Part 7 (1/2)

”It's hard to imagine that anyone could break through Royce's sh.e.l.l,” King Alric said.

Only a few years had pa.s.sed since Hadrian had first met Alric. He, Royce, and later Myron spent three days roaming the hills of Melengar with the prince just after King Amrath's death. It seemed like only yesterday, but Alric appeared decades older. His eyes showed a maturity and his boyish face was gone-hidden behind a full beard. He looked more like his father now, brooding and withered. The small white scar on his forehead was still there-a ghostly reminder of that day he nearly died, when his face was pushed into the dirt.

”She was a remarkable woman,” Hadrian explained.

”I wish I had met her,” Arista said, sitting back down.

”You would have liked Gwen, and I know she thought highly of you. She was”-Hadrian paused-”unique.”

They gathered in the great hall, the largest chamber in the palace. Four stone hearths filled the room with warmth and a ruddy-orange glow. Above each ma.s.sive fireplace, arrays of steel s.h.i.+elds and glimmering swords were displayed as a sign of power. Thirty-two banners displaying the emblems of all the n.o.ble houses of Avryn hung from the ceiling in two rows along the length of the room. Five had been added since the last time Hadrian had sat there. The banners of the House of Lanaklin of Glouston, the House of Hestle of Bernum, the House of Exeter, the House of Pickering of Galilin, and the gold crowned falcon on a red field of the House of Essendon of Melengar-all restored to their rightful places.

The table where they waited was the only one in the room. Placed in the center of the hall, it was longer than the bar at The Rose and Thorn, and nine chairs lined each side, along with one at the end. This was the same room where Hadrian spent his first feast masquerading as a n.o.ble. He felt as out of place now as he had then as the room filled with the other invited guests-each n.o.ble.

He knew most of the faces that entered. Armand, King of Alburn, claimed a seat near the head of the table, his son, Prince Rudolf, at his right hand. Not to be outdone, Fredrick, King of Galeannon, sat across from him. King Vincent of Maranon chose to sit two chairs down from Fredrick, making Hadrian wonder if there was an issue between the two bordering kingdoms. Not everyone was a royal. Sir Elgar, Sir Murthas, and Sir Gilbert, as well as Sir Breckton, who wore the gold sash of his new office as imperial high marshal, entered together.

Stewards began pouring wine while seven seats remained open, including the one at the head of the table, where no one dared sit. Hadrian took a sip from the goblet before him and grimaced.

”That's right,” Arista mentioned. ”You aren't a wine drinker, are you?”

Hadrian set the goblet back down and continued to sneer at it. ”It's probably very good,” he said. ”It just tastes like spoiled grape juice to me, but you have to remember I was raised on Armigil's beer.”

Hadrian's old tutor, the awkwardly thin imperial chancellor, Nimbus, entered along with Amilia, the imperial secretary, and they took their seats to the immediate left and right of the table's head. Degan Gaunt wandered in, looking lost. He was dressed in an expensive doublet and breeches with buckle shoes, none of which suited him. Looking at the heir, Hadrian could not help comparing him to the d.u.c.h.ess of Roch.e.l.le's pet poodle, which she dressed in tailored vests. Gaunt circled the table three times before choosing a lonely seat in the vacant s.p.a.ce two up from Mauvin and one down from Sir Elgar, both of whom he eyed suspiciously.

Two more men entered. The first he did not know, a heavyset elderly man with a bald head and sagging cheeks. He was dressed in a long, handsomely brocaded coat with large silver b.u.t.tons, accompanied by a ruffled silk s.h.i.+rt. Following him was a younger but fatter duplicate of the first. Hadrian recognized him as Cosmos DeLur, the wealthiest man in Avryn and infamous head of the Black Diamond thieves guild. He guessed the other man must be his father, Cornelius DeLur, formerly the unofficial leader of the Republic of Delgos.

Two chairs left.

Several conversations occurred simultaneously. Hadrian tried to make sense of them. Tilted heads, knowing smiles, sidelong glances, murmurs, whispers. He could catch only a handful of words here and there. Most often, what he caught were discussions about the empress. Many of those at the table had seen her only that one night before the final Wintertide joust, when she made her brief, but dramatic, appearance, and once more when they swore fealty after the uprising. This would be the first opportunity for them to have an audience with her.

Trumpets blared.

All conversations halted, each head turned, and everyone stood as the empress entered the hall. Her Eminence Modina Novronian pa.s.sed through the arched doorway, looking every inch the daughter of a G.o.d. She wore a black gown gorgeously hand embroidered with a rainbow of colored thread and adorned with diamonds, rubies, and sapphires. Around her neck, a starched ruff rose in the shape of a Calian lily. She wore long sleeves with wrist ruffs that scalloped her hands. On her ears dangled sparkling earrings, and on her breast lay a necklace of pearl. As she walked, a long black velvet mantle embroidered with the imperial crest trailed behind her. The days of begging a clerk for dress material were long gone.

The woman Hadrian saw before him had the face of Thrace Wood, but she was not the little girl he had once pulled from the gutter on Capital Street in Colnora. She walked tall, her shoulders back, her gaze elevated. She did not look at anyone, nor turn her head prematurely, her sight fixed by the direction she faced. She took her time, walking elegantly, in an arc that allowed her train to straighten before she reached the head of the table.

Hadrian smiled to himself as he remembered how a madam had once suggested that, to save her from starvation, she should join the roster at the Bawdy Bottom Brothel. He had responded with the prophetic words ”Something tells me she's not a prost.i.tute.”

A steward removed the mantle from her shoulders and placed the chair behind her, but the empress did not sit. Hadrian noted a slight stiffening of her posture as she surveyed her guests. He followed her line of sight, noting the last empty chair.

She addressed Nimbus. ”Did you notify the Patriarch of my summons?”

”I did, Your Eminence.”

She sighed, then looked upon her subjects.

”Lords and ladies, forgive me. I will forgo customary traditions. My chancellor tells me there are many formalities I am expected to follow; however, such things take time and time is a luxury we can't afford.”

It was eerie, Hadrian thought, seeing her addressing heads of state, as calmly as if she were holding a tea party for children.

”As most of you already know, Avryn has been invaded. We believe the attack began more than a month ago, but we were uncertain until very recently. The information comes from the refugees fleeing south and twelve teams of scouts I had sent north, many of whom never returned. Sir Breckton, if you will please explain the situation as it now stands...”

Sir Breckton rose and stood before the a.s.sembly, wearing a long black cape over his dress tunic. All eyes turned to him, not just because he was about to speak, but because Sir Breckton was one of those men who commanded attention. There was something in the way he held himself. He managed to appear taller, straighter, and stouter than other men. Breckton made a formal bow to the empress, then faced the table.

”While none of the scouts managed to pierce the advance troops to report on the main body of the elven army, what we have learned is unsettling enough. We now believe that at midnight on Wintertide, elements of the Erivan Empire crossed the Nidwalden River with a force estimated at over a hundred thousand. They conquered the kingdom of Dunmore in less than a week and Glamrendor is gone. King Roswort, Queen Freda, and their entire court-lost, presumably on their return trip from the Wintertide celebration.”

Heads turned left and right and Hadrian heard the words hundred thousand and less than a week repeated between them. Breckton paused for only a moment before speaking again.

”The elven host continued west, entering unopposed into Ghent. Estimates suggest they conquered it in eight days. Whether Ghent put up a fight, we don't know. It has been confirmed, however, that the university at Sheridan was burned and Ervanon destroyed.”

The men at the table s.h.i.+fted with more anxiety but less was said.

”They entered Melengar next,” he told them, and a few heads turned toward Alric. ”Drondil Fields made a last stand, heroically providing time for as many as possible to escape south. The fortress managed to hold out for one day.”

”A day?” King Vincent exclaimed. He looked at Alric, who nodded solemnly. ”How can this be?”

”King Fredrick.” The empress addressed the monarch seated to her left. ”Please repeat what you told us.”

King Fredrick stood up, brus.h.i.+ng the folds from his clothes. He was a squat, balding man with a round belly that pressed the limits of the front of his tunic.

”Not long after the Wintertide holiday-perhaps a few days at most-travelers brought news of trouble in Calis. They told stories of Ghazel hitting the coast in droves. They called it The Flood. Hundreds of thousands of the mongrels stormed the cliffs at Gur Em Dal.”

”Are you saying the elves are in league with the Ghazel?” Cornelius DeLur asked.

The king shook his head. ”No, they weren't warriors. Well, some may have been, but the impression I got was that they too were refugees. They were fleeing and running where they could. The Calian warlords slaughtered many on the eastern coast, but the deluge was so great they could not entirely stem the wave. Within a week, bands of Ghazel were on the border of Galeannon and slipping into the Vilan Hills. We lost all communication with Calis-no more travelers have come out.”

Fredrick took his seat.

”As of this very afternoon,” Sir Breckton said, ”we received word that a s.h.i.+p by the name of the Silver Fin was five days out of its port in Kilnar when it saw Wesbaden burning. Beyond it, the captain said he saw another column of smoke rising in the distance, which he guessed to be Dagastan.”

”Why would the elves launch an attack on both the Ghazel and us? Why open two fronts?” Sir Elgar asked.

”It's likely they don't consider either the Ghazel or ourselves to be a serious threat,” Breckton told them. ”Sources report the elven host is accompanied by scores of dragons who burn everything in their path. Other reports speak of equally disturbing capabilities, such as the ability to control the weather and call down lightning. There are stories of huge monsters that shake the earth, burrowing beasts, lights that blind, and a mist that... devours people.”

”Are these fairy stories you would have us believe, Breckton?” Murthas asked. ”Giants, monsters, mists, and elves? Who were these scouts? Old wives?”

This brought chuckles from both Elgar and Gilbert and a smile from Rudolf.

”They were good men, Sir Murthas, and it does not befit you to speak ill of the courageous dead.”

”I grieve for the lives of the men who died,” King Armand said. ”But seriously, Breckton, a mist that kills people? You make them out to be the sum of all nightmares, as if every tale of boogeyman, ghost, or wraith spills out of the wood across the Nidwalden. These are only elves, after all. You make them sound like invincible G.o.ds that-”

They came with hardly a warning, thousands both beautiful and terrible; They came on brilliant white horses wearing s.h.i.+ning gold and s.h.i.+mmering blue; They came with dragons and whirlwinds, and giants made of stone and earth; They came and nothing could stop them.

They are coming still.

The voice issued from the doorway and all heads turned as into the great hall entered an old man. It was hard to say what caught Hadrian's eyes first, as so much was startling. The man's hair, which did not begin until well behind his balding forehead, was long enough to reach the back of his knees and was beyond gray, beyond white, appearing almost purple, like the edges of a rotting potato. His mouth lacked lips, his eyes were without brows, and his cheeks were shriveled. He wore a cascade of glittering purple, gold, and red-robes displayed with relish-flaunting it with dramatic sweeps of his arms as he walked using a tall staff. Brilliant blue eyes s.h.i.+fted restlessly around the room, never pausing for too long on any one person. His jaw, held taut in an openmouthed grin, showed a surprising full complement of teeth, his expression a silent laugh.

Behind him entered two equally shocking guards. They wore s.h.i.+mmering gold breastplates over top s.h.i.+rts of vertical red, purple, and yellow stripes with long cuffs and billowing sleeves. Matching pants plumed out, gathering just below the knee into long striped stockings. Across their chests, stretching from their shoulders, hung silver braids and ta.s.sels of honor. They wore gold helms with messenger wings that hid their faces. Each held unusual weapons, long halberds with ornately curved blades at both ends, which they held tight to their sides with one arm straight down and the other high across their chests.

The guards halted in perfect unison, snapping their heels in one audible clack. The old man continued forward, approaching Modina. He stopped before her, slamming the metal tip of his staff down on the stone floor.