Tides of Rythe (The Rythe Trilogy) (9 page)

Sventhan and his family did not know, but there was an older example – Sybremreyen, the home of the Sard. But that predated the Kuh’taenium.

Sventhan took up his quill for the last time and dipped it in dark ink. A solitary drip hung from the tip while he paused for thought. The pause was, to an outside observer, overly long. But sometimes it takes a ponderous man to take the right action. Anyone can be rash, or intelligent. It takes a special kind of breed to be smart, whether they come to their conclusions swiftly, or with the patience and planning only a builder could bring to bear.

At last, the quill joined the paper. The Kuh’taenium was under attack…and it was time for the family to do their duty. The builders were going to war. Their name would be remembered again.

Sventhan wrote as he thought, with great care. It was this attention to care that ensured his family had survived through the ages – it pays to heed caution when creating tower structures from blocks of stone.

He could sense movement in the fabric of society. The Protectorate becoming overly bold, a sense of cowering among the people of the street, a darkening of the soul of the city. The buildings spoke to him, as they spoke to all his family – and they were afraid. The souls of people soaked into them, and the buildings felt their fear. He should have heeded the warnings long ago, but now there were no more excuses for inaction.

Gurt was family. While Reih did not know the builders, they knew her. She had asked Gurt for help, not knowing what she had set in motion, but now events were out of her hands. She must live. She was twinned with the building. There was no other way. 

Duty was clear. Protect the Kuh’taenium, at whatever the cost.

The family might be simple builders who knew no other trade, but they could still wield the hammer, and the blade.

*

Chapter Fourteen

Jek Yrie sought allies in any place he could. He had travelled further than any of his peers (he thought he only had a few – those who were among the ascended, and even then only on the most tenuous of levels) seeing the distant lands that were to be of no consequence in the coming battle. There were thousands of small islands, archipelagos, peninsulas, mountain plains, cavernous lakes and natural tunnels underground, forests, deserts – anywhere people could live, there were humans. Some places he could not travel, no matter how powerful he had become since his eyes had turned to red; the blasted planes of the underground, where the Naum were rumoured to exist in their land of perpetual night, within mountain ranges where strange light skinned people lived under the stone, in the depths of the sea. If the Speculate could not see his destination, he could not travel there by magical means. But it did not matter. These hidden peoples, little more than barbaric tribes eking out a pathetic existence, were not players in the final game – the return.

He was not interested in them, but he was interested in an isolated city on the coast of a distant continent – the fourth continent. There lived a people not unlike his own, a diluted race of Hierarchs, touched by time and weakening blood, but the city he saw through his blooded eyes was remarkable in many ways. The Hierarchs there ruled with open cruelty, its humans little more than slaves.

The only problem was how to approach them. He would have to think on it. But he had time yet. If all of his resources could not stop the awakening of the wizard, then he would need all the allies with power he could muster. The future was far from certain. But foolish was the leader who did not plan for every eventuality. He was a proud being, but wise enough to know that even he did not have the foresight of the gods. He was, after all, still mortal.

Well, close enough.

*

Chapter Fifteen

Forces clashed across the world of Rythe, and pulled apart again, seeking weakness, openings, that elusive chink in an enemy’s armour.

On Lianthre, Roth’s race, the mighty
rahken
s, stood against the Protectorate. They did not seek to openly attack their might, but held their ground, holding the underground lairs of their kind, allowing magically gifted human dissidents sanctuary, actively seeking out those with vestiges of magical power and training them in the ways of the magi.

They would need allies in the final battle, and the humans were not yet aware of their own potential. The
rahken
nation let it be known that their homes were sanctuary for the hunted. The numbers of humans with fey eyes were growing.

They had promised Tirielle A’m Dralorn an army should she return. It was not an idle promise – the
rahken
nation saw far into the future, but more importantly, saw further into the past than even the scrolls of the Island Archive.

They could afford to be patient. They knew of the return, but they would fight for honour, and promises. Their time would come soon enough.

Other continents carried on their petty struggles, unaware of the scythe hanging over their heads. To them, each battle was life and death – the fate of the world bears little importance when you are fighting for your life. Rythe itself was born of strife. Wars were commonplace on each and every continent but Lianthre, and even now that was changing.

But some wars are fought because of pride, and some necessity.

Some, though, are fought because of fate.

*

Chapter Sixteen

On Sturma, unaware of the future, its people struggled to hold back the tide of invasion from neighbouring Draymar. On Sturma, too far within its borders, forces of a more material nature clashed. The remaining Thanes battled the Draymar to a standstill, but without a rallying figure the war would not last long. The Thanes were too fat, too full of self-importance, to rally anything but instead sat back and watched their men die from afar, defending only what was their own and not the whole of the country.

Slowly, the land was falling apart.

Without a figurehead to lead them, the Sturman would fall, and with it, a once proud country.

Should that happen, Renir would have no country to call his own.

Untouched by the war, Pulhuth sat abutting the ocean, its waves gently lapping the shores in the east while waves of a more immediate nature broke against the surviving Sturman forces holding the tide at bay in the west.

Within its walls, untroubled by rising war, Renir and his two friends waited, and prepared. 

The waiting was soon to end. Time moves on.

*

Chapter Seventeen

While the three men sat
in the Upright Horseshoe,
supping their evening ale, Tirielle swore soundly.

Her dress was torn, her once long and lustrous hair had become a chain. She had taken the fine blades gifted her by Fenore and the
rahken
s and cut it away
.
She didn’t think twice about it. No soul searching, no regret, she just cut her hair off and moved on.

Hair was hair. She needed to appear as someone she was not.

Ahead, the reason for Tirielle’s outburst rode closer still.

Further west and south of Roth’s home scrub and scree gave way to tree and bush. By the time Tirielle noticed the change in the landscape, the drier ground underfoot, the way Dow lingered longer overhead, she looked back and could no longer see where the trees had left…

Sweat dripped from Tirielle’s brow. It was not just the heat that was making her sweat. They were closer to civilisation now and the dangers they faced were different. A patrol of the Protectorate’s forces, quite common but still troubling, approached the armed convoy with their hands upon their weapons.

It was not surprising. She should have thought of it sooner. On the main thoroughfare to Beheth, nine armoured warriors and one
rahken
stood out somewhat.

Tirielle wiped the sweat clear and loosened her blades in their sheaths.

“Quintal! To me!” she called, sure that the approaching patrol could not here her yet.

The leader of the Sard rode to the caravan and pulled up alongside her.

“There is no need to worry, lady. We can deal with this.”

“And would you fight your way through the streets of Beheth, too?” asked Tirielle, her tone short. Even so, she did not reseat her knives against inside the sheaths hidden in the wide sleeves of her dress.

Quintal merely laughed. “No, Beheth is a human city, with fewer Protocrats. Once there we will use mortal means of disguise, for we cannot hold an illusion for long. But you will note the patrol is comprised of mere tenthers. There are no wizards. This, we can handle.”

“And how do you propose to do so?”

”Merely an illusion, lady. Trust me,” he said with a smile.

He rode out to meet the patrol.

The caravan pulled up while Quintal spoke with the Protocrat force – only one ten, which j’ark alone could probably have bested – and held his hand straight and flat in the sign for parley.

Tirielle could hear their words drifting to her on the dry air, although each soldier wore armour. With her protectors, and the tenthers, all armoured, the sight shimmered in the high suns’ glare. She did not need to see, though, just here.

She heard their words, but what came out of Quintal’s mouth in no way mirrored reality. He told the force they were headed west – when they were clearly on the road south. He told the force that they were travelling merchants, with clothes for sale in Rowan, a town of moderate size to the west, and the Protocrat replied that all was well.

It all seemed to be going well – some magic was at play, Tirielle knew, even though the Sard claimed they knew no magic – then suddenly the seer cried out from her bedroll in the back of the wagon.

Tirielle’s heart leapt into her mouth.

“It is nothing, sir,” said Quintal smoothly. “Merely my child. The heat makes her miserable and crotchety.”

“Ah
,” said the Protocrat
, “Babies.”

Even Protocrats had children, remembered Tirielle, and males were the same whatever the race – mewling babies were best ignored, and passed onto the nearest woman.

“I pity you,” said the Protocrat, and waved them on.

Tirielle’s heart resumed its normal patter.

Once clear, Quintal returned to her side.

“No magic, eh?” said Tirielle, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

Quintal smiled
. “Just a trick, Tirielle. The eye sees what it wants to see, and sometimes the ear hears what it wants to hear. Here, out under the sun, we can give assumption a push. Nothing more.”

“And you are no more than a warrior, I suppose you would have me believe.”

“And your humble servant,” replied Quintal, with a quick grin.

Gods save me from humble men, thought Tirielle.

*

Chapter Eighteen

Pulhuth’s northern gates stood open, as they always had done. The city had never been assaulted from the north – nothing lay that way but Thaxamalan’s Saw, and whatever hid behind it. The peaks of that giant mountain range, reaching far into the cloudless summer sky, were perennially snow-capped. The guards at the gate thought nothing of their beauty, but were grateful to the mountains, largely because of the cool, blustery wind that whistled down from their heights chilling their skin on what was otherwise a blistering day.

In the wavering distance, across the plains on a little-used track that serviced the northern side of the city, two riders approached. The guard could make out the glint of weapons above their right shoulders, but little else at this distance.