Brotherhood of the Wolf (11 page)

The boy seemed to consider the counselor's words, then looked up at Myrrima and caught his breath. He smiled at her in that hopeful way that men did ever since she'd been endowed with glamour.

She put both pups down by her feet, and stroked them as they wolfed their sausages. Until that moment, even Myrrima had not known what she would do.

But she knew that she must prepare, and Jureem's words convinced her that she had to begin doing so tirelessly, to anticipate the threat before it arrived.

“The pups like you,” Kaylin mused.

“You know the pups well?” Myrrima asked. “Do you know which dogs were born of which bitches?”

Kaylin nodded soberly. Of course he did. That was the only reason that Groverman had sent the boy to serve young King Orden.

“I'll want four of them,” Myrrima said softly, lest someone overhear. She was terribly conscious of the fact that she planned to take these pups from her own king without asking. But Kaylin would never know that she was stealing. Hadn't he just seen her dining with the King and Queen? The boy would assume that she was some lady who had a right to the pups. Myrrima hoped that if she worked hard, perhaps she
could
truly earn that right. “Two for stamina, one for scent, and one for metabolism. Can you pick out the best ones for me?”

Kaylin nodded vigorously.

After breakfast, Iome and Gaborn retired to their bedchamber for a moment, and closed the doors behind them, leaving their Days out in the alcove.

Iome could not feel perfectly at ease in this room. The huge bed, with its images of fools and lords carved into its posterns and the pineapples at its top, had been her mother and father's bed a week ago. Her mother's perfumes and cosmetics were in their case beside the oriel, where the morning light was best. Her father's clothes were still in the wardrobes; Gaborn had brought few of his own clothes from Mystarria, but her father's garments fit Gaborn well enough.

But more than the objects in this room, the scent of it reminded Iome of her parents. She could smell her mother's hair on her pillow, her body oils, her perfume.

Should I tell him? she wondered. Iome was carrying Gaborn's child, she felt certain. They'd been married for only four days, and Iome felt no nausea. She would not know for a few days yet whether she had even missed her time of month. But she did feel a strangeness to her body, and Myrrima had seen it today. She'd said that Iome was “glowing.”

But was that proof enough? Iome doubted it. She dared not speak of her hopes to Gaborn.

Iome sat on the edge of the bed, wondering if Gaborn would want her, but he merely went to the oriel and stared south for a long time, deep in thought.

“Have you decided what to do yet?” she asked. Before the wedding, he'd been in constant turmoil, wondering how he could best fight Raj Ahten, wondering where Raj Ahten would strike next. As Earth King, he was the protector of mankind, and now Gaborn shuddered at the very thought of taking a human life, even the life of an enemy. This morning's news of Raj Ahten's attacks had left him deeply worried.

She'd encouraged him to go on the hunt, hoping that by having a few days away, slipping into some sort of routine, he might be able to clear his mind, while at the same time it would ease concerns among his people.

“Will you take endowments? Thousands have offered themselves as your Dedicates.”

Gaborn bowed his head in thought. “I can't,” he said. “Of that I am becoming more and more certain.”

A week ago, both of their fathers had been slain. Afterward, Gaborn had wanted to take endowments, to take the strength of a thousand men and the grace of another thousand and to take the stamina of ten thousand and the metabolism of a hundred men—and use it all to slay Raj Ahten.

Yet now that deed seemed beyond him. Taking a man's endowments was risky. A man might give them willingly enough, but there was always a danger. A man who gave brawn would find that his heart was suddenly too weak to beat, and might pass away within moments. A man who gave grace could not properly digest his food, or relax his lungs enough to let out a breath, so might fall prey to starvation or suffocation. A man who gave stamina to his lord could die from infection the next time an illness swept through the castle.

So a man who took another's endowments could soon find himself poisoned by guilt. Worse than that, since a powerful Runelord was so nearly Invincible, only a fool would attack him directly. Instead, the Runelord's Dedicates became the targets of his enemy's wrath. If one were to slay a lord's Dedicates, he would sever the magical link that raised the lord's attributes, and in doing so, he would make the lord himself more human, more vulnerable to attack.

Borenson had slain Iome's own Dedicates a week ago. The pain of it was astonishing. Good men and women had died. She'd wept bitterly about it night after night, for the Dedicates were often friends, people who had loved the kingdom and therefore sought to strengthen it so that they could better maintain her realm.

As Earth King, Gaborn sought to defend his people. He could lock his Dedicates in towers, guard them with his most powerful knights, provide the best physicians to care for them. Still it might not be enough.

Gaborn's arguments against taking endowments were morally sound. Yet Iome had to wonder. He was the Earth
King, the hope of the world. But how great a king could he be, if he left himself open to attack?

“Last week,” Iome said, “you swore to me that you would be an Oath-Bound Lord. Are you forsaking endowments completely? I can't imagine why. You are a good man. If you take endowments only from your Chosen, I know that you will use them wisely, and prudently. You will be a better king because of it. And because you are the Earth King, you will know when your Dedicates are in danger, and be better able to preserve them.”

“Knowing that a man is in danger and rescuing him are entirely different matters,” Gaborn said heavily. “Even with all of my powers, I may not be able to protect them.”

“But what of Raj Ahten? What will happen when he does send his assassins? Surely he will!”

“If he sends assassins, then I will sense the danger, and we will flee.” Gaborn said. “But I will not fight another man ever again, unless I have no choice.”

Iome felt confused by such talk. She valued life, valued the lives of her people above all. But she couldn't just turn her back on Raj Ahten. She'd never be able to forgive him for what he'd done. Iome's mother and father were dead at his hands. Gaborn's mother and father, too.

Gaborn should have been shouting for vengeance. Even now, Raj Ahten was marching on his homeland in Mystarria. All of Gaborn's counselors had agreed that Heredon's forces were too weak to pursue the Wolf Lord south. They lacked the warriors and force horses to do so. Raj Ahten's troops had stolen all of the good horses in Sylvarresta's stables when they fled. One of the first things that Gaborn did when he reached Castle Sylvarresta was to learn from the stablemasters the names of every horse that had been taken, and the names of their Dedicates. Then he'd sent the list to Duke Groverman, where the Dedicate horses were kept, and had the Dedicates slain.

It was a desperate effort to slow Raj Ahten in his flight toward Mystarria. Raj Ahten's knights would have been forced to ride common mounts. Perhaps because of this
slaughter of Dedicate horses, hordes of Knights Equitable had been able to mount ambushes that took a toll against Raj Ahten's Invincibles.

Gaborn had bought Duke Paldane the time he'd need to set his defenses against the Wolf Lord, and might well have made it possible to run some of Raj Ahten's forces into the ground. Gaborn's home country of Mystarria was the largest and richest realm in all the kingdoms of Rofehavan. A full third of all the force soldiers in the north were under the command of Paldane the Huntsman.

But Iome doubted that Paldane could stop Raj Ahten's armies. She only hoped that Paldane could somehow hold the Wolf Lord at bay until the kings of the north could combine their armies. Gaborn had sent messengers all across Rofehavan, begging for aid.

Still, Gaborn had not sent men from Heredon to help Paldane.

“Why?” Iome asked. “Why won't you stop Raj Ahten? You don't have to do it yourself. Many are gathering here, lords from all over Heredon. You have men who could fight, the lords of Heredon are eager for revenge!
I
would fight! I hesitate to ask you this, but are you afraid of him?”

Gaborn shook his head, looked at her as if hoping she would understand. “I am not afraid of him,” Gaborn said. “Yet something holds me back.

“There is something … I feel so profoundly … and I cannot express it well. Perhaps I cannot express it at all. But … I am the Earth King, and am charged with saving a seed of mankind through the dark season to come. I don't feel that the people of Indhopal are my enemies. I cannot harm them. I will not willingly destroy men and women. Not when I fear that the reavers are my true enemies.”

“Raj Ahten is our enemy,” Iome said. “He is as bad as any reaver.”

“He is,” Gaborn admitted, “but think of this: For each four hundred men and women alive, we have but one force soldier, one protector capable of stopping a reaver. And if
that one protector dies, then it is probable that four hundred people will die because of that loss.”

It was a terrifying thought, and Iome herself had worried about little else but logistics for the past seven days as she began to consider the enormity of the problem. How many warriors could Gaborn spend fighting Raj Ahten? Was even one warrior one too many?

Time and again Gaborn hinted that he thought so. With the forty thousand forcibles that Gaborn's father had captured at Longmot, Gaborn might equip four thousand force soldiers. It was a number ten times what Iome's father had had. Yet it would be a small force compared to what Raj Ahten could marshal.

And there was the Wolf Lord himself to contend with. Raj Ahten had thousands of endowments of his own. Gaborn had talked about using the forcibles to make himself Raj Ahten's equal, so that he could fight the Wolf Lord man to man.

But if Gaborn did so, if he drained endowments from even several hundred men, he worried that he would be wasting resources. He did not know if he'd ever get another forcible again. Jureem had warned him that the blood-metal mines of Kartish were played out. These forty thousand forcibles were Gaborn's best weapons against the reavers.

But suddenly Iome understood something that had eluded her. “Wait, are you saying that you don't want to kill Raj Ahten?” Until this moment, she had thought that Gaborn would merely stay here in Heredon, hide behind the protective borders of the Dunnwood, and let the shades of his ancestors protect him from Raj Ahten. But Gaborn seemed nervous, and there was an intensity to him, a pleading demeanor, that made her realize that he needed to tell her something she would not want to hear.

Gaborn turned aside and looked at her from the corner of his eye, as if he could not bear to face her fully. “You have to understand, my love: The
people
of Indhopal are not my enemies. The Earth has made me its king, and Indhopal
is my realm also. I must save those I can. The people of Indhopal also need a defender.”

“You can't go to Indhopal,” Iome said. “You can't even be
thinking
such a thing. Raj Ahten's men will kill you. Besides, you'll be needed
here.”

“I agree,” Gaborn said. “Yet Raj Ahten has the most powerful army in the world, and he is the most powerful Runelord of us all. If I fight him, we may all be destroyed. If I ignore him, I surely do so at my own peril. If I try to flee him, he will catch me. I can see only one alternative.…”

“Are you saying that you would use your power to Choose him? After what he has done?” Iome could not hold back the shock and anger in her voice.

“I hope to arrange a truce,” Gaborn admitted, and she knew from his tone that his decision was final. “I have discussed the possibility with Jureem.”

“Raj Ahten will not grant you a truce,” Iome said with certainty. “Not unless you return the forcibles your father won with his own life. And
that
would not be a truce;
that
would be surrender!”

Gaborn nodded, stared at her evenly.

“Don't you see it?” Iome said. “It wouldn't even be surrender with honor, for once you give the forcibles back, Raj Ahten would use them against you. I know my cousin. I know him. He will not leave you alone. The fact that Earth has given you dominion over mankind does not mean Raj Ahten will concede the honor.”

Gaborn gritted his teeth, looked as if he would turn away. She could see the anguish in his features. She knew that he loved his people, that he sought to protect them as best he knew how, and that right now he could see no way to bring Raj Ahten down.

“Still, I must ask for a truce,” Gaborn answered. “And if a truce cannot be won, then … I must ask for honorable conditions of surrender. Only if such conditions cannot be met, will I be forced to fight.”

“There can be no surrender,” Iome said. “My father surrendered,
and once he did, Raj Ahten changed the terms to fit his whim. You cannot be Raj Ahten's Dedicate
and
the Earth King!”

“I fear you are right,” Gaborn said with a heavy sigh, and he came and sat on the bed next to Iome, took her hand. But it was cold comfort.

“Why can't you just kill him and be done with it?” Iome asked.

“Raj Ahten has perhaps ten thousand force warriors in his service,” Gaborn said. “Even if I defeated him roundly, and lost half as many men, would it be worth the price? Think of it, four and a half million children, women! Could I knowingly throw away the life of even one? And who is to say that it would stop there? With so many warriors lost, would it even be possible anymore to stop the reavers?”

Gaborn paused. After a moment, he held a finger up to his lips, motioning for Iome to keep quiet, and went over to King Sylvarresta's old writing table. He drew out a small book from the top drawer, and began pulling out papers hidden in its bindings.