Title: Warlord
Author: Jennifer Fallon

DUTY, DESTINY AND JUST DESSERTS

PROLOGUE

Damin Wolfblade had no need to stand sentry duty. With an army of more than two thousand men at his command, and while still in his own province, there wasn’t even a need to post sentries at all. But Damin had been taught well. Just because an attack was improbable, it didn’t make it impossible. So despite the fact they were still two days from the Elasapine-Krakandar border, and hundreds of miles from their nearest enemy, Damin had set sentries around the camp for the night and made a point of checking on their disposition personally.

The night was clear and crisp, the stars providing more than enough light to see by. He made his way forward accompanied by the busy sounds of night creatures and insects, without any attempt at stealth, his progress leaving a cautious silence in his wake. Damin’s purpose for checking the sentries wasn’t to catch them out. He wanted to alert them to the possibility that at any time, their prince might happen by and they’d better be ready for it. It was a trick Geri Almodavar had taught him, one he claimed Laran Krakenshield was fond of. Damin didn’t know if the old captain was just saying that to validate his suggestion, or if it really was a tactic favoured by Damin’s late father, and in the end, it didn’t really matter. It was a good thing to do, whoever thought of it.

Without warning, a silhouette detached itself from the thin line of trees ahead, resolving into a man shape, a sword raised threateningly in Damin’s direction.

“Halt! Who goes there?”

“Your prince.”

The silhouette advanced, showing no sign of friendliness. “Show yourself!”

Damin did as the sentry ordered and stepped out of the shadow of the trees. The sentry studied him closely in the starlight and then sheathed his sword.

“Your highness,” he said with an apologetic bow. “I didn’t realise it was you.”

“Don’t apologise for doing your job, soldier.”

“No, sire.”

Damin stepped closer, surprised at how young the sentry seemed. He couldn’t have been more than sixteen.

“Been with the Krakandar Raiders long?”

The lad shook his head. “Joined up so I could get out of the city.” And then as he remembered who he was addressing, he added hastily, “your highness.”

Damin smiled wryly. “So did I.”

“Sire?” the lad asked, looking confused.

“Nothing,” he sighed. “Stay alert, eh?”

“Yes, your highness.”

Damin patted the lad on the shoulder and continued along his way, thinking he should have thought to ask the boy his name. Almodavar would have done that. Then again, he probably didn’t need to ask. Damin suspected Almodavar could address every Raider in Krakandar by name, and there were thousands of them. He probably knew the names of all their wives and children, too.

There’s more to being a good general than knowing how to win a battle, Almodavar had often told him when he was a lad. It’s about knowing your men. Knowing what drives them. And sometimes it’s knowing how to avoid a fight.

Strange advice, really, he mused, coming from a man so devoted to the God of War.

Damin’s thoughts were distracted by a faint light ahead of him through the trees. He stopped, wondering if the next sentry had been thoughtless enough to light a fire. He doubted it. Any man willing to do something so foolish wouldn’t last long in any army over which Almodavar held sway.

Then again, the last sentry looked barely old enough to dress himself without his mother. Perhaps, with the Raiders’ numbers so drastically reduced by the plague, there were raw recruits out here without the sense to realise how stupid such an action was. Drawing his sword, and fully intending to give the young man the fright of his life, Damin started forward, this time making as little noise as possible.

As he neared the light, he discovered it wasn’t where the next sentry should be standing guard but some way off to the left, in a small clearing set back from the open grassland that marked the edge of the camp.

Curiosity replaced annoyance as Damin neared the clearing. A harsh white radiance beckoned ahead, not the warm yellow glow of a wood fire. Raising his sword a little higher, he felt himself drawn toward the light, the compulsion to discover the source of this strange illumination driving all thoughts of stealth or caution from his mind.

When he stepped into the clearing, Damin stared at the figure waiting for him and automatically fell to one knee, laying his sword on the ground in front of him.

“Divine One!”

“Scion of Wolfblade.”

The voice was rich, the timbre so deep it resonated along his spine, prickling his skin with goosebumps. Even if he hadn’t grown up surrounded by statues and paintings of his family’s favourite god, Damin could feel the awesome presence of the gilded figure before him. Tall and proud, his shoulders broad, his long cloak billowing in the still air as if it was accompanied by its own breeze, and wearing armour he had only seen depicted in ancient Harshini murals, this was — Damin knew with a certainty — Zegarnald, the God of War.

It bordered on intoxicating to be in his presence, but for some reason, Damin found himself unsurprised. Maybe because he knew Wrayan Lightfinger spoke to the gods, he wasn’t as shocked to meet one as he might have been. Whatever the reason for his calm acceptance of the miraculous, it made no difference now. He shielded his eyes against the light as he stared at Zegarnald in wonder and then bowed his head. “You honour me beyond words, Divine One.”

“Yes,” the god agreed. “I do.”

As awestruck as he was, a small part of Damin wanted to smile at the god’s solemn reply, but he thought better of it. Zegarnald was credited with many qualities but a sense of humour wasn’t among them.

“How can I serve you, Divine One?”

“You are riding to war.”

Damin risked a glance upward, still squinting at the god’s bright countenance, not sure if that was a question or an observation.

“We fear a Fardohnyan invasion, Divine One.”

“Fear it?” Zegarnald asked. “Or welcome it?”

“I welcome it!” Damin assured him. Admitting he feared war wasn’t what the God of War wanted to hear, he guessed.

Zegarnald appeared pleased with his answer. The god’s light faded a little and he became easier to look upon. “You will honour me well, I think, young Wolfblade.”

“It won’t be for lack of trying, Divine One,” Damin assured him, cringing a little at how trite he sounded. Where was Wrayan when you needed him? He was the expert when it came to talking with the gods.

Fortunately, Zegarnald took Damin at his word, seemingly unaware of any nuance of tone or meaning. “And I expect you to succeed. I expended much effort to ensure you were provided with the right guidance as a child.”

Damin stared at the god in surprise. “You did?”

“I am well within my rights to do this, Scion of Hythria. Your father offered me your soul the night you were born.”

“Every warrior in the country offers his firstborn son to you the night he’s born, Divine One,” Damin reminded him respectfully. “It’s a tradition older than time. I claim no special privilege from it.”

Zegarnald studied him with a frown. “Do you question my right to arrange circumstances favourably for my disciples?”

“Of course not, Divine One,” Damin hurried to reply. “It’s just . . . well, you’ve got millions of disciples in Hythria and Fardohnya. Do you take a personal interest in the education of every boy offered to you?”

“The Hythrun heir is not every boy.”

“But . . . I’m not the first Hythrun heir to be offered to the God of War, either,” he pointed out, wondering as he said it why he was arguing with his god. If he had any sense he’d simply take this honour for what it was. But this wasn’t about sense, Damin knew. Wrayan had taught him enough to make him a little suspicious, along with honoured, by the appearance of any god. There had to be a reason for this. The heirs of the last fifty-odd generations of Wolfblades had been sworn to Zegarnald the night they were born. To Damin’s knowledge, the God of War had displayed a singular lack of interest in any of them until now.

“Your soul was offered to me by a true warrior, a man who genuinely and devoutly honoured his god,” Zegarnald replied. Then he added in a somewhat more wistful voice, “It has been a long time since any Wolfblade prince truly honoured the God of War.”

Damin fell silent as he realised Zegarnald meant Laran Krakenshield, suddenly humbled by his father’s legacy. Laran had been a devout follower of the War God — Damin knew that much, even though he was barely two years old when his father was killed — and he could well imagine how Zegarnald would have reacted to a soul so earnestly proffered, no matter how trite the custom seemed to those who didn’t believe.

“I hope I can prove worthy of your patronage, Divine One,” Damin said, lowering his head. “To honour both you and my father’s memory.”

Zegarnald seemed pleased with his answer. “You will not disappoint me.”

Damin couldn’t tell if that was an order or a prediction and wasn’t brave enough to ask. He bowed his head again. “What must I do to serve you, Divine One?”

“Give me a decent war,” the god replied.

Damin glanced up. “Pardon?”

“I have set the scene, Scion of Hythria. The game is now in your hands.”

“I’m not worthy, Divine One,” Damin declared with genuine despair at the thought that the entire weight of the coming conflict might rest on his shoulders.

“I ask nothing of you that you are not capable of,” the god assured him. “And I will see you have what assistance you need.”

“Assistance?” Damin asked, unable to keep the hope from his voice. “You mean more men?”

“I mean you will have assistance,” the god repeated. “More than that, you do not need to know. Do not fear your ability to honour me, young Wolfblade. War and death suit me just as well as victory.”

Damin hesitated, thinking that sounded a little ominous. “I will seek victory in your name, Divine One.”

The god looked as if he expected nothing less. “You face a numerically superior enemy led by an experienced and intelligent general,” the god warned. “You will have much opportunity to honour my name, Wolfblade. Do not disappoint me.”

He knows where the Fardohnyans are, Damin realised. How many they are. Who is leading them . . . He desperately wanted to question Zegarnald further about the enemy, but the god either knew his thoughts or guessed his intentions and held up his hand to forestall him.

“Do not ask anything more of me,” he warned. “It is enough to know I favour your endeavours. Any more than this would cheapen your victory.”

Which is just fine by me, Damin thought irreverently. If it means we’re going to win.

But he didn’t say it aloud. He lowered his head again and, taking his dagger from his belt, pricked the tip of the fourth finger on his left hand. Some warriors — those who considered themselves particularly devout — sliced their forearm or their palm, even their thigh, when offering a blood sacrifice, but Damin had been raised by more pragmatic men. The God of War wants the taste of your blood so he can know you in the heat of battle, Almodavar used to say when he was a child, not his disciples incapacitated and unable to fight.

As the blood beaded around the small incision, Damin held his hand out to Zegarnald. “I live to serve and honour you, Divine One.”

The god’s countenance flared momentarily, perhaps because of the fresh blood so close by, and then he looked down at Damin with a grimace the young man thought might have been intended as a smile. “I accept your sacrifice, Scion of Hythria. Do not give me reason to regret it.”

Damin bowed his head, closing his eyes to receive his god’s blessing, but when he opened them again the clearing was dark. The night was unchanged — clear and crisp, the air still, the darkness filled with the sounds of nocturnal creatures going about their business.

Still on one knee, his sword on the ground in front of him, Damin wondered if he’d imagined Zegarnald had been here. And then he looked down at the bead of fresh blood dripping from the end of his finger, proof that he had been visited by his god.

Nobody’s going to believe this, he thought. If I go around telling people I’ve met Zegarnald, they’ll think I’m as crazy as my uncle.

Studying his cut finger for a moment longer, he cursed softly and wiped the blood away on his trousers. He wouldn’t tell anyone, he decided. Not until he was certain himself, that the pressure of command wasn’t making him hallucinate.

Damin smiled grimly, thinking they hadn’t even left Krakandar yet. If the pressure was getting to him already, there wasn’t much hope of winning this war, no matter how much the God of War expected of him.

Feeling more than a little perplexed, Damin leaned forward and picked up his sword, sheathing it as he rose to his feet. What had Zegarnald said?

It is enough to know I favour your endeavours.

That’s something, Damin decided as he turned from the small clearing. The God of War favours our endeavours.

Which would have been a lot more comforting, Damin thought as he resumed his patrol of the sentry positions, if he hadn’t added that bit about war and death suiting him just as well as victory.

CHAPTER 1

Kalan Hawksword had discovered a great deal about herself in the past few days. And a great deal about her friends and family, people she thought she knew almost as well as herself. She’d learned her Uncle Mahkas had a capacity for cruelty that defied reason and that her brother, Damin, wasn’t nearly as asinine as she’d feared. She had learned her cousin Leila was capable of taking her own life out of despair, and that the coolest head in a crisis that she had ever encountered was Tejay Lionsclaw. She had learned Rorin Mariner’s healing power had severe limits and that if you asked the gods for help, you’d better be prepared for the consequences if they said yes.

But mostly, she’d learned nothing was ever as simple or straightforward as it seemed.

Kalan glanced furtively along the narrow, crooked street before knocking on the door of the safe house. She wore a plain cloak over her silken gown to hide its obvious quality, but she suspected it meant little down here where the very air smelled of watchful suspicion. Although she’d left her horse with its silver-trimmed tack and imported Medalonian saddle back at the stables of the Pickpocket’s Retreat and walked the few streets to the safe house, strangers were noticed down here in the back streets of the Beggars’ Quarter. The locals might not know who she was, but they were certain she didn’t belong here.

Fyora opened the door for her. Wiping her muddy feet on the coir mat, Kalan slipped into the small, unremarkable house as Fee closed and locked the door behind her. The court’esa’s face was grim as she pushed past Kalan and the narrow staircase into the dim main room with its barely adequate fire. Two narrow benches were lined up at right angles to the hearth and a rough wooden table with three stools was shoved against the wall on her right, but there was no sign of Starros. For a moment Kalan feared the worst. Before she could say anything, however, she heard something breaking in the other room and raised voices. Turning to Fyora, she raised her brow with a questioning look.

“He’s not happy,” Fee remarked unnecessarily.

“Would you be happy waking up to find the woman you love is dead and your friends have sold your soul to the God of Thieves?”

Fee shrugged. “In Starros’s place, I’m not sure what I’d be feeling right now.”

Fyora didn’t seem all that interested in discussing it further. She left Kalan standing in the small front room, disappearing through another door near the staircase. The smell of something delicious cooking wafted in from the kitchen when she pushed open the door, and then faded again as it swung shut behind her. A few seconds later the door to the other room flew open and slammed against the wall, making the whole house shake. Starros stalked toward the front door, clearly planning to leave the house, but he stopped when he saw Kalan.

“Come to check on your handiwork, I suppose?” he asked, his voice heavy with scorn. “Take a good look, Kalan. You must be feeling very proud of yourself. See! Not a mark! Of course, I don’t seem to own a soul any longer, but what the hell? Who needs a soul, anyway?”

He was right about his remarkable recovery. Three days ago they’d brought him here on a stretcher on the very brink of death — broken, bloodied and barely recognisable. The young man standing before her now was whole and unmarked, showing no sign of Mahkas’s days of torture and beatings. But the cost had been prohibitive. It was obvious Starros was just beginning to understand that.

Wrayan emerged from the other room behind him and stopped in the doorway, leaning against the frame, his arms crossed. He looked weary. “There’s no point getting angry at Kalan,” he said. “It’s not her fault.”

“You told Leila I was dead!” Starros accused. “She was your friend. How could you do that to her? To us?”

“I’m so sorry, Starros,” Kalan replied, tears welling in her eyes. She didn’t need Starros to remind her how much of the blame she carried for Leila’s suicide. “Mahkas made me . . .”

“You should have let me die, too!” he declared.

“We couldn’t!”

“Why not? Because I’m so damned important to the royal house of Wolfblade? Or because none of you wanted the guilt of two innocent deaths on your hands?”

“If I’d realised bringing you back from the brink of death was going to turn you into an ungrateful halfwit,” Wrayan remarked, still leaning against the door. “I would’ve left well enough alone.”

“Nobody asked you to bring me back, Wrayan!” Starros pointed out furiously, turning on the thief.

“Actually, Damin Wolfblade asked me to bring you back,” Wrayan corrected. “You remember him, don’t you? Big blond chap with the power of life and death over you, me and everyone else in the province? Oh, that’s right . . . he’s your best friend, too, as I recall.”

“A friend would never have sold my soul to a god!”

“Maybe that’s something you should take up with Damin,” Wrayan suggested. “In the meantime, lay off Kalan. She’s on your side, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“Where is my friend, then?” Starros demanded. “Where is Damin?”

“He left the city yesterday,” Kalan explained. “Heading for Elasapine.”

“Running away?”

Kalan shook her head, wondering how long Starros could sustain his rage. She’d never seen him like this before. “Hablet of Fardohnya is reportedly massing his troops behind the Sunrise Mountains for an invasion. Damin left with Adham and Rorin and Almodavar and two and half thousand Raiders. They’re heading to Byamor first, to collect Narvell and all the Elasapine troops Grandpa Charel will let him have, so they can hold Hablet off until Wrayan and I can get to Greenharbour to warn my mother.”

Starros took a deep breath, as if his rage needed fuel to sustain it and it was being starved because nobody would fight with him. “So I was what? Just a passing aside? A footnote?” He turned to Wrayan again. “Did he ask you to put me back together again because he didn’t have time to deal with me?”

“That’s surprisingly close to how it happened,” Wrayan agreed.

Starros’s shoulders sagged suddenly. He sat down on the bench near the fire, putting his head in his hands for a time, and then looked up at them, his eyes filled with despair. “Does he know what he’s done to me?”

Wrayan shrugged. “Probably not.”

“Does he care?”

“Probably not.”

“Why did you do it?” Starros asked Wrayan. He sounded more curious than angry now. “And don’t give me any of that he is my prince nonsense. You’re a Harshini sorcerer and the head of your own guild. You don’t have to take orders from anybody.”

“Two reasons,” Wrayan replied, pushing off the doorframe. He crossed the room and took a seat opposite Starros on the other wooden bench. “The first was simple patriotism.”

“What?”

“Damin might be arrogant at times and rather arbitrary when he decides to throw his weight around, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t right, occasionally. He has a war to fight and it needs his undivided attention. His best friend on the brink of death is a distraction he didn’t need. Now you’re all better and Damin doesn’t have to worry about you.”

“I never picked you for a raving patriot, Wrayan.”

“Which just shows how little you know me.”

“What was the other reason?”

“Selfishness.”

“Selfishness?”

Wrayan smiled. “I’ve been offering you a job in the Thieves’ Guild since you were fifteen, Starros. You’re bright, well-educated and have a good head for politics and organisation. You kept knocking me back. Now you don’t have a choice.”

Starros looked at him, shaking his head in bewilderment. “You sold my soul to Dacendaran so you could recruit me into the Thieves’ Guild?”

“Not the most orthodox way of going about it, I’ll admit. But it is effective.”

“What if I don’t want to be a thief?”

Wrayan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. You’re a thief now, whether you want to be or not.”

“And what of my former life? You know . . . the one I had a few days ago?”

“Your former life ceased the minute Mahkas found you and Leila together,” Kalan reminded him gently. She sat beside him and put her hand on his shoulder, hoping to convey her sympathy. “Even if she wasn’t dead, there’d be no going back. Not now.”

“What happened to Mahkas?”

She hesitated for a moment, and then decided the only thing to do was tell him the truth. “Damin tried to ventilate his windpipe with a battle gauntlet. Did a rather impressive job of it, too. Rorin healed what he could, but Mahkas is still bedridden and likely to be for a while yet. He can’t speak in much more than a hoarse whisper. Xanda’s taken over running the province while he’s ill, but I’m not sure what will happen when he recovers.”

“Why didn’t Damin kill him?”

“Because he’s not that stupid,” Wrayan replied heartlessly.

Starros glared at him. “You think taking vengeance for Leila’s death is stupid?”

“Taking vengeance for anything is stupid, Starros, when that vengeance is liable to do you as much harm as your enemy.”

“So Mahkas is going to be allowed to get away with everything he’s done?” Starros asked bitterly. “Is that what you’re saying? And that I should just accept it?”

“I’m suggesting nothing of the kind.”

“Then what are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting, Starros, that you are now a thief. Your soul belongs to Dacendaran. If you’re planning to get even with Mahkas Damaran, do it in such a way that you hurt Mahkas and honour your god.”

“You think I should steal something from him?”

“No, Starros, I think you should steal everything from him.”

Starros looked at Wrayan, a little baffled by what the thief was telling him, but before he had a chance to question him further, Fee came in from the kitchen carrying a large pot. She dumped it on the small table and, after eyeing the three of them curiously, announced that lunch was ready.

Kalan took Starros’s hand and squeezed it, smiling at her foster-brother, hoping to let him know how much she empathised with his pain, but at that moment Starros wasn’t thinking about pain, she suspected. The pain was too raw, his grief too overwhelming, for Starros to be thinking of anything other than revenge.