Darkburn Book 3: The Gates of Kelvha by Tayin Machrie - HTML preview

Darkburn

Book 3

The Gates of Kelvha

Chapter 1

For a long time the only witnesses to the procession had been the foxgloves standing sentry along the country roads. Now, as the line of Riders drew closer to the city, a few villagers emerged from huddled houses to look at them with wary curiosity. One or two women bobbed a curtsey. Huldarion knew his scars were being stared at and commented on; he would have to get used to that. Although he had been in Kelvha several times before, it had been under another, less conspicuous guise, and not at the head of an army.

The rustic walls and flowers became a formal double row of linden trees: they bordered a wide, straight avenue so bright and luminous with spring that the Riders began to smile, and even to joke light-heartedly, forgetting all battles for a time. Huldarion allowed the laughter until they rode up to the gates of Inner Kelvha. Plain, functional gates, these, used mainly to check the goods that were carried in by the constant stream of traders. They were not so massive nor so decorative as the next set of gates would be.

Here he turned and held up his hand; and pair by pair, all down the long line, the Riders of the Vonn fell quiet and wiped the pleasure from their faces.

Huldarion nodded. Although he didn’t begrudge them any of the laughter, it would not do just now. As the gates swung open he beheld the new line of sentinels awaiting them: neither flowers nor trees this time, but a large company of cavalry, sitting upright and motionless on their horses until, as one, they saluted with their swords. The co-ordination was impressive. Then, without a single word, a troop of ten took up a place in front of the Riders. More Kelvhan cavalry closed in on either side, as stiff and formal as if on parade.

It made him uncomfortable. Too much ceremony, too soon. Or were they guarding Inner Kelvha from some sudden rampage on the Riders’ part? There was not much here to guard: only a few straggling rows of cottages, little different to the ones they had already passed – except that no-one ventured out of them to stare. No inhabitants were visible once they were through the gates. Had everyone been told to stay indoors?

He wanted to discuss it, but did not like to speak to either of his nearest counsellors: neither Thoronal on his left side, nor Solon on his right. In this kingdom it was important to appear aloof. With some relief he saw the Kelvhan commander, Rhadlun, ride towards him.

“My Lord Huldarion! Welcome to Kelvha. We shall escort you to the castle where the High Prince eagerly awaits your coming.”

“Thank you. I trust Prince Faldron had an uneventful journey home from the battlefield?”

“He came home restless for more action, bless the boy,” Rhadlun said indulgently, “and immediately wanted to be out again hunting stonemen, but sadly for him there are none left within a hundred miles. He’s calming down now.”

As his horse fell into step alongside Huldarion’s, Rhadlun began to chat with a casualness that gave Huldarion as much unease as the silence of the soldiers had earlier. Not enough ceremony, now. Although Huldarion was a widely-travelled man, he felt the insufficiency of his understanding of aristocratic Kelvhan manners. Tiburé, the most knowledgeable Rider to ask about such things, was well back in the line with all the other women. While he had promised that he would not hide away the women of the Vonn, they needed to remain unobtrusive.

He tried to match Rhadlun’s casual tone whilst saying nothing of any moment. “You reached the city more speedily than we did, then,” he commented.

“Yes, our army made swift progress. Our companion, however, took a little longer.”

“Companion?”

“The darkburn,” Rhadlun said with a blend of satisfaction and contempt. “A dreadful, stinking thing, worse than a peasant in a pigsty.”

“But considerably more dangerous.”

“Oh, we’ll take good care of it, don’t worry.”

“Where will you keep it?”

“Safe,” said Rhadlun in a tone of finality: by which Huldarion understood that the captive darkburn was no longer to be considered as any of his concern. He wished that he didn’t have to think about it; or, since he did, that the idea of the darkburn did not fill him with such dread. Nausea. Hatred. And fear: a fear which he had never showed, but which he knew that he would always feel. It was burned into him.

It’s not surprising, he told himself. It is permitted. When you’ve lost your entire family to a darkburn, and half your skin into the bargain, you are allowed to feel a little fear. He visualised the darkburn huddled in the corner of its iron cage, a blur of heat and darkness, never properly seen and even less well understood. An instrument of death: its aura of despair and dread contaminated all the area around it. He hoped that Rhadlun’s idea of safe was strong enough.

In any case there was nothing he could do about it now. So he turned the conversation to the land and buildings that they passed: the small, fenced fields greening with young shoots of wheat and barley, the untidy rows of terraced cottages latticed crookedly with bean-poles. He imagined that in the summer they would be entirely smothered by their beans.

People lived here, Rhadlun told him, using the Kelvhan word that denoted people of the lowest class. There were three other Kelvhan words for people, of increasing rank, to culminate in Rhadlun’s own. Some of these lowest citizens were now visible; they were working in the fields, and paused in their tasks, straightening up to watch the Riders pass. When two of the Kelvhan troops turned their horses towards them, immediately the workers bent to their hoes again.

“The land is productive,” Rhadlun said complacently. “How is the land around your latest base at Thield?”

“Middling farmland,” Huldarion replied. His tented town of Thield had just removed itself and re-encamped in Outer Kelvha, some way east. He preferred not to discuss its exact location and in response to Rhadlun’s unsubtle probing he murmured non-committal nothings.

All the time, as if to say I am not Thield, I am far greater, the wall of Kelvha City was approaching them: an imposing wall, which grew ever more imposing by the minute. Only the tallest castle towers were visible above its ramparts. Their narrow windows seemed to watch the Vonn’s approach.

Another two miles closer, and the wall loomed high above them, its heavy grey buttresses a signifier of the wealth and power that lay within. Power to which I must ally myself, Huldarion thought – somewhat resignedly – to have any chance of regaining my own birthright and my kingdom of Caervonn.

He admired Kelvha’s skill at organisation and respected its army. But was it really wise to bind himself to a country so much larger than his own? Well, wise or not, it was necessary.

“We shall enter by the East Gate,” Rhadlun announced, as the procession turned to ride around that lofty unforgiving wall. Huldarion knew why: the East Gate was the grandest of the four city gates. Although they were approaching from the north, the north gate was an unimpressive affair and the northern quarter the poorest and most dilapidated sector of the city. Rhadlun would not take him through it.

He did not tell Rhadlun that he knew this. Instead he listened to the Kelvhan commander listing the various feasts and amusements that he would soon have to endure. The hidden undercurrent – which he was sure Rhadlun was aware of – was the choosing of Huldarion’s bride.

Three meetings, Tiburé had said. Half an hour at most to choose one from a handful of young offerings. Stars help him. And stars help the unknown sacrificial bride who would have to cleave to his burnt and disfigured body.

At the eastern side of the city the broad gates were already being heaved open. They were reinforced with metal bands and studs in intricate heraldic curlicues; but the adornment could not disguise the strength beneath. A metaphor for Kelvha, he reflected.

He entered into the shadow between the walls without acknowledging the row of guards all standing to attention. Such discourtesy went against the grain with him; but, again, it was expected.

Once he was inside, out of the sun, the way before them was as full of spectators as it had earlier been empty. He thought these people had most likely been encouraged to turn out and cheer. Which they duly did.

However, the cheers, he felt, were for the Kelvhan cavalry in all their glittering gear and armour, far more imposing than that of the Riders of the Vonn; the stares were generally for him. He kept his face impassive – not difficult, for it had become the habit of the last twelve years – and heard murmurs in the crowd speculating about his identity. Although he understood the Kelvhan tongue he took care not to seem to hear.

They evidently thought he was some foreign warlord. Which he was, he supposed, though come here to forge an alliance, not wage war. The war would come later, when with Kelvha’s aid he hoped to finally defeat the stonemen and reclaim his distant kingdom of Caervonn. But that was still a long way off in time as well as place.

Without staring back, he analysed the people. They looked neither ragged nor unhappy, and were probably of the next rank up from the farm labourers: tradesmen and lesser townsmen.

Behind them, down the winding streets, the tall, many-storeyed houses seemed to teeter dangerously, for their upper floors overhung the lower; but since they had stood thus for centuries they were unlikely to fall down upon the Riders now. The higher storeys were bright with heraldic banners dangling from lintels or from ropes slung across the streets; those streets themselves were clean, and mercifully unburnt. Kelvha had never known the fires that had ravaged first Caervonn and then, more recently, so many places in the north. Small but not insignificant places.

Yaret’s account of her home town of Obandiro and its few survivors had moved him greatly. Did she wake every morning feeling the flames, as he did? But no, Huldarion reminded himself, Yaret had never felt the flames. She had not even seen them: had only seen the smoking aftermath. Still, that made a bond. He had tried to tell her, not that the grief and pain would pass, because they would not: but that they would become more bearable companions. His own grief and pain shadowed him every day. Yet the shadows were not always dark, and they served to remind him of his duties.

Yaret had nodded as if she already understood. He visualised her riding with the women back behind him, so many hundred miles from home – a home of burnt-out cottages and charcoaled corpses – yet getting on with her job. Whatever she thought her job was. Revenge? No, not just that.

He recalled his thoughts swiftly to the present, for there was a sudden small commotion to his left. Two people had run out of the crowd, dodging the Kelvhan horses to stand before him. Rhadlun, cursing underneath his breath, was fumbling for his sword when Parthenal rode up alongside them, his own sword drawn and pointing at the pair. A knight defending his chief: Parthenal always looked the part.

“Come no closer. What do you want?” demanded Parthenal, his voice ringing. Huldarion appreciated his comrade’s swift reaction although neither of the pair in front of them looked like a threat. One man, one woman, both were unarmed: both oddities.

For the man stood in a twisted, slantwise way, some deformity of his spine making it impossible for him to stand upright. And while the woman stood straight enough her face was marred by a cleft lip. Although she spoke in Standard, her speech was not altogether clear.

“Borgun! We implore you, use your powers to make us whole.”

“Borgun?” he repeated.

“Borgun, take pity on us!” beseeched the man, holding out his hands to Huldarion as if in prayer. “You understand our suffering, for it is your own. Alleviate it if you will!”

“What are you talking about?” said Parthenal, his sword still pointing at them.

“They are talking nonsense,” said Commander Rhadlun savagely. “It’s superstitious jabber. I’ll have them removed.”

And at his curt command a handful of the guards rode their horses at the pair. The woman was shoved back unceremoniously into the crowd, who did not seem too sympathetic to her: but the man squirmed between the stamping horses and escaped the soldiers’ grasp. He threw himself on the ground in front of Huldarion.

“Borgun! Help us!” he implored.

“I know no Borgun,” Huldarion said sternly. “Get up. I cannot help you.”

“But you are he! Like you, we suffer, and we will be uplifted! You will uplift us, Borgun!”

At that point the man was indeed uplifted, by two of the Kelvhan soldiers who picked him up between them and carried him roughly away. The other guards rode at the murmuring crowd to drive them backwards. There was a last despairing yell of “Borgun!” before the man was hustled out of sight.

He looked at Rhadlun for an explanation.

The Kelvhan commander shrugged. “Superstitious idiots, as I said. It’s just some old story that people like that have latched on to. If they were any lower-born they’d not have survived to complain about their state.”

“Their state,” said Huldarion, with only the faintest note of enquiry.

“Their deformities. No offence, my lord; even if you were not high-born I would never label your scars with such a loathsome word, for they are the marks of battle. Every Kelvhan warrior of note has battle scars. I do, myself,” said Rhadlun, with affable condescension. “But those people are born deformed.”

“They are unfortunate.”

“On the contrary,” said Rhadlun, “they are fortunate to be alive, and should not push their luck by making an exhibition of themselves in the streets.”

Huldarion felt it best not to pursue the subject. He could make enquiries about Borgun later on. Right now he had more important things to think about.

More important than people? said an inner voice.

Ah, but they are not my people, he responded to himself. And this is not my land. And not my laws.

The crowd stood further back now, held away from them by some understood if unseen barrier. They rode on past new rows of sentinels: trees once again, in a formal line along the street, but so shaped and regimented that they stood to attention as rigidly as any soldier. He could not tell of what variety they were.

That is how they like their people too, he thought: conformity. Well, I can conform as necessary, for a while. We all can.

These sentry trees bore no fruit and made no rustle. Their motionless, translucent leaves might almost have been carved out of some green gemstone. At last the avenue ended as the Riders of the Vonn approached the inner wall, each of its stones more massive than a man.

Set within it was the carved and gilded barrier of the great Keep Gate. Beyond the gate, its presence looming over every thought, proud, strong and many-towered, was Kelvha Castle.