Children of Enchantment (7 page)

“It was just a small party by their standards, Lord Prince. Forty dead. Sixteen more captives.”

“Where are they?”

“We’ve put them in the pen with the others. Lord Prince.”

Slowly Roderic drew a deep breath. The light was no longer gray; through the mist, the flat red disc of the sun shone just
above the tents. Red like the color of the blood on the weeds. He tried to ignore that thought and looked at the lieutenant.
Blood stained his uniform, and a thin slash along his cheek seeped red droplets down his unshaven face like slow rain. Roderic
stared, fascinated.

Time seemed to slow, drag, and he turned to look at Brand with a puzzled look on his face. But Brand was staring in the other
direction, and Roderic panicked. He felt a desperate urge to regain his self-control. And then, as though something deep within
had been released, some savage instinct he had only felt in battle or at the hunt, uncoiled itself, and his blood began to
burn.

“Bring them here,” he said through clenched teeth and thickened tongue. A kind of slow fire seeped through his veins, one
that sparked and flared at the prospect of the prisoners, bound and at his bidding. “And gather the men.” His voice sounded
the same, but the words were heavy with threat.

He looked up to see Brand frowning. “What are you planning, Roderic?”

He avoided Brand’s gaze, and as he looked away, he saw Amanander watching from the side of the tent. His dark eyes were hooded,
but his mouth was curved in a thin smile, and in the weird light of the ruddy sun, his lips were coppery red. His hand curved
over and around the hilt of his dagger, caressing it like a woman’s flesh.

Roderic felt the sudden urge to smile back. “Maybe Reginald’s right,” he said to Brand. “Maybe these animals do understand
only one thing. I’d like to find out.” He gave Brand a smile that matched Amanander’s. “Bring out the prisoner,” he barked
to the guards in the tent.

When the troops had crowded around the smaller circle of captives, Roderic stood with Ebram-taw in the center, who still stood
straight and unbowed. “Well, Ebram-taw, I asked you before, I ask you again. Shall we have peace? Or shall your kind be wiped
out?”

The Muten did not answer. Roderic caught a glimpse of the wary frown on Brand’s face, but before it could register, that sight
was replaced by Amanander’s enigmatic smile. He signaled to two of the soldiers. One of the Muten captives was dragged out
into the center. “Peace?” Roderic asked once more.

Again, the Muten did not speak. Without another word, Roderic signaled to the guards.

They raised their blades and began.

It seemed to him that they knew exactly what he wanted, although he couldn’t remember giving the order. But that had to be
impossible, he thought, in some rational recess of his mind that recoiled at the sight unfolding before him. He knew that
though Brand stood shocked and horrified, his brother did not dare countermand his orders. Besides the urgent bloodthirst,
there was a heady sense of his own power. It was like a ritual, a dance, a ceremony, for as each hacked and flayed and ruined
body was dragged away, Roderic turned to Ebram-taw and put the question to him once again. “Peace?”

And at each silence, Roderic gave again the signal, and another wretch was thrown in the red-brown mire which soon was ankle
deep. Finally, when only four remained alive, Ebram-taw, agony on his face and sweat pouring from his skin, shouted “Stop!”

Roderic shook his head. He felt dazed, drunk, as though the blood had satiated every appetite and left him sodden, stupid.
The silence thickened. It seemed to be a tangible thing, one that crept and swayed with a life all its own, and Roderic knew
that Amanander stood just beyond the inner circle. Something in him recoiled at the realization, and something else, some
sense that this reaction was the true one, the right one, threw off the heavy, sickening feeling like a shroud. It seemed
that the fog cleared then, though the mist was still as thick as ever, and the hot scent of the carnage before him was suffocating.

“Peace?” he asked slowly, wonderingly.

Ebram-taw, shoulders slumped, spoke in a hoarse and ragged voice. “Peace. I cannot kill my son.”

O
n a cold day at the beginning of March, Roderic left Atland garrison, riding beside his brothers Brand and Amanander at the
head of the weary army. Reginald, as the commander of the garrison, stayed behind, charged with overseeing that the terms
of the peace were honored. Roderic was only too glad to turn his back on Atland at last.

He preferred not to think about that terrible day when he had forced Ebram-taw to accept his offer of peace. The knowledge
that he was capable of such cruelty was a greater burden than any other he contemplated on that long ride across the stark
landscape.

He was silent and listless for the most part on the journey across the Pulatchian Mountains. He avoided Amanander’s company
altogether; there was something in Amanander’s expression when their eyes met which reminded Roderic of the bloodlust he had
felt when he had ordered the soldiers to do their terrible work. He knew that Brand watched him with concern. But he did not
want to know what his brothers thought of him, and in his worst moments, he wondered what the people who had known him all
of his life would think of him: his tutor, Garrick, who had taught him that honor was at least as important as strategy; Brand’s
wife, Jaboa, who had taught him that the weaker were to be treated with compassion, who had treated him like a son. He wondered
what the scullions and stable boys would think, the ones who had been the playmates of his youth, from whom he had learned
that birth is not the measure of a man’s worth. And he wondered what Phineas would say.

Phineas—old and blind and lamed, who nonetheless was first among all his father’s advisors, the one voice Abelard listened
to before and after all the others, whom Abelard trusted as he trusted no one else. It had been thus for as long as Roderic
could remember. Phineas never hesitated to say what he really thought. Phineas wasn’t afraid of Abelard’s wrath. What would
he say to Abelard’s heir, who had brought peace at the price of slaughter? What kind of prince—what kind of king—could he
be?

And then there was Peregrine. He began to think of her more and more as the distance from Ahga gradually shortened. He remembered
the first day she had caught his eye. He had championed one of the weakest of the scullions against the others, and he remembered
the admiration he had seen in her eyes. But what would she think about this? He could imagine the disgust darkening her brown
eyes, her full lips pursed in disdain. What sort of man would she think he was?

Once across the Pulatchians, riding almost due north, they followed the course of what had once been a mighty river, but now
was nothing more than a trickle in the center of a deep gorge. The weather held clear, the spring promised to be mild, but
nothing could lift the weight which seemed to hang like a brick around his neck. The villages they passed through were few,
comprised only of a few rude shacks built by baked earth, with roofs of ancient metal, scoured bare by the ever whining wind.

Roderic remembered that his history tutor had taught him that before the Armageddon—before the Magic-users of Old Meriga had
discovered the Magic and nearly destroyed everything in their attempts to make it work—once the Arkan Plains were vast fields,
where wheat and corn grew from horizon to horizon in all directions, and the whole world fed on the bread of Meriga. Roderic
found that hard to believe. The land which lay around him, stretching on for miles, was a wasteland of stunted, wind-whipped
trees, the earth itself worn down in many places to polished bedrock. Beside the ancient highways, twisted pieces of corroding
metal lay like skeletons along the road. Roderic shuddered at the ruin. How could the men of Old Meriga have allowed such
a terrible thing as the Magic to be used? Had they no idea of the cost?

In the villages, ragged children stood in doorways, with dirty fingers in mouths full of rotted teeth. At the first such place
they stopped, Roderic was so horrified by their plight that he ordered the food and blankets be shared with the villagers.

In a dry voice, Brand remarked that if the Prince intended to distribute goods at every place they passed, they would have
nothing left for themselves for the long march back to Ahga.

Frustrated by the truth of Brand’s observations, feeling helpless, Roderic dictated orders to his scribe for the relief of
the villagers to be sent on to Ahga.

The scribe said nothing as he penned the Prince’s words, though he looked at him with something like pity when Roderic finished.

“What is it?” Roderic picked up the pen the scribe offered.

The man only pushed the paper closer and said nothing.

“You look as if you want to say something. Well, speak, Henrode. Do you think I’m wrong?”

“Lord Prince, it is not for me to question your orders. It is not for me to offer counsel or advice.”

“I’m not asking for either. Just say what you have on your tongue.”

“Do you think there is more misery here, Lord Prince, than elsewhere in Meriga? There are those who live in the shadow of
the walls of Ahga who have not much more than these. Will you order them fed as well? You will bankrupt the treasury and exhaust
our food stores.”

“But what else can I do? These people are my father’s subjects. They look to me for protection. How can I leave them in such
misery, without hope?”

“The Ridenaus never sought to alleviate people’s suffering. That would be impossible. You fulfill your obligation if you preserve
the peace of this land. That is your task, Lord Prince. Not to feed the hungry or clothe the naked. If you could rid these
lands of the Outlaw Harleys, they might some day be able to provide for themselves. But there is no point in you giving them
things which others will only take away.”

In disgust, Roderic tore up the parchment and reached for his cloak. Outside, night had fallen, and in the black sky, countless
stars glittered. Heaven itself is more populated than this lifeless land, he thought as he walked the perimeter of the camp,
watching the fires of his men flicker in the dark.

Beyond the camp, nothing moved. A sentry came to attention and raised his spear. “Who’s there?”

“The Prince Regent.”

“Your pardon, Lord Prince,” the guard answered, but his spear remained high until Roderic came closer and pushed the hood
back from his face.

Roderic stood within the circle of the watchfire and held his hands over the flames. “It’s cold tonight.”

“Indeed it is, Lord Prince.” The sentry lowered the spear and leaned upon it. “What’re you doing out on a night like this,
when you could be warm inside your tent?”

“It’s not so warm inside. Besides, I’ve never seen a land like this.”

“Nor did you ever want to, I bet.”

“It’s so empty.” Roderic raised his hood and tucked the ends firmly around his neck.

“Empty?” The grizzled sentry snorted. “So much blood’s been spilled on these plains, I wonder the old river don’t run red
with it. This is my twenty-seventh year in the army, Lord Prince, and I’ve spent most of them in places much like this.”

“It’s not the place I’d choose to be.”

“This is better than some. Farther south, this turns into swamp, and you’ve no idea of what misery is until you spend a night
breathing the stink from the poison pits. The mists hang in the air, and deeper in the desert, the beastworms hunt at night.
Believe me, Lord Prince, cold and empty is not so bad.”

Roderic nodded and continued on his way. The few shacks which made up the village were almost indistinguishable in the starlight
from the rocks piled along the ancient gorge. From the low black shapes no light shone, no smoke issued, and nothing marked
it as a place of human habitation. As Roderic stood and watched, a cry rose out of the dark, high and wailing, the sound giving
voice to all the misery of that wretched place. It made the hair at the back of his neck stand up as gooseflesh rippled down
his arms. Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped, and the night was once more quiet under the silent stars.

Was it not for these that the Ridenau Kings had striven to unite the Estates of Meriga? he wondered. His father and Garrick
and all his tutors had stressed repeatedly that a united Meriga was a stronger Meriga, a Meriga at peace. And yet what was
the good of that peace, if it were only for the strong? A united realm was his birthright—Abelard had charged him over and
over again to keep the kingdom whole. And yet, what was it that Phineas had said, one day, as Roderic had watched his father
preside over the Court of Appeals?
“It is a sacred trust,”
the old man had said from where he lay, propped upon pillows on his litter on the floor.
“A sacred trust between you and your people, as sure a pledge-bond as any made between the King and the Congress.”
Roderic looked out over the bleak landscape. He was, he supposed, as well prepared as his father could have made him for
the task at hand. But what about this other trust, he wondered, this other bond, unspoken and unacknowledged by most? He had
the unsettling feeling that little had prepared him for that.