The Forests of Dru Read online

  “Grim,” Lonen said, and Nolan raised his brows in acknowledgment of the observation. There. A bit of connection. Lonen would have to tell his brother the story of swimming through the bore tides of the Bay of Bára, carrying an unconscious Oria, nearly drowning all of them.

  Or perhaps better not to.

  “No light penetrated so deep in the earth,” Arnon described with ghoulish glee, “but Arill held our hero in her hand, guiding him to swim to an unseeable shore.”

  “I mainly tried to swim away from flailing hooves and falling rocks,” Nolan pointed out acerbically.

  “Do you want to tell the story after all?” Arnon rounded on him.

  “No, no—you go ahead. Never mind the fact checking.”

  “Thank you. Prince Nolan, chilled to the bone, exhausted and aching from the fall, at last dragged himself onto a dry shelf of stone. A few other men made it also, along with several horses—still with their packs, thank Arill.”

  “How many men?” Lonen asked out of habit before he caught himself. “Never mind, it—”

  “About three dozen survived the fall,” Nolan answered, gaze glittering. Out of a regiment of more than a thousand warriors. Horrifying indeed. Of course, they’d thought none had survived the chasm at all, so there was that. “Ten of those didn’t survive the first few hours, and we lost three more on the journey to Dru. I brought fewer than two dozen home.”

  Lonen closed his eyes and sent a prayer to Arill to fete the lost soldiers well in the Hall of Warriors—and to forgive him that he felt some relief at the smaller number of bodies to feed and keep warm through the winter.

  “You’re jumping the story,” Arnon accused.

  “Apologies, brother.” Nolan at least sounded less dour.

  Arnon grunted, but continued. “Only three dozen men survived the fall,” he intoned, “and ten of those didn’t survive the first few hours.”

  Lonen passed a hand over his mouth to hide his smile.

  “In the blackness of the caves, they might have been lost had Prince Nolan not been an educated man, as well as an experienced woodsman and hunter. Discovering that a phosphorescent fungus grew on the rocks, he reasoned that, like the moss on trees in the forests of Dru, it might grow more densely on the north face, and he navigated accordingly.”

  Lonen whistled, impressed, and Nolan refilled his goblet, shaking his head slightly, but not interrupting.

  “As they continued, they discovered a well-worn passage. One that led more or less directly to Dru, and in fact emerged into a dry lake bed somewhat north of us.” Arnon waited, expression expectant.

  The wine evaporated on his tongue and Lonen found himself sitting upright, the pain in his side a minor consideration. “Wait—an underground passage from Bára to Dru?”

  Nolan gave him a long look. “At least to the region north of Dru, but it appears so.”

  “That’s how their golems traveled here. And how they drained the lakes so quickly before we became aware, sending the water back to Bára.”

  “The passage might have acted like an aqueduct, an underground river carrying water from our lakes to theirs until it had drained completely. They might have made others over however many years, with many routes to the surface, which would explain how the golems managed to pop up so unexpectedly and disappear again,” Arnon agreed.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Lonen demanded. So many possibilities. How could they use this to their advantage? Of course, they’d thought the golems had been eliminated following the fall of Bára and that their major problem now lay in incursions by the even more deadly Trom, who needed no underground passages, instead flying in on their enormous dragons that scorched crops and Destrye alike. But he had nearly died under the fangs and claws of a band of golems he and Oria had encountered on their journey. “If we could—”

  “Why didn’t we tell you?” Nolan interrupted in a tone as scathing as dragon fire. “There was the small problem of an enemy princess in your bed. She of the people who sent the cursed goblins. We could hardly discuss such sensitive matters in her hearing. Arill only knows what her plans are or what information she’d send back to—”

  “Oria is a not a spy.” Lonen set his teeth against saying more. Steeled himself not to look up at her actual spy, concealed in the beams above.

  “How do you know that?” Nolan demanded, angry and bewildered. “Think, man! You acknowledge she’s a powerful sorceress. She could easily work magics to cloud your mind. She could be here to finally and completely undermine Dru. What better way than to capture the attention—and, incredibly enough, the hand in marriage—of our king? How is it possible this has not occurred to you?”

  “Because I know her,” he snapped. And he knew the many reasons she’d fought against him bringing her to Dru. Ones not at all politic to divulge. “I know what goes on in her heart and mind.”

  Nolan threw up his hands. “No man knows what goes on in the heart and mind of a woman, and that’s if she’s Destrye and not a foul Báran sorceress.”

  “Be mindful how you speak of your queen.”

  “I have pledged that woman no fealty.”

  “You will,” Lonen replied evenly, putting the weight of command behind it. “Or do you mean to challenge me as king?”

  “And bring civil war to Dru, on top of everything else? Oh, that’s a grand idea.”

  “Are you asking me to abdicate in your favor?”

  Nolan’s face was perfectly neutral, an impenetrable mask. “Are you offering?”

  “It’s been suggested that I should abdicate in favor of Ion’s son, Mago. His claim takes precedence, even over yours.”

  “That was before the Trom attacked,” Arnon cautioned. “We discussed it as a peacetime proposition because we believed the war had ended—and because Salaya campaigned for it. I never thought it was a good idea, even if it might ease her widow’s grief, and would not support that measure now. We are as much at war as ever and Mago is too young to bear such a heavy responsibility. In times of war, a warrior must lead.”

  “I am a warrior, and not too young.” Nolan gave them both long and pointed stares. If all had gone as it should, he would have been crowned king. It never should have been Lonen and they all knew it.

  “By Destrye law, I became king the moment my father and older brothers died,” Lonen spoke slowly, feeling the weight of it himself. “I believed you dead and grieved your loss, brother, with never a thought that you might have survived.” Not exactly true, but the haunting terror that his brother might be trapped beneath the earth, broken, bleeding, and slowly dying without succor wasn’t worth plaguing them with. “I took the sword of the Destrye from my father’s dead hand. A hand that had been turned to jellied flesh by a monster so heinous it dropped my father and his heir with a touch, reducing every bone in their bodies to pulp. I had to wipe the hilt clean of unnameable substances just to keep my grip.”

  He paused to gather himself, his brothers watching with ill-disguised horror.

  “I didn’t want it, never sought to be king, but I took that responsibility,” Lonen told Nolan. “I assumed the weight of it over their dead bodies, as my heritage demanded I do, and I negotiated our truce with the Bárans.” He put down the wine goblet with a thump when Nolan opened his mouth. “It doesn’t matter that the truce was violated by some of their people. I did my best by the Destrye, as our father would have wanted. We came home to a decimated people, but I kept going. It was on me to find a way to save us and by Arill, I have tried.”

  “You’ve done more than most men could have,” Arnon said. “The aqueducts. Planting the late crops. Rationing food and water. Planning for winter. Nolan, he nearly killed himself, and this after a long and exhausting campaign.”

  “I don’t question any of that,” Nolan replied.

  “But you question my competency now.”

  “I think you should consider that you might be compromised.”

  Silence fell among them, sharp-spined a
nd treacherous to navigate.

  “And you, Arnon—what do you think?” Lonen asked his younger brother.

  “We don’t know her,” Arnon said quietly. “You ran off to Bára to demand answers, to hold this princess to her vow that they would observe the peace and no longer attack us, steal our water, burn our crops. I looked at that sword every cursed day and made myself consider that you would likely never return for it. Every time I made a decision in your name, I dreaded the day we’d reconcile ourselves to your death, and I’d have to hold the throne for Mago. If the Destrye survived long enough to for him to grow up.

  “And then you returned—more than half-dead and apparently married to this Báran sorceress—who for all we know sent those attacks, who has swayed your heart and mind to the point that you snarl at us for asking the simplest of questions. We try to give you space to recover without her influence, and you barge into the ward for Arill’s Blessings—the women’s ward, even, where men are expressly forbidden to enter—you terrify our head healer, roar orders in all directions, install the sorceress in your bed, and refuse to admit anyone but a few servants. If not for them we’d wonder if the sorceress yet lived. You won’t even admit our healers to tend you, though you need it badly.”

  “That was you who ordered Oria sent to that charity ward, who kept her from me?” Lonen gripped the arms of his chair, rather than strangle Arnon.

  “We decided together,” Nolan said, jaw tight.

  “You had no right to—”

  “This is the first time since you’ve returned that we’ve been able to talk to you.” Arnon thumped a fist on the table in a rare show of frustrated temper. “What in Arill do you expect of us, Lonen?”

  “I expect you to believe in and support me. If not because I’m your brother, then because I am your rightful king, whether any of us are happy about that situation or not.”

  “It’s not that, Lonen, dammit.” Arnon raked his hands through his already messy brown curls. “If it were one of us, you would do the same. If you believed we’d been captured and controlled by a sorcerer—and up until recently, you agreed their magic was an abomination against Arill, too—then you would fight to help us also.”

  “And I’m telling you that I am not controlled and I don’t need your help. Oria is here to help us, to protect us from the Trom. You’ll see.”

  “See what?” Nolan spread his hands wide. “They’re gone and the damage has been done. You lost most of the unharvested crops. We have no nearby fresh water supplies for all these people hunkered down for the winter under the wings of Arill’s Temple. You’ve made little progress in shoring up what was supposed to be emergency construction and not long-term housing. And there’s no indication these ‘Trom’ and their ‘dragons’ will return. We have nothing left worth taking.”

  “Any number of people can bear witness to what the Trom and their dragons did,” Lonen said. “Don’t try to make it sound like a child’s tale.”

  “My point is that we have bigger problems than you dreaming up some implausible cause for your sorceress wife. If I were king, I—”

  “But you’re not.” Lonen cut him off and Nolan’s piercing gaze flashed with anger before he directed it ferociously at his wine. Lonen choked back the temper and sighed. “We’re all stuck with me being king, like it or not.”

  “There is legal precedent,” Nolan said, not looking up, but staring into his cup, “for a king to be deposed by another with an equivalent or more potent claim to the throne.”

  “That civil war you mentioned?” Lonen tried to keep it light, but the implicit betrayal stung.

  Nolan flicked a sharp glance at him. “Nothing so large scale or destructive. A duel would allow Arill to select her champion, according to the old ways.”

  Arnon drew a sharp breath. “Lonen is barely out of his sickbed. He cannot duel with you, even if Arill’s priestesses agree to such an archaic ritual.”

  “If you wanted me murdered, brother,” Lonen replied, holding Nolan’s gaze, “you would have done better to leave me at the spring. I could have died in peace and you would not have had to sully your hands with my blood.”

  “I’ve thought back to that day.” Nolan’s eyes were dark. “And sometimes regretted my part in it. Particularly that I brought that viper of a sorceress here instead of leaving her there to fertilize the forest as I should have.”

  “I would have killed you for abandoning her.”

  “A dying man held no threat to me.”

  “I’m not dying now.”

  “And you may yet get the opportunity to try to kill me,” Nolan replied, with no apparent emotion.

  “Brothers—” Arnon began.

  “I’ve had enough.” Lonen cut him off. He drained his mug and eased to his feet, no longer bothering to hide the wince of pain. “Such a heartening interlude this has been. So worth leaving my sickbed for.”

  “Go back to her then,” Nolan called after him. “She is pretty enough to distract you for a while. But you have to get out of bed sometime.”

  “Lonen.” Arnon caught up to him, expression earnest, eyes grave. “Let the healers tend you. Give us that much.”

  “Not Talya,” he growled. If he saw the woman, he might strangle her.

  Arnon held up his hands. “Fine. Not Talya. Who?”

  A fine question. “Baeltya.”

  “Isn’t she a junior healer?”

  “Yes. And she tended me when I was but a junior prince. She has a good manner.” A quiet one that might not disturb Oria too greatly. “Send her.”

  “I will.” Arnon gripped his shoulder. “We’re on your side, brother.”

  “Then show it.” He shrugged out of Arnon’s grasp and strode away.

  Alby, Lonen’s lieutenant, met him outside the doors. He made no comment, but stayed closer than usual. Perhaps he thought he needed to be ready to catch Lonen if he fell, which meant he must look nearly as bad as he felt. Lonen would not let himself fall, however. They walked slowly down the long hall, as Chuffta slipped in through a crack in the ceiling and winged his silent way ahead of them.

  ~ 2 ~

  “He’s left the dining hall and is coming your way,” Chuffta spoke into her mind. “He’s not happy.”

  Oria restrained a sarcastic reply. As wise and clever as her derkesthai Familiar could be, the intricacies of human interactions sometimes escaped him. He’d faithfully relayed Lonen’s conversation—if you could call it that—with his brothers, but that didn’t mean he’d understood the nuances of all that had been said. So, instead of snapping at him, she vented her righteous anger by pacing in front of the stone fireplace. The room wasn’t as big as her old rooftop terrace, but it gave her a decent amount of space to work out her annoyance. Especially since she had only her own emotional energy to wrestle.

  One upside of having figured out how to shut out the chaotically overwhelming input of the wild magic: she didn’t run the risk of overload of that variety. Small compensation as that also meant she had no way to replenish her magic, either. Nothing to be done about that.

  She didn’t blame Lonen’s brothers for being suspicious of her—in fact, she’d warned Lonen countless times that his people wouldn’t welcome her with open arms. She loved the Destrye warrior immensely, probably unwisely, definitely without meaning to—and that included his propensity for irrepressible optimism—but for once he should have been able to predict this inevitable outcome.

  Things didn’t turn out rosily just because he was so sure they would.

  No, of course his brothers had questions—but the way they’d sneak-attacked Lonen had her burning with fury. She’d met them both only glancingly. We don’t know her. Arnon’s words echoed with quiet menace in her head. Along with the others they’d used. Sorceress. Foul. Viper. They didn’t know her, but they distrusted, even hated her. Fine. That was to be expected as their people had been enemies for so long.

  How could they show so little faith in Lonen, though? The Destrye warrior was everyth
ing that was noble, honest, and stalwart.

  The doors to the outer chamber opened and after a moment, Alby stuck his head in to check the bedchamber, gave her a nod, and then stepped back for his king to enter. The lieutenant at least always treated her with neutral deference. He closed the door, leaving them alone. Lonen moved stiffly, with more than physical pain. Composing herself—restraining the impulse to go help, which would only get her snarled at—she arranged the supporting pillows in his favorite armchair near the fire and picked up a wine carafe.

  “No more wine, love,” he said, dragging the wreath of hammered metal leaves from his hair and tossing it on a chest, then unclasping his indoor furred cloak and throwing it on top. He made his way to the chair and eased himself into it. “My mind is foggy enough. I’ve apparently lost my head for drink these last weeks.”

  “Not surprising, as you’ve fallen out of training for it.”

  He snorted, the fresh scar over his right eye creasing as he stared into the fire where it leapt behind the intricately designed metal screen. Chuffta arrived from somewhere and settled himself into his favored nest on the hearth. The servants had quickly gotten over their fear of the winged lizard and had taken to spoiling him outrageously, with Alby setting the lead, bringing him all sorts of meaty nibbles and soft furs sized just for him. They assumed he was a pet, more like a favored hunting hound, and Lonen and Oria had decided it was best to let them continue to think so.

  “Are you comfortable? There are more pillows.”

  “Don’t fuss.”

  Aha. Those barbs aimed at his warrior toughness had lodged under his skin. Fine then. “How was the meeting with your brothers?” She tried to sound idly inquiring, fiddling with her own goblet of well-watered wine. She greatly missed her favorite fruit juice, but it was never among the food and drink served them and she wouldn’t ask, lest Lonen feel guilt over something else he couldn’t provide her. They might not have any fruit at all in this frozen realm.