Iome nodded.
Gaborn added angrily, "They both have. Borenson was at Castle Sylvarresta yesterday. He stayed behind when we left. You sent him to kill them, didn't you?"
Gaborn watched his father's eyes as he considered the accusation. Gaborn had foolishly believed--when Borenson had said that he was under orders to kill Raj Ahten's Dedicates--that he spoke only in general terms. He hadn't imagined that one man alone would be sent to kill those in the Dedicates' Keep at Castle Sylvarresta.
Now his father's expression confirmed it. His father glanced down, but recovered quickly, looking sorrowful instead of guilt-ridden. Gaborn gave his father time to consider the implications. All the Dedicates in Sylvarresta's keep had died. Even if Iome and the King had become vectors for Raj Ahten, now they gave him almost nothing, only their own endowments.
"So," Gaborn's father asked, "did Raj Ahten leave all his Dedicates behind when he fled Castle Sylvarresta?"
"Almost. He took his vectors--" Gaborn answered. His father raised a brow. "But I managed to get Iome and King Sylvarresta out."
King Orden titled his head, considering. He must have recognized the struggle Gaborn had gone through. "I--wonder..." He cleared his throat. "...why Borenson would let these two go. I ordered him to do otherwise."
"I countermanded your order," Gaborn said.
His father's reaction was so swift, Gaborn had no time to react. His father lashed out and slapped Gaborn's face so hard that when spittle and blood flew from his mouth, Gaborn thought it was a tooth.
"How dare you!" King Orden said. "You may disagree with me, and belittle me, and even second-guess me. But how dare you fight me!"
Rage burned in Orden's eyes.
Then his mouth opened in a little O of grief at what he'd done. He turned away and walked to an archery slot, stood with both hands on the stones of the casement, gazing outside.
"Iome and her father were under my protection, bound by oath," Gaborn said hastily, realizing that he'd just broken his promise to Borenson. He'd told Borenson that he'd not let his father know that they'd met. Yet, at the moment, Gaborn felt so betrayed he did not much care if he broke his word. "I'd have fought him for them. I told him that I would take the matter up with you." He hoped these final words might appease his father.
Through a window, Gaborn could hear men cheer. More troops were coming into the castle, gathering for battle.
"Your actions are akin to treason," King Orden muttered, back still turned. "They run against everything I've ever taught you."
"Yet they followed precisely the desires of your own heart," Gaborn said. "You ordered your friends' deaths with your lips, but could not consent to it in your heart."
"How can you think to know my heart?" Orden said distantly.
"I...just do," Gaborn said.
King Orden nodded thoughtfully, then turned and gazed at Gaborn a long moment, at war with himself. He took a deep breath, tried to sound casual. "Then I, too, rescind the order. Thank you, Gaborn, for bringing my friend back..."
Gaborn sighed in relief.
King Sylvarresta had wandered over to the breakfast table. He began eating from plates, pulling off huge chunks of ham with both fists. Gaborn's father whispered, "But I fear he is lost to me still."
"Until Raj Ahten is dead," Gaborn said. "Then you will win back your friend, and I will win my wife."
Gaborn did not want to bear this news now, but he felt it was important, and he wanted his father to hear it from him, rather than hear it later from a stranger. He fully expected another blow. "Father, I told you that I took an oath to protect Iome. I am bound to her, as one Oath-Bound Lord to another."
Gaborn's father looked off toward the hearth. His jaw clenched. He seemed dismayed by the news, but his voice cracked only the tiniest bit as he said, "Ah, I see. It was only a matter of time, I suppose."
"You are not disappointed?" Gaborn asked.
"Disappointed, yes," Orden said, "but not surprised. Though I cannot help but say that you picked the worst possible time to have this attack of conscience."
"But you are not angry?"
His father suppressed a chuckle. "Angry? Hardly. Dismayed, perhaps. Saddened. But how can I be angry? My only friend is an Oath-Bound Lord."
He stood a moment in thought, nodding his head. "But still...I feel that I've lost you."
"Once we've beaten Raj Ahten, you will see that we've lost nothing," Gaborn said.
"You make it sound easy."
"With forty thousand forcibles, it should be."
"Ah, so Borenson told you about those? Well, we have the forcibles, now we're only forty thousand people shy of the Dedicates necessary to make them worthwhile."
"You mean you haven't begun putting them to use?" Gaborn asked.
"I have them hidden still, in the place where the Duchess hid them," Orden said. "I've used only a handful."
Gaborn gasped, felt his chest constricting. Without Dedicates there was only one way his father could hope to beat Raj Ahten. "A serpent? You've created a serpent? How large?"
"A serpent ring," he answered easily, trying to soothe Gaborn. "Twenty-two men, most with at least two endowments of metabolism. Most of the same men you just saw here, leaving this room."
A moment before, King Orden had said he felt he'd lost his son. It seemed an overreaction to Gaborn's announcement. Now Gaborn saw that in all likelihood his father was right. One way or another, they were lost to each other. In time, the serpent ring would be broken, and only then would Gaborn learn how great a sacrifice his father had made this day.
Yet his father's announcement explained why he did not grow angry when Gaborn told him of his oath. His father was withdrawing, pulling away from Gaborn.
King Orden licked his lips. "I plan to kill Raj Ahten for you, today, myself. A wedding present, let's call it. I'll make his head a wedding present for you, Gaborn. And my friend will have his wits back."
"How? How many troops do you have?" Gaborn asked.
"Six thousand, more or less," Orden answered. He went to the window, looked out, spoke thoughtfully. "We had riders from Groverman this morning. He refused us aid. Instead he's fortifying his own keep. Only a few men have come from him, some Knights Equitable who couldn't support him in his cowardice.
"It's too bad--we'd had high hopes. Groverman is a fine man, a sensible man, really. He's doing what I'd do, fortify my keep."
Gaborn smiled. "Your keep is in Mystarria, twelve hundred miles from here. You would not turn your back on a friend."
King Orden gave Gaborn a sidelong look. "I want you to take Iome and King Sylvarresta, now, and get away from here. Go to Castle Groverman. It should be well defended."
"I think not," Gaborn said. "I'm tired of running."
"And if I order you to do it?" his father asked. "I'm not divided on this matter. My heart and my mind both agree."
"No," Gaborn said more firmly. His father had always tried to protect him. Now he saw that his father would continue to do so, even if it cost his own life. But Gaborn was a Runelord, and though his endowments were few, they were over a broad spectrum. With wit and grace and stamina, he could fight in a battle like this better than any common soldier. Besides, he'd trained a good deal in tactics and swordplay.
As the son of a king, he'd learned to defend himself, though he doubted he'd be much of a match for one of Raj Ahten's Invincibles.
Iome grabbed the sleeve of Gaborn's tunic, whispered fiercely. "Do as your father says! Take me to Groverman. When we reach him, I will order him to fight!"
With a sinking feeling, Gaborn realized she was right. Groverman's castle stood little more than thirty miles away. If he ran the horses, he could be there within a couple of hours.
"Do as she asks," Orden said. "Perhaps it would help. Groverman has been gathering his forces. He may have ten thousand defenders on his walls by now."
Gaborn knew he would have to do it, would have to take Iome to Groverman. Yet he'd be five hours or more at the task. He wouldn't be able to return here before noon. By then Raj Ahten's troops would have reached Longmont; their siege would be set.
If Raj Ahten's hundred thousand reinforcements arrived, Gaborn wouldn't be able to dislodge the Wolf Lord.
"Iome," Gaborn asked, "may my father and I speak alone for a moment?"
"Of course," Iome said, and she left. King Sylvarresta remained in the room, eating at the tables. Gaborn's and his father's Days also stayed.
Gaborn felt...strangely cognizant of their presence, embarrassed by it. Still, when Iome left, he went to his father, put his arms around the man's shoulders, and cried.
"Here now," his father whispered, "why should a prince weep?"
"You're sending me on a fruitless mission," Gaborn said. "I can feel it. Something...is terribly wrong." He did not know how to speak of it, but he felt that they needed to discuss things--what should happen if one of them died. They'd spoken of this possibility many times over the years, after Gaborn's mother was murdered, other times since. Yet this time, Gaborn felt a sense of inevitability.
What he really wanted, what he needed, was to say goodbye.
"How can we know our fight is fruitless?" his father asked. "I can detain Raj Ahten until you return.
"I'll put mounted knights in the bailey, ready to issue from the castle gate. When Groverman's men come in, I want you to have them sweep in from the north side of the hill. It's a gentle slope down. It should give your lancers a great deal of benefit. Then my knights will ride out to your side, and we'll have the old monster in a vise--
"But you must promise me one thing, Gaborn. You will let me fight Raj Ahten personally. I will be the serpent's head. I alone am prepared for this fight."
"Raj Ahten may be more dangerous than you know," Gaborn said. "He seeks to become the Sum of All Men. He has so many endowments of stamina, you cannot kill him easily. You will need to strike for the head, take off his head."
"I surmised as much," King Orden said, smiling down at his son.
Gaborn looked into his father's eyes, felt his heart lightened a bit. The castle walls were growing thick with men, and this was a small castle, easily defensible. With six thousand men on those walls, his father should be able to hold this castle even against Raj Ahten's Invincibles.
His father wasn't rushing headlong to his death. He'd fight a measured battle. Already the die had been cast. As head of the serpent ring, his father would have to battle Raj Ahten. In his heart, Gaborn knew that of all the men in the castle, his father was most qualified for this task.
Yet it hurt, it hurt terribly to know what might come, to let it come without saying goodbye.
"Where is Binnesman?" Gaborn asked. "He can help protect you."
"Sylvarresta's wizard?" Orden asked. "I haven't the slightest idea."
"He said...he'd meet me here. He called a wylde from the earth last night, and hopes to bring it into battle. He is coming to Longmont." Gaborn felt certain that Binnesman would come.
Gaborn hugged his father, leaned his forehead against the older man's cheek. I've been anointed to become King of this Earth, Gaborn thought. It was said that Erden Geboren had been so sensitive to the earth powers, to life, that when one of his chosen friends was in danger, he could sense that man's fear. When one of them died, he sensed the loss of that life.
Right now, Gaborn could smell danger around his father, and as he leaned against his father's face, he probed with his mind, sensed life there, like a lamp struggling to stay lit. It was an odd sensation, one he'd never imagined before, and Gaborn wondered if he only imagined it now.
Yet Gaborn had ridden all last night. In that time, he'd seen the world more clearly than ever before. The eyebright still affected him, long after he thought its effects would diminish. Perhaps it always would affect him.
It was but one change in him. Something more wondrous was happening. He suspected that if he only tried, he could see much farther, much deeper now. He could use the Earth Sight. He hugged his father tight, and closed his eyes, and with his heart, he sought to peer into King Orden.
For a long moment, he saw nothing, and he wondered if he really had seen into Raj Ahten's heart last night.
Then, as if at a great distance, a strange collage of sights and smells and sounds assaulted Gaborn. First he saw the sea, the blue waves of the ocean rolling proud and strong under clear skies, the whitecaps rolling toward shore. Gaborn's own mother and sisters and even himself rode in those waves, bobbing like seals in the water, and King Sylvarresta rode those waves, too. Yet Gaborn's mother was larger than all the rest, as if she were a great walrus, while the others were mere harbor seals. Gaborn tasted fresh pumpkin bread in his mouth, all covered with sunflower seeds, then washed it down with apple wine. Distantly he heard the horns of the hunt. As he listened, he sensed the motion of a horse running beneath him, then his chest seemed to swell wide in exultation as he looked out over the rooftops of the castle in Mystarria and heard the swell of people chanting "Orden, Orden, Orden."
A tremendous swelling sensation rose in Gaborn's chest, a sense of love and warmth, as if all the tender feelings he'd ever felt rolled into one great burst.
Gaborn could see more clearly today than ever before. He could see into his father's heart, and these were the things his father loved: the sea, his family, pumpkin bread and apple wine, the hunt, and to please his people.
At this insight, Gaborn pulled back, suddenly feeling guilty. Why am I doing this? he wondered. Looking into his father's soul was somehow embarrassing, an act of voyeurism.
Clearly, Gaborn recalled his duty, remembered the tales of what Erden Geboren had done when choosing warriors. Gaborn feared for his father, wished to do all that he could to protect him in this, his darkest hour.
You will fight today, Gaborn whispered within himself, but I will fight beside you.