Raj Ahten chuckled at Borenson's ploy, countered with words that struck terror in Borenson's heart. "So, King Orden has sent you to get word of his son. Don't worry, the young man is for ransom. What does Orden propose to offer?"
Borenson took a deep breath, glanced at the castle walls in desperation. He'd been told to offer a ransom for a nameless friend, so that Raj Ahten would betray the names of those he held captive. But Raj Ahten had guessed his ploy. Now, Borenson hoped the words he spoke next might dishearten the Wolf Lord even further. "I was told to offer nothing--until I have inspected the Prince."
Raj Ahten smiled playfully. "If King Orden cannot keep track of his own son, I shall not oblige him. Besides, you would not like what you saw."
Borenson wondered. This game was becoming complex, more complex than he liked. If Raj Ahten really had Gaborn prisoner, then he should not have hesitated to show the young man. Unless, indeed, he had killed the Prince.
Yet, if Raj Ahten had not captured the Prince, then by Borenson admitting that he needed to inspect the merchandise, Borenson had revealed to the Wolf Lord that he, too, did not know Gaborn's whereabouts.
Belatedly, Borenson realized that he had departed from the script King Orden had written for him. He was trying too hard to be clever, working too hard to go his lord one better. By doing so, he might well have jeopardized his whole mission.
His face burning with shame, Borenson turned his horse around, began to leave. He doubted that Raj Ahten would let him go. The Wolf Lord had to be terrified, had to wonder whether King Orden had captured the forcibles in Longmont. Had to wonder how many might be offered in ransom.
"Wait!" Raj Ahten called at Borenson's back.
Borenson glanced over his shoulder.
"What will you offer me, if I show you the Prince?"
Borenson said nothing, for at the moment he feared to speak, so he just urged his horse to walk slowly away.
Borenson rode his horse a hundred yards, fully conscious that this little encounter could still go astray. He was within bowshot of the castle, and Raj Ahten's wizards manned the walls. Raj Ahten would not let him escape without trying to wring some information from him.
Yet Borenson asked himself once again, If Raj Ahten has the Prince, why does he not show him?
Borenson turned his horse, gazed up into Raj Ahten's dark eyes. "Gaborn safely reached our camp last night," he lied bold-faced, "and I fear that I can no longer offer any ransom. I came only to bring that message."
Raj Ahten showed no emotion, but the frightened, self-consciously determined faces of his counselors spoke volumes. Borenson felt sure he had guessed correctly, that Raj Ahten did not have the Prince. He remembered a few scouts his men had killed last night, and another party of scouts his men had fought deep in the woods an hour ago. Why else would so many of Raj Ahten's troops have been scouring the forest?
"However," Borenson continued, "House Sylvarresta is an old and valued ally to my lord. I can offer something for the King's family, for their safe return."
"What?" Raj Ahten asked.
Borenson departed further from the script Lord Orden had composed for him. "A hundred forcibles for each member of the royal family."
Raj Ahten laughed now, laughed with relief and scorn. Here in the North, where blood metal had been so scarce the past ten years, three hundred forcibles might seem a princely sum. But to Raj Ahten, who had forty thousand forcibles hidden in Longmont, it was nothing. Raj Ahten no longer believed that Orden had taken Castle Longmont, just as Borenson had planned.
"Consider the offer well, before you laugh me to scorn," Borenson said. Now it was time to put the Wolf Lord on the rack. Borenson said confidently, "Lord Orden captured forty thousand forcibles in Longmont, and for the past two days, he has had half a dozen facilitators putting them to good use. Perhaps to a man as rich as you, the loss of forty thousand forcibles seems a small thing--but my lord will not up his offer of ransom for the King and the royal family. Of what use to him are such people, when they only serve you as Dedicates? A hundred forcibles for each, nothing more!"
Borenson watched Raj Ahten's counselors tremble at the news, felt deeply gratified, though Raj Ahten himself stood stoically, the blood slowly draining from his face.
"You lie," Raj Ahten said, betraying no fear. "You do not have the Prince. You have no forcibles. And there is no spy. I know what your game is, messenger, and I am not dismayed by your ruse. You...merely annoy me."
By use of the Voice, Raj Ahten sought to bolster his troops. But the damage had already been done. Compared to the harrowing message Borenson had delivered, Raj Ahten's denial sounded hollow, thrown up vainly as a last defense.
And yet, and yet Borenson feared that Raj Ahten did see through him. He felt a nagging worry.
Borenson spurred his horse forward, out over the burned grass before the castle. Here and there, small puffs of smoke still boiled up from the ground. When he felt safely out of bow range, he wheeled about.
"Raj Ahten," he cried, "my lord begs you to meet him at Longmont if you dare. Bring with you any fool who wishes to die--your five thousand against his fifty! There, he swears, he will grant no quarter, and he will whip you like the vicious cur that you are!"
He raised his arm in signal, and out across the hills, his men began to blow their war horns in the woods, the short staccato blasts that commanded each squadron to reform.
King Orden had sent two hundred horns on this expedition, for he had planned to have his men sound them in the hills when his son had secured Iome's hand.
Yet in time of war, such horns were issued only to each captain of a hundred. Raj Ahten would know this, and Borenson only hoped that the Wolf Lord's ears were keen enough to discern the number of horns.
It would be well if Raj Ahten believed that Borenson's eighty surviving men were eight thousand.
Raj Ahten's most devoted counselor Jureem watched through slitted eyes as his master stood atop the burned walls of Castle Sylvarresta while Borenson rode away. His master's face glowed with beauty, seemed almost translucent. A face so bright, it was the light of the world. Raj Ahten seemed unperturbed by this dire news.
Yet Jureem found himself trembling. Though his master denied it, he knew something was wrong. Jureem could only wonder, for his master seldom confided in Jureem anymore, or sought his advice.
For years these Northerners had been a thorn in his master's side, sending their Knights Equitable to assassinate his Dedicates. Raj Ahten's own beloved sister had died in his arms from a wound administered by a Knight Equitable. Over the years he had grown to detest these pale-skinned Northerners, until now, as Raj Ahten took their endowments and plotted ways to use them, he seemed to feel nothing for them. No remorse, no pity, no human compassion. Now this.
At the moment, Jureem felt painfully distressed. He wanted to run to Longmont and learn if Borenson spoke the truth. He wanted to shoot Borenson in the back. He wished that Borenson had never spoken. Furthermore, Raj Ahten's flameweavers had seen visions of a king in their fires, a king who could destroy him. King Orden.
Now the wizard Binnesman had gone to join Raj Ahten's enemy,
Jureem held his hands in fists, trying not to let others see how they shook. He'd thought that eliminating House Orden would be easy. Now the matter seemed more complex.
A book could not contain words enough to relay the schemes that his master, Raj Ahten, had laid. Jureem only understood them in part. By tradition, King Orden came for the hunt here at Castle Sylvarresta, bringing a couple of hundred men in his retinue.
This year, his son was of an age that, Raj Ahten decided, the Prince too would have come. And so he'd laid his trap, besieging Castle Sylvarresta with a few men, hoping to send Orden scurrying south, where Raj Ahten's troops, hiding along the roads leading to Mystarria, would slaughter King Orden and his son. If the King did not run south, Raj Ahten's scouts would hunt him down eventually.
It was but one of a hundred plots set in motion. This very day, dozens of parties of assassins would strike at targets. Armies marched against fortresses to the west and south. In other places, armies would simply show themselves, then disappear into some forest or mountain pass, either freezing vital forces in some stronghold or drawing them away from intended targets.
Jureem knew that the heart of his master's plan lay here. The heart of his plan was to strike down both Orden and Sylvarresta.
Yet dire portents now warned against it. The pyromancer had seen a king here, a king who could destroy the Great Light of Indhopal.
Raj Ahten had left himself open to attack. He'd brought fewer than a thousand forcibles to Castle Sylvarresta, and over half of those had been used up last night, consumed by the spells that bound Raj Ahten and his Dedicates. He'd left forty thousand forcibles at Longmont, true, and he'd judged that those forcibles would be safe. Longmont was a great castle, with high walls bound with magic spells. And though Raj Ahten's forces in Longmont had been small, their numbers were to have been bolstered soon.
The window of opportunity for someone to strike at Longmont had been dreadfully narrow. Given Longmot's defenses, it should have been able to withstand any attack from the smaller keeps within striking distance. Castles Groverman and Dreis were both within a days' ride from Longmont. But Raj Ahten's advance scouts had assured him that the garrisons there were small. Jureem's spies had seen none of Orden's forces in either castle.
His spies only sent word that Orden had brought a "larger than anticipated retinue" to celebrate Hostenfest, and that they were camped outside the village of Hazen, on the southern borders of Heredon. The retinue contained at most three thousand men--including knights, squires, cooks, and camp followers. It was a large force, larger than Raj Ahten had planned to engage. Normally Orden brought fewer than three hundred men to the hunt.
But now the scouts said that last night, over two thousand knights had been riding toward Castle Sylvarresta. How could that be? Did Orden bring two forces, one to attack Longmont, another to ride north?
Two days. Jureem hadn't received a report from Longmont in two days. He should have had a status report. Jureem suspected that Longmont had fallen. King Orden had somehow taken the castle.
Fifty thousand men, the messenger had said. Fifty thousand? The number unnerved Jureem, for it seemed too close to the number of knights he'd estimated Orden would marshal against his master next spring--if Orden escaped the trap. King Orden could marshal a quarter million knights of decent prowess, but he'd not attack with anywhere close to that number. He wouldn't dare leave his castles defenseless.
Elaborate schemes, all on the verge of crumbling. Raj Ahten needed to take the North, and he needed to take it quickly. For years now the blood-metal mines of Kartish had been playing out. They'd be empty by midwinter.
Only in Inkarra could he get more blood metal. It was said that the mines there still yielded well.
Yet no lord of Rofehavan or Indhopal had ever succeeded in invading Inkarra. Wizards there were not powerful, but they were plentiful. The Inkarrans had adopted battle tactics well suited to their terrain--quick strikes in the hills on solid little ponies. And the Inkarrans could not be defeated unless one also defeated the high lords of the arr.
Worst of all, in long ages past, a certain Master Facilitator named Tovil had fled Rofehavan to Inkarra, and there he had launched a new school for the study of forcibles. In Inkarra, amazing discoveries had been made, discoveries no other wizards had ever been able to duplicate. In Inkarra, forcibles had been developed that left no scar, so that one could learn from a mark the shape of a rune of power. These forcibles transmitted talents and skills from one person to another.
In all the years of spying, the lords of Rofehavan and Indhopal had never been able to duplicate the Inkarrans' discoveries.
Each time a Northern lord had tried to invade the South, he quickly found that the Southerners did not just fight him--they also provided forcibles to his enemies.
Thus, no lord had ever been able to take Inkarra, drain its riches, or penetrate its secrets.
Jureem knew that Raj Ah ten had to act soon. He had to drain the Northern kings now, subjugate them, and then move on. It was quite possible that in days now lost to legend, Daylan Hammer had taken endowments of will and talent, that these were an integral piece that Raj Ahten needed before he could become the Sum of All Men.
Jureem prided himself on being a man who was not easily deceived. He strongly suspected that Borenson had told an intricate tale based on some truth, twisted together liberally with lies. Yet as Jureem considered the message Borenson had brought, it was damnably difficult to know where the truth ended and the lies began.
After only a few moments on the castle wall, Raj Ahten looked to his side, at Jureem. "My counselors, let us walk," he said. The Wolf Lord seldom sought advice from Jureem or Feykaald anymore. Certainly his master was worried.
They came down from the city wall, walking along the steps, and had not gone far before they were out of the crowd, heading up a small rise toward the stables.
"Feykaald," the Wolf Lord asked the oldest of his counselors. "What think you: Does King Orden have his son?"
"Of course not," Feykaald hissed. "The messenger was too startled, too frightened, when you first mentioned the ransom. That messenger was full of lies. He spoke not a word of truth."
"I agree that Orden does not yet have his son, but though the messenger's manner showed him to be a liar, he spoke some truth."
"He does not have his son," Jureem agreed, replaying every nuance of the messenger's voice, every expression.
"Granted," Raj Ahten said. "What of Longmont?"
"He could not have conquered it," Feykaald spat quickly.
"He has done so," Raj Ahten said, his voice not betraying the concern that this must have caused. Jureem's heart nearly froze at the thought.