A Heart of Blood and Ashes Read online

  So it was with anticipation that he rode into camp, where Parsathean tents made of mammoth hides and tusks housed the alliance army. Dagoneh had brought with him a hundred soldiers . . . as if expecting Maddek to leave with a large number of Parsatheans.

  As Maddek would, if there was to be a wedding.

  Yet there was to be no wedding. He entered the commander’s tent with Kelir and Enox at his sides, and one glance at the Tolehi man’s face told Maddek that he was not to receive news about a bride.

  Dagoneh still wore his armor, yet had removed his helm, revealing his shaven head. Uncertainly he looked to Enox and Kelir before returning his solemn gaze to Maddek’s. “Perhaps we might speak privately, Commander?”

  As if fists had clenched around his lungs, Maddek told him tightly, “There is nothing you can say that they cannot hear.”

  Yet what Dagoneh did say, Maddek seemed not to hear. Not through the roaring in his ears.

  Yet Enox must have also heard what Maddek could not accept. Fiercely she advanced on the captain, as if the sheer threat of her approach might force him to retrieve what he’d said and shove it back into his mouth.

  “That cannot be truth,” Enox spat. “It cannot.”

  “It is.” Grave and steady was Dagoneh’s reply. “Ran Ashev and Ran Marek have returned to Mother Temra’s embrace.”

  Ran Ashev and Ran Marek. The Parsatheans called them their queen and king.

  Maddek called them Mother and Father.

  All fierceness leaving her, Enox fell to her knees on a keening wail. With her fists she pounded the ground as if she might reshape the world, as Mother Temra had. As if she might shake her queen and king free of that goddess’s eternal grip.

  A harsh sobbing breath came from beside Maddek before Kelir threw back his head. The warrior’s howl of grief sounded as if torn from a bloodied throat.

  Maddek’s own howl swelled in his chest, yet it seemed there was no release for it, the grief too deep, a cavernous hollow that had suddenly opened within him.

  “How?” So empty was his voice, he knew not how Dagoneh heard it.

  Yet the captain must have. With grim regret, the other man shook his head. “I have no answers for you. My message and orders from the council were so bare, I suspect they were sent to Toleh in great haste.”

  “And the messenger knew nothing more?” Maddek asked hoarsely.

  “Only rumor that your queen and king were killed in Syssia. But I know not if it was bandits or beasts or illness, whether in the city or the outlands.” Voice deep with apology, Dagoneh spread his hands. “I am only to assume command here and send you north to Ephorn.”

  To stand before the alliance council and learn what had killed his parents.

  What had killed his queen and king.

  In his heart yawned a great and painful emptiness, yet unreal it all seemed. Maddek knew the dangers that might befall a warrior . . . but could not imagine what had befallen them. His queen and king had been so strong, and such clever warriors. Unbelievable that they might survive Anumith the Destroyer, only to be killed by bandits.

  So he would demand answers of the council. And if it had been bandits, Maddek would hunt down every single one of them.

  Answers . . . and vengeance. It seemed that purpose was all that moved his feet. Each breath was a hot, shuddering agony. Maddek emerged from the commander’s tent and a blurred sea of Parsathean faces was all he saw—warriors drawn by the sound of Enox’s wail and Kelir’s howl.

  Three times he tried to say the words that needed to be said. Each time they broke on his mother’s name. Yet it was enough. Understanding and grief slid like a blade through the warriors standing before him, shearing hearts open as Maddek’s had been. On a deep breath, he gathered that purpose again.

  Answers. Vengeance.

  If they were to be had, then Maddek would have both.

  In stronger voice, he called out, “Riders of the Burning Plains, make ready to fly north!”

  * * *

  • • •

  The Parsathean army started out silently on their journey, grim-faced and grieving. Riding hard, never did they pause to hunt for meat or furs; their saddles were their dining halls, the cold ground their beds. Even battle-hardened muscles ached, yet no complaints had issued from the warriors’ lips.

  As the days passed, grief softened and song returned to the Parsatheans’ tongues, ballads that spoke of lusty warriors and legendary rulers—and of the goddess Temra, who had broken through the vault of the sky and reshaped the world with the pounding of her fist, forcing life to sprout from the earth’s barren face. Temra, whose loving arms welcomed the souls of the dead back into her eternal embrace.

  But silver-fingered Rani had carried Maddek’s parents into Temra’s arms too early.

  Though sorrow lay like stone upon Maddek’s features, even his granite mouth smiled again when the warriors told their ribald jokes. Though his deep voice did not lift in song, he felt the rhythm through his blood like the beat of war drums. But his grief did not soften; instead the burning need for answers and vengeance hardened around his bereaved heart like steel.

  A full turn of the moon passed before the white stone wall surrounding Ephorn’s great city became visible in the distance. Maddek often heard Ephorn’s soldiers claim that glimpsing the walled city from across the plain was akin to gazing upon a shining mountain.

  Maddek agreed that Ephorn could be mistaken for a mountain—a pale squatting one, built upon a hill of its own dung.

  Walls should not swell any soldier’s breast with pride. Those walls symbolized fear, not strength. Ephorn and the cities of nearby realms had built their walls because they feared each other and feared their common enemies: the Parsathean riders to the north and the Farian savages to the south. Yet the walls had not stopped generations of rulers from conspiring and warring among themselves, had not prevented the Parsatheans from invading and raiding their cities, and had not saved them from the Farians who raped and slaughtered their citizens.

  And a generation past, those walls had not stopped Anumith the Destroyer, who’d crushed the cities’ stone defenses as easily as he’d torn the hide tents in the Parsathean hunting camps.

  Walls were not strength. The alliance that had formed between the riders of Parsathe and the five southern realms in the wake of the Destroyer—that was strength.

  That alliance was also why Ephorn’s gates opened for Maddek upon his approach. The city that would have barred a Parsathean’s entrance a generation ago now invited him in. The citizens would not as warmly welcome the Parsathean army that rode behind Maddek, however, so only three warriors accompanied him.

  Beneath the shadow cast by the white wall, sallow-cheeked children played between mudbrick houses that only saw the sun at midday. No breeze stirred the stale air but for the wind created by the swift passing of Maddek and his warriors, their mounts’ hooves clattering on the cobblestone road.

  Visible beyond the clay-tiled roofs rose the shining blue spires of the citadel—and it was at the citadel where the splendor of Ephorn was put on display. In the great courtyard beyond the fortress’s outer gates, lush gardens breathed their perfume into the air. Fountains splashed into gleaming marble basins. Market stalls boasted pots full of colorful spices and hung a dazzling array of silks. At the open tables, mead flowed like rivers to wash down mountains of roasted meats.

  It was the city that never hungered or thirsted. Some said Muda herself favored Ephorn, so its fields always yielded a bounty and its wells never ran dry.

  Maddek could not claim to know whether the goddess of law cared for crops and water, but he thought her favor had been helped along by Ephorn’s location. Centered among the four other southern realms that made up the Great Alliance, Ephorn had not been raided or attacked as often as the cities on the borders. And most roads—along with the trade they brought�
�took a central route through the region instead of crossing Parsathean or Farian territory, so the merchants of Ephorn bought from foreign traders on the cheap and sold their wares to the other realms at a profit.

  But perhaps they called that the goddess’s favor, too.

  Maddek passed through the citadel’s inner gates and dismounted at the base of the Tower of the Moon—the tallest of the four great towers within the fortress. With sheer walls of seamless white marble topped by a sapphire spire that pierced the sky, the tower had served as the royal keep until the Destroyer had slaughtered the royal family. Afterward, though many nobles still lived, no one had taken the king’s place on the throne. Instead the city had come under the protection of the Court of Muda and the fortress became the seat of the Great Alliance.

  Here Maddek would find the answers he sought.

  He glanced over at Kelir, who still sat on his horse. The big warrior’s head was tilted far back as he took in the height of the tower.

  A doleful expression settled over Kelir’s scarred features when he noted Maddek’s gaze upon him. “I have held the tales of Ran Bantik close to my heart since I was a boy. One day, I would have told them to my own children. But now I know them all to be false.”

  Tales of the legendary thief-king of Parsathe, who had long ago united the tribes that rode the Burning Plains. “Why false?”

  “No one could have scaled those walls to steal the pearl from Ephorn’s crown. Easier to scale a wall of greased steel.”

  “So it would be. But a man does not become a legend by performing feats that others deem easy,” Maddek said.

  “Climbing that wall would not be difficult. It would be impossible.”

  Maddek agreed. But a man also did not become a legend by doing what others deemed possible. “Is the feat not as impressive if he climbed the stairs?”

  “How can it be? Shall I tell my children how Ran Bantik gasped for breath when he reached the top? Shall I describe how he must have clutched his burning chest as he stole the pearl?”

  “If Commander Maddek were to race to the upper chambers, he would not be gasping for breath—and neither would I.” This came from Ardyl, who had also dismounted and now looked up at Kelir with a frown creasing her black-painted brow. “Perhaps if you more often ran beside your horse instead of always sitting on him, you could also reach the top unwinded.”

  Kelir looked to Maddek as if for help, but Maddek had none to offer. Instead he could only laugh his agreement. Kelir’s saddle would wear thin before his boots ever did.

  “When I see the keep, I do not think of Ran Bantik,” Ardyl added as she took Maddek’s reins. The warriors would not accompany him inside but would remain in the courtyard with the horses. “Instead I wonder what sort of fools the royal family must have been. They built a majestic tower honoring the moon goddess, though it is by Muda’s favor that they all prosper.”

  “What insult could that be?” Kelir frowned at her. “Vela gave birth to Muda. What daughter would not see her mother honored?”

  Ardyl’s response was a glance at the silent warrior mounted a few paces behind him. Danoh’s feud with her mother was almost as legendary as any thief-king. Many Parsatheans claimed the only time they’d ever heard Danoh speak was when she yelled at the older woman.

  Grinning, Kelir bowed his head to acknowledge Ardyl’s point.

  Movement on the tower steps drew Maddek’s attention. A seneschal in blue robes approached—a wiry Tolehi man with shaved head and pursed lips.

  Omer. Maddek knew him well. He’d first met the seneschal as a boy, visiting the tower while his parents spoke to the council. He’d spent a full morning in an antechamber with Omer watching him as an antelope watches a drepa—with trembling limbs and pounding heart, fearing the raptor’s sickle claw that would spill steaming innards to the ground.

  Though a sickle claw from Maddek’s first drepa hunt had already hung from the leather thong around his throat, he hadn’t spilled the Tolehi man’s innards. Instead he’d eaten his way through a platter of roasted boa.

  Maddek had pleasant memories of that morning, and of every meeting since. Even if the seneschal did not.

  “Commander Maddek.” Omer imperiously swept his hand toward the tower entrance. “The council is ready to receive you, if you are ready to be received.”

  The doubt in the seneschal’s tone suggested that Maddek could not be. “I am.”

  The older man sniffed as Maddek joined him. “If you wish, I will escort you to the bathing chambers first.”

  Grinning his amusement, Maddek climbed the steps. “I do not wish.”

  There was no shame in smelling of horse, or in wearing the grime of camp on his skin. The duty of serving the alliance and protecting their people left his warriors covered in sweat and filth, and he would not pretend a warrior’s work was a clean work.

  As it was, the council ministers should be grateful he always washed away the blood of battle, or he would have faced them dripping an ocean of it.

  With a sword’s worth of steel in his spine, Omer tipped back his head to meet Maddek’s gaze. “I would offer a robe so that you could clothe yourself before meeting the ministers, but we do not have any large enough to cover your mountainous expanse of flesh. But did I not see a mammoth’s pelt rolled up and tied to your beast of a horse?”

  Not a mammoth’s but a bison’s—and it was too warm for furs. The last frost had melted during their journey north, and Maddek no longer used his furs except to sleep on.

  He said simply, “I am already dressed.”

  In red linen folded over a wide belt. The inner length of cloth hung to his knees. When it was raining or cold, he could draw up the longer outer length and drape it over his shoulders, but now it fell almost to the ground, all but concealing the soft leather boots that protected his feet and hugged his calves. The outer length of linen was split to allow for ease of movement, but unless he was riding or fighting, it concealed his skin as well as a southerner’s robe did . . . from the waist down.

  On this day, the sun was high and warm, so he needed no other covering—whereas Omer wore enough for two men.

  The southerners did not just wrap their cities in walls. Their soldiers wrapped their bodies in heavy armor even when they were not in battle. The citizens wrapped themselves in cloth from neck to ankle, even on days when they needed no protection from the cold or wind.

  An entire life they spent wrapped, as if for a funeral pyre.

  Maddek spent his life as he lived it. For a full turn of the moon he had been traveling, so he was dressed to ride. He did not anticipate a fight, so he wore no armor, and his chest was bare aside from the leather baldric slung across his shoulder to carry his sword. No black paint darkened his brow. The only silver upon his fingers was the family crest circling the base of his thumb; he’d tucked away the razor-tipped claws that would drip with blood by the end of a battle.

  Although he was a commander of the alliance’s army, if Maddek had arrived looking as he did after a battle, he doubted they’d have let him through the gates. Many southerners within the alliance still believed the Parsatheans were little better than the Farian savages. The riders were still called raiders and thieves—and uncivilized.

  Maddek had never known the raid. By the time he’d been old enough to mount his first horse, the alliance between Parsathe and the southern realms had been firmly established. But if civilization meant cowering behind walls, if it meant wrapping every bare stretch of skin in linens, then Maddek preferred to be a barbarian.

  In a god’s age, when their civilized walls were crumbling to dust, when the names of their civilized cities were forgotten, Parsathean seed would still grow strong amid the ruins.

  Omer gave Maddek’s bare chest a despairing glance before sighing and continuing across the marble floor inside the tower’s entrance. In silence they walked, until they reached
the anteroom outside the council’s chamber.

  There the seneschal quietly said, “It was with great sorrow that I learned what befell Ran Ashev and Ran Marek. They were always the most welcome of the council’s visitors. Of those who knew them, there can be not one who does not grieve for them now.”

  Maddek inclined his head but made no other response, except in his gratitude to draw the red cloth up over his shoulder and drape it across his chest.

  He had not yet learned what had befallen his parents. Maddek would not press Omer for answers, however. The questions that burned within his breast would be asked within the council chambers.

  Nothing had been left unasked or unsaid between mother and father and son. Every Parsathean warrior knew life was too uncertain to leave important words unspoken. And since leaving the Lave, much time had Maddek to think upon what came next, beyond answers and—if needed—vengeance. To think upon what his parents would have wanted of him. When Maddek had last seen them, his queen and king spoke of finding him a bride and of strengthening the alliance between Parsathe and the southern realms.

  Nothing was left unsaid, but there was much left undone.

  So Maddek would see it finished in their stead.

  CHAPTER 2

  MADDEK

  The tower’s former throne room lay beyond gleaming doors carved from ivory. Such a grand entrance had likely once opened into an opulent royal chamber, but the council’s was starkly decorated. Instead of a throne, six bone chairs sat behind a long crescent table. Those chairs did not belong to any one minister; like the moon, their positions shifted, so that no member of the alliance always sat in the center or at the ends of the table.

  Each member had an equal voice and a council minister who spoke on behalf of their home. The alliance between Parsathe and the southern realms formed after the Destroyer had marched through these lands. Former enemies and rivals, now they were bound together by a common purpose: not to stand against the Destroyer—it had been too late for that—but to stand against the warlords and sorcerers who sought to conquer the shattered remains the Destroyer left in his wake.