could have told us to move south and join up with Areava's Great Army.'

'He could have asked us,' Galen said. 'Nobody except Areava herself tells Galen Amptra what to do.'

'Keep your airs to yourself, Kendran,' Charion snorted. 'This is his domain. We are his guests.'

Galen shrugged self-consciously. 'Yes, I know. At least we're not twirling our fingers in some city, making polite conversation with boring minor nobles while our horses get fat on hay and grain.' He looked sideways at Charion. 'Still. A little cross-border ride wouldn't harm, would it? A day in, a day out. Might even gather some useful information about the Chett army and its whereabouts.'

'We know where it is,' Charion said crossly. 'In Daavis. And we know where it's going when it does move. Sparro.'

'Then what are we doing here?'

'Keeping out of the way,' Charion said.

'Why would Tomar care where we are? We're all on the same side, after all.'

Charion wondered if she should voice her doubts, but decided that was unfair of her. Tomar had shown them every courtesy and rendered them every assistance. But she could not forget some of the things the king had said and the context in which he had said them; then they had not seemed to mean anything significant, but she had since had time to ponder them. He was a man of confused, perhaps even divided, loyalties. Tomar gave her the impression of being a very sad man trapped in very sad times.

'And that rubbish you said he'd given you about our force not being compatible with his army,' Galen continued. 'Well, all I can say is that if Barys was commander, it would be good enough for the knights. His reputation as soldier and general—'

Galen stopped when he saw one of their outriders galloping towards them from the west. He halted the column. The outrider arrived out of breath and sweating.

'Lord Amptra, Chetts! Here!'

'Where?'

'The forest! They are on its edge. A full company at least.'

'What were they doing?' Charion asked.

'Dismounted and resting, as far as I could see.'

'Were you seen?'

In answer, the outrider pulled an arrow out of his saddlebag. 'They got this into my pommel.' He blushed. 'Missed my prick by a finger's width.'

'Then they'll ride for the border,' Galen said.

Charion looked at the map again and jabbed with her linger at a point halfway between the forest and the valley, looking up to check the detail against the real landscape. 'There. This crest flattens out. It's the only straight way between the forest and the border.'

'Northwest,' Galen confirmed. He ordered two riders behind him to ride due west to locate the Chetts, and to let him know if they were mounted and riding. They galloped off.

'Will we catch them?' Charion asked.

'If we move now,' he said brusquely and raised his clenched fist, the signal for the column to move to a trot. 'What are they doing here?'

'Scouting party?' Charion suggested.

'This far west? Only if Lynan intends to move his army around Sparro and march directly on Kendra.'

'But that would leave Sparro and Tomar's army directly behind him, and Areava's Great Army on his eastern flank. That doesn't make sense.'

'Well, if we catch any of the Chetts alive, we'll find out quickly enough.'

'We have to catch them first,' Charion pointed out. She wanted to pick up the pace, but knew if they did that they would blow the horses before meeting the enemy, and then nothing could stop them from escaping. 'So much for this being the most peaceful corner of the whole continent.'

After dismembering Silona's remains and disposing of them in the campfire, Lynan set about making a pyre for Jenrosa and the three Red Hands. He built a base from small branches and piled on it all the dry leaves and twigs he could scrounge. Then he placed Jenrosa's body in the middle, the Red Hands on either side, and placed more branches and leaves over them. When he set it alight the flames took hold straightaway. In moments the blaze was so intense he had to retreat several paces, By morning the pyre was reduced to little more than a pile of light grey ash. A breeze made its way from the outside world and blew the ashes around in an eddy that climbed up above the canopy and out into the world.

He needed to move, he knew that. He had to get back to Daavis. He was responsible for the fate of more than one companion. But his heart weighed so much the rest of him could not move. When Kumul died it had been as if Lynan's past had died as well; with Jenrosa's death he felt he had lost his future.

Not so long ago there had been four of them. Refugees, exiles, outlaws. Now he was proclaimed king by his followers, he had a brave army behind him, but only he and Ager remained and he was not sure the cost had been worth it. Why struggle for a kingdom, for any birthright, if the price was everything you cared for?

He knew the answer and did not want to hear it, but inside his mind he heard it spoken in Kumul's voice. 'Duty,' Lynan said aloud. 'I am Prince Lynan Rosetheme, son of Queen Usharna Rosetheme, son of General Elynd Chisal, and I will be king of Grenda Lear. I was born to duty. You showed me that, Kumul. And you, Jenrosa.'

Saying their names made him want to cry again, but that would shame them. He took his sword and plunged it deep in the earth where the pyre had been. One day he would return to retrieve it, and to sit for a while by the place where Jenrosa had left this life.

Rosof and the others had heard terrible things during the night, and in the morning he was left with the terrible problem of what to do about them. Sunatay had said he was not to come after her until three nights had passed, but what if she and the others needed help now? What he wanted to do was order his troop to mount and get away from this dark and evil forest, but they were Red Hands, and they had come to save the White Wolf. He could not leave, and as he thought about the problem he realised he could not stay where he was and do nothing.

He made a decision to lead half the troop into the forest, leaving the other half behind as a reserve and to watch the horses, when two things happened that deepened his quandary. The first was a dark plume of smoke which the Chetts could see above the trees as soon as the southern sky was light enough; as far as Rosof could tell, its source was many leagues deep within the forest. He did not know what it meant, but he was sure it had something to do with the sounds they had heard during the night. The second event was a sudden commotion to the east of their main camp. An outrider rushed back to tell him she had shot at a horseman but he had got away. Rosof groaned inside. The enemy had discovered their position, and they were several days ride from any kind of sanctuary. He was left to make a decision that properly should have been Sunatay's, and he silently cursed her for leaving him in this mess. The other Red Hands, as skittish now as horses in the middle of a grass fire, were looking at him expectantly. Of all the choices facing him, his original decision still looked best to him, although he could not now take half his force with him.

'We cannot leave the White Wolf behind at the mercy of his enemies,' he declared, trying hard to keep a quaver out of his voice. 'We are the Red Hands, and we will not fail. I will go into the forest to find King Lynan and the Truespeaker, and our companions. I will take twenty with me. The rest of you will wait here. Prepare a barricade around the horses. The enemy will come, but if we are brave and strong they will not defeat us, and when I return with Lynan, we will cut them down like grass wolves attacking a herd of karaks.'

Having been given a clear order, much of the riders' nervousness disappeared. Rosof got them started on the barricade, then chose twenty of the most fleet-footed of the troop and entered the forest. As the trees closed about them, Rosof did not feel any of the tension he had felt two days ago, the first time the Red Hands had tried to enter. He did not have time to wonder about it. He started a long, loping jog he hoped would get them to the source of the fire by the end of the day, and twenty warriors fell in behind him.

As they got deeper into the forest the air became closer, harder to breathe, and they had to stop frequently for short rests. The forest felt like a great prison, and they found it hard not to be able to see the horizon or feel the wind on their faces. The only way to stop thinking about it was to run, to concentrate on every stride, every foot fall.

Then, about midmorning, they found Lynan.

The meeting was eerily flat. For a long moment, surprised, Rosof could only stare at the prince, and in return Lynan seemed almost disinterested.

'We have come for you,' Rosof said nervously. 'We have a troop waiting at the edge of the forest.'

'A whole troop?'

'Back there,' Rosof said, pointing behind him. 'Except for Sunatay, who went on ahead of us, and the Truespeaker, and two others.'

'Sunatay is dead,' Lynan said flatly. 'So are her two companions.'

'Dead?'

'As is the Truespeaker.'

The Red Hands gasped in surprise. What could slay someone so powerful as Jenrosa Alucar? She was a companion to the White Wolf, and the first Truespeaker in a generation.

'Silona,' Lynan said, as if reading their minds. 'She killed them all.'

The Red Hands looked around them anxiously.

'No need to fear,' Lynan told them. 'She is dead too. Our friends died, but not in vain.'

Rosof swallowed, not sure what to say, then remembered the threat still to come. 'Your Majesty, we must hurry to rejoin the others. An enemy scout found our location. We cannot have much time before—'

'Yes, of course,' Lynan interrupted. 'Quickly then, lead the way.'

'Where are they?' Galen demanded, standing in his saddle and desperately searching the landscape for any sign of the enemy. 'Have we missed them?'

Charion, checking her map, shook her head. 'I don't see how. Either they moved further west, which lengthens their journey home and still gives us a chance to intercept them, or they are still where the outrider first came across them.'

Galen scratched his head. 'But once discovered, what would be the point of staying? They must know we would respond.'

'Or they rode east,' Charion suggested slowly, speaking as the thought coalesced in her brain. 'That way they are behind us, waiting for us to move out of the way before going for the border.'

'Our force isn't large enough to cover all three options,' he said with some exasperation.

Charion said nothing. This was Galen's column. She was an honorary member of the knights for the moment, but she was not commanding.