The Seedbearing Prince: Part I (29 page)

“Master Defender! Master...Preceptor?” The
man looked at Lurec with open astonishment. Dayn, he ignored
completely. “We were given word of your arrival just before these
savages attacked us. I am Kenit, herald to Feerthul, the Overseer
of Suralose.”

Before Nassir could reply, a dozen Suralose
guards spilled from the entrance. Kenit backed away with a yelp.
They were all burly men wearing bronze breastplates and draped in
pale furs that exposed nothing save their eyes. Each of them
brandished long, steel-tipped spears.

“Stand aside, herald,” one of the guards
drawled, watching Nassir cautiously. “We'll take the prisoners from
here.”

“These are Ringmen,” Kenit protested. “Their
transport was laid waste in the storm―I saw it myself!”

The guard pulled his furs down to glower at
Kenit, revealing a curly beard that matched his dark eyes. “That
may be, but the Overlord will decide what to do with them. Now
stand aside, I say!”

“This is outrageous!” Lurec spluttered.
Nassir touched his arm, then widened his piercing gaze to include
Dayn before addressing the guard.

“We go willingly in your custody. The Ring is
here to serve.” He gave the guardsman a level look. “Although you
would choose poorly to ask for my sword.”

The guard's face reddened, teetering between
relief and affront. “This way,” he spat. The Suralose men encircled
them to provide escort into the stronghold depths. Dayn shivered.
The air actually seemed to grow colder further inside the
structure. Cold looked to be the least of their worries at the
moment.

“How bad is it, Kenit?” Nassir spoke as
though they were not prisoners alongside the captured Aran. The
Suralosan guards watched the Defender closely, as if they feared he
could singlehandedly dispatch twelve men.

Kenit stabbed a vengeful glare at the Aran
rockrider. “We’re still accounting for the dead and wounded here,
though we’ve yet to pull most of our drivers from the slope. All of
these fiends have been captured or killed thanks to our guards.
Overlord Feerthul is surveying the damage now. That infernal stone
nearly brought down the entire keep!”

“An impressive strategy, unleashing the
torrent upon a world.” Nassir looked aggrieved that he had not come
upon the notion first. He gazed thoughtfully into the corridor’s
blue shadows at something only he could see. “A simple thing, to
manipulate enough anchors in the stream to turn the torrent loose.
Dangerous, but simple.”

“Best not say that in front of Feerthul,
Master Defender.”

“Silence your tongues until the Overlord bids
you speak!” The lead guard said over his shoulder. “Move away from
them, herald, or you will be moved.”

The corridor spilled into an enormous
storeroom strewn with blocks of stone and powdered ice. Weak
sunlight shone through the caved in ceiling thirty spans above.
Dayn glimpsed the steaming boulder of the first rockrider
protruding from the destroyed wall.

Bundled guards with murder in their eyes
watched more Aran prisoners, perhaps thirty men bound on their
knees in a corner. Ice melters searched through the rubble with
dazed expressions. Sympathy washed over Dayn. He remembered seeing
the same looks among his friends, after the voidwalker’s fire laid
waste to Wia Wells. He jerked his eyes away from where two drivers
tugged at an oddly twisted, red shape. More than supplies lay
buried in the wall.

A rigid man picked his way through the
storeroom, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the damage.
He wore a long gray cloak over the same bronze breastplate as the
guards, except for a blue insignia on his chest of a howling, lone
wolf. His hood seemed thrown back in contempt of the cold, and
flowing silver hair did nothing to soften his harsh features. The
guards marched straight toward him.

“Overlord Feerthul,” Nassir murmured for
Dayn’s benefit.

The Overlord listened halfheartedly to a
cluster of men and women as they pointed out cracks in the wall
that a blind man could see. Or feel, at least. The air in the
storeroom grew colder by the second.

“...we already sent for workers from the
nearest strongholds,” one of the advisors said from behind a curly
brown mustache. “With their help we can repair this wall within a
week's time.”

Dayn reached for the Seed involuntarily, but
released it when a guard growled and poked him with a spear. He
could no longer ignore the truth. The Seed definitely felt warm to
the touch.
I’ll ask Lurec about it, once we’re free of this
clusterthorn.
For now, the Ringmen listened intently to the
Overlord's advisors, so Dayn did the same.

“A week's time?” The Overlord repeated in a
gravelly voice. He fixed his advisor with a steely glare, the man
nearly wilted in his boots. “We will all freeze to death if this
hole is not sealed by
nightfall.”

The lead guard cleared his throat, and the
Overlord looked their way. “Emissaries from the Ring, come to save
us?”

“Peace upon you, Overlord Feerthul,” Nassir
intoned, bowing his head. “My sorrow for your losses in this vile
attack.”

“What peace do you see in this?” Feerthul
snapped.

Nassir's eyes narrowed, but Lurec stepped
forward before he could reply. “On my word, our mission of goodwill
put our lives in the same peril as your own men.”

“On your word, Preceptor?” Feerthul sneered.
Lurec's face reddened at his tone. “Yet here you stand, unscathed.
The Ring’s words mean little if it cannot protect Suralose from
these…raiders.”

“Overlord, beg pardon,” Kenit piped up. “But
I did see the Ringmen’s transport fall from the sky, lost to the
torrent. It was―”

“Be silent!” The Overlord snapped. Kenit
hunched back like a river crab squeezing into an outgrown shell.
The Overlord's gaze fell on the captured Aran rockrider, and he
regained his frozen calm. “Take that filth to the others. They will
seal this hole with their bodies, if necessary.”

Nassir looked upon the shivering Arans
thoughtfully. He appeared to reconsider his words before speaking
again. “Overlord, you must ensure that the Treaty of Irshev remains
intact. The World Belt will fall into chaos without Suralose
water.”

“You cannot be serious.” Genuine surprise
threatened to raise Feerthul's eyebrows clean off his scalp. “That
treaty is as broken as the torrent, and withered as the dead men
who wrote it.”

“Your disregard for the old ways will be the
undoing of your world, old man!” the Aran rockrider shouted. One of
the guards kicked him swiftly in the ribs before he could say more.
The Overlord immediately swept over to the man, Nassir and Lurec at
his heels. For a relief, the guards let them pass.

“Another Aran with his sense cooked away by
the sun,” Feerthul said dryly. The guards all chuckled roughly as
the rockrider glared angrily up at him, gasping for breath. “At
least this one speaks. What madness guides you, young fool? Speak
quickly, and I shall make you brick for my new wall instead of
mortar.”

Blood drained from the Aran's face, but he
did not hesitate. “You Suralosans are selling water rights to the
Belt, when Ara has known only drought since before my grandparents
were born! The High sent us to remind you of your duty, and stake a
rightful claim to what is ours.”

“I issued no such decree.” Surprise showed
once more on the Overlord's face. “Nor have any of the Underlords
even suggested such an idea. Your High are all fools to think
otherwise. There is ice enough to sell and fulfill the treaty, but
not without more transports, and more men to work the mountain.
Even then, the ice will not last forever.”

“All lies. Our High were given the truth by
Consorts.” Blood leaked from a corner of the Aran’s mouth as he
grinned at Nassir. “We were warned by Consorts from the Ring.”

“That is grave news.” Overlord Feerthul gave
the slightest nod as he turned away from the captives. The Suralose
guards immediately surrounded the Ringmen and Dayn once more. They
held their spears with the grim determination of men ready to do
violence. “And most unfortunate for you, Defender. A moment,
please.”

“Oh, peace,” Dayn groaned. Silence embraced
the entire room as the Suralosan workers stopped their salvage
efforts to watch. The Overlord's advisors whispered heatedly in his
ear, casting baleful looks at Nassir and Lurec. To Dayn's dismay,
the Overlord nodded frequently. “What are we going to do now?”

Lurec edged away from a spear tip too close
for his liking, his blue eyes large as moondrops. “This is what
comes of you dealing with that Aran so roughly,” he muttered to
Nassir. “What in peace's reach is he talking about? Consorts?”

“Lies to sow mistrust. Our Consorts may do
their work with little oversight, but they would not risk the Force
Lord’s wrath,” Nassir replied. He stood casually, as though waiting
for his turn at a festival game. It took Dayn a moment to realize
the man held a fighting stance, The Mongoose Lies in Wait. Several
of the guards eased slightly, convinced by the Defender's demeanor
that he did not mean to flee.

Lurec swallowed. “Who would move so boldly?
The Regents?”

“Who else? If things go badly here, they may
succeed in killing me.” Nassir's face remained unperturbed, a man
planning the morning chores. “Offer no resistance, so your lives
will be spared.” Dayn opened his mouth to protest, but Nassir fixed
him with a stare. “Shardian, do not argue!”

The Overlord suddenly burst through his
advisors to yank the Aran rockrider to his feet and hold him face
to face. The show of strength surprised Dayn, especially for a
silver-haired man on a world with such weak ground.

“My wife is gone to visit her sister in
Pelz,” Feerthul snarled. “If they’ve been harmed, you will pay
dearly. Tell me where else you’ve attacked! Torrent blind you,
where?”

The man held his silence, although fear
covered his face.

“No answers, of course.” Feerthul released
the Aran, who spilled abruptly back to the ground. For the first
time, the Overlord of Suralose made eye contact with Dayn. He
frowned, reassessing what he saw. Dayn suspected the man thought
him to be some servant, maybe Lurec's assistant. “Perhaps this
Shardian prince holds the answers I seek. What is your purpose
here?”

Dayn waited for the guards’ loud guffaws to
still.
Prince?
he thought.
What’s so funny about
that?

“The Ring asked me to come and tell you about
my village,” Dayn said. The Overlord blinked, casting a confused
glance at Nassir and Lurec. Dayn knew himself to be plainspoken,
not eloquent like Elder Buril. He imagined how his father would
speak to the Overlord, polite but blunt.
Honest.

“My name is Dayn Ro'Halan. I farm my father's
land in the Mistlands. I’m sorry for your trouble here, and...peace
send your wife and sister are safe. I wish I brought good news from
Shard, but it's not.”

“You’re certainly no dignitary...” The
Overlord folded his arms and gave Dayn a hard look. “Speak, then.
But know that I will bury offworlder schemers in my new wall if I
do not like what I hear.”

Dayn looked to Nassir and Lurec. They both
stood tense and silent, eyes urging him on. “Five days ago, I saw a
voidwalker in my father’s well. They stink and steam, like the air
singes their skin. They’re strong enough to tear a person in half
with their bare hands. No one in my village believed me, either.
Their faces looked just like all of yours do now.” Feerthul’s frown
deepened, but Dayn pressed on before he could interrupt. “Four days
ago, I fell down some cliffs on Shard that we call the Dreadfall.
It’s a hole that goes all the way through our world.”

"He speaks of the Breach," Lurec supplied.
The Overlord's face went pale.

“There were voidwalkers in Shard’s heartrock.
They—”

“Impossible!” One of the advisors spat. “The
pressure alone would kill you, if the heat didn’t burn you to
cinders first.”

“It was hot,” Dayn allowed. “And bright near
the worldheart, like a red sun, too bright to see. The heartrock
looks like a river frozen in place. At least it did, until the
voidwalkers made it all explode.”

People from every corner of the room edged
closer to hear Dayn's tale, squeezing between the stunned guards
and the Overlord's advisors, drinking in every word. “They were
there to tear Shard from the World Belt, and whatever they did to
the worldheart almost worked. The ground…it
died.
People
floated out of their beds, back in my village. The Dreadfall was
full of smoke and fire, and the heartrock was broken in a thousand
pieces. Many of the voidwalkers died, but not all. I would never
have made it out if not for my sheath.”

“How did you escape?” Kenit rasped.

Dayn licked his lips. “I…Shard’s heart is
strong. I climbed my way back up and would have floated off into
the sky, too, but she fought back. And I think this helped
her…right herself.”

Dayn withdrew the Seed. Gasps sounded
throughout the space, even from the shivering Aran captives. Dayn
spoke loudly so they could hear, too. “I found it in the
Dreadfall.”

Feerthul shook his head. “I don’t believe it.
No Seed could exist in an age of sorrow such as ours.”

“Our age is whatever we make it,” Lurec said
forcefully. “The discovery of such a tool is proof of that.”

“He’s a Shardian caperdoll on strings that
stretch back to the Ring, Overlord,” one of the advisors
suggested.

“I barely know anything about Consorts, and I
won’t say I like Defenders very much.” Some of the guards chortled
at Dayn’s words before remembering themselves. He flushed, and
avoided looking at Nassir. “The Lord Ascendant wanted all the
worlds to know what’s happened, and see what I’ve found. Even if
you don’t trust the Ring, I swear by my first harvest that you can
trust that the voidwalkers are real. That’s why they’ve brought me
here, to warn you. If voidwalkers can come so close to ending
Shard, imagine what they are planning for you while you’re fighting
like this?”